You may be forgiven for thinking I have my hands full with designing activewear sewing patterns, running marathons, and working extensively on a certain sewing tv show, but no – I also teach classes! Since I utterly adore working with knits and playing with overlockers, I tend to gravitate towards teaching beginners to sew stretchy stuff, like leggings, tee-shirts, and panties.
So when I bought this fantastic purple & green striped viscose jersey from Tia Knight (formerly Tissu) recently, it practically shouted at me that it wanted to become a Slouchy Breton Tee, which is the pattern that the ThriftyStitcher developed for the class I teach.
Having taught numerous ladies how to make this, I knew it’d be a quick and easy make, and that it also has the magic ability of looking good on all body shapes and being loose enough in the bust to not require any FBA (not that I need one, but still…). What I hadn’t realised though, is that the 2m of the viscose jersey is actually enough to make two Slouchy Breton Tees, so my mom’s getting one, too! Seriously – two great teeshirts that feel like vintage tees for a fiver each? I’m in love!
The fit through the bust, waist, and hips is really forgiving here, and there are two sleeve lengths (well, three, if you just wanted to keep the drop shoulder as a little cap sleeve!) – I made the full length sleeve but in future I’d extend it by another 2-3 inches as it’s not quite long enough for me. There’s also a 3/4 length sleeve option, too, if you prefer.
I’m not usually a stickler for stripe matching, but when the stripes are wide and obvious like this, I like to try and match, both when cutting out the fabric (usually by just making sure the waist notch on the front and back are at the same part of the stripe!), and also when sewing. But I also ended up matching the sleeve with the body stripes when my arms are down, which was a complete coincidence!
Bow before my stripe matching prowess!
When I’m making striped teeshirts, for some reason I always like to cut my neckbands along the length of the fabric so I get more stripes – in fabrics with four way stretch you can really cut it either direction but for me, the little stripes look better than one long stripe going around the neck.
Right now this pattern is only available as part of the class, but I’ll be announcing more Fall class dates soon. And if you bug the ThriftyStitcher enough, maybe she’ll think about releasing it as a stand alone pattern to buy, who knows?
PS: My Threshold Shorts pattern is due for release on Monday!