My Sewing Process

Hello! Today we’ll be doing something a little different; taking a look at my sewing process when it comes to trying out new ideas. Let’s get started!

Also, please excuse the two-second drawings. 😉

I drew these illustrations so that you could (hopefully) see what I have in mind. The first photo is what I imagined the front of the shirt would look like, and the second, the back of the shirt. It looks like a plain shirt, but the addition of the buttons on the back would hopefully change that. Also the choice of fabric, which I’ll get to now.

Since I wanted to experiment with making shirts out of non-stretchy fabric, I thought this fabric would work. I also used it for a jumper. I thought it would be cute as a shirt, especially with some wooden buttons running down the back.

I wanted to try using the shirt pattern I already made. The only thing was that this pattern was made with stretchy fabric in mind, which means it wouldn’t fit if made out of non-stretchy fabric. I decided buttons would mean the least amount of tweaking to the shirt (to get it on and off), but I would still have to add width to the pattern.

I ended up making a mock-up with this drop cloth fabric, which probably wasn’t the best decision. The fabric was actively falling apart as I was working with it, so that was fun. 😉

I cut out the pattern pieces with this fabric; only adding an inch-and-a-half to the straight side of the back shirt panel. The front piece and sleeves I cut out exactly as they were.

How the Mock-Up Turned Out:

The front of the mock up looked like this. Does it look a little potato-sacky? Yes. But I didn’t think it was too terrible; if it had a little tweaking done to it, that is.

The back was where things kind of fell apart (literally and figuratively). The pattern, even with the extra width, was too narrow at the hips. Technically I could still add buttons, and only fasten them as low as possible; but I’m not sure how that would really look. I will say that a dress form is especially useful for projects like this! Being able to see the outfit on a “person” is really nice.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this look into my sewing process. Hopefully it wasn’t too boring. 😉 Obviously I still have some more to be done on this particular project. The conclusion may or not make it into a blog post. Until next time ~ Emily