Sew What It's Summer - Week 1

Week 1 Challenge: Work & Play

I am lucky enough to work at a place with a corporate casual dress code that loosens up a bit during the summer to allow for capris, sleeveless shirts and cool summer dresses. We're Mainers - we can withstand 9 months of freezing cold and snow while maintaining a dress code but when the summer heat and humidity comes along our wardrobe goes straight for comfort.

This lightened dress code in mind - I planned to make a dressy t-shirt. Long in the back, short in the front made from a lightweight knit and covered in the front with a sheer panel using Butterick Pattern #5754. I was thinking breezy, cool and comfortable while in style and easy to construct.

It should have been such an easy project to complete but instead it turned out absolutely horrible! I've been making clothes for years and it has been awhile since I have messed something up this badly. I knew immediately after I cut out the pattern that something was amiss but I kept thinking I could fix it.  I cut out an XL - what I would buy in the store but it was huge.  I should definitely have cut a L or even M. The sheer panel never matched up correctly so I kept compensating or altering the cut on the hem, neck and even sleeves. The sleeves were also a horrible mix of long and short in all the wrong places. Once hemmed is where the real tragedy happened - totally uneven and rolling all over the place.

While I was sewing I knew it was turning out poorly but figured it would be more play that work. I hate to say it but I think this may be one for the "never going to wear, send to the scrap pile".

So I'm going to take this week as a lessons learned and move on to next week. Polka Dots up next!

Sew What It's Summer

It's warm and sunny and the days are long and relaxing - summer has finally arrived. It's the perfect time of year for sewing! How about the added bonus of a challenge?? My sister and I are going to motivate our summer sewing bug with a little challenge called "Sew What It's Summer." We divided the 16 weeks from May 19th to September 9th between the two of us and came up with the 16 different sewing challenges below.

Week#1	Starting Date	Challenger	Challenge
1	5/20/2013	Amanda	Work and Play
2	5/27/2013	Margie	Polka Dot
3	6/3/2013	Amanda	Zip Me Up
4	6/10/2013	Margie	Swim Cover Up
5	6/17/2013	Amanda	Ombre
6	6/24/2013	Margie	Maxi Dress (2 week challange)
--	7/1/2013	BREAK	BREAK
7	7/8/2013	BREAK	Retro Rundown
8	7/15/2013	Margie	Chambray
9	7/22/2013	Amanda	Bejeweled
10	7/29/2013	Margie	Nautical
11	8/5/2013	Amanda	Waste Not Want Not
12	8/12/2013	Margie	Anthropologie Knock off
13	8/19/2013	Amanda	Hidden Treasure
14	8/26/2013	Margie	Black & White
15	9/2/2013	Amanda	My Style icon would wear that.
16	9/9/2013	Margie	Inspired

Rules of the Game: 

All challenges last a week. Start the week's challenge on Monday, finish by Sunday @ midnight and blog about it by Monday @ midnight. With one exception around the beginning of July with a 2 week challenge.   Make sure when you blog about about that you include the tag or label #sewwhatitssummer. 

That's it - everything else with the challenge is fair game. Get ready for some great projects and looks soon to be displayed on this site :) And don't forget to check out my sister Margie's blog at http://therereproject.blogspot.com.