I'm back!!

Well, after a rather long hiatus I have returned :)

TAFE exhausted most of my time (and energy) while a little overseas trip in April brought many new experiences and fabric to play with!! Yay!

Speaking of TAFE, I just wanted to rant about the horrible shirt I spent two days making for an assessment...only to hate the thing.

I'm sure we've all been there with our projects, loved the idea and the inspiration but as the project progresses the love turns to frustration and disappointment.

If I had the time to make it properly I don't think I'd hate it like I do. But as it's to be handed in tomorrow it will have to suffice.

Mens Shirt. Basic enough in theory. Add some machine embroidery, some topstitching..yeah. Now it's sounding better!! Maybe some ombre dye to the hem.... Lets get this missing creativity working again!

Nope. Two days....TWO DAYS and I only had time to put one sleeve in. What happened to me? I'm out of practice with my speed. Luck it's the holidays and I can work on that =D

I used the wrong interfacing for the embroidery. I didn't have the right stuff, and no time to buy some.. so I experimented with epic fail. The embroidery puckered :/ Ok, take two. And I didn't leave enough room to actually cut the yolk out. Good one!! Let that be a lesson not to sew when exhausted. So I just had to use the puckered one.

Then the topstitching tension was off. I did a few checks, decided it was time for another service of my machine and carried on. Two things I now don't like about the project. To top my night off, I ran out of topstitching thread halfway through. Oops. The last thing that wasn't on my side for very tired self...was the rolled hem. It just didn't want to catch properly so I just turned off my machine and called it a night.

I used this tutorial for the cuff placket, because I had forgotten how to draft the thing. http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/25307/how-to-make-a-precision-placket/page/all

I stood back and took a look at my creation. I hated it. I had wasted two days making something that was truly horrible.

 The consolation? I can now sleep (or rather write this before sleep), hand in the ugly, horrible shirt. And pull it apart to fix all the things I hate with it when I get it back.

But as it was the last sewing assessment for the year, I can now relax with wine glass in hand for a night before getting to the pile of personal projects that are piling up....like getting back to the bustle dress =D