Recently I came across the Butterfly Sleeve Tunic tutorial at Make It Love It, and knew it was something I needed to try.
I found some great striped knit fabric on clearance at JoAnn that both my girls would like.
And fast forward a few weeks to today…
It’s a cold wet weekend here in Alabama (as opposed to last weekend’s bright sunny 70-80 degree weather), so what is there to do but hole up in the house in your pj’s all weekend and work on projects (and maybe some laundry and other chores in between)?
Out came the fabric and pattern tracing supplies and not long after, came this cute little top.
I will admit, it turned out much better than I thought it would.
First of all, I was not sure how well I would do working with both knit fabric AND stripes. I mean, knit is great and all, but it’s not the easiest to sew with since it’s so flimsy (especially this one) and it’s hard to move around and get things straightened up just right. It takes a lot of patience to get it just right. Also, with stripes you kind of have to cut your fabric just right and line everything up exactly to make sure that your stripes match up – which can be a big problem based off of the things I just said about knit fabric. 🙂
I surprisingly didn’t have a big problem with the stripes on this top – I was able to line up the stripes on the shoulders just fine. And even though the stripes don’t line up front and back correctly, it’s not a major problem since there aren’t really any side seams. You simply cannot tell unless you look really really hard. And let’s face it, it’s a child’s top – and said child is really usually pretty fast and running around all over, so who is going to look that closely to see if the lines match up?
My biggest problem was doing the hem around the entire edge. My machine gathered my fabric when I did the basting stitch (I couldn’t change the setting so that it wouldn’t gather – nothing seemed to work). Then when folding up around the curved edges, it kept looking pretty weird and didn’t look perfect like it should have.
I just did what I could and went with it. Again, it’s being worn by a pretty quick preschooler… who cares about the corners?
I debated whether or not to put the elastic around the middle to gather, and settled on doing it only on the front of the shirt. It looks good enough to give some definition and shape but keeps it from being uncomfortable and too tight.
Overall, I am pleased with how this top came out. Looks like it’s a bit big in the neckline – but that’s OK. It just means that it will last awhile. For now, I’ll probably make her put on a tank top underneath if she wears it out of the house, but as she grows then it should still fit just fine.
Little SQ seems quite happy with it as well. She told me she wanted to wear it all day, which is about as good as it gets 🙂
Malea Walliser 