A shirt for all seasons

Toni has been at it again and has developed a fabulously simple T-shirt pattern for kids big and small called, appropriately, Basic Tees. 

There are long and short sleeved versions as well as a long-over-short sleeved variation.

The girls shirts are slim fitted with a gathered cap on the sleeve and the boys are slightly wider with a straight sleeve.

The pattern includes some great tips for sewing with stretch so don't be afraid! Have a go.

I tested it out in a boys size 4 for my neighbour's son.

A simple freezer paper stencil of a cassette tape was the finishing touch for this one.
Made from lovely stretchy Stella - available at Crafty Mamas.

I did a girl's size 7 with the contrast hem - a very easy detail to add interest to the shirt using just two colours of fabric.
The pink spot for this is not very stretchy so I couldn't use it for the neck.
The contrast band added the extra 'kick' I wanted.

I also did a girls size 8 with stripey sleeves and a solid front - I plan to add some velour iron-ons to these last two so will show you once I have - they are the perfect finishing touch to shirts like these.

As you can see the combination options are endless.
Rachel did a single colour boy version and a girl's shirt with the short-over-long sleeves, so pop over and have a look.

Go and visit Crafty Mamas for all your stretch fabric such as Stella and Campan knits as well as an amazing variety of European knits from companies such as Lilofant, Hilco and Znok.

They are excellent quality and Lisa usually has some fantastic mix packs so you can get some of the cool and groovy prints to mix and match with solids and stripes.

While you are hopping around on the net visit Toni's blog to see some more great tops and also get yourself in the running to win a copy of the pattern. The competition closes Wed 17th August.