Category: Men’s shirts

Part 4: Sewing Jam Investigation & Solution! Blue Square Shirt continues!

After all of the research last night to try and fix my machine, I woke up with some new knowledge but still uncertain of what was going wrong.

Of course this is the project I’m trying to time too lol

9:35am start – I watched this very interesting video about fixing the timing of the inside of the machine.

Inspired, I went to look at my machine and play around…

Dun dun duhh!!!!

O.M.G. this little guy at the top had lost it’s thread!

Here it is fixed:

I think this means that there wasn’t enough tension on the top string to pull the string on the bottom off the shuttle. This may have been causing the double-loop-underneath situation.

Next time, I will rethread the top of this machine sooner in the investigation process.

It’s interesting to know how everything works now!

9:57am – it’s sewing time!!

Yay! This collar is going to look so nice!

11:20am: time to take a break for tennis, lunch, grocery shopping, unfortunately dishes, & some baking ahead of visiting friends.

Hanging out with friend was awesome! I may actually have a future sewing buddy! Stay tuned for possible updates there in the future.

Sewing time today 1.5 hrs

Total project time: 4 hrs 40 min

Blue Squares Shirt – Part 3 & a Surprise Challenge

First off – thanks for all the laundry tips and comiserating with me! It seems like we have all been there in terms of destroying things in the laundry 🙂

Today is a great day because it’s time to start sewing this project. I can’t wait to see it come together!

Starting off… I took a nap and woke up feeling so so…

Feeling better at 8pm start

Making the plackets and sewing some stay stitching to strengthen the neckline. Turns out this fabric has stretch O.o maybe the fabric name evil squares was accurate after all…

Then it was pocket time

Then it was back panel time

Time is 9:00 and I need to take a small break. It’s weird to write online but frankly my stomach feels so so 😦 I am going to lie down on the couch briefly.

10:00pm Now I finished talking to my parents on the phone and it’s time to start sewing again!

I attached the front panels to the back shoulder and it’s looking pretty good for line alignment. This is definitely a more unusual fabric for a dress shirt and the stretch is making it a little different and I have to be extra careful not to pull on the fabric otherwise I’ll get wavy seams.

From here… something started to go wrong. The strings started catching within the machine. I would go about 2 stitches forward while I was trying to make the collar and suddenly everything would lock up! The needle string would be too tight for the machine to pull anymore.

I opened up the bottom part and tried to double check the bottom thread and it still had issues… it was time to go deeper.

I unscrewed the floor of the machine and it was obvious I hadn’t cleaned this before.

I then realized I could take out the bobbin holder and there was more dust and thread fluff to clean there too.

After passing the string around a few times it seemed like things were maybe working again so I put everything back in place…

(Metal part added back too)

SNAG! It happened again!

End time 10:50

Research time starts 10:55

Trying to Google and learn what is going on. This video has the scariest intro and most “outside the norm” of any sewing YouTube video I’ve ever seen. Shout out to for. This is the most technical video I’ve ever seen.

This video was helpful but does not describe my issue.

I think I basically have an issue with the bobbin not releasing the thread.

This random shopping website has some details about the timing and at least a good explanation of the issue.

Time for bed 11:37pm

Total sewing time today: 2 hrs

Research time: 40 min

Total sewing time: 3hr 10 min (I will not count research time into this project because I really want to understand how much time the pattern takes)

Blue Squares – Shirt Part 2

9:30 PM start! And the new Love to Sew podcast is blasting. These are two joyful women from Vancouver! It is so wonderful and a pleasant mix of detail and fun. I am really looking forward to continuing to listen and learn more. Maybe one day they’ll visit NYC or I’ll try to visit their shop in Vancouver – too bad I learned this after I was just there…I happened to listen to an episode about taking care of scraps! This is perfect timing because tonight I cut out all the pattern pieces. An interesting piece of advice included not being afraid to cut off some of the really small stranger pieces. This helps make a shape that’s easier to store and use in a future project.Good bye to this little straggler.This pattern involves 10 pieces and I’ve used it many times now (see menswear shirt category)By 10:10 I had finished cutting all these pieces out – Ta da!At this point – it was time to go to bed. I was staring at the front panel and thinking about starting to iron down the placket but a little voice in my head again said “nope time to go to bed on a work night” But! There was still time for one fantastic discovery! Look at how this matches. I think I will make a color blocked peplum to match my poodle skirt! I can’t wait!

Total project time so far 1hr 10min

New Project! New Shirt for D (the first replacement)

I know I said I’d do the small circle print first but instead I threw the big squares in the wash again – checked for bleading – no more – and decided it was time to take this fabric to task!

Liesl+Co All Day Shirt – here we go!

Also, I’ve been asked how long these take to make, so I’m going to try and really time this one.

Today: started 9:30pm

– Laid out pattern pieces, took this pic, wrote snappy words above

– 9:59 finish pinning pattern pieces down.

Assess if I should start cutting them… probably not since it’s a work night and bedtime.

Let the timer show 30 min 🙂 ‘Till next time!

New projects – Laundry Issues continue!

So I visited Mood to get new fabrics to replace the poor little red ink disaster shirts and I was pretty excited with my picks – a white woven cotton, some small tangential circles, and a pretty interesting geometric square print.

I put them all in the washer and dryer together and… they ran! (To be completely fair, I left them wet overnight in the washing machine. I think this is totally my fault and where I messed up)

So much for the white shirt. X_X it’s a light tyedye in about 1.5 yards. Maybe that’s cool enough that it will become a shirt for myself? The problem is that it’s quite faint so I dont think it looks intentional. Calling it tyedye is really being generous and it looks more like blotchy ink…

I think the culprit was the cool squares.

So cool… but maybe evil…

What do I do now?

I am going to start with sewing the small circle shirt and maybe wash the blue squares again by themselves.

Wish me luck! Or give me advice lol I’ll take that too!

Laundry Disaster RIP Green Pants and Best Shirt

Well, right before I left for vacation I had a clothing massacre in which I sent a red pen though the wash and dried everything before discovering it. I took out my new favorite shirt for D and the green pants. I additionally killed 3 Banana Republic shirts. Yikes! I was sad but it was too late already. Lessons learned.

The green pants had gotten lots of wear already. The dress shirt was really nice… I had sewn all the seams as french seams and really put a lot of effort into aligning the stripes. The buttons were nice too. Hmmm. I will go to Mood and see if I can get the same or similar fabric for a repeat.

I casually tried to do some mending techniques to cover the spots up but so far it does not look as good as pinterest (visible on the left collar edge). Looks like I made my first smock.

Shirt for D Complete- Finishing the Sleeves and Adding the Final Buttons

Alright -so we left off when I had completed one placket. Next steps were to finish the other placket, add in the sleeve pleats I forgot, attach the sleeves, finish the side seams, add the cuffs and then just the buttons. I think this ended up being 3 working sessions to get all the way to adding the buttons but I’m going to condense this here.

Here is a quick shot of the finished plackets. Read on to see the next steps!

Continue reading “Shirt for D Complete- Finishing the Sleeves and Adding the Final Buttons” →

Shirt for D – working session part 2

So far, I have three ongoing projects – this shirt, my jersey knit dress, and the Tambour beading – things could not be better. If I have TV to watch – it’s tambour time. If I want to listen to a podcast or audio book? D sewing machine shirt. Am I in the city? Jersey stretch fabric time.I have been listening to some true crime podcasts. My Favorite Murder is the best, but I tried a new one called Casefiles and it may be too scary. To balance it out – there are some interesting recordings of 60 Minutes, and some others like an audio book of 1984 and the Dresden Files. It makes the time go by!Either way, as I’m preparing to work on the collar and then sleeves and cuffs, it will be nightime and I may have to put Casefiles on hold so that I can go to sleep without fears of people hiding in our closets. Only cool handmade clothes are allowed there!Here’s the collar of the shirt – I forgot to take “in progress pictures”See a close up and progress on the packets for the sleeves below! Continue reading “Shirt for D – working session part 2” →

Shirt for D – Finally started!

It was time to kick off this project!

It is a decent amount of work to cut out these fabric pieces.

From there, I was able to make the front pocket, front panels with plackets, and the back pleats with a part across the back (don’t remember what this is called). See below

Continue reading “Shirt for D – Finally started!” →

Upcoming Projects – Another shirt for D

We bought this fabric about two years ago and it is time for it to come to life. D used to have a shirt similar to this and I really liked it. I think this will look quite good and be nice for summer. I am planning to make a standard dress shirt so that he can wear it to work too.

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Continue reading “Upcoming Projects – Another shirt for D” →