Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Cheeseball sewing

Still excited... still can't stop sewing random things. Last night I finished the Alabama shirt that I decided not to hand sew.  For now you get to see it on the Wench,, who is sporting a piece of sheet as a neck because purple necks are crazy: 
Those wrinkles under the bust are caused by it being crooked on the dress form.  No worries guys.
By the by, does anybody else have a dress form?  Aren't they creepy?  For my sanity, I have to keep mine in the closet when I'm not using it.  If it's out, every time I walk into the room I get a bad shock thinking that it's a creeper waiting to get me.
Today I had it set up in the bedroom to take these pictures and then we left the house for a while.  When I came out I turned on the bedroom lights and gave a small shriek.  "Hellloooo little giiiirl" says Creeper Wench.


Oh right the shirt.  Let's talk about this shirt.  First... pretty!  It's totally pretty.  I decided to be intrepid and finish the seams to the outside for once.  I love how it turned out.  I seriously could not be more impressed with myself about that.  Let me get you a closeup picture:


Cool huh?  I finished the raw edges at the neck and sleeves with my contrast thread, using the overcast stitch on my machine.  I think the shirt has a bold look and I'm very proud of that.  I have this shirt (another shirt) that I really hate.  The bust fits terribly and the fabric is very wild and totally not my style.  However, every time I wear it I get a lot of compliments.  I decided that it's because the shirt looks very interesting, causing people to notice it among my other clothes, which are almost uniformly solid colors.  So, because of this hated shirt I have been making an effort to wear more exciting clothes (but ones that I actually like).

So, that is what I like about this shirt. Sadly, there are three bad things.
1) The fabric is a jersey knit so the pattern is sized for stretch, but there is no stretch in the stenciled areas. As a result, the shirt is tight. It's not too tight to wear, but it's definitely at the edge of acceptable. My bust is kinda smashed and the sleeves want to pull the shirt off my shoulders.  Stupid sleeves.
2) I accidentally painted the wrong side of one of the panels that goes next to the front middle. I couldn't repaint it because I custom mixed the paint for my stencils so long ago that I don't even remember which paints I put in it.  The piece was close to symmetrical, so I ended up putting the two pieces on top of one another and re-cutting them to BE symmetrical.  As a result, the armscythe and neckline are both slightly wonky and it only looks right if you constantly pull it down in front.
3) I picked badly on the fabric color, I really did.  It is a little bit of a purply navy blue.  I do not own a single piece of bottomwear that goes with this color.  It clashes with jeans.  It's too dark of a blue to wear with black.  With the dark and the gold it is too much contrast to add in white.  I am actually going to have to SEW something to wear with this.  GAH. 

I'm so so so seriously mindblowingly glad that I didn't hand sew the applique on this one!  I can't even express my gladness that I didn't spend hundreds of hours on my too small, wonky, wrong colored (pretty) shirt.

P.S. I found fabric in my stash to sew a skirt for it.  I am going to manage to wear this thing...

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