Modern Clothing

Sewing Diaries

Modern Clothing

The apple teeshirt

I made this shirt in September/October of 2006. I wanted one of those gathered front tunic-y shirts you see in stores now, only with a higher neckline. I made this from apple jersey from retrodepot.com. The edges are left unfinished- even the neckline just had a strip of fabric sewn and underswen and left to curl. I cut up an old shirt for the pattern. The issues I had with the shirt below were not present with this shirt, mainly because I left so many edges raw.

The black teeshirt

I've been on the lookout for the perfect shirt- not too tight, but fitted, high neckline, flat felled seams, heavier material, 3/4 length sleeves. I found this 95%cotton 5%spandex rib knit at Joann fabrics, on sale for 6.00 a yard. I liked it but the spandex did show through silver wherever it's stretched, and it's almost too heavy for the hems- more on that later. I bought it and an airplane print, to make a teeshirt for my sister (married to an Air Force fighter pilot). I used some PJ/shirt pattern from New Look or one of those displays. I have no real issues with the pattern, which features a nicely shaped waist, except that the shoulder are way too low. The neckline was maybe even a bit *too* high- it's hard to get my head inside. The worst problem, however, was the bottom hem- it puckers slightly in the back like an old shrunken teeshirt. I'm not sure how to fix this (or pick out these stitches without going blind, for that matter). All in all, unless I have a reason I doubt I'll be making any more teeshirts (besides the one for my sister) until I can make them look better!!

The black dress

Excuse my wet hair. And the PJ-ribbon I used as a sash. I am going to get some thicker black grosgrain for that instead.

Lately I have been looking for and making clothing for work. When I saw that the linen/rayon blend fabric was on sale at Joann’s, I knew it would make a nice little dress- I’ve used that fabric many times before and it’s great. I picked out some plain black and got it cut. There I noticed it wasn’t what I wanted, it was instead some sort of polyester rayon blend…but it was inexpensive and already cut so I bought it anyway.

I took it home and washed it. It dried really quickly and looked perfectly wrinkle-free.

The dress pattern I used was Butterick B4443, an incredibly easy sew. Since the fabric was so stiff already, I didn’t want to underline the entire lining, but wanted some sort of stabilization. I don’t know if this is the ‘right’ way of doing things, but I cut 1-inch strips of interfacing and added them to the neckline (overtop the clipped understiched edge) and the back and halfway up the front princess seams. I really like the effect of this super-lightweight ‘boning’ and will do it again, for informal dresses like this. The rest of the sewing was easy, although with the placement of the princess seams (so close to the arms), fitting was an issue and it's still a little too loose.

Seems pretty simple, right? Well…as I was sewing, I started to get suspicious about the fabric. It was just so…hardwearing. Too perfect right out of the wash. Black. Going back, I found this fabric was misplaced- it should have been in the ‘occupational’ fabrics.

What occupation? Here’s a hint: the other colors were brown and navy.

Star Wars PJ's

July 30, 2006: For a friend, sick with meningitis.