Three White Tees

This week I made three white tee shirts.

Why? 

Because I could.

Actually, it was because I needed a white tee and I had 5 yards of white cotton spandex ($8 / yd at Knitfabric.com) and I am currently trying to sew from my stash.

What pattern to use?

Do I make a single tee or, because I am prone to stain things, multiple?

If multiple, one pattern or more?

I spent some time browsing my pattern library and decided on 3 different tees from different pattern companies.

The finalists were: the Green Tee from Greenstyle Patterns, the Orlando Tee from Seamwork and the Jessica Tee from Ellie and Mac (affiliate link).

I knew from experience that I would have to adjust each pattern to get a better fit and, since I am now using a projector to cut my patterns (instead of paper) I wanted to learn how to adjust projector files.

Two weeks later … I finally learned enough of inkscape and the idiosynchronicities of the three pattern companies to be able to adjust the patterns.

First up, the new Ellie and Mac Jessica Tee and Dress. I wanted to lengthen the pattern at the waist, dropping the waist 2 inches and, since Ellie and Mac design for a 5’5” person, I was not going to remove the extra length at the bottom.

Or not.

Turns out that lengthening this pattern requires a bit more learning.

Next, Greenstyle’s Green Tee. This required grading from one size at the bust to a larger size at the waist and then back down a size for the hips. This one went fairly easily mainly because there were fewer nodes in the Green Tee than on the Jessica. That gave me a hint as to what I had to do with the Jessica but first, the Orlando.

I made the Seamwork’s Orlando last year while taking Fitting 101 with Tomkat Stitchery. At the time I had sewn up a wearable muslin (and wore it all summer) so I was sure I knew what adjustments I needed to make. (Do you hear the universe laughing?)

After much fussing I figured it out and made the adjustments in inkscape. For the Orlando I needed to do adjustments similar to the Green Tee but with the addition of two inches of length at the bottom.

Finally I had enough experience to adjust the Jessica and did so.

On to the sewing.

It took me two weeks to reach this stage, it took me two hours to sew up all three tee shirts.

My feelings:

The Green Tee is fine as is. I might want to make it a little shorter but that can be done in the hemming.

The Orlando is a bit too tight in the bust so I want to size up there and leave the rest of the adjustments alone. 

The Jessica is too long. Next time I will keep the lengthening at the waist but then subtract the length from the bottom. Basically I should have graded the waist out to a point 2” below where it is on the pattern and then just gone from there.

Will I make any of these again? Yup. I like them all in different ways. The Orlando is a form fitting top whereas the Jessica and Green Tee have positive ease. The Jessica has more obvious shaping and I really like that. I will definitely be using the waist lengthening in my next iteration of Ellie and Mac’s breezy dress.

Now what to do with the remaining 2.5 yards of white tee shirt fabric?