I was tired of looking at pictures of my backside, so I decided it was high time to add something new here on my blog. Unfortunately, all I have for you is a picture of me on a bad hair day. My brand new t-shirt is pretty snazzy, so hopefully we can all focus on that instead of the Medusa head.

I’m really excited about this Ottobre t-shirt pattern. The fit is almost perfect, in my opinion. The only thing that bugs me is the small fold of fabric at my underarm. I’m going to attempt a square shoulder adjustment to see if that will reduce the problem without restricting my range of motion. I don’t think I have particularly “square shoulders;” rather, the pattern seems more sloped there than usual.

I also might shorten the next version a little bit and try to create cap sleeves.

To make this t-shirt, I cut apart an old turtleneck of my husband’s. It had shrunk too much in the wash and he no longer wore it. His loss; my gain!

Cutting apart garments is an excellent and cheap way to test out a pattern. If you don’t have a much larger relative with a closet full of unworn clothes, then the thrift store is a great place to find usable items. You certainly don’t have to worry about shrinkage when using a much washed garment as your source of fabric.

A nice, basic pattern like this provides a fantastic canvas for creative embellishment too. I stencilled the dragonfly to the front of the shirt using a freezer paper stencil. Lots of info on this technique can be found in this Flickr group.

This was not my best attempt at it (here are some others)–I got a little impatient and removed the paper before the paint was completely dry, so the edges aren’t as clean as they could be. Nevertheless, I like the way the motif turned out. It’s a free download from the Ottobre site.

Here’s my review on Pattern Review.