Misusu shift tee review

I was in full tshirt mode when this pattern came out and I was also still so enthusiastic about my Dia sweaters that I bought this right away. 

Because I hadn't sorted out my recent print shop issues, I printed this at home. Be warned: 75+ pages and many of them are blank.  I appreciate inclusive sizing but I am waiting for it to be improved on with multiple nesting options on pdfs, so that you have the option to choose a nest of limited sizes and print fewer pages.  However this pattern does list what pages you need for each option (long or short sleeves of the two different views) so you can limit extra pages if you pay attention. 

I made size BB. 

Because my fabrics are scraps and all are rayon and quite drapey, I made version A because I didn't want to do to much hemming with my sewing machine.

View B with the shaped hem will benefit from a firm jersey so that it can handle the sewing machine stitching instead of overlocking or coverstitching the hem. 

Between buying the pattern and making it I kind of lost interest - maybe I've finally just gotten done with tshirts for awhile?  (Is that possible??)  It really didn't help, the 75 pages to tape together.  In fact when I finally did it and cut out the top and made it I was suprised how simple it is.  I like the ingenious way of making a raglan top and the fit is fine.  I shortened it by 1" because my spotted fabric wouldn't fit unless I did that, and I cut the cropped version.  Note it's not very short or cropped on me...  

I like it more than I expected but my enthusiasm is still low.  I think this pattern will deserve another look when I have some firm jersey and want to try the split hem option, because that's really very cute and original.  

Misusu Dia sweatshirt x 3

Oh I saw this and wanted to make it right away now now! I had other projects in the way but it jumped to the top of my winter sweatshirt queue.  I used stable sweatshirting from The Fabric Box and a colour combination that I knew would pop...though I wasn't entirely sure how well it would work together.

 The size chart is very precise, I cut BB, based on the fact that the finished measurements had a hip of 39" which is a nice amount of ease for my 37" hip.  I sewed all the diamond pieces together before overlocking and the stitching got pretty thick, and then my overlocker broke a needle!  I've never changed a needle on my overlocker so I didn't even know what I could use and that slowed things down a bit.  I ended up using a normal sewing machine needle, which the machine didn't love, but it did work.  (I was in a hurry because I wanted to take it on a weekend away with me, which I did.)

 

There's a tiny mismatch at the base of the diamond but everything else came up perfectly, and it is a pretty fun project to tetris together.  The high-low hem of the sweatshirt is hard to shorten - you have to shorten through a lot of pieces, but I think you could also just shorten at the hem.  I was lazy with the hem and didn't snip into the turning points, which I would do in the future.  You do not need to stretch any of the hem bands to fit.  

Basically after this I wanted to make more!  I thought I'd shorten the high-low hem in future, but I also thought I would make the tunic length next, and then I changed my mind and instead I decided to do another one exactly the same, plus a straight hem version in normal tshirt weights of lovely hoarded scraps.  

I went scrappy first: 

And oh, it's too long.  That was foreseeable...drat.  I am going to cut it by just cutting off the binding and shortening it, but I wanted to wear it around first and get a sense for how much to crop, so for now it's staying long.

I went straight on to my precious bamboo sweatshirting from Blackbird Fabrics.  This stuff is so cozy, soft and very stretchy, feels a bit thinner than standard cotton/poly sweatshirting.  I was happy to have a few run throughs done because I already knew the pitfalls.  Really happy with this - and this time I did snip the hem after sewing it on the machine, so that I could overlock it cleanly.  

 

 

On all three versions I heavily leaned on my sewing machine. I sewed each part of the diamond and the front with the machine then overlocked to finish it.  When sewing the top and bottom of the diamond together, I sewed just the match points until they matched (3 tries...) and then sewed it together.  I think this is necessary to get good matching on all these geometric bits.

This is a project that takes more than the usual hour for a sweatshirt, but it is so fantastic that it's worth it.  I'm done with Dias for now but I am looking over Misusu's other offerings. I loved the instructions, the drafting was great, the detail was fantastic.  Rare these days.