Three bears T

There's a lot of self drafting going on out there and once again, inspired (manipulated) by what I read from other blogs, I thought I'd have a go too. Due to mega purchases from FabricMart (USA) where they either feel grateful to me or sorry for me (I don't know which) they send me "free" stuff. It's usually fabric I wouldn't purchase out of choice but it comes in very handy for test garments. One of the freebies was this rather thin, bright orange knit with a slight kink throughout the weave. I wouldn't wear it out in daylight but good to muck about with - nothing to lose really.

  Scorpioninblue drafted this sweatshirt (right) based on the image of Babe Paley. He aims to produce men's clothing with as few pieces as possible while still keeping them stylish and wearable.  As he says - I've always been fascinated by seamless garments and the way they contour to the body.  So much of men's clothing involves lots of construction and I'm trying to get away from that and create a more relaxed, easy look, while still maintaining that classic masculine edge. This one is for himself but I thought I'd try it out for me. I did e-mail asking for permission.

The sweatshirt is made from two pieces - sleeves and yoke cut on the fold at the neckline; the body, also cut on the fold, so only one straight seam placed at centre back. Looking carefully at Scorpion's pics, I came up with this draft. I measured from shoulder to mid-boob (I'm almost positive that they don't use that terminology in rue Cambon) for the front depth and just mucked about with the scoop for the neckline - making the front a little lower than the back. I also aimed for a bell shaped sleeve rather like the genuine Brittany fisherman's sweater.

The results were rather like the three bears:

first one was too big....

second one was too small......

but the third was just right.....

I used a navy and white striped jersey - pretty obvious really - and instead of colour blocking changed the direction of the stripes to show off those two pattern pieces.

You can just about see the centre back seam for the lower part of the T-shirt - the other other joining seam is around the bra-strap at back and mid-boob* at front. Elsewhere, the sleeves are sewn up with an inside arm seam, and a simple roll hem at neck edge, hem and wrist.

*Would someone please tell me the correct word for this measurement please!!

 The best thing about using this design is that there really is not much matching up of stripes required - just that centre back seam - and using jersey, you just stretch it to match as you sew. I like that when the arms are down the stripes are going horizontal - the same direction on sleeves and body.

But I couldn't do just one now could I?

I mean all that drafting and testing and three bears adventure, so made it again in red. This time I changed the direction of the stripes - horizontal across the yoke and sleeves and vertical on the body. And still the stripes on the sleeves match the body when the arms are down - wow - the mystery of stripes.

 They say vertical stripes are slimming while horizontal stripes widen - here's two direct comparisons - which is more slimming - up and down, or left to right?

Well another few tops to wear with the jeans stash and here worn with the most recent boyfriend jeans.

Thanks for reading. Ruth