Knit shirt pattern again!

Ok, learning experience here,, there are products made to clean mirrors with,, water isn't one of them,,,,really lol.....this is embarrassing, but I had to show the before and after pix,,, so before

and after,, ok, disregard the mess it in the background,, what can I say,, I'm a messy,,

Ok, this is why I had to make a new sleeve,, see the puckers in the armhole,, the sleeve is pulling in too tight,, this is what I call "troubleshooting",, and it's something I am not always good at,,, (and yes there is a seam in the elbow area,, I ran out of material and had to piece the sleeve together,,,

I just got to thinking,, I know several ladies that digitize,, ( make embroidery designs) all I can say is ,my hats off to them,, I can't imagine how many times they have to go to the software to change a stitch, move a column, add stitches,, and each time they have to send the design to the machine (how ever that method is, whether it via a box, or memory stick or whatever) with the new stitch placement,, to sew it out, to see if it is any better, or worse,,back and forth, time and time again, to get the design just right,, that is almost how I feel about sewing sometimes,,, every time you need to change something on a garment, to make up a new pattern piece with the adjustments, then cut material out again and sew it up,, I KNOW it is worth it in the end,, but that doesn't mean I have to like it,,, take this shirt for instance,, the front and back are good,, the sleeves were a little tight,, I had to add more room in the sleeve top,, so I folded it in half to find the center,, drew a line almost to the bottom,, the cut it open,, ( slash and spread),, I opened it 1 in ,,(ok you experts out there,, don't laugh,, I am still learning,, :) make new pattern with the alterations, and cut material again,,

Well, I ran out of red,, so onto purple,,( see, I knew that $1.00 a yd material from Wal-Mart was good for something,,,lol )

Hopefully I can get this put together today and see how it fits,,,

Knit shirt

I have been wanting to make a knit shirt for a while now, a pattern that fits has been holding me back,, I have several, but the shoulders are either too wide, arms too long, and or tight,, that is a tricky one for me,, when the upper arm is too tight, but the rest of the sleeve pattern fits,, my brain goes into a freeze and I think, ok, where do I start,, I understand enough about alterations, that I would have to do what is called a slash and spread technique, if that were the only thing I had to do, it wouldn't bother me so much, but when you have half a dozen things to do to make a patten fit,, why bother,, unless you want a challenge,, which right now,, I don't,,,

So what I did, was get a shirt of my own,, and take it apart,, a good shirt mind you,, yes it "can" be a sacrifice,, if it were tore up enough that it couldn't be put back together,, but I think I was careful enough that it can be saved,,,


This is the front piece,, the part to the right, that you can't see much of, is the back,, I left it attached at the shoulder/neck line,, it had a binding on it that I didn't really want to mess with taking off, so I worked around it,,

I don't have any plain white paper wide enough yet to trace patterns onto,, so newspaper is the next best thing,,, I just folded the front and back in half,, placed the cf (center fold) on the straight edge of the paper,, and used a marker to go around the material,, leaving a 1/4 in sa (seam allowance)...

This is without sleeves, but so far, I am pleased,, it does fit fairly well ,,,

Jacket

I sometime have a problem figuring out what to make next,, I have so much material to sew, I get overwhelmed,, so I decided to look through my closet and see what I lacked,, a white jacket,, here it is,, now this is a first for me,, this is a lined jacket,, it took some time,, but I am glad i did it,, I will probably make it again,, but without the gathers,, at least in the back,, it is a little big,, but very comfortable,,

What i DID do....

For the last 2 weeks, this little one has been keeping me going,,, she is amost 3 mo old,, weighs about 3 lbs,, her name is Tinker,, i got her from my sister,, http://petmakers.com/>here but couldn't sell her on account of a heart murmur,, and we wanted a 2nd dog,, so here she is,,, please excuse the bottom end of the other dog,,

Now onto sewing,, these are pouches that i make sometimes,, they are really cute,, http://moosebstitchin.net/clear_view_cases_2.htm>cases

Now i couldn't be off for 2 weeks without doing some shopping,, so i got, a cutting mat,, 36x25,, this will fit on the end of my cutting table,, so now maybe i can get back to stanking upright, instead of leaning over my bed,,, i also got so 2 pressing helps,, the tailors ham,, and seam roll,, these are used mostly for tailoring,, which i want to get into sometime,, i am just slowly getting things now,, so it's not everything at once,, doing it slowly will also help me find places for it,, have you seen my sewing area lately,,,???? its scary in here,,,

Last but not least,, by best purchase for the week,,, can anyone say THREAD,,, yes yes,,, i have been embroidering for about 10 yrs,, and have never bought a package before,,,i guess because i never knew where to put it,, price,, and didn't know if i would use all those colors,, well i finally did it,, 66 spools,, 1000m,, and i love it,,,,this

is going to replace this,, hopefully soon,,

And now for some cleaning,, can anyone say overkill, i cleaned out my patterns,, wow,, i knew i have a lot,, but get real,, i got to looking at some of them, and noticed how close some were to others.. for instance,, i had about 5 button front slightly fitted shirt patterns,, that were basically all the same,, well most of them are for my DD,, but the pattern she needs has to have a dart both in the front and at the side,,and there was only 2 of them,, so that weeded out a few of those,, now in case you don't think i had too many,, there are at least 40 just in the bag,, i am going to be a LOT more picky about patterns in the future,,and look at line drawings more,, that is what really tells you what the pattern looks like,,,

Spinning my wheels

Is that the term,, when you try and try, but never seem to get anything done,, on Dec 22, we started our two week vacation from School,, i have plans to get things done,, did I,,,, NO,,, well, i got a little more done on the tablecloth,, a few embroidered things made, (will post pix later) but of the things i wanted to get done,,ei,, a pattern for knit tops,, a pattern started for jean skirts,, samples started for pillow cases,, now for most poeple,, this would be done is a day,,,, now it's not so much procrastination that is a problem,, but just plain piddling,,, now tell me,, how can you seem to get nothing done in a 16 hrs period.. or it just seems like nothing,,, through disorganization,, and lack of planning,, or just sheer lack of motivation,, or being overwhelmed, by looking at everything you have to do,, and saying,, it will be there tomorrow,, well the problem with that is,, tomorrow ususally brings new things to do,, so now i have things to do for 2 days,, ugh,, will i ever learn,, or catch up,,, probably not,,lol......