20% Off MIY Collection Until Christmas Eve

Brightside Shrug – Now Available as a Complete Making Kit!

Just in time for last posting for Christmas I’ve got the Brightside Shrug Kit online and available to buy at MIY Collection.

The complete making kit comes with a paper copy of the Brightside pattern, enough beautiful quality lightweight sweatshirt fabric in a choice of colours to make one shrug and matching thread all for £45. It comes gift boxed and delivered to your door for free (in the UK)!!

Perfect for impatient stitchers who don’t want to worry about fabric shopping for the right fabric or a great gift for new dressmakers. I’ve had students at MIY Workshop make these in a 2 hour class!!

Last posting date for Christmas delivery is Monday 21st.

How to Sew T-Shirts

Have you been watching the Celebrity version of the Great British Sewing Bee this week? What do you think? Anything that gets more people interested in sewing is a good thing in my book and even better, making t-shirts! If you know me or my blog you will know how I like to evangelise about sewing with stretch knit fabrics, so I was very happy to hear this was to be included in the show.

If you are feeling inspired to start whipping up your own t-shirts, read on for patterns, tips and guides to help you on your way, all tried and tested by my eager sewing students at MIY Workshop, so you can be sure they all work.

T-shirt Patterns

Here is the T-shirt sewing pattern from my book (“The Beginner’s Guide to Dressmaking”).  It’s a really quick and easy make for beginner dressmakers.

If you have done a bit of sewing already, are dabbling with pattern hacking* and fancy something a bit more than a plain version, the book comes complete with a whole chapter packed with ideas for how to modify the basic patterns to create more styles:

*Newbie sewers – pattern hacking = modifying an existing pattern to adapt it into a new version of the style.  Something of which I highly approve as it’s creative and empowering to start with a simple version of a pattern and be able to change it a bit to create a new style.

If you don’t want to invest in a whole book and want a t-shirt pattern to just get on with, here’s one from my pattern range, MIY Collection:

Available as a print pattern for £15 or a PDF download for £7, another easy one for beginners and infinitely adaptable for pattern hacking.

Here are just a few of the versions made by my sewing students:

How to Sew T-Shirt Fabric & Where to Buy

Here are some links to some of my most popular posts about sewing with stretch knit t-shirt fabrics:

• How to sew t-shirt fabric on a sewing machine.
• Some background about the different types of stretch knit fabrics and what they’re best used for.
• How to sew hems on t-shirt fabrics using a sewing machine.
• Do you need an overlocker to sew t-shirt fabric?
• Where to buy t-shirt fabrics.

How to Customise a Plain T-shirt

So, once you’ve started you might want to move on from a plain t-shirt to a bit of pattern hacking, customising and embellishment.

Here’s a piece I wrote last year for Sewing World magazine which includes 2 easy ways to customise t-shirts: stencil printing (like on the vest above) and using shirring elastic to change the shape of the t-shirt.

I hope that’s inspired you to go and get busy!  If so, why not sign-up for my newsletter to get regular sewing advice and tips: http://eepurl.com/EVEYj