Oh so many years ago, my preschool daughter would not wear a turtle neck at all.  I get it, they are not my favorite either.  It was the early 90’s,  all I could find retail with long sleeves was a turtleneck, I took matters in my own hands.

I bought those turtle necks and cut the neck band down to one inch.  Then stretched while sewing a tight zig zag over the edge.  They ended up with a nice ruffle on the neckband, which we affectionately called “rufflenecks”.  She loved them, I was happy she was warm.  Now, she prefers to go sleeveless, but she has her own daughter and is old enough to figure her sleeve issues on her own. I love sewing for my grand baby!

In a recent pattern test, I made a couple muslins from some rib knit fabric scraps.  Soft, stretchy, and perfect for getting over a baby noggin.  Mid sew, I was taken back further in my memory to the 70’s and a cropped tank that was my favorite.  It had a ruffled hem, and I was the boss of everything when I wore it, or at least I thought.

I sewed the seams and bands with this stitch.  Visit my post Adding bands to tiny armcyes for tips on that part.

The rib I had was kind of thin, so I opted to serge the edge, and then turn it and hem with a shell stitch on my Bernina.

1 I chose this stitch with the widest width, and shortened the stitch.

2.  I tightened the tension to a 9 out of 10, and

3 rolled the fabric twice and hemmed.  It is easy to roll over a serged edge.

If this stitch looks familiar,  it is the mirror image of the blind stitch that I used in this post.

The pattern I used for this little yellow confection is a the Sara tank from 5 out of 4 patterns, this post contains affiliate links,  they cost you nothing to use, and encourage me to write more posts like this.  I hope you find this useful.

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Happy Sewing!  Joan