FO: A Plantain For My Mom

Since I've been successfully sewing so many t-shirts this year, I thought it was high time I branch out and make something for someone else. My mom's birthday and Mother's Day fall within a week of each other most years, and this year I offered to make her a shirt for her gift. She was all for it and originally we planned to use some leftover red fabric she liked. When I went to cut it out though, the pieces we had were not big enough and they were oddly shaped, so the red shirt was put on hold. Fast forward to months later when I came across some royal blue fabric in a thrift store that is no joke the same type of fabric she wanted in red. I bought all the shop had and when I got the color approval, I was off. A blue shirt it would be! My mom liked the fit on my floral plantain, so I made hers exactly the same. We both like the result :)

This was my first time working with an ITY knit, and a rather thick one at that. The different fabric caused a few differences in the example version and the one I gave my mom. This fabric has some serious stretch and recovery, that combined with it being thicker seems to have made the fit a bit more snug. She still likes it though, so we're good :)

See where I get my modelling skills from? :)

I didn't want to give just a plain blue shirt - that felt so boring! I dug through the trims I had acquired and sent my mom a few pictures of options after the shirt itself was finished. In the end she chose this pretty ribbon flower trim that was the EXACT same color blue. Seriously, this stuff looks like it was dyed with the fabric. I'm glad she chose these because I think it really makes the shirt look store bought and deliberate. The fit is good on the front and the back. She even the likes the length (a common problem for us both).

Obligatory mannequin shots. I'm really happy with how this shirt turned out overall. The fabric is a bit clingy for my personal taste, but my mom wears shirts from this type of fabric a lot. Construction wise, everything was done the same as my previous Plantains. I stabilized the shoulders with knit stay tape, and hemmed the sleeves and bottom edge with a twin needle.

The trim is actually roses made of swirled ribbon that are stitched onto a base of netting. I didn't want the netting to show through, so I tucked it under the flowers and I hand stitched the trim on all the way around the neckline. I stitched in a sort of S shaped line to go around the edge of each flower to make sure it stayed in place well with washing. I put the flowers just over the twin needle stitching and I love how clean it makes the whole piece look. I will admit I was worried my hand stitches wouldn't last, but my mom has worn this a number of times over the past few months and I assume she's washed it sometime in there but the flowers remain. Crisis averted! lol

So there you have it - the first item of clothing I've ever sewn for someone other than myself. I love how this top turned out, and my mom wears it fairly frequently, which always gives me a little glow of pride :) Hopefully she does really like it and isn't just wearing it for my sake, lol. You never can tell with moms. She seems comfy in it though, so I'm going to take it as a gifting win. Even though I didn't give it to her until September, it still counts as a birthday present, ha ha. Thanks for being such a great mom, Mom! And Happy Birthday!

Summary:
Fabric: 1.5 yards mystery heavy polyester ponte type ITY knit - $1.00
Pattern: Plantain by Deer + Doe - Free
Notions: royal blue floral rosette trim - $2.00 for the whole roll (Hobby Lobby), thread - $0.50
Hours: 3 including hand sewing
Total Cost: $3.50

2014 - A Year of Sewing

Well, all things considered this has been a really good year for my sewing. In the grand scheme of things I know I really didn't make all that much, but when you compare it to my output in previous years it's an astronomical increase, lol. Something clicked with me at the end of the summer and I started to crank things out, all of it spurned on by having success with one dress. Heck, I even made enough wardrobe items to warrant giving them their own tab at the top of my blog :) You can click that tab for specifics about each of the things I made.

So here's the breakdown of what I made:

• 1 dress
• 7 tops
• 2 skirts
• 5 sweaters

I certainly spent a lot of time fitting my upper half this year! That's 15 finished items - not bad considering most of them were made September of later. These are the items that I finished - there were several others started that ran into snags that I just couldn't diagnose yet. One of these days I will re-address my WIPs since I really would like to have something to show for all that work, but life got in the way this year and I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Even though I feel like I make very little in comparison to many of the other blogs I read, I am very proud of the items I made this year :) Most of these I wear very often - some even once a week! My obvious trends from this year are knitting sweaters, refashioning/refitting thrifted items, and my biggest - knit t-shirts! I officially have three TNT patterns: the Plantain by Deer + Doe, Parisian Top by Go To Patterns, and the Renfrew by Sewaholic. I love each one of these that I make and they just get better each time as I learn more about how different knit fabrics behave. Plus they only take a few hours to make

So, what types of goals/hopes do I have for 2015?
Clearly, I need more things for my bottom half, lol. I focused on my upper body since I knew I prefer that area to be fitted. This was true with dresses as well - I tend to make my muslins of just the bodice since I favor full skirts and this has worked for the most part. In the coming year, I hope to have more successes to show for my work. It's kind of funny that I get so frustrated with sewing and toss things in the corner, but in knitting I'm fine with ripping something out completely and restarting multiple times. The only explanation I can think of is that I'm more confident in fitting knits - they stretch, hooray, lol!

I'm sure I will make more t-shirts this coming year, and I hope to get a few higher quality solids knits so that I can really make some basics that will get tons of wear. I know some people think making plain t-shirts is boring, but I'm thrilled to think that I can make some exactly how I want them and not just rely on what Target has available at the time, lol. I only have one main commitment that I want to treat as a hard set goal for 2015 - novelty print dresses! I love all the fun prints I see on Modcloth, and I know I can make them myself for a fraction of the cost. I came close to a TNT with Simplicity 2444, but I want something with straight darts so I could use it for striped prints too. I'm going to start with Simplicity 1873 and I'm confident it will be what I'm thinking of. I also WILL work out the fitting on the Colette Dahlia. I was so excited about it when it was released, but it has been an incredible headache resulting in wasted fabric and time. I LOVE the design though, so I will persevere - I may even seek outside help soon.

As far as my bottom half goes, I have plans for simple skirts (a corduroy Peggy by Blue Ginger Doll is traced and ready to start work on), and depending on how well things go I may try out some simple shorts. I never buy shorts because I don't like them, well, short. I'm not talking making jeans or anything yet since I'd like to get more successes under my belt before I delve that deep, but some cotton prints could be fun. We'll see.

My biggest goal is to just learn to appreciate and enjoy the process of sewing more. As much as I love the sewing blogosphere, it can be easy to feel like you stink when you see all these wonderful successes had by others. I keep having to tell myself that there was much more work put into those makes than the blog shows and most of those people have been sewing clothing much longer than me. I emphasize clothing because I've known how to sew for most of my life but a purse is a big difference from fitting something to your body. I'm pleased that I've stayed positive as much as I have, but I still need to improve my patience so I have more fun and enjoy the journey :)

Here's to kicking 2014 out and hoping for better things in 2015!