Believe Manifesto

I promised you all would get a view into my special project of making a shirt, so here it is!

As I said earlier in the week, I was really struggling with wearing my seven clothes to my birthday dinner that was last night. Because I had planned on doing a sewing project sometime during this month, I thought what better time than now! I can make a shirt, and then wear it to dinner and I will feel like I have a new outfit!

The thing about me and sewing is that I have crazy unrealistic expectations when it comes to timeframes, and getting things done. But how hard could it be to make a jersey t-shirt in two days?! So, I call mom and tell her we are doing a sewing project Wednesday and Thursday and she says great. I arrive with my pattern and fabric, tell her how I want to alter it (crazy) and she in true form says we need to make a “sample”. A sample is basically a trial run so you don’t ruin any good fabric. The sample was a nightmare! The fabric was even harder to work with than jersey (what?!) and we couldn’t get the alterations I wanted to work. So we gave up and said we would start on the real thing the next day.(Which gave us one day…precisely four hours to complete the shirt.) We decided to follow the pattern exactly, except make it short sleeves. We also adjusted the sizing because the sample seemed too small so we decided to make it in the biggest size the pattern allowed.

Here is mom laying out the pattern and fabric like a boss. Basically she did all the hard work, and made sure I didn’t screw anything up…which I did.

Lyla got a headband out of the deal when we were done cutting.

This is me sewing on the collar edging…the wrong way!

Here is the collar after my mom somehow waved her hand, pinned some fabric and I sewed it to look like this. How this turned out AT ALL is still a mystery.

This was basically my face the whole time I am sewing….I’M ALMOST DONE! (My head looks weird because there was a lady right behind me looking at a quilt. This photo is credited to Lyla.)

Just sewing away, I think my ankle will recover.

And the finished product:

Yes…its a dress. Not a shirt! In a hilarious turn of events we apparently messed up the sizing, but I told myself if this thing turned out looking anything better than a trash bag…I would be happy. And I LOVE IT! I worked so hard on this thing, I will wear it forever. Also, you will notice those beautiful gold earrings. I EARNED wearing those last night for my birthday dinner. They are amazing, Fair Trade from 5 Pound Apparel.

If you feel brave and you want me to help you make a jersey shirt dress…you should give my mom a call. I learned so much by doing this. The most important thing I learned was sometimes you have to know whats NOT important to realize what is. I went into this convinced I had to have raglan sleeves on this shirt, and after the sample nightmare all I wanted was something nicer than a trash bag to wear. Go out and create something friends! You wont be disappointed!