Category Archives: Sewing

July 11, 2010 · 2:28 pm

Men!

So… you remember the One-Day Shirt Challenge?

Well, the shirt is done. Actually, it’s a smashing success. He’s worn it almost every day since I finished it (as he wears a uniform at work his day-clothes don’t get a lot of wear). It looks especially dashing with his tight black jeans.

AND HE WON”T LET ME TAKE A PICTURE OF IT!!

“I need a shower today,” he says.

“Not now, I’m tired,” he says.

“I feel fat today,” he says (yes, my beloved boy has body-image issues.)

Seriously, I am just about ready to strangle him—or at least vow to never make him anything ever again. What’s the point of sewing him stuff if he won’t let me take pictures of it to put up here?

… okay, perhaps my priorities are a little skewed… but still. One picture? Pretty please?

So, so far, the pic on the floor is the best I can do. Just believe me that it looks really good on?

UPDATE:

Hmm, not really an improvement...

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July 10, 2010 · 11:54 am

Ruffle Dress

Pink ruffle dress---complete!

A long morning’s labour completed. What do you think of the flower? I needed

Flower decoration

something to cover up my uneven ruffle, but I didn’t want something that would stick out too far. Loosely inspired by these.

Ok, I think that’s enough sewing for others. I want something for me now, please.

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July 10, 2010 · 9:29 am

Diabetic shock…

Pink Overload!

I am in the throes of sewing a ruffly pink sundress for my niece. It is really, really sweet. I just might barf.

Can I just say, I am suddenly very proud that I never sewed anything pink for either of my daughters? Thank you, thank you very much. (Honestly, I don’t mind pink in moderation. but this… that’s a lot of pink. And it’s not cool, edgy pink with skulls on or something)

It’s based on the Oliver & S Popover Sundress, a free pattern. You can see the difference in my stylish sketch there.

My snazzy sketch.

I’m actually only using about the top 5″ of the pattern, since I needed the dress to be twirly (my niece is 3 1/2, and any skirt that doesn’t twirl out is “broken”). The rest is gathered tiers.

Which brings me to the second problem… the ruffler foot.

I learned to use a ruffler foot on my mother’s gorgeous, ancient 1960s Pfaff. You could ruffle, pleat, gather pretty near anything on that machine. And I did. Ok, I didn’t, but I made a number of tiered skirts for bellydance, which is pretty much anyone’s ruffling quotient for a lifetime (the one in that picture has 9 tiers, 7 of them ruffled, and the bottom hem consists of over 30 fabric-width (45″) strips.

When I moved away, my mom bought me a new sewing machine as a going-away present. Aww. It’s a lovely little Janome, and as you know it has sewn me through jackets and jeans with relatively little hassle. Things could be much worse. One of the little things I asked for when we got the machine, though, was a ruffler foot. I was still in dance-sewing mode, after all.

And I did, actually, manage to make one more full scale tiered skirt on my Janome. So I guess I can’t say the ruffler doesn’t work… it just doesn’t work as well. I don’t know if it’s the machine (not quite as sturdy) or the ruffler (also not quite as sturdy). It certainly can’t pleat to save your life. It does a roughly 2:1 gather on its lowest setting, and heaven help me if I want to change that. It’s little things, like the poky bit the needle sometimes hits on…

Of course, it didn’t help that last night when I was trying to start on it, I kept forgetting to put the presser foot down (it’s very hard to see the difference with the ruffler foot on… and it still ruffles, just even less well). And then somehow I managed to switch it to a zig-zag stitch…

Yeah, that doesn’t work. Remind me to pick up more needles when I’m out this afternoon…

But things are going much better this morning. I got the whole bottom tier ruffled. When I finish this post I’ll go do the second tier up. I always start at the bottom on these things, otherwise my brain breaks with the enormity of the task.

I always forget how the tiers multiply. That bottom tier was 6.6m long (6 fabric width strips) before I ruffled it. At least it’s done now!

The best thing about ruffled tiers? They use up almost ALL of the fabric. All I have left over of that ghastly pink solid is a 10″ square.

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July 9, 2010 · 3:37 pm

OK, you get the idea.

Nearly done!

Sorry. Once again, impatience gets the better of me. It’s still missing the decorative snaps, but I’m showing it off anyway. In all its flawed glory. I did not include closeups of the places (cry) where I accidentally snipped the fabric with the scissors while trimming threads.

Kids' jean jacket---back

So… pattern? Nice. The front yoke seemed too wide and the front facing width was a little wonky in its width as well. Perhaps related? Perhaps due to flaws in my tracing or my failure to read the instructions carefully. I didn’t, by the way. Read the instructions, I mean. I’m not really such an advanced sewist that I should skip that, I

Front snaps!

know. It’s a bad habit. Otherwise it all went together very nicely.

As mentioned before, my bias bindiing on the inside is not the greatest. However, it is a nice flash of colour! You can see where I added in the pockets.

Today’s big experiment was the snaps. I went out and picked up two kinds, the plain silver heavy duty ones, and some cute little pearl ones. Unfortunately, I assumed that the hammer/punch tools that came with the heavy duty ones would be adequate to attach the pearl ones. (and if not, I’ve got a bunch of other punch/hammer/dies from grommets—surely something would work). Foolish, foolish me. I did manage to get one

Cute snap! Too bad it's broken!

installed on one of the waistband tabs (after cracking the pearl in two others). It looks good. But it doesn’t snap—it won’t stay shut. And I didn’t

Inside!

have enough of the big silver ones to do the decorative snaps (tabs, pocket flaps). So I’ll have to go back to the store. For more heavy duty snaps, or for the right hammering tools? We’ll see.

The sleeve shoulder topstitching was a pain in the butt.

Ooooh… look at how nicely I managed to get the undersleeve seam to match up to the back yoke seam!:

Back yoke seam matches sleeve underarm seam!

Too bad I didn’t manage to do it on the other side!

I am thinking of entering it (or the second one, which may be a little less imperfect) to the PatternReview children’s sewing contest this month. Exciting, no?

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July 8, 2010 · 10:50 pm

A real oldie…

This was my highschool grad gown (aren’t I cute?). I didn’t sew it. My mom did.

The catch?

She made it for her highschool grad, in 1970.

Peach is not normally my colour, I must admit (it isn’t really one of my mother’s, either). But isn’t this an awesome dress? Square neckline, princess seamed bodice, empire waist. It doesn’t get much better, does it? And so classic. Timeless. The gloves and handbag were also from when my Mom wore it; the necklace and shoes (not shown) were my own. The wrist corsage was courtesy of my excellent grad escort. I am secretly hoping one of my girls will wear this gown some day… though at this point I’m not sure if either of them will ever be big enough. Their dad’s family is, ah, small-boned.

The trophy was for Art, by the way. Aside from this photo, walking across the stage with it was the only time it was in my possession. I have a little plaque. Somewhere.

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July 8, 2010 · 9:57 pm

I…

… did not one stitch of sewing today.

😦

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July 7, 2010 · 9:30 pm

Something random

1948 hat-making book, complete with patterns!

When I was home the other weekend, my mom gave me this vintage 1948 book: “How to Make and Trim Your Own HATS”. It contains plenty of info on everything from refurbishing old hats to making new ones from scratch—and of course lots about style. And patterns!

I don’t really see myself getting into hat-making (too much stuff to buy, and much as I love hats in theory I don’t wear them often), but it’s quite a fun read. At some point I’ll go through it more thoroughly and post highlights. However, one pattern in particular did stick out at me, the pattern piece for the crown of a six-piece brim. As far as I can tell, this piece would be perfect for Burdastyle’s  Summer Sunhat tutorial. The grid is supposed to be 1″; I scanned it at 300 dpi, if that helps anyone print it out better.

Pattern piece for a six-piece hat crown.

Disclaimer: I have not tried this piece. The book suggests using 1/3″ seams for a 22 1/2″ crown circumference, and 1/2″ seams for a 21 1/2″ hat.

Incidentally, the shirt is done except for buttons. He won’t let me take pictures until it has buttons on, however… so I have to go pick up buttons tomorrow.

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July 7, 2010 · 8:46 am

The One-Day Shirt Challenge

Men's shirt in (not quite) a day

Was flunked. Maybe if I’d started first thing in the morning… maybe if I hadn’t had to go with The Boy to the doctor’s in the afternoon, or “make” (aka heat up) supper. Maybe if I hadn’t had to go out to the store for a new iron (yes, my venerable Value Village iron went to that great laundry room in the sky yesterday… it shall never spot rusty water onto a crisp white fabric again). But as it was, at bedtime I was sewing the first sleeve in, and there was no way it was going to get done without staying up ridiculously late (never good for sewing).

Back gathering

I’m glad I didn’t try to rough it out—tonight I can face the challenge of altering it, since it is still *huge*

mandarin collar

I may or may not have mentioned that the pattern, which I picked up at Value Village for a buck and had never been cut, contained only two sizes: XL and XXL. My sweetie is many things, but an XXL he is not. However, his chest measurement (40″) indicated that he should be a L—so I figured I would try my hand at grading down the pattern, since I was tracing it anyway. Yes, this was all yesterday morning.

I used my vague recollection of the Selfish Seamstress’s tutorial on resizing a pattern to shrink it down. Despite my misgivings this worked remarkably well—aside from a couple of length issues (how did I grade half the sleeve differently from the other half?) which I mostly caught at the pattern stage, everything fit together about as well as patterns usually do, given my limited cutting skills (read: patience). Better than some of the Burda 9610 pieces, actually.

So he tried it on before bed last night (one sleeve only) and… it’s huge. Sleeves too long, shoulders too wide. Actually, one or the other… the sleeve length would be fine if the shoulders weren’t so wide, and vice versa. The yoke is designed to droop over the shoulder… but not, I think, that much. None of this, of course, was obvious until I had finished all the interior seams and attached the sleeve. Grr. So I’m thinking of hacking off about an inch on each side of the body (have to check how this would affect the gathers). This should make the shirt itself less ridiculously bag-like, and shorten the sleeve up a bit, too.  If I’m particularly clever, I’ll even remember to do a french seam on the sideseams this time around, too… On the other hand, the neck is perfect.

Cuff & sleeve placket; a little Becky Home-Ecky.

I didn’t really pay much attention to the instructions, but they seem to be very thorough and aimed at beginning sewists. This may explain the ridiculous amount of ease in the shirt (aren’t “beginner” patterns usually humongous?). The gathers are actually quite soft and subtle—not nearly as ridiculously pouffy as I thought they might be.  The cotton voile is a brat to iron but a dream to sew with—I was event able to  edgestitch the cuffs and front placket down without it looking totally ridiculous on the other side (Fortunately there’s lots left over. The pattern called for up to 4 m of fabric, but I don’t think I used more than 2). The cuff and sleeve placket are fairly “home-sewn-ish”; the cuff’s a bit too narrow and the continuous-lap placket is not quite right for a men’s dress shirt. I will maybe try to change that next time. Yes, there will be a next time. He still wants the shirt out of knit. (shudders)

On the up side, he says he’ll never complain about paying $50 for a shirt again after seeing how much work goes in to one…

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July 6, 2010 · 11:39 am

Hijacked!

McCall's 7123

The Boy (aka Hubby, aka Sweetums, aka Pookie, aka Pain In My Butt) wants his shirt by the end of the day. This after barely mentioning the idea of me making him a shirt at all.

So far the fabric is washed and partly ironed and the pattern is traced and hopefully re-sized properly.

Making the blue and/or white version (gathery with a round collar and no doofy panel in the front) in a white crinkle cotton voile. Though, I didn’t realize from the illustrations, the shirt is not a full button-up. I will be making it into one, however. Wish me luck!

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July 6, 2010 · 9:05 am

Progress

Burda 9610 jacket

On Burda 9610.

Have the body and sleeves mostly constructed; just need to add cuffs, attach sleeves, add the waistband, and of course get a bunch of snaps, since I’ve decided to go with snaps. The trickiest part so far was figuring out how to insert the pockets, as the pattern itself

Inside---showing pocket inserts and Hong Kong bindings on seams

doesn’t have any. However, they are in, mostly correctly. I’m using Gigi’s tutorial on Hong Kong seam bindings to finish the inside seams. I’m not as good at it as she is. I think part of my problem is that I don’t cut my bias strips wide enough. Anyway, Hong Kong binding + topstitching means each seam in this jacket (and there are a lot!) is stitched 4 times! Crazy. I found myself trying to adjust the construction process to minimize number of times I had to re-thread the sewing machine. Oh, I also figured out a workaround to increase my machine’s tension so the topstitching thread isn’t (or is less) loopy on the inside. You know how when you’re winding a bobbin the thread goes from the spool around that little doohickey on the top before it goes to the bobbinator? Well, (at least on my machine) that doohickey has a bit of a spring on it for catching the thread and adding some tension. I found that by winding my thread around that thing before threading it through the rest of the machine, I got a LOT more tension. No more

Front side pocket. On examining my RTW jean jacket, these pocket linigns are cut as part of the jacket pieces, folded to the inside. Not a bad idea. Ah, well---next time.

loopiness underneath! Unfortunately, I didn’t think to try this until I was about two-thirds of the way along, so there’s a lot of loopy topstitching. Ah well. Live and learn. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to use the darker (right) side of the fabric or the lighter, shinier (wrong) side. So I used both! Keeping track of which was which was a bit of a pain, though.

Sleeve seams and bindings

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