A Repair and an Addition

My daughter goes to day care because both my husband and I work full time. I love my babysitter she is so fantastic with all the kids and makes day care/babysitting every day more like preparing for school. I love it!

Ok, back on point...

My babysitter asked if I could fix this shirt for her (it took me like 6 weeks or more to get to it because I kept forgetting.) She asked if I could fix the straps and add bra cups into it. So I told her I would try.

The straps were being held on to the shirt by the lace around the top. The lace on one side had begun to fray and was going to tear off completely at any moment. Repairing the straps was easy. I just cut the straps off and reattached them to the shirt in the same place. We lost about half an inch of lace on the very end, but overall.. NOT a big deal.

Secondly, she asked me to add bra cups to the shirt. I was not sure on how this was going to work. But it went smoother than expected. I went to Joann's and bought a bikini bra insert. I sewed a lightweight cotton fabric to the side of the cup that would be against the skin. The texture of the bra cup its self would not have been comfortable. Once I did that, I sewed the cups to the inner lining of the shirt. This was great because there was already a lining. I didn't have to make one so the seams would not show on the front of the shirt. If there had not been a lining, I would have made one and attached it. The only thing I would have done differently really is the serging. I did not think to serge the liner on the cup to the cup until after I had already attached it to the shirt. I serged it, but it was not as neat as it could have been. But I'm still glad I did it. The edge of the cup looks a lot neater now even if its not perfect.

I am interested in how to perfect the built in bra. It was a bit difficult to figure out how I was going to approach it, but I am looking forward to working with that element some more.

For My Daughter

My 3 year old daughter LOVES when I sew at home. Her favorite part is sitting on my lap and pulling the "binks" (pins) out as we sew and putting them on my magnetic pin cushion. She likes to help by putting her hands on the back of my hands as we feed the fabric through the machine. She asks me on a regular basis "are we gonna sew today mom?". I love it. Having her help me with the pins and the sewing is nice because her attention span can only handle a few minutes at a time. She helps me sew, then goes to play while I pin the next section we are gonna work on. Then she is ready to sit still again for a few minutes. The MOST exciting part is when we are all done and she puts on the clothes that we've made and runs to tell her dad that SHE made her own clothes all by herself. Oh, and mom helped a little. The pride and excitement that is on her face is totally priceless. I was thinking when she gets older that if she is still interested I may buy her her own little kids sewing machine. That would be fun for us to do together.

These pajama pants probably would have taken me less than an hour to do had I been working on the myself. But my daughter was helping and that about doubled the time it took. I'm ok with that though because we did it together and it was fun. My mom gave me the fabric I used for the pants to use as curtains. I liked the little ducks on the bottom and thought it would be super cute as a pair of pants. And so it was. They are a little bit big for her right now but she loves to wear them because she made them.

In all honesty I really do NOT like this shirt. It came out too short for as wide as it is (even though I followed the pattern), and trying to make the straps was impossible. Make thin straps then turn them inside right. Yeah, right. I finally gave up on the straps and used bias tape. I had never used bias tape before and didn't realize that one side is longer than the other AND that you are supposed to open it up, sew it, fold it over, and sew it again. At least I think thats the way it was explained. I was annoyed and confused with this shirt. It went in the "never gonna wear it but learned something anyway" pile.

School Project - Collared Button Down Shirt

This was a tough one. I honestly never thought I was going to finish this shirt. Class is 16 weeks long and this shirt I think took me 10 or 11 class periods to do. I am glad this shirt is done, but not very happy with some of the details on it. I'm glad I had guidance with this one. Otherwise, it would have gone in the trash long before it got finished.

The collar. *sigh* I had to redo this one. Good thing I had extra fabric. I think the best advise I can offer to anyone is ALWAYS have extra fabric. You never know when you might need it. I was plugging along following the instructions (apparently that was my first mistake) when my teacher announced that she has a better, easier, nicer looking way to make a collar. Crap. I already made the collar according to the instructions. Ok, scrap that. Start over. I am not going to provide step by step instructions for most things, but for the things that I find make a real difference I will because I know it made my life more simple, or made the overall garment look a lot nicer. I am happy to share the good tidbits.

For the collar, she had us choose which side was going to be the under side of the collar and cut those pieces 1/4" shorter on the sides that were NOT going to connect with the shirt. And cut the interfacing a total of 1/2" shorter on the sides that were NOT going to connect with the shirt. Melt the fusible interfacing (great stuff by the way) to the under collar. Then sew the top collar pieces to the bottom pieces like normal. By shortening the sides of the back then sewing them together, it pulls the seam under. When you iron and attach the collar to the shirt you do not see the seams, AND you don't have to bother with top stitching to hold anything in place. This all makes the collar crisper and neater looking. Very cool.

Ok, back to non specifics. Button holes are easy when you have the little foot attachment for your sewing machine. I love it. Still trying to figure out machine attached buttons. Never seems to turn out quite right for me, BUT I'm working on it. I also did darts for the first time on this shirt. Start from the outside and work to the point. Easy.

Now that I have done a shirt like this I could do it again a lot quicker, but it is definitely more involved than other things I've made. And I know I have to refine some things still. But I am happy with this overall despite the amount of time it took to make.

School Project - T-Shirt

This shirt was my second school project. The pattern was for a basic t-shirt (just the black part) but I wanted to change it up a little bit. I asked my teacher if she could show me how to add the long sleeves and the bottom in pink. For the record... it was WAY easier than i ever expected it to be. Faux layers are easy.

I bought the same kind of straight up non stretch cotton as I did for the pj pants. Again, don't like the texture, but good for learning with, and another simple McCalls or Butterick pattern. All of the patterns I have used so far are McCalls or Butterick. But for the sake of consistency, I will continue to post that little bit of info :)

Adding the faux sleeves was very easy. Instead of cutting the pattern piece for the short sleeve version, I kept it long for the long sleeve version. Then, when I pinned it to cut the fabric I just folded it on the line where I would have cut it short. I cut the top sleeve section in black and the bottom section of the sleeve piece. Then I sewed the pink section to the black section. Easy peasy. After getting my two tone sleeve in one piece I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next. The simplicity blew me away. Fold the black part down and over the pink part and top stitch to hold it all in place. Done! Faux layered sleeves! The bottom was exactly the same except I didn't use a pattern piece. It was just rectangle shaped pieces of material the length and width that I needed.

The contrast of the black and bright pink was a lot of fun to work with and I really like the overall outcome. I know you can not see it in this picture, but all the stitching (hemming and top stitching) that is on the black shirt is a bright pink thread for contrast and black thread on the pink material. I think it gives it another interesting but subtle think to keep your eyes interested.