Sew What?

every time I get a sewing idea, my mother crushes my dreams. and with good reason. neither of us can sew. and I try to convince myself other wise, always. today was no different. we spent a while just staring at the fabric having the good ol' conversation, "I don't know, what do you think we should do?" "I don't know, that's why I asked you, I don't know what we should do." but then I jumped in and just started cutting stuff. way more of my style. I don't like to measure and count. I just don't, sew what? (sorry I had to)

sew, (again, too good to pass up) I started out with a nice little salvation army find. $0.25 for this tan tank. there was some nice visual interest with the triangle applique. too bad it was sewn on crooked. only at salvo.

well, I love the color, but it's a little boring. 

the only think interesting about this is the bearded man in the background. 

so this tank needed some inspiration and I decided to rummage through my box of bolts of fabric and lace snippets. i found a nice hippie batiking fabric. (batiking is using a wax to resist the dye on fabric, usually in tribal patters, very popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Egypt... and the traditional colors are indigo, dark brown and white (they represent Hindu Gods)) Anyway, the fabric is very cool and I wanted to use it to spice up this tank. But there was a problem...

I don't know why the color is gross in this picture, sorry Nikon. I have failed you.

other than the obvious problem that i cannot sew... this tank top did not fit me. it did the skank slide off my shoulder and gaped in the back. something needed to change. 

simple stitch down the back (rather than create more pulling on the sides, i just cut the excess fabric out of the back and zipped it back to life. and then who wants a white spine showing, maybe a skeleton, but this is not Dia de los muertos. so lets get out the batiking fabric. 

no i am not cool enough to take a picture of both of my hands, these are my mom's

I made a simple pattern in a reverse taper out of some paper to make sure the pattern fits the tank. this is also me avoiding to measure, I prefer to trace and cut. tip that I learned when pinning down fabric, make sure the pin lays horizontal when feeding it through the sewing machine so the pins don't get caught. also the pins should grab the top fabric first and then snag the bottom fabric. this helps reduce the bumps and puckers. 

okay there was some measuring going on. 

zip down the side. 

some extra fabric was added to the sleeves. no one likes to waste! and here is a great chance to upcycle your old clothing and recycle the scraps from your last project. don't throw away the scraps!! just don't do it, okay? 

other tidbits of info I picked up over my sewing experiences, always have pins ready, whether they are stuck in the ironing board or between your teeth, you never know when you will need one. two types of scissors are required as well. fabric scissors. do not try to cut fabric with your regular paper scissors. it will feel like trying to cut carpet with zig-zag scrap-booking scissors. and also (pictured above) small sewing scissors to snip loose thread. and to pull stuck fabric out of the bottom place of the sewing machine... oops. 

sew nice! look at those embellishments with the old fabric.

aaaaaaand, the finished product. and I sewed it by myself (and mom helped) together we make one slightly competent seamstress. I can never show this to my grandma because there are raw edges. sorry g-ma, it's trendy. I think.

go sew something, 

rach