I was a high schooler in the late ‘90s in Essex, Vermont. Buying new clothes was not of interest to me or financially viable, so my closest friends and I would shop at this huge barn 30 min away in Cambridge (the sign just said “Antiques, Clothing, Furniture”).
Barn Finds! 10 cents!
There was so much stuff in this place, but after you climb up the stairs past the toys, armoirs, couches, rugs, on the 4th floor by the owls and bats were mountains of clothing on folding tables. This all seemed to be 70s and 80s donations, we snagged lots of funny t-shirts (“Mud Slinger!” “I survived Ray and Mazie’s Get Well” ) Shirts were like 10 cents, pants for 20 cents! We’d find the coolest stuff, like amazing plaid button down shirts or western shirts with the embroidered shoulders. Inevitably there would be something worth buying that also had missing buttons, huge shoulder pads, broken zippers, was too big, etc. Since my mom always had her sewing machine setup and ready to go, I could easily pop into her sewing room and see what I could do to get clothes ready to wear. She’d be available to steer me in the right direction or finish an abandoned project for me when I got frustrated.
Mudslinger! Well loved shirt as it appears today in 2022
All of this sewing practice has been tucked away for awhile. Now that I’ve pulled it back out to design and create clothing from scratch to sell, I thought it would be nice to start sharing my sewing techniques with you in a practical way, so I've created a #Skillshare class on how to alter an oversized shirt to fit your body!
If you have some sewing machine experience, love thrifting and want to learn to make darts and other adjustments on a second hand shirt, I think you’d like my class! Skillshare is a paid platform (totally worth it!) but you can try it free for a month with my link. Enjoy! https://skl.sh/3JgGJ7q