Eleven years ago, I made a shirt that mixed a floral and a leopard print. It was very cute, but I changed size and shape enough that it no longer fit, and I gave it away.
And now I've made another version!
It is less serious and more campy, and I am very happy with it.
This is the same leopard print I used eleven years ago, and I did have to make some construction concessions because I had a very limited amount of it left, after using it in various projects over the years, including an entire shirt made from it.
The biggest concession I had to make with this project was that I had only enough of the leopard print left to cut the upper collar across the grain, meaning the under collar was with the grain, as was the inside of the collar stand, and the outside was cut (on the cross grain, which I prefer there for the lack of across-the-grain stretch) from the chintz.
The front bands were also eked out, being cut with a little less leeway at the ends than I usually include.
Normally, when I make one of these hacked Burda 7831 shirts, contrast bands and collar happen because I don't have quite enough of the main fabric, and I have to improvise. This time, the leopard contrasts were planned from the start. I thrifted the floral fabric—a Daisy Kingdom print called Grannies [sic] Roses, ©1997—in October of 2017. This is the fist time I've used it, and I have a very irregular ¾ of a yard left.
I like the idea of leopard print and floral mixed together in general, and, once I noticed how well the brown in the leopard print matched the brown in the chintz, I had to put them together. Had to.
I considered using a set of floral print buttons I have, but decided to go with some of my beloved matches-everything faux horn buttons instead. I do like how they blend into the leopard print.
I did not like how the machine kept looping and tangling the bobbin thread while I was zigzagging on the buttons. It was getting so frustrating—why wasn't it working right???? Eh. Well. Turns out the presser foot thumb screw wasn't fully tightened. Once I corrected that, the button sewing behavior went back to normal.
Similar issue with the serger--I had mentioned before that it was wanting to chew up the edges, instead of cutting cleanly. I figured it was the needle getting dull, because sewing machines seldom show their problems where you'd expect them, but then I noticed that the top of the cutting blade looked a little high. I remembered that some of the ribbing on the sleep shirts had made the seam allowances thick enough that they didn't want to go through the serger, and, at some point, the bulk must have shoved the cutting blade up. I loosened the screw, tapped the blade down a bit, tightened it back up, and the cutting went back to normal.
I didn't figure this out until I was serging the side seams, so the sleeve seams are a touch chewed up still. It's fine.
As usual, I pressed every single edge before starting assembly, and sewed the bands to the inside before flipping them around to the outside where I edge stitched the (already pressed!) edges down. I like the combination of how clean the finishes end up, and the fact that I don't have to go back to the ironing board so much during construction.
No comments:
Post a Comment