Fibre Mood Yushu Tee

Officially summer will be here soon, which gives me a great excuse to bust out some quick muscle tees. Sun's out guns out, as the kids say. I've made two of Fibre Mood's Yushu, a generously loose and boxy tank top or long dress. Knife pleats at the shoulder seams bring volume in and the shoulders themselves are designed with shoulder pads inserted, which I ended up omitting. The bulk of the sewing is simple as it's mostly comprised of a front, back, and neckband with no shaping or darts. About as easy as making (and wearing!) any t-shirt, I'd say.

I cut a size XS even though the size chart suggests that S is appropriate based on my bust measurement. There's just so much positive ease that you can fudge the sizing here to your preferences. I wish they had included a finished measurement for shoulder width, as that's the area that I believe needs the most accurate fitting. If your shoulders are wide, for example, you would easily be able to size up if the information were available. I don't think it's a standard measurement to include in most patterns, but it would make sense for this one.

The pattern calls for knit fabrics and lists some fibers to consider ("tricot made of cotton, viscose, wool, lyocell, bamboo or mixture of these") but it doesn't say what weight the fabric should be or what stretch percentage it should contain. And by not specifying these things I have to assume the ideal weight is just, whatever, and the minimum stretch is anything that's not 0%. Actually, a knit with little stretch, rather than a great amount, might be ideal. If they're not a visual oversight and are indeed intentional, the stitching lines indicated in the technical drawings are all straight stitches, not zig-zag stitches. The top is intended to be loose so highly stretchy material isn't necessary anyway. 

Now, I can intuit all of this on my own because I've sewn a t-shirt or two. A beginner would probably be able to successfully make a garment on these instructions, this I can concede if I'm being fair, but they wouldn't be learning anything. I suppose that's why this pattern is marked with the lowest difficulty but isn't strictly a beginner's pattern. I'm being nitpicky, but I think you want to err on the side of being too thorough rather than not being thorough enough when you're trying to lead someone through a process. If the instructions said some blurb as simple as: "fabric: a knit of any weight and any stretch percentage" that would be better than never mentioning these things at all. As the instructions are, they aren't acknowledging that these are factors one would normally need to consider when sewing knits. While Yushu lacks such requirements or restrictions it should still put it in writing as reassurance.

One way that Yushu differs from a typical t-shirt is that you're to finish the armholes with bias tape instead of a knit band. And you're supposed to sew it at a 1/6" seam allowance which is a strange choice. It doesn't even convert to a convenient metric measurement (4.2 millimeters). Luckily Fibre Mood has printing options to either include or exclude the seam allowance so it was easy to redraw the cutting line further away. Or you could just sew the tape at a 1/4" seam allowance without changing the pattern because the difference is an imperceptible 1/12". Not a big deal, but it makes me wonder why it's this way.

Speaking of the bias tape, I believe there's a mistake here. The pattern calls for bias tape with a folded width 5/8" which I thought meant double fold. That's what is implied in the technical drawing. With three fold lines and one running down the center, that should be the correct assumption, right?

A 5/8" wide double fold bias tape would equal an unfolded width of 2.5" and that's way too wide for a narrow armhole binding. It only needs to be half as wide, so this whole time they meant single fold. That's something the tech editor should have caught and then corrected, either by changing the drawing or specifying the type of bias tape in the notions list or doing both.

I mentioned before that I skipped the shoulder pads. I know, they're the top's defining design feature, I get it, I bought the pattern in the first place because I liked the way they looked! But when I basted them they felt bulky and uncomfortable, and I knew the top would never get worn if I kept them. I encourage anyone else making Yushu to at least try them, however. They help make the shoulder pleats more defined and the top is intentionally designed to sit on a square frame aided by the pads. Sew the entire top save for the hem, try it on and then pin the shoulder pads to find your ideal placement instead of where the pattern marks they should go.

Knowing the pads didn't work for me, I would modify the pattern if I were to make more Yushus in the future. There's a little cut-on flap that's supposed to tuck under the shoulder pad, and since I won't use the pad, I'll cut off the flap. I'd be changing the armhole shape into a more regular one, so I would finish the armhole edge with a standard band cut from the main fabric instead of bias tape. It would save me from buying extra material if I use just the one fabric. Perhaps it's a waste to remove so many intentional design and construction elements, but if the original version isn't compatible with you, what else can you do?

Where the shoulder pad would be inserted.

Both tees are made from the same 100% knit cotton jersey in different colorways, white and heather gray. The jersey has only a small amount of stretch as it contains no spandex. I picked a knit on the heavier and rougher side to emulate the look of a hard-wearing t-shirt (Gildan or Carhartt for example) and so the white shirt would be the most opaque it could be. I didn't want anything too drapey or fluid as I was going for a casual look; think the old free college shirt given a new life as a muscle tank by cutting the sleeves off. I wanted that look, but polished and appropriate for fancier occasions than going to the gym or playing ultimate Frisbee in the park.

 

Please note that I don't know how long my tops are because there's no cutting line for the hem. The finished measurements merely indicate a length per size that you're supposed mark yourself on the pattern. Holding it up to my body, I approximated the length on the paper pattern and cropped it short after all other steps in construction. And then after hemming I never bothered to measure the length.

 

I'll conclude on a small win: I started using my twin needle to hem again! It's a tool I've always struggled with and never got to fully cooperate with me until now. There's still some minor tunneling but it's a lot less than what I'm used to seeing. Someone tipped me off to using stretchy wooly nylon thread in the bobbin because it was the only thing that worked for them, and now it's the only thing that's worked for me. After years of wash-away and tear-away stabilizers, futzing with the thread tension, and then giving up and zig-zagging my hems, I finally have a solution.