A wide range of Tees & Tanks & various experiments

After a crazy move and 3 months of semi nomadic living, the sewing room was up and ready and....overwhelm!  Where to start?  I kicked it off with a simple tee binge. 

 

Patterns 4 Pirates tulip tee - tulip in front 

My friend who was pregnant is now breastfeeding so I thought I would make this for her. I actually think this top is much nicer with the tulip in front rather than in the back. In the back it pulled funny but these are lovely!

Glacial tee 

Oops I forgot to check the neck binding and it is too floppy. I think in future I will make it skinnier as well. This is fine, but the binding bothers me a lot so it might get passed on.  (Done- and my friend LOVES it.)

 

Merlo tee in very very sticky viscose 

Don't rock climb and then sew? I decided to do up this top in a single colour because I thought the tee would be amazing and I really just didn't like the way any of my scraps matched up.  But this very drapey heavy viscose is a pain to sew and caught on my freshly post rock climbing fingers and was not fun.  I used some double sided sticky iron on tape for the hem which saved my sanity, and made coverstitching very pleasant!  However, the bands on the sleeves were ridiculous, turning it into a weirdly elbow length top, so I eventually sucked it up and removed the middle bits and put the bands back on. I will see if a less drapey fabric is tighter and shorter - it's nice to have a lot of ways to colourblock, but also overwhelming. 

Another feature of this fabric I've noticed when wearing is that I feel like it would be better suited to a curvier person.  Or this fabric really needs to be tight.  I might wear it more in the later spring and summer with a sports bra but there's a high chance it will be flying to a new home.  One of my best friends has moved to Sweden and her beach-friendly wardrobe needs some upgrades, which of course I'm happy to help provide! 

Elbe Botany with ruffle 

This is a really lovely silk? Wool? blend with metal bits.  Apparently designer deadstock, from Fabric Godmother.  I wanted to hurry and make something with it before I decided it was Too Special to Touch.  This was a great match for the fabric, but the pattern is not clear that you need to cut a lot of bias tape, and so I ended up needing to scrounge that from scraps.  Not optimal, and left me with very narrow bindings.  Overall the top is great despite that, but it's very airy so I might not be taking it on my upcoming Europe trip as planned.  

Sew Liberated Strata tee in velvet 

I had a leftover piece of velvet bothering me and realised it would be a great match for the drape of the Strata tee pattern.  I didn't love the Strata in a lightweight fabric - I think it is better matched to something heavier with good drape.  Whipped this up for a friend who I thought might be cheered by something new.  The velvet was pretty painful especially around the neck binding, but the results are perfect.  

Jalie top bias cut 

Experimenting with the Jalie to see whether I could use it for woven fabrics by turning it on the bias.  The answer is sort of yes.  It fits well, but I'm not entirely happy with the fit at the armhole.  I might try lowering the armhole by 1" and see if that suits me more.  I want to eventually maybe use this for a scrap of very fancy designer silk, but I think more editions are necessary before I commit.  I have not yet adjusted my pattern pieces, but on this top each time I make it I remove about 2" from the back hem, making it less curved and also less droopy fabric catching on my bum.  

Update on this one: wore it on my trip and it is a win. The armhole doesn't bother me at all, and being on the bias it just moves with my curves.  I feel confident enough not to do more practice versions - I will be making it in the silk next. 

 

True Bias Zoey tank x 2

I have known for awhile that I need to get some well fitting tank top patterns into my collection.  I got suckered into this one by Guthrie & Ghani, who had the perfect fabrics in stock, Lauren modelling the final result, and I even bought the double sized iron on sticky tape that she recommended for the bindings.  I did two of these, one of them for a pregnant friend of mine.  Size according to the size chart: size 2, though it's narrower than my hips I thought that wouldn't matter. 

The fabric is the Meet Milk derby ribbed Tencel. 

The tape stuff I am referring to is called Stretch Fix T30. It comes in strips or sheets.  I bought two strip units of it and I have lots more for other projects.  It is basically a dream for fixing curvy hems prior to topstitching them, as it stabilises while holding in place. 

I bought all this stuff from G&G, my friend paid half the shipping as well as paying for her fabric, so it offset some of the costs.  (I will say it's a bit offensive to hear a friend say $100 for a tank top is steep!  Sewist friends should know better!)

For my friend I lengthened the pattern the same as Lauren mentioned doing for her own pregnancy- I think it was 30 cm but might have been more.

Good thing I bought the sticky tape!  The fabric is relatively well behaved and it's so amazing when worn.  But getting those bindings on, and getting them on neatly, was a process that took some learning and was pretty frustrating the first time around.  Without the double sided iron on sticky tape I would have thrown things out the window.  The first version, for my friend, is less neat where the front and the arm bands meet up, but I was smarter the second time around. 

My friend, by the way, said this top was one of the only things that fit her near the end of her pregnancy.  The fabric is excellently stretchy. 

I like the fit of this and wear it reasonably often, but I won't be in a huge rush to make another one until I've tried a few other recommended tank tops.  Still planning on trying the Sommar cami and the Lola racer back tank.  Around these parts summer is only a hazy memory so not sure when that will be.

The Modern Sewing Co Potter jacket - an odyssey

I spent a LOT of time planning a Potter jacket.  I looked and pictures and reviews. I dreamed of multiple variations.  I had never made anything by the Modern Sewing Co before, but I liked the look of a few of her patterns and was deeply considering the Worker Trousers. I got excited by her own modifications of this jacket - there are posts where she lengthened it and added an A line shape to it.  Such that I finally bought it and had 2 copies printed so I could make multiple shapes. 

Somewhere in there though I read some blogs and some reddit posts speaking about the Worker Trousers, how the designer had been very defensive about some shortfalls...and I stopped trusting that this was going to be my favourite experience of all time.  I approached the pattern with some scepticism all of a sudden even though it wasn't based on any first hand evidence.  The A0 has all pattern pieces cut flat rather than on the fold so it is a VERY expensive pattern to print, I think it's 4 pages.

In the middle of that I committed to sewing it in oilskin.  I had cut the pattern out in size 10 to make sure it was just a touch roomy, and I knew it would fit on the yardage I had. And to make it even more fun, I chose silk as my lining.  AND decided to sew it while away at work, which meant taking all the supplies (thread, scissors, etc) with me to sew it at a friend's house, on her home sewing machine (50$ singer) which she had, in fact, never plugged in.  Add to this a horrible virus, fevers throughout, and my friend thought...that this was social time and stood there talking to me while I tried to concentrate.  

I had to underline all the pieces so that the oilskin wouldn't bother the silk.

I couldn't use pins, so I had to use clippies on everything. 

The welt instructions were bad.  Who does good welt instructions? I need to just buy a sewing book and reference that instead of indie pattern designers.  I had some issues with the sleeve cap fit but wasn't sure whether I had missed notches, or whether it might have been due to using clips instead of pins.    That hem corner where the hem and the lining are supposed to meet was a total shit show, as usual, but I don't think I have ever encountered a pattern that explained that process to me very well.  I also need to do a coat course and learn how to install fancy linings properly.

 

I survived the process and got over my cold and to my shock the fit of this pattern is really lovely.  I think it's a final realisation, however, that I do not like the feel of oilskin.  Maybe in a bag.  But I will stick to dry oilskin from now on.  The drafting of this seemed to be ok.  Despite my difficult fabrics, everything came together well and I think I will need to give this jacket another chance in the future, maybe with some easier materials.  This one is not likely to stick around though.