Letter shirts ~~ finished

I mentioned on Pin It Weekly that one of my friends has a small shop offering letter shirts for college students. The majority of her business comes from Greek organizations, mostly from Phi Mu. 

On Tuesday she fell and broke her left wrist. A trip to the ER got her a pass to today's surgery. Combine those two bits of information and you can probably figure out how her mishap concerns me. I sew. I mean I sew anything. I've made wedding dresses, knit garments, kitchen accessories, baby accessories, suits for myself and lots of other things I can't think of on the fly. So, yeah, I sew.

A trip to surgery (even "just" outpatient surgery) means you won't be sewing for a day or two. But she had orders that needed to go out right now. Guess who got the call? As I said on Wednesday, I've helped her before, so it's not a big deal. But she was in pain and a perfectionist, so it was a big deal to her. 

Upper left corner: finished shirts; upper right,
two fabric choices on tee; lower left, two choices
incl. the chosen geometric; lower right, my preference.
Lesson: don't make choices for clients!

Okay, okay, I stepped in. One of the customers hadn't made fabric decisions, so I pressured her with pictures of only a few samples and in no time I had the shirts, the letters, and everything else ready for production. 

Except I sewed the letters on the first two shirts in the wrong order! TWO letters! backwards! Arghuhhh. Rip, rip, rip half the night--knit does not play nice. Resew the correct way and work on the other items. The delivery person had to pick the order up at my house to make her appointment; it was that close!

So yesterday I went to check on my broken friend and encourage her before seeing the surgeon. More shirts. And a couple of jackets. And a couple of blankets. Hmmm, I have such a tough time saying "no," especially after I've already said "yes."

Anyway, if you're going to help someone, you may as well see it through to the end.

 

 So the weekend will be spent in the sewing room working on her shirts. But I'll be in the sewing room!

blanket in gold 

 And a few more pics of the completed shirts. The jackets (in black) are still in WIP stage. I have to rip out the bottom hem before sewing on the applique. Otherwise the pocket won't open. The kids love that she always opens up the jacket and saves the pocket. It's a great place to toss a phone. 

two more blankets

When was the last time you got wrangled into helping a friend? Comment down below and, as always, thanks for visiting.

Visit these good ole Link Ups!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

More studio cleaning

You know how yesterday I wrote about my messy worktable? Well, I returned to the clean-up today and advanced a little bit.

The small project on the left is an organizer for Dusti's car. I cut it out from the leftover fabric that we used when we updated her sun visors so it will match. I intend to put a strap on it so that she can hang it on the back of the seat.  I'll use Velcro as a fastener so she will have some choices in where and how she uses it.

In another spot I had two tops that needed altering for a friend. They were advanced to the front of the line and are now complete. In fact, I put them in the car to return on Tuesday. I just needed to shorten the bottoms and sleeves.  Done and done.

Wow! I should have gotten to this cleaning business sooner! Somehow it all ran smoothly and quickly. So I folded some fat quarters and put those away. Tomorrow I plan to tackle the big pieces of fabric that I'd pulled for the last few quilt projects. That will take more time, but then I'll be able to see across to the other side of the table. I haven't able to do that in a while!

Finally I'll figure out what to do with those items that don't really have a home. That's always a difficult decision for me. My studio is full, so finding a space for new stuff is not easy. Plus, I tend to forget where I've put things, so I need to reason through the process.  

And then I'll be ready to get that big quilt finished! Wasn't that the goal at the beginning?

I'm linking up some of my recent finishes with Crazy Mom Quilts. Now that Amanda Jean is back from her 
mini-vacay, there will be lots of blogs to catch up with.

Save Your Shirt!

I am a mess. A really, really messy person. The kind of messy person who wears stains on the front of her favorite shirt. Make that every shirt.  The kind of messy person who kills multiple trees every year in paper towels.

Meet Exhibit A.  [photo enhanced to show stain] 

Most of my shirts look like this within a couple of wearings. I've tried several ways to camouflage the stains: sweaters (too hot), scarves (too heavy on my neck), brooch (on a tee shirt--no), nothing. Really nothing works. It's hopeless. Until now.

It's quite simple and I should have gotten off my lazy end much sooner.  Here it is:

Cute, cute. Easy peasy and lemon squeezy. Cover the mess with applique. The cuter the applique, the better the distraction.

I started with a couple of my Accuquilt Studio dies.

Added a few scraps from a friend. 

A few flowers and a birdie later, the stain is covered and the tee is a little cuter for the change. At least now I can wear it in public!

Did I say all of my shirts have stains? Maybe I exaggerated a little, but the truth is that several do. Since the first one came out so cute, I decided to work on one more. This time I used my own fabric but the same friend (I love you, Leta), who happens to be a great artist and art teacher, made me a set of monogram appliques. I wrote about the shirts that I appliqued for my girls as Christmas gifts a year ago. 

This one, though, is all mine and does a great job of covering the stain that is hiding right under the largest part of the middle M. How convenient is that?

I'm loving the polka dots! The darkest ones are an almost perfect match to the true color of the shirt. Just so happens that this deep blue is one that looks really good with my skin tone. I call it a pasty yellowish off-white. Definitely my face needs some color in my clothing.

Tee Shirts and Girls

There are 10 girls in my family, including myself.  Which means that when I set out to make something for someone, I have to be willing to make at least eight more.  Since I don't like to be left out, I usually make a couple more than that.

I recently made a tee shirt for myself thanks to the help of a good friend.  She's the artist who designed the letters for the shirt. I told you about her in a post a few weeks ago.  Her FB page is here.  She thought it would be fun if I made shirts for everybody.

the little girls' shirts

I am easily convince and set out to make one for each of the girls on my list.  That means the three daughters-in-law, the three big granddaughters, and the three little granddaughters.  No one to be left out, of course.

Catherine

Marley

Sophie

The problem with making shirts for everyone is that there are so many to sew.  I don't necessarily lose interest so much as I like to make a couple, see that I can do it and then move on to something new.  I like challenge but I'm more of a sprinter rather than a long-distance runner.  (Oddly, I make quilts!)

Anyhoo, I bought enough shirts to make one for each of the girls and a couple for myself.  Then I promised to finish all the gift shirts before starting on my own.  I really wanted a couple of my own, so I had some incentive.

the moms' shirts

And having incentive was nice, but it turns out that I didn't really need it.  I got very enthused about seeing how each shirt would look once completed.  I'd chosen the fabrics based on each person's interests, then chose the shirt to match the fabric.  Once the shirt was complete I could determine whether or not I'd chosen well.

the big girls' shirts

I think I did and here's why: the day after Christmas three of the girls wore their tees to go shopping.  Then on Sunday a whole crew of Marcottes returned from a visit to St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Dusti was wearing her shirt.  

Of course, everyone said, "Thank you."  They are sweethearts and very polite, but I got a good feeling that they also liked my little handmade offerings and that, my friends, is much better than working on my own shirts!  Leta did it again...go look her up! 

Back to School

Since I now know that I'll be teaching this year and will have little time in the library, I've been rethinking my wardrobe for the school year.  I've found khakis and tee shirts are perfect in the library because I do a lot of work that requires I be able to move, crawl, reach and so on.  We move armloads of books, clean, work on computers and other machines and climb on steps to reach high shelves.  

In a classroom, however, there's mostly walking around, slight bending, and standing.  Lots of standing!  I wore mostly dresses and skirts when I was in the classroom but never in the library.  I've decided to find a happy medium between those two styles: pants or skirts and tops that are more dressy than tees.

I've been busy the last couple of days sewing a few things for myself.  After paying $30 to $50 each for a couple of shirts, I decided it would be much more affordable to make my own, especially since I have plenty of fabrics that are perfect for clothing.  Remember the boxes of fabrics I purchased from the elderly lady a few weeks ago?  About half of that is beautiful linens that sew up into great fitting pants.  I bought this Simplicity pattern last week and spent a bit of time measuring and fitting the pattern to my size.  



I've made two pair of pants: one in khaki and another in black.  The linen is very comfortable and hangs very well.  I love the hand of this fabric, so I'll probably make several more pairs.  I have probably 10 more pieces of fabric in every color!  So it shouldn't be a problem.



I also made a few tops.  The first one I made is this beige pullover blouse in a light linen that I added embroidery to.  I'm not doing that again for a while....it was too stressful.  The computer is old and easily freezes, which it did.  


I ended up restarting the embroidery program and losing the adjustments I'd made.  So then I had to abandon part of the embroidery motif and just drop in the monogram.  Since I could not line up the border correctly and it is fairly simple, I chose to put it in manually.  And there's the stressful part!  Not bad in the end, but I'm not trying this again soon.


So, since I don't want to embroider on these tops and they are a little plain, I decided to try some other form of embellishment.  Today I made a blue top using the same pattern from the beige linen one.  The fabric is some type of rayon that easily melts, so I couldn't use any kind of iron on.  


Some time ago I'd purchased some wooden game pieces on Etsy.  Rich and I then drilled tiny holes in the pieces to turn them in to buttons.  I stitched several of the wooden buttons on and interspersed them with bright, colorful plastic buttons.   I like the end result.....bright, fun and nonsensical.  


Although I like these tops, one of the problems I've had is that there has to be a button, hook and eye or some other closure in the back neck.  My hair gets tangled in a hook and eye set and the loops that I've made to pair with buttons generally do not stay buttoned.  

I redesigned the back part of the blouse so that I could add a button hole and a small button--no pulled hair and no open back!  The left back extends over the right side of the back and I added a button hole on the extension.  Perfect!

After wrapping up the blue top, I decided that I'd make one more top.  This one opens to the front and is intended to wear over a tank top as a light shirt jacket.  I used a striped blue fabric that was in the boxes but was too small.  


To have enough fabric, I added a Copenhagen blue solid from my stash. I cut the front and sleeves from the stripe, the collar, back and sleeve band from the solid. 


The two fabrics are a perfect match, and the top will look smart with a solid white tank.  I'm considering whether I want to add some type of closure to the shirt.  That might be a little too constraining to work in, so I'll have to wait till it's washed and try it on with the tank to decide.