I was so excited when I saw this tie-front teeshirt (#2) in the May 2010 La Mia Boutique!
It just ticks so many boxes – flattering neckline (check!), coordinating knits (check!), cute Daisy Duke-style tie (check!), and most importantly, it uses up those awkward leftover lengths of fabrics that are too big to chuck away but at less than 1m, are really too small to make much of anything from.
The other great thing is that this teeshirt was seriously quick to sew – I cut out the fabric when I got home from work on Friday evening, and in amongst making dinner and doing some reading, I had finished this before I went to bed, and without particularly rushing or staying up late, either. In fact, I liked it so much I wore it out to lunch and the cinema (to see Four Lions) the next day, and then again at Crafternoon!
Look ma, no gape!
The tie keeps everything close to your chest, and the understitching on the neckline means you never see the inner layer of the teeshirt peeking out, either (except at the tie tips themselves)! The pattern layout says to cut out four copies of the upper front piece in the patterned fabric (so you get a lining, too), but since I was short on the stars and the greys were SO similar, I just lined my upper fronts with the plain grey and I’m not fussed that you see a little bit at the ties.
Here’s the back:
The back was meant to be just the plain jersey from hem to neck, but I thought that looked kinda weird so I chose to split the back pattern piece at the “T” marking and continue the seaming around to the back. It kinda gives it a fauxlero look, which I like. The only other thing I changed was to shorten the sleeves to a more normal teeshirt length, because the original sleeves seemed far too long for their snug fit.
The stars viscose jersey is ex-Paul Smith, bought from Ditto Fabrics, and was previously used in my nephew’s hoodie as well as my little neighbour’s teeshirt, so it’s nice to have some for me to wear now. The plain grey marl viscose jersey is from Totally Fabrics and is destined to become another Burda crossover dress very soon…
I also really like that the tie front kinda makes it feel like when you were young and we’d pull the hem of our teeshirts up through the neckline on hot summer days… A less-revealing, grown-up version of that, anyway! Just the fact that I’m wearing this three times in under a week should let you know how great this pattern is. I found that a similarly-seam BWOF shirt always had the tendency for the under-bust seam to ride up during wear, but this one really stays put much nicer. So if you’ve got this La Mia Boutique issue, put this on your must-sew list!
Oh! And Connie at Couturesmith has sewn up that Butterick-pattern-wot-looks-like-the-KnipMode-pattern and very nicely shared the pattern diagram drawings with me. So I was able to update my pattern comparison image (though I rotated the grainline of one of the Butterick pieces so it’s easier to compare):
(if you can’t see the Butterick pieces on the left, hold down the Shift key and press your browser’s Reload button to force it to refresh the images)