Variations on a Tee #7: Raglan T-Shirt Dress

BCBG Max Azria Pre-Fall 2013

Clio pinned the Max Azria on the left sometime last year and I immediately loved it.  She has shown her awesome raglan tee so I figured I should get around to showing mine (which I made several months ago--hence the three different sets of photos!).

Michael Kors, $1695

I dig the bare front cutout in the Max Azria, but for my real life sheer sleeves like the Michael Kors on the right are more doable.  I would not wear this dress to work, but it is the perfect LBD for winter parties.

The body fabric is a heavy poly/lycra knit I got on eBay several years ago from a seller that has, unfortunately, stopped selling (Uptown Fabrics High End Fabrics).  I bought it for yoga pants, and it is a really nice heavy weight for skimming over lumps and bumps.  I made a pair of yoga pants and a pair of hiking capris with it, and with mixed emotions used up the last of it for this dress.  I got the sleeve fabric, a rayon burnout in a sort of zebra print, at a DC area meetup fabric swap. 

Since I already have a perfect t-shirt pattern, I decided it would be easier to draft it into a raglan than the start with a raglan pattern and alter it.

House of Jo posted some great instructions for how to draft a raglan sleeve from a bodice block.  Visit the link for full details; here is a cursory overview of the process.



Start by marking the raglan line on your bodice.  Can you spot my stupid mistake here?  Yep, I only drew my line into the shoulder, rather than the actual neckline.  I got pretty far into the drafting process before I realized it.  I went back and did it right, but didn't take new pictures so these will have to suffice.  I used Kadiddlehopper's trick of using Frixion pens to make the markings on my pattern and just ironed them away when I was done.  Brilliant!  I've been using Frixion pens to mark my fabrics for a while, but it never occurred to me to use them on patterns.

Then you pin the bodice onto the sleeve, matching the notches, and matching the seamlines as well as you can.

Trace your bodice markings, including the dart at the top.  The dart is what gives the sleeve shape, and is the reason I wanted to use my TNT pattern.  I have narrow shoulders, and on commercial raglan patterns the "shoulder" extends far from my actual shoulder and creates an ugly bump.  The dart placement on my drafted pattern is absolutely perfect; it required no tweaking whatsoever.

From that point you remove the bodice pieces and trace the underarm curve of the sleeve and you've got yourself a pattern.  It's surprisingly easy once you untangle the instructions (my lack of spatial relations is painful for drafting purposes).


There was no magic to the construction here, it's just a simple t-shirt dress, but I did want to show how I do foldover elastic ("FOE") when I'm being fastidious.  First you cut the FOE to about 75%-90% of your neckline opening, on the lower end of the scale for loose weave fabrics with little recovery and the higher end for firmer knits with a lot of lycra.  I did about 90% for this fabric.

Stitch the ends of the FOE together, right sides together.  The key here is to clip the corners of the FOE in the seam allowance, as shown.  Otherwise, those ugly ends poke down below your stitch line.  I use fray-check on the cut ends, but I am paranoid.



Next it's a two-step process.  Zigzag the wrong side of the FOE to the wrong side of your neckline.  The white marking here is my center front; for my V-neck dress this was necessary for a later step.







For the next pass, I use my blind hem foot to stitch as close as possible to the edge of the elastic.  Stretch slightly as you sew, to make sure you have enough thread in the straight stitch.  I have not popped any stitching on FOE I've applied with a straight stitch on the second pass like this--but I generally go for deeper necklines, not higher crew necks.  Your results may vary if your neckline has to stretch a lot to go over your held.








Here is the second pass sewn on this dress.  You can see that it is rippling a bit at the V neck.  We're about to take care of that.










To make the V point, fold the FOE at the marked center front, and then stitch diagonally across it as shown by the white dots.  Press to one side and you have yourself a little V.










The impetus for this dress was a request from the boyfriend.  We were out to dinner one night and a girl walked by in an open back top like this one.  He had strong feelings about how much he didn't like it, which was kind of hilarious because he is *not* a fashionisto.

At any rate, the conversation somehow became him asking, "So, do you have one of those...black dress thingies?"  And I was like, "You mean a Little Black Dress?"  He wasn't familiar with the term as such, but it appeared that's what he was talking about.  I do have a couple (literally two) identical fitted knit dresses that I wear on our dates in the winter, but since I *never* wear black he had never gotten the full LBD effect. This was on my project list anyway so I bumped it to the top.  He was pleased with the results.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Raspberries and Cream Crochet Lace T-Shirt Dress

It's stash busting time!  PR's Fabric Stash contest started at midnight on Friday night (so, Saturday, June 1).  What better way to stash bust than to sew up double layer projects?  I have at least 3 planned.  This is the first, using my TNT tee pattern as I did for my striped sweaterdress.

Source: neimanmarcus.com via Trena on Pinterest

Lace is still hot!hot!hot! for summer.  I love that it is sticking around so long.  This one is Elie Tahari ($598), showing a contrast color underlayer.

Source: bhldn.com via Trena on Pinterest

Here's another one from BHLDN ($420), in a swingy A line shape.







I use the stash contest to try to use up older pieces that have survived multiple purges and yet still linger.  The lace is the elderly stashbusting here, I got it on the G Street $2.97/yd table over 4 years ago in 2009.  The underlayer is a mere two years old, an athletic knit I got from FFC in 2011.  It has a waffley texture and is fairly sheer, so it really wasn't good for much.  I made a top from it for my bike trip to the Netherlands, with a self-lined upper bodice, but it's just not that good.  The fabric doesn't stretch much and is fairly ugly.  However, it's the perfect underlayer for a summer dress!  It gives a pop of color to the otherwise bland lace, and will be nice and cool for hot days and nights.

I stayed up late and starting laying out my pattern and cutting at midnight.  I am more than a little proud of how completely plumb-accurate the motif of the lace falls at center front.  Not bad for the witching hour!

The back does not have the satisfying precision of the front with the CB seam, but it sits perfectly over the swayback.  I'd rather have the perfect fit than the perfect line, I think. I will go in and try to take out that weird bagginess below the butt, having seen the photo.




I sewed the CB, side, and shoulder seams of both layers, stabilizing the shoulder seams of the lace, and then went to bed.  I was beat and in no condition to tackle sleeves! For stabilization I used some stretchy jersey strips kindly sent to me by Yoshimi the Flying Squirrel. I usually use ribbon, but I thought it would be too stiff for my lace.





I added a little width to the side seams of my TNT as I was going for a shift shape rather than a skin-tight fit.  The hemline is *key* to wearing a shift.  Most of my skirts and dresses hover right around the knee, but this style must be fairly short or it is dowdy city.  I wish I'd thought to take a picture before I hemmed the underlayer, but even with just the lace layer you can see that this does my figure no favors at knee length.  Take off a few inches, and it becomes a thousand times more flattering.



To trim the lace to the proper length for the hem, I found it easiest to put the dress on the dress form inside out, and then trim the lace as it was hanging down below the hem of the underlayer.

I constructed the two layers separately, treating them as one at the armscye for setting in the sleeve and at the neckline.





To finish the neckline and sleeves I used foldover elastic.  I had some beige, but it was too dark, so I tea-dyed some white instead.

I steeped 2 tea bags in 1 cup of boiling water for 5 minutes, then removed the tea bags.  The first batch of elastic I dyed for 5 minutes and it came out way too dark!  The second batch I did for 1 minute, and it was the perfect match for my lace.  My FOE shrank during this, which was good to know because now I will pretreat all of it.








I did my usual method of applying FOE:  lay the wrong side of the FOE over the wrong side/inside of your edge, aligning your fabric edge juuuuust below the fold.  Zigzag.  Moving very quickly, because if your iron lingers it will melt the elastic, and press and steam the elastic at the fold over to the right side.  Use the blind hem foot and move the needle one click to the right, and topstitch on the right side.  My elastic didn't need to stretch, but if it does, you can stretch while sewing the topstitch, and/or use a slight zigzag to get more thread in there.











I decided against FOE for the hem, thinking that it would be too stiff.  When I first sewed elastic the width of the sleeves on the sleeve hems and ended up with sputnik arms, my suspicion was confirmed.



I sampled a couple different methods for finishing and decided to go with washaway stabilizer film, serging, turning under, and zigzagging.  Without the stabilizer, I couldn't get a really narrow turn under; I wanted it to be just the width of the serged edge.  It also made zigzagging the turned under hem a million times easier (though I still had to use the walking foot).  The washaway stabilizer does not like to be pressed, but I was able to use the iron--be sure to turn off the steam or you'll have a gummy mess on your hands!

After I stitched the hem I soaked it for 30 minutes and the stabilizer dissolved.  Do not try to skimp on time, because again--gummy mess.  I wouldn't do it in the washing machine either, at least not with other items.  I don't want the dissolved stabilizer stiffening the other things in the wash.

The only challenging part of this project (other than having to rip the elastic out of one of the sleeves THREE times; there was some bad language coming from the sewing room and this added about two hours to what should have been a fast and easy project), was remembering to change the settings on the serger when switching between the raspberry and lace layers.  For the lace, I used a short stitch length as I needed a lot of stitch density to create fabric in the air between motifs.  However, that much thread in the underlayer would have made the seams too stiff.  I also needed a lot more differential feed for the lace.




I am delighted to have these two pieces out of stash!  And I somehow found a project that used up all of each piece.  I am always having small amounts left of everything, just enough for a tank top or a pair of underwear or a hat or whatever thing I don't really want to make but "should."  The raspberry knit has only shreds remaining, and the lace is not enough for anything, not even a tank top.  Two yards down, another thousand or so to go...

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Variations on a Tee # 7: Half Spiral Sleeve

I am way behind in blogging.  I actually made this top in the nick of time for Jungle January!

The variation on this tee is that I used the sleeve from Burda 01-2013-119.  A while back on Pinterest I saw these Handmade by Carolyn spiral leggings.  I was fascinated, and loved the way they draped.  I vowed to use the idea for a sleeve eventually.  Well, lo and behold January's Burda arrived with the pattern already drafted for me.  I would still like to do a full spiral eventually, but I am in love with this sleeve.




The Burda pattern is a raglan sleeve tee, but it was very easy to transfer this feature to my set-in sleeve block.  I traced the sleeve head onto tissue, and then set the tissue on the Burda tracing sheet.  I lined up the underarm corners of the sleeve patterns, ignored the raglan sleeve head, and traced down the body of the sleeve.  The raglan sleeve was a bit wider than my set-in sleeve, so I just sort of centered my sleeve over the raglan pattern and blended.  The photos of this process were useless, because of the maze of Burda tracing sheets.

The sleeve was long for me, so I folded out 1 1/2 inches of length.  It was still pretty long and the next time I made it I shortened it a little more.

It is very hard to get a picture of your own arm.   Hopefully the photos give you some sense of what this looks like!



















The sleeve is easy to construct.

First, sew the gathered seam, starting it with a little dart.   I serged the seam first, then used the sewing machine to put the dart in the top.





Next, I gathered the seam using clear elastic.  I threaded the elastic through my buttonhole foot and then pulled is as taut as I could while stitching it over the seam.

That's it.  From here on out you treat the sleeve as you would any other.














This sweaterknit ($4.99/yd from Fabrics 4 Less in NYC last November) is lightweight and a little difficult to handle.  In order to turn up the hem with a minimum of drama, I fused a strip of knit interfacing to the hem allowance before turning it up.  Although the interfacing has some stretch, it doesn't stretch nearly as much as the fabric.  However, since the hem is the widest part of the top, the lack of stretch is not a problem.







I finished the neckline with foldover elastic.  I sewed the first pass using a zigzag, then folded the elastic over to the front.

I used the blind hem foot as a stitch guide, clicking the needle to the right to stitch juuuuust along the edge of the FOE.  The result is awesome!

I'm still working on the proper proportion of FOE to neckline.  1:1 results in a saggy neckline.  I think here I did it 80% as long as the neckline.  However, with my lightweight fabric it took a bit more than I wanted and raised the neckline to slightly higher than I would prefer.








This sleeve is just awesome.  I've always liked the look of ruched sleeves, but they can just be too much fabric.  This gives the look without the bulk.  There is not a big bunch of gathering at the wrist to get dragged through dishwater, and it doesn't do weird things under a coat.  I've used it on another tee since and am sure it will show up for years to come!


Have I mentioned in the last five minutes how much I *love* having a TNT tee that will be the perfect fit and the perfect length right off the tissue?  Love.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.





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You know how hard it is to find time to sew after work and taking care of everything else?  So does The Onion.  The linked article is uncomfortably dead-on, in the most amusing kind of way (disclaimer:  I actually like my job).

I have been feeling really pressed for time lately, and I really don't know why.  I've been getting more responsibility at work, but it hasn't required me to work extra hours.  I do spend a lot more time *thinking* about work outside of work.  Nothing else has changed.  It's not clear why this change is causing me to feel the strain.  At any rate, it has been affecting my blogging and I apologize for being a bit scarce lately.  I'm not going to pressure myself to "produce"--this is my hobby!  So I will probably continue to be scarce for a while and hopefully will eventually get over whatever this is.  I've still been sewing a lot and have a large backlog of projects to share.

Variations on a Tee #6: Classic T-Shirt Dress

Here is a recent project using my TNT t-shirt pattern (I just extended it from the lower edge); the pattern started life as a Burda, but has been extensively altered to fit me.  I bought this wonderful striped wool jersey in NYC a couple years ago for $10/yd.  I bought it to become a sweater, because I am perpetually undersupplied on winter tops.  But the problem is I like dresses more than separates!  So when I realized that I could get a dress out of this 1 1/2 yards (the fabric was incredibly wide), well there went the sweater idea.

Source: farfetch.com via Trena on Pinterest

I put myself in Rossio in Lisbon (the backdrop is a picture I took on my trip).  A much more exotic location than my bedroom where the photos were actually taken.

Stripes have been in style for several seasons now, so I am actually trendy for once.  This wool sweaterdress by Rag and Bone is $350.  It makes my semi-splurgey $10/yd wool ($15 for the 1.5 yard dress, plus a negligible amount of thread and elastic) certainly look like a bargain.




For some reason, whenever I am cutting stripes and plaids it just can't be easy.  Either the fabric is printed slightly off grain, or you can't see the stripes/plaid from the wrong side, or something annoying.  Finally with this project, cutting was easy!  The stripes are woven in, so they are on-grain and clearly visible on both sides of the fabric.  For the back, I cut one layer, then flipped it over, lining up the stripes, and cut the other layer.  For the front and back, and was able to cut them side by side, lined up along the same stripe.  I even managed, for the first time ever, some degree of stripe matching at the sleeves.  It was very exciting.








For some reason the photos for this project are blurry, sorry about that.

At any rate, all the careful cutting in the world doesn't help if you don't do careful sewing.  I matched up the stripes and then pinned on every black stripe, as you can see at right.  I used the walking foot to ensure I didn't distort the fabric in sewing.

The end result is amazingly perfect.  I can't tell you how proud I am of these perfectly matched stripes!
















To finish the neckline I serged clear elastic to the wrong side (stretching the elastic the barest amount possible--the lowest setting on my elasticator foot is too much gathering so I did it with the regular foot), then folded the fabric over the edge of the elastic and topstitched with a twin needle.  It creates a nice, non-distracting finish.


The one sewn item of which I have actually been in need this winter is a slim hat that I can wear under my helmet for the bike commute. 

I had been shoving my velveteen beret under the helmet, but it made the helmet way too small and the strap too tight under my chin and the front was always threatening to droop over my eyes and my ears weren't quite covered.  And yet I lived with this for months!

With this project, I had enough fabric left over to make a beanie.  I drafted a pattern based on this one (I would have used it, but I don't have a printer!).  I made the hat extra long so I could have a deep enough hem for two layers of fabric on my ears and I put an elastic casing in the lower edge so the hat always stays over my ears.  It was super easy and fits under my helmet 1000 times better than my velveteen beret.  My ears have not been cold since!  (I made this in early January.)

I don't think I'll be wearing them together, however.  Although maybe I will start a new trend?  I feel like this totally could have been a thing in the 80s, but even with the endless 80s revival it's all in an ironic sort of way, not the true exuberance of the 80s, when a matching hat and dress would have been the ultimate in cool.



I have been having trouble with skirt length lately.  For a long time, I hemmed skirts right at the knee, but it isn't the most flattering length.  I have a hard time knowing how high above the knee to go that is both flattering and professional.  I hemmed this one pretty short, and haven't worn it to work.  While in the throes of this, I ran across an interesting image/article on skirt length for women--it's not fashion advice, it's about the impossible position women are put in to somehow find the perfect, non-existent line between "sexy" and "slutty."  

I started working on this on a Saturday. I had a party to go to that night and didn't even have a thought about finishing on time.  And yet, even with the stripe matching, this only took 3 hours from start to finish!  My perfectly engineered t-shirt pattern made fitting a cinch.  I blinged it up by pinning a bunch of brooches to a chain and wore a wide belt.  I felt tres chic!

All photos are here.

Variations on a Tee # 5: Lace Tee with Contrast Shoulder

Source: shop.nordstrom.com via Trena on Pinterest

I found this stretch lace on the $2.97/yd table at G Street Fabrics a while back and had been puzzling over what to make it into.  With lace being in style right now I wanted to make it up fairly quickly, but the somewhat blah color and the fact that it would either have to be lined or worn with a camisole was cramping my creativity.

Enter Burda 09-2012-123  with its contrast shoulder and the fact that I had this silk charmeuse in an exactly matching color and voila!  Perfect long top to go with my jeggings.  I got this made in my pre-vacation sewing.  The photos were taken on Mt. Penha in Guimaraes, Portugal.

The contrast shoulder is a nice way to dress up a plain tee, as in this Classiques Entier® 'Pezza' Leather Trim Ponte Top, $168.





I used the Burda pattern as a guide to mark the contrast shoulder on my TNT tee pattern.  I pinned the front and back pattern together along the stitching line at the shoulder, and then drafted the shoulder inset as a single piece.







To cut the body of the tee shirt, I just folded down at my marking and added seam allowance.













I wanted to make the tee long to be worn with the jeggings, but I liked the idea of an adjustable length with ruched sides, rather than just gathering the side seam and permanently fixing the length. I cut a rectangle of fabric the length I wanted, and 2 1/2 inches wide. I marked down the center of the fabric, as this line would be stitched for a channel. I started by sewing the marked center channel line down, starting from about 1 inch from the top and folding under the seam allowance at the bottom.






Then I turned under the seam allowances on the top and the long sides and stitched down the long sides. Be sure to leave the top open at this point so you can put in your drawstring! Once the drawstring is in, stitch along the top, being careful not to catch the drawstring.












The Burda is drafted with a keyhole neckline and tie in the back. Since my TNT pattern has a center back seam anyway, I decided to keep that detail. I started by finishing the keyhole, then moving on to the neckline.


I made bias tape from my contrast silk charmeuse and first sewed it to the inside of the neckline, right side of the bias tape against wrong side of the fabric. The bias tape extended at the end to form the tie.




Then I folded the bias tape over to the right side, pinned, and stitched. I did a *ton* of pressing on the neckline and it still doesn't sit quite right. Maybe I didn't cut my strip exactly on the bias? Regardless, it's something that I think only I will notice.












The back keyhole is a nice little touch, and helps bring the contrast silk more into the tee.



To add a little more interest to this top, I used the sleeve from Butterick 5562, the short sleeve from View A, which is much nicer than the similar but not identical long sleeve from View B.

This was a fun use of my stretch lace, and I thought it made a nice travel piece.  It is cute and trendy, and--most important--doesn't look like work clothes!  If I find the right combination of fabrics I can definitely see making another of these contrast shoulder tees, though probably without the keyhole and the fancy sleeve.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.