Things I Can Make

so i have been into craft blogs this summer...so i've decided to do something about it! my goal is to make something at least once a month (which i think is completely achievable).

so for the month of august (it's actually one of my summer goals which you can see here) my goal was to make the skirt seen here.

this was a pretty lofty goal being that we didn't own a handy dandy sewing machine UNTIL hubby came to the rescue. he decided he was tired of having to ask people to hem our pants, and there was no reason we couldn't do it ourselves, so we bit the bullet, and bought a sewing machine.

the machine sat around, hemmed some pants, sat around, sat around, got put away, hemmed some more pants...you get the picture. so i decided to get over my anxiety and try it...i mean the project wasn't costing me anything (the shirt was from hubby's goodwill pile)...so what did i have to lose.

of course every good craft blogger has great before and after pics...well mine aren't so hot...but hey...let's look at before...

i started with an XL men's dress shirt and then i removed the pocket and sleeves

then i cut it to pieces literally...because i didn't know what to do next honestly.
so i cut the collar off to try to decide where to do the top seam..then i just cut straight across where the armpit of the shirt was.
after buttoning the shirt, i folded over where i cut, ironed the fold to make sure it was straight and sewed. this was my first time sewing so it was pretty interesting but i did it...and even used a backstich or two :)

the skirt was too wide...not even touching my sides...so i turned the skirt inside out, lined up the bottom and sewed up the side about 2 inches in. well im not THAT small so it was too much and i got to pick out my seam...

i then remembered that i wanted ties on my skirt...so i took a break from the skirt to work on the ties.
i ironed the sleeves, putting one inside out so they matched exactly. then cut what i wanted the tie to look like. next i sewed up the open edge, then turned it inside out to hide the seam. tada ~ two ties

then i kinda measured where i needed to sew the sides of the skirt to fit better, and pinned the ties where i wanted them to be so they would be sewed inside the side seam. and again i sewed up the sides.

this time the results were much better and the skirt pretty much fit. but i needed to taper the top to fit my hips better...so i just put the needle about an inch below where i wanted the taper to start...and i sewed up again at an angle...and there once again was success :)

:: see ::

TADA!