Category Archives: Sewing

January 16, 2012 · 7:06 am

Red-Leaf Clover

Colette Clover pants. You can see from the wrinkles that the waistband at the side isn't pulled as high as it can go.

Or, possibly the worst-photographed post ever.

Did I mention my camera charger didn’t come home with me after the holidays? So yeah, the last few posts have been iPhone photos. Painful, I know. I’m working to get the back-up camera functional again (battery issues, but at least it uses standard AA batteries), but as of this moment you get iPhone photos.

So, after making little jeans for everyone short in the family (or at least that’s what it feels like…), I was in the mood for some new pants myself. And frankly, I’m a little bored of Jalie 2908, although I do have fabric for another pair for myself planned.

So I pulled out this red stretch (?twill? Sometimes it looks like twill, other times not.)

After much hemming and hawing, I cut out the size 2, which is my actual hip size, grading to a size 4 (which is not quite my actual waist size) at the waist. The long view finished inseam is listed at 27″, designed to fall just above the ankle. Dear readers, 27″ is a longish capri length on me.  Since it’s winter and my desire to make a pair of pants that would look funny with socks is at absolute zero, I decided to lengthen them to a more normal, scrunch-around-the-ankle, skinny length. I added 6″ (15 cm.) I had some misgivings about the rise, which some people have reported as a bit high (and we all know I’m a low-rise kind of girl), but figured I would keep it as-is for now, as that’s something which can be tweaked after the pattern’s cut. The crotch-length was a little disconcerting, as the horizontal leg of the back L seemed really long, but the horizontal leg of the front L was really short, so I hoped it would even out. It’s different from most of the other crotch-curves I’ve seen, so I was kind of curious to try.

Clover crotch-curves

And then I took a deep, deep breath, and I cut into my precious* red twill.

It is my intention for these, eventually, to be a sort of wearable muslin. Uncharacteristically for me, I basted them together just to check the fit—I’m planning on completely re-stitching everything once I have them fitting how I like.

I didn’t get any full-length pictures. The legs are pretty much fine—skinny, long enough. I may take in the outseams above the knees about .5 cm on each side—enough to bring me down, basically, to a size 0; I think this fabric has a bit more stretch than the pattern may have been planned for (I wish it had a stretch guide, or at least listed %stretch rather than %Lycra.  % Lycra is not very useful at all in predicting how much a fabric stretches, in my experience.) Alternatively, I may just like my pants tighter than was originally meant. Which is probable, too.

Anyway. The rise in the back is good, although it does that dip-down thing at the middle of the back. I would not want it any lower, that’s for sure.

Front view. You can just barely see that my belly-button is immediately above the waistband.

The rise in the front is a full 5cm (almost 2″) higher than I’d like. The pin in the front shows where I’d like the bottom of the waistband to fall in order to get the rise right.

The size of the waistband seems good as long as I don’t interface all stretch out of the waistband. (Though I suppose this will be different once I change the rise, anyway.) There is not much gaping at the CB, which is a common problem for me, so that’s good.

Unfortunately, the crappy zipper I threw in self-destructed within about 30 seconds of me putting the pants on, so I’m frantically pinching the one hip together in the pictures.

The front crotch seems a bit odd, I think because the curve is so shallow, but I’m hesitant to mess with it at this point. Maybe later. If any of you know what these wrinkles mean (left side of the photo, the right side is being pulled off by the issues with the zipper) please let me know! 😉

Anyway, I think I’ll be able to make some quite nice pants out of these, once I have them tweaked a bit. But some tweaking is definitely required.

And unpicking. And, y’know, reading the actual instructions.

*in the sense that I have been looking for a fabric like this for ages, not in the sense that it was expensive—it was definitely not.

49 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 14, 2012 · 7:09 pm

Some presents for myself…

New Pretties

I know, but if I don’t buy them, who will? (Osiris is not noted for his adherence to any Christmas list but the one inside his own head.)

So I splurged a bit in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Although not enough ahead of time to have anything arrive in time to stuff in my stocking…

Anyway, I am now the proud owner of:

The Colette Sewing Handbook, the Negroni men’s shirt pattern, and the Clover pants.

AND,

Vintage Patterns

McCall 6288, a kimono-sleeve blouse pattern from 1945, and “Progressive Farmer” 2953, a 1950s dress from a mail-order pattern company. Both of these were ordered on a whim from New Vintage Lady‘s etsy shop. Both are a size 12; unfortunately it’s the “old sizing” size 12, which is the one where I’m a 14 or 16. These are made for a 30″ bust. My ribcage (underbust) is 29″. Happy grading fun.

McCall 6288 could be the Colette Sencha’s grandmother. It’s a cute, simple blouse pattern with an optional keyhole cutout and tucks at the waist, buttoning up the back. It’s also designed to be tucked in, which is an iffy look for me. We’ll see how that goes. I have a feeling I’ll be dropping the waist tucks… that also strikes me as an iffy look for me. Nothing like pushing your comfort barrier ;). Sherry of Pattern Scissors Cloth recently posted about finding “your decade” style-wise. And let’s face it, pretty as it is, 50s isn’t mine.

The mail-order pattern is a dress, with a neat front yoke/sleeve thingy going on and a yoke below the waist that creates a nice dropped-waist line. There is a waist-seam, but seeing as I’m going to be grading to make any use out of these, I can try to eliminate it at the same time. Depends on what the darts are doing (and how much I need to reduce them), anyway.

Wasteful? Possibly. Whimsical? Definitely. The only thing I’m in any real danger of making up in the near future is the Clover pants, for which I already have some fabric picked out. There are plans for the Negroni, too, of course, but not until I’ve recovered from the Hubs’ Jacket. Which I finally have the pattern all done. Yup, that’s right, it’s not even cut out. (In my defense, the pattern work—I’m following Sherry’s RTW Tailoring sewalong posts from last spring—is fairly substantial, as was the fitting.). But I think I’ll try to jump on the Clovers first. I was going through my projects the other day and realized the only things I’ve made for myself all fall are knit tops. Quick, satisfying, practical, and useful? Absolutely. But it’s definitely time for something a little more… more. Y’know.

Now, I must hunt down posts about the Clovers for those of us with a more rectangular shape…

16 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,

January 13, 2012 · 12:35 pm

The joys of experience…

More little jeans

The thing about making something over and over again—especially in rapid succession—is that you should, really, be getting better at it each time, right?

Well, that’s the theory, anyway.

After finishing the littlest jeans ever last weekend, I figured I had a good couple of weeks to poke around at the next pair, for my older niece Fyon, and still have them in the post in time for Fyon’s birthday at the end of the month.

Did I mention that I suck at mailing stuff? This is why I make patterns that can be shared via download, rather than hosting giveaways, when the guilt at how much I get from the online sewing vs. how much I contribute gets too bad.

ANYWAY, when I realized that my MIL and her husband would be in town for a couple of days this week, it suddenly became imperative to get Fyon’s pair done so I could send both presents back with her. And while it’s easy enough (at this point, for me) to whip up a pair of jeans over the course of a weekend, it’s another thing entirely to cram it into a couple of evenings. Nonetheless, I dove in, and they are done and currently winging their way back to Saskatchewan.

Fyon’s pair was a straight size 4—unlike her little sister, she’s tall for her age and well-proportioned (i.e. slightly chunky). She’ll be five in a few weeks, but the measurements I took of her last summer suggested that the size 4 (H) would be just fine, even allowing for four months of growth. Here’s hoping. In case you haven’t been following along, the pattern is Jalie 2908, which is far and away my most-used pattern of all time. Cost per make is in the pennies, at this point.

Rear view

Given the time-frame, I dropped all hope of originality and opted for the same detailing in slightly different fabric. This is probably just as well—despite their size differences, my nieces are only 18 months apart in age, and much jealousy often arises if they don’t get more-or-less exactly the same gifts. I decided to make my piping a little narrower this time, in the effort to get a more “piped” look—I think I was successful, although the wider look of the first pair is a bit more whimsical and cute. This pair is positively sedate. I also plum forgot (as I usually do) to add a teensy change pocket, and I’m surprised at how much more boring this makes the front view. Subtle, but true. I also forgot to do any embroidery on the front. Oopsie. Tyo suggested stars, rather than hearts this time, which I went with happily on the back pockets, as they’re super-easy to stitch.

Labels---best laid plans.

Aside from glitches like that, I had some good ideas that didn’t quite pan out, and some technical difficulties. I remembered to attach a label with my kids’-brand name, Bookemon & Ebichu (as I found the sheet of iron-on transfers again, finally! 😉 ), and this time figured I’d do it BEFORE the waistband was attached, saving me from doing it after, by hand, like I did last time. It seemed like a great idea, no? Except that when I topstitched along the waistband, the stitching went over the label. Not awful, but not really the look I was going for. (I do like how the swan-stitch turned out! It’s one of the cams that came with the White, and while each individual bird isn’t particularly lovely, the overall effect is a cute detail, I think.

On to the technical difficulties. I’ve mentioned before that the new Pfaff, lovely as it is, has some tension issues. Something is gummed up in the the tension disks, to the point where a) the tension doesn’t release when the presser foot is raised, and b) when the tension is high (as it needs to be for stitching with thick topstitching thread) it seems to feed a bit unevenly or something—two or three stitches will be fine and then one will pull a loop of the top thread to the back. Again, not catastrophic, but not perfect. The topstitching thread I used on the pair of jeans for Waif was a different brand and not quite as thick, and it worked well, but the Guterman topstitching thread was definitely more challenging. And it got even worse for zig-zagging (which you generally use a lower tension for). You can see how attractive the insides of my bar-tacks are. /sigh. So while the overall jeans are fine, and cute, the construction has some lumps and bumps that I wish it didn’t. I did a better job on the fly this time, I think, anyway.

At least it’s out of the way.

Interior waistband

There’s the usual buttonhole elastic in the waistband, and again I used a snap. It seems, in the random way of snaps, to be a little sturdier than the one that I put in on the Waif’s pair. Which probably has everything to do with how things get bent in the hammering, but I haven’t managed to really improve on that with the tools I have available.

15 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , ,

January 7, 2012 · 12:08 pm

The littlest jeans… EVER.

teensy tiny jeans

I didn’t sew for my kids when they were little. I think I made one sundress-type-thingy for Tyo when she was two, and as sundress-thingies go, it was not impressive. So sewing in these extremely small sizes is a bit new to me.

But, a few weeks before Christmas, my Stylish Sister-in-Law happened to mention that she has a terrible time finding pants for her youngest daughter, who is one of those waifish children with the waist-size of a one-year-old and the leg-length of, well, at least a two year old. (Seriously, child is 3.5 years right now and hasn’t broken 30 lbs. Maybe not even 25. I’m pretty sure Tyo was that weight at a year.)

Pocketses

Now, unfortunately, this conversation didn’t take place enough before Christmas that I could actually put together a pair of very little (but relatively long) jeans as a present for the Waif. But now that I’m home and seeking fresh avenues for procrastination, it seemed like the perfect project.

Also, I got to try an experiment—how many sewing machines can you use on one pair of jeans?

The answer, at the moment, is three, plus the serger. If that weren’t the absolute maximum number of machines I can have set up at any one time, it might well have been more.I did the main construction on my Featherweight, and the topstitching and embroidery on the “new” Pfaff 360. The upside of using the Pfaff for the topstitching (and it has an excellent straight stitch, even with no straight-stitch plate) is that I can switch it to zig-zags for the bar-tacks without having to re-thread anything. The downside of this is that the tension settings for a straight stitch with topstitching thread (very high) vs. a zig-zag stitch with topstitchings thread (much lower) are very different, and I kept forgetting to switch back. So I had to re-stitch several areas, and wasted a lot of precious topstitching thread in the process. At least it’s easy to pick out when there’s huge loops on the back because the tension was too low. I used the White for a regular-thread zig-zag to attach the front yoke to the front pocket lining, since that was easier than re-threading the Pfaff (or I told myself it was…). If I’d gone with applique embelishment, I would probably have used the White for that, too. (Incidentally, while I still love my modern, basic Janome, it’s so very, very nice to have machines that can handle the tension required for topstitching through denim.)

Now, kids jeans are fun. Not so much because they’re little (although that doesn’t hurt), but because you can use the most whimsical, off-the-wall details. And jeans, let’s face it, are all about the details. The basic construction is both monotonous and intermittently fiddly—adding the details is where the fun comes in.

Embroidered hearts

After some experimentation, I settled on free-motion embroidery and flat “piping” for this particular pair.  I opted to use the remnant of fabric from my Cream Spice Capris of last summer, since neither of my children seem particularly intrigued by it and I won’t be the one who has to keep them clean.*

The pattern, as always, is Jalie 2908. I cannot explain to you how awesome it is that the Jalie patterns come in umpteen sizes. For the Waif, I traced off the size 2 (F, the smallest size), but used the size 3 (G) length. I then re-checked my measurements and realized that the hip measurement I had for her (49 cm) is well below the hip-size of the 2 (56 cm), even allowing for any growth she might have done in the four months or so since I measured her. (However, as I discovered sewing my first pair of jeans for Tyo, you do want to go a bit big for the kids sizes in this pattern, if only so they don’t outgrow them in five minutes. Although again, I’m curious if this is the same in the really little patterns or if they’re drafted with more ease. The picture of the girl on the pattern envelope certainly looks like her jeans have a lot more ease than the adult version.) So I took 1 cm lengthwise tucks out of the back and front pattern pieces (avoiding the pockets to make my life easier), which should reduce the width by 4 cm total, a reasonable amount.  I forgot to narrow the back pockets by the same amount, which did come bite me in the ass later, but we’ll get to that.

To change things up,

After some experimentation and a lot of trial stitching, I hit on my strategy for embellishment. For the piping, I made some bias roughly 3 cm wide and folded it in half. I tested adding a cord, but decided I liked a flat, soft insert better—a little more flexible for the small niece, although it is a bit trickier to get even and it comes out a little wide. I played around with applique, but wasn’t satisfied with the look with my particular thread and fabric colours. Maybe when I make a pair for Waif’s older sister, Fyon. Instead, I went with some freehand embroidery hearts. I outlined each heart once or twice, for a sketchy, crayon-drawing sort of look. Also, that’s about all I’m capable of for freehand embroidery. Not my forte (although I’m sure hooping the fabric and doing the embroidery first would probably improve things at least somewhat. As it was, I ironed wash-away stabilizer onto the back of the denim, used the same little foot and settings as my mending extravaganza, and went to town.

Now here’s the thing. I could have gone with a more precise design (perhaps not hearts) and created more-computer-quality-looking embroidery. Personally, I rather like the freehand/wobbly look (and there are plenty of jeans out there that have machined versions of this look). But it’s one of those things that could, in the right eyes, just make these cute little jeans look tacky and home-made. Not so much because they’re on jeans, but because they’re on homemade jeans. I’m choosing to reject this opinion; hopefully Stylish will, too.

Waistband inside with buttonhole elastic.

I made some other alterations that are kinda standard at this point for making 2908 kids’ jeans. I curved in the yoke a bit more (easy since I was already putting a tuck in it), although not as much as I often do as Waif’s bottom is considerably less curvaceous than, say, Tyo’s. (She seems  to take after her father in the that department, as Stylish, her mother, is the embodiment of what I think Tyo’s going to look like when she grows up. At least from the neck down.). I cut the waistband in long, narrow pieces rather than short, wide pieces with a back seam, and used my pocketing/piping fabric for the inner facing. This reduces bulk, but mostly I just like the flash of colour it adds to the inside. I bound the bottom of the band with more bias tape, as that’s every so much easier than trying to fold it under and have things come out nicely. And, I added buttonholes to insert adjustable buttonhole elastic, easily the best invention for kids’ pants in the last 20 years. (Tyo is going to have such a hard time finding pants that fit once she outgrows the ones that come with buttonhole elastic)

Excessively tiny change pocket. The blue smudges on the fly are my wash-away marker, and will wash out.

I remembered this time to add a change-pocket, although given the teensy-weensy size of the jeans it’s strictly decorative. I opted for piping only along the top of the rear pockets, and did a much better job of finishing the edges of it this time—you need to fold the ends over at a 45° angle so that once everything’s in place and stitched down there’s a smooth edge and no joogly bits sticking up. As per usual, I positioned my pockets after stitching the CB seam, so they’d be centred around the topstitching rather than around the rear seam itself.

However.

Pocket colliding with side-seam. Oopsie.

Remember how I said I didn’t shrink the pockets when I narrowed the red of the pants?

This, combined with the general tininess of the jeans, means once the outseam was all stitched up, the 1-cm (or less) offset on the one side was enough to put the left pocket right against the side-seam, while there’s about 1 cm of space between pocket and side-seam on the right.

Oops.

Erm.

I am not going to try to fix this, even if I could. But note to self—when smallening a pattern, smallen** the pockets, too. Even when you’re lazy.

Final details. I decided to try a heavy-duty snap for the front closure, as several of the children of my acquaintance seem to prefer these (let’s face it, the traditional jeans fly with button for small and even medium-sized kids is not really a good idea). I always find snap-insertion a bit haphazard, and I’m a little worried it will pop open, but I suppose time will tell.

As I did on the Cream Spice Capris, I added piping to the edge of the belt-loops, just to look pretty.

And as that’s probably way more than ANYONE wants to read about a pair of jeans for a preschooler, I’ll sign off.

*Lest you accuse me of cruelty to my sister-in-law, I’ll point out that I am making it for my younger niece, so she won’t have to try to keep it unstained through two whole children. Also, she dresses them in white pants all the time, so really she’s asking for it. But then she’s a lot more together on the whole “homemaking” thing than I am…

**I can make up words if I want to.

50 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 4, 2012 · 8:43 am

Mending

Machine mended 3-corner tear

Have you ever done darning on a sewing machine?

I have a feeling the White can do this too, but as I was perusing the manual that came with my spanky “new” Pfaff 360 (yay, manual!) I happened on the page about machine darning.

And, well, I was feeling sewing-deprived after a week visiting home. Generally speaking, I enjoy mending about as much as alteration. Which is to say, not at all.

So on the Pfaff, at least, you don’t need to clamp your mending in an embroidery hoop. This makes it much easier to darn stuff like, say, pant legs. The darning foot is this cute little round nub, the presser-foot equivalent of a peg-leg. It isn’t as long as a regular foot, and doesn’t reach all the way to the needle plate when the foot is down. Well, it does sometimes, but it hops up and down as the needle does, pogo-sticking across the fabric.

You darn with the feed-dogs dropped, so you control speed, length, and direction of stitching by moving the fabric by hand. This means you can go back and forward and side-to-side without needing to rotate the fabric. Also a big win for fixing, say, pant-legs.

After a bit of experimenting, I dove in: loaded up the blue jeans-sewing-thread I picked up on a whim ages ago but never actually used, and pulled out some of my failing pairs of jeans.

To start, something simple: the three-corner tear my computer desk inflicted on my most recent pair of jeans a few weeks before Christmas. I threaded the  jeans over the free arm, started on the back-and-forth part of the tear, and stitched up and down the length, back and forth, and then side-to-side on the vertical part of the tear.

It was startlingly easy. I don’t think these jeans will be back on the A-list, but they’re no longer stuck in bumming-around-the-house land. Win.

Next.

Guess Jeans (taken last year, pre-tearing)

These skinny jeans are two years old, originally from Guess. The left knee is gone (typical) but a little more troublesome was the state of the rear yoke just below the belt-loops. This is a high-stress area, and holes had pulled where the bottom of the belt-loop attached.

Stitchy-stitchy magic! Back and forth, side to side.

Guess jeans mending

I still need to topstitch down the loops themselves again, but the holes are closed—my underwears will no longer be poking out! Yay!

Darning white jeans

My final masterpiece was a frayed side-seam on a pair of white jeans Osiris scored at a thrift store back in the summer—everything about them was absolutely perfect (and unworn) except for this one strange flaw. He’s been wearing them (as you can see by the grubbiness in the photos) as is, but a repair was pretty welcome.

It’s not exactly pretty, but it’ll do, and it’s not a hole!

Just yesterday I did a bunch of darns on another of Osiris’ pants, a goth/industrial pair of black cargoes that came complete with patches and a veritable forest of studs. I didn’t photograph (black, people) but repairs included the edge of one patch where it had ripped out, several worn spots in the seat and on the front, and that weird thing on the waistband with a zipper that isn’t actually a pocket. Even bought at Winners these are some of the most expensive pants he owns (not to mention his favourite) so WIN. I find myself eyeing my children’s wardrobes to see if they need any prophylactic darning…

… yeah, I’m probably in sewing withdrawal. I should have a bit of real time later today to work on my Bird on a Wire tee…

32 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , ,

January 1, 2012 · 10:42 pm

Splurge

Not so vintage...

While visiting my mom post-Xmas we traipsed down to the trusty local Mennonite thrift shop. I just happened to be wearing the dress from Simplicity 6023 , made from fabric purchased at this same store during my last visit.

I was good about the fabrics—there was nothing screamingly spectacular. It helped that it was New Year’s Eve and they were closing early so I only had half an hour; just time enough for a good rummage through the chest of patterns.

I was not so good about the patterns.

Moreso vintage

I must now pause at this moment to say a sincere thank you to Darlene Ratzlaff (or her heirs), as nine or so of the sixteen patterns I nabbed bear her name (click through to see the full size). Whether or not she is any relation to my high school drama teacher of the same surname, she had good taste in patterns (and was close to my size). The Ratzlaff Collection all date from the latest 60s to mid 70s. I think my fave is the Style 3060 with the Wednesday Addams look in the middle.

Jalie Potpourri

My mom, (who, as I have mentioned before, is a bit of an enabler) had some other goodies to contribute: she was gracious enough to lend me several Jalie patterns: the famous twist-neck and sweetheart-neckline patterns, a really cute jacket, and the slit-neck sweatery thing. I really like the jacket pattern. Because, y’know, I need another jacket project…

Patternmaking in 1908

She had also acquired several vintage sewing books which I have absconded with, and which we shall have to discuss more as I have the leisure to peruse them adequately (how’s that for some excessive verbiage?). The niftiest, perhaps, is a 1908 book on pattern drafting. Sadly the curves and rulers that originally accompanied it (kit price $5) have long since wandered away. Still, pretty neat. I am really curious to find out how it compares with the “Modern block” method of Harriet Pepin and all the more recent pattern-drafting books I’ve read. Unlike some of the other early 1900s sewing books I’ve found online, this one has illustrations, which means I may actually have some idea what they’re talking about.

Butterick Sewing

There’s also a Butterick sewing book, of 50s vintage, which I shall have to compare and contrast with the 70s Simplicity one I nabbed a while back. /sigh. I’m so behind on my sewing-related reading. Someday, over the thesis…

Tailoring

My favourite, though, is the blue-covered book simply titled “Tailoring”. It claims to want to be “an advanced tailoring text that even a beginner can use”, and from my reading of the first few chapters it’s doing a pretty good job. It’s got a REALLY comprehensive section on pattern measurement and ease calculations, too, including a chart I will have to scan and upload…

Oh, and I suppose I should be doing some kind of New Year wrap up/retrospective, but I don’t really feel like it. Maybe if I’m bored later this week, or sometime in the next month when I have nothing actually sewn. I’d rather spend what precious free time I have actually sewing, though. Speaking of which, coming soon: machine darning! (It may be a sign of sewing withdrawal that this was actually really, really fun.)

24 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

December 27, 2011 · 6:00 am

Dwarf hoodie

Half a hoodie

Although finished as part of my Christmas procrastination, this little sweater for Syo has the best origins: I cut it out immediately after I finished Tyo’s robe, to use up the irregular quarter-metre of fabric I had left.

Simplicity 3714

The pattern is Simplicity 3714, a Hannah Montana pattern. Unlike the last few kids’ patterns I’ve been annoyed with, this one seems fairly full-featured. The instructions are decent as well. What was fun for me, though, was adding some nifty details.

A couple of months ago, my MIL bought Tyo a bunnyhug*. It’s cream, gorgeous, and has some nifty features including (but not limited to) twill-taped seams, a lined hood, and eyelets for the ties. Unfortunately I don’t have photos of it (it’s really nice), but anyway, it definitely inspired me to try some of the details.

Syo’s Sweater

Unfortunately I didn’t have any cream twill-tape kicking around. So I took the white stuff I had on hand and dropped it in a pot of tea. It came out with this lovely tan colour… a bit different than I was going for but I thought it still looked nice (and it will probably fade a bit after a few washings.)

Hood closeup (with eyelet for drawstring)

Basically I stitched the main seams wrong-side together (so the seam-allowances showed on the outside, trimmed and pressed, and then topstitched the twill tape down overtop, so everything is neat both inside and out. The hood is lined with a plain jersey knit.

Fun view

I remembered (!) to interface the area where the hood eyelets were going to go with a knit fusible interfacing, hoping to avoid the tragedy of the eyelets popping out. This is a fairly sturdy sweatshirt knit, and I made the eyelet-holes as teeny as possible. They feel sturdy and stable at the moment, but we’ll see how they hold up.

Front details

The pattern suggested adding hot-fuse rhinestones to the front. I opted for studs. I may add more if I get ambitious.

Back view

I did the same kind of finish around the zipper, so the edges of the zipper tape and the fabric are completely enclosed behind the twill-tape. I’m not a super fan of this zipper, but the selection for 8″ separating zippers was pretty frigging limited.

Zipper finishing

I forgot to add the elastic at the waistband when I finished it, but fortunately was able to unpick the twill tape, cut a slit in the casing beneath it, insert the elastic, and then stitch the elastic in place and re-stitch the twill-tape, covering my booboo entirely. Yay.

Walk like a Syo

Syo is not super-duper thrilled with it, but I’m actuslly hoping it will be practical, as she is usually overheating and taking off her full-sized sweaters. She wore it pretty happily at the local history museum this afternoon. Maybe it will grow on her. I certainly think it’s pretty cool. But of course it’s not my opinion that matters. 😉

*hoodie.

18 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as

December 25, 2011 · 9:56 pm

My mother is many things…

Not least of which is an enabler.

"New" Pfaff 360

Thank you, Mom. Merry Christmas.

This is a Pfaff 360. Some time in the 60s, it was a top of the line embroidery machine—that little colourful wheel thingy gives you the settings for the various stitches. My mom bought hers in the early 70s, second-hand, for about $250; this is still what a lot of them go for, from some quick googling. It’s the machine I learned on,  and measure every other machine against.

When I saw the case with the ribbon tied to the handle, I nearly had a heart attack, and had to open it up right away and check the attachments to make sure it wasn’t her machine. Fortunately, no. This is the machine a friend of my mom’s has been sitting on, but not actually using, for a while now.

This one has had a bit of a rougher life than my mom’s, I think. It’s a bit dinged up and the automatic threader is missing (not that I even knew it had one before Mom mentioned it.) The tension is giving me a bit of grief, although I think it’s just a little sticky and probably needs cleaning. I already messed around with some free motion satin-stitch embroidery and it sucked considerably less than I thought it would.

Every sewing machine feels a little different to “drive”, y’know? Some are zippy and light, some are sluggish, some are powerful. The Pfaff 360 isn’t as fast as my new Janome (or, for that matter, the old Army Machine, which when it’s going, goes like crazy), but it’s solid, powerful, and can chew through anything you can fit under the presser foot. And most importantly, it feels right.

The accessory box isn’t as extensive as my mom’s, (and in fact is missing some key pieces, like a zipper foot) but it does have a few that were missing from my collection—there’s a funny little keel that fits over the regular zigzag foot to work as a stitch-in-the-ditch foot and a buttonhole-measuring foot that had me thoroughly puzzled until Mom told me what it was. And it’s another low-shank machine, so the bits should be interchangeable with everyone else except the Army Machine.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I’m thoroughly overflowing with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, so I’m off to bed. Have a great night!

20 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , ,

December 22, 2011 · 10:38 am

The Turn

A White Day

I live in Canada. Winter is cold, and there’s a lot of dark. Sometimes the days are brilliant—shining, blue skies, the cold white eye of the sun, and everything glitters like the inside of a diamond. Often these are the days when the cold steals your breath, making you cough, where it knifes through your thighs as you walk, bores a hole between your eyes were even the warmest scarf can’t cover.

Then there are the white days, the prairies’ special trick, where the sky is white, the land is white, and the horizon becomes only a guess. Everything is a middling, dull-white shade. It does not glitter, just fades slowly into night.

Cold Coming In

The nights are long. You rise in darkness, running from blankets to robe to sweaters as quickly as possible. Often it’s dark again by the time you leave work. Entire work weeks can pass in darkness. Months pass without feeling the sun’s warmth on your cheeks.

Vogue tobacco?

There are blizzards, confections of wind and snow to make you stare in awe. Cars creep hesitantly along the roads, snowflakes whirling like unsteady stars, hiding everything: the road’s edge, the lane markings, the oncoming traffic. You stock your car: blankets, candles, chocolate bars. The danger is not so much going off the road. It’s going off the road, too far from help, where you’ll sit in your idling car until the fuel runs out and then the cold seeps in, and you either wait for it or walk for it. That’s when people die. Blizzards are the moments when you bow your head and admit defeat; allow nature her supremacy, and stay home, preferably with a fire and hot chocolate, and tell the story of the farmer who lost his way in a blizzard going from house to barn, and how long it was before they found his frozen body.

Remains

I don’t love the cold. I don’t love winter. I don’t love the prison our houses become, the prison our clothes become, layers piled on layers, constricting and restrictive. I don’t do many of the fun things that make winter worthwhile up here—I don’t skate, play hockey, ski or snowboard.

But I do love the holidays. I love taking a few moments, here at the blackest end of the year, to enjoy the people around me. I love the convergence of roads that lets me see my relatives in wild, energetic bouts, all at once, rather than one or two at a time. I love the food, the lights, the decorations.

I love turkey with cranberry sauce.

Shot with tree.

And I love knowing that, after today, no matter how cold the weather or how majestic the storms, the days will be getting longer, and sooner or later the ground will soften, the snow will melt, and spring will be here.

Happy Solstice, everyone! I hope your holidays are full of family, friends, and togetherness—and if not, then I hope they’re at least filled with other things that make you happy.

(photographs of an abandoned shack at my grandmother’s farm)

40 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,

December 20, 2011 · 9:43 pm

Syo Sews

Syo sewed so well. Also she's wearing a shirt I made her.

While I’ve been dithering over the hubs’ coat, Syo seized the opportunity to sneak onto an unattended machine and whip up a little purse. Her being extremely proud of her creation, she asked me to blog about it. Me being putty in her cute little fingers, immediately snapped some photos and set to.

Look! It opens!

Look! Not only does it have a strap (thankfully using up the last of that trim!), but there’s even something approaching a seam-finish on the end of the fold-over flap!

Ok, so I may be a little bit exuberant. Here’s the thing. She sewed this on her own. The only thing she asked me was whether she could use the machine (yes, dear, just don’t sew through your fingers, k?). No hovering, no planning, no supervising every seam-allowance and pivot and backtack.

People, this is how I learnt to sew (when I was probably right around Syo’s age, maybe a smidge older). Grab fabric, think (or don’t), and go. Doesn’t work? Try again. Something you never thought of goes wrong? Oops, that was a learning experience!

I’m not knocking anyone who learnt to sew properly—it’s probably a much faster, more efficient way to learn. But it’s not how I learnt, and trying to teach my kids feels… forced. Weird. Stressful.

This wasn’t stressful. This was great.

Shot with tree.

In other news, I traced out the size F(2, but in length G/3) and size H(4) of the Jalie 2908 jeans, to make up for my nieces, possibly even for Christmas. I’m still in limbo over a shirt for my Dad… I have the fabric picked out, but the Negroni pattern I ordered at the beginning of the month (yes, I caved, finally) still hasn’t arrived. I have printed out a custom size (as far as I can figure going on my mom’s recollection of his measurements and some gentle prodding over the phone) of this pattern, but I’m a little worried that it’s going to fit like a tent, which is not really what I want to create. I’m planning a backup gift on that front, either way. On the subject of Mr. Isis (every time I type that I think I should just put “Osiris”)’s jacket, I did a second muslin, with a much fuller back and wider sleeves, after he very instructively flexed while wearing the first muslin and ripped the back seam open clear to the waist. We are having some issues over fit vs. freedom of motion; like many hard-to-fit people, he’s used to wearing knits or vastly oversized wovens. Anyway, the second muslin had a very curved back seam, a lot of ease rotated into the shoulders (basically I rotated some of the curve from the neck into a shoulder-dart, but I don’t plan on sewing the dart, just easing the fabric in), and has some big folds under the arm, all of which disappear completely when he crosses his arms. I tried to suggest (as I seem to recall reading somewhere) that a suit-jacket should lie smooth when the hands are clasped in front. He doesn’t consider this adequate. I think he’s on glue. The debate continues. Anyway, I think I can shave off a bit of the excess and get something that doesn’t look completely grotesque when he’s standing naturally.  Fitting muscles is weird. It’s almost like an FBA for the back, in an area that doesn’t happen to have any darts. (Boy has a drop of almost 12″ from chest to waist right now. That’s not only more than mine, that’s more than twice mine. The jerk.). At least widening the sleeves went well. I’d be tempted to try a larger size, but the shoulders fit beautifully.

Now if I could just find my roll of craft paper to make the rest of the pattern pieces… (I’m trying to save the wrapping paper for the presents…)

35 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,