Finally Back

Hello everyone, its been way too long.

   Just a few  updates. I have internet back now, and I 'm able to use it on a regular basis. I am no longer living in Nevada, but moved back to Indiana for family reasons, and currently have a living arrangement with my parents. I no longer work for Wal Mart but instead work as a Pharmacy Technician at CVS, a painting instructor at Michael's and a model at Ivy Tech.  Still single, and enjoying it. Oh, and I had a baby.

   Her name is Iris and she's the light of my life. Motherhood is a strange journey I never thought I'd ever go on, and I"m still getting used to the change in priorities and routines. I know I'm not the greatest mom, but I certainly am trying. Sometimes I am exhausted, and sometimes I feel more driven to new level of crazy than I ever thought possible, but I love it and her. Her smile, laugh and that super sweet angelic face she makes when she is asleep makes it all worth it.


   So being a single mom doesn't leave a lot of time for art. I'm just know getting back to a fraction of the artwork that I used to do. And my baby is almost a year and a half old. But one thing I am dedicated to is making things just for her. The other day we were at Goodwill looking for fabrics to reclaim for a costumes for an upcoming convention. Yes, I will be raising my daughter in the ways of geek. She will know the difference between a moogle and a muggle, an x wing fighter and the USS Enterprise, and instead of a pony she will want me to buy her a chocobo.

   But back to materials. I came across this shirt and thought of my grandpa in Nevada.

   He's very into western shirts, and in a similar nod to the fashion of Elvis, he likes some glitz, he also has severe arthritis so snap buttons are a must. This shirt has all that, the detail is just beautiful, but there is just one little problem. My grandpa is super tiny. Like XS is just little too big tiny. So this shirt being a large needed some serious taking in.

   I had made him a shirt before, and had an old prototype. So I used that for sizing. If you're trying this just use a shirt you know fits you or the person you are making it for. I layed it on top of the goodwill shirt and lined up the shoulders, the collar and the center button front.

You will notice that the majority of the Goodwill shirt that was too big is at the sides and under arms of the shirt. So I just cut it off. Nothing fancy, just started from the bottom hem, and worked my way up. For the sleeves I didn't cut all the way to the cuff, but instead followed the seem of the arm and tapered out my cut.

   Next I just flipped the shirt inside out and pinned the cut edges. Using a straight stitch, just like I did when I cut it, I just sewed on up the cut edges, again tapering out with the sleeves.





  

   Trim the threads, turn it right side out, and there you have a perfectly resized shirt. Pretty proud of myself, as this is my first every resize. Now to get to those oh to big shirts for me that reside in the very back of my closet.

 
   So what has everyone else been up to? I'm really excited to be getting back to blogging and hopefully I'll be bringing y'all something at least once a week. But again I am the mother of a one year old, so we will see how this goes.

   Love, Music and Feathers.
Britanni