Sewing- In No Kind of Hurry- The Never Too Many White Shirts Project: 2.1 Designing The Perfect Shirt

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Entry 1: Sewing- The Never Too Many White Shirts Project: 1 IMAGINING The Perfect Shirt

Entry 2.1: DESIGNING the Perfect Shirt

Despite the challenges of the season I managed to get my

golden mustard fleece vest with it's Phoenix birds French trim and it's mustardy comrade teeshirt done. Hooray!

I've even made serious inroads on the seond fleece vest I cut out last year during our short California cold season, an irritating little fuzzy white creatures whose long hairs hide pins and get caught in the zipper. I'm working on getting Sir Fuzzy done in very short sewing increments, before my next semesters classes begin in mid January. A little extra inspiration comes from having seen a woman wearing a white regular-type-fleece vest or a dark, long-sleeved teeshirt when I was traipsing around San Francisco with my daughter last week. Hummmm I have a cranberry colored turtleneck and a long sleeved black tee shirt. Won't the contrast look nice under the fuzzy white vest once it's done?

Does anybody else make notes about other people's color choices on their ipod Notes app when they walk around a big city? I particularly like looking back at these later to find that the app changed all my spelling to words it knew, but they aren't the words I meant. So the note now reads, "Really good choice of exfoliant with pump".

My vision of that perfect first white shirt is beginning to blossom. This is a wonderful chance to really take my time and focus on designing and improving some sewing skills while also taking my time getting the first one done.

Two podcasts inspired me to slow down and smell the steam iron as I begin this project. The first was Lori's Sew Forth Now podcast interview with Barbara, of Sewing on the Edge. Barbara is the creator of the Never Too Many White Shirts Project. The talk between Lori and Barbara brought home to me that it might just be ok to really take my time to think things through and practice on this project, no matter what else is going on in my life.

My second source of inspiration was a recent podcast from one of my other favorite shows, To the Best of Our Knowledge from PRI (Wisconsin Public Radio). A recent episode, "Change Over Time" included an interview with Slow Movement promoter, Carl Honore. Listening to this reinforced my plan to take a thoughtful approach to this project.

I regularly sew things in a hurry. This time I'm going to just take my time and think it through. Here is the first of the design pages I've begun.

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* This entry represents one sewers progress

in the Never Too Many White Shirts Project at http://sewingontheedge.blogspot.com/

Sewing- The Never Too Many White Shirts Project: 1 IMAGINING The Perfect Shirt

December is a kinda extra-special busy time for anybody involved in music performance. But I managed to slip in an hour yesterday. And next week I'm definitely, absolutely, positively going to schedule time in. Fifteen minutes to a half an hour after piano practicing will move me along.

Right now I'm sewing the perfect white shirt.

It's perfect because, well I haven't actually put the pedal to the metal (actually, my pedal goes down on terra cotta tile) on this garment.

Nor have I cut anything out.

I haven't decided on a pattern yet.

But it tumbles around in my mind when I'm walking or driving. Mentally, I sort through the white shirts I've made in the past. And I DO wear them a lot. I've worn several out. Even though each one has things I'd will change in this perfect shirt.

I need to finally figure out something about fitting around the shoulders. My standard yoked shirt pattern that mostly fits, drags back from the shoulders. I think that means the armscythe (sp?) is too deep. But my arms aren't small and I always worry about having my sleeves be roomy. Maybe it's not the armscythe. I need to find a visual fitting tutorial. I see that Robin at A Little Sewing has the opposite challenge. I think I might learn something from thinking contrary 'wise by reading her entry. Nice drawings Robin!

Also I need to look at the gathering on my favorite L.L. Bean green shirt. I've had that since my now 20 year old daughter was 3. I love that shirt and it always gets a lot of compliments. It has gathered sleeves on a kind of dropped shoulder. It's very romantic, but it's got a stand up collar and a yoke. It's definitely a shirt and I love it. I need to do some measuring on that shirt.

I could cut up that old denim shirt that was comfortable and pretty for so long - now where did I put that.... It's really, really worn out and stained. Time for it to move into pattern land. I can do some comparisons with the shirt pattern that pulls back from the shoulders and also the gathered green sleeves.

I think I will make a first attempt in good old plain white muslin. It will be a muslin, but one that I can wear too. Also I have some muslin in my stash. So, I can feel pretty virtuous starting with that. I will focus on fitting with the muslin. Then just do simple recycled men's shirt buttons and machine buttonholes. I can move onto more elegant buttons when I go for version number 2 in some kind of dreamy, elegant white material.

I like the word 'material' so much better than 'fabric'. It's the word I grew up using. I was a kid in the 60's and came of age in the 70's.

Right now the shirt is a vision. A vision I will start on AFTER I finish sewing a forever-more already cut out project. You know that project? Oh yes, that's right it's leftover as a halfway-done from last cold season. And it seemed rather simple last year too. But somehow it wasn't. Then it got warm. Ugh! Who wants to sew fleece in California in April?

It's a nice golden mustard fleece vest, with a kinda breast-welt pocket embellished with a piece of beautiful French trim decorated with blue and turquoise Phoenix birds (from Brittex in San Francisco - those trims make me shiver). It zips up the front. Also I have a long sleeved teeshirt cutout to go with it that is not sewn at all. The fleecy vest has it's zipper in. Yes, I had to finish it off by hand because with the double thickness fleece, I couldn't get the zipper all machine sewed in. I've finally moved onto doing the lining for the back of the vest. Then I have to figure out what to do about making some kind of neat band around the bottom. Then sew on the collar. It's already to go. THEN I will make the teeshirt.

I invented the vest pattern from my favorite fleece jacket pattern, so I have to reinvent how to make it. I sure hope that bottom band comes out right. Maybe a little elastic...

Trying really, really hard to sew down my stash. It's working but it's slow. Also it sure is nice to make things I get a lot of wearing out of . This combination should see some serious time this winter. But I have to get it done this winter.

Then onto my vision of a white shirt!

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This entry represents one sewers progress (or lack thereof)

in the Never Too Many White Shirts Project at http://sewingontheedge.blogspot.com/