His Loss, My Gain

My partner's birthday is coming up, so I considered making him something. A nice striped long sleeve T-shirt, I thought, with that navy/burgandy striped cotton jersey that I bought last year with him in mind. Got out the fabric. Good quality, yes. Very stripey, check. Sort of masculine, yes.  Measurements? Just 1.3m long. :-(

I think that I must have bought this fabric when I was looking scruffy, on a non-work day.  I remember the shop assistant convincing me to buy less fabric than I wanted to. Maybe she thought I couldn't afford it, but seriously, this was a cheap fabric by Sydney standards - I'm pretty sure it was less than $10 a metre.  It may also have been on sale.  Maybe I was looking really down at heel? 
 

very bunched up...

So I've made myself a long sleeved T-shirt instead - his loss and my gain! I hope it improves my casual look as well as helping me keep warm. That does mean I have to think of another birthday present though.

loose (RTW-style) shoulder fit

The top is inspired by a long-sleeved top that I was remembering from Burda 02/2011 (top 106B) - in drafting this post I've gone back to check my inspiration top, and it's a little different to what I made.

Because I didn't want to spend time on the cold floorboards tracing out the pattern, I made my top by copying an old, much-loved RTW long-sleeved T-shirt.  The old favourite was looking grotty and threadbare (maybe I am very scruffy on weekends!) so I hacked it up and then cut out the stripey fabric in approximately the same shape.I probably should have reviewed the fit first though as my resulting top is loose in the area around front shoulder / arm hold / above bustline. That's ^&*(&%$  RTW fit for you!

My fabric was insufficient for sleeves in a single piece so I have cuffs with the stripes at a 90 degree angle.  I do like this sort of end to a jersey sleeve anyway - it's neater for me to be able to omit the twin needle stitched hem, and the doubled fabric at the wrists feels somehow reliable (though I don't know what I'm relying on the cuffs for).

As usual, I've used that thin transparent elastic on shoulder seams and around the neckline (not shown). There's no seam finishing on the inside as my zigzag stitch stretches out the edges and then that shows through to the right side of the fabric - I'm not finding this lack of finishing to be an issue though with knits. 

Here's the stripes lined up down a sleeve and a side seam - there wasn't much to worry about with an easy top like this except for lining up those stripes and making a reasonable neckband!

stripe matching down the arm

stripe matching down the side seam

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PS I feel I should apologise for my last post - it didn't really seem to be much about sewing. My sewing is going slowly these days because it's just too cold in my sewing area - but I've nearly finished some proper sewing that I'll share with you soon: Vogue 1220 Donna Karan Collection, the very popular summery shirt dress. I'm not sure yet whether this style is just for the curvy ladies, but you can be the judge when I finish it and brave the cold for some pics.