A Near Disaster

29.6.12

Some projects are just doomed..... I think everything that could go wrong with this did go wrong but I got there in the end.

The fraying collar

The original shirt

With hole

With prominent oil stain

 I bought this shirt in Warehouse in Liverpool in about 1989. I remember going to the theatre after I'd bought it to see a play about John Lennon, and one of the cast members was wearing the same shirt, but in black. I loved the shirt and wore it a lot- to the point of fraying, in fact, so I thought it deserved to be reinvented in a new and wearable form. I decided on Simplicity 2059, partly because I wanted to use it as a trial to see if a dress with gathers at the neck would suit me or not, and partly because I'd recently made the top with the gathers at the back and the pattern was still lying around in the sewing room.

I carefully cut the shirt apart and sewed up the two fronts to make a piece big enough for the back. I was thinking of having sleeves at this point but the shirt sleeves had mean little sleeve heads and it was going to be more trouble than it was worth. This was supposed to be a quick, quick project after all. Ha! I decided to put a little frill around the hem as it was looking a bit short. Fraying, piecing, gathering.... extra time. As I was applying the frill I pressed the front and noticed a hole near one of the patches. I decided to iron some light interfacing on the back to see if I could stop the decay in its tracks. Extra time. I decided to edge the neck and armholes with black bias binding. I only had enough to go half way round the neck, so more finding (my black fabric was hidden in the wool room for some reason), cutting, dragging through a bias binding maker, pressing..... extra time. Then because the fabric was fraying as I looked at it, I thought French seams would be best. It's not automatic to me to sew the first seam with WRONG sides together and I ended up having to  undo one side seam and one shoulder seam and do them again. Extra time for stupidity. And then, disaster. As I was snipping away some of the fuzzy threads that had escaped the second seam, I snipped the front of the top. So I then had to redo the side seam, taking a little detour to incorporate the snip into the seam. More extra time.

Finished. With exasperation.

The bias binding of the neck and armholes was time consuming but all seemed to be going ok until a blob of sewing machine oil landed in the most prominent place- high on the chest. At this point I felt like throwing it into the bin but finished it anyway. Who knows if it will ever be worn. Maybe the stain will come out with some effort but at the moment it feels like this top has had enough time spent on it.

There are aspects I like. The last few things I've made have all gaped at the back neck so on this one, I cut the neck binding in a smaller size and gathered the top at the back neck a bit. I'm much happier with the fit. I like the fabric, floaty and drapey but not too light. I like the contrast of the black bias binding and the way it ties in with the edges of the patches. I don't like the faff and the trouble and the OIL!