Material Basics

I am attempting to make a hemd for my daughter as an example for me. I need to make more than one for my husband, myself and my daughter at any rate and I figured doing one for my daughter, who incidentally is only 3, would be a nice experiment to start. I'd waste a lot less material if I messed up on hers and, if I succeed, I then have a pattern for all of us. At any rate, I was doing a little research on the construction. It seems like a simple enough pattern, but there were a few things I wasn't taking into consideration.

Before we get into that, I started this project how I normally seem to start sewing... I jumped in with both feet thinking I knew what I was doing and whah-la! I cut a piece of material that I realized wasn't quite right. How did I realize that? Herein lies the purpose of this post. I did a little more research, more by accident than anything, and I realized there was a bit about material of which I had NO clue. I'd heard the rumors before, but you know how rumors go. You don't always want to believe everything you hear...

At any rate, I found this article that was kind enough to explain it in such a way that my brain could comprehend it. It used pictures. :D

SewBasic: Grainline

This 3 page article is great and helped me to realize a few things that didn't really make much sense to me before now. I understood bias, sorta. I knew the technical 'why' it worked, but I didn't really know the full 'why'. I didn't understand that the warp and weft really made that much of a difference either. Knowing which threads are the warp threads and which are the weft does affect the end result, but I wouldn't have really believed it until I read over this article. So I read it, played with my material and a lightbulb went off in my head. Some of the mysteries were being explained!

I was thrilled, until I realized I had to redo what I'd started for my daughter, but thankfully I'd put enough material into it that I'll only have a little waste and since I'm playing with a really cheap cotton, the waste is going to be irrelevant.

Hopefully, what I conceive in my head concerning this hemd means that it won't really take all that long to put this together. OH, btw, I'm doing this all by hand. No sewing machines, period. Zilch, zip, nada. Sorry, it's the whole historical recreating thing.

Next: Constructing Jacque's Hemd