Beast shirt

This is a recent shirt that started out easy and wound up really, really rowdy. I decided to call it the beast.

The focus of the shirt was a toddler-sized t-shirt that someone gave our kids from Turkey (er, the country). I liked the shirt because of the vibrant red color, the traditional spelling of Turkey (“Turkiye,” umlaut and all), and the flag (sliver moon and star). Since this was a toddler shirt, I decided to use the images as straps, since there was very little material to work with. I cut four strips from this shirt, based on how I wanted the images displayed and which I wanted in front, then decided they needed some “umph” so I made bias tape out of blue polka dot cotton fabric. I sewed the strips together with bias tape in the middle and the straps were all done. The halter piece is simple, just measure around your boobage and double the fabric (the fold will be the top of the halter). I sewed the straps to the halter, criss-cross in the middle and standard on the back.

This is where it got ugly. I had this super perfect found t-shirt with gray/black stripes- it had a bad place in it, so first I cut that away. This shirt was going to be the “skirt” part of the tunic. I cut out the shape, but should’ve added more to it since I didn’t cut the fabric in the direction of the selvage (I cut opposite to selvage- cross wise grain of fabric- so not much stretch action). Thus! The skirt was WAY too tight for my comfort. So I chopped the skirt part off at an angle, no less, and realized I didn’t have enough of my original t-shirts left to complete it. And, I complicated things with that angle action for no damn good reason at all. So…

I got mad and put it down (and poured myself a drink).

The next morning, I woke up refreshed and with a new plan. I decided to make my own fabric for the skirt part, out of t-shirt scraps in my bin. Yep. I dug through and found reds, grays and blacks in which I had enough of to make same length strips (width didn’t really matter). I cut, like, 12 of these and then sewed 6 each together, making two pieces of fabric for my skirt.

THEN! I lined up these pieces with the anger infested angle I cut the day before to get the cut right. I cut the skirt, then pinned to the anger angle and sewed it down. Only I sewed it wrong and then the halter was turned like 90 degrees to the skirt. So…

I got mad and put it down and went hiking with my family and ate a bunch of fried chicken.

I came back to it that night…ripped out the freak factor and started over. When I finally got it right, I decided to make it pretty on the bottom with trim that matched the strap bias tape…so I did that. Then I tried it on…and

It was exactly as tight as it was when I started.

I yelled at the shirt and confessed that I was apparently its bitch.

Seriously.

That being said, I also forgot how sewing a piece of cotton to the bottom of a knit shirt is a bad idea, because those two don’t like each other and you lose stretch and movement. Your bottom is not a good place to lose that stuff either.

So that’s it. My sewing beast story. But without all this madness, the learning would stop, so bring the madness future beasts!