Scout Adventures

For lack of a witty intro for this post, here are the two shirts I've made so far using the Scout Tee pattern from Grainline.

I started cutting out a size 2, then remembered my Lakeside Jammies had felt a bit small as a size 4, shrugged, and went with the 2 anyway. In the end I took the bottom in about an inch on each side because it was much too big, even though around the armpit it sometimes creased oddly which seemed like it was too small. This was a bit of a conundrum because it seemed strange to me to be a size 1 on the bottom half and a size 4 on the top.

The hardest part was definitely putting the sleeves on, because I hate gathering. I never even knew there were gathers in the pattern because I could never see it on other peoples sleeves, but (probably because I'm not very good at them) my gathers show up a fair bit. This gave the sleeves a kind of puffy look which I wasn't fond of, but I helped it a lot by stitching down the seam allowance.

The second top is made out of a gorgeous coloured, super soft something that came from the second-hand store. I had just enough for every piece by cutting the back as two pieces and sewing them up.

This time I lowered the neckline and took in the sides before sewing. At the last minute I also cut about half an inch off the armpit on the front and back pieces, reasoning that this might a) fix the little armpit pulling problem, and b) reduce the amount of gathering required. Good news: it solved both problems. 

The hardest part of this one was the neck band by a long shot. To save a bit of time and effort I used extra wide black bias tape that I already had, which was great but after that each problem kind of led into another. I think I misjudged the length that I needed, which caused some gathers around the neck and also made the band stick pretty much straight out. In an attempt to fix this I folded the band over onto the shirt and stitched that down, so what you see of the black is really supposed to be on the inside. This gave it a bit of a "homemade" look which ironically we who sew our own clothes try so hard to avoid, but I still like it (and don't have the patience to keep working on it).

Ultimately, while I do like these two, I definitely haven't made the Scout yet; the one which makes everyone rave about the pattern. But that's ok. Something to look forward to.
Thanks for reading!