T-shirts: a comparison study

Bindings

You will see in these pictures that I have succesfully used the binder that came with my coverstitch machine.  This first shirt is a cotton lycra blend.  It must have shrunk terribly in its prewash as I could only just scrape out a t-shirt from the 1m I bought. There is some puckering on one side of the neckband...this is where a seam in the binding got caught in the binder.  I guess binding seams are to be avoided.

This next shirt was a little more challenging to bind.  The fabric was a cotton blend.  I'm not sure was the blend is, but it is pretty warm to wear and the wrinkle is permanent / intentional.  The fabric wanted to curl out as it was binding.  Starching didn't help much.  I did have to unpick a section and redo, but the final result is okay.

The next shirt was a viscose fabric which also had a tendency to curl.  I decided to cut the binding on the grain to see if this helped and it did.  I had this shirt practically made in 45 mins.  Only the hems to go.  That's when I came a cropper.  I didn't test the hems beforehand, as I hadn't had a hem fail yet, but this one didn't want to hem.  The threads got cuaght and left holes in the fabric.  I turned the tensions really low and the looper tension was zero and it still seemed too tight.  I have been using fluffy thread in the loopers but I am wondering if I should switch to regualr thread for fine knits?  Another hour later I was finally finished, although this hour did include repairing a toy helicopter that was flown into a ceiling fan.

Style Arc

Whilst I was practising knits, I thought I would test out a few patterns.  The red shirt is the Style Arc Lisa top (although I rounded off the v neck).  I have heard good things about Style Arc and wanted to try one of their patterns.  None of their patterns holds much appeal for me...different tastes I guess...so I went for a fairly plain style.

I don't really like this pattern very much.  The shoulder area seems too boxy.  The sleeves were symmetrical, which don't really suit my forward shoulders, and result in excess fabric in the lat area (ignore all those back waist wrinkles...I do need to widen more at the hips...just in denial!)


Camilla & Marc

At this stage, I remembered a shirt that I had saved off the front of a magazine.  Freebies always sway my magazine reading, as I pretend it justifies such frivolous expenditure.  Most of the makeup in my bathroom came as free samples!  One magazine came with a Camilla & Marc t-shirt.  It did say "One Size Fits Most", but I think what they meant was "One Size Fits Most People Who Wear a Size 10".  It wasn't made in a very stretchy fabric, so it did not accomodate my hips, but I kept it anyway and cut it up to make a pattern, just to see if there was any difference between a designer t-shirt and every other t-shirt.

I used it to sew up both the black stripy knit and the blue stripy knit.

Now I love me a little flat pattern comparison, so I laid the Camilla & Marc shirt on top of the Style Arc pattern.  In these next photos, the Style Arc pattern is at the back, the Camilla & Mark t-shirt is lain over the top on one side and a Jalie pattern is sitting on top on the other side.

 If you look closely, you can see that the upper part of the front armscye, near the should joint, differs significantly between the patterns.  The Camilla and Marc shirt is vertical in this region, sliding up inside the shoulder joint rather than veering out to the should bone.    The Jalie shoulder length is shorter than the Style Arc shoulder length.

 It is similar on the back.  I usually raise the Jalie shoulder a little.

I wondered what this would mean for the sleeve.  The Camilla & Marc sleeve is not symmetrical, though I am wondering if it is back to front in this photo because I thought the back armscye was longer than the front, and it seems opposite in this photo.

The Jalie sleeves is symmetrical.

Jalie

Here are the photos of the Jalie pattern, made up last year.

 It is a closer fitting shirt.  You can see that one of my shoulders is bigger than the other. 

 Same problem as Style Arc with excess fabric resulting from a symmetrical sleeve, though not as pronounced.

 A bit tight under the arms?

Ottobre

Of course, I couldn't stop there.  I was having too much fun.  Turns out I have quite a collection of capped sleeve t-shirt patterns.  Here is one that I fiddled with in 2007, based on an Ottobre pattern.

 The sleeves are too tight.  I don't wear this shirt much.  I have kept it because it is so groovy, but don't wear it much as it feels a little restrictive.  looking at these photos, I can see why!

 No excess fabric at the back of the sleeve though.

This pattern is shown on top, RHS in the photos below.

 It is narrower across the front than the Style Arc.

 The back shoulder length does not seem much shorter than the Style Arc, but this length incorporates a 6 mm dart and is eased onto the front shoulder length.  It is a smidge narrower across the back.

I don't remember if the original sleeve pattern was symmetrical or not, but I don't think so.  I did alter it for a square shoulder.  You can see clearly in this photo that the sleeve does not have as much room as the other patterns.

Self-drafted

Lucky last, photos of a t-shirt pattern that I drafted using Keith Richardson's book.  I forgot to take photos of the pattern, but I do remember that the back shoulder length incorporated a 6 mm dart, the armscye was higher than the other patterns and the bottom of the armscye was more squared off.  The sleeve was symmetrical, but the front and back armscye lengths were a little different and the sleeve stretched a little to fit.

When I wear this shirt the neckline does do weird things...sort of gapes even though it is a fitted shirt.  Looks like a need a little more ease through the bust though, which might help this.

Trying to make sense of all these photos and patterns...I did draw up a table.

	Style Arc	Camilla & Mark copy	Jalie	Ottobre based (fitting modifications)	Self Drafted (Keith Richardson)
Front Shoulder	Longest	Cut in	Similar to Style Arc, bit shorter	Cut narrower than Style Arc
Back Shoulder	Longest	Cut in	Cut in	Incorporates a dart	Incorporates a dart
Armscye	Moderate armhole depth, more width across chest and back	Lower armhole	Higher armhole,	Moderate depth, slightly narrower across back, much narrower across chest	Highest, squared off shape at bottom of armscye
Sleeve	symmetrical	Longer back	symmetrical	Longer back, steeper front	Longer back, steeper front

Notes:

Front shoulder:  prefer shorter shoulder length, to hug the shoulder joint a little more
Back shoulder:  either shorter length or can incorporate a back dart, easing onto front shoulder
Chest width:  narrow is better
Back width:   All seem okay, except Style Arc is too wide
Armscye Depth:  Use higher armscye for fitted tops (Jalie, self-drafted), use lower for more casual (C&M)
Sleeve shape:  prefer not symmetrical.  Ottobre sleeve is too tight.

Not sure what to do with all these thoughts now.  Obviously, the best thing would be to draft a perfect pattern and test it out.  But I am out of suitable t-shirt fabric for the moment and have moved onto different knit patterns...another circle of completion not quite complete