Teal Boatneck Tee

The third of the blouses I made out of the big piece of double knit teal fabric - a boat neck tee for me. I drafted this t-shirt in October, using my favourite simple Shkatulka tee. 

The new teal blouse is almost identical to that brick one I made last year, which I gifted to Gaby. The only difference is that I shortened the length by 2 cm and the sleeves - I added cuffs with buttons and real buttonholes.

 
I came up with the idea for the cuffs out of necessity - I didn't have enough fabric for full length sleeves and I did want 3/4 sleeves. I could have gotten away with simple 4-5 cm cuffs, but I remembered a set of 6 black buttons which I bought recently and decided to add them to the T-shirt for some interest.

I couldn't have just added the buttons without making them operational, where's the fun in that - so real buttonholes. I also made the cuffs symmetrical, so that both cuffs are closing away from the body - a detail I hadn't thought through initially. But when I finished the sleeves and looked at myself in the mirror, I realized that the rules for male and female button closure do not apply to sleeve cuffs - they have to be symmetrical, to reflect the symmetry of the body. So I had to unpick the left cuff and redo it the other way.

Pattern: Shkatulka Fitted Tee, modified with boat neck and long sleeves with cuffs

Size: Russian 42 (EU 36, S)

Fabric: double knit

Thread: black polyester (overlocker), teal polyester (Elna)

Time to make: 2 days 

 

My favourite part of the tee - the boat neck. In my notes in October I described in detail how I made the neck and this time I simply followed my notes - it saved me so much mind wrecking! Otherwise I always wonder which part where goes first :)

All in all, a very nice simple blouse, which was ideal for today's walk in the park under the warm January sun - we had a very rare pleasant and warm sunny day here in Sofia. 

And the snowdrops in front of our building are already in bloom!

Two Men's T-shirts

This past week I was very busy with the overlocker - apart from the T-shirt I showed you, I made two more T-shits for Gaby and myself out of the same bamboo knit, which I still haven't photographed. And then I made two T-shirts for my husband and my son.

The pattern I used for the men's T-shirts is a free pattern from the Russian site Shkatulka - MT030313, tailored men's T-shirt. My husband wears size 52 according to their size table, so I downloaded the pattern and printed it. As the pattern says, the T-shirt is tailored and narrow, so after I measured the paper pattern pieces I found that size 52 was more suitable for my son, than his father. So I cut the first T-shirt for Alex.

The fabric is a rayon-polyester blend, soft and fluid and the boys liked it a lot. To liven it a bit, I added a navy blue neckband. For my husband's T-shirt I decided to use the same paper pattern, just to widen it by a total of 6 cm. I also added length to the pattern pieces, as my boys are higher than the indicated pattern height of 174-178 cm.

 

Pattern: Men's T-shirts MT030313 from Shkatulka

Size: 52 and 56

Fabric: Rayon-polyester blend, 1.5 m

Thread: polyester

Time to make: 2 days

To make the T-shirts, I alternated between the overlocker and the straight sewing machine - all the basic seams are done on the overlocker, the shoulders are reinforced with fusible and straight seams, the back neck seam is covered and the hems are executed on the straight machine with a double needle.

 

I am especially proud of the covered neck seam - it does give the T-shirts a professional look.

Rib Knit Teal Tunic

My latest and probably last long sleeve tunic, at least for the foreseeable future. I had been eyeing a piece of rib knit in a gorgeous teal color and last week I succumbed to the temptation and bought it. I love the color, but the fabric itself is very thin and structureless and seems more suitable for men's tops or pajamas, than for dresses. I had at least two meters of it and I wanted to make a long sleeveless dress for Gaby out of it, but first, to test the fabric, I cut a short sleeveless top.

For the pattern of the blouse I used my go-to knit T-shirt pattern -  Burda 2/2011 shirt #106 B. But the difficulty with the fabric was that I didn't know (and still don't) how to cut it, what was to be considered the width of the pieces - it changed drastically with the stretch of the ribbing. The short sleeveless top when sewn turned to be wide and formless and nothing like the item Gaby had hoped for. So, to save the fabric, I added the long sleeves, a wide and long neckpiece and a bit of ruffle to turn the thing into a passable tunic.

It is still shapeless, but I consider it wearable at home with yoga pants. The fabric is 100% cotton, very breathable and soft and it is quite comfortable, I'm actually enjoying wearing it at home.

And if you are a bit bewildered what I am doing barefooted in a house tunic and yoga pants in the fields - I'm posing for this blog post :) I knew the place we hiked today was not widely known and I could change easily into my photosession attire and back without being observed by other than wildlife, so I took the tunic and leggings in my backpack. However, I drew the line at carrying additional shoes for the photos, and my hiking boots were all covered with mud at this point.

Red Laundry Day Tee

My purple Laundry Day Tunic turned out to be so comfortable, one of my most successful makes so far, that I had to make another one. I bought a piece of red-orange very stretchy knit, about 1.20 m and basically made the same tunic, with long sleeves. The fabric, being more stretchy, was a bit more difficult to work with and is not as flattering as the purple tunic, but it is divinely comfortable - like staying in your PJs.

 As I work from home and spend a lot of time in tunics and yoga pants, I really need these kinds of clothes more than my "out in the world" clothes, so I think there'll be even more pieces of this kind.

Ah, and I did add pockets again. Funny thing, I keep my hands in my pockets only when I'm posing for a photo, but still - I insist on pockets in my leisure wear :)

Look at the amount of snow we got during these last two days. It's unbelievable it was 20C on Tuesday!

Laundry Day Tunic

I'm so proud of my new tunic, made out of 94 cm of knit fabric. The pattern is Laundry Day Tee by Love Notions, a free pattern for members of their FB group and I believe very popular among sewists worldwide. The pattern is so professionally made, that I couldn't recommend it enough - it has layers for the different sizes and the size range is very wide - from XS to 5X. The pages are no-trim - brilliant and so easy to connect, and there are versions of the elements of the pattern, so that combining different lengths, sleeves and necklines one could get quite different garments out of this one pattern.

I chose the XS size, as the pattern instructs you to chose according to your bust size; tunic length, round neckline and 3/4 sleeves. My modifications - I added cuffs to the sleeves and pockets. Gaby has a similar RTW knit dress with pockets and I was passionate I wanted pockets in my tunic too :)

My fabric is very soft medium weight knit with 60% stretch width-wise and almost 0% stretch length-wise - perfect for a dress and very easy to sew.

As I had very little quantity of fabric, I decided to compromise in order to be able to have sleeves and pockets - I made the back with a seam. In the original both the front and the back are seamless, but that would have meant that I wouldn't have been able to harvest the sleeves from the remaining fabric. As my selvedges were very neat and narrow, it was easy to sew them together and I didn't even had to zigzag them.
I'm truly pleased with this little tunic and I've already bought two more knit fabrics for more knit tunics and dresses.