nameless

(after 10 minutes of trying to come up with a title for this - I've got nothin' ~ so I went with it)

~

A few months ago,

when Alabama Chanin had a 20% off sale, 

I ordered a color card.

My Aurifil color chart proved the value of color cards to me

and I wanted to be ready the next time AC ran a sale.

Alabama Chanin's jersey is crazy expensive,

but I've also read that it's fabulous.

I recently made (most of) a shirt using my tried and true pattern

and some sage colored jersey that I purchased on clearance from either fabric.com or Girl Charlee fabrics.

A hand-stitched shirt - lightly embellished with random ruffle ruffles, also handsewn, of course,

before garment construction even began.

I'd drafted a little cap sleeve to go on it, so after I sewed one sleeve in, I tried on the shirt, to check the sleeve.

The shirt was too tight! 

(You may remember that this isn't the first time this has happened.)

At first I thought, "Crap! I've gained weight!"

But then I remembered that I had worn one of my AC tops just a few days before and it fit just fine.

The problem clearly lied with my fabric.

I e-mailed my Alabama Chanin mentor, Anna, to get her thoughts on the matter.

She said she'd had the same trouble before,

and that differing jerseys have different fits,

but it didn't really seem to be an issue of stretch.

She didn't have any wisdom to share on how to know how it would fit before sewing it up.

But she'd never had any problems with Alabama's jersey.

I figured it might just be time to splurge.

 

Inspired by my recent quilt magnificence 

(Not only did I finish the one-hour-'til-done purple quilt on Sunday, 

just a few hours ago, I put the final stitches in the colorful chevron quilt!)

I decided to pull out my AC fabric that I'd ordered during their Memorial Day sale, and cut out a shirt.

And then I remembered that 

seeing as I hadn't even taken the fabric out of the box yet,

I hadn't pre-washed my fabric.

Pooh!

For a brief second, I considered breaking my 'always pre-wash fabrics for clothing' rule.

Then quickly told myself that $20 a yard fabric was not the fabric to go breaking my rule on.

So I turned the washer on and went to grab some more clothes to throw in with the fabric.

As I untied the bow, the card flipped over.

Happy Day!

(except  - now I've spent all of my cutting out time typing up this post...)