panna bear shirt? own shirt? Havey own shirt?
The World Wildlife Foundation is a charity that I enjoy supporting, not only because they do a really rigorous and well-rounded job of protecting the most endangered wildlife on the planet, but because they send you really awesome stuff when you donate to them. Take for example the 100 different adorable stuffed animals you can choose from when you symbolically "adopt" an endangered species. Also available are all sorts of merchandise - cups, clothes, and totes- bearing their signature panda bear logo, a sight that might make you nostalgic for your childhood if you grew up in the 80s watching PBS fundraisers.
So a few months ago I was making a donation online, and I asked for an extra large t-shirt as my gift with contribution. (The extra 40 pounds sticking straight out the front of me is making it a wee bit challenging to squeeze into t-shirts these days.) The problem was that the design on the shirt was soooo awesome that whenever I put on the thing Harvey would get all crazy and scream "Panna bear shirt? on Havey? Havey on? Havey, Havey, Haveeeey?" So I told him I would buy him his own panda bear shirt, which also turned out to be a mistake, because from then on every day Harvey would ask me, "Panna bear shirt? Havey? buy one? come inna mail?"
Finally it arrived, the smallest branded shirt that WWF offers. Unfortunately the size was youth medium, which was like a dress on Harvey. He walked around proudly for a few minutes in his very own panda bear shirt, until he tripped on the bottom hem and suffered a disappointed melt-down. So I promised him then and there that I would do some sewing to make the shirt smaller. And then he jumped on that idea. And then he jumped on me. And jumped and jumped and jumped until I ran to the sewing room and pulled out the scissors.
Using the 47-cent Halloween shirt that I finally dismantled as a template, I cut pieces out of the front and the back, trying to keep the entirety of the design in tact while still making use of the existing neck ribbing. Then I sort of trimmed the sleeves by eyeball, and surged the thing together. It was a hack job at best, and a testament to the awesome properties of cotton knit that it even ended up a workable t-shirt at all.
panda bears
The fix would have taken but a few moments, only I had to start by rethreading my serger, which itself takes 15 minutes, all the while with Harvey whining and whining and whining at me for his new shirt which was NOT DONE YET BECAUSE I NEED TO RETHREAD MY FRIGGIN SERGER, DO YOU WANT ME TO MAKE THIS SHIRT FOR YOU OR NOT? YOU DO? THEN SHUT UP AND LET ME SEW!
I'll admit, it wasn't my finest hour of patience.
Because I was in a rush I didn't even hem up the bottom. I wanted to see how long the shirt came down on him and make a mark for a hem, but once it was on of course it couldn't come off for the hemming, silly me. I should just write down his measurements somewhere, but that would be the kind of pre-planning that's possible for a person who does things like rethread her serger the moment the thread breaks. Instead of, you know, picking up a knitting project. In other words, not me.
huggy bear
After the shirt spent a day on Harvey and came out of the wash again I noticed something funny... the back label seemed to be on the outside. I kept turning the thing inside out until I realized what I'd done. In my haste I didn't check to make sure I was sewing right side to right side and managed to throw on the back panel inside out.
And I just thought, yeah, that makes sense. That sounds like me these days.
The important thing is that Harvey LOVES his new shirt (he's wearing it again now, in fact) and I've already ordered another to see if I can recreate my work a bit more neatly (and possibly while he's asleep.)
Oh, and yeah. I know there's a picture of me up above. I thought it would be cute if we took a picture together in our matching shirts. Because I am completely comfortable with how gigantically fat I get when I'm pregnant, so comfortable that even though I can hear you over the internet asking ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO MAKE IT TILL MAY? and HOW MANY BABIES YOU GOT IN THERE? and I'm totally cool with it because I know where you live and once I have my homebirth I can sent bio-hazardous material there. Commenters, consider this your only warning.