Burnout jersey and sticky business...

Have you ever noticed how jersey knits want to cling to pants and skirts? right there where it's least wanted - on the bum.

I've overcome this issue in large part by wearing my jersey tunics with ITY knit bottoms. Nice slippery ITY - nothing clings to it, plus it's just so comfy to wear. Bonus - just throw it in a suitcase. It doesn't wrinkle.

But I digress. I've been meaning to make a 'slip' for my tunics for a long time. Such a simple solution.

I used a poly mesh knit from Fabric Mart, acquired 2 years ago - 8 yards of it! because I planned to line a mother-of-the-bride dress with it. It's really more of a knit lining than a mesh, and I've used quite a bit of it for interfacing knit garments.

At the same time I bought 8 yards of poly/cotton burnout jersey in a beautiful abstract (think Art Nouveau) print. In the end, I used something else entirely for my MOB dress.


But I really wanted to use the burnout jersey and finally got my act together for the needed slip. I used Butterick 5954, View A, as the starting point for the slip, largely because it has the basic silhouette of my tunics.

I simply sewed it together on the serger, put it on Emile, and trimmed away at the armscye and neckline until I had nice muscle shirt lines! The fabric is so stretchy that it was easy to fold in the edges to hem them - no binding needed.

Then on to a B5954 tunic in the burnout jersey...

A few notes on sewing the burnout jersey, which has intimidated me - this is the only piece I've purchased:

• It's definitely sheer, and it's not straight-forward to sew because of the thick-and-thin texture.

• After trying several sizes,I used a size 70 universal needle.

• I used normal pressure on the presser foot, and I worked with my upper thread tension to achieve a stitch that didn't look loose on the burnout areas.

• Finishing the hems - I serged the sleeve and skirt edges to stabilize the fabric, then folded the edge twice and finished it with topstitching. No steam-a-seam tape needed.

• I think it would be a lovely fabric for a scarf - but I don't think it would work well with a rolled hem on the serger, because of the varying texture. Has anyone tried it?

I wore white pants for these pics so that the lines of the tunic would show up - in real life I'll probably wear black or gray.

No cling!

The slip works like a charm.

A side note: I worked on this in Ft. Myers last week, and I managed to get there without any gray thread. So I bopped over to Holly Lobby and picked up a spool of their Sew-ology thread. It worked great, I absolutely could not distinguish between it and the Gutermann I generally use.

Whew! What a project. But I enjoy sewing challenges, and I feel good about conquering the burnout fabric. Meanwhile - it's almost the weekend. I hope yours is nice and full of sewing :-)

Bye for now - Coco