I often find myself in sewing ruts, wanting so much to make something, but failing to find the courage to get started. In order to get myself out of said rut, I usually buy some fabric. Mind you, this doesn’t mean that I will actually go home and start sewing right away. More often than not it means I will bring my new fabric home, wash it, iron it, then put it in my sewing room and then look for additional inspiration. I am a procrastinator in the biggest sense, mostly out of fear of having big dreams for something and then failing instead.
That said, recently I discovered Lisette fabric and I’m giddy for it. It’s bright and bold and beautiful.
I’m happy to say that upon purchasing some Lisette sateen fabric and trotting home with it with visions of summer tops floating in my head, I actually started making something right away. I opted to make a loose summer tank from New Look Pattern 6895. The finished product is most likely not a shirt I would have purchased for myself, but it’s breezy and cool. Most importantly though, this pattern helped me tackle some techniques I hadn’t yet tried.
First, I learned to make a sewn button closure, using Ysolda’s tutorial. It’s probably not best for small button loops as it’s a tutorial for loops on sweaters, but it reminded me of making friendship bracelets at summer camp so I went for it.
More importantly though, I learned to finish necks and sleeves with binding. As I read the New Look pattern directions, putting binding on seemed nearly impossible and so this shirt and I had a stand-off for about a week until I worked up the courage to get started on the binding. Such as it always seems to work out, once I set out to tackle the problem instead of simply thinking about it, it wasn’t a terrible experience. Putting the binding on ended up making so much sense I’m sad I had been too scared to start on it it earlier. Sometimes I just need to buck up and sew.
Of course, I still need to perfect all processes a bit, but I’m pretty pleased that I have a new summer shirt made out of some really happy fabric.
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