Clothes for Feebs

mmcollins107

This month I have sewn garments for Feebs. I was wanting to use up some fabric in my cubbies, and had my eye on eliminating the food flannel. That fabric was turned into some pajama pants using See & Sew B6613. I have used this pattern for her jammie pants several times and have always used size 6. Since I am a complete heathen, I cut out my patterns, so it was never going to last past size 6. My girl is 7 now, and getting too tall for the 6- 6X size. She still has a little waist though and can fit in her 6- 6X size clothes. To fix the situation I added about 3.5 inches of cuffs using the same fabric in the opposite direction. This worked great and now they will last her at least through the fall (I hope).

Next came March 15, on which day she asked if I would make her a St. Patrick’s Day skirt to wear to school on March 17. So, off to Joann’s we went. We purchased 1 yard of the least ugly St. Patrick’s-esqe fabric they had and a circle skirt pattern. Yes, it could have just been a rectangle of fabric with some elastic thrown in, but I wanted to try something new. I made the Simplicity 8027 in size 6. I would have liked a bit more time to get everything right and even, but it came out pretty good for a rushed first time. I wanted to do a circle skirt so that I could try a sewn in waistband. I detest straight hems, so curved hems are absolutely the devil. The waistband is a bit puckered in a few places, but I feel it ended up pretty good.

Last, and oh my god, certainly least is the DiBY ABB Tee. The pattern was so easy and self explanatory, so do not take any of the horror of the outcome as anything against DiBY.com. The was my first time sewing with jersey material, and my first time sewing a garment on my overlocker. IT CAME OUT SO BAD! I won’t even tell you everything I did wrong, because this would be a few pages long. Instead, I will tell you some of the challenges, new techniques, and positive outcomes.

Challenges:

  1. I used a ball point needle and the fabric was still chewed up by my sewing machine
  2. Even though I know how to drive both automatic and standard transmission vehicles, I could not figure out how to gently depress the pedal on my overlocker, so it went way too fast
  3. I absolutely could NOT make the pocket look right and even, so omitted it
  4. I was very careful not to stretch the fabric at all when I was sewing/ overlocking, and all of the hems are still ruffled.

New techniques:

  1. I decided to use my rotary cutter and mat, generally I am a scissors kind of person
  2. I sewed shoulder, side, and arm seams with my overlocker
  3. I used a recycled cotton jersey bed sheet to make this, and was my first time sewing knit fabric

Positive outcomes:

  1. Feebs likes it (most important)
  2. In the end, I did end up with a shirt
  3. I learned to pay close attention to where the blade is when using the overlocker, especially when sewing around curves

Notice, I am only showing a 30,000 feet picture of this shirt? I have decided that this is not a project that I want to document up close. I really feel like any future project I make, like this, will be a vast improvement. I am also going to call myself out for being sloppy and lazy (and just mildly frustrated and tired) on the neckband. I did not follow the directions and mark the front, center, and side quarters. I decided to just eyeball it. Note to self: you do not have an experienced eyeball. While you know how to fudge knitting, you do NOT know how to fudge sewing. Follow the directions, lady!

Loves,

M

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