Striped long sleeve tee for my nephew
After finishing my Washi Dress last Saturday night, I quickly cut and sewed up a long sleeve tee for my nephew who was celebrating his 4th birthday at 10am the next morning. I say quickly, but this project took twice as long as I expected. I hadn’t factored in the time it took to unpick my first attempt at the neckline binding (yes, a four thread overlocked seam had to be dismantled), or the time it took break, replace and nurse my last twin needle through the sewing of the hems.
If you’re admiring my side seam stripe matching (and you should be!) is all due to the magic of a walking foot. Not familiar with a walking foot? It’s function is to evenly feed both the bottom and top fabrics at the same time. To achieve this, a walking foot has it’s own set of feed dogs that move in a walking motion over the fabric. A walking foot looks slightly intimidating and bulky, and it sounds a bit clunky when it’s in action, but boy it does a fabulous job. Want to see a walking foot in action? Made-by-Rae has a short video you can watch here.
Pattern: Ottobre Design – Creative Workshop 301 – The Best T-Shirts : View B, Straight Cut Design
Size: 110cm (made for a 4 year old with room for growing)
Fabric: Cotton/Lycra from Cutting Edge Fabrics
Alterations: None
[…] My stripe matching was good, but not perfect, which has more to do with the fact that I used my overlocker to do the side seams rather than my sewing machine’s walking foot. In my opinion, walking foots are the bees knees when it comes to stripe matching (as previously raved about here). […]
[…] I’ve been coughing and sewing some shorts for my niece and nephew. I’m beginning to see that if I sewed less and rested more I might be coughing less. […]