This project was an XMAS gift (from a long time ago) for my sister who has a fascination with anything that has skulls on it! I love the styling and the super unique collars. I love that you can use this pattern to use up knit remnants.

The front panel and right arm (looking straight on) are from an Affliction branded Men’s (XXL) cotton-lycra tee which I found on the clearance rack at Marshall’s a while ago. This pattern uses 3 fabrics and zippers to make a wearable art style garment. The 2nd fabric is from EOS, it is a gorgeous hand viscose lycra. The third fabric, I think I found and JoAnn. It’s a blah cotton knit without a lot of stretch or substance. Typical JoAnn quality, but it was a full thread weave neutral grey/black stripe that I thought it might come in useful someday … and it did 😉

I cut the small (8-10) based upon my sister’s style and size. This is a tad smaller than her true size but the main body fabrics I used have great recovery. I would not recommend doing this if your fabrics are not high recovery.

The drafting of this pattern is amazing and it comes together so easily. It isn’t as hard to assemble as it looks. The instructions were great. Every step is in there. They all make sense. The only nit-pick is that there aren’t any serger options, and they don’t really the terms well (baste loosely, for example. More on that below). There are only a couple of things you should be aware of if you are putting this together for the first time:

1. The pattern calls for a 22″-24″ separating zipper, but it really needs a 24″+ zipper. Even with the 24″ zipper I used, it came up about 3/8″ shy from the pattern markers. It looks fine, but I don’t know how a 22″ zipper is going to work, unless you get 2 and piece them …
2. The arms are super skinny. If you have fat arms (like me) you may want to cut the larger sleeve and modify the armhole. Check the sleeve before you cut anything
3. Joining the collar to the main body is tricky, but doable. The collars must be stretched to fit the neck, and this can be difficult if any of your fabrics do not have much give. In the case of my contrast fabric from JoAnn, this was a challenge, but still turned out.
4. “Baste loosely” means “hand baste”. Don’t machine baste the collars before attaching to the body because they need to be stretched out.
5. At the neckline, there are 7 layers in the end. This might be challenging on your serger. Mine was skipping stitches, so I had to go back and reinforce the neck with a regular machine to ensure the neck would attach properly

The end result is gorgeous (If I do say so myself). It looks so $$ and special in person! Everyone gasped at the collars! It was so worth the dexterity required to install them!