Simple Tee shirt

This is a plain, simple tee shirt from Ottobre magazine. It's a great basic pattern. It's the long sleeve version from Ottobre Magazine 2/2006 and is #1 in the index. Here's their website - (http://www.ottobredesign.com/.Ottobre Magazine is a Finish magazine that has been doing children's clothes for many years, but, this issue in 2006 was their first women's issue. It has many good basic, patterns. One of the things that I like about Ottobre is the nice, fitted look of the tee-shirt, but I found that I had to wear one size larger than I normally wear. They had nice suggestions for finishing details. Ottobre's directions suggests topstitching, really just a line of stitches, along most of the seam lines - along the sides, shoulders, and necklines. I used a small zig-zag(length- 2, width - 2) for a seam and a larger zig-zag (length -2, width-4) a seam finish. My machine is pretty basic so, I really want to keep things simple.

My fabric is a basic cotton jersey from Fashion Fabrics Club. I used a leftover bit of black cotton "jersey" (it's leftovers from an earlier top, but, I can't remember what type of fabric) for the neckline.  It's pretty simple and basic. It is also now a big favorite of mine - I've been wearing it constantly. I suspect that I will make many more like it.

The sizing in Ottobre is a bit snug, which I love, but, I am finding that it really helps to make a "sample" when I try a pattern for the first time. Some people will make a "muslin", but, I usually want to make something that I will wear. I get a better idea of the fit and feel of the garment. Sometimes, with a cheaper fabric, I don't get a good idea of how well the fabric would work out. But, as a fabric lover, I don't want to cut into a favorite fabric and then find that the pattern was "too small", "too short",  "too this" or "too that". (And also find out that there isn't a way to fix the problem except to start again!)  When I started sewing, the step of sewing a "muslin" was usually skipped for the sake of time. (And for a tee-shirt, I would want a knit, "muslin" would just be a misnomer in this case. ) I have found that making a "sample", a "muslin", whatever someone chooses to call it really saves time in the long run.