Lodo Dress Turned T-Shirt!

True Bias Lodo dress turned t-shirt is good stuff!

My Fabric Designs offered to let me try their custom-printed fabric. You can read more about my previous experience ordering from My Fabric Designs here.

Note: I received this fabric for free, but my opinions about the experience are my own.

I agonized over whether I should choose a different substrate for my second order, but I really like wearing the Bento Tee I made from My Fabric Design's interlock blend/cotton slinky knit, so I ordered it again. It's a really lovely, thick, bouncy substrate.

The design I chose to print on my fabric is "Trip to India" from The Artwerks, a lush and colorful tapestry-looking design (see below):

Unfortunately, once printed on my chosen substrate, the design was much lighter and significantly more muted in color, as you can see. More pastel than the bold, electric purples and pinks in the image on My Fabric Designs. I had a similar issue with muted colors last time, too, but not to this extreme. I still really like the fabric as it is, but it just didn't meet my expectations color-wise based on what I saw on the screen.

I did order one of their other substrates, too, the "modern jersey," a super stretchy poly-spandex knit. On this substrate, the color is extremely vibrant. What to make with it, though, is now the problem! It's soooo stretchy and thinner than I thought it would be. More on that in a future post...

Anyway, back to this project: I didn't particularly have anything in mind when I ordered this length of fabric. But then it occurred to me: I loved the neck and sleeve shape of my True Bias Lodo dress so much, why not make it into a t-shirt?! The slinky knit is a heavier-weight knit with the perfect amount of structure for the Lodo.

To make the tee, I took the Lodo dress pattern and cut straight across the front and back bodice pieces, 1" above the hip notches. Then I sewed the t-shirt as instructed and hemmed the bottom up 3/4". Easy as pie. I ended up with a t-shirt that's not quite cropped, but a little bit shorter than your average tee.

For my woven facings (I love those facings, BTW!), I used chambray scraps from my Seamwork Delavan Blazer. The chambray complemented the muted tones of the print really well.

When I was cutting out this t-shirt, I accidentally cut the back piece on the fold (it's meant to be cut in 2 pieces), seam allowances and all, so the back is about 3/4" wider than intended. I had to recut the back neck facing to match. Oops! I think the slightly wider back actually works for the t-shirt version, though.

I'm pretty enamored with my new t-shirt! I do wish the colors were a bit brighter, but the pastel-y tones are quite pretty anyway. The Lodo dress pattern as a t-shirt worked out great and I could definitely see myself making more of these!!