Category Archives: Sewing

April 27, 2012 · 7:23 pm

More Fantasy Sewing: Pyjama Party Edition

The Great Pyjama* Party Reveal is coming up, and, as with every challenge and sewalong I’ve skipped out on in the last few months, I’m totally jealous. I didn’t sign up because I just made loungewear not that long ago (the infamous Pink Suit), which gets worn for pjs plenty, and I have lots of other things on my plate. But does that impede the green-eyed monster? Not a whit!

Me-Made-May (which I’m also not signing up for as I’m totally incapable of actually challenging myself right now) is TOTALLY going to suck. If I sulk the whole month, you’ll know why.

Anyway, ending tantrum, let’s get back to the fantasy sewing. If I were a part of the Pyjama Party (which I’m not, so y’all can hit someone with a pillow in my honour), I would be sewing this:

Pyjama Party!

This is my lone Advance pattern, which I found at the Mennonite thrift store in my hometown a few months back. Bought, frankly, because it was there and significantly older than my usual 70s “vintage” scores and it was Advance, a company I’ve only heard of on blogs before (not having a lot of JC Penny stores around here, as far as I can tell.)

Black & Grey stripe

Now, for the fantasy fabric. I don’t have a whole lot of fabric in stash that screams PJs at me. Maybe the black & grey pinstripe from my willpower fail? It’s soft and fuzzy and a bit stretchy, but seems kind of, hmm, nice. I was thinking more like officewear for it.

Because, y’know, I wear so much officewear.

Grandma's flannel

The first thing that comes to mind for a pattern like this is, natch, flannel. I don’t keep a lot of flannel in stash. There’s some plain black (boring), this really twee bear stuff from my Grandma’s stash, which is either destined for a twee little girl or needs a much edgier pattern. Is there such a thing as an edgy pyjama pattern? Hmm, now my brain is going in a sexy-slips-made-out-of-flannel-instead-of-satin direction. Weird. Probably Wrong.

Crazy flannel

There’s this crazy dye-splotch flannel, originally purchased for making little zip-pouches and rice-bags for school presents. Hmm. But I think I had convinced Syo that it would be an acceptable backing for her crazy pink fun-fur, part of which she made into a pillow, the rest of which is supposed to become a blankie. This is what happens when you have to buy remnants and the second one is free…

Sparkle seersucker

For summer PJs, seersucker is a popular choice. I only have one piece, which is cute pink, white, and blue, with a little bit of silver sparkle shot through. I have a shitload of this, purchased on mega-clearance and originally earmarked for little-girl dresses, except that my little girls have gotten distinctly less little-girly in the last couple of years. On the other hand, I still have little nieces, and I’m not entirely sure that the silvery bits would be totally comfy for sleeping in.

Then there’s the navy seersucker that’s been taunting me from the fabric section at Value Village for the last two weeks. I’m resisting because it’s a tad expensive—six bucks for a piece not quite two metres—for thrift-store fabric, anyway. It would be nice for PJs (or a nautical dress) but I’m trying to resist because of the price.

Resist, damn it. Resist.

Of course, the sewalong is pretty much done right now, I’m in the middle of the spring dress of evil polyester doom, and have no real need of vintage-inspired pjs (that I’m pretty sure Osiris would find totally unhawt, even worse than the Pink Suit)… so there will not be any sewing of this pattern, at least right now. But I was feeling the itch, and I think this post has kinda got it out of my system…

Hey, it’s my fantasy. :)**

*Yes, I’m in the Y camp.

**I’ve decided, since my “wanna!” list is so much longer (and ever changing) than my “actually can” list, that I’m going to subject you all to some fantasy sewing posts. Posts about the fabric I’d like to be stitching up, and what I’d stitch it up into (or vice versa). If you’re lucky I’ll get bored of them soon… 😉

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Tagged as Fantasy Sewing, Pyjamas, too much talk, whining

April 26, 2012 · 2:17 pm

Kachow!

My package from ElleC, won courtesy of her first giveaway, arrived today! Woot, woot!

Score!

Three gorgeous vintage patterns, in more-or-less my size.

And, because she is awesome and doesn’t hate me nearly as much as she claims, she threw in a mess of new & vintage zippers just for fun. Just when I was thinking I needed to hit the fabric store and pick up zippers. My hero! 🙂

Also, see that pattern on the left? Simplicity 3965? Not only is it Simplicity (so I might actually know my alterations already), it’s the very same pattern the Sewaholic has made up into so many awesome versions!

Of course, from what I can tell she started with a junior petite version. I should be so lucky…

I love that the Butterick pattern comes with the opera-coat pattern, as well.

In other news, after my big score of vintage patterns the other week, I’ve been stalking the pattern section even more religiously than usual. Sadly, that lode of vintage awesome seems to have played out… I’ve picked up a few patterns since, but they’re all of the slightly-dated-but-still-potentially-usable variety.

Thrift store patterns

Including a couple of Burdas. My ongoing weakness for jacket & coat patterns is in evidence (OK, the sleeves of that Butterick jacket on the right are crazy, but I’ve been wanting a basic raglan-sleeve coat pattern for a while…). Also my weakness for romantic sundressy things. And the cape pattern? Well, I’m bound to want to sew a cape at some point, right?

McCall's 7532

Of (perhaps) slightly more interest is this 1981 pants pattern. Holy High Waists, Batman. No, I haven’t completely lost my marbles (well, maybe)—it’s a Palmer & Pletsch pattern complete with loads of fitting tips & instructions. The view on the left, I gather, is meant to represent the gingham muslin they recommend you make. Will I use it? No promises. But it was the right size and too interesting to pass up. Those ladies definitely make high-waisted look good… just not convinced that I could do the same.

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Tagged as patterns, Thank you!, thrift store finds, too much talk, vintage

April 25, 2012 · 10:57 am

Fantasy Sewing—Spring Dress Edition

I’ve been craving dresses for a couple of months, now. Something pretty that I can put on and not worry about pairing top with bottom. Something that would feel like Spring. So, I went through my folder of pattern pictures, and made a collage of all the ones I kinda-sorta-would-like-to-make.

This was the result:

Round 1

These are the dresses I’d kind of like to make right now—all the patterns in my collection that I’m going “oh, that’s pretty!” over at the moment. Well, not all, as it doesn’t include any magazine patterns, but you get the idea.

Round 2---Finalists

Fortunately, even just throwing this together allowed me to narrow down my focus a bit. From “things I’d like to make” to “Things I’d like to make in the next little while.”

Unfortunately, none of these are really pairing well with the Star Wars sheet in my head… I’m thinking that needs something more full-skirted, to show off the print without too much chopping and dicing.

I think the next phase is going to involve pairing with fabric. The Style pattern (bottom left) seems a bit wintery, so perhaps I should put it off until the fall… on the other hand real sundress weather is a ways off, as well.

Oh, and checking if the patterns are complete. These are all thrift store finds and may contain unpleasant surprises.

… and that’s just the dresses I want to make.

Confession: This post has been sitting in the drafts for a couple of weeks, to the point where a fabric and pattern selection was made, and last night I was finally able to wriggle in to this for a first try-on:

Winner #1, Simplicity 6710

I think I am going to like it, although those gathers below the underbust band/panel thingy are perilously maternity-esque (and I’m not far from looking four months pregnant at the best of times) and will require some taming. I am happy to say that my copious list of fitting alterations seems to have done the trick in that department, at least. My main disappointment is that the 2″ of extra length I added to the tunic, in the hopes of getting a mini-dress, don’t seem like they will be entirely adequate for real-dress wear. So I may have to just wear it with my short-shorts, come summer. Sort of like this.

In case you didn’t recognize it in the crappy iPhone photo, this is the same fabric as the Ruby Blue slip, a dusty-blue polyester crepe. This friggin’ fabric is lucky I like the colour so damn much, because in every other respect it is exactly what I detest in a fibre. It is also not significantly easier to handle when cut on the straight grain, and doesn’t press for shite.

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Tagged as dress, Fantasy Sewing, in progress, plans, Simplicity 6710, too much talk

April 24, 2012 · 9:20 am

The Rolled Hem Foot—Devil or Divine?

Hemmers

It’s no secret, I think, that the rolled hem foot is one of the more frustrating of the assorted sewing machine attachments out there. Particularly since at least one is included with every machine I’ve ever seen (And if your machine didn’t come with one—well, not sure if I should offer condolences or congratulations on a bullet dodged 😉 ). (Above is the selection of hemmers that came with my vintage Domestic straight-stitcher, hence the weird clamp style foot. Most of the ones I’ve used are on the narrower end of things.) The basic idea is simple—the curls of the foot guide the fabric up and under itself, making a neat, narrow little hem without you, the stitcher, having to measure, press, or otherwise futz with the fabric. The practice, alas, seems to be the problem.

If you are a past-master of this particular, frustrating little foot, please chime in with your secrets—I’d love to hear them. Because I have a few tips, but definitely no miracles to offer.

I was totally intrigued when I first found this foot among my mother’s plethora of attachments (I was probably ten). Needless to say, my early experiments were not a resounding success. Not that Barbie minded much, fortunately.

I too a stab at the foot now and again through my long-but-indifferent costume-sewing career. Mostly without significantly improved results. The fold wouldn’t form, or it would but bits would stick out; it lumped and bumped and was generally inconsistent, since my cutting was pretty inconsistent, too.

I can count on one hand the number of really awesome hems I’ve gotten with one. Actually, scratch that. I can count the more-or-less-adequate-acceptable bones. There aren’t any totally flawless awesome ones. But frankly, with this foot, I feel pretty darn proud of even achieving “adequate.”

Tiered Skirt rolled hem

My first “breakthrough” in the use of the rolled-hem foot came while making a tiered skirt for tribal bellydance. I’ve been meaning to do a post about these skirts for ages, but haven’t gotten around to it. I used the hemmer foot to hem the five zillion miles (ok, actually only about 25 yards) of the bottom tier. This is actually an AWESOME way to gain skill (or something vaguely approximating it) with this attachment, because it’s lots of practice and after the first yard or two you really stop caring. And the edges are perfectly straight and ripped, which is relatively easy to maneuver (although the ripped threads may stick out). The only tricky part (as usual) is going over the seams, and like I said, after the first few, you really stop caring.

Skirt in action

More recently, I discovered in making the Sheer JJ blouse, that it’s much easier to get a nice hem if you zig-zag over the little roll.

Sheer JJ

This isn’t great for all hems, as it makes a somewhat stiffer edge, but if you want a lettuce-edge or a perky ruffle, it’s a great, easier finish.

Sheer JJ blouse ruffle.

And now, I’ve managed to (semi) successfully apply a rolled edge to the hem of my friend’s Ruby Slip. So I’m really kinda stoked with myself.

Pretty much, anyway.

Shut up. I’m calling it a win.

Silkier Slip hem

Now, first off, I did not do this blindly. I took some extra fabric and I sampled and sampled and sampled. Between my various machines I have several rolled-hem feet to choose from, and I tried LOTS. I wound up using one of the zig-zag machines, because I could adjust the position of the needle to be in the right spot to catch the inner edge of the roll. I opted for the narrowest hemmer of the Pfaff’s feet, which is very narrow indeed. And, miraculously, I was able to get a really nice, insanely narrow hem around about 90% of the hem. I still made a hash of the seam-crossings, and yes, there are a few areas which aren’t fully curled, but really, I’m still pretty stoked.

Messy seam area.

In some ways, the fine, bias fabric was a blessing for this kind of hem. It was easy to cut smoothly (no jags) and the bias doesn’t fray much, which also helps a lot. On hems like this, even tiny stray threads can be a problem. And, although the slippery bias was a pain to get started, it was also easy to adjust as I went, keeping the hem even.

Rolling the hem. I wish I could get a picture of how I *actually* hold the fabric, but that takes two hands.

For the sake of those of you who are more like me—generally frustrated beyond belief by your frigging’ hemmer foot—here are my tips, for what they’re worth. Please chime in if you have your own!

cut the edge SMOOTH. Those little scissor jags or stray threads that you can ignore in a normal hem? They’ll FUCK YOU UP!
experiment with your needle placement (assuming you’re using a zig-zag machine) to get it to stitch right at the inner edge of the fold. Too far to the left and you won’t catch the fold; too far to the right and you’re more likely to have it unfold on you.
Better yet, try zig-zagging over the whole roll (see above)
when stitching, you need to watch both sides of your fold—the fabric edge, and the fold, and keep them in place relative to the foot. Also watch for any hidden folds that might develop under the foot. Don’t be afraid to stop (needle down), lift the foot, and re-position stuff.
keep the tension light on the fabric (ESPECIALLY if you’re sewing on the bias). Yeah, this makes it really easy to manage the previous point 😛
start the hem by rolling a little bit of the hem with your fingers, then putting that part under the foot (secured with a pin if necessary and possible) and then wriggling the roll into place around the little scroll of the foot. The very start is the second hardest part; the hardest is crossing any vertical seams, at least in a narrow little hem like this one.
using a pin or awl tip to help manipulate the fabric inside the scroll, particularly when starting or when crossing a seam, can help. A bit. Or make things worse, but hopefully help. It seemed to help more on slightly wider hems; on this narrow hem there was just no room for the bulk of the serged seam to fit through the scroll. Your best bet (again, I’ve had more luck on less slippery fabric with slightly wider hems) may be to stop (needle down) just before the seam, raise the foot, pull the fabric out of the scroll and hold it rolled by hand, lower the foot, stitch over the hand-rolled bit, and then lift the foot and wriggle the fabric back into the scroll.

Using a pin to poke the seam through.

Even after all that, I can’t really say that the rolled-hem foot is the best method I could’ve used. Probably I could’ve done as well, maybe even better, using Sherry’s baby hem method. And yet I persist with the rolled hemmer, just to say “I tried.”

My previous comments on the rolled hem foot did bring out a few lovers along with the haters:

Anne and LinB, both of whom appear to be blog-free (but if you’d like a link somewhere, please let me know!), recommended stitching with the fabric held up from the bed of the machine. I will totally be giving this a try next time the insanity seizes me (I do still have the Ruby Blue to finish…)

The Perfect Nose loves her rolled hem foot (I know, I want some of what she’s on 😉 ) and uses it for seam allowances, which had never even occurred to me but is a great idea if you’re trying to do that fold-over finish! Of course, hers came with an instruction manual. Yeah, instructions, pfft! 😉

Got your own story of rolled hem disaster or conquest? Or another great tip?

Like, maybe, don’t even try? 😉

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Tagged as rolled hem, sewing machine attachments, sewing techniques, whining

April 22, 2012 · 5:05 pm

I have two tailoring books…

Tailoring books

One is in print, bought from my local Chapters bookstore. I may even have had to have them order it in, but it seemed like the book to have. The other was picked up from the thrift store for a couple of bucks, and is part of the Singer Sewing Library.

Different title pages.

They have different publishing dates and different publishers. The ISBNs are different.

Hmm. Something strange.

I didn’t, in fact, get alarmed until I got to the cover page.

First page of content.

Wait, wait. This is the first page of text, of each book.

And this is the last.

Last page.

Yes, everything in between is also identical.

Did you know this? Is this something that’s obvious to everyone but me? Looking through the (very very) small print on the publisher page, the same editors etc. are mentioned as parts of the “creative team”. But they aren’t listed prominently like normal authors (as you can see from the covers).

I don’t think this is a copyright infringement—I’m sure the publishers of the modern version paid very well for the rights—but it does seem a bit sneaky from a consumer point of view, right?

Or am I on glue? Am I the only one who didn’t know these were the same book?

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Tagged as books, confusion, sewing books, too much talk

April 21, 2012 · 1:10 pm

A Littler Lotus Lady

Cozy

Ever since I made Tyo’s, Syo has been wanting a house-coat, too. Except made out of fleece. She’s a big fan of fleece. Finally, on our last trip to Fabricland, she selected this plain, white, not-terribly-thick but also not-terribly-expensive fleece (after I refused to spring for the $25/metre blue camo-print).

The most frustrating thing about sewng for Syo (aside from her exacting and often ephemeral style expectations) is that she can’t always articulate what it is she’s wanting. Should it have wide sleeves or narrow? Short or long? Patch or inseam pockets? I’m not sure if she just doesn’t get me, or if we need to do some serious garment-vocabulary lessons.

Anyway, after a certain amount of discussion, it became clear that she wanted a pretty standard house-coat (yawn), with pockets, and appliques reminiscent of Tyo’s. She also picked out the fabric for the appliques, a cotton quilting flannel with a random dye-splotch kind of pattern.*

Excited to have a chance to finally use it, I pulled out Sew What! Fleece, and offered the house-coat project for approval. Approval was granted.

Sew What! Fleece

I won Sew What Fleece from Clio in a giveaway back around Christmas, and have been feeling guilty about not using it every since. It’s even had me on the hunt for reasonably-priced, yet attractive and tempting, fleece—not the easiest thing to come by around here. So I was pretty chuffed to have a reason to use it.

Housecoat Project

I have to say—where was this book when I was “sewing” three years ago? Five? Ten? This would’ve been *right* up my alley. The method of drafting a rough pattern from measurements, doing a lot of shaping as you go, and generally throwing everything together—that’s perfectly suited to what my sewing was for the first twenty years of my sewing life. And honestly, there are plenty of super-cute projects in the book (helped by having some super-duper-cute fabrics, I will say).

The problem is, I left this method behind about two and a half years ago, when I decided I wanted to step up my sewing and produce “real” garments. These days, I like carefully-drafted patterns, extensive fitting, complex little details. I don’t want to just roughly shape the fabric and trust to the stretch to make everything fit.

Many faces of Syo

It makes me a little sad, actually. I would be tempted to give the book to my fourteen-year-old niece—I think it’s the perfect “style” of sewing for a teenager—but a) most of the projects don’t resemble much what she actually wears, and b) when they were visiting at Easter, she declared she hated sewing. I suspect that *really* means she hated having to sew stupid boxers in a stupid gr.8 home-ec class, but if that’s what’s in her head, I’m not going to hand over a book like that. I mean, I understand finding sewing frustrating—just getting the sleeves in right can be a pain—but to me, hating sewing is like hating drawing, or hating dance. It’s a means of creation, a medium—even if it’s not your artform, how can you hate a medium? /endrant.

Apparently it makes a good blanket.

ANYWAY, I took the required measurements, drafted out the basic pattern pieces, more or less following the directions—I was a bit confused in places between what they expected you to draft on paper vs. what would be modified on the fabric, but I think this has more to do with me not reading the text closely than anything else. This is one of the more “advanced” projects in the book, so there’s a lot of referring back to previous pages for instructions. Also there didn’t seem to be any discussion of ease, which made me a bit nervous; I wound up padding out Syo’s measurements a bit as I drafted, and I’m glad I did. Syo helped a bit, mostly with the cutting-out, but was pretty darn bored with the whole drafting process. “Do you always take this long with making the pattern?” she demanded.

“Sometimes it takes much longer,” I pointed out. She rolled her eyes. We’d been drafting for about ten minutes at that point…

I took a bit of a liberty with the collar, “drafting” a shawl-collar just like the one I made for my Lady Grey Kimono-Sweater. And then, to make it extra-cozy, I filled it with some poly batting that I think arrived with my Aunt’s stash-purge last fall. It seems to have worked, although figuring out how to get that poly in place was a pain in the butt. Quilter, I am not.

Syo's Snuggly

I discovered on unrolling my Steam-A-Seam Lite that I actually had very little remaining, so the appliques are not quite as lavish as on Tyo’s robe. Which I think is fine for the smaller scale of this piece. I also didn’t zig-zag the edges quite as densely—it’s not quite as smooth a look, but the fleece is quite soft and I was really worried about ending up with a lot of rippling.

Patch pocket. Not particularly perfect.

Note the interesting shape of the patch pockets? I was originally planning to do simple inseam pockets, but Syo eventually managed to get it through my skull that she wanted patch-pockets instead. Having already cut out the four pocket-pieces, I turned them into double-thick patches by stitching two together and turning that inside out, then topstitching them down. I actually stitched them in place with white thread then added the coloured zig-zag. It’s decorative. Quit looking at me like that. (OK, downside of the slapdash pattern method, I feel pretty darn slapdash about the whole project. Yes, the pocket-topstitching sucks. No, I’m not going to go fix it.)

The instructions don’t mention measuring your sleeve-caps or anything to make sure they fit. When I first went to insert the sleeves, the armscye opening on the pattern was bigger than the sleeve opening. I “fixed” this by re-cutting with a bit more of a typical set-in-sleeve shape (as opposed to the simple shirt-style shape of the sleeves they have you draft), and it worked fine, but it’s certainly not elegant. The armscyes are also really high—I mean, I like a high armscye, but these seem a little high even to me. Fortunately lowering is easily done. Honestly, I suspect that a straight-on T-sleeve would’ve been fine for a piece like this, but anyway.

I was too lazy to return to my original Lotus Lady post to double check which edge of the robe should wrap over the front (and this is not as much of a kimono anyway, although the main difference is the sleeve). So it is what it is.

Will the cuteness never end?

Completion was delayed several days because I decided it really needed a second layer to line the main body; last weekend Syo and I made it to Fabricland and managed to find a metre of what I *think* is the same fabric in the remnant bin—the large bolt we bought off of was nowhere to be seen. I cut out another set of body pieces, assembled, stitched around the entire outside edge, flipped it through one of the armholes, and then hand-stitched the arm-holes into place. Not my preferred method of lining something, but given the late change in plans, I didn’t mind (really, it took like ten minutes, max, to hand-stitch).

So, I now have a second deliriously happy child. I’m figuring it’ll last until the first wash, anyway, when the fleece looses some of that brand-new fluffiness.

Also, white. Why do my kids have to want white robes?

*Originally purchased to make christmas gifties. I actually recently found some of the exact same fabric at the thrift store, but passed it up because I’ve been sitting on 2m of it for a year and a half at this point and have only used up maybe .5 m.

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April 19, 2012 · 8:36 am

A Silkier Slip

A gift slip

You may recognize this as the slip I teased about a little while back. Now that the gift is sent, I can talk a bit more about it. Ada, who has been one of my best friends since High School, is getting married.

Unfortunately for me, she decided to do it in Mexico, and between family and THESIS obligations and the eternal (lack of) money, I couldn’t go. This is the woman who came to prenatal classes with me, who was there when my kids were born. And I can’t be there for the most amazing day in her life since, oh—at least since she got her Master’s degree. POOPY!!!!

On the mannequin. Even padded out, the fit on my duct-tape-double is mediocre, but hopefully the real-life fit will be better.

But I could (attempt to) make something for her that would be, if not as awesome as she is, at least really, really neat. And as soon as Sherry came out with the Ruby Slip pattern last Christmas, I knew what I wanted it to be.

Unfortunately, I also knew exactly what I wanted it to look like. Teal fabric with orange lace, her signature colours—a pairing as unique and awesome as she is.

The problem with having the exact image in your head is, nothing you look at in the store ever quite matches up. I even found silk charmeuse in the perfect slightly-burnt-orange shade, but couldn’t find a lace that was a worthy match. I bought four metres (!) of teal stretch lace (with sequins!) but while it has a certain coolness, it’s also tacky as hell, and I couldn’t bring myself to use it. This time. No promises for the future.

So, in the end, I settled. Despite being 100% polyester, this fabric feels just as nice as the above-mentioned silk (seriously, with my eyes closed I couldn’t tell the difference), and was a fraction of the price. Not that I was going for cheap here, for once. And while the print isn’t quite what I envisioned, it is very her. I think. Oona should be proud—I have such a hard time wrapping my head around prints. The lace is the same thrift-store stuff as my blue slip—as I said, I haven’t found anything nicer.

In theory, having just made the blue version, I should avoid making all the mistakes I made the first time around, right?

Hmm.

Detail

Sometimes that works. Other times, I just seem to end up paying less attention (because I totally know what I’m doing, right?)

So some things are better in this one (my bias side-seams, for example). Others… were not quite so smooth (some of my seam-matching on the bodice, eg.)

The fabric was slithery and slinky, as is to be expected. However, it mostly went together well. I think the most alarming thing about sewing on the bias is how the lovely 1cm seam allowance (my favourite seam-allowance width) can shrink to half or billow wider, all depending on how much tension you have on the fabric. Sherry suggests sewing the bias with a slight tension on the fabric, which is what I tried to do, but it’s still a bit alarming and fiddly. I didn’t have much trouble with riplling seams, though, except a bit around the bottom of the bodice that probably have more to do with the stretch lace and the clear elastic I added in there (probably not necessary) than the bias.

Now, those of you who just like to look at pretty pictures can probably go on with your lives. Those of you who actually enjoy obscene amounts of construction detail, read on. 😉

The shoulder straps

An adjustable strap

Not having the recipient available for fitting, I wanted to do adjustable shoulder-straps. Naively, I headed off to Fabricland to pick up little rings and sliders. I knew they had some bra supplies—underwires and formed cups and bra-hooks—so I assumed they would have little sliders, too.

You guessed it. Nary a little slider. There were two styles of complete, ready-made straps, with sliders on, one of which cost $12.95, one which cost $2.50. Of course, I didn’t want pre-made straps—I wanted gorgeous slinky silky matching straps—so, I went with the cheaper ones. Which means I basically spend two-fifty on the crappiest, cheapest plastic rings and sliders ever. I’m sorry, Ada. My bad. I promise I’ll replace them when they fuck up. I should probably have just bought a junk bra from the thrift store and scavenged off it.

Back loop

Other than that, making the straps wasn’t too hard, especially since I could compare them with the crappy pre-made straps for how the loops needed to loop together. I wanted the straps to fit the sliders (at least more or less) so I didn’t make the straps as narrow as I could have. I will say, turning spaghetti straps in this kind of slinky fabric is insanely easy. I would’ve used the bobby-pin method, but I couldn’t find my bobby pin, so I used a small safety pin instead, and it worked just fine, although it’s not quite as slick as the bobby-pin method. Stitching the little loops wasn’t too hard, although I initially tried to attach them entirely by machine, which basically flattened my slender bias straps into fat wads of ugly thread. Fortunately the straps were super-extra-long so I was able to just cut off the booboo and re-stitch by hand. Not exactly the flawless finish I was hoping to give Ada, but pretty enough.

The Hem

The Good

And then, when I had everything together, had hung the whole kaboodle, adjusted the length to be a bit more even (hopefully), I got a little crazy.

I decided I would try and do the hem with my rolled-hem foot.

Rolling the hem

Judging by the comments on my teaser, I am not the only one who has a love/hate (or hate/hate) relationship with this damned, deceptively simple little attachment. It’s not coincidence that Sherry, for the sewalong, advised sewing the hem in two passes. Not that that method doesn’t require skill, either ;). I’m not quite sure what possessed me to try the foot this time, either, except bloody-mindedness. And I was going to go into a bit of detail here on my history with this insidious foot and the things I do to (attempt to) master it, but it was getting really, really long so I think I’ll throw it up as a separate post. Gotta milk my sewing woes for all they’re worth. 🙂

The bad: messy seam area.

In short, I finished the slip, wrapped it up, and sent it off with a friend who was flying down for the ceremony.

So now my main fear is that it’s not going to fit. Ada gave me her measurements (high bust and full bust), and as she’s a rather well endowed lady, I did an FBA following Sherry’s method which I *hope* will be adequate. Part of it is that Ada’s lost weight since I last saw her (and probably more since she gave me the measurements after Christmas) so the Ada in my head is not the same size as the real-world Ada.

I seriously don’t know how people sew wedding-dresses. The hardest part of this make was that perfectionism (which I usually confine to areas of my life outside of sewing) reared its nasty head. How can I send my BFF a wedding present with a wonky hem? With less-than-perfect stitching? That might not fit? That has cheap crappy strap sliders? Aaaaaaaaaah!!!

Breathe, Tanit. Breathe.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as adjustable straps, finished projects, Gift, rolled hem, Ruby Slip, spaghetti straps, whining

Image

Willpower Fail

28 Comments

April 18, 2012 · 5:51 pm

April 17, 2012 · 12:07 pm

A Fluttery Finale

Flutter Sleeve Top

The second, “definitive” version of the Flutter Sleeve Hack has been completed.

It is made, as my husband noted, of the same stretch lace as my Tee-shirt dress last year.

Actually, my dearly beloved man didn’t realize this was a different garment.

*eyeroll* *headdesk* *facepalm*

Anyway, I’m quite happy with the flutter length and angle etc. I will say that this is not the easiest way to get a flutter sleeve—turning a regular set-in sleeve of a length you like into a flutter is dead easy to get right the first time. On the other hand, this one you don’t need to actually sew on, which is the major win of the BCT pattern all around.

I also quite like how it looks with this knit skirt, which is one of those pieces that, while I love it, doesn’t go with much of anything (except a plain white tank-top). It’s not so much the colour or even style that’s the problem, as the hip-hugging shape; any kind of boxy or detailed top tends to overwhelm it. I feel like I’ve kinda got some vague 20s-vibe going (or maybe that’s just the evening gloves and the shoes).

For the purposes of the photos I was daring and wore the top over my lilac-coloured bra. I think it’s pretty fetching and fairly subtle, but in real life I’ll be wearing the afore-mentioned white tank top underneath. Just saying. I think I prefer the lace with a white underlay anyway—it brightens it up and takes it a little farther from my skin tone.

I did a very simple neckline finish, just zig-zagged some narrow clear elastic to the neckline, folded it under, and topstitched. It turns out I could’ve pulled it a little tighter, but it’s hard to judge on this fabric—the amount of stretch and recovery in the lace is really, um, confusing, somehow.

All in all, this is about as simple and easy as a knit top gets. No hem finishing. No sleeve finishing. Just four seams and the neck-opening.

And that’s all there is to say about that. 🙂

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as Blank Canvas Tee, finished projects, Flutter sleeves, knit

April 15, 2012 · 8:21 pm

The Closet Monster Lives!

Monster & Maker

Tyo had a good friend’s birthday party to go to this weekend. (These pictures were squeezed in between her having a shower and leaving for the party, hence the wet hair.)

Said good friend has a mother who sews (quilts) and has given away home-stitched party favours at previous birthday parties. She also really liked looking at Tyo’s Closet Monster book, and even gave Tyo an old PJ shirt* she didn’t like to turn into a monster.

So naturally, Tyo wanted to give this friend a closet monster for her birthday.

The Inspiration Monster

I won’t go into too much boring detail. The inspiration monster was Gilmor Oothby, who also appears on the book’s cover. We did not follow the directions particularly, because Tyo doesn’t read directions very well and I couldn’t be bothered. We looked at the picture of the pattern pieces, but that was about it, especially since we wound up using mostly fabric scraps from the massive Scrap Stash of Doom , and not much in the way of the actual shirt, which had a cute penguin on the front that Tyo wants to applique to something else. And was a really soft, thin knit not really suited to monsterizing. The trickiest part was getting the bottoms of the feet and the bottom of the body approximately the right size—but fortunately, approximately was plenty good enough.

Monster Face

Anyway, Tyo managed a fair proportion of the construction, and I did the trickier bits, and while it was definitely a joint project I feel pretty satisfied that she held up her end of things. There was a modest amount of un-picking where we went too far off the rails (like forgetting to insert the arms), which was accomplished with only minor grumbling.

I am told his name is "Freddy."

The body is made out of one leg of what was once my favourite pair of jeans. When Buffalo Jeans discontinued their City X style, it was probably the first step on the road to making my own jeans, because man, nothing has quite matched them since. /sniff.

Back View

Every other piece of fabric on the body (aside from the head/mouth that was from the gifted PJ shirt) is a scrap left over from some other project on the blog. I’m tempted to list them, but it would be long and probably boring. How about you guys guess? Y’know, with all that free blog-reading time you have.