Fabric:  Cantaloupe Interlock Knit

Materials:

Pattern Kwik Sew 3056 View B -- short sleeves, the bottom edges of the tops and sleeves can be hemmed or finished with lettuce edging. 

7/8 yard of  knit fabric

 matching thread

small amount of fusible interfacing

Suggested Fabrics:   The Girls' Top is designed for stretch knits only with 25% stretch across the grain. Kwiksew suggests interlock, textured knits, stretch velour, pointelle jersey or thermal knits.

SBDF fabric used-Cantaloupe cotton interlock knit

Techniques Learned:

sewing with knits        using a zig zag stitch     stabilizing shoulder seams     double needle topstitching

Overview of the project:
My daughter was interested in making a tee shirt for summer. A beautiful knit just the color of a cantaloupe had come into Sawyer Brook and I knew she would like it. I looked through my patterns and came up with Kwik Sew 3056 for a short sleeve tee shirt.

Finding the right fit

I compared her chest measurement to the size chart on the back of the envelope and the size 14 looked like a good fit. BUT , , , I wanted to be sure since we were making an item of clothing. Normally when I buy something for her, I have her try it on in a fitting room but it's a little hard to do that with fabric and a tissue pattern. We decided to compare the pattern with one of her current favorite tee shirts. We laid out her favorite purple tee shirt on my sewing table. Then we laid out the front pattern piece on the tee shirt front. I matched up center fronts and the shoulders and we both could see that the Kwik Sew pattern was just a little bit larger than her purple shirt. The sizing was close enough that we decided it was okay and we could proceed with the chosen pattern.

Putting the pattern together:

We prewashed and dried the fabric and ironed it flat. Then we figured out which side was the right side. With this double knit it was a little tricky because both sides looked good. We cut it with the right side up and then marked the right side of each piece with a safety pin to remind us.

 Knits need to be sewn with some kind of stretch stitch  Rachel chose to use a zig zag stitch on the regular sewing machine. She cut a small piece of fabric and experimented with stitch size until she found one that she liked. She made a note that the seam allowance on this pattern was only 1/4 inch. That's a lot smaller than the usual 5/8 inch.

Stabilizing the shoulder seam

  The pattern instructions called for applying a small strip of fusible interfacing just along the seam allowance to stabilize the seam. This will keep the shoulder seams from stretching as you put the shirt on and take it off. We just used scraps of interfacing that we saved from the last project.

The layout

Her shirt went together really fast. There are only five pieces - a front, a back, two sleeves and a neck binding.

When it came time to finish the sleeve and shirt hems, I suggested to Rachel that she might want to consider double needle topstitching that is on many of the tee shirts in stores. I showed her a double needle and had her put it in the sewing machine. Then we wound an extra bobbin that we used as a second spool of thread since both needles need a separate thread source. She rethreaded the machine using both the spool of thread and the thread from the just wound bobbin. She threaded the needles with these threads. Then I had her practice stitching so she could see how the double needle stitching looked. I cautioned her to loosen the tension just a bit and sew slowly and carefully. If you have a free arm on your machine, try it when you hem the sleeves. The sleeve slides around the free arm nicely and you can keep concentrating on sewing your hem. The results were terrific! She loved the look of duplicating a hem that is found in many ready-to-wear garments.

Double Needle hem stitch for a professional look!

How we fit this into a really busy summer schedule: We took lots of small steps to make this work out. On day one we prewashed fabric, cleared out the sewing space and checked to make sure that the finished tee shirt would be a size similar to one Rachel already has. The actual sewing took place one afternoon, about three hours, including hemming.

Carole

Kwiksew Pattern #3056