Weekender Cabana ‘t-shirt’. Served three ways.

I have been on the hunt. For a shirt. The perfect sweater. Also, I hate sewing knits. Also, I was looking for raglan sleeves. But above all, I’m looking for the perfect pattern for a recent acquisition. Nice, heavy cotton jersey with crisp navy and white stripes. Mmmmmm… So any reader would understand how I was sucked in by the envelope drawing for Hotpatterns 1035. A scoop-necked, set in sleeve, relaxed fit (ewwwwwww…)tshirt pattern with options for 3/4 and short sleeves. And a completely ridiculous center seam. Which I chose to not do. Here it is…

I’m happy with the finished product. It’s girly and comfy and cute. I added a little bow and a bit of vintage lace trim at the cuffs. I wished I had cut more thoughtfully so I could have added nice, long cuffs. (It’s cold here today!) I’m not super enthused with the bagginess under the arm, but not disgruntled enough to do any sort of adjustments to the pattern to rectify for future versions. And the fabric, a pretty cream heathery sweater knit doesn’t enthuse me. Especially in the pictures!

So first. Let’s talk about fit. Great googly moogly. My first version of the shirt was so awful that I almost threw everything in the trash. If it hadn’t been for a sentimental evening of re-living Self Stitched September and deciding to make something to wear for the very next day, I might have done so. Here’s the monstrosity of version #1, complete with bad lighting, bare feet and cords in desperate need of a bit of extra hem let out…

[What not to wear. Ever]

Ugh. It’s so…um, what was that? I fell asleep. The boxy, boring, oatmeal travesty spent the night in a crumpled up heap on the ironing board.

This morning I decided to take a crack at fixing it. I laid out the sweater and laid a better-fitting RTW turtleneck over the top and saw a serious difference in shape. I knew I’d have to adjust the pattern a bit, since it’s intended to be relaxed fitting and I like my knit shirts to be very fitted. But holy cow! I freehanded a nice side seam (highlighted on the right side of the photo below in pink.)

[Making a girl shape!]

For anyone taking a stab at the same method, I cut a size 18, which coincides with my underbust/bust measurements, and is about 5” smaller than my waist and hip measurements. The dip of the new seamline is about 3” in from the sides for a total of 12” removed from the waistline of the shirt and about 2” in from the bottom hem, for about 8” removed from the hipline. You can already see the improvement on the trimmed garment.

[Looking more like a Patty shirt. Less like Patty’s mom’s shirt!]

After that I topstitched around the neckline for strength, super trimmed the seams, fashioned a little bow from scraps for the neckline and hemmed the bottom of the shirt and the cuffs using a twin needle (and a most-excellent hint from Threads – I think – to roll a bobbin of your thread if you don’t have two spools of the exact same color for twin-needle stitching!) I also added the bit of lace trim to the cuffs. Since a white, scoop-neck sweater with a bow wasn’t quite girly enough for me…

Here’s a side-by-side of the first version and second version of the sweater. What a difference a foot of fabric at the waist makes (and good lighting, a hair straightener and lipstick…) 
All in all, I like the pattern and will probably use it for a nice, TNT for sweater-knits. I will have to resist the urge to put a bow on every version. I love that bow.

So here’s the three ways I’m serving up my Weekender Cabana t-shirt… let’s call them (left to right)Patty goes to work, Patty goes to work and looks slightly better and Patty goes to brunch.

    

Click here to read my review on patternreview.com.