Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Projects and stuff..

It's been a while since I've blogged and I have no excuses.. Just haven't felt like it, plus I haven't really made anything. I was obsessed with making this shirt over at Noodlehead. Anna makes such great things. I wanted to make this shirt so bad. So I got out all my pattern making supplies and found a shirt to use and did all that. I made a pattern... Then went to the fabric store, found some fabric that was 95 cents a yard (does it get any better than that?). It would have been cheaper because I had a coupon but I didn't use it, even though I'm super cheap and could have added it to my list of great buys.. And I got 2 yards because my sister also liked the shirt. Then I started the hunt for a "twin needle" if you don't know what that is it's like one needle shaft with two needles. So I had to call ALL over to find the thing, they had it at the local sewing machine shop BUT I thought it would be more expensive there, so I drove 15 miles (one way) to another shop where I could use a coupon and bought it. It was like $2.50 (plus the gas to drive 30 miles to get it). I get home and the thing will not work in my machine, I mean it works but not how it's supposed to.. Ho humm.. I started to think that I was not meant to make this shirt.... But I worked with it.. Sorry that I have no pics of any of this, I like to see other peoples pics, yet I hardly take any of the process or what things look like.. Yesterday I decided to try my hand with this.



My Mom bought this serger to make dresses for my sister's wedding, that was like 8 years ago. She used to make the dresses and then put it away. I really never had a desire to use it until about a year ago. I decided that I needed to get it out to finish the shirt, since I was having problems with it. I cleaned it and threaded it (only took 20 minutes, while looking at pictures and the color coded front) then I used it. Oh, baby!! I really know nothing about sergers, other than that they can cut while you sew. I didn't use the knife. So anyways, this is the finished shirt. I didn't use the twin needle, I just made two rows of straight stitching (which was kind of dumb because it doesn't stretch)



I know it's not the best picture, but it was windy. I guess from a distance it looks OK. And it's really not that bad but the arm openings are to small, this was a measurement error, which I noticed as I was cutting the pattern so I made it as big as I could. Now If I would have spend the time (like 15 minutes) to see if the twin needle worked in the old sewing machine (it does) I could have used it. The neckline is wonky, it flips out... I think it's a little low, I mean it isn't on me but just for the material. I'm a little sad about it actually, the fabric is really nice and buttery soft, I can take or leave the color but I like it enough. So I'm thinking of what I can do to make it wearable.. I really don't want to take the stitching on the sleeves out, but I might I guess I could just cut the stitched part off and re do it.
Last night I spent some times re working the pattern, made the arm holes plenty big this time, and changed the shoulders and the neck line. Plus, I have sort of conquered the serger so I'm a little more excited about making another one! I haven't decided on a pattern for the jelly roll quilt yet, but I did buy the grey Kona cotton. I was happy because it was on sale for about 4 bucks a yard. This feels like a really long and boring post, so sorry for that! Thanks for hanging on through all of it!!

1 comment:

The Sunflower Patch said...

It looks like you have been busy! I have not made any clothes since home economics class in HS (long time ago) so can not make any suggestions on your shirt. Sorry.