Tag: sewing

A Year-long Quest for Shorts

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Yes, once again demonstrating a flair for dramatics with that title. But I also made 4 pairs of shorts in about a month after putting it off for a full year.

You see, my mom was frustrated with the lack of non-denim shorts in stores about a year ago. Seems a strange thing to be looking for in February now that I am sitting here in March in less than 50 degree weather, but perhaps I put off making that first pair of shorts as well and she was actually looking for shorts in the summer. Now that I think of it, that’s probably what it actually was.

Anyway, I set about to draft a pattern and quickly got bored of that idea. So I found a commercial pattern I could tinker with instead. (McCall’s M6930 if you are also looking for one. I used option A but shortened the inseam a bit.) I was able to combine two sizes to get them to fit the way she wanted, not to mention they have actual, functional pockets instead of the fake pockets women’s shorts usually have.

I made the first version as a test out of the fabric she had the most of, but for those I used some snaps I had in my stash instead of those slider buttons pants usually have. That turned out to be a mistake, because they continually pop open, but by waiting a year until things opened up a bit more I was able to get the actual hardware I needed for the “real” shorts.

I am thinking of once again taking the easy road and modifying the pattern for myself to make some short leggings for under dresses this summer. Or it might just be easier to draft my own pattern for those. We’ll see. I still have a dress in pieces hanging out in my sewing bin that I should probably finish first.

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Masks, Masks, and more Masks!

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Back in March I set out to use all the cotton fabric I had in my stash to make fabric face masks to donate. I pulled every bit of plain cotton I had out and ironed it, then set to work cutting as many mask pieces as I could.

I didn’t have much of the thin elastic for ear straps, so I made as many of those as I could, and then started making the ones with tie straps. The best part of that is they are completely adjustable and can fit very snugly, no matter what your head size. I’ve had littles as young as 2 wear the same size I do.

As the experts began suggesting everyone should wear non-medical masks when leaving the house, I changed from exclusively planning to donate to selling them as well. Through selling them, I was able to buy more fabric that I could dedicate to making more masks and then donate one for every one sold.

A little less than a month after starting the project, I was able to send a box of 66 masks off to the Sew Together project put together by the shoe company Tieks. I was still awaiting some fabric at that point, but I wanted to be sure I got what I had available sent out.

Once I finally got the last batch of masks finished, I decided I was only going to leave them up on Etsy until the end of June. I just got the box sent off today, so now I have the final count:

127 donated, 42 sold through Etsy, and about 60 sold through Instagram/ text/ kept for myself (having trouble counting it up, and probably forgetting about some). So in all I’ve managed to make probably 230 masks, and now I’ve taken some time off from sewing. My poor little machine definitely needed a break.

Find me on Ko-Fi, Instagram, and Ribblr.

Back to the Sewing Machine

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I’ve been working on many, many long-term projects: blankets, a shawl, a cross-stitch portrait, and a cross-stitch stitch along. I needed to do something that I could start and finish in one afternoon.

Two white and gray shirts with long sleeves that have large stripes at the wrists laying on a wooden floor, on on top of the other. The bottom shirt is gray with white sleeves with gray stripes. The top shirt is white at the top half and gray at the bottom half with gray sleeves with white stripes.

When I found out Itch to Stitch had a couple free patterns, I decided to make the Uvita Top. Then, when I got to planning it out on the fabric, I decided to make two because I had enough of both fabrics.

White and gray shirt on a tan cushion.

I knew that I wanted to make stripes on the sleeves, so I pulled two colors of knit fabric out of the drawer. When I realized I had enough of the white, I chose to make one set of sleeves white with gray stripes and one gray with white stripes. I didn’t quite have enough white to do a completely white shirt. So I chose to do an all-around yoke of white on the shirt with gray sleeves.

Gray shirt on tan cushion.

To make the sleeves, I started with squares of each fabric and cut strips starting from the bottom, alternating 3 inches wide and 2 inches wide for two stripes. Then I sewed the stripes and top of the fabric together, first with a single needle zigzag and then sewing the seam down with a double needle into the white sections. Once I had the fabric prepped, I folded it in half and cut out the sleeve pieces.

Detail shot of shirt sleeves at the stripes.

I cut out the shirt body pieces of the shirt from the gray fabric, then cut the paper pattern to make a yoke piece and body piece, laid the yoke on the white fabric and added half an inch of seam allowance to the bottom, and did the reverse to the body piece on the gray fabric (meaning I added the seam allowance to the top).

Detail shot of white and gray shirt where gray and white meet with a double line of stitching in the white portion.

I sewed all the seams with a single needle zigzag stitch and then sewed all the hems with the double needle.

Detail shot of the double line of stitching at the hem of both shirts, stacked on top of each other.

All in all, this pattern was super easy to follow, and super easy to modify with the styling. The end result is super comfortable, and it only took an afternoon to finish.

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