20 March, 2010

A trio of tees: les Jalies sont jolis!

Les très jolis patrons Jalies arrived last night, and I practically leapt on them. Was I surprised? you bet. LARGE format, printed on HEAVY white stock. Realizing I could easily use this pattern for tees for my very own pre-teen très joli garçon, I didn't cut, but instead TRACED my size (V, per my bounteous charms, though my waistline is 3 sizes smaller). The pattern offers four neckline versions: crew, turtleneck, vee, and "Klondike Gold Rush Underwear", ie. a curved Vee with a placket & buttons. Whatever.

After cutting out all the parts for the first version - intended to be the basic long-sleeve crew, by way of a muslin test of the to-spec draft - I nearly had a conniption. Dammit! Whoever arranges the icons on these patterns at Jalie should be summarily FIRED!!!! I mean, honestly - if you saw this:



and this:



and THIS:



you would, wouldn't you, expect that the garment icon refers to the pattern piece that surrounds it, right? Well, nyah-nyah, it does NOT. Idjits!!!


ETA. Example: the two icons on this pattern piece made me believe I was drafting a crew neck. But this piece is for the Vee neckline; the crew pattern piece (views A and B) has the Klondike neckline icon on it. This confusion makes it very easy to err, and err I did.  As a consequence, my tees are all V-neck. No biggie. I like v-necks, but I HATE being made a fool of by some flunkie who seems to think it's too much effort to make sewing a seamless ;) pleasure for the employer's customers.  If you want to get it right the first & every time, just follow the text designations (highlighted in green) and refer to the envelope for what views A, B, C, and D actually look like.

Moving right along. After laundering and drying on HOT, I have three sub-meter lengths of rayon knit from Fabricland, acquired last fall with the idea of eventual tank tops in mind. But you know me, I'm the stingy cutter, right?

First iteration:
I folded both selvedges towards centre, and PIECED (yes I was DETERMINED to make that full muslin out of what I had) one of the sleeves. The left sleeve is vertically bisected by a full length seam - not that you'd ever notice it, with that design!


That scrap of fabric in my hand, you ask? that's my Moebius scarf, out of the scraps. It plays two ways.

Cowl neck:



and, doubled up, "free turtleneck":



I have a long neck that gets easily c-c-c-c-c-cold, so I LOVE to wrap it. That's why I always try to arrange my pattern pieces so that the scraps can be folded into a scarf.

Second iteration:
I placed the vertical seam on centre back. Both sleeves are seamless this time. There's some misprinting weirdness going on near one of the selvedges which I obviously didn't notice 'till after the item was seamed and cut, but this is my spring gardening tee and my hostas won't care.



Front:



And the warm-up-me-neckie look again:



Hmmm, I did say three tees, didn't I? Buh-but, the two above give five looks! Oh OK, I have five, yes FIVE more lengths of knit, seven total, one for every day of the week, and two are already pre-washed & will be turned into some sort of tee by the end of the day but it'll be no-outdoor-photos-pitch-black by then and you're already bored, aren't you, and anyway, it's dinner time over here.

4 comments:

  1. Like I said on my blog today, you are clearly never at a loss for projects! Nice Ts, strange that Jalie messed up with the printing; it's not like them. The fit looks perfect.

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  2. Fabulous! Yes, that weird printing thing messed with my head, too. What was it about?? I love Jalie enough to forgive them. Anyway, the v necks look great!

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  3. Great tops! And just in time for spring.

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  4. LOvely looking tee's. Great idea with the scarf/cowl/turtle neck piece :)

    I don't know if it's because I'm really tired right now but I am totally missing what you are saying about the pattern not working out. I know I'll regret I asked when it jumps at me tomorrow, but what is it that got messed up? :} Thanks

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