t shirt weekend

so much for being done with knits? I wandered into the local fabric shop a couple of weeks ago and scored $10 worth of remnant table fabric: a hot cocoa-colored soft rayon (?) almost sweater knit, and a little bit of baby blue with a tight stretch knit. I knew the brown was for a cowl neck t for me, and thought I'd experiment with the blue for little man clothes. and that's just what i did!

For the boy

A mixed media raglan tee from sewing for boys. the little man is growing like crazy right now. While I think  he is in good shape with pants and outer layers, he needs some simple Ts.

Changes from the pattern: i did a double needle treatment on the neckline, because i am not into the messy construction of zig zags and exposed seams everywhere.

For the same reason, the sides/arms seams are also done against the instructions, with the seams inside the shirt. The pattern is designed to leave hems unfinished (how was i going to get those armholes around my machine arm anyway??) but i'm not sure the boy is going to go for it. nothing to do but wait and see i suppose.

one more thing- when I traced out my pattern pieces, i used a size 2/3 width and 4/5 length (he is a perfect store size 3 for the moment). Even though it's supposed to be slim fitting, everything else in the book has been SOO wide I just thinned it down by default.

cost $5 for fabric, 2 hours for cutting and putting together. i loooove how easy this book is!

for me,
A cowl neck renfrew (from sewaholic), finally, in a proper full yardage way. I was frustrated to have to pull out a long seam of tight zig zag stitched because of an error in the pattern, but luckily Tasia recently wrote a blog post on how to handle the crazy cowl collar, which made it go like cake once I was there.

a poor artist blames her tools, and also i do not love my crappy machine.

what's funny is that this one is supposed to have finished sleeves and hem, but I opted to leave them raw. I used to have a black shirt like this that was a really nice fine cotton and I wore it to threads, i loved it so much.

So when I tried this puppy on and the unfinished sleeves hit at my wrists, i just left em. Ditto the hem- it's landing at a nice length now, just right for a cami to peep out from without being bulky.

well that just looks like a natural fit. 

 i don't need any bulk at the middle to make me self conscious, so here we are, a matched set of completed and yet also unfinished tees.

matchy matchy

cost: $8 for fabric and thread, 3-4 hours of cutting just right on the grain, sewing, picking, and sewing again.

i also made curry, granola, mac and cheese, and a long homework assignment. what did you make this weekend?

xo r