This past week I’ve been some kind of something. PMS at an all time high, I thought that plans for sewing were gonna put all my moodiness to ease! I mean what isn’t better than sewing time alone (my hubs has been obsessed with the latest Call of Duty, and that’s perfect because it means minimal interruptions! 😂😂😂). Well despite the perfect set up for interruption-free sewing, my sewjo must have also been PMSing, because well it fought me every step of the way.
I had originally planned to finish up some red pants I started a week or so ago but remembered that the @sewcialists of Instagram had challenged followers to share sewing stripes. I conveniently had a Ballard Top by Straight Stitch Designs already cut out and it was a lovely lightweight sweater knit in a brown and black stripe! Already cut out waiting for me to sew it up! Yes please! Perfect Friday night! Dun dun duuuuun…. or so I thought.
I chose the one piece back without the band option. I got the whole thing sewn up except the neckband. I was so excited about the hand of the fabric and how I changed up the stripe direction on the sleeve! New shirt coming up in 5 ya’ll! Now on to the neckband, super easy right? I’ve done a ton of knit neckbands in the past. I definitely got overconfident.
Well first I didn’t cut my neckband in the direction of most stretch so that didn’t work. Follow the directions, my teacher voice told me. Seam ripper–or as I like to call it, my BFF–needed to spend some time. I re-cut and tried again. This time I totally screwed myself on the serger. I was going way too fast. This made my neckband width all different measurements . It did not look good. So me and my BFF were hanging out again.
Remember when I said the sweater knit was thin and super soft? Well that ended up making the process worse. I cut a few tiny holes in the fabric and had to trim it down. As a result the neck opening became much larger than designed so I had to re-cut yet another neckband. This 3rd time was a charm! I was finally gonna finish this shirt! Got the 3rd neckband on where I was happy with it, only to notice that with all the removing and adding of 3 neckbands, my center neck gathers had shifted to the right. Once again I had to remove the neckband. By this point I had been sewing for 4+ hours on a shirt that was already cut out and should have taken me an hour to sew. 😕 My sewjo must have been taking a nap. I chose to put it down and go to bed. But then I couldn’t even sleep, this shirt was haunting me and my sewjo in my dreams. Have you ever dreamt about a project? I was tossing and turning, dreaming about that stupid shirt and it’s 3 neckbands. Saturday I didn’t sew at all. Sunday I woke up refreshed and wanted to sew so I said, screw the Ballard Top, let’s make something different. I cut out 2 different shirts to sew.
After I got the shirts cut and ready to go, I sat down at my machine and that dern Ballard Shirt kept taunting me (I have a really hard time starting new projects when others are not finished). So I picked it up to finally finish it. I ended up creating a much thicker neckband so I had more room for error, and because the neck opening was so much wider now, I ended up tweaking it a bit so it would lay flat. None the less, I finally finished it! I was ready to move on! Well Sunday afternoon and Monday evening sewing were also not cooperative. I’ve just been making the silliest mistakes sewing, tucks here, tucks there, me and my BFF have been spending too much time together. Just like in any relationship, sometimes you need a break. So maybe next week my sewjo will wake up and let me sew up some clothes the way I normally do! Hope everyone has a great week! Here’s my finished Ballard Top!
