The Varied World of the Cut Make Trim Tee

The World Cut Make and Trim tee from the Home Sewn book has become a very favourite garment, made both in its original form and modified. For the recent batch sewn I even made the sash to give a bit more variety to my travel wardrobe.

The finished garments

Green and black stripe long sleeve wool tee with Untouched World Ecopossum graphite coat cardi, Andrea Moore Endless trousers and United Nude Step Mobius ankle bootie

In its original form it is a short kimono sleeve t-shirt. Adapted it is a long sleeve t-shirt with creative options for the long sleeves.

So proud of the stripe matching to make the chevrons at the shoulder seam

The Travel Wardrobe tees with the sash for added variety

Adapted even further it is a dress! The Cut Make Trim Tee extended to knee length using the Silhouette Patterns #2010 three-piece yoga skirt.

Left: with United Nude X-sandal in silver and mint
Right: with Untouched World Lofty scuba merino cardi and United Nude Mid Fold Horizon booties

The fabrics

Always a knit fabric but with different degrees of stretch and fibres - cotton, merino, wool, and viscose.  I am tempted to try this in a non-stretch woven fabric as the size I use doesn't rely on lots of negative ease.

For four of these t-shirts the fabric came from the Fabric Store. I don't have a picture of the navy stripe fabric.

Liberty of London Clifton jersey, design Mayrose in colourway C

180gsm merino in colourway seafoam

180gsm merino in colourway black

The yellow viscose jersey was purchased long enough ago that I don't remember exactly where it came from. The paisley mesh used with the yellow viscose jersey came from Gorgeous Fabrics and the green/black striped wool was a Marcy Tilton purchase.  The Missoni inspired zig-zag jersey used for the dress came from Elliott Berman Textiles.

The pattern

I have only used two patterns from the Home Sewn book by the New Zealand Fashion Museum but those two patterns (Cut Make and Trim Tee and Starfish Swirler dress) have become firm favourites, making this book very good value for money.

The pattern alterations

No fit alterations have been made to this pattern but I have made a variety of style alterations.  It is fascinating that all of the tees in this post have a v-neckline like the original pattern but others in the wardrobe have been made with various depths of scoop neckline.

Some of the tees are a longer length than the original and some have a shirt-tail back. Not that you can see either of these variations as I have only used photos taken from the front - sorry.

Even when I have used the v-neckline sometimes it is bound, other times a band. To get the v point after the neck band is sewn on a small dart is made at the point that tapers to nothing where the band is stitched to the neckline edge. It is difficult to photograph but hopefully you can see the small protruding triangle in the photograph below.

For the dress the technique used came from a Craftsy class by the Tilton sisters.  You need a fabric that is the same on both sides, as you twist the fabric as you sew the band to the neckline. Start sewing the band on with wrong sides together then twist the band so that right sides are together. The closer to the twist you hold both sides of the fabric together the tighter the twist will look.

The outfits

Sorry about the facial expression I was squinting into the sun.

Long sleeved yellow viscose knit tee with mesh insert in the sleeves worn with Andrea Moore Fur Bomber jacket, Kaleidoscope trousers and Mi Piaci Martha ankle boots

Long sleeved black merino tee worn with Bargello Quilt Kimono jacket, French Dressing Olivia jeans and United Nude Mid Fold Rainbow booties

Now You See It Now You Don't - EZ Seamless Raglan Jumper

Having not knitted anything since Winter 1996 I decided to join Fabrickated's knit along of the Elizabeth Zimmerman (EZ) Seamless Raglan jumper. The whole idea of having very little to sew-up at the end of the knitting was appealing.  I have always felt that the finishing at the end was what made my knitted garments look amateurish - loving hands at home - and not in a good way.

It is perhaps a statement in itself that none of the knitted garments I laboured over in the past are still residing in the wardrobe. Even though they were timeless garments and many I would consider knitting again for my lifestyle today.

Unlike Kate and many others who participated in the knit-along I am nowhere near finished with my jumper. I haven't even reached the underarms yet and this jumper is not exceptionally long I am just a slow deliberate English knitter.  (If you are interested in seeing some of the finished stripe jumpers Kate's post can be found here.)

From wool.....to cast on.....to a few stripes

Before the knitting came a slow laborious period of choosing the yarn. I was quite fixed on the colour palette I wanted - perhaps that was my mistake.  A bit like when you go shopping for your Christmas party dress determined it won't be black again only to trail home despondent with another black dress. Eventually I found four of the five colours (in the same yarn weight) at The Main Skein in Christchurch.  The bright yellow proved too elusive so I eventually settled on a pale yellow purchased at Nancy's Stitch Studio in Wellington.

Wool colour palette inspiration

So the knitting process started on 16 June 2018 when armed with my lovely merino 8 ply (double knit) wool I did a test swatch. The next step was calculating the number of stitches to cast on for the size I wanted. Another disappointing aspect of my knitting is the casting on - the end product is quite tight with no give. This led me to research casting on techniques, of course via YouTube.  I discovered Judy's Magic Cast-on with Judy Becker, along with Tubular Cast-on with Lorilee Beltman.

The instructions for knitting the Seamless Raglan Sweater come from Elizabeth Zimmerman's book Knitting without Tears. Largely this is true but I am having difficulty with the jogs where the stripes change colour, despite having watched many a YouTube clip. I realise that some of this will even out when the finished jumper is blocked but still it is pretty ugly.

Ugly stripe jogs



This dissatisfaction with how the stripes look led me to wonder about turning my jumper into a cardigan. The stripe jog can be where I cut the jumper.  So off down the steeking rabbit hole I went. And it is not as frightening a rabbit hole as I imagined. Except...

The stripe jog occurred at a "side seam". I find that garments with a bit of shape suit me better and I carefully decreased at the equivalent of the side seam up to the waist then started increasing as I knitted up to the bust. Given I can't just appropriate the start of the row as the cutting part of the steek what now? Well all those rows of knitting could be treated as practice and I could go back to the beginning. The joy of knitting is that you can go back to your raw ingredient (the ball of wool) and start again. So I did.


.....and back to wool again

Having reached about two thirds of the way to the underarm the jumper has been un-knitted to the start of the first red stripe. In the reborn jumper, aka the striped cardigan, my steek section will contain seven stitches (first four stitches of a row and the last three). Once the jumper is cut to make the cardigan the stitches in the steek section will naturally roll to the inside. I will mark my side seams after a bit of careful maths to deduct the steek stitches. This will indicate where to decrease / increase for the jumper shaping.  Then let the knitting commence (again).

As I carefully undid my knitting my beloved filled me with great confidence as he said "your not a knitter just stick to sewing bits of cloth". I may not yet be a confident knitter but I am stubborn. Plus I have the words of my Latin teacher to bolster my confidence, "oh well at least you can do something" were her immortal words as she held my knitting aloft scrutinising it carefully.

(I had misplaced my Latin homework and she was going through my school bag to find it for me!  Needless to say I didn't last past my first year of Latin - at the grand old age of twelve I hung up my Latin books. I can however, still conjugate the verb to love in the present tense which has proven to be a really useful life skill - not.)

Just to show I can knit when the urge strikes, here are the last three garments I knitted - way back in 1996. These jumpers were knitted sooo long ago that I have actual photographs of them! This was back in the day when I kept a me made photograph album of my embroidery projects, supplemented every now and then with a different craft.

It is interesting to note that 1996 was our first winter here in New Zealand and we rented an old 1920's brick house with open fires (one in the lounge and one in the kitchen/dining room).  We got to experience first hand how bad heating and insulating in NZ homes can be.  There were occasions when it was warmer outside. I spent much of the winter trying to stand in the open fire because the heating effect was so ineffective even a few inches away. Maybe a slight exaggeration but I had been used to well insulated centrally heated homes for pretty much my entire life before this and it was a very traumatic experience.  Was it this cold environment that led me to be such a prolific knitter that year?  The jumper on the bottom right was started in 1990 whilst the others were started and finished in 1996 - admittedly the one top centre was for a child.

I really love the red cable jumper from an old old issue of Vogue Knitting - if only the wool had been soft and cuddly instead of harsh and scratchy. Maybe if I finish the striped EZ seamless raglan and make my beloved his long promised jumper I can knit the cable jumper again in better wool. And it is thoughts like these that make it all spiral out of control. Especially as there are many other knitted garments on my wish list - I have always wanted to knit the Kate Davies' Owligan or even the jumper version.