Great thread, girls
When I saw this thread, I had just unpicked the sleeve from one of my homemade jerseys as I am planning on making it a sleeveless for hot weather as I am a bit over my two tone arms already and it isn't even Christmas.
If you haven't tried making your own, definitely give it a go. The effort is worth it for me as over here, basic jerseys start at $50 and go upwards from there. Event jerseys for big organised rides are around $95. Seems the more advertising you get on them the more you have to pay
In Australia it is very hard to find patterns and fabric to make tech clothing as our market is very small, however I managed to find some fabric one day at a major haby chain called Sports Plus. It was the same as the commercial brand jerseys so as it was a discontinued line I grabbed a few metres of just about every colour they had.
I bought the Jalie 2216 pattern over the net and it arrived in a couple of days.
Since then I have made a number of different jerseys for both myself and husband.
For the cooler months I wanted a long sleeve one, so just laid out a long sleeve T that I really liked and used it as a pattern to draw the sleeve length/shape onto paper and then put into the top instead of the peice that came with the pattern.
I normally don't put elastic in the bottoms or even the sleeves as I like my stuff loose as well, however for the long sleeve one, I did cut a peice a couple of inches wide and used it to make a band for the wrist. Much better than long sleeves flapping.
I have also had a go at making their nix, which worked out well, although it is really hard to get the chamois to sit nicely, but perserverence pays off here. My biggest problem with making nix is that the gripper elastic is almost impossible to get in Australia so I needed to use something else which didn't work as well.
Another pattern I have tried is Kwik Sew 1727. It is for a Men's Tank Top, Tights & Bicycle Shorts.
I made the tank top for myself as we had planned a group ride last summer a couple of months out and when the ride came around the weather was forecast to be 35 degrees C (about 95F) so I wanted something cool to wear. It turned out OK but the pattern needs moding for women with small breasts as the arm holes are really huge. Luckily my hydropack straps are wide and you couldn't see my underwear but definitely a thing to consider if the ride ends at a coffee shop.
Here are a couple of my garments (including the one that I have just unpicked but am yet to finish off).
My sewing isn't as professional as Formica's (my zippers look awful close up) however where we ride there are a lot of rocks and other rough stuff so one crash and your clothes get trashed pretty quickly so cheaper rather than fancier is the order of the day round here.