DIY: Gemma Tank with Contrado Fabric

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I sewed the Gemma Tank, designed by Made by Rae, in a camel print linen fabric.

I used a 100% linen fabric custom printed by Contrado. Tomiko designed a repeating camel print, which we uploaded to the Contrado website. Their online software makes it easy to manipulate the pattern size, orientation, and layout. Overall, it was really simple to use!

We decided to make the camels a sunshine yellow on a white linen background. The yellow colour is vibrant and the 100% linen has a great weight to it. Despite being white, it isn’t see-through and is quite cool and breezy. The linen is a 230 g / 6.78 oz weight, and I think it would be perfect for skirts too! I ordered four metres because originally wanted to make a dress. Unfortunately, though, each of the 4 pieces were only 50 cm wide! In the end, I sewed two pieces together and was able to cut out the pattern from that. To hide the piecing, I cut the pattern out so the seam would be where the waist hits me.

The Gemma Tank pattern includes different cup sizes, A/B and C/D, and sizes XXS to XL. I cut out a size XL with D cup, and graded to L at the waist. The tank ended up pretty breezy, so I took in the waist by about 1 cm on each side seam. Actually, I could probably make a size L and grade to a M at the waist – next time!

The Gemma Tank has a shirttail hem and options for a high or low neckline. I made the low neckline for this version. Although it looks great untucked with pants or shorts, I will likely wear this to work, tucked into my B4686 skirt.

I used the French method to bind the armholes and neck hole with bias tape. Unfortunately I didn’t get enough. I ran out of yellow bias tape after I finished the neck hole and one arm hole. I was too lazy to go buy more, so I used a pale green bias binding from my stash for the second armhole. Since the neck and arm holes are finished with the French method, the bias tape is not visible from the outside. Laziness for the win! As the bias tape folds over the seam allowance and turns inside the garment, the French method requires you to increase the seam allowance by 1/4″ at the neck and armholes to keep the shirt proportions.