Many Sewing Expos ago, I thought I would actually try to learn to sew my own garments, so I took a couple classes and from one of those classes, I discovered this book called “Sew U Home Stretch“. It has three basic patterns (crewneck shirt, raglan shirt, and a dress/skirt) and from those three patterns, Wendy shows you how to alter them to create different garments from hoodies to baby-doll dresses. It’s pretty neat, especially if you’re not afraid to alter a pattern a little bit (with direction).

What I made today was a V-neck t-shirt. There are a couple things I would do differently, but I had this idea a while ago to have mom use her fancy Bernia to embroider a corgi on the front, like an Izod gator. She said she needed a double knit shirt in order to do that. So, instead of shopping at the store to try to find a basic, double knit shirt, I made my own. Finally.  And I’ll be seeing my parents tomorrow for lunch, so I put this item on my Winter Break To-Do list to get done by today so I would have it to give them when I saw them tomorrow.

V-neck t-shirt

With my Mood Fabrics Groupon, I bought a yard and a half of a light blue double knit for $7/yard. I probably only needed a yard, but it doesn’t hurt to have a little more. In fact, I probably should have made a neckband with the leftover fabric instead of doing the rolled hem around the neckline. I also did a rolled hem on the sleeves.

I had intended on hemming the bottom with a twin needle stitch, but the machine kept pulling the fabric into the area under the feed dogs. I think my tension was off somewhere, so that will have to be an experiment for another time. The alteration she suggested in the book was to take 6″ down from where the neckline usually is (this is based on a crewneck shirt), but I only did it by 4″. (Otherwise, I’d have to wear a tank top under my shirt for modesty’s sake).

I used a lot of overlock stitching, since the patterns use a 1/4″ seam allowance, instead of the usual 5/8″ seam allowance. In the future, I’ll have to make sure to mark my pattern markings differently, since my scissor clips were too deep in areas, that I had to do some extra stitching to keep holes from appearing.

From cutting to finishing, this probably took me about three hours to make. Definitely the fastest I’ve ever made a garment, ever!