Assignment: Bronte Top

The Bronte Top by Jennifer Lauren Vintage is the second knit garment that I have made as part of my Assignment: Project Garment. You can see all of the other garments I’ve made this year so far by clicking here.

I love making dresses, but in my every day life, I wear jeans and t-shirts. The dresses are reserved for when I have a speaking engagement, but that’s pretty much it, and it’s not like I do that every day. So it was nice to make something that I could wear and enjoy very often. The Bronte Top is a very quick and easy pattern, but if you are not used to sewing with knits or need a bit of hand-holding, Jennifer Lauren had a sew along for this pattern in 2014, which you can view here.

The Bronte Top features a lapped shoulder detailing, which is different and interesting. There will be 5 pattern pieces to cut, whether you choose to make the short-sleeved version or the long-sleeve version. My measurements fall exactly on a size 6, so that’s what I cut. I bought 1 yard of fabric for the short sleeve and 1-1/2 yards for the long sleeve, but somehow I was able to eek out each version on 1 yard apiece. For both tops, I used Art Gallery Fabrics knits, which are super comfortable and have a nice stretch (also don’t seem to roll).

I made my muslin out of cheaper knit fabric that I found on clearance; for my muslin, I made one short sleeve and one long, mostly so I could check on the length of the long sleeve. I also skipped putting the bands on the muslin version, since I wasn’t planning on saving the muslin (it’s really cheap and the stretch is kind of yucky…it doesn’t bounce back at all, so when I stretch it a bit, it just leaves an ugly puddle of fabric).

When I made the muslin, I noticed a little excess fabric diagonal from my shoulders (I’ve marked the excess with a pen so you can see), so I made a thin dart in the pattern piece and removed the excess. Besides that, the long sleeve was a bit too long for me. I shortened it by 1-1/2″.

This project was the first one that I used my new coverstitch machine on. I decided to purchase a Janome CoverPro 900CPX from my local quilt shop, and I’m sure glad that I did! I also purchased the add-on clear guide foot and the extension table for it. Kudos to Pattern Review for the information that I needed to get this up and running (and the suggestions for the add-ons). Not a lot of people own coverstitch machines, and so information on the internet is sort of scarce. However, it’s really easy to thread. If you have a serger, it has the left and right needle, and only one looper, and the looper is really quick to thread. Two things that took me a lot of time to figure out…this Youtube video was very good on helping me figure out how to thread off, and this was another good one. It’s really different because you can’t cut the thread like a regular sewing machine, and it doesn’t chain off like a serger. When done sewing, I used a blunt object (cleaning brush that came with it) to pull the needle threads to the front, cut those first, and then pull the fabric to the back to cut the looper thread. It felt awkward at first but now I’m quick at it. The other thing that took me some time getting used to was that you are sewing from the right side of the fabric, with the underside making that intricate finished stitching. Since you can’t see the bottom, it’s really important to get everything lined up, or you’ll miss catching the underside fabric (or not sew enough over). I was not good at feeling the folded fabric underneath, so I just sewed a ton of practice samples until I figured out how far to sew based on what my folded over area was (i.e. 3/8″ or 3/4″). If there’s a better method than this, please let me know, haha.

But overall I’m very pleased with the coverstitch purchase. I did use 3 different machines to make this top (my old sewing machine which has a lightning bolt stitch, my serger, and the coverstitch). And I found that switching over to polyester Omnithread made all the difference. I recently made a knit top with cotton thread, and I had to be very careful putting it on to avoid thread ripping. I noticed with these new tops I could be less careful and nothing happened.

This is about a 1 hour-90 minute sew, and a great wardrobe staple. I love the black long-sleeve version so much. I think I serged the side seams on the yellow top a bit too far over, because it feels a bit tighter. I’ll definitely make this again a few more times. It’s really comfortable yet still attractive-looking. The pattern is pdf only, but I felt well written and illustrated. There’s not a huge number of steps either…sew the band to the front, sew the band to the back, baste them together, attach the sleeves, sew the side seams, and hem. Not too bad, huh? I should stress that this pattern was completely written to be made on a home sewing machine ONLY. So no fancy doo-dads necessary.