Am I the only one who can’t let scraps be scraps? I had a little less than a metre left of the navy striped knit from my Blackwood (well, it was actually closer to .75m when I think about it) and knew I could make it into something. I decided to try the free Mandy Boat Tee pattern from Tessuti Fabrics. I mean, who doesn’t like a free pattern?

Because I was working with scraps, I had to get quite creative with my pattern placement. I shorted the tee by two inches and had to really think out of the box when it came to the sleeves. The only way to fit the sleeves on was to cut them in two pieces each (almost like a cuff, but hemmed instead of folded in half) and played with the stripe direction. A lot.

The pattern is one-size for 8-16, with instructions on grading down if necessary. I generally wear about a 10-12 on top, so I went with the pattern as-is, but will definitely grade down next time. Even shortening this pattern by two inches, it’s still quite long. And so wide! I chopped an inch off each side seam starting at the bottom and easing to the underarm (because I was waaay too lazy to take it apart and do it again) and still found it way too big. There’s boxy and then there’s baggy. I still found that the front floated away from my hips so I took an inch-wide triangle out of the front side seams like I did with my knit Kalles. Over all, I took off 6 inches at the hips and could definitely take off more.

I decided to play with stitches on the neck and hems and tried out this funny sort of zig zag. It sews up really evenly with zero pulling or tunneling. I think it looks fancier than a regular zig zag, but think I’ll go back to my straight stretch stitch next time.

I think I’ll try this pattern again as I feel it has potential, but definitely need to grade it down next time. I did really enjoy how quick this top was, even with all of the creative laying out and stripe matching.