T shirts : warning strange picture alert

Over the past week or so I have been making some experimental knit shirts. 

I needed some fast sewing due to the speed of life lately, and I was in the mood to fool around a bit with some patterns I had kicking around.

Worst case scenario I figured I would have something to walk the dog in. That's where I park my wadders.

I have a fairly large dog-walking wardrobe.

I also wanted to try out some new shapes, mainly the wider body dropped shoulder styles that have been sneaking back, to see if I liked them any better than in the last iteration twenty years ago.

So here we go.

My first try was this Stylearc top, which was my first ever colour blocking attempt, owing to the general policy of trying to be on trend when that trend was about to die.  

I am also still involved in my anti-black attitude and part of my motivation was to use less of the scary black print of haunted houses (yes you read that right) that I must have bought in New York at Elliot Berman when I must have been delusional and thought I was edgy when in fact I am live in the small suburb of a small city in a small, northern province where people wear Christmas sweaters at Christmas. Without any irony at all.

Here is the pattern I used:

I made the long sleeved version (see location above).

The shape kind of threw me because it is a current shape, that I have confirmed at Target and other high end stores is IN right now, meaning the body is boxy but the sleeves are themselves skinny as opposed to boxy. This is worth noting as this is a change from the last time boxy T shirts with dropped shoulders were in. In those days your dropped shoulders dropped into wide sleeves. Some men still wear T shirts like that and so do some women who wear their husband's T shirts.

I have seen this with my own eyes. Both cases.

To distance myself from the horror of having once paid more than my mind will let me remember for fabric with haunted houses on it, purchased without irony (see location above) I inserted in some turquoise knit that I have decided is more cheerful than black ( see current phobia above).

This is what that whole experiment looks like.

Excellent for dog-walking:

The first shot is to show you how wisely I have coordinated my bra strap to my skin and the second is to show you, but doesn't, that it is one of those longer at the back tops. A style that doesn't quite grab me since it reminds me of toddlers you are trying to catch and get dressed who run around with the tail of their onsie hanging down. I look I am not quite ready to emulate.

See what I mean about the drop shoulder transitioning into skinny sleeves with the underarm wrinkles that naturally gives?

( I also want to point out that I do not have a giant head and a tiny body - the opposite in fact - but it appears my husband had that lens on the camera for this photo shoot. It gets even better, keep reading).

Structurally the one interesting construction feature of this pattern is a tiny in-seam pocket in the seam between the two parts. This takes about the same amount of time to construct as 14 T shirts and I would like to point out is not entirely useful as it is only big enough for about one bus ticket, which you can hold in your hand anyway. If you really need a chest pocket, say for a packet of smokes, something I don't need, you might want to soldier on but you really should make the pocket bigger.

If I make this again I am going to leave the pocket out.

Moving along, and now to Vogue 8597

I made this top:

I used what turned out to be a fairly emotional fine rayon knit and I can see now that I need to go back in and redo something with the hem, the coverstitch seems to have tunnelled. 

The camera never lies and I often wished it did:

Again you will note the skinny arm thing going on and that lens is still on the camera and I seem to be standing on a deck at high seas.

At least my glasses match.

And on again to my third project of a busy week. No pattern shot because this is an out-of-print so long gone I can't even find it on the site. Vogue again. And cotton lycra and longer to go over leggings which I find is a good outfit to wear on home days when you are doing the laundry or out dog walking.

Here we go on vertical shot and one when the waves were really bad, but shows the purple colour more accurately:

Now off to dry land and off to walk the dog.

Now here's a DIY for the Canadian winter

Going to rush right down to the basement and try this one right now. I mean I don't know what I would do for laughs if I weren't alive. 

And BTW standby for T shirt reviews later today.