Anchors Away Coco

Hacci sweater knit has more of a loopy, open-knit texture than regular cotton knits and this particular one is super lightweight making it perfect for the summer.

Earlier this year I made a Coco dress from Tilly and the Buttons which I still need to adjust because, as a dress it is way to short. I had a few fit issues when I made it in a ponte roma including a gaping neckline and sloping shoulders as well as way too much fabric in the back. I hadn’t thought about making it in a lighter weight fabric until I saw a picture on Tilly’s Instagram page where someone had made a couple of t-shirts using the pattern.

So I decided to give it another go using this fabric and managed to make myself a summer t-shirt, not only that I challenged myself to make it an hour as well. I filmed the process for the vlog so if you haven’t seen that yet make sure to give it a watch.

In terms of the construction I made a couple of alterations to the pattern. First I extended the shoulder seam by an inch towards the neckline, for some reason I always end up with peeking bra straps. I then re-drew the neckline to curve up to meet the new shoulder seam.

The other thing I did was to pinch out some of the gape at the front of the neckline. To do this I drew a line from just off to the side of the fold line at the neck down to the bust apex and then another line from the bust apex to the side seam about 5cm down from the under arm seam. I cut along these two lines leaving a hinge at the bust point (similar to doing a full bust adjustment). I then overlapped the paper by 0.5inch at the neck which opened up a tiny dart at the side, but as this was a knit fabric top I just tapped some paper behind it and straightened up the edge rather than creating a dart. The final step was to neaten up the neckline.

I decided not to do a sway back adjustment in the lighter weight fabric as it would drape much better than in the ponte roma.

I am so happy with this top, it is the perfect t-shirt for the summer; cool and comfortable. I’m glad I took the risk to try out the pattern in a different fabric to those suggested, it works perfectly and I’ll be making about a million more!