Here is another pattern I purchased at Fancy Tiger Crafts in Denver, the Union St. Tee by Hey June.  This is a downloadable pattern from Indie Sew.

While I know there are a ton of “tee shirt” patterns available, I have not had great luck with them.  Some were overly complicated, others fit like a potato sack.  I have been looking everywhere for a great basic tee … and  (trumpets, please!!) I FINALLY FOUND IT.

The downside to downloadable patterns is the prep time and mess, but this was totally worth it.   I traced off a small in most places, except the bust.  Here I added about 1/2″ to each side of the underarm and similarly added the same amount to the sleeve.

I made 5 V-neck tee shirts from scrap fabric (under 1 yd each), in about 20 min each.  Once I figured out a method to maximize the results, I may have been down to 10 min/shirt (sewing time). Cutting time is similarly quick with a rotary cutter (5 min).  There are literally only about 4 major seams and three coverstitched hems.  I do need to credit my Babylock Ovation for the quickness of this effort, as well.  It auto tensions and effortless sews anything.

Steps

  1. sew the collar “v” together with a regular sewing maching
  2. sew the shoulders of the tee with the serger
  3. baste the point of the “v” collar in place with your sewing machine
  4. starting at one side of the “v”, serge around the neckline
  5. serge the sleeves in flat
  6. serge the side seams
  7. Convert to coverstitch and stitch the sleeve hems & shirt hem.
  8. DONE! (REALLY)

I made 5, but my sister took one before I could photograph it.  I’ve gotten tons of wear out of these already.  You can see a photo of the pink tee on me in this post.

I liked this pattern so much, I made five (four pictured)

I liked this pattern so much, I made five (four pictured)

The striped one and graffiti ones were a scraps from other projects (the graffiti was used for a BWOF project here).  The stripes a lovely rayon viscose and the graffiti is a mesh, both from EOS.  The other three were cute burnout knits that I found in the Red Tag section and picked up for about $2.5o (after discounts, sales, coupons, etc) for one yard, or were remnants.  One in a batik burnout, on in a pink floral burnout, and the one not pictured was a camo burnout.  I pick up knit scraps whenever they are super cheap b/c a little bit can go a long way.  The EOS tops were probably about $10 in materials each, while the JoAnn’s tops were likely less than $3 in materials.  5 tops, about $30 total in materials.

Not bad.