Category Archives: Sewing

March 28, 2012 · 11:15 am

One week, One pattern

Jeans pictures

This is me burning with envy*

I didn’t sign up for Tilly’s One Week, One Pattern.

I wanted to.

But I’m not doing well with commitment these days (quite the opposite).

And my obvious pattern, Jalie 2908, well, that would just be too easy. I could practically wear a different version each day, never mind styling. Likewise the obvious second choice, my knit sloper. BORING.

So I withheld. And withheld.

And now the pics are popping up like crazy.

And I’m insanely jealous.

So I just want you all to know,

I wish I’d signed up for One Week, One Pattern.

 

*this is not my back yard at the moment. This is from Me-Made March 2011.  Although I did wear those jeans yesterday. Just sayin’.

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March 25, 2012 · 9:31 am

The Pink Suit

Pink Suit. Also, bad hair. >_<

(as my children so endearingly dubbed it) … is finished.

Right off the bat, I am going to apologize to Lisa. I did not end up incorporating her awesome hood pattern on the Renfrew. Mostly because I couldn’t find one of the  pattern pieces I painstakingly drafted from her instructions when the time was right, and I was too impatient to wait for it to show up. But then, the pink fabric is possibly a bit too thin, anyway. I will definitely try another time, after the pattern piece shows up.

So, shall we start with the bottom?

Jalie 3022

I added 4″ to the leg length in this pattern, as the size R (my hip size) only has a 30.5″ inseam. 34.5″ is a bit excessive, even for me, but frankly I wanted to be safe rather than sorry, and given that 4-way stretch pants sometimes lose length as they stretch, I wanted plenty. As it turned out (at least in this very stretchy fabric), I only needed about two extra inches, but I think I’m going to keep the length in the pattern just in case. I added the length in two sections, 2″ at the lengthen-shorten line on the thigh and 2″ just below the knee. I also did a small full-butt wedge (this  adjustment), based on my kids’ experience. Although as it turns out I probably could’ve skipped that, not so much because I didn’t need a bit of extra height in the back as because the overall rise was considerably too high for me—coming to just below my belly-button. That looks right on my kids; it doesn’t look right on me. Fortunately in a style like this, it’s easy to fix. I lopped off the seam at the bottom of the waistband (I don’t un-pick knits if I can avoid it), and cut a band off the top of the pants-portion, about 1cm from the back increasing to 3 cm at the front. Then re-attached the waistband. PERFECT!

Seam---interior

For seam finishing I went a bit…overboard. I had decided on black topstitching, in the hopes of cutting down the severe sweetness of all that pink. For my seams themselves, I opted to use a simple overedge stitch on my White, which is both stretchy and makes a much straighter seam on the right side than the overedge stitch on the Janome. And then finish the edge on the serger. And then topstitch with what I think of as the Janome’s “Athletic stitch.”

That’s a lot of stitching.

Topstitching

One of my main reasons for using the White for the seam stitch (besides saving me switching my settings constantly) is that it has adjustable pressure on the presser foot, and lightening the presser-foot pressure makes the knit wave up much less than the Janome’s fixed, heavy foot. Which meant that my seams looked really nice right up until I decided to topstitch with the same Janome. At which point they waved up like crazy. Ironing has helped somewhat, and I’m hoping that the laundry will take care of the rest, but if not, I will be warned for the future. Which is too bad, because I really like the look of this topstitching for “athletic” gear.

Jalie 3022 construction---one wide, flat piece.

I was initially a touch puzzled by the instructions, which have you construct the back as usual, then stitch each side of the front to the sides of the back, before finishing the front crotch and then the inseam. Then I realized it was *much* easier to topstitch the outseam before the “tube” was closed by stitching the front crotch. Smart Jalie! And for once I actually followed the instructions, so I got to enjoy the benefits of their braininess. Yay!

I used strips of Steam-a-Seam Lite (2) in the hems of the pants, as has become my modus operandi for knits, and they turned out, well, no wavier than the other topstitched seams. The nice thing about this particular topstitching (as opposed to say, twin-needling) is that it is the same top and bottom, so I could topstitch looking at the inside and make sure I was covering the edges of the hem-fold. Although, since the edge was already fused in place with the Steam-a-Seam, I suppose there wasn’t much I could actually do if the hem was wonky. Still, I felt better. 😉

Pink suit! Seams slightly ripply

On to the top?

Sewaholic’s Renfrew Top.

I used mostly the same construction methods on the shirt, although not nearly so much topstitching (just around the bands.) Once again I followed Tasia’s instructions surprisingly closely (for me), and was glad of it, because I initially sewed the “V” on the neck-band the wrong way—it was making an “A”, not a “V”.  So double-check that bit, because it’s not really obvious from the pattern piece. It turned out pretty well, though, as you saw above.

As so many others have said before me, there’s not really much not to love about this top. Easy fit, cute styling. I do prefer a smaller seam-allowance, especially when setting in the sleeves; the Jalie knits all have 1/4″ seam allowances, which can feel a bit scant—I think 1cm is definitely my fave in almost any situation. The shoulders feel a bit tight (which is odd, considering they’re rather wider than on my knit sloper) but I think this actually has to do with the curve of the armscye on the body, which is much more extreme in this pattern—which also makes the sleeves angle down more, as opposed to the sleeves on my sloper, where they angle more out. Despite the sleeve-caps being virtually identical. Verry Eeenteresting, my friends. (You can see the effect of the downward angle in the photo below, where they bunch up a bit above my shoulders because my arms are out.) This is also one of those differences that I wouldn’t notice in a fabric with a bit more give or a bit less recovery. I will say, if you’re fitting a knit, this is the fabric to do it in—it actually stays the size and shape that you cut it out.

Other than that, it is what it is and what it is is luverly.

Oh, yeah, back view

Altogether, it is a lot of pink. Possibly more than I’m comfortable with. I was hoping the black topstitching would take the edge of the sweetness, but there’s not quite enough of it. I don’t think it will actually stop me wearing these (although maybe not so much together), but if it does become a problem I could always take a whack at producing a lovely sludgy dyed colour as Carolyn is so good at.

The only complaint I have about the pants (aside from the ripply seams) is that the fabric is *borderline* too thin for bottoms. In a dark colour, I might not have noticed it, but, well, we’ll just say I shall have to be careful which underwear I wear with these.

So another view. Note the un-ripply inseam and the ripply topstitching.

I had some photos showing where the waistband ended up after my alteration, but I’m just not quite happy enough with the current  jowly condition of my midsection to throw them up (at least in combination with the other things I don’t like about these photos, like my bad after-work hair and the crappy photo quality of my backup camera).   So you’ll just have to imagine it going from right below my navel to sitting comfortably beneath the belly-flub.*

On your mark...

I wish I could say this sporty suit will inspire me to  take after Winnie, but I fear that a) I hate long-distance running, and b) nothing’s going to change before the end of the summer at the earliest.

But at least I will be comfy while I slob around the house!

Also, now Tyo wants shorts from the leftover fabric. My desire to move on to other projects is at war with my desire to get rid of the remaining half-metre or so of this fabric. Hmm.

*As usual when I whinge about my body, I feel the need to insert a disclaimer: overall, it’s a pretty good body. I am (and have been for the past several years) mistreating it horribly, as health, fitness, and everything else except family and sewing, in fact, are pushed aside in the face of THESIS. And while I haven’t gained a significant amount of weight, I’ve definitely lost muscle tone, and what I do gain goes right to my middle. It’s not horrific—it’s just not what I want to see when I look in the mirror, and not what I would be seeing if I was doing anything other than sit in front of a computer nine hours a day. And I can’t even blame it on having children… 😉

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March 23, 2012 · 8:35 pm

Tyo & Bear

Girl & Bear

Tyo’s teacher is pregnant. This is awesome for her. Tyo’s teacher is going on maternity leave.  This really sucks for Tyo—not just because, despite a bit of a rocky start to the year, Tyo has really come to love her teacher, but because now we have to go to the trouble of breaking in a new teacher, with only a few months left in the year and province-wide tests coming up. But that’s another story.

As a present for her teacher and the new baby, Tyo really really really wanted to make a teddy-bear.

We have a pattern for a teddy bear. Tyo made it once before, in rice-stuffed version. It’s, um, a nice pattern. For a very classy, old-fashioned sort of teddy bear. With ball joints. The kind you set up on a bookshelf in an antique doll’s dress, sipping tea.

Bear Profile

We have no ball joints, nor any particular interest in inserting them into a teddy-bear. Also sewing fun-fur with 1/4″ seam allowances around sharp little curves is tricky for my sewing skillz, never mind Tyo’s. This makes making these bears a bit of a frustrating project. And there’s a fair bit of hand-sewing involved. And the pattern is designed to have the seam go down the front of the belly, which Tyo doesn’t like, so we kept them on the sides and went with an asymmetrical body. The scarf is mostly to cover up how ugly this makes the neck area.

Anyway, Tyo did do most of the machine sewing, and all the stuffing, and sewed on all the buttons. I hand-stitched the head, limbs, and ears to one another, with varying degrees of care.  And the finished product is, if not exactly cute, at least endearingly ugly. Kind of like newborns, really. So it works.

Bare bear

I know buttons aren’t exactly kosher for baby toys, but, frankly, this is about Tyo and her teacher.

Oh, the Jalie yoga pants are cut out, too. The only change I made there was to add, oh, 4″ to the length (although I suspect I won’t need all of that, I’d rather be safe than sorry). And then I spent a whole hour (which was my designated sewing time for the evening) the other night sampling stitches because I’d like to add some black topstitching to cut the pink-sweetness-overload. I *think* I’ve figured out settings and a stitch that will work. It turns out that my White sewing machine stitches knits beautifully, completely without stretching  out the seams, because you can adjust the presser-foot pressure and partially lower the feed-dogs. Unfortunately, its poorly-calibrated backwards component (the stitches it takes backwards aren’t the same length as the stitches it takes forward, which isn’t great for fancy stitches) means that all the fancy stitches that might look cool as topstitching look like crap. But there’s one that I think I can use for seam-stitching, which’ll save me flipping the settings back and forth all the time on the Janome.

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March 22, 2012 · 12:04 pm

Renfrew vs. Knit Sloper—Round 1

Some of you will remember my battles with Lydia, the $1 download from Burdastyle for a very basic knit pullover. The end of this process was my knit sloper, which, frankly, bears little resemblance to the original pattern.

Although for reference, the basic changes were:

  • going down two sizes to remove ease (Lydia, like Renfrew, was intended to be an easy pullover, which wasn’t actually the look I was going for)
  • petite-alterations to the armscye, sleeve-cap, and above the waist
  • square-shoulder adjustment
  • removing ease from the sleeve-cap
  • my ubiquitous lengthening of the sleeve

Once I had the knit sloper worked out, I traced it out on bristol-board so it’s a) durable and b) easy to trace and then hack.

Now, there is one MAJOR confounding factor for comparing it to other patterns, however. Which is that the sloper has no seam-allowances, while Renfrew and Lydia both have 1.5cm (which is way too much for knits, in my opinion—.6 cm is fine, although for slippery annoying knits I think I do prefer 1cm). So in the following pictures, you need to mentally add 1.5 cm to most of the borders.

So, first up—because this is what most of you may be interested in—Renfrew vs. Lydia. (And please do click through to see the full-size photos, because the details are not so obvious at blog-size. Although the full-size photos are fuzzy as crap, because I am still lacking the charger to my good camera. Sorry.)

Renfrew vs. Lydia

Now, *this* is complicated because I don’t have a pristine print-out of Lydia anymore, and I wasn’t in the mood to produce one just for the purposes of pattern comparison. On the other hand, both these patterns have the same seam allowance. Unfortunately, the bodice pieces are opposite sides, so it’s difficult to superimpose them, especially since this particular copy of Lydia is the one I hacked to make my mother’s (unblogged 😦 ) Christmas present. So pay attention to the lines of the smaller sizes on the Lydia pattern, not the cut outline.

As you can (hopefully) see, Lydia actually has more shaping going on than Renfrew. It’s also a somewhat shorter pattern (remember Renfrew has the band at the bottom to lengthen it). The waist is slightly longer in Lydia, and, most surprisingly, the hips are a little more generous (this is suprising because Sewaholic patterns are supposed to be drafted for pear-shaped women, so I was expecting Renfrew to have more width below the waist).

I should add that the shoulder height and angle in the Lydia you can see has been altered to match my sloper, since my mom and I share a short upper body and square shoulders—the original Lydia was rather longer through the armscye and had a much more sloping shoulder. So Lydia originally would’ve had a shoulder-slope similar to Renfrew, but a rather lower armscye, and a longer, somewhat more shaped, waist. I think the amount of ease each pattern was designed for would’ve been similar.

Sloper vs. Renfrew

Enter my knit sloper. This is when things get a bit wacky.

Like Lydia, you can see that my sloper has more shaping than Renfrew. The waist is slightly higher in my sloper, but not as much as I had thought it might be (I tried to align the bottom of the armscye, remembering that my sloper doesn’t have seam allowances. The armscye in my sloper is shorter, but again, not as much as I had thought it might be. The shoulder slope is hugely different, however. There’s a slight difference in ease (remembering that my Sewaholic size, 6 or 8, is the 4th or 5th line over, while the sloper needs 1.5 cm added to the edge, to be comparable.) I’d say at the bust, the difference in ease is about 4 cm around the whole bust, rather more at the waist and almost no difference at the bottom. There are also some differences in the shoulder-point position and armscye curve, but seeing as 1) my sloper has very narrow shoulders, and 2) I’m really not sure what to make of them, I’ll get back to you about it once it’s made up.

And, for your edification, here’s how the sleeves compare:

Renfrew sleeve vs. Knit Sloper

So I should really have set the knit sloper a little further down, to allow for seam-allowances. Sorry. Anyway. Sleeve cap height is actually fairly similar, however. Renfrew’s sleeves don’t seem to have much (if any) front/back shaping, and there’s no notching to indicate it, anyway. I know lots of knit patterns don’t, it’s not necessary, but I do think you get a slightly better fit when there is some. (You can see I have a little bit of shaping on my sloper—the front is to the left—although for the life of me I can’t remember if that’s original to the Lydia or if I added it as I was messing around.)

The original Lydia length is about where the knit sloper starts flaring out, so that length is very close (remembering that the sloper should be down another 1.5 cm, but on the other hand the Renfrew has the cuff on the end. So Renfrew sleeve is probably functionally longer, for your size, than the Lydia. I think the taper of my sloper is pretty true to the original Lydia sleeve as well, so the Renfrew sleeve also appears to be a little more straight overall. It also doesn’t appear to be drafted with sleeve cap ease, which is great in a knit.

So what does this all mean?

Sloper vs. altered Renfrew

At the end of things, I still wanted to be making Renfrew, not just another version of my knit sloper (but with sleeve-bands). So I opted to keep as much of the Renfrew shape as I could. For size, considering I like a little less ease in my knits (and I *REALLY* liked Seraphinalina’s Renfrews, where she went down a size), I went with the 6.

I “petited” the armscye sightly, by the simple expedient of using the size 4 rather than the size 6 height, and squared the shoulder by going over to the size 2 at the side of the neck. I also shortened above the waist, but by considerably less than the 2″ I removed from the Lonsdale—only about 2 cm, this time. And, because I wanted to keep the same overall length, I actually just “slid” the waist shaping up.

Since I’m making the 3/4 sleeves this time, I didn’t make any length alterations on them—I just adjusted the sleeve-cap height to the size 4 rather than the size 6. And it’s all cut out and ready to go, except that now I want to take a whack at adding Lisa’s hood. Which may not work (and I have enough fabric to make one go at it but not several), but requires a bit more thinking about matching the neckline that I haven’t quite gotten to. Maybe on the weekend…

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March 19, 2012 · 7:36 pm

Sunshine, lollipops…

La la… ladeeda… yeah, I don’t know that song very well.

ElleC (who’s been one of my favourite commenters for a long time but only recently started her own blog) gave me the Sunshine award. I’ve been pretty bad about awards lately (by which I mean the last year or so), meaning that I’ve gotten two or three I know I haven’t even acknowledged, or said thank you, never mind answering. Be assured, it’s all lack of attention and organization, never personal vendetta or even dislike of the whole award/meme idea. I know for sure one or two people gave me the Versatile Blogger award again, and Redbam Sews gave me a Leibster, which I don’t technically qualify for having more than 200 followers, but I really should’ve at least said thank you. Sorry, Redbam! Thank you!

Anyway, thank you all (and ElleC especially), and here’s my “Sunshine” Q&A. I’ll warn you, though, it’s not nearly as funny as Pretty Grievances‘, who ElleC also nominated. There’s links to the other “awards” posts I’ve done under the very-messy “Participation” tab up at the top.

Favourite colour: red.  Because it’s passionate, ambivalent, dangerous, sensual, right-wing, left-wing, intense, and, well, red.

Favourite animal:  Acanthostega. Coolest animal ever. Dude had gills, feet, and eight toes, and if I ever become a Furry, it’s totally going to be the basis for my Fursona. Even though it doesn’t have fur. Hush. Oh, also it’s been extinct for about 350 million years. It’s one of the first tetrapods (the group that includes you, me, your cat, your budgie, the Geiko Gekko, and Kermit the Frog), and represents a stage when shallow-water fish were just beginning to adapt to moving around on land.

Acanthostega gunnari

Favourite number: 7. It’s the date of my birthday, and “Sept” (my birthday month is September) is 7 in French, and I turned 7 in 1987 (not quite as cool as if it were 1977, I kow). And apparently when they’re looking to see if people have falsified their accounting, an overabundance of 7s is one of the signs they look for—people like 7s.

Favourite non-alcoholic drink: chocolate milk. I don’t like pop, or anything fizzy (yes, I’m a freak), so chocolate milk is my substitute. I know some parts of the world are chocolate-milk deprived. This is a tragedy in our modern age, rivaled only by the absence of “iced tea” in soda fountains in the US.*

Facebook or Twitter: facebook, but mostly for keeping track of the extended family and posting the odd school video of the kids; I like that it’s not the time-suck a lot of other online forums are (since I don’t play the stupid games). I have avoided twitter consciensciously, also for the time-suck reason.

My passion: Um, this is a problem. I have serial passions. Mostly I cycle between art, writing, dance, and sewing. Used to be sewing was last on the list, the last few years, it’s been much higher. Oh, and research and history belong on there somewhere. If I could just settle down and focus on something, I might be actually really great at it…

Getting or giving: Either, if it’s the right gift. Neither, if it’s the wrong one.

Favourite pattern: Jalie 2908. Duh. Although my favourite dress is this one.

Favourite day of the week: Hmm. Friday. I know, it’s the obvious choice.

Favourite flower: Crocuses. Because it’s March and there’s a vague possibility that they might actually be blooming. If you asked me at a different time of year, you might get a different answer. I’m not really a flowers kinda girl.

Favourite celebrity role-model: Um, celebrities are role models? Er. I do like it when they do good things, but I wouldn’t say there’s one that stands out.

Erm. I’m not going to pass it on. Because then I’ll be all worked up trying to figure out if someone’s got it before, or spazzing out if they don’t accept, or stressing, and, well… as I mentioned, I have Issues. Hmm, maybe I should just adopt a firm no-meme policy after all. /sigh. Whatever. If you want it, take it. 🙂

Jalie Yoga Pants, Renfrew-in-waiting

As for sewing, I did manage to trace out both the Renfrew top and the Jalie 3022 yoga-pants in (what I hope is) my size, and cut out the top. Although now I’m thinking about adding Small Things’ awesome hood pattern to the Renfrew. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Or would it just be overkill?

Some actual sewing will happen at some point…

*I know that my pre-packaged, highly-processed “iced tea” is anathema to many of you, for good reason. However, if there isn’t any crappy-mass-produced-iced-tea in the soda-fountain, then I have absolutely *nothing* I can drink there, which I usually discover right after ordering the obscenely-overpriced popcorn & pop combo at the movie theatre, and then I cry. And they never have chocolate milk, either.

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March 17, 2012 · 11:46 am

Comfies

Comfies!

When I first moved in with my husband, I discovered something that surprised me: one of his favourite things, upon getting home, was to get rid of the day’s clothes (be they casual jeans or the monkey suits he wore to work in those days) and put on his “comfies”. These could be an array of things—mostly flannel pyjama pants and a T-shirt, but really anything would do that was soft, unrestrictive, and, well, comfy.

The idea of wearing particular clothes for lounging around had never really occurred to me.  I mean, my day-to-day stuff isn’t exactly screamingly uncomfortable, for the most part. And the problem, the biggest single problem, for my poor little brain, was this: comfies aren’t sexy.

Hmm, didn’t Peter post about this recently?

Er, yeah. I have a hard time feeling comfortable—relaxed and happy—if I don’t also feel attractive. Feel free to dissect my psychological quirks if you like, but that’s just the way it is. This discomfort is waning a bit as I get older, but the fact is that I still don’t really enjoy “comfy” clothes if I don’t like how they look on me. So aside from the odd pair of yoga pants and a few fitted tanks and tees, I’ve never had much in the way of “comfies.”

But now (perhaps spurred on by the amount of time I’m spending in bed writing these days), I want to try to change that.

Comfy pants!

Step 1 was the arrival of Jalie 2033, the yoga pants*. I’ve been meaning to clone my favourite pair of yoga pants ever since they developed holes in the butt years ago, but since I haven’t gotten around to it yet, Jalie 2033 will be a good substitute, especially since I can barely get the shorts versions off my kids.

Comfy tops!

Step 2 was getting the Renfrew pattern from Sewaholic. It’s just that bit easier-fitting than my knit sloper—perfect for comfies, right?—and what better way to give it a trial run than to make something intended to be worn around the house? I’m thinking V-neck with 3/4 length sleeves.

Comfy Fabric!

Step 3 was the arrival of a package of knit fabric from Lady Katza of Peanut Butter Macrame (doesn’t that name suggest a story?), I believe salvaged from her late (and much missed) mother’s stash. Thank you, Katza! Included was approximately a mile and a half of awesome sturdy knit in a pretty, if slightly twee, peach colour. It’s somewhat sun-damaged as well, although given how much yardage there is that shouldn’t be too hard to work around.

All I need to do now is, y’know, actually do it. 😉

 

*not that I do yoga. I mean, I should, but I don’t.

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March 15, 2012 · 1:09 pm

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

Blogiversary Dance

Yup, Tanit-Isis Sews is TWO! Oof. Two years ago today, I introduced myself to the blogging world. And I just chugged past my 400th post last week.

Now, it’s a common practice to commemorate a blogiversary with giveaways, but that would require actually, y’know, mailing stuff. Which gives me Issues. And I feel really, really bad about it because I LOVE winning giveaways and have gotten some really kick-ass stuff that way, and it’s horrifically selfish to receive and not reciprocate. In an attempt to assuage the guilt, allow me to attempt to reciprocate electronically: may I present, for your (I hope) enjoyment, another Tanit-Isis Pattern: the Ariadne Tunic!

Front view

Inspired by my favourite RTW top, it’s taken me quite a few tweaks to get this tunic to wearable. You can see my first attempt, last spring, which was too short, among other issues. My next version was way too long. Now, finally, I think I’ve (close to) nailed it. I’ve also made the flutter sleeves in the pattern a wee bit longer than in this version, as I thought they were a bit short.

(sizing table)

Back View

The pattern is available in five sizes, XS-XL, for busts 82-106 cm (that’s like 31″ to 42″), and is pretty easy-fitting. It’s designed for thin, drapey knits with 4-way stretch. Y’know, the kind that are really, really annoying to sew with? Yeah.

Click on image to see pattern page and download the pattern!

Please enjoy. And thank you all so much for reading. This has been (and will continue to be) a really hectic year in my life, and sewing is both a welcome distraction and a refuge. While I feel quite a bit lately like my head isn’t quite in the game—lots of low-thought projects—I still really enjoy the opportunity to blog, even if it’s not as frequently as I used to. And I really, really, really appreciate everyone who comments (and everyone else who just stops by for a peek). This wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without you. Thank you.

(erm, and please let me know if any of the links aren’t working or if you have any trouble downloading the pattern—I’m trying to organize things a bit differently this time, so hopefully everything works!)

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March 13, 2012 · 10:21 pm

In which Tanit-Isis buys fabric and socializes with a real, in-the-flesh person.

Fabricland, the Canadian generic fabric chain, was having one of their fairly regular sales this past weekend, with pretty much everything in store 50% off. This exciting news prompted me to finally (after many attempts and broken engagements on both sides) to get together with Funnygrrl of Falling Through Your Clothes. Astoundingly, we actually pulled it off.

Extra-grainy iPhone photo.

The sewing gods were feeling magnanimous, for we both managed to arrive at Fabricland, find parking (not a small feat!), and even recognize each other. It was also the warmest day of the year yet, to the point where my children were running around the back yard in their booty shorts (the daytime high reached 13C), so I actually got to wear my springy coat for the first time this year! Very non-creatively I wore this exact outfit. With these boots.

While Ms. Falling was remarkably restrained (peeps, her Fabricland membership had lapsed!) I, um, was not. Erm.

I’d like to maintain I was not whimsical or frivolous, but the fact is I was pretty darn excessive.

The boring (and sort of justifiable)

Dude. They had hair canvas. In the clearance. For $4/m. At 50% off. (original price was about $14/m) I bought 4m. In hindsight I should’ve bought the whole bolt. I also re-stocked my other typical interfacings, but that’s not quite as astounding as finding good interfacing in the clearance section.

Unnecessary (but practical!) stash-building

Hmm. I knew there was a reason why I don’t like fabric posts. Mine, that is. I buy boring fabric! I mean, how can I compete with this? I bought denim—red cotton twill (Tyo wants red jeans)  and a couple of remnants of a really nice dark-wash. Where the heck was this colour denim when it was on the bolts? If I want to make jeans from them I’ll have to piece, but I’m thinking it might be worth it.) I splurged on some basic black athletic knit, the type of beefy cotton-lycra blend that’s normally over $20/m in these parts. Even at 50% off it’s still kinda pricey, but a) this stuff never goes on clearance and b) you never find it in thrift stores, either.

Prezzies!

Best of all was Funnygrrl’s contribution, though—aside from a pay-it-forward pattern, she offered me my choice of linens—black with white embroidered border, or white with black. The idea is something along the lines of she keeps the other piece and we make “twin” garments. There’s not a huge amount, but enough for a skirt or a slim dress, I think. Possibly from the pattern she gave me (also photographed) but there’s so many adorable dress patterns in my stash at the moment I may be paralyzed by indecision. This is the (much more interesting) kind of fabric I ogle but never actually jump on, so getting it as a present is AWESOME. I am now paging avidly through the dress patterns on my iPhone sewing app…

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March 11, 2012 · 3:42 pm

Whew!

Action shots

This post was almost titled “Disaster, Part II.” But at least temporarily, disaster appears to have been avoided.

Finished (?)

I finished Tyo’s Jalie 2795 bunnyhug late Saturday, and handed it to her to try on. I was a little apprehensive since an early test fitting had suggested it was going to be snug; the sleeves had been a little short, so I had added an extension to the cuffs, as you can see.

Well, Tyo couldn’t even get her hands through the cuffs without major pinching and pulling. That being said, once she did get it on, she didn’t even want to take it off to go to bed, always a good sign. So when I got up this morning I sliced off the old cuffs, grabbed the pattern piece, and dug through the mass of scraps under my cutting table in search of something I could make a new pair of cuffs from (since the rest of the fabric I used for this has now been reduced to scraps none of which are much bigger than 4″ square. I eventually (to my great relief!) turned up the remnant of the fabric from when I made this sweater last winter. It’s not as fresh and dark a black as the other sweatshirt knit, but there was enough of it and I was beyond caring (and I suspect things will even out after a wash or three)

Cuffs!

So I improvised some wider, extra-long cuffs, slapped them on, and the child was happy to go. Further examination indicated that the problem with the cuffs may have been more me than the pattern—I think I reversed the direction of maximum stretch in my attempts to cut thriftily, as the fleece grainline isn’t obvious, the only way to tell is by stretching the fabric experimentally.

Slim fit

The size, which I was really worried about, is definitely not generous. This will be great when I make one for myself, but isn’t exactly what you’re usually looking for for kids. I have a feeling the time she’ll be wearing this one will be measured in months as opposed to years or even seasons.

j

Interfaced zipper

In an attempt to avoid wavy-zipper issues, I used a small strip of interfacing on either size of the zipper insertion. This seems to have (mostly) done its job, except I should probably have put it on the other side—the way I folded the zipper in to finish everything the edges of the strip show on the inside, which isn’t ideal.

Back view

I wasn’t too keen with how the hood, which inserts on top of the collar, looked when I first stitched it up, but I actually like it quite a bit when worn. The size is ok, not big but not too small to be functional, and the unusual seaming looks really nice when it’s down.

I used two main seam finishes in this piece, serging and topstitching on the black sweatshirt material and stitching the seams inside-out and covering the seam allowance with twill tape on the fleece. Both are pretty fun and make for a nice finish, but are a bit time-consuming (you have to go over each seam three times). A few seams, like the underarm/sideseams, I just stitched and then serged for finish.

Pocket and side panels

The one interesting bit of construction was the pocket openings. They’re set into the side seams, and you basically make a single welt and insert it into the cut-out in the side-piece. It gapes a bit towards the centre, but I don’t actually mind the look, and it meant that I was less likely to catch the welt in the seam. Yay! It also helps that my pocket lining and my side-panel material matched—I wouldn’t want to use a different material for the pocket lining (not that you normally would on a sweatshirt).

Most importantly, though, it was perfect for a day at the playground.

Play!

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March 9, 2012 · 7:28 am

Disaster!

Desperate piecing

So, remember when I posted how I’d finished cutting out the last bits for Tyo’s bunnyhug and had enough fabric left for her pair of shorts?

Well, as soon as I finished cutting them out, I had a little niggle. What if. What if I messed up one of the pieces? What if I have a serging accident? I just officially used up all but the smallest scraps of my matching fabric, with no hope of replacing any of it.

Well, when I finally started tidying up, guess what I discovered?

One more pattern piece for the bunnyhug, which I hadn’t cut out.

Not only that, the single longest pattern-piece in the entire pattern, the sleeve sides. Of which I need not one, not two, but four copies.

I think there’s a sequence to this, kind of like the stages of grief. Denial—maybe I took the pieces off the pattern and they’re kicking around somehwere? Anger—how could I do this? Oh, I’m so stupid. Bargaining—maybe I can match in some other fabric? What about the scraps from hubs’ coat? no?

Fortunately with sewing, at least, there’s the potential for action, not just acceptance.

I gathered up my largest remaining scraps (most of which weren’t more than 6″ in any given direction.

I roughly, ever so roughly, matched the grain-lines.

And I pieced them together, using the same serge & topstitch methodology I used on Tyo’s shorts.

This was a wild affront to the sewing gods, peeps. If I die in a freak serging accident next week, you’ll know why.

And I cut out not one, not two, but four side-sleeve pieces.

Whew.

Nothing like a new design feature or two 😉

Pieced sleeve (almost finished)

I’m actually pretty satisfied with how they look. Not exactly intentional, but not exactly unintentional, either. I used some black twill tape to cover over the seam on the top part of the sleeve, which echoes the topstitched ridges in the black nicely, I think. This is the same method I used for Syo’s hoodie here.

For the other sleeve, I decided to add a little pocket just above the top-sleeve seam.

Pocket sleeve

I even *almost* managed to match up that one piecing seam. So close…

So I think it’ll work. But I still don’t recommend it. Now tell me your latest offence against the sewing gods (intentional or otherwise) to make me feel better! 🙂

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