Kila Tank & Dress hack


Tops / Tuesday, September 3rd, 2019

The Kila Tank (by Allie Olson) is quickly becoming my favorite pattern! Allie did an amazing job with the fit of this tank and it’s construction. At this point, I have made at least 10 of these, and wear one almost every day!

Rib knit fabrics from IndieSew

FABRIC

My favorite fabric for the Kila tank, of course, came from Indie Sew. The black tank above, and the Kila dress, is made with a 9.5oz overstock tencel blend rib knit (88% tencel, 12% spandex). This is my favorite rib knit! And the blue rib knit is also from Indie Sew

SIZE & MODIFICATIONS

I have noticed that in certain fabrics I have to size-up, depending on the amount of stretch (ex. bamboo jersey). For example, I have made a couple of Kila’s with this rayon spandex knit from fabric.com, which only has 5% spandex (compared to 12 in the tencel blend), and they feel slightly tighter overall. But in these rib-knits, I have been making a size 8.

Other modifications I made were to widen the straps a tad, and shorten them to a size 6. Tank top straps are always too long on me.

I love the bindings!

DRESS MODIFICATIONS

I aded 15.5 inches to the pattern, and I graded out so that the pattern pieces measured 39 inches around the hips (my hip measurement is about 42″).

I used about 1.5 yards for the dress.

More tips and tricks for sewing the Kila tank can be found here on the IndieSew site.

MORE KILA TANKS!

Another Kila I made for a friend! FABRIC: Art Gallery Cat Nap
Fabric from IndieSew.com

4 Replies to “Kila Tank & Dress hack”

  1. Thanks did you use a cover stich machine for the bindings? I only have a serger and sewing machine
    They look so professional

    1. I did! I like it bc its easier, but you can certainly use a serger for most of the seams and for attaching the bindings, and then use a zig zag for the topstitching instead of the coverstitch.

    1. oh yea, IndieSew decided to close a few months ago 🙁
      I like rib knits with a lot of recovery. Some good online fabric sources are Stone Mountain & Daughter out of Berkley; Blackbird Fabrics or Sitka Fabrics out of British Columbia -both with reasonable shipping to the US; Sometimes Fabric.com has good rib knits AND free return shipping so you can feel it, but they have a lot of mediocre fabrics so watch out.
      The kila tank works well with cotton knits too! Hawthorne Fabric & Spoonflower have printed jersey knits and stretch cottons that are great for the Kila tank! I have to make different sizes depending on the type of fabric and the amount of stretch, so try it on after sewing the side seams and see if you want it tighter or not.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *