FO: Sailor Top Stash Bust

You can't get much better than a simple stripey tee.  Easy to wear with some many things, bright and simple.  I love my striped shirts but have been lacking a short sleeved version for summer. And  sometimes it is good to have a quick project with simple straight seams and a satisfyingly fast end product.

Lovely Jessica sent me a piece of striped jersey last year.  It has a nice weight to it.  I love striped fabric (told you that already haven't I?) and I was delighted to receive it.  I'd thought of many ways to sew it but couldn't decide.  But I am trying to sew up my stash and the fact that I had this nice jersey unused was really starting to bug me.

 Finally I settled on Marilla Walker 's Sailor top. I liked Marilla's versions, especially the dress version but wasn't sure.  Then I was finally swayed by Helen of grosgraingreen's version. 

The pattern is a free pdf.  It is square shaped with a clever diamond gusset in the shoulders. The basic square shape reminds me  of sewing simple tops for dolls! I mean that in a nice way.

  It was easy to put together. I cut and stitched it in one evening while everyone else watched a film.  Snip, snip, sew, sew.
  I just managed to squeeze front, back and sleeves from my jersey piece. I didn't have enough striped fabric for the gussets so I used left over red rib from this dress.  I love  the little bright peep of red.  I also used some red ribbon to stabilise the neck on the inside.  

The final top is great for our on off summer. It's on a constant wearwash rotation at the moment. And just this morning I saw Jenna's Sailor top!  Now I feel a bit of serendipityis  in the air.  

Photo opp stolen by RG  

Trying to show the gusset

So, if you want a simple quick sew tee and like a blocky simple shape, I recommend you try the Sailor tee.  It's great for using up a small piece of jersey.

I wanted to use up some of my fabric scraps. I pulled out the remnants of my stripey cotton jersey fabric that I made my nautical top from and I found I was just able to squeeze this sleeveless top from the fabric. It wasn't quite long enough so I made a band with the stripes going vertically and put that round the bottom. I used the t shirt pattern from Sew U Home Stretch as a basis and cut the front neck slightly more scooped. I really like this top as I can wear it underneath so many things - I have found the weather is a bit too warm for the long sleeved stripey t shirt at the moment. Then Barbie got a new dress from the scraps.

Tres chic Barbie.

Then, later the same day we found a bag of doll clothes in the charity shop, for what I call "baby dolls". We have two of these dolls and they sadly share one grubby outfit between them. Until now.... the bag proved to be full of jackets and trousers so I got the stripey scraps out of the bin and made one more stripey t shirt. So here is (the very originally named) Baby Doll in his new shirt and trousers. He looks a bit camp, reminding me of Jean Paul Gaultier ads. I am a new convert to making doll's clothes - it is so quick and gives a high satistfaction:effort ratio.

So there really is nothing left of the stripey fabric now (stash busted).