At the TMBG show last night, I bought the t-shirt I have been coveting since the last time I saw them, almost three years ago. It’s this one.
Unfortunately, it is only available as a regular old unisex shirt, and those always look ridiculous on me. The sleeves hit me in a funny place, and the shirts are usually about five inches too long, which would be fine if I wore my t-shirts tucked in, but this is one of many no-nos for the busty gal. With the exception of well made oxford shirts, anything tucked in gives me the shape of an ice cream cone, which does not sound bad because ice cream cones are delicious and lickable, but in practice it is unattractive. And bodysuits? Forget about it. The early nineties were a terror to me, and I cannot forgive American Apparel for bringing back these monstrosities. The only busty gal I knew who looked good in a bodysuit had a figure that could support wearing one a couple of sizes too small, which negated the triangle effect by virtue of being extremely tight, the kind of tight that becomes obscene immediately upon leaving college. On that note, American Apparel: seriously? Bodysuits and high-waisted pants? Good lord, a gal could get a yeast infection just walking past the store.
Bodysuits, even when they looked good, were a pain in the ass, literally. Even when they did not ride up, snapping and unsnapping those things required contortion, and after a few beers, forget about it. Try being drunk in a bathroom stall the size of a veal crate with no TP, and fastening three snaps, in order, between your legs. What were we thinking?
Anyway, since I liked the design of the t-shirt so much but not the style, I decided to get fancy and alter it. I added cuffs, which I sewed by hand, and then got out the heavy artillery to hem the bottom. I have not used my sewing machine since we moved here almost three years ago. The whole project should have taken an hour or less, but since it has been so long since I used the sewing machine, I spent about an hour unpacking the thing and remembering what I was doing with it. For the most part, I am very bad at sewing, but thanks to a determined middle school home ec teacher, I can at least operate a sewing machine (sometimes) and follow a simple pattern, and I always level off cups of flour with the back of a knife.
After some false starts, including a good twenty minutes trying to remember how to wind a bobbin and wasting half a spool of thread in the process (just press that thingy over to the right, it turns out), I got it together. And I must say that I did a great freaking job. Everything is completely straight and secure, and I now have my very own custom tailored tricked out TMBG t-shirt.
