Friday, August 29, 2014

Maximizing Use of Fabric

Earlier this summer...

Yes, I made another t-shirt!  I used the same pattern (of course), and changed the neckline.  I rotated the dart to the center front and gathered the fabric.  


Short sleeves for the season--perfect!  Or so I thought...sigh.

I found this fabric at another shop about an hour or so away.  This shop used to have more dressmaking fabrics and has gone quilty.  I managed to find this knit--the selvage says it's by Moda--must be ancient!  It is very soft and thick.  I actually had enough left over to eek out a tank top, too.  I had to shorten the bottom in order to squeeze on the pattern, but I don't think it's too short.  This will be nice for the beach, and hot summer days working outside.


I need to take out the back straps and resew because they don't quite line up with my bra straps.  Not sure it's worth doing though.

Apologies for the very blurry photos!  My photographer wasn't feeling cooperative at all--I guess I wasn't feeling overly cooperative either because of these T's.  

I am standing on a slight slope, too which has given me bad posture:(

The best part:

I used nearly every last bit of fabric! yay!

Now for the worst part:  This fabric has worn horribly.  I loved both tops after making them.  After wearing the short sleeved t-shirt twice, the third time (which was not a charm) I noticed that the shoulders weren't right.  When I made the shirt, they sat perfectly on me.  Now they were overhanging just a bit.  Being optimistic, I thought washing might help.  But no.  It's only gotten worse.  This was one of the rare times when I decided to not put elastic in the shoulders--big no no.  When I took Sarah Veblen's knit class in the fall she had suggested letting knits be knits, and that we don't always need to do extra things to them to make them behave.  However, in this case I don't think elastic would've mattered.  The tank top is growing sideways...and I've noticed the T is doing the same thing.  Really, my midsection is not that big!!!

Oh well.  Work or lounge wear?  

Anyway,I have really been enjoying making t-shirts, so now I am always on the lookout for nice knits.  One of our ASG chapter members wore a really neat wrap to a recent meeting made from a knit from Nancy's Notions.  It was really soft and looked elegant on her.  She had embellished hers using a stencil with some fabric paints--I don't think I'll get that wild.  However, one of the things I really liked about the wrap was its simplicity and ease of sewing.  Since we now have a youth neighborhood group within our guild, I am always looking for projects for them to do in a limited amount of time.  So I bought a kit from Nancy's Notions to test the wrap out and see if it will work for the kids to make.  That might be a bit of a challenge since it requires buttonholes...

Anyway, I got wild with my order from them.  While I cannot say great things about delivery--what is with mail order delivery these days???  Slower than molasses in January--I can say that my order was delightfully packaged.  The fabrics were even identified with their manufacturer's location.  Two of my fabrics came from Canada, one from the U.S., and one from China.  I don't recollect seeing that on labels at the Joann's stores, but I really liked it, and thought it was interesting.  The fabrics in my kit were not labelled, but I would assume that they were from Canada as that's where the other knits from a similar category came from.

At this point, I haven't gotten into this order or my EmmaOneSock purchase.  Instead, I've worked madly on some dresses and swimsuits.  And now I've committed to making a 6-PAC.  I'm in the process of redrawing my t-shirt pattern yet again.  Let's see if I can't get caught up blogging!

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