Making It Up

I don't mind following directions. In fact, I rather like it. Directions help you do things right the first time (if they're good directions) and they act as a progress map, a checklist that allows you to see how close you are to finishing. And when you first start a hobby, they are imperative. They help you succeed so that you won't abandon it as "too hard."

But when you've been doing something a lot for a decent amount of time, you can start using the skills you've learned while following directions to make something up. You can make estimates and guesses and judgment calls and come up with something sort of original.

One of my goals for the year is to design my own dress pattern from scratch, using only my measurements and inspiration from pictures to draft a pattern and make an original dress. But I do want to work up to it a little. So I've made a partly-original shirt/light sweater. I've taken the sleeves and part of the bodice measurements from my knit shirt pattern and changed the neckline and the shape of the bodice to make this deep blue cowl neck shirt. I used a shirt from my closet and my dress form to get the bodice shape I wanted.

As for the neckline, I was sure that YouTube and Google would give me some good advice and tutorials for how to draft and make a cowl neck. I was wrong. So I looked at a shirt I have already with a cowl neck, looked at pictures online of ready-to-wear shirts with cowl necks, draped my fabric over the dress form, thought long and hard about the scissors, then took the plunge and started cutting.

Perfect? No. I was hoping the collar would be a bit droopier than it turned out to be. And the sleeve caps aren't as smooth as I'd like. But good enough when you're just making things up.

If you find yourself terrified to think outside the box a little and experiement with your hobby, be it sewing or quilting or crocheting or whatever, buy some cheap materials that won't break the bank if you mess up, and just go for it. If you create a monster, just hide it away from judgmental eyes and try again. You may find, though, that some mistakes are happy ones.

One nice thing about this shirt is that it already matches a number of bottoms in my closet, including this old wool skirt from Banana Republic, one of my favorites. And that was just a happy accident.