Sweater dress....thing

I'll be sharing more on Haley's Up! birthday party next week, but today I wanted to share a recent craft fail with you because we ALL have them....and I feel like I've been having more and more of them lately! Have you ever started a project with this grand idea in mind of what it's going to be, then halfway through realize "oh crap, this is nothing like I imagined."

That was what happened with this project.

I got it in my head to make a sweater dress for Haley since I absolutely adore little girl's sweater dresses. I imagined a cute little patterned dress with some pockets and maybe a pom pom tie at the waist.

This is what I actually made:

Notice a couple differences? Like, everything?


First, I found a sweater in my refashion pile that I thought would work. It didn't have a pattern, actually it was just plain brown, but I figured I could jazz it up with some pockets made with fabric that had a pattern. No biggie.

Then I got to work cutting the actual dress itself. I had some issues at first trying to keep the sweater lined up properly (man, sweater fabric is evil! It moves EVERYWHERE as you cut it) but I pressed on.

Next came sewing. My machine was not a fan of the ribbing. No worries...I just went back over the stitches a few times to make sure there weren't many holes. Then finally, I sewed on the sleeves and started thinking about the pockets.

And it was then that I realized my daughter's head would have to be the size of a doll's to fit into the opening.

Sigh.

It was then that I threw my entire plan out the window and literally free-styled this dress. I had to cut one of the shoulders open so that I could fashion a button closure that could be opened then fastened after Haley got the dress over her head. (Ever since I learned this method of making a button closure from Craftiness is not Optional, it's my classic go-to method for closures in general - especially when something turns out to be smaller than planned.) It may look pretty decent but believe me, the closure isn't as pretty as it should be. But it's functional and I didn't have to throw the whole dress away. I do love the flower buttons though, just more I dug out of my stash :)

After finishing the button closure, I was definitely not in the mood for making pockets but I felt like the dress still needed SOMEthing, so I cut a very crooked strip of lace to make a sash.

At that point, I was all "you don't even deserve a sash!"

The dress just mocked me.

So there we go, a free-styled, very imperfect sweater dress that actually turned out pretty well despite my best efforts. That's just how things go sometimes I guess.

When life hands you lemons, make a brand new shirt.

Are you one of those people who makes perfect projects every time? Like, all you have to do is just envision your project, carry it out, and it comes out perfect, just how you imagined? If you are, I am extremely envious of you. I am not one of those people.

Most of the time I come up with a project, tweak it. Tweak it again. Do the project. Realize something is off. Tweak it again. Finish it, then when analyze the crap out of it and see only the flaws.

If you're on Pinterest, you've probably already seen this picture, but it makes me laugh every time because I feel this way during a lot of projects:

Source

I'm definitely harder on myself than anyone else, and a lot of the time it's just be being a perfectionist. Other times however, it seems the craft gods are against me.

This weekend, I got it in my head to make a cute football-themed shirt for my daughter to show her support for the Steelers. I found this adorable idea for a shirt on Pinterest for a shirt with a football helmet appliqued on it and a bow on the helmet - you know, show some support for your favorite team but with a girly twist. I was psyched. Since I had a lot of fabric leftover from making my son's Steeler's-themed bedding, I decided to use that fabric to make a shirt for my daughter.

I got all excited about making the shirt and was even going to do a tutorial, then everything started going wrong from the beginning. I couldn't get the Steelers logo to fit right into my helmet template and had to cut it 4 different times, then I was finally able to cut it out and iron it on my shirt.

I began using a satin stitch around the edges, and about 5 seconds in my machine caught the shirt fabric in the feed dogs. After prying the shirt mentally cursing out the innocent shirt (because that's a lot more sane than outright yelling at an article of clothing), I moved the applique and started again. Halfway through, my machine caught the shirt in the feed dogs again.

I don't know if you can see it well in the picture below, but it's the spot with the tangled mass of thread near the top of the mask.

When it happened, I cycled through the stages of grief.


Shock and denial: "Oh no!! Not again! I can't believe this happened a second time! Wait, it's Ok. It's barely noticeable. Except when I stick my entire finger through the hole..."

Anger: "Argh, stupid sewing machine, why did you have to eat my shirt! See if I ever oil you again...that'll show you..."

Depression: "Now I'm going to have to start all over. I might as well just throw the shirt away."


Dialogue and Bargaining: "Please just make this thing work, I don't want to have to start all over again! I've already lost 5 hours of my life!"

Acceptance: "...crap."


There was no way of ripping the original design out without making even MORE holes, so I decided to whip out my felt and cover the whole applique.

I still kept with the whole "girly football" theme, but with a football instead of a helmet. Not what I was originally shooting for, but I was about done with the shirt at this point. I was planning on doing a tutorial, but by the time I finished the shirt, I had run out of sanity.

So here it is. A football shirt for my daughter that took about 6 hours.

She will be wearing it until she's 16.

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