My Father's Shirt

Randomly my dad gave me this shirt the other day when I was visiting him. They don't live far just on the other side of town. I think he misses me a lot so I should try to visit them more, but that is besides the point of this post.  Dad gave me a shirt because he knew I had another shirt with the same blue pinstripes so he was trying to be thoughtful by giving me his.  It was a mans large of Old navy, I was swimming in it of course. I thought I would make the best out of it and turn it to a tunic shirt.

Here are some terrible pictures of me wearing the end result.  I am showing these first so we can end with the better looking photos because it really turned out nicely.

I struggled for a long time with the front of this shirt.  It needed some sort of shape and the darts every which way I did them were unsatisfactory.  Finally I folded in some pintuck seaming and I was smitten with the faux bib (for lack of a better word since my brain isn't functioning today).  I also rolled up the sleeves and stay stitched them down.

For the back I brought it into a box pleat in the middle so that it created an interesting drape and brought the shoulders and back up a fit so the front was more fit.

Amazing that I was able to do all this with a few selective stitches and not cut a single piece of fabric out of the shirt.

It talks to me

For me choosing fabrics and what I am going to make is a very organic process.  I see fabrics or materials and they instantly talk to me and tell me what they want to be made into.  I find it much harder to design and then pick a new fabric out.  I work much better just buying something on a whim and making it work.  Almost everything I buy fabric for that is planned out does not turn out as I would of wished it to.  Usually I end up scraping that idea and re-working the pattern and re draping it all into something much more fantastic.

Currently I am nearly done with this piece of  Leather.  It told me it wanted to be a pintucked wrap skirt.

Now I am in the process of encrusting the closing flap with Swavorski crystals and glass beads.

From Drop Box

It was a bit laborious going through this on my Innov-is 80 Brother machine but she toughed it out and all I needed was to change my leather needle about 3 times.  I'm always suprised how well that little electronic machine can handle heavy fabrics.  Still I prefer my Sears Kenmore for heavy leather.  It was a good experiment.

Very soon I am getting a new machine!  The Brother sewing and embroidary machine Innov-is 900D!