TILLY & THE BUTTONS: Agnes

We need to talk about Agnes. HAHAHA. I have such extreme RBF! I can’t help it!

Seriously, though, Tilly & The Buttons Agnes is a SUPER cute top, right? And if you’re the tiny size with an A-cup, I’m sure it will come out super cute just like on the pattern cover, even if you’re a beginner sewist.

Let’s talk about everyone else though… I bought the pattern during the 20% off Black Friday sale, but it’s been out for a few years. If you’re about to sew this pattern, or you have and you don’t look like the cute girl on the cover, let’s go over it. It has some grading errors, it’s missing some information, and I’m 5’9″-ish, 150 lbs-ish, and in the realm of a 36D – I’m not tiny. So, I’ve made a list of some things I’ve worked out.

1. Elastic markings: The pattern elastic placement on both the bust and the arm is not graded out to larger sizes. If you place the elastic where it says, then your ruching will not go to the seam allowance, and your ruching will start too low.

You need to move the placement in correlation to the size you are cutting.

2. Starting the elastic and the top and stretching down, as per the instructions, will leave you with a flat 1/3″-1/2″ anchor point at the top. Reverse the anchor point FROM the bottom and stretch UP.

Serious grandma boobs happening. The fabric isn’t the best, but also that flat part up top where I anchored the elastic isn’t helping anyone’s boobs, let alone my wide-set D-cups.

3. See that wrinkle on top of my boobs? Normally that indicates I need a full bust adjustment (FBA), however, in the case of the Agnes, the armscye is too long, and the armpits are too low, which also causes that wrinkle. I should take a wedge out of the armscye, but I got lazy/irritated towards the end and just shaved some out some of the pit with my serger. Besides – stretchy fabric should accommodate my bust with my size – so really, on my body, it’s the armscye that is primarily the issue. Looking through Instagram and seeing others’ Agnes tops, I’m not alone. There’s a lot of bust wrinkles across a lot of sizes, and when you see a photo with an arm out stretched, you can see the gap in the armpit. Looking at the last of these green shirt versions, you can see I’ve still got some gap.

4. The direction of stretch on the neckband. This is something I almost didn’t catch because I’ve done so many knit garments, I do a lot of it on autopilot. But going through Instagram and seeing a ton of bagged-out necklines and comments about how they had to remove length in the neckband, I realized a beginner wouldn’t know that you need to reverse the direction of stretch on a neckband.

The neckband is actually graded perfectly IF you know to switch it so the greatest amount of stretch goes the short way, as in image above.

I’ve done my fair share of pattern testing, and I’m mostly disappointed none of the testers caught these issues. This pattern has been out for awhile, but Tilly’s customer base is mostly beginners, and I don’t expect they’d catch these issues, but testers should be experienced enough to go through the steps and pattern pieces with beginners in mind and catch these issues, especially the grading marks.

I also mitered the neckband to make a V at the point of ruching, and did the neckband last, instead of before the ruching as the instructions indicate, but that is a personal preference, so I’m not including that as a fix-it item.

A note about fabrics. I made this top in everything. The top is a cotton/poly sweater knit from Joann’s, the grandma boobs is a poly-something from Mill End, the green/white is a very yummy cotton double-sided knit from Britex, and this monstrosity below is a rayon blend from Girl Charlee – I like getting their weird off-print clearance fabrics for testing:

The pattern works well with various percentages of stretch…the Hawaiian acid trip has the most stretch, then the sweater stripe, then the Grinch green stripe, and last, the grandma metallic gold has the least amount of stretch.

I’m still WAY more in support of indie patterns overall, but this will probably be my last Tilly pattern. I’ve sewn the Miette skirt up a few years ago and wasn’t in love with that one either – so let’s just say they’re not for me. It’s an ok pattern, but for me, it’s no Renfrew. I still wear my stack of Renfrews, including in my last Ginger Jeans post. I’d rather hack the Renfrew to accommodate ruching before I wrestle with the Agnes anymore.

Or maybe there are some other go-to knit shirts out there I need to play with? I understand the Grainline Linden is popular. I might go that route next.

Sewing and Stabilizing Knit Garments

This post first appeared on Britex Fabrics.

It’s almost my favorite time of year: autumn layering time! I looked through the beautiful woven wool fabrics at Britex, but when I saw this raw umber viscose & wool knit, it was love at first sight. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you, if you want it, buy it now. Mark my words, it will sell out.

I know a lot of sewists are scared of knit fabrics. Maybe you think you need a special machine, or special stitches, or some pro-level techniques and materials. I’m here to tell you that all you need is a zig-zag stitch and an iron. I’ve sewn knits on a pre-WWII era machine, and on a modern computerized machine. Knits are easy. For this instructional post, I’ve this easy Aomori Papercut pattern, which also happens to be a perfect transitional fall piece.

I know what you’re thinking, “But Becky, that pattern isn’t listed as easy!” The pattern’s sleeveless version is made for wovens or knits. The sleeved version isn’t even a “set-in” sleeve.

Lesson 1: Put a piece of masking tape on the wrong-side of your cut pieces, and you’ll instantly make this an easy pattern.

Lesson 2: Let’s talk stretch percentage really quickly. This pattern doesn’t list a recommended stretch percentage, it’s that easy, but my advice is 30-50% would be best for the sleeve cuffs and binding. How do you know percentage? Just like anything else, you have the difference in ratio, and multiply by 100. So, if I take 10 inches of the Britex viscose/wool knit, put it next to a ruler, and I can stretch it to 15 inches, my formula is [(15-10)/10)]x100=50%. A=original measurement. B=stretch measurement. B-A to get the difference. Difference of B-A divided by A. Bounce the decimal point to the right twice, AKA multiply by 100. [(B-A)/A]x100=%

Here we have the top in two different fabrics. The Britex viscose/wool (left) and a rayon I had in my stash to make the muslin. You can see how two fabrics make a very different top.

Lesson 3: Stabilize your shoulders. There are a million opinions on what to use to do this and I’m going to tell you to use what you have. I’m not a fan of using clear plastic elastic in my shoulders; I think clear plastic elastic is for swimsuits and occasionally lingerie, but you do you, just stabilize your shoulders. The entire weight of the garment is being held on your shoulders.

Here are 4 stabilizer options, with both an overlocker stitch and a basic zig-zag stitch, and what they look like pressed from the right-side. As you can see, stitch doesn’t change anything drastically, nor does stabilizer preference.

From top to bottom: rayon hem tape, twill tape, clear elastic, light iron-on stabilizer

Pin the stabilizer of your choice on the shoulder seam and sew on together.

Lesson 4: Press and steam with your iron. Do you know any knitters? You know how they “block” their pieces after they’re done? Same idea. You’re creating new fiber-memory for the fabric so that it stays in your new shape. The fabric has been flat on a bolt, and you’re asking it to be 3-dimensional. You need to re-block it. Use steam and an ironing cloth. I use a scrap piece of voile, but Britex has some affordable silk organza that is even better.

When necessary, use a pressing ham. Let each part you press cool in-place before going to the next section to reset the fiber-memory.

If you’re in doubt at all, before pressing the binding on a curve:

After pressing the binding:

If anything, Britex high-quality fabric makes a bigger difference than any technique or equipment used. Get some of the wool/viscose (before I go back and buy the rest of it), and get on to making!

This post was written by me, Becky Johnson of sewbeckyjo.com, for Britex Fabrics. Fabric was provided as compensation, however all opinions, photos, and intellectual content contained herein is my own. The pattern used is my own purchase, and this is not an endorsement, nor was I compensated in using the pattern.