How is your summer coming along? Hopefully you have a good stash of lemonade, a robust air conditioner and lots of fun planned!

Before it got too warm, I made a shirt that I wore every time it was clean.  

This self drafted basic t-shirt project is a part of my journey through Cal Patch’s Design It Yourself Clothes book on basic pattern drafting. The first project is a basic skirt, drafted using your own measurements. Next you learn how to add design details for a new style. The great part of the process is knowing the new style will work because you use that first custom fit garment as your base!

This project required two versions and a little tweaking of the armscye to get it right. For those of you a little more experienced in pattern drafting, this book teaches the symmetrical arescye and sleeve. This means the front piece and back piece are identical. Consequently the fit isn’t as perfect as it could be.

My “tweak” was to add a little bit more width to the back of the sleeve and back bodice armscye to give a little more ease in the back. This project definitely made me want to learn the more technical side of drafting! Even so, I am happy with the result.

This garment is snug where I want a more fitted look and loose & forgiving where I want it to be. After a little bit of work, I now have a great base from which I can design an unlimited amount of variations. I’ll be sharing two of those variations in future blog posts!

If you’re not interested or ready just yet for pattern drafting, her are a few t-shirt patterns to consider. Just click on each photo for more information

Thanks again for reading! If you’re interested in learning more and taking local sewing classes, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram and my website here. If you make something with fabrics from TheFabricMarket.com, please be sure to share with us on our Facebook page!