The Cascade Skirt was top of my list of garments to make, and once it was out of the way I wanted to get stuck into sewing up as much stretch fabric as I could. Not because I had an excess of it, but because approaching winter always makes me want to sew the sort of clothes I wear in cooler seasons: skivvies, mock turtlenecks, long-sleeved t-shirt tops and leggings.

I had no fabric earmarked for leggings, but plenty for tops. My wardrobe contains plenty of skivvies and long-sleeved t-shirt tops, but not as many mock turtlenecks. So for my first project I made the Textured Turtleneck, out of some grey textured cotton-synthetic blend offcuts from a destash.

The pattern I used is the Alexi top from StyleArc. I’ve used and adapted it so much that the paper has become very delicate where all the pins holes are, so after I made the grey top I traced a new copy.

The next piece I made was another adapted of Alexi, this time to make a knockoff of a t-shirt I love, but the fabric of the body is so low quality that it has faded and lost elasticity despite not being worn or washed very much.

It only needed some extra width added to the centre of the (shortened) sleeve pattern to create the puff, and a different shape for the neckline. However, the sewing was a challenge because the gauze fabric was slippery to work with. It took two attempts for me to get the neck band looking good. I was pretty chuffed with the resulting Gauze-Sleeved Top.

Then, encouraged by sewing YouTubers advocating for pressing a garment when it’s done, I melted the neckband and had to cut it off and redo it. The up side to that was the neckline looks better a little lower.