Pattern - Love Notions Vanguard Kit long sleeve tee
Skill Level - confident beginner
Fabric - Discovery Fabrics Polartec Delta
Skills - Colour blocking
My grandson is turning 9 in a few weeks. For part of his present, he said he wanted a biking shirt with padded elbows. I knew that I couldn't possibly make something that would give him proper protection, but my son assured me that what he really wanted was a shirt with a moto look.
- like the Moto Maxx pants I'd made him the previous year. Okay - that I can do! (Click on any picture to see it in more detail.)
The Fabric
I had the perfect fabric on hand. He loves athletic fabrics and Discovery Fabrics specializes in athletic fabrics. I had 3 colours of Polartec Delta sitting on the shelves - marine blue, apple green and grey - and decided to use them all.
Polartec Delta is a wonderful fabric and I had previously used it to make competition shirts for my son and his training partner.
It's highly breathable, has superior wicking properties, regulated drying, reduced clinging, odor control and is highly durable. You can see from the picture above that it's also constructed to pull moisture away from your body. Just what my hot-bodied grandson needs.
The Pattern
The Vanguard Kit is one of my most-used patterns.
There are all kinds of options built right in - even colour blocking. But the colour blocking I had in mind, I was going to have to figure out myself.
Colour Blocking
I drew up and coloured a design of what I had in mind and then printed off and cut out the plain fronted shirt with long sleeves.
Then I drew lines on the pattern pieces and wrote the colour on each section also making a note of where I would have to add 3/8" for seam allowance. I cut double the middle grey sleeve sections, because it was going to have moto stitching on it. That was going to be the padded portion.
After cutting the colour block sections, I placed each colour with its fabric. I was ready to cut out.
I didn't add a seam allowance as all my lines were going to be straight. I used my ruler as the guide to add the seam allowance.
You can see on this piece that the seam allowances are all there.
Sewing
I worked on the front first.
I laid all the pieces out in order and working from the bottom up, pressing the seam allowance up (and I used a pressing cloth so the fabric wasn't damaged) and topstitched as I went. The diagonal blue section was added last and topstitched.
Then on to the sleeves.
I laid them out just as I did with the front with the grey section being two layers, pressing the seams up and topstitching.
For the moto stitching, I drew lines with tailor's chalk.
I stitched the lines on my coverstitch machine. I could have used my regular sewing machine, but I wanted this section of the sleeve to have lots of stretch. I used a notch on my foot as my guide in stitching.
So here is what the sleeve looks like front and back.
Now with all the piecing done, all I had to do was sew up the pieces, put on the neckband and hem. Sounds like a lot of work, but it only took me a morning. I know my grandson will love his new biking shirt. He loves this fabric and he'll appreciate all the amazing properties which will keep him cool and dry while he's out on the mountain biking trails. If you don't already have this pattern, you can get it from my affiliate link below. And do check out Discovery Fabrics for all the amazing products they carry.
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