Just finished my second Wiksten Tova last weekend. The Tova has made the rounds in the online blogosphere; check out these several lovely versions from Karyn Valino. I found its design elegant, with its mandarin collar, placket, and gathered inset.

After three years of on-and-off sewing based almost entirely on instructions and projects from Diana Rupp’s fabulous S.E.W., I decided to take my first sewing class at the workroom in Bloor Parkdale area of Toronto. Over the four weeks, I patiently worked through elements of the pattern, with this nice result. Learnt lots of new features, including making a placket, raised collars and insets.

Here is the first version the Tova in dress length. The dress feels elegant to wear – the combination of the inset, collar and short sleeves feel feminine but practical.

While the Tova looked like it was supposed to, there is room for improvement. It felt baggier about the torso and more snug about the hips than I would like.

I decided to make Tova #2 at tunic length. Made this one in a happy spring-timey blue, selectingLizzy House’s “Pearl Bracelet” series. With the weather warming up, I decided to make it sleeveless. This was a decision I made half way through the piece, after having cut the sleeve pieces out.

Made two modifications. First, a preliminary try proved this tunic to be just as baggy as the last. So I took the seams in on either side, first a half-inch on each side, and then a whole inch. Each time, I set the stitch length to max, basted it, and tried on the top to test the first. So I ended up making the dress 2 inches narrower than the “S” pattern.

Second, a modification that took much longer: making the top sleeveless in time for the warmer weather. To give the holes a finished appearance, I used bias tape. Despite reading several blog posts and looking at numerous Youtube demos (the most useful of them being this one), I had a hard time doing this right and spent at least two hours with my seam ripper, taking out poor stitches and trying again.

So here is my take on how to face armholes with bias binding:

Step 1: Mark off the seam allowance. Trim it completely; i.e. cut up to the dashed line.

Step 2. Iron open one flap of the bias tape (so that one end is not folded in, the other one is). I bought standard double-fold bias tape.

Step 3. Pin the unfolded edge of the bias tape along the trimmed edge of the armhole. The fabric should be right-side out as in the picture below. When pinning and sewing, leave a gap at of ~0.5 inch where the ends of the bias tape overlap. So sew all around, as close to the fabric edge as you can manage, but don’t sew in the 0.5 inch gap region.

Step 4. Now we close up the edges of the bias tape so it makes one unbroken circle around the armhole. Put one end into the fold of the other (see picture below). Sew the two ends together (perpendicular to seam line stitched in step 2). As other blogs will say, you cannot pin this; I positioned it just before taking it under the sewing needle. It is a bit wonky; just take a deep breath and proceed slowly.

Step 5. Seam 1 is now done. Flip the flap you just sewed over the fabric edge. Iron it down flat with a good steam press.

 Step 6. Flip the seam to the inside and pin around the periphery. I found it devilishly hard to ensure that the right- and wrong-side were lying absolutely flat. Pin at small intervals and when you’re stitching, pull both fabrics to make sure they are lying flat. This video shows a good example of pausing regularly to adjust the fabric as you sew around the circle.

Note: In the picture below you can already see the sewn seam in addition to the pins. This picture was ‘mocked up’ after the fact, to illustrate the pinning.

And there’s the finished sleeve!

http://www.tangiblearts.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=71&action=edit&message=10

There will most likely be a Tova #3, maybe in a warm pink. But first I need to tackle the backlog of summer projects!