I’m not actually doing the Burda Challenge again this year, but I keep seeing so many great patterns in each issue that I want to sew – like this quick, gathered raglan merino wool sweater from the February BurdaStyle magazine (or to purchase as a pdf download here). And I am powerless to resist.
I bought this plum merino wool jersey on etsy along with some brown as well – the purple is sold out but there’s some brown merino wool jersey left and it’s luscious and so soft – nice and thing for layering but so warm, too. Amazing stuff! So cheap, too – 5m for £30 is an absolutely steal. I often see Antipodean sewists going on about how lovely merino wool is to sew, but it’s something I’ve never, ever seen for sale in Europe so I jumped on this when I saw it!
(Worn in these photos with the jeans I made in November)
This pattern really is fantastic – I love the fit of it, and it’s quickly become one of those tops I reach for every morning! It’s got a nice amount of fabric in the gathers (there’s nothing worse than “skimpy gathering” on a pattern!) and everything matched up nicely. Some other reviews said the sleeves were overly long and the neck was overly low, but both were fine for me.
It’s also really easy and extremely quick to sew – it literally took me less than an hour to construct this!
I chose not to bind the neckline like Burda’s fiddly instructions but instead folded the strip in half, serged it onto the neckline, then topstitched near the fold to keep it standing upright
Next time I’d either use vilene bias tape on the neckline to stabilise it and/or cut the band a little shorter to pull it in, but it’s fine to wear as is, and the merino makes it so nice and warm without being bulky. There’s a short sleeved version of this in the magazine, too, and I can totally see myself making a few more in viscose-lycra jersey as an alternative to a basic teeshirt.
One word of caution – if you use the cutting line for the long sleeve version of this top, it’s really long in the body – much more like a tunic than a top! I chopped off about 13cm from my hem to make it more top-length.
This is such a fantastic pattern – it’d been very popular already and I can see why! I could easily have ten of these in my wardrobe and not get bored. A great pattern combined with this gorgeous, luxe, and ridiculously soft fabric means I really want to wear this every single day! (But that’d be bad, right?)