The Coffee Shirt

Earlier this year, I hit on the idea of making my husband Tim a shirt.

We were out and about at one of the theater events put on by Moisture Festival. He was wearing one of his favorite shirts, a bricky-red silk number. It was tucked in, and in the process of settling into our seats, he pulled it out and the side seam ripped badly.

The damage was pretty bad, and I said to him, well, I could make you another shirt.

Later that weekend, we went down to Pacific Fabrics to see what options were to be had.

As we were perusing the selection of batiks, my eyes fell on a coffee cup print. It was perfect!

I bought the appropriate yardage, as well as a pattern, thread, buttons, and interfacing.

Over the next few weeks, I made the shirt. But it had been a long time since I had made clothing. All went well until I did the buttonholes and buttons.

I thought I was all done, but when Tim tried it on, he said, "Sweetie? The buttons are on the wrong side."

Oops.

I suppose I could have left it that way. But the OCD part of me couldn't let it lie.

I snipped off the buttons, zigzagged the buttonholes shut, and re-sewed them on the correct side.

When the shirt is buttoned up, you really can't see the sewed-up buttonholes. And even if it's unbuttoned, the thread blends in rather well with the fabric print.

So, I got off easy.

And I'm getting ready to do it again, with this really cool fabric based on this iconic image, which we spotted in the window of Esther's Fabrics on Bainbridge Island.

Sewing Machine Surgery

Yesterday, I tried to break my sewing machine.

I was punching the holes for a quilting pattern for a baby quilt I made from a set of Layer Cake squares a co-worker gave me after Quilt Market a few years ago. (After trying other methods for making my own quilting patterns, I have decided that the method I like best is Quilt Pounce. It can be a little messy with all the chalk dust, but that wipes off/brushes off/washes out easily enough.)

I had removed the bobbin and unthreaded the top thread from the needle. However, when I started punching the sewing machine needle, keeping a light foot on the foot control and turning the wheel a little by hand, I failed to notice that the top thread (which I thought I had moved out of the way) had gotten caught by the little lever that moves the needle up and down and was getting wound around the internal mechanism.

As I was working, it occurred to me that the machine seemed to be laboring more than usual at the slow speed, but I thought, It’s just not used to having to go this slow, this much.

I only noticed the thread that was getting pulled into the innards of my machine when I was nearly done with punching the pattern.

After much squinting, I was able to see where the thread was caught. If I had something very small, I might be able to reach in and grab the thread and maybe pull it out. I knew just the tool!

I went and got the box containing some antique crochet hooks I’d inherited from my mom. With the really tiny one, I was able to get a thread tail out and hand-cranking the machine in reverse, slowly pull out the thread. Unfortunately, then I thought, Well, maybe this will go faster if I use the foot pedal. Bad idea! The thread immediately broke.

But, I’d gotten most of it out and with a little more effort, I got a bit more out. There’s still a little bit in there, and maybe I could take it into a shop and pay to have them take it apart and get the rest out. But I think it's good enough for now.