Well, Hello There

I've been busy sewing and posting on Instagram. And just busy with life. Add to that camera issues....my camera was broken so I was using the iPad, another camera, my husband's phone....so collecting up all the pictures from different places was annoying. And my youngest is constantly taking the camera to make her own videos. Then, I got a new phone, with a pretty good camera, and I could post to Instagram with it, but couldn't seem to get the OneDrive to work to transfer pictures onto the computer. Now my regular camera is fixed (YAY! Thanks hubby!) so hopefully I will get back to posting.

Sewing. You all know I have a love-hate relations ship with it. The True Tracy Way exposes itself a lot when I sew. Like. Many years ago I found this sweater weight knit fabric in a remnants bin. I thought it would make a cozy dress since there was enough. But when I got it home and unrolled it, I found that the purple accents had missed spots in the middle!! Frustrated, I folded it back up into the stash.  I've not forgotten it though and decided enough was enough.  I dug it out and fully unrolled it. I saw that the fabric was really wide and the missing spots were only in a vertical line up the middle. I could most likely still fit pieces around that. I picked a pattern (New Look 6143), and read the reviews on PatternReview.com

This is sideways!

Why can nothing be easy for me? The reviews were not particularly good. The armholes were too low, reducing mobility. Well, that explained the issue with some of the other shirts I've sewn! How to fix it? I googled and searched and everything either just said "raise the armhole" (but what about the sleeves?!) or was way too complicated or too easy (shown on a sleeveless top). Finally I found it. Cut a box around the bottom of the armhole. Raise that up, add new tissue to the side seam. Reduce the sleeve head by the amount you raised the armhole. It seemed too easy!

I found a great video explaining all this too, though she said it wasn't 1:1, but more like shorten the armhole twice what the difference was. I figured it was easier to trim the sleeve down than to add length after it's cut.

I finally cut it out, and basted it together. I was quite impressed! Though the fabric seemed itchy! Tweaked the armhole a smidge more then serged it together and added the neck facing and hems. Then I sat down to pick out the basting. Except that I forgot I had to change a serger thread and it was a different colour and I thought it was the basting...

Originally I thought it was two shades of grey, plus purple. But I was wearing brown pants, and it looked fine.
The kids and hubby approved of this shirt. They said it looked store bought. Which, to an unconfident sewer, is the best compliment!  Especially compared to what they said about some pants I made...