And finally, something for James

Regular readers may have noticed that although I mention two children in my profile, the only one I seem to sew for is Laura. There's a simple reason for that: I very rarely sew for James. This is mostly because, if given the choice, he'd rather have a new digger than a new t-shirt. But it's also because it's very hard to find nice fabric for little boys' clothes. It tends to be funky camouflage (which I really don't like) or too babyish for a four year old. But today, I hit the jackpot and won 1m of Tyrrell Katz jersey fabric on Ebay!


I am completely thrilled about this - I actually gave James the TK Working Vehicles card for his birthday this year, which he really liked. I also thought about getting him a t-shirt but balked at the price - £15 can buy a lot of toy-digger-action! At the time, I googled TK fabric but found nothing. And now I have a whole metre which will make many, many t-shirts because obviously I'm going to cut the fabric into squares or strips, rather than squander the lot on just one, or even two, t-shirts. I might even offer one up on Folksy - I can't be the only mother with a digger-mad son in the house. But it rather depends on whether James feels he can spare one....

And by the way, I don't often sew for him, but I do knit, so he isn't really neglected! And every garment I knit for him features - you've guessed it - a working vehicle!

Can we fix it? Erm, I think so!

In the warm light of day, the t-shirt looks no better. I try it on Laura and it doesn't improve. If there were ever a 'just plain wrong' sleeve length, these sleeves are it. And the body is way too short. That should be easy to fix so I'll deal with that first.

I could just sew a strip of co-ordinating jersey to the bottom of the top, right sides together, to create a single-layer longer body, but I think that making a faux two layer top would be prettier. So first I hem the red polka dot, using a narrow rolled hem sewn with a zig zag stitch, and s-t-r-e-e-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the hem as far as I can while sewing it. This creates a really pretty ruffled finish (called 'lettuce edge') for a stretch fabric. I then cut a wide strip of white jersey, join the two ends, and stitch it to the wrong side of the polka dot, about 5 cm up from the hem.

All I need to do is to lettuce edge the white strip as I did with the polka dot, and that will add about 6 cm to the bottom of the top. I do just that and the top already looks much better. But aaaargh! those sleeves are hideous!!!!

So... I could cut them short and re-bind them with the foldover elastic, but I suspect that this won't really help. The armhole is too easy-fitting to attractively accommodate a puff sleeve. So I decide to just cut the sleeves much much shorter, and then do the lettuce edge hem. And all of a sudden, the top has come together. It's feminine, pretty and in proportion. I really like it!

And that is the beauty of sewing with knit fabrics. It's really forgiving and endlessly adaptable. And if you use a stretch needle, and a zig-zaggy kind of stitch to sew it, it's easy to sew too. Go on - have a try!

Next, I'm going to have a try at drafting a pattern for a godet skirt with a yoke. There are only 4 measurements to be taken in order to do a skirt block, so it would be perfect for a draft-and-sew-tute. I hope you agree!

Sewing the t-shirt

I need to test out the t-shirt pattern so I'm going to 'make a toile'. This is seamstress speak for knocking up a garment from cheap fabric so that you can see if the patten actually works and what you need to do to it if it doesn't. I have some cheapish jersey that is pretty nice so if the pattern comes together the toile will be wearable.

I've cut the pieces out using a rotary cutter and a cutting board. The equipment is marginally more expensive than dressmaking scissors, but much easier and quicker to use. I've added seam allowances to the pieces as I've cut them - about 1cm to all the seams apart from the neckline, which I shall bind rather than seam, and a few centimentres to the t-shirt hem. I'm starting to think that the top might not be long enough, but I'll worry about that later.

First, I iron thin strips of lightweight interfacing to where the back shoulder seams will be. This will stablise the seams and keep the garment looking better for longer. Next I join the back and front pieces, right sides together, at the shoulder seam. USE A STRETCH NEEDLE for sewing stretch fabrics such as jersey or interlock. You can sew the seam using a straight stitch, but the seams are more likely to pucker and end up generally squiff if you do that - I always use a zig zag stitch or, even better, a stretch interlock stitch. The stretch interlock seam is sewn in a 'two steps orward, one step back' movement which keeps the seam straight and even. It sounds slow work but it's effective.

Then I press the seam allowance to the back of the top, and topstitch it with a straight stitch. I do this with all seams - it makes for a much more professional looking finish.

Next I need to bind the neckline. I was going to cut some ribbing for this, but couldn't find any with good enough stretch and recovery (i.e. pull the ribbing across its grain, and see how quickly it returns to its normal position) so I've used some foldover elastic instead. The actual sewing of

this is very different from sewing ribbing or jersey binding, but the technique for working out how much you need and attaching it evenly is pretty similar. So, first I work out how much I need. I measure the neckline - only roughly because I'm using the ruler on my sewing table (can't be bothered to find a measuring tape). I then cut some elastic to 75% of that measurement. I mark the approximately halfway point, and then the quarter points. I do the same on the neckline and pin the elastic to the binding, matching the marks.

I sewed the foldover elastic using the same technique I'd use for sewing ribbing. I sewed the elastic to the right side of the neckline using a narrow-width medium-length zig-zag stitch, stretching the elastic as far as I could while sewing it. I then folded the elastic over to the wrong side of the neckline, and top-stitched it with a straight stitch, stretching both the jersey and the elastic slightly. The experienced seamstress will know that this is not a great technique for sewing foldover elastic - it worked on this occasion, but I was lucky to get away with it. Generally for sewing foldover elastic, I would sandwich the fabric between the folded elastic and just do one seam using 3-step zig-zag. What can I say? it was late and I wasn't thinking properly.

Next I pressed the neckline and was pleased to see that although it looks very odd from the inside - red thread against brilliant white elastic, yuk! - it looks just fine from the outside. I now sew the second shoulder seam (topstitching over the elastic binding as well as the shoulder seam) and then start on the sleeves.

First I attach foldoever elastic to the hem of the sleeves, using the correct 3-step zig zag technique. This gathers the hem nicely into the elastic binding.

I then mark the middle top of the sleeves and sew a line of long straight stitch around the top of the sleeve, starting from and ending at about 5 cm in from the sides. I pull on the bobbin threads to gather the top of the sleeve - this makes the sleeve puff up. I then pin the marked top of sleeve to the shoulder seam of the armhole, right sides together, and arrange the gathering so that the sleeve fits nicely onto the armhole. I do this for both sleeves and then sew the sleeves to the armholes using the useful stretch interlock stitch. This is the most fiddly bit of the t-shirt but it's worth spending the time to get it right.

When I've finished, I seam up the right sides of the t-shirt to the armhole, and keep going to join the two edges of the sleeve. Repeat on the other side of the t-shirt. it's then that I realise a number of pattern errors: the sleeve is miles too long and the body could do with being another 10 cm longer. These can be fixed: what could be more tricky is that the easy-fitting t-shirt style does not lend itself well to a puff sleeve! The sleeves look very odd and I think I'll leave it for tonight and see if I can dream up a solution.

Part 2: Messing around with the sleeve block

I'm using tracing paper to transfer the sleeve pattern block onto a working pattern that I can hack into. I won't cut out the pattern blocks until I know that they're good to use - that way, I can amend them if necessary. Once I've cut out the traced sleeve, I can start cutting it up.


Here you can see that I've sliced the sleeve lengthwise into four pieces so as widen it ready to be gathered.











And here, I've sticky taped the pieces, with 1 cm between each, to some more tracing paper. I've traced around it, adding 1 cm or so at top and bottom. You can just see the new cutting line.

I can now cut out the three pattern pieces and I'm just about done. I'm not going to add seam allowances to the pattern - the European patterns that I mostly use come without seam allowances so I now prefer to just add the allowance as I cut. I also won't try and make a pattern yet for the neck binding - my plan is to sew the t-shirt together, find some binding fabric, and then working out how long the binding piece should be.


Next step - making the t-shirt! Sewing with jersey fabrics is something that I was scared of doing until very recently, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's easier than I thought. Well, it could hardly have been harder... So I'm going to do the t-shirt as a kind of tutorial.