My newest knit obsession....

...using my sewing machine. 1. sew-u stretch raglan: take 1 (front), 2. sew-u stretch raglan: take 1 (back)

I'm on the quest to learn how to sew with jersey. Its always intimidated me, but I've decided to take on the challenge.

It all started with this fateful shirt, using some light weight cotton jersey from Cry Baby's Boutiques and Sew U Stretch, the new book by Wendy Mullin of Built by Wendy fame. I first started with the raglan pattern. As much as I love the print of this shirt, the outcome wasn't so fabulous. Its got its problems.

1. This jersey has a lot of stretch and its memory is questionable. Since I made this shirt, I've worn it for a total of 10 hours and its gained about 4" of ease during that time. I don't yet know it will recover in the wash. I hope it will.
2. I didn't do a thorough job of transferring all of the pattern markings from the pattern sheets to my shirt. Therefore I didn't know which way was the front of the sleeve or the back and the sleeves got put on backwards.
3. To try compensating for the wonky sleeves I tried altering the neckline by making it wider. That only made it more flashdance.

I think I might be able to selvage it by attaching some fold over elastic along the neck edge.

1. sew-u stretch raglan: take 2 (front), 2. sew-u stretch raglan: take 2 (back)

Then once I knew what was the front and the back of the sleeve I made a second shirt. This one is some midweight cotton jersey also from Cry Babys. New shirt, new fitting issues. The shirt above is an unaltered size L. I have a 40" bust and wear at ready to wear size 14. In the book it says that this shirt has a finished bust of 41.5". The shirt I produced had more than 1.5" of ease AND it was too wide at the shoulder. So I took off about an inch of both the front and back pattern pieces where you place the fabric on the fold. Then I also tried reshaping the raglan, taking some width off of the body pieces, leaving the sleeves alone.

1. sew-u stretch: take 3 (the front), 2. sew-u stretch: take 3 (the back)

Next try. Using the adjustments I mentioned above. The fit in the shoulder region is MUCH improved. There are some funny lines still coming down from the shoulders but its much better now. In the back raglan seams, can you see how those seams are all wavy? Well, that's from not having my stitch tension set correctly on my machine. Once I made some adjustments then the seams behaved themselves. (I'll write a post soon about how I sew jersey on my sewing machine. I don't use a serger.)

My husband is really interested in my t-shirt sewing progress because he tends to have a hard time getting t-shirts to fit him well. He favourite shirt, which still seams to have wrinkle, is an old Club Monaco tee (pre-Ralph Lauren take-over) View image. When he tried on the grey shirt it fit him quite well. Next I'd like to try lowering the armhole to see if that minimizes the wrinkles under his armpits.

1. sew-u stretch crew: take 1 (front), 2. sew-u stretch crew: take 1 (back)

Taking a break from the raglan pattern, I decided to try the crewneck version of the t-shirt pattern included in the book. Again I sewed a size L. This pattern is drafted to have be 40" at the bust. This time I used a tissue weight jersey that's probably made of rayon. The above picture makes it look like there is something wonky going on in the upper front, but I can assure you this pattern is well drafted. I think its good right out of the "box". When my husband tried this one on, he needed a few adjustments (like less neck showing and narrower sleeves) but it was promising. It was this t-shirt that made me feel like I may never need to buy a t-shirt again!

But....I should mention that I was only trying to working the fit and seaming, not the finishing touches. I have yet to try finishing the neckline or hem a t-shirt. Instead of mastering such skills, I decided to take on a new challenge, yet another knit pattern Jalie 2804.

1. Jalie 2804: front, 2. Jalie 2804: back

Off all the shirts, I am most proud of this one. I took the time to do a lot of the finishing details on this shirt. The only thing I (thought) was left was the bottom hem, which is when my sewing machine kicked the bucket. Seeing these pictures I see how in the back view there is a lot of extra fabric near the neck. The pattern came with lot of variations (different sleeve options, rouched front or not) and the sleeveless version is supposed to have ties at the should seams. Those ties would have gathered the material here, making those wrinkles a "design feature".

Next time I will show you how I sew my knits on the sewing machine. And after that I have some finished knitting to show!