Concept
In short, I wanted to challenge the assumptions that zero-waste patterns are over-sized, loose, eye-catching art pieces made from woven fabrics. What better way to do that then by creating a simple fitted knit top?
Development
A long time ago, I made myself a Eura dress. This is a pretty basic zero-waste pattern, basically made of three angled pieces.
The back and front are the same. There are some minor variations in how you can cut it and sew it together.
It was made from woven fabric and followed the lines of the original Eura dress pattern. It’s fairly loose fitting, and gets more and more flowy towards the bottom.
Gradually I’ve realized that I strongly prefer to wear knit fabrics. So I worked out a closer-fitting Eura-inspired pattern for myself, which included narrowing the skirt in. I’ve made a handful of this same dress in various knit fabrics and they are some of my most-worn dresses.
Later I decided that the triangular gusset could also be a rectangular gusset – I don’t need the extra width in the skirt, nor the narrowing arm, and it has the added bonus of making calculations easier.
In the original Eura, the underarm gusset triangle tapers to an end either at the sleeve cuff or in the sleeve seam. With the rectangular gusset, the two side seams run parallel all the way from cuff to hem.
And if the gusset is a rectangle, it can be cut as one piece with the front/back and sleeves. I like this because it mimics the single underarm and side seam on “normal” knit tops, although the little cut-out bit is more awkward for cutting.
This T-shaped top is fine in something like a sweater, or anything looser-fitting, or in children’s clothes. But in a closer-fitting top the armhole wrinkles get uncomfortable, so I was curious if I could add some shaping to change the angle of the sleeves. My idea was to simply chop it at an angle and rotate it. I was hoping this would have the bonus effect of looking just like a regular shoulder seam.
Sewing – Results
The finished pattern looked something like this.
It worked! Again I used the tiny scraps from the neck hole cutout to make a band for the neck, and although the narrow band (2.5 cm cut) was fiddly to work with I think it looks great.
I’ve up-ed the exposure to try to make the details of the shirt more visible but there’s not much to see. It’s a truly unremarkable black knit top – exactly what I wanted!!
For it to be perfect I would want it a couple cm longer in both the sleeves and body, but this is still a totally wearable garment, and I see a lot of use in its future! In fact I put it on just to take photos and then decided not to change back 🙂
Future
Can you imagine cutting this out from several different coordinating fabrics and color-blocking? I can’t imagine a situation when I suddenly needed a bunch of new shirts, but hmmmm maybe in children’s sizes, for a child who’s just outgrown his current wardrobe 🤔🤔
Empty Hanger Patterns 