Subtle Yet Satisfying

Here's the before picture.
















Here is the after picture. I raised the sleeves up and opened up the neckline.

I learned some interesting things on this t-shirt. It was a size 2X. I think a 3X is easier to alter and get just like I like it. First of all, the hips only just fit. I would prefer more wiggle room. Next, there wasn't that much shoulder width to cut off, so when I wanted to raise up the underarm hole, I didn't have the left over shoulder fabric to fill in the underarm. I ended up with a very long armscye and not that much sleeve seam line. I had to stretch the sleeve to fit, so the sleeves look a little less fitted than I would like. My next t-shirt alteration is a 3X, so we'll see if a slow careful 3X alteration gives me the best results.

exercise 0, sewing 1, God 100

What a week! I didn't "exercise" once, but I was on my feet the whole week. I had a blast at Faith Formation week, sometimes lovingly called Catholic Boot Camp. It was worth all the work. I hope my students learned a lot, but in the end, if the only thing they learned was "I belong," I've done my job. I know God will do the rest. To belong to our motley crew of dedicated Christians is not a bad fate at all. With all that confidence in God on my side, I managed to teach them much more.

I manged to sew a little bit, but am I mad at myself. I told myself a million times, "When you get your 'Walk (T)His Way' t-shirt, take a picture of it before you alter it!" After I started hacking into it, I remembered! GRRRR. I was rushed.

I requested a 3X, because I wanted it loose around my hips. It was, but like any man's t-shirt, the arms hung off my shoulders and I hated it. I took off the sleeves and put little darts down the under arms, stopping at the top of my hips. The underarm hole was way too deep, so I took the extra shoulder fabric and put in an underarm patch. That raised up the underarm. Then I cut the new sleeve and reattached it. I love the underarm patches, but I hate how the t-shirt turned out. I cut too much shoulder width off and cut the sleeve too short. Half an inch on each would have made them hang nicer. Sigh. I was rushed since I got the shirt after Catholic Boot Camp started and needed it finished before Friday.

Next I unpicked the neck trim and lowered the front neckline, reattaching the neck trim just like in this earlier post. I hate how it turned out! I must learn to use a shorter piece of trim and stretch it out more. Sigh. I was rushed.

If I was really pregnant and didn't just look pregnant, I'd have loved it. But the long length made it look like such a cute maternity top that I needed to shorten it to look more like a traditional t-shirt length. New problem. I was having a terrible time with my top thread tension. After checking my instruction book and finding nothing, I remembered a long ago experience with the same thing, and that was a thread problem. I switched threads, and sure enough, no problem. That solved everything but my top stitching problems since I was using a thread that no longer matched. I had no time to go to the store. I was afraid to use a double needle with the bad matching thread, so I went ahead and used a single needle. The thread tension pulled through OK, but it looks so "home made," in a bad way. GRRRR. I was rushed.

So what did I learn this week? God is good and gives me all I need to flourish; the first thing to go when I get busy is exercise; I love to sew for fun, but never on things that have a dead line! Oh yea, I knew all that already.

No Sisters, No Daughters

I live in a boy world. Always have. I have two brothers and two sons. The only close female relative that I have is the one required by nature -- a mom. I always thought of myself as a bit of a tomboy, so I was surprised when a friend mentioned that I was such a "girly-girl" in spite of my male surroundings. Her comment made me start to notice. Somewhere between being determined not to let my older brothers get the better of me and raising my sons into fine young men, I've adopted all the trappings of femininity. It's not that I mind, it's just that I didn't notice it happen.

I hate T-shits. I won't wear them if I can avoid them. I hate two things about them: the choking necklines and the boy sleeves.

Starting with a standard T-shirt, I lowered the neckline and made girl sleeves. I didn't have a pattern to follow, so I just hacked the sleeves off. I cut the T-shirt body along the curve of my body to make an armscye. Then I just cut the sleeve to look like a fitted sleeve. I left the underarm seam and hem and basted the sleeve into the armscye in the round. I needed to be more daring, so I unbasted and took off some more fabric, making a more pronounced curve between the sleeve cap and underarm seam.

The picture makes the sleeves look crooked, but I ran upstairs and tried the T-shirt on in a panic, and it's just the picture, not the shirt. I'd take another picture, but I'd rather sew, so I'll leave it at that.

For the neckline, I removed the trim by unpicking the seam, cut the rib in half longways, then sewed two of the short ends together. I measured how much I'd need, cut it, and sewed the other two short ends together. I folded it in half longways, pressed, and sewed it to the new, lowered neckline. Then I top stitched it to the seam allowance. The rib trim is now half the width of the original, but lowering the neckline created the need for a longer length, which I got by cutting it in half.

Ha! No one around here ever borrows my clothes. My dastardly plan is working!