I’m trying to wrangle myself into the Christmas-sewing spirit (not the easiest thing for me to do). Output is down, and a little lackluster.
I did a mock-up of the Archer shirt for my mother (who requested it for her Christmas present), and while it fits, my grading-between-extreme-sizes strategy for trying to avoid an FBA was not overly successful—or rather it worked great but the back is super baggy. Dartless FBA would’ve been a better strategy. It’s not terrible, though, and my plaid matching ain’t bad considering I was half-concussed (long story) when I cut it out.
Syo wanted to make a baby blanket for a friend’s baby shower (how to feel instantly old: when your kids are the ones going to baby showers.) so I dug out all of the baby prints I had. She used none of them, preferring pink camo and a pentagram. But they were still out, so I tried to bust some stash making self-bound blankies for the plague of infants my work is currently experiencing.
Two out of three, done. I need to pick a backing for the third.
In between all of this, I made a cute little lingerie set from some scraps. I’m still a bit conflicted about bralets, but I’m kinda wanting something to wear on the weekends that isn’t underwire. Anyway, it’s worth a try and if I don’t like it I can always give it to the kids. This particular one is a sized-down Tropo camisole chopped off to bralet length, and the underwear, as always, are Watson bikini bottoms.
Then I was a good auntie and pulled out my Jalie onesie pattern and traced out a new size for one niece, and determined the size I used for the Pikachu onesie way back when should work for the older niece now.
Then I cut out more lingerie, from velvet, looking for luxe perfection. That wasn’t quite what I got, so I’m a bit out of sorts.
Not to mention I spent a good chunk of Saturday working to rescue the husk of an old biker jacket that is the signature wardrobe piece of one of my husband’s oldest friends. It was seriously held together largely by shoelaces and duct tape. Now at least the shoelaces will run through proper grommets and the duct tape has stitches securing it. My Janome performed some of the most heroic stitching of its existence (and I need to get that thing serviced so badly!) also we used some scrap leather from my sister-in-law to patch up the gaping holes where the pockets had been removed. But it was a fun project to work on with a friend. I hope we can finish it up next weekend.
K that’s all I’ve got at this second. I’ll probably be more into the Christmas sewing in a few weeks when I have time to get into the proper mindset. Yes, that would be last minute panic.
A long time ago, when I was new to sewing and really excited about coats (I made at least five that first year), I bought quite a lot of this pretty purple bouclé, more or less with my children in mind.
Anyway, amongst the Simplicity and Advance and mail-order Marian Matin Patterns were a few more idiosyncratic bits. Pattern pieces traced out on newsprint, old flyers, and even some old government land-grant paperwork. (I showed that one to my co-worker, she said, oh, I know what land that was!)
And one stuffed in this envelope that had something to do with an old water heater, for a child’s coat, traced out on a brown paper so heavy it might as well be oaktag.
For the previous two coats I used an ivory Kasha lining, but if I have any of this left in stash I can’t find it at the moment. I could, however, find a nice big chunk of this dark purple. It seemed like a nice option for a slightly more grown up little coat.
This is where production really slowed down. I’m not going to say I put a TON of thought into the design, but I did have to stop and think about what I wanted to do where—which areas were going to be standard quilted, which ones were going to be free-motion quilted. FMQ is not my strong suit, but it’s the most fun there is in quilting, IMO, and it is well suited to creating the motifs I wanted.
As with the last coat, I went with ocean imagery, as I knew this would tickle my friend and her husband’s fancy (and let’s face it, this is really about pleasing the parents, not the kids.) I wish my line-echoing was not so terrible, but it’s fairly fun doing it, at least.
And I quilted. And I quilted. And I sewed a couple of bits together, and I quilted some more. I’m glad I was able to get the waves mostly looking ok.
This fancy fish doesn’t really look like a proper wild sea creature.
I was going for eel, but I ended up somewhere near Loch Ness Monster, I think. Oh well. In hindsight I should’ve done a killer whale, for these west coast people, but I wasn’t sure my skills would’ve been sufficient to keep it distinct from, say, the shark. The art of the possible, right?
Other than that, the construction was pretty unremarkable. All of my fabric was blockfused, so I forgot to add more interfacing to the facings, so they’re a little floppy. The buttons are a little boring, but they’re vintage and, more importantly, from stash.
I hand-stitched the hem, the pockets, and the inside opening of the bound buttonholes. The latter, especially, took forever but it’s much less terrifying than trying to mark and machine squares and hope that they’re in the right place.
I haven’t said much about the capelet as there isn’t much to say—it’s part of the pattern and cute, one piece fitted with darts at the shoulders. It plus the hood, which is gathered to fit, made for some seriously bulky seams at the neck, and I have never been so happy with my Janome as the way it chugged through them effortlessly. There was much, much grading of those seams.
At the end of the day, there are some rough spots, but I’m pretty satisfied, and I know Ada is over the moon. I just hope it fits, or will fit fairly soon.
It wasn’t a speedy make, but it was fun to pick it up when I wasn’t sure what else to work on, and then put it down again when I needed to ponder something. And it’s done, with plenty of time to ship it out there for Christmas!
I think the Lola dress by Victory Patterns was one of the first indie patterns to seriously sink into my psyche. I’m thinking of 
Yet somehow, I never quite bit. Even last winter, when I made all. The. Sweater. Dresses. But at some point in the spring, I found myself back on the website, and clicking the purchase button.
And it worked!
And she let me use it, to hem the pockets of the Lola. My very first coverhem! It was more or less flawless (sweatshirt fleece being a magical fabric) and I want a coverstitch machine even more badly. Maybe with next spring’s tax return. Sigh.
The right response would’ve been to grab a seam-ripper, but after some flipping the pattern piece around I decided the subtle shaping was almost entirely within the range of the seam allowance, and that with a little careful fudging I could just flip the piece around and proceed. So, being a lazy sort, i proceeded. Everything else about the construction was very straightforward, especially with eighty million notches to line up.
I cut a size 6 on the top, eight on the bottom, and I could’ve sized up more. This might be down to my fabric—sweatshirt fleece is pretty stable—or maybe I was just looking for a moreoversize fit than it’s designed for? It’s also possible that my serger takes off a wee bit more than the 5/8″ it’s markings indicate. Anyway. It’s quite close-fitting. Not uncomfortably so, but definitely not roomy. And the sleeves feel a little short, ending distinctly above my elbow. Monkey arms strike again, perhaps. I would probably lengthen those next time.
Although I made no fitting alterations other than the size gradation, I did sew the underarm seam a bit narrow, as I often have to raise the underarm. However, this wasn’t needed and I’ll probably go back and normalize it.
On the whole I’m pretty happy, especially with the pockets. The only problem is, my children have informed me that the red-and-black colourblocking makes me look like an employee at Sephora. The other option is a Star Trek reference, which I gotta say I prefer. The key point is that this dress brings my sweater-dress count up to five, which means, if I so desired, I could do an entire week of sweater-dresses.
It’s a good sign when you feel the need to repeat a pattern right away, right?
This year, they’re largely doing their own thing (a tulle-skirted gown got butchered in my sewing room while I was absent, but I’m maintaining plausible deniability and not asking) so I’ve been free to sew my own. And of course this fabric was always meant to be a classic fit ‘n flare dress, so why not repeat my success with the Betty Dress? Especially when 
There’s not much to say about the construction, except that I added a “sash”—attached to the front bodice at side and waist seams, with ties inserted I to the side seam so they can wrap around the back and make a bow in the front.
Last time I did this was the Star Wars dress, but I didn’t do the front under-sash piece, and I think I like the extra solidity it gives.
In this case, the two seams I really wanted to match were the CF skirt seam, and the CB seam. There’s not supposed to be a seam on the centre front skirt, of course, and the pattern expects you to cut the skirt on the cross-grain to allow it to fit on 45″ wide fabric. That wasn’t a go with this strongly directional print, so seam it was.
After my careful cutting (one piece at a time, folding the seam allowance back on the first seam to align the second piece), I pressed the seam allowance under on one piece, lined it up, and marked on the second piece where the seam should go. I pinned my major match points, making sure the pin went through my marked lines both times, and then I sewed. I did not break out my walking foot, though I thought about it. This succeeded in making my horizontal match points reasonably aligned. I did have to take in or let out the seam minutely in a few places to get things lining up more perfectly—a mm makes a difference!—but on the whole I’m really pleased with where I ended up.
Especially across the back zipper. This is the trickiest part, since you have to align everything to points on the zipper, not to the other fabric directly. Again, I marked my seam-lines and marked match points with pins. Wash-away wonder tape would probably have been helpful, but I haven’t got any at the moment.
I set my zipper stitch long and first just basted it in, concentrating on getting the vertical locations to match without worrying too much about sewing too close to the teeth. (I DID worry about keeping the teeth aligned over my marked seam-line) Then, once I had things more or less aligned, I went back to stitch closer to the zipper teeth. Oh, and I remembered to stabilize the fabric along the zipper. I think this helped, too.
I made a couple of minute fitting tweaks to the pattern this second time—squaring the shoulder slightly and doing a very small swayback adjustment on the bodice back.
The black fabric for the sash is a lightweight cotton satin from Fabricland a few years ago, leftover from another project. It’s one of my favourite fabrics ever. I had pulled it out when auditioning fabrics for something else last week, but I’m so glad I didn’t pick it because it was perfect for this.
It’s certainly not my most outlandish or intricate Hallowe’en costume ever, but I was pretty happy with it—glad to get it made, but most especially proud of my construction. And my print matching. I might be crowing about that all month.
Tanit-Isis Sews 