Two times Billie

Most of you will know that Zonen09 has released two new patterns. I bought them both immediately after launch. It took me that long to buy the Charlie, now I decided not to doubt just buy them. I own many, many Ottobres (I literally only miss one) so I have tons of T-shirt patterns so why buy the Billie? Well, I was intrigued. The Theo I made simply has an amazing fit and I wanted to see if this shirt would have the perfect fit as well.

I took size 116 small (Zonen09 pattern come in two width sizes per length, taking into account that more children are skinny like mine). Although the pattern has a bunch of option, I of course also wanted something that wasn't on the menu, I wanted raglan sleeves and a V-neck. Although this is not one of the standard version, I managed to easily copy the V-neck on the raglan pattern piece.

The pattern suggests to use rib knit for the neckline, waist and neck bands. I almost never do that, I just use my nice quality jersey, but this time I shouldn't have ignored the instructions. I assumed that jersey would count as light weight rib knit and took the prescribed shorter length for neckline, waist band and wrist band. These all turned out (a bit) too short. I put an extra piece of jersey between the waist band pieces, left out the wrist pieces (more about that in a minute) but left the neckline. On the picture of the bears shirt you see that the neckline is raised a bit instead of laying nice and flat.

So about those sleeves. Another stubborn part there. The sleeves looked very, very long to me, so I thought that the too small wrist band were not necessary anyway. The elephant shirt for which I had planned wrist bands therefore just got a seam. When my son put on the shirt I saw that the sleeves are now on the short side, so the length with wrist band would have been perfect.

Although you might wonder why, I did defy the pattern on a fourth and last point, the way to sew the V-neck. The proposed method gives a nice bit round V- neckline (sounds a bit paradoxal but this really is the case). I wanted a sharp V-neck and followed the tutorial of Melly Sews on the construction method. Although my V isn't perfect, I am still satisfied. I first sewed the bit rounded version so I already stretched the bottom of the V a bit. If I wouldn't have done that, I think the V would have been perfect. I did notice that for the elephant shirt, I somehow sewed too much of the neckline on the left side. The neckband is clearly thinner there.

Both the bears and elephants fabric are from Stoffenelf. They have all sorts of relatively inexpensive digitally printed jersey. You will, probably see many more of their fabrics passing by here in the coming months because they already arein my fabric closet.

To summarize, putting a V-neck on a raglan was a good idea and using the Melly sew instructions as well. Not using rib knit and doubting sleeve length were not that successful. I think the fit of the shirt is fine, the right level of tightness, although it could have been a bit longer. My son wears his trousers very low which means that his shirts should be a bit longer to avoid a naked back while bending. I immediate cut three shirts, Wednesday you will see the third. I am very happy happy I bought the pattern having a raglan, round sleeves and envelop sleeve T-shirt pattern all on one (glued) pattern is simply perfect. I will have to sew many if those the coming months.

My blog anniversary give away consisting of fabric and patterns is still open for a few days, check it out here if you didn't already participated.

 I love to hear what you think of my creations. Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).