June 2005

I had this beautiful purplish blue soft knit for over a year now. But I didn't want to waste is so I was waiting until I got more skill in sewing knit tops and weaked my pattern.

I actually merged three different atterns for this. I pin-traced my most favorite RTW t-shirt for the front and back. I used the neckline from my old trusted pin-traced sweather pattern. I didn't like the sleeves I had traced, plus they were only very short. So, I decided to use sleeves from Butterick 3344. It looked to me like they would fit pretty closely. I measure at the seamlines and after comparing measurements, I flattened the sleeve cap a bit. It fit very well. I made a slash/spread FBA (based on a 0 ease) and then rotated the dart into three small ones in the center.

I used a FOE with a little decorative edge for the neckline and sleeves. I just had enough for the job. I used a small zig-zag. I was afraid not to over-stretch the elastic like on my green top, but it seems I didn't stretch enough this time. Oh, well. I will figure this out on day!

The shirt feels great. The only problem is the shirred part. It doesn't look as good as the one I did on the pink shirt. The fabric is four-way stretch and much softer. Maybe that's part of the issue. The gathers are not the same on both sides and all go in a horizontal direction, instead of spreading apart in all directions. Since this part is dones after doing the neckline, I may still be able to fix it somehow if it bothers me too much.

Now, I couldn't for the life do the gathering like suggested in different instructions. When I tried to gather first, then baste to a clear elastic or seam binding, I always had puckers and just couldn't get it right. In the end I gave up trying (afraid I would have holes from all the taking out bad sewing), so I did what I did in the pink shirt. I put elastic thread in the bobbin, just sewed the seam, which shirred the fabric a bit. Then I pulled some more on the elastic
thread and tied off both ends securely (I hope).