It took 3 days to cut out. The fabric kept twisting around funky, going off grain. Plus, every time I tried to work on it the cat decided to be involved, walking on the fabric, burrowing under the fabric, jumping after pattern pieces. Finally I cut it out one layer at a time. While the cat was asleep.
By which time I'd started to lose interest. So here it sits.
In the meantime, last year someone gave Rick this t-shirt. Unfortunately, the neck is wonky
because the shoulder seam is wonky.
He asked me to fix it, and I put it on my dresser to deal with later. So here it is, a year later, and he's going to see these people in a couple of days and would like to wear the t-shirt.
But I can't just sew up a new, straight seam along the ruler. For one thing, it has this fabric covering the seam; I suspect it also adds stability to the shoulder area so it doesn't stretch out quite so quickly. It runs from one shoulder to the other, around the back of the neck.
I removed part of the fabric strip (which has purple on it from my fabric pen), sewed a new seam together with a narrow zigzag, then trimmed that up. Next, split open the neck and serged the raw edges of that, then stitched those bits down with a narrow zigzag (not that slick looking, but got the job done). And, finally, sewed the fabric reinforcement back down using that stretch stitch that looks like 3 lines of stiching side-by-side (no clue what that's called, although I think it has a name).
Not precisely straight, but a good application of the Secret Weapon -- a hot iron blasting plenty of steam -- should whip it into place. Also, frankly, the other shoulder isn't that non-wavy, either.
As for crocheting, well. Maybe the little crochet-elves will come out tonight and do that for me while I sleep, sort of like the shoemaker's elves. I'll let you know next week how that works out.
Impressed with the t shirt rework. But I personally would give up on the knit top sewing. A check/plaid and a knit? That would make me want to explode.
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