Well, I have officially made my second garment for myself for this year. (The goal is ten items). Don't ask me why I would choose to make something out of knit fabric for my second venture into sewing clothing for myself...but I did. I love wearing knits...they're so comfortable. So, I took out my
Jalie 2805 pattern (that has been reviewed so highly over on
PatternReview). And, I went through Marcy Tilton's workshop CD "
Where Did You Get That T-shirt?" and made myself a t-shirt on my 10 year-old basic mechanical Kenmore sewing machine. As someone who is essentially self-taught, I appreciated the videos on Marcy's CD that shows how she tissue fits the pattern and how she fine tunes the fit of the seams during the construction phase. As well, she uses a conventional sewing machine to sew the t-shirt which was useful. Except she uses a Bernina and clearly she is an experienced sewist. I, on the other hand, used my Kenmore that stretched out my neckline piece with a "lettuce-edging" effect and my lack of experience in sewing straight lines on knits led to quite a "wavy" twin-needle stitched hem compared to hers. I can call it a design feature, right?;)
Anyway, before I became too discouraged about all of the imperfections in my self-made t-shirt, I reminded myself of my difficulties in finding well-fitting ready-to-wear clothing, as you can see in the example photo above (the one I made is on the right). As someone who is essentially a rectangle, if I find something that fits in the shoulders then it's quite snug everywhere else or if I try to get a skimming fit in the torso, then the shoulders will be quite large. Even with all of its imperfections (i.e. clearly the sleeves are too large on my Jalie 2805 - I didn't think to measure this beforehand!), the homemade t-shirt is still somewhat of a better fit and more flattering. I hope, anyway.
As a result of this experience, I've been furiously researching to upgrade my sewing tools: a new sewing machine and a serger! I'm excited.
