Rhapsody Sewalong Day 2: yoke Assembly

Jun 13, 2017 | How To, Rhapsody Blouse | 0 comments

Rhapsody Sewalong Day 2: yoke assembly

It’s day two of the Rhapsody sewalong. Today, we are going to share some tips on assembling the yoke piece of the Rhapsody Blouse. If you didn’t mark the pattern markings yesterday while, cutting out your pieces, you will want to be sure to do that today.

There are various tools available for marking your fabric. I usually prefer tailor’s chalk. It’s cheap, I don’t have to worry about it washing out, and it marks on dark fabrics. There is also a blue chalk good for lighter colored fabrics.

Mark your pleat as directed in the pattern. Then, sew a basting stitch along that mark. A basting stitch is a long stitch, usually the longest your machine offers. Do not backstitch at the beginning and end of this stitch. This line of stitching will be removed after the yoke is constructed.

Yoke Assembly

Open your back up with the wrong side up and press the pleat flat. Now it’s time to sew the yoke to the back. There is a great video helping out with this step. You can find the link to this video in the purple box on page 7 of the Rhapsody instructions.

Gathering the front shoulder seams.

Sew two lines of basting stitches along each shoulder seam. I prefer to sew mine 1/4″ and 1/2″ from the raw edge leaving a long tail on each end. Remember not to backstitch at the end of these. Now, take the bobbin thread from both rows of stitching and pull on them gentle to gather the fabric so that the width of the front shoulder seam matches the width of the back shoulder seam.

After you sew the front shoulder seam to the main yoke shoulder seam, gently pull the bobbin thread of your gathering stitches to remove them. Be gentle. Some fabrics are very delicate and can tear if you pull too hard.

Rhapsody features enclosed shoulder seams. The method for doing this is commonly referred to as the “burrito method”. There is a video included for this also in the pattern and the link to it can be found on page 8 directly following step 6.