Boring Basic Plus: McCall’s 7286

Same pattern, same fabric, in solid black this time. Got anything more interesting for another boring and comfy knit basic? Well, how about embellishment on the raglan sleeve?  Sounds good. Let’s go! There’s a great article on machine embroidery on knits in the latest Threads magazine, written by Angela Wolf.

The above three lines are a transcript of the conversation I had with myself. No.w you can laugh at me

Fabric

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Tha hallmark of confortable fabric is that you never want to change out of the garment. This rayon knit from Sew Much Fabric is the softest rayon/lycra knit ever.

A word about the selvage – after pre-washing, it curled up considerably; pressing it out didn’t work.  To get around that, I took scissors to selvage and cut away the curled edge. The fabric straightened up immediately. But look! That curled selvage looks like cording. Hmmm, I’m getting ideas….

Pattern

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McCalls 7286, View C . You can see view A in this previous post. The pattern calls for contrast side gussets which seem a little choppy to me. It’s a good way to use up knit fabric scraps if you like the contrast pieces. But I do like the gussets in the same solid shade as the top. Plus, I don’t think inviting attention to my hips is the best idea. Looks good on the model, though.

Sewing

It goes very quickly. Of course, I made it slow by deciding to embellish the sleeves. So here it is. What lessons are there in this project?

  • The embellishment:  On the black fabric, I decided to use light, silvery threads (Sulky brand rayon). Visions of a “night garden” were dancing in my head. But seriously, I chose this design because it had linear embroidery stitches and NOT filled in thread-heavy motifs. Heavily filled motifs will change the hand of a soft knit fabric. The afore mentioned Threads article by Angela Wolf is educational; like her page on Facebook, because she does a live FB broadcast every Wednesday.
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Marking embroidery placement with chalk
  • Think it through: For example, I almost sewed up the sleeve seam before the embellishment. No. the best way is to embellish while the sleeve is still flat.
  • Annoying lesson:  The 10 yard roll of stabilizer (which is sticky and washable) is very expensive, at least the brand I bought was.   The good thing about the above stabilizer is that it works very well for machine embroidery on knits; after rinsing in the sink, the embroidered fabric is left as soft as it was before the embroidery. It puckered a little after dissolving, but got back to its original shape when dry.
  • The machine needle got sticky residue after about three motifs. I changed the needle, but what happens to the assembly? Does it get sticky too? I’m asking my embroidery expert readers.

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  • Placement of embroidery motifs is important. Otherwise, there will be gaps, as you can see on my sleeves. My machine has a 5×7 hoop only so I had to re-hoop a few times resulting in unintended gaps between motifs.

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Sewer beware. The front and back neckline level of View C are almost at the same level, so it’s possible to wear this top back to front. The only way to tell, is the embroidery placement on the sleeve. I placed the leaf shapes towards the back.

Hot weather or not, I’m wearing this tunic a lot this summer!

Samina

 

25 thoughts on “Boring Basic Plus: McCall’s 7286”

    1. Thanks, Faye! It would have been very boring without the embellishment. Probably would have been unworn, which would have been a waste.

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    1. Liz, thanks! Glad you like it. I have an old Brother machine – one of the first ones so there is no software, just built ins and memory cards. I used an old Brother memory card #14, design#s 16 and 17. The one motif you see is actually two, very close together. I had to hoop each sleeve 4 times to get the length. There’s still room at the bottom for one more but by that time I was all “embroidered out”. 😀

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      1. Thankyou for your reply:) Your top is all my favourite things. Black, knit and embroidery:) I admire your patience rehooping all those times, but the result is great.

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  7. Hi Angela! I’m thrilled that you took the time to post a comment! Your article was very inspiring! I’m on a bit of an embroidery kick these days, so hopefully there will be more stuff embellished on my Brother PE-200 (The Snoopy). Yep, I bought it when it first appeared, and haven’t used it nearly enough.
    Looking forward to more of your weekly broadcasts 🙂

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  12. Samina, I’ve done tons of machine embroidery with sticky stabilizer. Even when you use spray on adhesive the only thing that will be affected is the needle. If you have any concerns though, you should clean your machine. Once it is oiled there will be no issue. Also, I would love it if you gave me some pointers on my new blog. It is still being populated but any feedback would be great 🙂
    uhohembroidery.com

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    1. Nicole, thank you for the sticky stabilizer information. I will have to up my machine maintenance game!
      I adore the premise behind your blog! Love the visuals and the posts. I will go back and read the “metallic mayhem” post 🙂 . Regarding pointers for the blog, I try to find ways to publicize it through social media as much as I can. I still do not have as big of a following, after four years of blogging. It’s taking time for me, but I have seen other blogs become much more visible than mine after a very short period. Visibility for your blog is key, I believe. I’ll add you to the blog roll on the side of the page 🙂

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      1. Right now i am trying to create content. I worry that if I have a strong social media presence but not enough content people will see my blog but not follow it. I feel that the premise has potential as long as I flesh out the basics before I get so much foot traffic that I’m spending half of my time responding to readers. After the major issues are covered I can start doing more simplistic posts about product reviews and specific methods of resolving common issues. It is tempting to make posts that are easier like metallic mayhem because I can just sit down and write. For the love of thread had 25 revisions and needs more work to be comprehensive. And it was only part one of a two part post. I wonder if I’m being too verbose averaging over 2k words per post. What do you think?

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  13. Nicole, good thinking about the content, but there are ways to create quick but relevant content, in my opinion. About the length of the posts, I try to keep mine under 1K words. Tomorrow’s post ended up being 1500 words and I ruthlessly edited it down to 860 which is still more than I want. Personally, I kinda decide “I’ll read it later” when a post is too long. Sometimes, it can be divided into two separate posts, as you are doing with “love of thread”. My goal is no more than 700 words. But that’s just me.
    Also, I love to see image-rich posts; but again, that is me. I suspect there are more readers like me out there, and therefore I try to include more images.
    Feel free to contact me through the contact page so we can communicate via e-mail. I’d love to keep talking about blogging issues 🙂

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