I made more shirts using the same pattern I used for the pink t-shirt. These have long sleeves as I modified the pattern. Mainly I was curious about the time it takes to sew one of these shirts. In this first video, I'm sewing the shirt in real time, without edits.
And in the second one, I used a timer to get the total time from intact t-shirt to a ready made altered shirt.
In this video, I'm showing how to alter a dress pattern to make the notched neckline of the yellow bodice shown in an earlier video. You need to know how to make a dress with a lining, because I'm only showing the changes needed for the pattern and what needs to be done differently when sewing the dress.
The video below is the first part about altering an old t-shirt. The process starts with assembling, copying and altering the pattern to fit me.
I have a pair of cargo pants that didn't fit me anymore. The legs were fine, but hips and waist required extension. I've never done anything like this, but decided to try anyway as the pants were of no use to me as they were. So I opened the side seams down to the upper edges of the pockets that are on the sides just a little over the knees.
Then I cut wedge shaped pieces out of black 100% cotton. I bought the fabric specifically for this purpose. For some reason, the instructions that came with the fabric said it should be washed in 40 degrees (C). 100% cotton should be able to take 60 (the pants certainly can), so I washed the fabric first to make sure of that.
I pinned the wedges in place and tried the pants on to make sure everything was fine. I made the waist slightly too loose to take into account possible future weight gain. There are straps on the sides to make the waist tighter, so I'm using them now to get the waist to the correct size.
At this point my sewing machine stopped working, so I had to take it to be serviced, which took 10 days. I had to stop all of my current projects for that time as they all require the sewing machine.
Sewing the seams was one of the most difficult projects I've done so far, but at least the sewing machine was freshly serviced and wasn't causing any trouble.
After sewing the wedges in place, I had to fix the inside of the waist band. When I opened the side seams, I had to cut the band that was going around the inside at the waist, and now it required extensions as well.
Here is an extension sewn in place. I have no idea how these things are supposed to be made, so I've just done everything in this project as I have seen fit. There are probably some unnecessary seams in places, but black thread on black fabric isn't too noticeable, so it doesn't matter.
As I had already seen so much trouble with these, I decided to also shorten the legs, which had always been a bit too long. It hadn't bothered me as I mostly used these in the forest and put the pants legs inside the rubber boots. Now I'll be using these during the winter in the city, so it's nicer to have them at proper length.
In the picture above, I'm wearing the pants with the side straps set as shown in the following picture. I can get the waist just the right size, but also adjust it in case of temporary bloating or some more permanent weight gain.
The final thing was sewing a button in place as there was one button missing. This kind of pants are great because there's no zipper to be replaced, but on the other hand, buttons have a tendency to fall more often than a zipper breaks.
I don't buy clothes often, so what I have I tend to use until they're ready to be thrown away. This has led to accumulation of some items I haven't been using for a long time and didn't think I would be using as they are. So, it was time for some alterations.
The first one was a fleece sweater I got for free from my last employer (I've been self-employed for 16 years now). The company's name and logo changed, and all the promotional stuff was given to employees, so I got this good quality sweater I used quite a lot for the first few years, but haven't used for some time now. It has always been too big for me (it was the smallest size available, so of course I took it as it was free), so I decided to make it a vest and take the seams in so it would fit better.
I have another project for which I'm using some old flannel shirts, so I took some of that fabric for the hem and arm hole edges. I also decided to use a patch to cover the logo. I doubt many people would even know whose logo it is as it's been so long since that name change (the company has changed its name several times after that due to mergers). I took in quite a lot from the side seams and cut the front open to sew a zipper in place.
The second piece was a maxi dress that had never felt quite right. It looked fine, but the fabric is too stiff for the length shown in the picture below.
I thought knee length would be better. It took a lot to start cutting the fabric after measuring everything twice. This is a good quality dress that wasn't cheap, and I was terrified I'd mess something up. However, everything turned out just fine as you can see in the next picture.
I have a some more projects of this type in progress at the moment. One of them is fixing cargo pants that need the hips and waist extended as they don't fit me anymore. As I was in the middle of this project, my sewing machine stopped working properly, so I had to take it in to be repaired and that took 10 days. That stopped me from finishing the project, but now I should be able to do that.
