The Little Shirt That Could

This is the story of the Little Shirt That Could.

(alluding to: from The Little Engine That Could )

If you’ve been trying to make things yourself for awhile, you have had a project like this one: The little project that snowballs into a cascade of lessons and failures. This was mine to conquer. If you only want to know if my project ended up in the trash: it didn’t. I won’t wear it out in public, but I might revisit it in a few years and perhaps be better able to fix the fit. Or I might turn it into something else entirely.

It all started with a mending project. This was a knit shirt that needed more length and width. I didn’t want to donate it because I want to learn to make my wardrobe, and want to try to make all things in our hermitage useful.

Taking a tip from Niler Taylor’s videos , I cut off the sleeves and inserted them into the side seams. However, since I needed more width in the chest area, I didn’t copy the shape that Niler Taylor suggested. That was one problem. Putting in a dart didn’t help either.

I tried to make the armholes larger when I cut out the sleeves, because the shirt had been pulling/riding up whenever I moved my arms. I don’t think I ever got the armhole correct, as the shirt always rides up (maybe more so?!) even after finishing. To my dismay, I realized that the shoulders were initially too narrow, so I tried to extend the shoulder, making a little shoulder/sleeve cap with what fabric that was left. That was another problem.

I machine knitted pieces to be attached to the shirt. I started adding my cut-and-sew pieces as sleeves. I thought that using the rectangular pieces as they were wouldn’t be too much of a problem, since I liked the patterning. It was a problem. While sewing, I slanted the seam to give the seam a little shape, especially under the arm. It was still not a good fit.

Then, I realized that I needed to line the sleeves to protect the patterning (floats on the inside of the sleeve). I tried to use scraps of knit fabric, sewing it to the bottom of the new sleeve, then attaching it to the inside seam edge near the shoulder. This was attempted: without having pattern pieces, without matching it to the sleeves, sewing pieces together as I went, and without measuring and coming up with pattern pieces...several times. When you’re trying to match lining to a sleeve that is already attached to the shirt, your lining can twist or move off-center, making a mismatch between the armhole seam to the end of the sleeve. It’s like putting a Ziploc bag into a cup, taping the bottom of the bag to the bottom of the cup, and then twisting the top of the bag. In the case of sleeves and lining, you might not see the distortion, but when you put it on, you definitely feel it!

After many attempts, and more twisting than I thought possible on a single seam, I decided to:

1) use a lighter knit fabric

2) measure and cut out matching pieces (at least I wouldn’t have to unpick my machine-knit sleeves)

That was fine, but I also decided to include extra length in the lining fabric to make the sleeves longer. No, I didn’t cut out an extra piece. Instead, I said that phrase of portent: “It will be easy!” No, it made the ill-fitting sleeves even worse. But I persisted. I got that lining and sleeve extension in.

The last bit of the sleeves, the gray extension, was pointy when I tried it on. So, I used some elastic (that I had set aside from upcycled fitted sheets), and attached the elastic to the seam edge between the machine knitted portion and the gray portion about halfway down the sleeve (on the inside). This helped with the draping of the end of the sleeve.

Sleeves done, now for the bottom hem. I had decided that I was done using machine knitted pieces for the shirt. It was already heavier than I wanted (I had wanted a lighter-weight shirt in the end). I opted for the lighter gray knit to just make a hem. But oh, that hem! Because of my ill-fitting armhole and extension panels underneath, that hem stood out like a tutu! I seam ripped and put the gray fabric on the bottom near the feed dogs when sewing on my machine, trying to stretch the dark blue knit while pushing in extra gray to give more length to the bottom. That seemed to help. Then I folded the gray over and top-stitched it, which really helped. However, the gray hem was doing something really odd at the sides (because of the badly shaped extension panels). I seam ripped that hem easily over a dozen times, and got to finishing, only to back up again about five times. But I persevered. I ended up just folding over the extra hem fabric under the arm (it was too late to redo the dart and take in the whole panel).

I was so done with this shirt that I didn’t even try to put in my silver yarn piece I had knitted for the neckline (I had also knitted more for the bottom and sleeves).

Like I said, what a mess of a project! Many opinions told me to throw it in the trash, which made me more determined to finish. I want to finish what I started as much as I can!

I do think I’ll hang onto it. I think that with time and more experience, I’ll be able to turn that into a shirt I actually like, or maybe a handbag or wall organizer. Who knows.

So this is my story of the Little Shirt That Could.

Now on to better, hopefully easier projects. I’m more determined to make better choices and habits in the future, including for patterns, recipes, finishing projects, and life goals.

What recent struggle have you overcome? What did you learn?