Oh my god, people, I have issues!  I seriously cannot work a sewing machine.  It is really sad.  I couldn't figure out why half my crafts would turn out fine and the others would be hot messes.  Well, it turns out that I can HAND sew just fine. I can embroider. I can hem. I can build other shit with my hands.  But work a sewing machine?  Here's the kicker… every time I'm hand sewing something I think to myself, "You really should be doing this on the sewing machine. It'll be so much faster."  BUT IT'S NOT!  Because I spend so much time screwing up and ripping out stitches and screwing up and pawing through the manual and screwing up and ripping out little tiny stitches that it takes HOURS!!

You know, I took sewing class in high school and I don't remember a goddamn thing about tension and needle sizes. Literally, it was like a news flash. But give me a pedal-push Singer and I'm fine. And a fucking prairie dress.

This is the other project I worked on this week.  I took two pre-pregnancy, too short t-shirts and combined them into one, having been totally inspired by this guy's awesome shirts.  Except he isn't doing women's wear yet.  *sigh*  And my shirt doesn't even come close to his awesomeness (I'm aware of my limitations) but I like the colors.  I'm totally ordering his patches, though, to fix my favorite jeans.  Shut up. I know I have to use the machine for that.

Tea dyed shirt 004

The first t-shirt was white that I dyed with tea to get this color.  It has a cool mottled effect that this picture isn't picking up.  Then I fought the machine to sew the bottom onto the top and sewed on the patch (which was inspired by another shirt I saw).  I also used a combo of sharpie and fabric pen to color the neckline, add some faded circle graphics, and write along the back. I used the sharpie so that when I washed it some of the ink would migrate and add to the mottled effect.  I think I'm going to distress this a bit more by writing other lines on it and adding more stitching. As soon as I figure out how to put the darning plate on the sewing machine.    

Damnit, at least I'm trying.