Sunday, March 28, 2010

Bag Fail, Shirt Success!

Firstly, my husband is currently still sleeping. It is 12:15. I've been making all sorts of racket in the sewing room upstairs, and still he peacefully slumbers away. Amazing.

Yesterday, I spent a few hours attempting to make a canvas bag similar to one I saw at the Gap. Honestly, I don't even know why I try these things. Despite my best efforts, including the use of CAD to plot the pattern, the first result still looked a lot like a shapeless tote bag. I think I was meant to be a bag consumer and not a bag designer. I'm okay with that. I even decided against buying the bag, because I think the Gap bag would probably have looked the same loaded up with all of my crap.

This morning, I decided to tackle the men's shirt refashion as described here on Clevergirl's blog.

The first challenge for me is that I don't own a dress form, so I was winging the whole "pin to fit" part. On the first shirt that I attempted (purchased for 2 bux at the thrift store), I actually forgot that I am a pear, whereas Clevergirl is lucky enough to be normal shaped. So, I mistakenly cut too much off around the hips and wouldn't have been able to button the shirt after I sewed up the side seams. Back to the drawing board.

Luckily, my husband has recently outgrown a bunch of his dress shirts, so I have tons of raw material. I've been fixated on blue lately, so I chose a blue one to mess with. This time, I did better. A dress form would have definitely improved the end result. I tried to use an existing shirt to approximate where the shoulder/sleeve insertion point was located, and I still think I overshot the mark a bit. Also, it's a bit boring. It looks fine covered in a cardigan and with a scarf, but it feels a little blah all on it's own. See below.

To remake the sleeve, I used the sleeve pattern from Simplicity 4077. I'm getting better at the whole gathering and sleeve insertion process. It's like I actually enjoy it or something!

The end result
Men's Shirt Refashion

All dressed up
Shirt Refashion

Kind of blah
Headless shirt refashion

3 comments:

  1. Bummer on the bag, but the shirt looks really cute. Kudos!

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  2. Super-cute new shirt! Sorry the first one didn't work out -- maybe you can use it to make a quick and easy shopping bag if you haven't already repurposed it. Those sleeves from S4077 are really good ones, aren't they?

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  3. I love that 4077 pattern! The failed shirt and bag are destined for lining material, or quilt scraps! There is no waste in my sewing room (much to my storage space's chagrin).

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