A tutorial for a V-neck shirt

***Update: I've posted a newer version of a v-neck shirt here***

Hopefully this is helpful to someone. My sister asked me to show her how to do a v-neck and I thought I'd go ahead and post it here. This may not be the best or easiest way for everyone, but it's the way I do it, and I love the results.

First thing I do is cut my neckband and iron it in half lengthwise.
Then overlap the ends to form your "v" shape.

I then sew the edges down, so I don't have to worry about them shifting while I'm actually sewing this piece onto the shirt.

Here is the stitching.

I then trim off the excess fabric from the corners.

Here is the front of the shirt with the band right under it. The angles are completely the opposite, so you'll have to pin this together to keep everything in place.

Here is mine pinned in place.

And here's what it looks like form the opposite side.

Then I serge the band in place.

Stopping when I get to the corner and turning it.

A picture of what it looks like on the inside once the band in serged on.

Then you flip it and topstitch it.

Here's the final product.

Ottobre 2-07 Rose Shirt

I love this shirt, and I can see several more in my future. The pattern is the Rose Shirt from Ottobre 2-07 (with a couple of small modifications), and the fabric is a delicious bamboo/cotton/lycra jersey.

Little sis's pjs, and some shirts for me

My little sister (who's 10) is, well, kind of bright and loud and obnoxious, and I absolutely love her. Really, I'd have to love her to make these pjs for her, because they just scream 1980's, and for some reason I find that reprehensible. These fabrics were in a box of fabrics that my mom gave me, and were some of the ones I planned on tossing because I didn't like them. However my little sis saw them and instantly fell in love with the bright yellow flannel and panda bears interlock and asked that I make her some pjs with them. I hate these pjs, they're hideously ugly, but it's what she wanted so now she's going to have to live with them. (and she's probably going to love them because that's how she is)

Here are 2 long sleeve shirts for me, using ottobre 2-07 and adding a little length to the 3/4 sleeves.

And here are the two pj shirts that I needed to make to match the flannel lounge pants that I made a few days ago.

PJs for me.....

I thoroughly enjoy sewing for myself just as much as I enjoy sewing for everyone else in my family, so I was rather thrilled when I realized that I needed more PJs. I still need to make 2 shirts to match 2 pairs of the flannel pants, but for now I'm just using other PJ shirts I have that match. Pants are KwikSew 3602 (watch out, they have a 5/8" SA) and the shirts are from Ottobre 2-07

Christmas sewing!

I love Christmas, and I love Christmas sewing. So I've been very happy this week to spend hours and hours in my sewing room. Here's what I've been working on...

Lounge pants for my dad. I don't have a tried and true mens shirt pattern, so I just bought a RTW shirt. Pattern is KwikSew 2687

Chef's hat for my youngest nephew, Nathan. I still need to add the velcro to the back, but I love how cute this is and it'll go perfectly with his felt food I made him. Pattern is from Ottobre 4-04.

A set of 4 cloth napkins and 2 facecloths for my mom. The napkins are just 2 layers of cotton woven serged together with a rolled hem, and the facecloths are flannel on one side and organic bamboo velour on the other.

A set of 4 cloth napkins for my Aunt (on top) and a set of 4 for my Grandma (on the bottom).

A warming bag filled with rice for each one of my kids.

A few of the fabric gift bags that I've made. Several of them are already being used, and I still have a pile that I need to finish topstitching.

Felt Pizza

I was a little late in sewing my nephews birthday felt food (I just mailed it today and his b-day was almost a month ago), so I decided that I wasn't going to procrastinate on his Christmas set, a felt pizza set.

Felt food has taught me a few lessons, the biggest one being that I hate, I mean really, with every fiber of my being, *hate* hand sewing. His birthday food was a sandwich and pita set, which I hand sewed (and mailed before photographing). This pizza set was all done on the sewing machine. It took me about 15 minutes to make this set on the machine, but it would've taken days for me to get it done if I was hand sewing it all (okay it probably would have taken me weeks to finish it). I will concede to the fact that hand sewn felt food looks much better, but my nephew is 3, I don't really think he's going to care very much how I sewed it together, he's just going to be happy that I made it for him.

My sewing room is finally all set up!

I finally got my sewing room all moved and set up. I've even sewn a few things in it and made it look a little cluttered. Here's a few pictures of my sewing space, starting with the closet (which is just inside the door) and going counter-clockwise around the room.

My dad and I just went and picked up this Koala cutting table tonight. Oh my gosh, it was so heavy and hard to get up the stairs. This thing is not leaving this room, unless my DH wants to move it. It's a wonderful table though, and is absolutely *huge*.

I'm very happy to have it all done, and I feel like I have so much room, which makes me want to sew even more.

BB's for DH

Do you ever make something just because you have this hysterically funny idea in you're head that needs to come out? Well, a couple of days ago my DH let me know that he needed more boxer briefs, and immediately this idea popped into my head of using one of the iron-on appliqués that I have. Here is a picture...

I love the "hot diggity dog" appliqué, and hopefully my DH gets a laugh out of this pair.

Then I decided to use up the last of this dragon knit I had, and used it for the front and back cod pieces.

Yet more PJs

Here're a few mores sets of PJs, 3 for each one of the boys. The pants pattern is from Ottobre's 4-03 issue, and the shirts are from my most used Ottobre issue, 4-04.

I've sewn up 4 more pairs of pants, but I haven't gotten the shirts sewn yet. I have the fabrics picked out for these 2 pants,

but I need to get for cranberry interlock for these penguins pants, and more white interlock for the ladybug pants.

Hopefully I'll be done with these soon. I actually like sewing pjs, but I've been doing nothing but sewing them for the last week, and I'm ready to move on to something else now.

Modified Jalie Cross Front Top

I searched high and low for a good knit dress pattern for my DD. I never did find exactly what I was looking for, but I did find this cute Jalie cross front pattern that was very close. So I just modified it a little bit by adding some length to get the dress that I wanted.

I'm very pleased with how this turned out. Cortney loves it, and has requested a few more.