Wearable? T-shirt Muslin

In the early 90s I made most of my clothes.  Many of them came from the same go-to patterns McCalls 3064 and Butterick 5384.  Not sure why I kept them.

Wow!  Has the t shirt style ever changed.  No fitting issues there.  The shoulder pads and loose style was so simple.  I put velcro on the shoulder seams and used one pair of covered shoulder pads.

This is my favorite t shirt now -- very fitted.

I have a lot of t shirts that just don't fit as well or do not look age appropriate, so I wanted to copy this style.  I started by modifying Angela Wolf's ruched T.  I raised the neckline, eliminated the ruching, and tried to use the same measurements.  The plan was to use the ivory fabric I bought last week at B&J Fabrics in New York.  

This is muslin #1.  I like the sleeve length better than the original, but there are several problems.  It is too tight across the chest, I sewed the sleeves on wrong side out, and I am not thrilled with the fit under the arms.  My photography leaves much to be desired.  I reacquainted myself with the self timer on my camera.  The fit over my hips is not as bad as it looks.  I will be tucking it in. 

I learned a few things.  Knits differ in the amount of stretch.  This brown knit has a fabric content of 95 percent cotton.  The cotton has less stretch than the ivory fabric which is more of a ribbed knit.  This pattern may be perfect for a more stretchy knit.  

I love the way my coverstitch machine finished the collar.  Since I raised the neckline, I couldn't use the pattern piece from the ruched T.  Threads has a fantastic video tutorial for t shirt collars.  It worked like a dream.  I highly recommend this video for anyone learning to sew with knits.  The video clearly explains how to stretch the collar more in the proper places to make it lay correctly.  

Looking at the RTW t-shirt, I saw that they had used an extra layer of fabric in the shoulder.  I used Emma Seabrooke's fusible knit stay tape instead.  

 It took a bit of practice to start and stop the hems in the round.  This one looks rough because of the change in thickness.

The other side looks better because I took a snip at the fold of the hem and folded the seam allowance the other way eliminating some of the bulk.

I can wear it like this, so it isn't a total fail.  I needed a shirt to wear with this flannel.