Saturday 19 January 2019

A Cracker of a T-Shirt

Thank you for visiting my ing post. They are always very popular.

Today I have new T-shirt to show you. I am lucky enough to part of the Minerva blogger network which has kept me in fine fabric and wonderful wool for a good few years. Sometimes I get the opportunity to try something new through them and an exciting email appeared asking for volunteers to join a book review collaboration with Wendy Ward, this was way back in April 2018. 



Her new book Sewing with knitted fabrics is a comprehensive encyclopedic offering of useful knowledge on sewing with stretch jersey fabrics along with a capsule wardrobe of patterns. 

If you sew for yourself or your family you may find that making woven cotton dresses and skirts starts to become a little limiting after a while. I found this and once I had decided that I wanted to make most of my everyday clothes it became apparent that I needed to be able to sew jersey for T-shirts, tops, leggings, PJ's, loungewear and underwear.

The book contains paper patterns for tracing in the back. All of the patterns are interchangeable so the T-shirt pieces double up as a T-shirt dress, crop T-shirt, Long sleeved T-shirt and a natty patchwork detailed one. There is a creative element of building your own design each time which I really like.



Minerva asked me to try a pattern from the book and sent me a top quality piece of Art gallery cotton jersey. I like a new learning challenge as you know so I went for a T-shirt with a shirring waist detail. I have not done this before so I referred to the section on winding a bobbin with shirring elastic and had a go on a practice piece first.


Previously, I have used trial and error, blogs and Youtube to learn to sew jersey but I wish I had had this book back then. The knowledge section of the book is really good. It is written for home sewers of a beginner level, however as a more experienced sewer, I still found it very stimulating but easy to understand.




The T-shirt was a triumph. It is worth mentioning that I made this entirely on my normal sewing machine without using my serger. The techniques in the book guide you to useful stitch selection, length and width choices which made sewing easy.



Ah, my summer tan has faded now and I am back to being the colour of a raw pig!

Thanks for stopping by. Jo xxx

13 comments:

  1. Jo that T shirt is stunning fits beautifully and that colour really suits you.

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  2. Hi Jo, I found your blog at Mereknits' sidebar. I love the T shirt! I would like to get back to sewing clothes for myself, but I'm having a hard time finding fabrics that I like. The chain stores have more craft items these days than fashion fabric. Do you mind sharing where you find your fabric? I browsed through your blog and the fabrics are so nice, as well as the pattern choices.

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  3. Simply stunning. Hehehe, raw pig. Laughed out loud at that !

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  4. I love your t-shirt! it really suits you = and looks better than the photo in the book! Lovely fabric.

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  5. I've just ordered the book as I want to sew with stretch fabrics but am a bit intimidated. Glorious t-shirt! xx

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  6. What a great T-shirt. The shirring elastic section looks lovely.

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  7. The top is brilliant Jo. I love it and once again it fits your beautifully.

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  8. I love the t-shirt! The colour is great and it looks lovely on :) xx

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  9. That is so cute. It's a great color for you and the smocking gives it a very nice shape. Great work.

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  10. Your top looks lovely Jo, it suits you. The shaping detail looks good too, a nice finish, Cathy x

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  11. Another beautiful make. The fabric is stunning and goes perfectly with your skin tone. I laughed out loud when I read raw pig colour...like the majority of us at this time of year I would imagine.

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  12. This is such a sunny and lovely top! I have never tried my hand at shirring.
    Happy belated birthday Jo, I hope you had a wonderful day xx

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  13. The colour is lovely, I really like the interest of the stirring!

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