French or Italian? A Nettie t-shirt in stripes

Dear readers,

I am currently flying back from Guatemala and Honduras where I visited the amazing mayan ruins of Copán which partly explains the lack of activity around here! If you followed me on Instagram during #sewphotohop, you will have seen some sewing happening. I made that tee on a whim while keeping up my resolution to sew more from my ideal closet items pinned on Pinterest. Below are the two shirts that triggered my crush for widely open back tees.

For a reason I cannot explain, there is something intrinsically italian in my mind about those shirts. I picture myself in the countryside (maybe where Sasha lives?), leaning on the door frame of my imaginary bungalow, drinking delicious coffee and gazing at my olive trees in the horizon… When the tropical backgrounds of Haiti are not exactly Italian landscape, I can at least have my shirt and drink coffee!!

One Saturday, I went to hide in the heat of my sewing for an hour or two and pulled out my Nettie pattern. To turn it into a hip length tee, I stopped the patterns where it indicates to add for dress length and decided on the high front, mid-low back and short sleeves. Since I made this pattern twice already (here and here), there is not much more to report.

The fabric came from my stash, I bought it in Port-au-Prince and it’s a left over of a Shadi skirt I made last year. The entire shirt was sewn on my serger and I am still not perfectly good at matching stripes with that machine… I changed the order of construction slightly so that I can attach the neck band and the sleeves flat. I was so determined to own this tee that when I realized that I actually didn’t have enough fabric for the front, I decided to piece it. Not very professional since you can see it in my shoulder area, but I don’t really mind.

As soon as I finished it, I threw it on and ran to The Old Man to get his opinion on my Italian tee. His comment sounded appreciative but was along those lines: “OOOooh a French tee!!”. I guess the stripes betrayed me… No matter how much leaning on the door frame I did with a coffee mug in my hands, he would NOT see the Italian side of it…

In other news, I just moved houses so this will be the last time you get to the garden in the background I’ve been using for the last two years. Our new apartment is smaller but I still have a sewing room (most important thing about housing!!). Also, it’s higher in the mountains which means fresher air and amazing view!!

I still have some posts coming up but since there will also be more traveling it’s hard to commit to regular updating… In the mean time, let me know what you think, French or Italian tee??