I made a shirt!

I made a shirt today!  And almost finished it!  So exciting!

It is the most wonderful soft stretchy nylon mix and it is dark brown and oh so comfy!  I bought it on my last fabric run and I couldn't resist making something out of it.  So when I got up today I cleaned my room up (not too much work since I'd done a deep clean last week) in order that I could go into craft mode. 

Craft mode needs lots of space, and has been known to take up that space for months at a time--see Eowyn dress--much to the chagrin of my mother who believes in cleaning house every week promptly and thoroughly.  Sorry Mom.

So after cleaning I got out two different fabrics that I wanted to make things out of: the stretchy brown, and a most wondrous olive green cotton (think the softest designer t-shirt material, woohoo!).  I'd had the green for a while, but the brown just called to me more so I made it today.

Did I mention I made a shirt? 

Shirt!

It's just your basic long sleeve semi-casual, but the sleeves are extra long and widen out over the hands so that they flop nicely when I wave my arms, and the neckline is a sort of oval scoop neck, with the thin part of the oval pointing down.  Don't know what that's called, but it probably has a term.

So I cut it out and sewed it together, but then I had a quandary: should I add some floppy ruffly hems in a bright gold material that I had?  It might look quite nice. 

We can skip past all the agonizing and tilting of the head and considering and wishy-washing over what to do, and end with; I tried it out on one sleeve and didn't like it, so no gold fabric this time! 

Which is almost a relief because I think this might be the first simple project I've ever done.  No, seriously.

First sewing project was a bodice made from leftover jeans and my graduation gown (who ever uses those things again, anyway?) but I had to do it all by hand because I didn't have a sewing machine yet.  And it was the first thing I ever really made and I didn't have a pattern so it came out with some slight problems.  So Difficulty Level = High.

Second sewing project was a reproduction of a Napoleonic war era British officer's uniform from the 95th rifles.  (Sharpe's Rifles, anyone, anyone?  Bah.)  The real thing looks something like this:

(Sean Bean rules!) 

And mine came out like this:

11 hours on that braid alone, grumble grumble, and don't get me stared on the buttons.  There were nearly 60 of them!  And I should have done the braid first instead of the buttons, but guess what?  You don't really think about it until you've done it and then it's all 20/20 hindsight.  Oh, and there is a specialized sewing machine foot to do what I did with all that braid, only it's a million times easier.  Grr.  So Difficulty Level: Extreme.

My next project didn't come out so well.  My first time using a brocade fabric and I didn't double over the seams so it fell apart.  It was another bodice and it was so pretty!  'sigh.'  Still a bit of a bummer.  Difficulty Level: Fail.

I also made two winter cloaks, one with a very very long nap (nap, when referring to fabric, means the length/depth of the fabric.  Think of a really fuzzy material: the nap is the distance from the bottom of the fabric to the top) that kept getting caught on my sewing machine.  I had to keep a pair of scissors handy just to cut the fabric loose each time it snagged.  My sewing machine nearly committed hari kari after that one.  So Difficulty Level: High.  The other cloak had a far less fuzzy lining, so Difficulty Level: Moderate/Low.

I then decided to make a Steampunk jacket.  Steampunk is fun!  Piping is not.  Piping is evil.  Piping caused me to rip out my seams so many times I wore out my seam ripper.  Grr.  Came out pretty nice, though.

Check out my awesome sleeves!

So that was generally awesome, and Difficulty Level = High.

Next was a light summer shirt where the sleeves were laced up with ribbon from the elbow all the way to the shoulder.  Very nice, very awesome, but I lacked proper tools to punch holes for the eyelets, so Difficulty Level = Moderate.

Now, the Eowyn dress.  There was so much difficulty there I almost don't want to even list it I'd feel so depressed.  It was my first time using an embroidery machine, and since there was no pattern for Eowyn's embroidery, I had to make it up myself, using two patterns from online; slicing and dicing and generally getting very frustrated for 11 straight house.  And then I could actually start using the patterns to make what I wanted, so another 10-15 hours to do that.  And then my grommet tool broke and I had to improvise and etc etc, Difficulty Level = High.

 (but so pretty and fun to wear)

Somewhere in the middle of all of that I also tried to make a pair of boot slippers for myself and failed.  Made a pair of moccasin slippers for my Mother and succeeded.  Tried to make a pair of lace up leggings that were also a failure.  Succeeded in making two Christmas stockings for my sister.


Whew.  I'd almost forgotten all the things I've made over the last three years.  I almost feel accomplished!


Which leads us to my latest endeavor: brown shirt.  Difficulty Level: Low.

The closest project to make to match that was the second winter cloak: moderate/low difficulty level.  But now I can say that I've done a basic sewing project!  Woohoo!

Anyone else get the idea that I've been going about this all backwards?  Perhaps I should have started with the easy shirt....

(pictures forthcoming)