I’m going to condense three garments into one blog post!  Back I summer I came across the Modkid Shelby pattern.  There are a number of tween/teen patterns in the Modkid range now, which I really like.  There’s so much around for younger girls, and for those with fully developed bodies, but the inbetweeners (who also vary greatly in height) tend to miss out.

From the website: Shelby is a stylish crop top or A-Line knit dress with an optional tie-front panel and three different sleeve lengths. SUGGESTED FABRICS: Light to medium weight knit fabrics with at least 50% stretch and good recovery, like Cotton/Lycra Jersey, Double Brushed Poly (DBP), Rayon Spandex, Stretch Velour or Stretch Lace. This pattern comes in sizes 10 (tween girls) to 18 (teen).

First I sewed Clare the Shelby top in the short-sleeved version with tie front panels (worn here with the Modkid Mara mini skirt).

Then I sewed a long-sleeved and lengthened version of the top, without the tie front panels.

And after that, I sewed a long-sleeved dress.

Each was sewn in a different type of knit fabric, so I’ll talk about them one at a time.  The first one, in purple, was sewn in a cotton/spandex knit.  You know, classic t-shirt fabric.  I seem to have multiple different shades of light purple knits in my stash at the moment – and I never wear that colour!  This first tee was sewn as a wearable muslin, that actually turned out to be extremely wearable.  I haven’t made any notes on sizing but am guessing that it’s size 14 length with size 12 width.

That sizing looks pretty good to me! It’s a cropped top, and ends right at the waist. The instructions have the edges of the ties narrow hemmed by turning twice; I figured that would be much too bulky and just turned the edges once and zig-zagged them right on the raw edge to secure and neaten. The end point is nicely finished with a mitre.

The blue top – which is actually much more teal green than the blue that it appears to be in these photos – was sewn from a thicker spongy knit remnant that I picked up at The Cloth Shop, Ivanhoe.

This knit has great texture. I sewed the same size, but considerably lengthened so that it could be tucked into tops for winter to keep her middle warm. Not that I actually remember her wearing this top a great deal over the past winter – must ask her why not. I secured all edges with a simple straight stitch on the machine, which appears to have an adequate amount of stretch for this top to get on and off.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I love a V-neck with a centre front seam. It makes it so easy to get a super crisp V! The neckline is finished before the centre front seam is sewn up. You do need to be careful that it lines up nicely at the top – yes, I use a few pins – and then voila, lovely neckline.

With the dress I decided to make a feature of the seamlines and do some topstitching. This fabric is designer end of roll scuba/double knit that I found at Eliza of Sunshine. I wish that I had more(the girls haggled over who would get a dress from it). It’s not quite as stretchy, and initially it was too tight under the arms, but too loose through the body.

I did some on the fly alterations that improved the fit. I should have added doing a swayback/short back waist alteration to that list! Either way, I think that the end product is rather lovely. But it hasn’t been worn much over winter either! Maybe it won’t be long before Stella gets her wish and this dress migrates from Clare’s wardrobe into hers….

So there you go, three versions of the one pattern for the teen! And guess what, later I have three versions of it for the tween to show you.