Rant of a Very Pregnant Sewer

Amy Friendchildren's clothing, sewing9 Comments

My son has a kindergarten Hawaiian Luau party in mid-June. I just found out about it and he is supposed to wear his Hawaiian clothes. Well, he had a supply of shirts that would have been perfect but he just outgrew them so we passed them on to his cousins. Yesterday, I dragged myself to JoAnns and bought a shirt pattern and the material in the picture above to make his shirt. The pattern called for 1 1/8 yards of material. Because JoAnns tends to skimp while cutting or the material is folded unevenly and therefore the piece gets cut unevenly, I ordered 1 1/4 yards to allow room for error. I came home and prewashed the fabric on cold and dried on low. It couldn’t have possibly shrunk. I just cut out the pattern and laid it out and realized quickly that there was no way to cut the shirt from the amount of material in front of me. I measured it and it is 34 inches! I checked my receipt and I paid for 1 1/4 yards. I have little doubt that JoAnns will make right on this, however, I now have to either drag my two kids over there in the morning or wait until my husband is home in the evening to go alone. I am nine months pregnant and things like this just put me over the edge. I just had a good cry out of frustration! It’s not like I have a big window of opportunity to get this shirt sewn either!

UPDATE: I just returned from JoAnns. The woman apologized for her coworker’s mistake and recut the fabric. She kept the 34″ prewashed piece. What are they going to do with that now? Oh well, now I had best get started on this silly shirt!