... that I love to sew?

I am not a very crafty person.  But when I was little, I loved to sew for some reason.  I have a vivid memory of sleeping over at my friend's house and staying up till all hours of the night sewing doll clothes by hand in the dark by myself because my friend fell asleep.  Eventually my mom taught me to sew on her ancient sewing machine, and I was pretty good!  I sewed my own pencil cases and purses, and even sewed a denim jumper that I wore till I was about 14 (see me on the left):

That is called legit.

Anyway, I have always loved sewing.  So imagine how STOKED I was when my mother in law gave me a sewing machine for Christmas last year!  And let me tell you, this thing is BEAUTIFUL.  I love it so much.  I tinkered around with it for a while after we got married (I had time cause I was looking for a job) and altered the straps on a few dresses and tanks.  Then I also used it to make our Halloween costumes this year.  But my first real project was altering this shirt:

I have had this shirt sitting in my closet for probably over 2 years.  It was too big for me on all accounts (too baggy everywhere and the sleeves were too long), but it was just too adorable to pass up!  I don't know why, but I am totally obsessed with these ruffles.  I knew that I could get this shirt fixed someday, whether I actually did it myself or broke down and went to a tailor, and thanks to Tanya all my dreams have come true!  But boy, was it a lot of work...

I started by attempting to make the sleeves shorter.  And since this shirt has the cutest ruffly cuffs, I thought it would be a good idea to take the sleeve up from the shoulder, so as not to disturb the cuff.  Note to all:  this was a terrible idea.  Shoulders are hard!  After several attempts, and reattempts, and re-reattempts, I finally got the shoulder back in.  And the sleeve STILL wasn't even short enough!  Blerg.  So I ended up taking off both cuffs and shortening them both to where I wanted them.

See how the left cuff has a button underneath it and the right one doesn't?  Oh well, no one will notice right?

After I got the sleeves the right length, I tackled taking everything in.  I started at the ends of both sleeves and just sewed straight down to the bottom of the shirt.  Pretty easy, but for a perfectionist like me, it still took about 3 times each side.  Mostly because I took it in too much, then not enough, then the sides weren't even, blah blah blah.  You'd think that with my type A personality, I would make sure I did it right the first time.  But I guess my disdain for measuring and marking was just too strong.  Thank goodness for my ripper, AKA new best friend.  Oh well, it all turned out in the end!  And it fits perfectly!!!

I currently have a few other sewing projects in the works as well, thanks to an old high school friend's AMAZING blog, Elle Apparel.  She is an extremely talented seamstress and is gonna be my inspiration for a few skirts and dresses... stay posted.  I love sewing!!!