Skills Insert 1: An Experiment with Facings

The first section of Skills Insert 1 is about facings and bias bindings. I have always, always hated facings, unless they can be secured with a decorative topstitch. Even then…I’m firmly a bias binding sort of girl. No matter how I secure them, my facings always seem to shift around and pop out of whatever opening they’re attached to.

So, could I learn to love facings with a bit of practice? Spoiler: “love” is a little too strong of a word, but I do think I can learn how to incorporate them into my designs more effectively. Case-in-point, this little top is my first ever design drafted from my sleeveless bodice block, and it integrates an all-in-one facing for the neckline and armhole. Not bad, folks!

This little wearable muslin came to be because one of the “practice” exercises in the Facings section of SI-1 has you draft and sew an all-in-one facing. While I could have easily done this in muslin, I was already plotting ahead to the first Study Project in the insert: a sleeveless top with a button placket. I wanted to see how modifying the armhole and neckline changed the look of the bodice, and I’m quite pleased with the result.

What I did:

1. Rotate the back shoulder dart to the waist, and convert the entire back waist dart to ease
2. Rotate the front waist dart to the side seam
3. Lengthen the top by 1”
4. Lower the neckline by 1/8” in the back and 1 ½” in the front
5. Bring the shoulder in at the armhole by 1 ½”
6. Draft a 2” wide all-in-one facing (4” wide at the back neckline)

Even though I dug into the good fabric in my scrap pile, it’s still a muslin—I didn’t understitch or interface the facing, I used a black bobbin and serger thread, and the sewing is a little sloppy. She’s still cute, though! I thought the neckline and armhole shape was flattering on my figure, and the bust and shoulder area fits like a glove (proof my sleeveless basic block works!). The all-in-one facing, while it does still bunch up a little, isn’t completely annoying, and I appreciate the opportunities a facing offers for a secret little contrast fabric detail. In the next iteration for the actual Study Project, I’ll probably lengthen the bodice another inch, and find a way to get rid of some of the back ease that flares out, potentially by bringing the back bodice in at the side seams and re-truing.

I will also (probably) use a bias binding instead of a facing.

- M.J.