How To: Simple V-Neck Silk T-Shirt

If I'm honest to myself, I'm still not sure about this top. Those who've followed my sewing ventures for a while know that I used to go by a much stricter colour palette, which has over the couple years we've lived in Dubai morphed towards more colour. This cherry blossom patterned silk was the result of one of my excursions to the fabric markets, finding absolutely nothing I liked, and starting to panic I would not have anything to sew (it's a min. half hour journey for me to get to the stores, so you don't just pop over.. When I'm there, it's happening). So I panicked around, picked this silk up, thought to myself it's probably too much and I'll never wear it, bought it anyway. Which is against all my principles of always maximizing the wear and use of every garment I make.  But, here it is anyway - the tutorial is basically just for a very simple V-neck T-shirt - lends itself best to a silk/crepe/polycotton or other light, flowy fabric.

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.

TOOLS:

Fabric, 1.5 m (I used silk)  |  Scissors  |  Thread, sewing machine (8/60 to 10/70 needle if sewing silk), serger if you have  |  Pins  |  Not pictured but matching double-sided bias tape for the neckline

I. Here are my cut front and back pieces - I'm a EU36/US 4, but the fit is loose, could go a size up if you're ok with a closer fit.

II. And my cut sleeves.

III. The usual steps - started by pinning shoulders together, right sides facing.

IV. After sewing shoulders, pinned the sleeves in their spots (best way to get them right is to mark the middle of the curved edge on the sleeve piece and align that with the shoulder seam first, then pin the rest).

V. Then I completed the V-neck using this method here, with bias tape.

VI. Next was the pinning of the sleeve underarm and sides, right sides facing, to sew that final seam. Note that in the below image you'll see I first finished about 15cm of the edges individually with my serger, and ended the side seam where that finish started, so I could do a slit at both sides.

.. You can see that slit on the right side here. Final step just to finish the sleeves and the hem with a double-fold.

Remains to be seen if I'll get some wear out of this, if not, someone's getting a present..!

xo,

Julia