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Thursday 31 July 2014

Red and white print tee

The knit scraps box had enough of this fun print, that with careful cutting I was able to get a whole tee out of the same fabric.
I also made a sunglasses case (protects from scratches in your bag) and a hair scrunchie, from some of the scraps leftover form the turquoise tee.
I will try and think of some more uses for knit scraps. Anything smaller than this probably should just get thrown away, so I've been doing that as I go along.

Making a tee from knit scraps

For any of you who want to have a go at this, you need to find your best fitting tnt tee shirt pattern, and then start tracing bits off the original pattern - make a whole front - slash it about to make pieces, have a half back which you split to have panels, same for a front, have several different lengths of sleeves you can fit into the same armhole. Keep all these in a zip lock bag, labelled so you know what all the pieces are (it can be hard to tell once they are all cut up).

Then get the scraps and have a look at the shape of the pieces, are any large enough for a whole back or a whole front. If you have long thin pieces (I often seem to have these left from cutting a previous garment) would a panel fit there?
Look at the balance of the different scraps against each other, I like a print as the starting point and then to pull that out in a co-ordinating solid. If things have a white background, I like the whites to match, not an ivory with a pure white for example. Also the fabric weights need to be reasonably similar - no heavy sweatshirting sleeves on a thin fabric body. Once you've cut all the pieces, lay them out as the tshirt and check you like the overall feel.

I construct in the following order.
(I sew each seam, turn over to check there are no bumps, wiggles, gathers etc, then serge the same seam)
If back is in panels, assemble one side and then the other, press the seams flat, sew and serge the centre back seam and press again.
Assemble the front if it is in sections. Press the seams flat. For the one with 5 panels, you may need to press several times as you sew the front together.
Sew the shoulder seams, adding a bit of ribbon or woven selvedge to avoid them stretching out.
Cover hem the sleeves flat. Insert one sleeve and sew up one side seam.
Cover hem the main hem flat, clipping serged seams at the hem and folding to the other side to avoid a big bump for the coverhem.
Insert the other sleeve, sew up the side seam. Use a large needle to tuck the serger ends into the seam allowance.
Take photo and share with sewing friends.Wear your new top the very next day.

1 comment:

Jenni said...

Really pretty tee. Should be lovely with white trousers or as a more casual look for ddress down friday. Also love the fresh look of the previous turquoise tee, which I think is my fave out of all the recent tees.... but this one is a close second.