As much as I love sewing, there are times when you hit an obstacle and throw the thing to one side in sheer exasperation. I got halfway through a shirt last year before abandoning it because the collar didn't fit. It's been taunting me in its unfinished, hacked state ever since, and I haven't been able to buy new fabric without a guilty conscience. Starting something and giving up on it halfway through is so wasteful - of time, money and energy alike.
It's a miracle that this was even finished - not only had I lost the pattern and instructions, but my beloved machine broke half through (only it turns out it didn't - it was just the lightbulb that had blown! The pedal was working fine but I never checked, haha oops)
Here's what the shirt looked like when I resurrected it from its sartorial grave:
No collar, no cuffs, no buttons or button holes, and unhemmed.
I cut up the existing collar I'd made ages ago in half. I traced around it to create a template, added a 1.5cm seam allowance, and cut out the pattern pieces.
Here's the finished collar in all it's glory. Drafting a collar was much easier than I anticipated, I don't know why I was so scared!
This was the only cuff that I found. I made another by tracing around it and creating a template, as I did with the collar:
I sewed a 1cm seam allowance on each side, trimmed the corners and turned it inside out ready to be attached to the sleeve.
I then pinned some small pleats by the wrists and sewed.
After stitching the cuff to the wrist, I encased the raw edges on the inside. This was the hardest part as the pins resisted all orders to lie flat!
It was only when I got to the point of sewing the buttons on that I realised I had no black buttons to hand! So I raided my button jar and found these tacky faux-gold anchor ones and used them instead.
The ones on the cuffs are from an old dress and don't match the anchor ones, but who cares. You can just about make out the lovely pleats in the cuff which I'm very happy with. (Also, who knew that the tumble driers in the laundrette downstairs left so much lint on my clothes? I never realised before as I don't own a lot of dark clothing *immediately gets lint-roller out* )
...and here it is in all it's glory! I'm currently working on a floral-printed version of the above skirt; hopefully I'll be able to blog a tutorial about it next week, silly uni schedule permitting.
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