Oh, Those Nifty Knits!

Learning to sew has been a series of discoveries for me. I have discovered that you don’t have to have a certain “type” of personality to want to sew. I have discovered that in some ways it is not nearly as hard as it looks and in others, it’s outrageously frustrating. I have discovered that the general “non-sewing” public does not have any idea the value of a seam ripper! With each new project, new discoveries await and that is why I am hooked!

I still do plenty of things wrong while experimenting and learning but I know I did these two things right at the outset:

• I enlisted the help and advice of my sister-in-law, sewing expert. She is amazing. Seriously, if you have one of those in your life (this goes for anything you are trying to learn), ask for help. Nothing can take the place of just being able to call a real person and ask a question, or get their feedback on a project you are working on.
• I devoured YouTube videos. Imagine the darkness of my trailer in the middle of the night with one insanely bright glowing screen, the audio set to just one notch above mute and me hunched over to hear and watch someone else showing me how to do a project I may not even attempt for a year. I’m pretty sure if it’s on YouTube and it’s related to sewing, I’ve watched it.

That brings me to today’s project. This lady inspires me. Really. I have learned so much just from watching her videos. They are clear and concise. She makes every effort not to make assumptions about the level of the viewer, but still somehow manages to move her tutorials along without that feeling of what I will call, “beginner drag.”

For today’s discovery, I will be attempting to sew with knit fabric for the first time, and making my daughter a cute tank top for the upcoming warm weather. Enter: The Crafty Gemini. You can find her tutorial here. Or peruse her Youtube channel here (proceed with caution: you will not get much else done today).

I am not going to go through all the steps because if you wanted to follow the tutorial, you would be better off just following hers, but here you have it:

Using one of her favorite T’s, I made a pattern. I didn’t have poster board, so construction paper would have to do.

I also didn’t have fabric weights (note to self – get or make fabric weights) so this was tricky, but a little patience, and here are my back and front.

Here comes the binding!

Adding the knit binding was definitely the most challenging part for me but by the second arm hole I was feeling more confident.

Are you getting excited? I am!

Ta da!!!! It’s by no means perfect but it’s a great play top and just right for today’s weather!

One thing to note: When following tutorials online, always check out the comments. You find out even more about the project you’re doing most of the time. In this case, someone commented that they would have added a seam allowance even to the neck and arm holes. I decided to go with the original way that the Crafty Gemini had it – without the seam allowance, and I do see that the holes came out bigger than the original shirt, as the commenter suggested they would.

Guess what!  I have plenty of knit fabric to do a pair of shorts to match! Thanks Crafty Gemini! You are an inspiration!

What do those of you more experience seamstresses have to say about that? Seam allowance even on the parts where you are just adding binding, or no?