Waste not, want not. It’s rare for me to have enough leftover fabric to sew a second garment. Nowadays, I scour pattern labels and try to buy only what I need. I bought these black and printed linen blends to make a Hannah Dress. That’s it. When it turned out I had enough to make another Tessuti Ruby Top, I was thrilled.

The only caveat: I had to cut the back in two pieces, hence the center back seam. I top-stitched that down for a clean finish. This top feels a bit roomier than my first Ruby, maybe due to one of many reasons:

• Maybe I undershot the seam allowances on my french-seamed sides. You know I am not unpicking those seams, though. Hell no.
• Maybe I accidentally added some roominess when I cut the back in two pieces.
• Maybe the armholes are a little low because I decided to follow the directions this time, securing the bias binding by stitching in the ditch.

On my original Ruby Top, I heeded a tip from Thornberry and applied the binding to the wrong side, and then top-stitched in place. I decided to give the ol’ stitch-in-the-ditch method a shot this time around, seeing that the black thread would disappear against the black and/or busy fabric if I went astray.

The result? A clean finish on the inside and out, but the binding on the armholes turned out a bit thinner than I’d anticipated. Live and learn. I’ve worn this top a few times already, and its comfort factor far outweighs any worries I have about low armholes.

Now that I’ve covered a happy fabric surplus, let’s talk about what happened before I knew to consider the width of fabric.

Back before I migrated over to WordPress, I shared my sewing projects on a little Tumblr blog called Sewcially Inept. (Kinda miss that name. Feel free to explore my hilarious beginner attempts at clothes. And comically undersized things.)

I took on an “easy” project for my first garment: simple flannel pajama pants for Marc. Innocent, oblivious me made the trip to JoAnn and bought fabric for said pants, not realizing that fabric comes in both 45″ and 60″ (and more!) widths. Long story short (pun intended), I didn’t have enough fabric. The pants were ill-fitting and turned out cropped enough to be labeled manpris.

That day, I learned a lesson. I learned that men’s pants fit really tight on women’s hips. I also learned that sewing can be a frustrating hobby, one that sometimes even leaves me in tears. But I didn’t stop then. And I don’t think I ever will.