Love Birds Top Sew ALong Part 2

Ready for day two of the sew along? I am so touched to hear how excited you are to follow along! I hope to be as clear as possible with the details, I will warn you though the white top I am making for the sew-along was made based off my first attempt to upload the pattern, which I made a mistake on loading it and the "v" neck is really deep, too deep... I did fix the pattern so if you used the download for your pattern you should not have this problem (cross your fingers ha!) I do however show how I fixed the problem in the end and so if you find even after making your own problem that the v is too deep or gaps at the neck a little I will show you a quick fix... Anyway on to the sewing... Today we will do the bodice top so you will need your bodice front and back pieces and the lining pieces. (lining pieces should be strips about 1-2 inches thick that fit just inside the neckline of the bodice pieces) 

Start by sewing the back facing pieces to the front facing piece at the shoulder

Next sew the back bodice pieces to the front bodice piece. (right sides together)

Next with right sides together sew the lining to the bodice piece

Then clip the "v"

Iron the facing to the inside of the bodice piece

Then fold under the raw edge.

Next you will be doing a topstitch but sewing on the back side so you can follow the lining as your guide. When I do a top stitch I lengthen my stitch to a 3 every machine is different but I do my seam stitching with my length set at 2 and my top stitching with it set at a 3 longer stitches just look a little better in my opinion. You will sew right along the edge so that you are holding down the facing.

Next go to the ironing board, hopefully it is close by because the iron will be your best friend for this project. (and hopefully you will ignore how gross my ironing board is ha!) Lay the right side down, then fold it so a crease runs through the front and back bodice. 

You can put your folds anyway you like really, I did mine so they played off the angle of the v neck and then went straight back. Iron the fold so it is nice and flat (and straight)

next with a topstitch again sew as close to the edge as you can. Don't sew off the edge but you want to sew a straight and even line as close to the edge as possible.

You can iron it flat and you have your first pin tuck.

Fold again, try and fold as evenly and straight as you can...

Then sew again. You will see my line was not so straight and I have a wavy line... It's not horrible so I left it, but that is why you want to iron even and straight folds, you could measure if you want, I was just eyeballing it... My mother is rolling her eyes right now I am sure...

Last fold make sure you don't get too close to the edge, you need at least a half an inch left.

Now for the other side. I found the easiest way to match up the pin tucks on both sides is to lay the bodice out flat

then fold it in half 

then fold back the top until you get to the fold of the first pin tuck. Iron the fold, and sew.

continue folding ironing and sewing until you have all three pin tucks on the other side. Again you can totally see it is not perfect... but I am fine with it, you could always measure again...
Oh and you may see what I mean about the deep "v" yours may likely look more like this:

See the higher "v" neck... Yours may look more like this one... No worries if it looks more like the first one, they both turn out just fine...

Pretty easy so far? I hope so! Let me know if you have any troubles with the steps...
Tomorrow we will finish up!

Enjoy!