I’ve always been a bit afraid of sewing knit, or stretch, fabrics. However, I now have a 1 year subscription to the Ottobre magazine, and many of their patterns are for knit fabrics. I got all enthusiastic about sewing after making the overalls for Nathan, so I decided to buy some knit fabric. Unfortunately all the cotton (or mostly cotton) fabrics I could find in shops was thin and I got discouraged, but I have found an online shop that sells nice quality fabric. I decided to lash out and buy some of it, and it really is lovely. But now I don’t want to waste the ‘good’ fabric on my first attempts at sewing with a knit. So, I headed back to Spotlight and came away with a metre of a solid red and a metre of a red and white print (red elephants and spotty red giraffes on white background). The red is reasonably thick, the the print is very thin. I decided to make a tshirt for Nathan with it.
To be honest, I don’t know what I was afraid of. I think my first attempt at sewing with knits worked out quite well! I did use a double needle for stitching the neck binding and the hems on the sleeves and bottom of the t-shirt that I made. It was ok on the thicker neck binding and sleeve hems, but it really did bubble on the thin fabric. Otherwise, I’m really pleased with how the t-shirt turned out. It’s quite large on Nathan because I made him one size larger than what I thought would fit him now, so I doubt he’ll grow out of it before next summer. 🙂
