Mom's Perfect Fit Shirt

My mom came to visit us in August, since Littleheart's daycare went on a two week break. It was great, we had such a nice time, and of course it went by way too fast. My dad also came for a long weekend, here is a picture we all took at the port in Tel Aviv.

(by the way the dress Littleheart is wearing is from this lovely tutorial).

When my mom arrived, she showed me some of the things she bought in the States when she went to visit my grandfather. She pointed out one of the shirts, and said it was the perfect fit for her, she just loves it! So I said, hey, let's make you a couple more!

I traced the shirt to make the pattern, and I have made it available for you here (seam allowance not included). It is size large/extra large. (Make sure when you print your page scaling is set to "none". Otherwise your printer will shrink the pattern.)

In the end it was actually a really easy shirt to sew. I made my mom two, and she was really happy.

Here is how you can make the perfect fit shirt!

What you will need:

The pattern (size L-XL) 

2 yards of lightweight, knit fabric

Cutting:

Cut a front piece and a back piece on the fold from you knit fabric. Cut two sleeves on the fold. Cut a neck band, 28" by 2.5". If you are using striped knit fabric that stretches in both directions you can cut the neckband with the stripes going in the opposite direction to the shirt. I think this makes the neck look really pretty.

Sewing:

1. Sew the shoulder seams

2. Now sew in your neck band (using 1/4 " seam allowance):

 With right sides together, sew the neckband together forming a loop. 

Fold the loop in half (wrong sides together) and press. Pin your neckband (raw sides together) to your neck, stretching the band (and not the neck) as you go along.

Start stitching your neckband to your shirt, using a stretch stitch. Top stitch around the neck using a stretch stitch.

3. Fold over the straight side of your sleeves 1/4 of an inch and then again. Stitch down. If you want to make a lettuce edge sleeve (like I did on the blue and white shirt) then skip this part for now.

4. Gather the round part of the sleeves with a gathering stitch. Set in the sleeves and sew.

5. Sew the side seams starting at the sleeve and sewing all the way down the side. 

6. If you folded over the straight side of the sleeve skip the following: Make a lettuce hem sleeve using this tutorial.

7. Hem the bottom. You actually have two steps to this because your hem has that point on the side.

First pin and hem the triangle under the side seams.

Then hem the rest, when you get to the points, fold the side hem under.

That was fast, wasn't it?

Hope it fits you as well as it fits my mom!

I will be linking up to some of the link parties on this page .