[LisaMM]

Hi all,

Seem to be stuck on Step 3 of creating the back placket. I cant seem to get my head around what goes where. I completed all steps easily up to this point and the steps after seem ok too. I have the back placket with the lining attached as per step 1 of this section. Do both the lining and the back bodice join on the back skirt? What part of the bodice joins the back skirt, I can’t quite figure it out. Im an experienced sewer but new to shirts etc… Any tips would be wonderful.

Many thanks!

[Lightning McStitch]

Hi LisaMM.

You’re going to attach the back skirt to ONLY the back bodice fabric with the lining out of the way. This will later be stitched down by hand to cover the skirt/bodice seam.

If you look at picture 1 where you attached the lining to the bodice, and then imagine lifting that lining up away from the bodice fabric. Now rotate it clockwise ever so slightly and you’ve got the view that you’re seeing in picture 3. Now the skirt panel is lying on top of the bodice fabric panel ready to be attached.

I hope that helped.

[LisaMM]

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. I have had another look and I still cant make it work. I think my problem is that I have used the same coloured fabric as the placket and the lining. Im determined to get this right so am going to take another look (when the kids are not around) and maybe even skip that step for the time being as I really don’t want this project to go to the back of the drawer… Thanks again. :o)

[Jennifer1568]

Lisa,

I made that pattern for the first time 8 days ago. I had the same problem with lining the yoke. I had to rip it out a couple of times and walk away from it and then come back to it. I remember that I looked really closely at the illustration. I turned the fabric pieces exactly like the illustration. I looked carefully at the part that was the lining and the part that was the fabric and the shading that indicates right side and wrong side. You can’t tell if it is the right side or the wrong side of the lining from the illustration. Then I used my intuition and put things together in a way that seemed logical. Don’t give up. You can figure it out. Try basting the seams instead of sewing them to check it you did it right.

[LisaMM]

Hi ladies,

Thanks for your assistance. I persevered kept going back to the pattern and I finally figured out the step. It was a matter of looking at how the blouse should go together and with your hints I managed to get the right bits together. It’s only pinned at this stage but glad to have finally figured it out. Looking forward to getting this finished. Thanks again! :o)

[Jennifer1568]

I felt really rewarded when I finally figured it out. I hope you feel that way, too. The tunic is so cute.

[LisaMM]

Hi Jennifer, I definitely do as well – when the right pieces aligned today it was ahaa! I can’t wait to have it finished on my little one.

[LisaMM]

Hi all,

Thanks again for your help on this. I was finally able to finish the puppet show top and it’s now on flikr – May 25 in the little apples fabric! It was great being able to nut my way through the tricky steps to the end result and it wouldn’t have happened without your help! :o) My daughter loves it btw.

[KC]

Questions the back placket once in place and finished does it get hand sewin down? or are we meant to leave it gapping?

[Sarvi]

I found that it didn’t really gap once the buttons and buttonholes were in place. It seems like it would, but in practice, it hasn’t yet. You could certainly stitch it down, the blindstitch would work well, I imagine:

http://oliverands.com/blog/2008/08/blindstitch-and-catchstitch.html

[KC]

thank you so much for getting back to me!!