I own the very first Fibre Mood magazine but for some reason I’ve never made any of their patterns before. But when I saw this latest issue I bought it immediately and as soon as I got home from Cornwall I traced off four patterns from it – I want it all!! I even splurged on the viscose/wool jersey shown on the cover!!
To ease myself in to a new pattern brand, I thought I’d start with one of the tees. You can either buy the whole Fibre Mood 03/24 magazine like I did (and trace off the patterns from the sheets), or you can buy any of the patterns individually as pdfs, too.
I’m going to make the other tee for comparisons’ sake (also against a recent Burda mag tee), but I started with the Gina tee. It’s a boxy tee with slight, cut-on sleeves and cuffs and a wider than usual neckband.
I used 1m of constellation print cotton jersey from Fabrics Galore (£14/m) which I’d bought specially on a whim and it didn’t even have a chance to go into my stash before I sewed it up!
There’s a patch pocket with a flap included in this tee pattern, too, but I left that off as I don’t like the look and I think it’s ridiculously difficult to get knit patch pockets to look good with home machines.
I had to get slightly creative with the pattern layout (my sleeve cuffs are on cross grain) but I could still fit it all in despite the directional print! I think my only saving grave was that my fabric was 140cm wide, but you definitely don’t need as much fabric as the pattern suggests, even for size L.
I really like that the Fibre Mood tee patterns include two different neckband pieces – one for fabrics with 20% stretch and another for 35% stretch. I used the former since my cotton jersey is more stable and it went in perfectly and lays really nicely.
I couldn’t help but use one of my labels from my Kylie and the Machine advent calendar a few years back – “Love You to the Moon and Back”! How perfect is that for the constellation fabric??
The only slightly unusual part of the construction here is the sleeve cuffs. They’re just rectangles which are formed into a loop, folded, and attached to the wrong side of the sleeve ends. Then they’re pressed back towards the right side of the garment and topstitched in four places to hold in place. This means the overlocked edge is encased inside and makes for a neat finish.
Also in these photos you can see my recent Midnight blue Moji trousers, if you missed that post! And there’ll be more tees from the same mag coming up after my birthday make…