Sewing Project Focus: Sleeves
Every Chinese New Year, I will try to sew something for my kids to wear. It's my way of blessing them with something great to start the new year with. From choosing the pattern to designing the fabric, they were all planned with the kids in mind. My son just turned 3 not long ago and exceptionally opinionated little man he is! I had to ask him prior to sewing and cutting the fabric if he'd like a new shirt with it. Otherwise, there's a high chance that it will just stay hung up in the wardrobe.
Sewing for boys is a little boring. I do get to pick and choose the small details to make it different from the previous piece, but that's about it (you know)! I try to learn something new with every sewing project I start, it can be something I have already learnt but done differently. It's probably the reason why I take so long to complete each sewing project (on top of all the times I have to unpick the seams).
What I learnt in this project: Sleeves
Sewing sleeves has always been something with unpredictable outcomes. More often than not, I would have sleeves not fully aligned to the shirt and I will always spread out tiny folds at places not too obvious to "hide" them. Not like my son is going to carefully examine the seams anyway.
This time, I decided to really find out how to do it right. I learnt that pinning the pieces together around the seam line will work better than just clipping them together. Why didn't I just use pins in the first place? They are very commonly used and cheap. I just never had good experience with them. I poke myself pinning, and I tend to drop them everywhere. There were a few incidents where I tried to catch my falling project and ended up grabbing the sharp pins in my fist. So, I do have pins but I just want to protect my hands from them!
Anyway, as much as I loathed it, I took them out and pinned the sleeve to the shirt and voila! They fit perfectly! I thought it might just be a one-off occurrence so I started on the other sleeve. OMG! They fit perfectly! I thought I could cry at that moment. I was still skeptical, sewing them together could still be disastrous. They were sewn together... perfectly... for BOTH sleeves! My heart sang with happiness at that moment.
Which Team are you on?
I still prefer clips but I swear the pins are going to come out every time I sew sleeves and whatever parts that I usually have issues with. Pins are great, I'll just keep them at a distance until I need them.
Are you Team Pins or Team Clips? Or Team Basting (By Hand)? I'm not at the basting stage just yet.
