I’m a sucker for free patterns because I’m from the internet age, when music wasn’t bought, it was downloaded off Limewire.

So when Sinclair Patterns was giving away free PDFs of the Bondi t-shirt pattern I immediately downloaded it.

I’ve made five so far. The first and second were these two.

I wear then all the time because they are so comfy and and not an issue to wear. I will confess that I printed them off-scale so the pattern is a little smaller than it was supposed to be, which was fine with the first two because the fabrics were quite stretchy and I like my t-shirts on the tighter side.

The other three I made using a thicker white knit fabric, much to my regret. The white fabric was less stretchy than the first two t-shirts I made so it’s a bit claustrophobic. In fact there is only one bra I can wear with it because it squishes my boobs down. I’ve seam ripped the side seams, leaving only the overlocking for a bit more room.

The reason there are three like this and not just one is because I got cocky after the first two and decided to start a production line. I had a few ideas floating around my head of what t-shirts I wanted so decided to do them all.

The first idea was to do some embroidery. I found this free pattern on the DMC website. They have a lot of really cool embroidery patterns to copy or take inspiration from, all for free, presumably because people will buy the matching threads. Here are some examples.

I didn’t like the colours of this particular pattern so I swapped them around. It took me forever, which I didn’t mind because it was the second thing I had ever embroidered. I should probably invest in some stabilising as I found it annoying because it kept moving and stretching around.

The second idea I had was a roller skate logo. As you read in my previous post I like skating, however I find that most skating themed things use quads (traditional skates) as a motif rather than inlines (‘rollerblades’). Not that I have anything against quads, I just want more stylish inline representation out there. So I drew and painted this on the front (but I’m not sure I succeeded in making them more stylish but I’m biased).

The third idea was using up some scraps I had leftover from another project and colour blocking. I’ve got a lot of scraps left so some scrap busting is something I’d like to do. I should say I am very reluctant to part with any fabric that is bigger than my hand out of the belief that I could do something with it, and I am incredibly cheap.

I think the end product is okay, but a bit plain. I might try something more interesting next time. Maybe something like this (it seems like only men get colour-blocked t-shirts, then again, they don’t get much else fashion-wise).

As you can see I’ve made the Bondi t-shirt a few times and I liked it so much that I bought the men’s version, the Kai t-shirt pattern. My partner only wears t-shirts and hates shopping so what better thing to do than make him a few t-shirts.

I got him to choose some fabric and he chose a fun dinosaur print and a plain black. I didn’t measure him but used a t-shirt I stole from him to guess. Bad idea. When I finished them and gave it to him to try they were a tad too small, particularly length-wise, but still wearable. And then he washed them. I had neglected to prewash the fabric so I was disappointed to see how much the fabric had faded in the wash. However I was more disheartened by how much the two t-shirts had shrunk. Lesson learned. Always, always, always prewash fabric. And don’t buy cheap fabric. The upside is that I got two new t-shirts, so now I have several sets of me-made pyjamas, never-mind that none really match.

I really liked the fact that the instructions were written for a beginner, because t-shirts are so easy to make, meaning they are a great project for a beginner using knit. After the first two t-shirts I no longer refer to the instructions for anything more than seam allowance.

As a comparison I also have made a men’s t-shirt using Cos magazine I bought from Japan. And okay, it’s in Japanese, but the pattern was very small (I made a large for my partner who is usually a small/medium) and it didn’t have very nice shaping. It’s a men’s t-shirt sure, but this seemed sack-like. Now it is another addition to my overflowing pyjama drawer.

There is one change I made to the Bondi pattern. To finish the neck hole the instructions are to sew the neckband to the neck hole and then fold over the neckband and sew it down.

I did it for a few t-shirts but found it difficult to achieve it without gathers in the neckband. I checked and a lot of my t-shirts have a visible neckband. Personally it doesn’t bother me so I don’t bother with it. I just leave it sticking up and I overlock the raw edges.

I have made one successful Kai t-shirt. When my brother first moved out I promised to make him some cushions if he chose the fabric. He chose the ugliest fabric he could possibly find, and I made most of one, but I never got around to finishing it. So after he had been living in his apartment for a year, and I was struggling to find him a Christmas present, I finally decided to finish the cushion and make him a matching t-shirt. He was thrilled, and surprisingly so was his girlfriend. I’m pretty proud of it.