Fried Pickles Tee!

It was the boys turn again for something sewn this week, with the testing of this tee from Pickle Toes Patterns.  A quick, easy sew which anyone confident in knit/stretch fabrics would be able to make and best of all it is FREE!!  

​They were both feeling particularly cheeky for these photos!

Pattern Details

This is a layered PDF file covering ages 2 to 18!  It is for a crew neck tee with long or short sleeve and t-shirt or tunic length options.  It can also be made with bands for the sleeves and bottom (all measurements are provided for these in a table) or traditional hems.  There are between 5 and 8 pages to print depending on size, sleeve length and t-shirt length chosen. The printed pages do require trimming to tape them together but they all go together perfectly matching up the arrows and pattern lines as you go.   It is designed for knit fabrics and the neckband fabric should be rib or contain lycra for good recovery.  Photographs are included of each step and all instructions are clear.  

My Versions

I made the short sleeved versions in 2/3 and 4/5 for the boys with the hemmed option.  They are both made with patterned 100% cotton for the main body and 95/5 cotton lycra for the sleeves and neckband.  I made no modifications from the pattern but I did shorten the hems to be the right finished length (additional 1" hem allowance for the bigger one and extra .5" for the smaller one)  They went together in less than an hour each including printing, cutting pattern and fabric, sewing and finishing off.  they will likely take around 30 minutes start to finish for more now I have the pattern assembled.

How do they fit?

Overall they fit really well! they have a looser fit round the body with the shoulder seams sitting perfectly on both.  The length of the short sleeves are great and the total length is on the generous side (at least for my boys anyway!)  The neck is slightly larger than I'm used to on boys t-shirts and when wearing their vests underneath they are sometimes just visible so potentially I will look at decreasing that in future although it obviously needs to be big enough to get comfortably over their heads and they wouldn't usually be wearing a vest under a short sleeve top anyway (it's just too cold still to let them out without yet, even just for photos!)

The Verdict!

A great basic t-shirt with a huge size range, perfect for using as a daytime tee or pairing with PJ bottom's (such as the free PJ Party Pants*) to make some comfy pyjamas. really versatile and best of all totally FREE!  I have had requests for some long sleeved tops from both boys so there will definitely be more in the near future and with the add-on pack releasing in a couple of weeks, there will be loads more ways of sewing it up too!

T-shirt Pattern - Fried Pickles, currently available only through joining the Pickle Toes Facebook group but soon to be available on their website too www.pickletoespatterns.com
Fabric - Fabric.com

*The PJ Party pants is marked as $5 following this affiliate link, however if you join the Facebook group linked in the pattern description, there is a code to get them free!

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