Spring (autumn) top

This week I made a great little t-shirt that I am so impressed with I have decided to enter it into the Made by Rae Spring sewing top competition. Obviously, here in the southern hemisphere we are now entering autumn, but its still nice and warm here in Sunny Perth and I will get lots of wear out of this t-shirt.  

It all started out with this piece of fabric. About a month ago I happened drive past a fabric store that don't normally get a chance to visit, so I popped in. Right inside the door was a bolt of knit fabric featuring an over sized photographic print of a 1960's street scape. To get the perspective right for you I have left my toes in the photo. I bought a 1m cut of fabric, and it is 150cm wide off the bolt.

At first I didn't want to hack into the print- so I made it up into a simple long-line tube skirt. No pics I'm afraid as it just looked terrible! In disgust I threw it into the corner of the sewing room and got on with some quilting instead.

 Mean while, over the last couple of months, I have also been working on a t-shirt design based on something I had in my wardrobe. Its a raglan shirt, with a open neckline and loose A-line bodice. At the time of the tube skirt disaster I had got to the point of making a couple up in cheap fabric, tweaking things a little and was just about ready to cut into some good stuff.

So I took a deep breath... dusted off the photographic print and cut it up. I used some black lycra for the sleeves and a bit of left over photographic print for the neck binding. My coverstitch machine made quick work of the hems.

I really wanted these girls on the front. It was hard to get the placement right so that the low neckline didn't cut off their heads!

I put this dashing gentleman on the back.

I really love the shape of this t-shirt, and I think it has worked fantastically well with the bold photographic print.