Category: knit tops

I "finished" my muslin yesterday, except that it may or may not be finished depending on where I go from here and what decisions I ultimately make. 

 

This is the blue stretch fabric I bought just for testing a few knit patterns.  It was a $3 nylon/lycra knit, but it has a really nice weight and I love the color.  If there are any scraps leftover it will probably make a lovely swimsuit.

 

In the meantime, what have I made and what do I think of the results?

 

The pattern is McCalls 6165 and this is the under tunic.    I was inspired to purchase this top by Shams' version of this same pattern, and I am happy I read about her top before making my own.

 

The pattern says it is close fitting, but of course it is also for stretch knits, so the stretch factor should be figured into the fit of the pattern.  

 

I bought the Xsm-Sml-Med size because although my full bust is 37", which makes me between a Med and a Lg according to McCall's size chart, my upper chest is small and I usually cut a smaller size and do a full-bust adjustment.

 

When I was looking at the pattern pieces however, I noticed that the width at the bust for the under layer was listed as 37" on the size Small.  Now a size small is supposedly cut for a 31 1/2 to 32 1/2" bust and a 37" top is not what I would call close-fitting.  In fact I once had a 32 1/2" bust and I would have called a top that was 37" at the bust pretty loose fitting.  But, I reasoned, 37" should be perfect for me with a stretch fabric.  Since the top flares out from the bust-line, I figured I would have more than enough room if I cut the small without a FBA and without any other alterations.  This was a muslin afterall.

 

Here are the final results, taken immediately after putting in the second sleeve yesterday, shortly before dusk.

 

(click on photo to enlarge)

As you can see, aside from the bust, this is certainly not close fitting on me and I am in no way close to a small size.  But it does work.  I like the high armholes and the sleeves are not tight, although they look tighter than they feel.  the dimension of the sleeve is actually larger than my upper arms, but I am sure the look of the sleeve will vary with different knits.  With my next top I will probably make the sleeves a little wider.  

 

And now we come to decision time.  As I said, I planned this just as a muslin.  The plan was to make it again in white, to wear with white jeans and this lovely striped mesh knit I purchased from Marcy Tilton.  But I don't have any white stretch knit.  I have off-white.  I had forgotten that.  It is no longer summer anyway, and black will work just as well.  I have black.

 

But notice how nicely the stripe goes with the blue of my test-tunic.  I am thinking I may be able to wear these together.

 

So next up is the tank-top version of this pattern in the striped fabric.  The tank top is cut smaller than the under-tunic, which seems strange to me considering how they illustrated the patterns, but I can work with that.  I will make the medium.

 

At the moment I have not hemmed the blue tunic and I have not finished the neck edge. If I decide I am going to wear this as an actual garment I will have to finish the neck.  I will not use a facing as recommended in the pattern, but I am not yet sure exactly what I will do.  I probably don't have to hem the bottom as the knit is very stable and I have rather liked the unfinished edges of garments, like the Elm dress I purchased last spring.  Certainly this style lends itself to unfinished edges.

 

After sitting on the cutting table for a couple of weeks, taunting me while I dithered and dallied with various other interruptions and distractions, the pattern for the Chico’s tee finally got hold of my attention.  And lo and behold, there is a finished object to show for my efforts.   Even more amazing, the actual tee is actually everything I had dreamed and imagined it might be.  Now THAT is an accomplishment, even with a simple tee.

As I started laying the pattern out on the fabric Wednesday night after dinner I was having serious doubts.  I hadn’t really thought about whether the pattern was suited the fabric or any of that, I just saw this fabric and immediately imagined this garment in my mind.

As I pinned the pattern to the fabric, being very careful to line up my grain lines and my pattern, I realized that here I was working with a very distinct geometric pattern with very clearly delineated straight lines, but the pattern didn’t have a straight line anywhere.  The v-neckline has a curve to it.  There are no shoulder seams and the back yoke seams are curved.  The side seam is curved.  The bottom hem is curved. 

I wondered if I was setting myself up for disaster.

Yet it all worked out.  I can see the hem curves down from the side seams to the center front and back up again, but it looks balanced against the  print. 

Because of the way the front piece wraps around to the back, the back shoulder is on the bias.  I didn’t even try to align this with the back seam, which is also slightly curved, adding a tiny bit of shaping at the upper back.   But it turned out nicely.  I like the play of th angles in the pattern. I also think the flow of the lines in and out around my curves makes it look like I actually have a waist.

The original piece was cut with a double layer of fabric in the front and a single layer in back.  As I was working with the garment, I realized that my fabric is somewhat thinner than the original, and the back was actually just a tad to thin so I cut a double layer in back as well. 

Then I had to decide if this would change the way I would construct the garment.  My natural inclination would be to hide all the seams between the layers, but I noticed that only the neckline seams were sewn this way.  In all the other seams the fabric was treated as if it was one layer, and the layers were folded under as one and cover stitched to make hems at the armhole opening and hem.  I realized that this was not only easier, it also provided more stability.

I got everything assembled but the hems on Wednesday.  Thursday I wanted to do the cover-stitching.  I was a little apprehensive because I hadn’t really used the cover-stitch feature since I had tested it out shortly after purchasing the machine.

I needn’t have worried.  It actually took me longer to read the instructions for setting up the cover-stitch than it took me to thread the machine and convert it to cover-stitch.  And my sample runs went pretty well too.  I had a little bit of trouble at the that shoulder seam, where I was actually stitching over 6 layers of fabric,  but it turned out well, and I think it looks pretty good for my first cover-stitched garment.

I was also unnecessarily concerned about the hem.  I was afraid that, since I would have to sew from the top, that I would not catch the edge of the hem in my stitching.  But it was easy to the feel the edge of the hem underneath the fabric and line the serger needles up with the fabric edge.

The top is not perfect.  There are a few glitches, but I am very happy with this.  It is exactly what I imagined it would be.

I must stop this now! 

I am referring to this tendency to think "oh it is only a muslin" and use whatever thread happens to be on the machine without giving any thought to the possibility that I might actually like the finished garment.  As a result I get things like a navy tee with white and hot pink stitching.   Well it could be worse — at least these threads won’t show through.

As you might surmise I did actually stitch up the tee muslin on Tuesday night.  And I loved it!

Well, I had reservations, which should not surprise you in the least.  The tee was great, loose and comfortable but not completely shapeless, without those big folds that come at the chest/arm when the shoulder/sleeve are too square for the body underneath.  But it was way to big.   

Now I "know" that the CJ pattern is cut large.  It is meant to be roomy and Christine has that "sew then shrink" thing going on a well.  But I also always seem to think that I am much bigger than I really am  — that old "jolly green giant" syndrome rears its ugly head.  Or it might have been a new variation I will call the "Jabba the Hutt" syndrome after seeing pictures of me with baby Owen.  (That refers to a picture of me taken from the floor looking up at my thigh with baby Owen bouncing on it — a less flattering photographic angle has not been invented).

Of course, I don’t like pictures of me unless they are at least 10 years old and then I feel like the person in the photo is someone else entirely.

But I digress…

The size issue was pretty simply resolved by taking in the tee at the bustline, and angling out to the hem, as you can see in the photo to the right.  The pink line is the new cutting line, as opposed to the blue (old) cutting line.  As you can see I took in a little over an inch at each side of each piece (4 inches total) just extending the sleeve edge inward  and up just the smallest bit and then angling down to the original line at the hem.

The finished tee looks much better.  You shall see photos once I finish the neckline and the hems. I shall finish both muslins and wear them.

But not much has happened on the sewing front since Wednesday morning, when this alteration was made.  Well I altered the actual pattern last night — does drawing two lines in pink marker count as sewing time??  I think it might.

More sewing later.  Well, if I can get off the computer and get to the gym that is.

Do you ever have those days where nothing is quite going right and you are driven to distraction?

This afternoon was like that. 

Tuesday is still a working afternoon for me and I was trying to close out some accounts and work on a few recalcitrant clients and get statements and letters out, as well as work out some details with former employee accounts but instead I was engaged in a steady stream of ridiculous phone calls.  I don’t mind the phone generally, but these calls were all unnecessary stuff — sales, and obstinate people who didn’t understand words like "retired" and "we’re not interested" or just plain old "no".

Bah. 

Then the power was flaking in and out…not usually a problem as I have a huge UPS under my sewing table/desk, and the phone line was blinking in and out with static.  What is going on in  my town today?  It is perfectly lovely and cool, a little breezy, the kind of day where I would rather be in the yard.

So then the computer starts jamming up.

What’s a girl to do but cut out a muslin for the next iteration of the tee shirt project?


I knew there was an advantage to having the office in the sewing room.  All those wasted minutes waiting for the computer to reboot or the cable modem to power back up can be put to good use laying out fabric and cutting out a pattern.

It is nice to be working on something again.

But tonight I am getting together with Alexine for knitting and tea and a bit of talk.  When I get home, after dinner, I have to plan out the menus for the rest of the week and make a grocery list. 

If I still have time and energy I can probably whip this up tonight and see how it fits.  With only two pieces, it should be a quick job…..

and if not, well, there is always tomorrow.

Whatever I may have intimated, I have not yet abandoned the purple muslin project.

I spent some time on Tuesday morning morphing patterns.

You see there usually is a method and a plan to my madness, although it seems that I am rarely privy to the full detail when I get started.  I seem to just jump right in and then the plan evolves as I get going.  This does require time to step away from the sewing room and allow the details to float around my brain a little bit, but at the moment that is no problem as time away from the sewing room seems readily available and it is time in the sewing room that is in short supply.

I have a vision of a lightweight, loose tee in my head, one with cut on sleeves.  Yes it will be loose and boxy, but the fabric is light and airy for a knit.  I plan to wear it as at-home-wear with a pair of coordinating knit pants.

The purple muslin was made from this pattern:

It dates from 1985 and a small was an 8-10.  This was before I ever traced off patterns.  I had made view B several times, the one with the wide neck and the cuffed sleeves.  It was so big on me, and the neck so wide that I took 1/2 inch out at the center fold to make subsequent versions fit.    The fact that the purple tee, which was made from View A (same back piece, diffferent front piece), fit me, albeit snugly, was no testiment to my slimness, but merely evidence of how oversized clothes could be in the mid 80s.

But anyway, I knew I would be able to get into the tee without altering the pattern, and I was mostly interested in the neckline and the sleeves, which I recall that I really liked at the time.

Monday night I looked through my pattern collection and really found nothing much that was like the tee I envisioned.  Oh this original Vogue pattern was pretty close, and I had Christine Johnson’s Three Tees pattern.

 

The Christine Johnson Pattern is more appropriate size-wise, but I really did not like the way the sleeves lay when wearing the tee, and I was not thrilled with the neckline either.

What I really want is something in between these two patterns. Once I discovered what I wanted, the path was clear:

I traced the Christine Johnson pattern in a size large (red lines in the picture above), and then I aligned the old Vogue Pattern over it to get the neckline from the Vogue pattern, which was actually a little tricky and I hope I got it right.  I  actually took the back neckline from CJ and  altered it to join up with the front neckline from the Vogue pattern.  Looking at them and taking a few measurements they look good, but only the next muslin will tell.

I then also moved the Vogue pattern out and altered the shoulder and sleeve angle on my new pattern to correspond to the Vogue pattern (in a bigger size obviously).  As you will note the Vogue shoulder sloped downward slightly more (1/4 inch) than CJ’s, and there was an entirely different shape under the arm in the way the sleeve came out from the body on the Vogue Pattern.

Will it work??

I actually have no idea.  I may actually need something more in the middle ground between the two patterns.

I considered waiting to write this until I had whipped up another muslin, but I had hoped to do that yesterday, and then again today, but I see a long day of paperwork and filing ahead with little chance of a muslin appearing in the next 10 hours or so.  I shall continue to hope for tomorrow, or the long weekend…. but I am actually going to have workmen here Saturday and Sunday, and house guests, so extensive sewing time is not likely.

But now I must go back to work.  How did all the office files and accounts get so out of hand while I was out on family medical leave???? How do I ever begin to sort them out???

I’d much rather be sewing…..but the penalty would be far too high.

The problem with internet and mail order fabric shopping is that once in a while mistakes are made.  When I saw this knit fabric I thought "wrap dress".  When it arrived at my door I wondered "what was I thinking?"  The only thought that popped into my head was pajamas.  But I don’t want knit pajamas.

Luckily this kind of thing doesn’t happen all that often.  And now I have muslin fabric.

I made a muslin today from another old pattern that I used to love.  It is cute enough.  It needs a little work.  Look at that big fold at the bust telling me that it needs darts.  When I made this top before it was when I was a skinny minny and didn’t need darts in my tops.

Ha Ha!  Not today.

I could fix it, but I don’t think that the pattern is so special that it is worth the bother.

Did I waste my time today?  No.  I did something I wanted to do.  I had fun doing it.  And I learned something. 

If I bother to finish the edges of the tee I could certainly even wear it, and I would lay odds that most people wouldn’t even notice that big wrinkle because I see people running around in RTW tops that do the same thing all the time.   H***, I think people wouldn’t even notice if I didn’t finish the edes.  But I would notice.  And I would still feel like I was wearing pajamas.

Bye Bye Purple Tee, you were never meant to be.

When did I last sew?  When did I last write?  Oh yes, that was Thursday. 

I did take those extra 15 minutes on Thursday to finish the swirly tee, but it was not fated to be.  I put the tee on Matilda and pinned up the neckline, then stitched it up.  I had to try it on to mark the sleeve hems, even though they are marked on the pattern, and it was a good thing I did because I shortened them by an inch.

But the neckline was funny, with extra fabric on one side and it needed to be turned up differently.  It seems that Matilda and I are not shaped exactly the same through the upper chest.  That’s OK because the top looks better on me than it does on Matilda.   Unfortunately I did not have time to rip out the seam, repin it, and do the hems so everything got put aside until today, when I took a break after hours and hours of accounting work followed by a few more hours of shifting and filing of what appears to be a never ending pile of paperwork, but more about that later.

So here’s a partial view along side a shot of the first draft (that seems so long ago).

As you can see the neckline is quite different, but nothing shows.  I kind of liked the wide low neckline as seen on the original pattern, better than my redrafted neckline, although I realize that it was perhaps a little revealing for everyday wear. I see that I changed the angle of the front trying to cover the bra straps and I wonder now if there was a better way to do that, a way where I can get that angle and swoop that I see in the all white version.  Of course the fabrics are quite different in the way they stretch and hang as well. Still I think the white is more flattering, and the swirl more mundane and boring, not that I won’t wear it and love wearing it.  I just hope there is some happy middle point I can find in adapting this pattern to my body.

All in all, it is nice, and wearable but there are things I still might change.  Although I did not change the shoulder pieces or the back neck, the second top has excess fabric at the back of the shoulders that I did not see in the white top.  I wonder if that is caused by the changes in the shape of the front, or if it is caused by the different fabric.

It seems there is always something more to learn.

Here’s what I did:

As you can see I raised the neckline  on the right side and also made the front narrower under the arm, changing the shape of the armhole opening.  I then made corresponding corrections to the sleeve pattern.  Although you can’t see it here, I also added some increased room through the bust because the first top was a little snug and the second fabric was slightly less stretchy than the front.  If you look closely at the photo above you can see that I still get some wrinkling and I probably need to add a little more, especially on the right, where the shoulder curves in more and there is a more dramatic change from the fullness at the bustline to the smallness under the arms and at the upper chest.

Here is the altered front piece in full view.

To me this looks very asymmetrical, more so than I think I appear when I look at myself in the mirror.  When I look at the photo above I can see that a bit of asymmetricality, although the wide point of the top hits at exactly the same place relative to my bra strap on each side.

But other than adapting the pattern  to my own idiosyncrasies, it was an easy top to make and I will make it again.  I highly recommend the pattern.

 

The only thing I really did differently than the pattern was make a
double front, especially since the white fabric was a little
transparent.  The pattern calls for a front facing piece that ends just
below the bustline.  But I really don’t like facing pieces, and by
lining the front you have the opportunity to hide the side seams so
nicely, giving a lovely finished look to the inside of the tee (as if
anyone is looking).

And the only part of the process I had trouble with (aside from the comedy of errors I call fitting and pattern alteration) was hemming the sleeve.  I am not sure how to double needle hem a narrow sleeve hem easily and well when it is too narrow to wrap around the sewing machine under the needle.

I kept holding out an inch here and there and stopping and pulling and turning, hoping desperately that I wasn’t catching the underside of the fabric and sewing the sleeve closed.   There is probably some obvious solution that I am just missing, aside from making the sleeves wider, but I like close fitting sleeves at the cuff and my wrists are not large.