Off the shoulders shirt

Last year was a good year for learning for me. I learned 3 things I can't live without today. 1. How to make shirts. 2. How to knit. 3. How to drive a car.

The topic of this post is the first one. I made the Grainline Archer shirt for me in January 2015 and it was one of the most fun and satisfying things I've sewn. It was followed by another 2 Archers, 1 Alder, 1 Archer/Alder mashup and 1 Negroni for Josh.


The Negroni was an anniversary present to him and I asked him to choose a fabric he liked. He chose this lovely cotton from Stone Fabrics with pink and green stripes that reminds me of a pear and strawberry flavoured ice cream my family used to buy when I was a kid in Sweden. It came in a 2 L tub and the strawberry tasted a bit synthetic but the pear was delicious.

I digress. So what happened was that I took his measurements, found his size in the pattern, sewed it up without fitting as I went along (big mistake) and...it ended up way too big. He wore it out for our anniversary dinner and then it stayed in the wardrobe.

A year and a bit later we agreed that it was unlikely he would get much wear out of it so I decided to give it a new lease on life by turning it into an off the shoulders top for me.

Before

Compared to the care and attention to details I had sewn the initial shirt with this was really sloppy work. I cut off the top (with pinking shears, since I knew I wasn't going to finish the edge), folded the raw edge over, sewed in place and added elastic. I also shortened the hem a bit. The arms are way too long on me, but instead of messing around with re-sizing I just rolled them up.


I'm very happy with how it turned out. The fact that it is quite oversized means it's really nice and cool on a hot day. Only problem - I have so many clothes for hot days and there are so few hot days. But when they do come, I'm prepared!


All photos by Josh.


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