Breaking My Sewer’s Slump
You are familiar with
ballplayers being in a batting slump when they just can’t get a hit for several
games. A writer has writer’s block if
he/she can’t find any words to put on paper. I believe I have been experiencing something
similar regarding my sewing. I have
been unable to focus on sewing for several months. I sew but I don’t complete anything. At the sewing retreat in September in Shipshewana,
I made three pants but I still have not hemmed them. Before that that I cut out four small cross-body
bags. I completed three, but the fourth
is still unfinished. I also cut out a
fitting muslin for a new denim jacket pattern, but I did not finish that either. Next, I purchased a new pattern for a purse
and cut that out, but I have yet to sew a stitch on the bag.
Although I had all these
unfinished projects, I decided to cut out a long sleeve tee shirt. I found some light blue knit fabric in my
stash. I cut out a tee top using
McCall’s pattern 6964. I have used this
pattern for many tops so I knew it fit.
That eliminated the most difficult step in sewing anything! Maybe that is what I needed. I needed something with no problems to get me
back on the road to successful sewing.
Then I decided the plain blue
tee top needed something to jazz it up a little. It needed some pizazz. I looked at the embroidery unit for my sewing
machine. It was just sitting there
unused as it has been for a long time. I decided to put it to use and embroider
something on the front of the shirt. I
had already sewn the front to the back so I ripped out the seams to make it
easier to handle in the embroidery hoop.
Then I looked for a design in my Pfaff sewing machine. I wanted something simple and quick. I wanted no problems with this project. I chose a beautiful butterfly for the front
of the shirt and a smaller side-view version of the same butterfly for the back
shoulder of the shirt. I had to retrain
myself on how to use the embroidery portion of my sewing machine because I had
not used it for such a long time. After
two days I had a butterfly on both the front and back pieces of my shirt.
It was a simple process to
sew the shoulder seams together again. I
remembered to cut pieces of stabilizer (interfacing) to sew in the shoulder
seams to prevent them from sagging and stretching. I don’t like the pattern piece for the neckband
in this pattern, so I cut my own. I turned to the book, Knits for Real People,
by Susan Neall and Pati Palmer to jog my memory on how to do this. Pages 79 – 81 provided instructions for making
a neckband for a round neckline. I
measured the total front and back neckline on the pattern including the seam
allowances and then took ¾ of that figure.
That gave me the total length of the neckband. I measured the width of the neckband on
another shirt and added the seam allowance on both sides. I sewed the short end of the band together
and then folded the band in half lengthwise.
I machine basted the band to the neckline to determine if I liked it
first. Then I sewed the folded band to
the right side of the shirt and pressed the seam down. Then I stitched just below the seam to
hold the seam allowance down inside the shirt.
After sewing the two side
seams, I sewed the sleeves together and inserted them in the armscyes. My shirt
was finished except for hemming the sleeves and the shirt. I have been hemming shirts by serging the
bottom edge, turning up the hem allowance and using a straight stitch to hold the
hem in place. I decided this time I
would use my serger to sew a cover stitch hem.
Since I have not used the cover stitch in a very long time, I realized
this was going to take a while. I needed
to read the instructions and practice this stitch before using it on my
shirt. I took some time to learn to
thread the machine properly for the cover stitch and then practiced to make
sure I had a good stitch. Then I used
the serger to hem the bottom of my shirt and the sleeves with a wide cover
stitch. Finally, my shirt was
completed. I had broken my sewer’s
slump! Pictures of the completed project are shown below:
How are your sewing projects
progressing? Don’t give up if you
encounter a problem. Just keep trying
until you overcome it!
Judy
