UFOs and "Old Friends"

This week's post is all about sewing up loose ends: UFOs (UnFinished Objects), setting up some "old friends" for the next sewing project, and a quick shirt to bridge the gap. Here is my week at the sewing machine:

UFOs

I have a reputation for making shirts from unusual fabrics. That started when I was the manager of the Jo-Ann Fabrics store on Salem Avenue in Dayton, Ohio in the early 1990s. It was before the time of the Jo-Ann polo-shirt-and-khakis dress code, and I would make up a shirt from a trendy or holiday fabric, wear it to work, leave the bolt of fabric on the cutting counter...and sell it all day ("Oh, and give me a yard of that fabric, too. I like your shirt."). Toward the end of my time at that store, customers were stopping in just to see what shirt I was wearing that day. That was fun, and really enhanced my sewing credibility with my customers at the cutting counter, not to mention my shirt-making skills.

In 2015, while I was a fabric buyer for Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft Stores, I accepted a challenge from a co-worker and sewed a pair of pants from this Robert Kaufman fabric:

http://www.robertkaufman.com/themes/entertainment/money/

Unfortunately, I ran out of time, and didn't get them completely finished before I left the company...classifying them as a UFO.

This week I finished them.

All I needed to do was add buttons and buttonholes to the waistband, make the back welt pockets a bit deeper, and take the hem up an inch. (The best news is that they fit much better now after a recent weight loss!) I never liked making pants all that much; making shirts seems to go faster (probably because of the repetition) and the variety of appropriate fabrics for shirts is much broader. However...these pants may present a new opportunity, and they're really easy to make.

"Old Friends:" Set-Up For The Next Project

A few weeks ago I offered up potential projects and asked for votes to guide me to the next one. The vote was overwhelmingly for the oldest fabric in my stash, so the next project will be the tan & white seersucker suit, with co-ordinating fabrics including tan linen for pants, and tan silk broadcloth and a Liberty of London cotton print for shirts.

I reviewed my on-hand supplies and purchased zippers for the pants, buttons for the jacket, and necessary lining, interfacing and thread. Patterns have been chosen from my pattern library and now the fabrics are being pre-washed. It will be nice to finally get to work on these "old friends." (More about that next week.)

Quick Project

While the fabrics for the Seersucker Suit Project are being pre-washed, I decided to tackle something quick from the stash options: the snake print camp shirt (using the souvenir fabric from a little shop in Wickenburg, Arizona). Another piece off the stash...making room for more? (We can ALWAYS find room for more.) Camp shirts are quick and easy to make, and are just right for the oncoming summer temps here in South Carolina.

Now I'm ready to start the Seersucker Suit Project. Look for the first installment on that next week.

Until next time, keep those sewing machines humming!

DTFM

danthefabricman@yahoo.com