Stripey t-shirt

Happy New Year!

I did it!  I signed up for the RTW Fast!  I thought I’d missed the boat, but Sarah extended the invitation through to-day, and after much hemming and hawing I did it.  So what was my big hang-up you might ask?  The part where you need to send a photo.  You know I prefer dummy pictures.  I am the most unphotogenic person on the planet.  I do a great job of hacking off my head, should picture taking day also be a bad face day.  Well, I got over it.  I found the best picture on the computer that I had, cropped to only my head, which made for a rather blurry picture, but probably improves the look.  Done.  (I also first e-mailed my son to get his opinion on the picture, and it passed muster.  Insecurity issues?)

So - while everyone else is tallying up their year’s accomplishments, I’ll just plow ahead with items that have yet to make it to this blog.  I was going to catch up by year’s end, but obviously that didn’t happen.

We’ll skip over the rest of the summer stuff and jump right into fall and winter.

I have a soft spot for “weird” fabrics, especially if I get comments at the fabric store to the effect of “how are you ever going to sew that?”  And so it was with this striped knit.  It’s very stretchy.  It’s wrinkly.  It has stripes that defy matching.  And those are probably the reasons that it sat in the fabric stash for quite a few years.  I had to ponder over it – for quite some time, apparently.  Actually, I did have a plan … of sorts.  Not too long after buying this fabric (and already pondering on how to tackle it) I was at a Met Live in HD performance.  The host(ess?) who talked to the various singers during intermissions (possibly Joyce DiDonato?) was wearing a top (or was it a dress?) out of a fabric similar to mine – weird zigzaggy lines and crinkly.  (Why do I remember weird random details from years back?)  What struck me was that the seams were all on the outside, and they were “bound” in black.  Bingo – that was the way to do it!  I still had to ponder the idea some more, obviously.  Well, I finally did it.  It just took some time to get up the nerve.

To keep seams to a minimum, I cut a kimono sleeve t-shirt.  (I sort of followed this tutorial on turning a t-shirt pattern with sleeves into a kimono sleeve pattern.)

I sewed the seams with a narrow serged seam (say that quickly three times) with woolly nylon thread in both loopers.  This took a lot of sample sewing – despite the differential feed being set at max, it was a wavy mess, until I finally came up with the solution of sandwiching the seam in water soluble stabilizer (yes, the stuff you use for machine embroidery).  It worked perfectly.

Just a small matter of getting rid of all that stabilizer mess at the end.  No need for differential feed, either.  To avoid hemming issues the bottom and sleeves were finished off with bands.  And … the neck was “faced” with a strip of fabric.

 

And every new t-shirt needs a new pair of pants.  The wool left over from this coat.  Just my usual Vogue 2532.  And yes, they’re lined.

As if that wasn’t enough…  Couldn’t leave any leftovers – heaven forbid.  Seems I had enough for two sleeves.

And then (I must have been delirious from lack of sleep, or something) – I even managed a little cowl scarf.

That was certainly overkill.

There’s another similar fabric lurking in the fabric stash – more black than cream….  May-be I’ll leave that one to marinate for a while longer.