This Week's Handmade (My First Aloha Shirt🌺)

Taking on a garment with collars and sleeves is something I haven't done since my failed attempts at making pajamas in middle school home economics and a blouse in high school home economics!!

Although I failed back then, thanks to those home economics classes, I was able to learn that things like "sewing machines," "tailor's chalk," "patterns," "basting," and "straight pins" exist in this world✌️

In this day and age, as long as you know they exist, it's a blessing to be able to look them up online in an instant.

I was able to learn so many things by the time I finished one aloha shirt.

When you do something because you want to, it's fun no matter how many mistakes you make or how much time it takes.

I felt like I was being forced to make those pajamas and blouses back in middle and high school, so it was painful😅

Today, I'd like to write down the things I learned while finishing this one aloha shirt😊

1. Failure in tracing the pattern

This time, I bought a pattern like this.

*I am participating in Rakuten Affiliate.

It's designed to be cut out along the lines for your size, but since I want to make some for my family too, I decided to trace it onto pattern paper to use.

Thinking it would be easier to see while tracing, I traced over my size lines with a pen. A felt-tip pen.

I should have used a highlighter instead of a felt-tip pen.

Because the felt-tip pen made the pattern lines hard to see😢

Wouldn't the size be different between the inside and outside of the pen line?

I strained my poor eyes to trace the pattern lines hidden by the felt-tip pen.

I ended up taking on not just the trouble of tracing with a felt-tip pen, but also the difficulty of finding the hidden pattern lines.

I should have used a highlighter...

2. Oh, fusible interfacing!

I was someone who thought any fusible interfacing would do.

The clerk at the fabric store Otsukaya told me, "No, that's not right!" and I bought "full fusible interfacing," but I have a bad feeling about it.

Lately, I get a strange feeling when I'm doing something wrong.
A shiver down my spine.

So, I looked up how to choose fusible interfacing again, and it said, "It should be thinner than the fabric you are using, and basically, you should use a similar color"!

Thank you, ancestors (or whoever you are), for helping me realize my mistake🙇

The next day, I went to a nearby craft store.

Then, I saw a large handmade poster explaining how to choose fusible interfacing, and they had hung up cards with large numbers on them so it was easy to tell which product was which.

Oh my!
How kind is that?

And that day, everything was 20% off in a bargain sale.
On top of that, for members (which I am), there was an additional 20% discount!

I should have just bought it here from the beginning😅

I finally managed to get the right fusible interfacing, but cutting it according to the pattern and ironing it onto the fabric was a struggle.

Especially the interfacing for specific parts!

There are parts that align with the fabric cutting line and parts that align with the finished line, so, hmm, what should I do?

I finally managed to cut the interfacing while aligning it here and there.

I realized later that I should have made a pattern for the fusible interfacing itself😅

And then, I also learned that the fabric shrinks a little bit when you apply the fusible interfacing😲
Hmm, fusible interfacing is difficult.

3 Tools are important~

I had been using a tailor's chalk pencil from my son's home economics sewing kit.

The lead would snap constantly, but I just thought that was how it was supposed to be.

It would disappear quickly because I had to sharpen it so often, so I bought a new tailor's chalk pencil.

And then!
Oh my goodness!
It doesn't break, and I can draw lines so smoothly!

My stress has been cut in half.

And another thing that reduced my stress was using sewing clips instead of pins.
They aren't quite as good as pins, but they are very handy when you just need to hold something in place for a moment.
Plus, I don't prick my fingers!😅

So this is how my collection of things keeps growing.
I worked so hard on decluttering, too.
I'll just tell myself that thanks to decluttering, I now have space for the things I want.

4. So you're supposed to put a gimp thread in buttonholes!

I was happy that I managed to make buttonholes, but I have a feeling they're going to fray soon.

When I looked it up, I found that adding a "gimp thread" makes them sturdier.

Is that so!

I immediately bought some thread to use as a "gimp thread."

And so, my collection of things keeps growing...

I'm sure I could learn more efficiently if I went to a sewing class, but I'm a stubborn person who prefers to learn by trial and error, even if it takes the long way around.

Though, when I don't know the way, I'll ask anyone nearby!

I plan to make an open-collar shirt for someone again next week.
The fabric I'm using next is a bit stiff for an Aloha shirt, so I wonder how it will turn out.