A La Brea Woven Tee

The PatternReview Sewing Bee just started, and the first round challenge was to make a tee inspired by your childhood. I have the La Brea tee by Halfmoon Atelier on my to-sew list, and with its 80s styling, I had a plan to make a tee in the colours of my 80's middle school teams. But it turned out to be a disaster -- the stretch was wrong and the stretch bias tape I tried to use for the distinctive lines of the La Brea did not work. Too much distortion and wonkiness. So I gave up on the contest.

But I still wanted to work on the La Brea! While View A of this pattern is for a knit tee with very distinctive bias neck and shoulder edges, View B is designed for a woven, with french seams and sleeve cuffs.

So I found a lovely piece of nubby green silk in my stash, just enough for this top, that I'd picked up at a garage sale two years ago. And I cut the La Brea in a size 7, grading to 9 at the hip. Her sizing is simply numerical, ranging from 1 - 18 which is equivalent to a 28 - 61 inch bust and 33 3/4 - 67 inch hip.

I loved working with this silk. It's gorgeous to handle, presses so well, and drapes like a dream. I'm not sure it is 100% my best colour, but I do really like it.

The french seams are a little fiddly considering that the seam allowances are 3/8" but otherwise this is a straightforward sew. After french seaming the sides and shoulders, you stitch on the sleeve band, hem it, and finish the neckline with a bias facing (my favourite finish).

I like the fit, and this goes great under a cardigan or jacket. When summer arrives I'm sure it'll look nice with a longer, button front full skirt too -- I'm seeing those everywhere and have a couple in mind to try out.

So while I ended up finishing the woven version of this pattern first, I'll be going back to another round of the knit version. I can't stop thinking about that lovely bias edge that was the reason I wanted to make this top in the first place!