Simply Sewing

Fabric of the Day Knit Shirt

Every day the employees at the fabric store where I teach select a bolt of fabric to display as their "fabric of the day". Their selections are usually quite lovely and too often I can't resist buying a piece. One such purchase was this lovely medium weight cotton blend knit in a charcoal and off white zebra-ish print.

I will admit my experience sewing with knits is limited. I don't have a serger machine and until I am convinced knits are for me, I won't spend the money to buy a good one. But, its hard to resist some of the beautiful knit fabrics that are on the market. The few projects I have made have turned out well and given their popularity I am determined to master sewing with knits.

When making any garment for myself, fit is a huge issue. I always have to make numerous adjustments to any pattern to get the fit just right. When sewing with knits this becomes my first priority. I will not put a machine stitch into a knit garment until I get the fit right. The last thing I want to do is to have to remove or undo a seam that has been zigzagged or overcast. Those types of seams are a pain to remove, not to mention you risk puncturing a hole in the knit with the seam ripper. So, I hand baste my knit garments together first and adjust until the fit is right. Once that's done, stitching the knits garments together are indeed a breeze.

This was a fairly easy garment to make once I got the fit right. For this garment I needed a size smaller than what I cut, so I needed to take all the seams in quite a bit. I also repositioned the seam at the bustline so it was below rather than on top of the bustline. I also added 2 very small darts right under the bust to give the garment some form and a slightly tighter shape. Without the darts it looked too much like a maternity top.

As I said, I don't have a serger, so all of the seams were sewn with a small zigzag stitch. To finish the seam edges, I used a lock cutter that attaches to my machine. It both trims and finishes the seam edges with zigzag stitching.