Cambie
Tasia loves me, this I know
for the postman tells me so…
I thought these weren’t even shipping until next week. When I got a PayPal notification on Friday that my pattern had shipped, I thought it was probably a glitch.
But no—there it was in the mailbox Monday morning.
Now for the hard questions—which view do I make first? And what fabric?
Filed under Sewing
Oh, no—more toile photos!
So, it’s no secret that I have Issues with waistbands that sit at my waist. Above the waist is great, below the waist is fine, but waistbands that sit right at my waist—these are problematic. Especially if there’s going to be any kind of waist emphasis (like a belt), blousing above the waist, or gathering below. I always end up feeling cut in half, emphasizing both the width of my waist (2-3 sizes larger than the rest of me) and the shortness of my upper body.
Unfortunately for me, this describes roughly 90% of the dress patterns out there, and (even worse) a large percentage of the ones I’m dyingtomakerightnowdammit!
Now, I successfully made a dirndl-skirt sundress last summer by adding a dropped waist to a formerly straight-waisted pattern. And, despite being a fairly extreme example of stunt dressing, it was one of my favourite things to wear last summer. But a) this was a princess-seam pattern, and b) I used a shirred back, which allowed me to really fudge the fitting.
So, it appears, the sensible thing to do would be figure out a bodice template—a block, if you will—that I can morph onto these waist-length patterns to drop the waist slightly. Most of the ones I’m concerned with have a simple gathered or pleated skirt, which won’t be much affected by the addition of a few extra inches (and I’d probably be adding inches to the waist anyway).
When I was musing about this the other day (nothing like beating a topic to death 😉 ) I was thinking I would just try adding on to a pattern I already had—Simplicity 3965, say. Lauriana (one of the more fabulous pattern-drafters out there) sagely commented that perhaps it would be less trouble start with a longer bodice, perhaps a hip-length sloper drafted to my own measurements.
Now, obviously she was right, but my (vast and growing) pattern collection is a bit short on such a basic, at least with the length, fit, and dart positioning I wanted. I was, however, reminded of the fact that I had drafted a “fitted dress block” from the book Metric Pattern Cutting for Women’s Wear, by Winnifred Aldritch, a few months ago, which had languished un-tested on my hard-drive (I like to mess around with pattern drafting in Inkscape, usually when I am supposed to be doing something else). Partly because Aldritch was a bit vague, or at least confusing, on the issue of waist-shaping.
Anyway, with Simplicity 3965 giving me an idea of how much waist-shaping was required (at least above the waist), I set out on an odyssey. There was printing; tracing; tissue-fitting (on me and my dubious duct-tape double). Sway-back adjustments were made. I have confronted the horror of the shaped dart.
Self-drafted bodice
All for… this. /sigh.
Well, perfection has not been achieved, but I think I might be getting into the right ball-park. The shape (and breadth) of the rear darts is truly terrifying, but they are at least approaching doing the job (although it looks from the photos that the back is still a smidge tight—overall the bodice is quite comfortable. I’m not quite sure what to make of the side-wrinkles in the front, exccept that perhaps a bit more bust-shaping is in order. Additionally, the bust-dart is still about 1 cm high, and the side-seam falls a bit towards the back. I might moosh a teeny dart out of the front armscye to bring that in (or play with the shoulder slope some more).
Anyway, despite the imperfections (which are considerably more evident in the photos than in the mirror… not sure if that means it’s actually better in real life or worse than I had thought) I figured I had reached a point where I was ready to try using it on another pattern. I.E. Simplicity 3965.
Premature? Possibly, especially since I was thoroughly befuddled how to relate the narrow back dart of Simplicity 3965 to my wide, angled, and oddly-shaped one on the self-drafted bodice. But I had limited time to sew this past weekend and I have fantasies of wearing this dress for May Long (which is next weekend—yeah, probably not going to happen).
Simplicity 3965 (modified)
So I matched up the waistline, and attempted to add the shaping of the self-drafted bodice on to the Simplicity bodice. This worked fairly well for the front, not so well for the back. My self-drafted back piece is very wide, but then a lot of the width is taken in by the dart. The Simplicity bodice back is much narrower, with a correspondingly narrower dart. I can’t help but think that a narrower pattern overall would be preferable, but obviously the swayback alterations didn’t transfer with their full force. Alternatively, letting out the hips a bit more might be helpful. Part of what’s hanging me up is that “high back hip” which I still haven’t really learned to fit.
Also, in this one you can see the lovely sunburn I acquired on Mother’s Day. This is what happens when I sit back and let other people organize the day’s expedition… my mother’s day brunch turned into a two-hour wander on a new segment of riverbank, with nary a squirt of sunscreen to be seen, on the first really summery day we’ve had so far.
I’m hoping that one more muslin will be sufficient—sewing these up is quick, but annoying, and I’m running out of crappy zippers. 🙂
Filed under Sewing
The dregs.
As I arrived for my weekly thrift-store scour, I saw the thing that most delights and alarms a thrifter: competition. A woman was standing over the pattern section (which was bulging), rifling through the patterns, basket beside her.
And peeps, her basket was full. Of patterns.
I checked out the rest of my usual spots—fabric, books, shoes—and wandered back. She was still there, still going through patterns. I hunted vainly through the bedsheets, but she was still there.
Finally, I gave up and went over and wriggled my way in beside her. She was mostly going through the ones already in her basket. I tried hard not to look at her basket, not wanting the pain of knowing what treasures I had just missed out on.
As I was sorting through the remaining patterns, another lady came and edged her way in beside us. This is a first ever, folks. I wasn’t even sure that anyone else *ever* bought the Value Village patterns—I had gotten practically complacent, frankly.
Anyway, despite getting the picked-over remains, I came home with a fairly massive haul. Not a lot of absolute gems, but some fun, quirky ones that I couldn’t pass up. And some more really cute kids’ clothes. The majority of the women’s patterns were in a size 6-8, however, which tempers my enthusiasm a little as that’s a fair bit of grading up. On the other hand, there was a man’s suit pattern (complete with the name of a designer I’ve never heard of), in a size 40 chest, which is my husband’s size—assuming we lived in some alternate universe where he would even remotely consider wearing a 70s-wide-lapel-bell-bottom suit.
I have definitely crossed a perilous threshold, my friends. I am now officially a pattern collector—someone who buys patterns merely to *have* them, even knowing she will likely never make such a pattern (boys suits, eg.) It just has to be the right vintage, the right style.
Well, at least they’re all cheap. And they take up less space than fabric. Now if only I can stay on the right side of the line leading to “pattern hoarder.”
I’m pretty sure she walked away with a basket full of forties and fifties patterns. In factory folds. With a 34″ bust. And probably this one, too.
Filed under Sewing
Twee.
This is a sweet little dress.
A very, very sweet little dress. Too saccharine to have any business anywhere near either of my children, frankly (although Syo will probably bat her eyelashes at you to confuse the issue.)
Once again, this is Young Image Magazine pattern Y1111, from their inaugural issue. My first installation of wittering on the dress is here.
Looking at the photos and the line drawing, one has the impression of a rather complicated dress, but there are actually only four pattern pieces: front bodice, back bodice, skirt panel (gore, if you prefer), and front overlay. And a few instructions for making the ruffle and ties for the shoulders and the drawstring, not that I actually paid attention to them. I will confess, once I had figured out basic things like how many of the skirt pieces needed to be cut out (five pairs, by the way) and where to put the zipper, I didn’t look back at the instructions. I did improvise a fifth piece, for the skirt lining, but in hindsight I could’ve just used the front overlay piece and fudged a normal hem curve. I realized this right after I finished laboriously tracing the skirt panel five times to get a five-gore width. (Then I realized I only needed a two-and-a-half-gore-width if I cut it on the fold. *headdesk*)
As with Burda, you do need to add seam allowances to the patterns. I know some brave seamstresses who just eyeball these, or use little gizmos like the seam-measurers; I am not so brave, and add them on the tissue.
Bodice chevrons (back view)
Being the brilliant thing that I am, I decided I was going to try and do chevron stripes on the bodice. Not being completely idiotic, I decided I would underline the bias bodice pieces with some leftover cotton (lawn? batiste?) cut on grain. This was a good idea since by the time I had the chevroned seams (mostly) matched and stitched the bias pieces, they weren’t exactly the same size and shape they started out as. Seersucker’s kinda shifty at the best of times, and my relationship with precision is, well, hit and miss.
I realized after stitching up the skirt panels, that I’d had my needle set in the left-most position, so each of those many seam allowances (it’s essentially a 10-gore skirt) was just a smidge wider than it should’ve been. Oops. So I did have to shave a smidgeon off the bodice. I cut the size 128, as I was told my husband’s little cousin is a “skinny 8” and that was the size which corresponded with Syo’s bust measurement. Of course, Syo is on the shrimpy side for her age, too, but mostly that’s in height—she’s fairly sturdy and has my broad shoulders. Here’s hoping it fits. If not—I’m sure there’s a niece somewhere it’ll fit. I also added about 4 cm to the length, just at the hem of the skirt.
Can you spot the zipper? (PS the bodice seam is actually matched. I gave up on the chevrons, however. Also the difference in angle/grain between the skirt overlay and the gores at the side seem preclude stripe-matching on the skirt)
The pattern calls for a side-zip, so I pulled out one of my vintage invisible zippers, since I am officially “off” regular zippers after attempting one in the blue tunic. This was my first time installing a metal invisible zipper, and it was interesting. I remembered to stabilize the fabric with a little strip of fusible interfacing before stitching the zipper in, and I’m very glad I did because I think it would’ve driven me nuts. As it is, there’s a bit of poof around it, but not too bad. Anyway. I use Sherry’s method and install it with a regular zipper foot. In some ways this was easier with a metal zip—it’s easier to see the teeth, and they feel a bit sturdier so I was less paranoid about wrecking it. On the other hand, I was terrified I was going to needle down on one of the teeth and have sharp flying metal flying at my eye. It took me a couple of passes to get the feel for how far back to rotate the teeth, and I did nearly sew my fingers a couple of times, but in the end it worked really well, and I even managed to figure out the trick of sewing the lining on by machine this time.
There’s the zipper! 🙂
The combination of a drawstring and a side zip is, um, not intuitive. Basically, I ended up with the drawstring in two parts, both stitched to the zipper tape (if I’d been a little more together they would’ve been attached before I put in the zipper, but anyway)—a short one which goes from the side to the CF opening, and a long one which goes from the side, around the back, to the other CF. Hopefully this’ll work out—it’s mostly decorative anyway.
Front notch with drawstring.
The pattern (OK, the photos from the magazine, again, didn’t look at the instructions) has you leave a gap in the stitching at the CF notch for the drawstrings to emerge. This is easy, but there’s no real good way to finish the edges, and I’m kind of convinced that after a few wearings there’s going to be threads poking out like crazy, barring some hand-stitching. I considered putting a tiny little buttonhole in the front on either side of the notch, but when the chips came down I took the easy route. An eyelet would be cool, too, if you made a punk-y version of the dress. Which would be really fun, actually. Wouldn’t it be awesome made out of old metal-band T-shirts, with exposed construction and some scraps of black lace and studs?
… ANYWAY.
I did the topstitching around the drawstring casing last. It was a little nerve-wracking making sure that I didn’t stitch down the drawstring itself, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared. I did hold the fabric very taut, since I was stitching three layers at that point, the top one of which was on the bias, and I was terrified the fabric was going to move and ripple. It did a bit, but not too much, at least on the outside (the inside, as you can see in the zipper shot above, isn’t lovely, but it’s done so I’m not going to sweat it.
I was going to wait until I could try and shove Syo into the dress to get some modeled shots before posting, but a) mysteriously she didn’t want to get up extra-early for a photo-shoot in the snow (yes, snow) before breakfast and b) I’m not 100% convinced it’s actually going to fit her. Although given that she likes everything skin-tight these days, that might be right up her alley.
Coming soon: more bodice fun!
Filed under Sewing
Peace out, dude.
I tend to use “muslin”, because that’s what the Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing uses and that was my first sewing text, but I really do prefer “toile”. It’s shorter, for one thing, and doesn’t sound like I’m macerating someone’s religion in the pursuit of better fitting clothes.
Anyway, I made up a quick toile for the bodice of Simplicity 3965. I have decided I need to get my butt moving on this project so I can have it done before the Cambie dress pattern comes out later this month, because when that happens it is totally going to be All Cambie All The Time. Well, probably not, but I will wish it was. And, since I had the excellent example of Tasia’s muslin, I was actually good and thread-traced all my seam allowances and darts and EVERYTHING!
Ok, so, I got a bit ahead of myself, there.
To start with, the pattern ElleC sent me is an old-school size 12, that is for a 32″ bust and 25″ waist. The first is slightly smaller than mine (OK, let’s face it, since this past Christmas it’s a full 2″ smaller, 3″ if I want to wear a bra, which I generally do with wovens.) Having compared the pattern pieces to my body, it actually seemed like the length was going to be all right, and a little bit of pattern measuring suggested that there might almost be enough ease for the bust. The waist, of course, was laughable. Hilarious, really. “Vintage” figure, I do not have. Snerk.
So for the muslin, I added 1 cm to the side-seams of each piece, for a total increase around the body of 4 cm (just under 2″). And then I cut out and stitched up with, as mentioned above, traced seam-lines and everything.
I took proper fitting photos but the combination of a weird camera angle, bad light, and the total lack of makeup and hair makes me unwilling to post the rest of them, sorry. Only the goofy one was entertaining enough to make up for the weird angle, and even then you’re not getting the face. So you’ll have to take me on my word that the fit seemed pretty good overall. The bust was just about perfect, darts pointed where they should, the shoulders etc. look good, but the waist obviously needs a bit more (more) room. At least if I want to, y’know, eat or breathe or anything like that.A small swayback adjustment (raising the rear waist seam in the middle by about 1 cm) will be in order, and a couple more cm ease at the waist, and I think I’ll call it good. Which means I’ve made almost none of my usual adjustments to this pattern. Interesting. (I’ll note that Tasia had to lengthen the waist on hers by a good inch.)
Of course, now I have to face the next stage—the waistline. As I’ve said before, I have a short waist and rectangular figure, and something about this combination tends to make gathered, dirndl-type skirts that begin right at the waist, well, a bad idea. Dropping the waist-seam a few inches gives me the look of a longer body and puts the added bulk of the gathers at my hips—which can always use a boost—rather than at my waist, which doesn’t need any added bulk ever, thanks.
However, for a fitted bodice like this, that also requires a lot more work. For the polkadot sundress, I kind of freehanded the front and fudged the back with a shirred panel. I would have to be a lot more precise for this project. Figuring out the hip curve. Fitting the bottom half of my swayback (without a waist seam). How to continue the shaping of the front darts.
Waistline Placement
Part of me is saying “go for it!”—if I figure this out, I’ll have a basic fitted (albeit sleeveless) bodice I can use to adapt the zillions of waist-seamed dresses that are flooding my fantasy sewing these days. Part of me is saying “Give the gathered-waist look another try. You never know, it might be ok this time. Maybe the problem’s mostly in your head. Everyone else likes those gathered skirts!” On the other hand, looking at my little croquis there (which I traced right off the image at the beginning of the post) I know which one I prefer…
Filed under Sewing
My husband’s aunt (who is only a few years older than him) just invited us down for her daughter’s birthday (her daughter, my husband’s cousin, is Syo’s age.) Since they live quite a bit closer than the rest of the family, and we are always saying we’ll come down and then failing to, I was excited. I know she sews a little bit (sock monkeys have been mentioned), so I asked if a home-made gift would be welcome.
On being assured that it was, and getting a rough (very rough) estimate of the daughter’s size, I pulled out my two summer Young Image magazines and began leafing through.
After a fair bit of angsting, I decided on this pattern, from the original (2011) summer issue. Which is not only really cute, but has ties (adjustable) and a drawstring through the top (adjustable) and a raised “waist” so her actual body dimensions won’t matter so much.
Young Image Sundress
Fabric selection was actually easy-peasy. I found this seersucker in the clearance at Fabricland ages and ages ago, and picked up 3m (I think it was $1.50/m) with the express intention of making dresses for little girls. Unfortunately it didn’t seem quite right for *my* little girls, and I hadn’t gotten around to making something for my little nieces with it. But it seemed perfect for this gift project. (Yes, for those of you paying attention, this is the same fabric as I suggested for my Fantasy Pyjamas. Don’t worry, there’s plenty left…)
Sparkle seersucker
Anyway, the other night I managed to trace of the pattern, and yesterday, as I muzzily clawed my way back towards “normal” functioning, I finished cutting out the fabric and started assembling. I didn’t get ridiculously far, but I did manage to construct front and back skirt panels, some shoulder-ties, and some ruffle trim for the front overlay.
Skirt front
That’s an overlay on the front skirt, by the way; the pattern pieces for the skirt itself are identical front and back. I didn’t realize that until I actually started tracing out the pattern. It makes the construction much simpler.
Next confession: after figuring out how many times the skirt-pattern-piece had to be cut out (five pairs, for 10 panels, as it turned out) I haven’t even glanced at the instructions.
The Dread Ruffler
I did, however, do battle once again with my rolled-hem foot to finish the edge of the overlay and the edges of the ruffling strip. It was almost disappointingly well-behaved after the bias silky polyester. Not having much in the way of seams to go over certainly helped…
Feeling cocky at my triumph, I decided to tackle using the ruffler foot to gather my finished strip. And not just any ruffler foot, no, the ruffler for the Domestic Special*, far and away the most terrifying of my sewing machines. Actually, the machine works perfectly well, I just keep trying to use the more exotic attachments it came with, with decidedly mixed results. Which really isn’t the machine’s fault. The main thing with the ruffler is to remember to lower the presser foot before you start stitching. You can’t actually tell the difference, visually, because the foot is so bulky and the fabric feeds through it rather than under it, so it’s easy to forget, and disaster will ensue.
I normally reserve ruffler feet for things where I need vast quantities of ruffling of indeterminate gather ratio. This length was decidedly intermediate, although the consistent, fixed gather-ratio is nice for a trim. I wouldn’t say that in this case it was any great time-saver, since I had to make several samples to figure out what my gather-ratio was and which setting was increasing vs. decreasing it. But, it was fun anyway, and the needle did not shimmy out of position, nor did it strike the edge of the throat plate and shatter, which is what typically happens when I use the ruffler on my Janome. Of course, sewing the ruffled strip down was a whole ‘nother continent of annoying, but that’s certainly not the ruffler’s fault (after all, it’s perfectly possible to ruffle and stitch-down in one pass, if I had the guts to attempt it.)
Bias-cut bodice and chalk pencil
For the bodice, I tried cutting out on the diagonal to make chevroned stripes (the lining and underlining are on the straight grain). We’ll see how that turns out. The stripe-matching on the skirt sections is pretty much a dog’s breakfast, but I was much more meticulous about the bodice. I hope.
Also, Fabricland’s current 50% off sale on notions persuaded me to pick up this nifty, if rather expensive, Dritz chalk-pencil gadget. I’m always looking for something that will make marks efficiently and accurately. So far it seems pretty decent—not as accurate as the wash-away marker, but a little easier to lay down in large segments (like when tracing a pattern piece). A lot will depend on my ability to keep from losing it, or shattering the chalk refills.
All right. Now, much as I’d like to go down and sort out the rest of this little dress, my house needs to be rescued from three days of illness-related neglect. Ouch!
*Mostly because the Domestic and Janome are the two machines set up right now and and I hate using the ruffler on my Janome—something about the lighter weight of the modern machine just lends itself to vibrating the needle loose or jamming and breaking a needle.
Filed under Sewing
Latest pattern binge
Value Village (Your Thrift Department Store!)’s pattern section was absolutely stuffed this week (double the size it was last week) and what it was stuffed with was Vogue patterns.
Unfortunately, it was stuffed with 80s Professional Woman Power Dressing Office And Evening Chic Vogue patterns. Even for $0.49/apiece, I couldn’t justify more than a couple. And, some more kids’ patterns. It’s an addiction, I tell you, because I know that my kids won’t wear most of these.
Because I’ve been trying to clean up my basement (rather than sewing) in the evenings this week, and thus have nothing to write about, I’m going to witter on about the patterns a bit more. They’re not really deserving of it, but I fee like it.
Mccall’s 6159
I’m developing a soft-spot for these McCall’s “Carefree” patterns almost as big as my 70s Simplicity weakness. Although I think in this case it’s mostly for the charming illustration. I like versions A and B, though I never actually wear vests so it’s probably not a really smart purchase.
McCall’s6521
Speaking of McCall’s Carefree. This one is a Young Junior/Teen pattern, size 7-8, which is for someone with a 29″ bust and 32″ hips. Another pattern smack in between Tyo’s size and mine. What is it about those 70s athletic shorts with the contrast binding that absolutely undoes me?
70s athletic shorts
Oh, yeah. This probably explains it. The photo is from about 1983, but the clothes were probably pure 70s hand-me-downs. Obviously my love for short shorts, kneehigh socks, and the colour red was established early.
Vogue 7214
I don’t know that I like any of the individual elements in this pattern especially, but something about the whole look just evokes early 20s to me—skirt length, boxy jacket, cloche hat. 80s style is so hideously distinctive, it’s often easy to overlook how much it drew on past eras…
Vogue 7605
Yuck on the jacket and the pleated skirt (although note the boxy 20s silhouette again), but I really love the tucked cami. Of ocurse, it’s basically some lightly-shaped rectangles, but y’know. Fifty cents. Vogue.
Vogue 7829
This is probably the crowning glory of the “score”—great full-skirted, princess seamed coat. Wait, where have we seen that before?
Yeah, yeah, bite me.
On the upside, the Burda Magazine issue I won on Alexandra Mason’s blog a few weeks back finally arrived! It’s the October 2010 issue, which has at least two patterns that jabbed me in the eye saying “make me make me makeme” when they showed up on Burdastyle.
This cool swing-jacket type thing
and this fitted-bodice, gathered skirted dress.
Oh, and Tasia just released the new Sewaholic Pattern, Cambie, a gorgeous, sweetheart-neckline, fitted-bodice, full-skirted dress.
Which brings the tally of patterns in this style I want to make up to, like, five. Or is it seven? And you can read up here on my difficulties with pulling off this style in the first place…
Usually I’m pretty good about sewing up cake rather than frosting, but right now the frosting part of my brain seems to be jonesing hard. Ah, well, I guess that’s what Fantasy Sewing is for…
I’m trying to read blogs but even that is almost too much work, never mind commenting. Argh.
Filed under Sewing
The Pink Dress
It’s Pink Week over at the Sew Weekly. Er, that is, the theme is Tickled Pink. Now, I’m not a Sew Weekly participant/contributor. I do occasionally enjoy sewing along when a theme happens to coincide with something in my mental queue, but I’m rarely in touch enough to figure out what theme is when, except as other bloggers happen to mention it. And, obviously, I’m not actually sewing along this time.
Pink Stuff
But this fabric landed in my stash the other week, and while I doubt I’ll sew it up any time soon (barring a sudden onslaught of cocktail parties), it’s just screaming to be made into the ultimate little pink dress. The colour in real life is a pale baby pink, not quite what either image is showing, but maybe closer to the top one. It’s the oddest embroidered poly satin; it’s like it’s backed with a thin knit web that gives the embroidery an almost quilted look from (what I presume is) the right side. The embroidery pattern is paisley. I love paisley. This is yet another example of how I go nuts for texture.
Bodice A
I’m not quite sure what pattern in stash might be suitable for adapting into this. The bodice of view A from Simplicity 5549 might work, but the skirt is too A-line. The skirt from 6750 has more of the right shape, but has more seams than I think I want.
New Look 6750
Or maybe I could adapt the Collette Handbook Pastille Pattern to a sundress-type thing. Hmm.
The rear flounce and little collar-thingy wouldn’t be too difficult to add. I love the look of those rear flouncies, and also it might prevent me from totally destroying the cute pegged skirt when I forget myself and start taking stairs two at a time. Although I’m doubtful I’d have enough fabric to make it from the same fabric. Pink chiffon might be in order.
*shudder*
My drawing kind of implies that the waist slants up a bit in the front, going from true waist at the back to a touch of an empire line in front. It looks cute in the drawing—not sure how that would work in real life.
Thanks for bearing with me on the fantasy sewing. What are you fantasizing about today?
Filed under Sewing
What to do on a Sunday evening to save your weekend from complete non-productivity
I was really hoping to get the blue tunic finished this past weekend. However, after thoroughly botching the zipper insertion*, I decided to take a break from annoying polyester crepe and take a stab at using up the remainder of the Pink Suit fabric, which has been lurking around the basement for the last few months.
ETA: Emergency Clarification: this project was for Syo, the eight-almost-nine-year-old. This is her in the next photo; I did not miraculously grow my hair ten inches, nor did I shrink two and a half feet. You may now return to your regularly scheduled blog-reading.
Back view
Diving through stash, I also located the bag of lace that came from my Grandma’s stash, presumably dating back to the days when she used to make us underwear for Christmas. I picked this bit of stretch lace, enough to do the cuffs of a pair of leggings and a single line across the front of the matching leotard. I thought it would be a nice break from All Pink All The Time.
A super-simple leotard
Frankly, I was a little surprised when Syo got up this morning and eagerly put the leggings on. I was not sure that pinkpinkpink was going to be a popular colour. And the fabric has a bit more stretch in it than the last pair of leggings I made her, so they’re a bit loose, even after I took in the inseam a bit.
Lace top-stitched down with a zig-zag
I was pretty stoked when I came upstairs from finishing the set last night and realized my husband was just finishing the episode of Breakout Kings he’d started when I went down to sew. Had I really cut & stitched all this in under an hour?
… turns out it was the extra-long season finale.
Edges: clear elastic stitched on with triple zig-zag and then topstitched under with the "athletic" stitch.
But still, two hours (minus commercials, because he records and skips through those) for the set. Not too shabby.
Front
The pattern is, again, Kwik Sew 1670, in a size 8, which is just a little big for Syo (who will be turning nine in two months). It includes both the leotard and slightly cropped leggings. This time I disregarded the lengths Kwik Sew suggests for the elastic on the leotard and sewed it in straight rather than in the round, putting a wee bit of tension into it but not enough to ripple the fabric. And I quite like how it turned out. It does involve a bit more thought in terms of construction order—sew crotch; elasticate leg openings; sew side-seams; elasticate arm openings; sew one shoulder; elasticate neck opening; sew second shoulder; turn all elasticated edges under and topstitch in the round. I *really* like that this got me both the ease of putting in elastic flat and the nice finish of topstitching in the round. As you can see I topstitched with my “athletic” stitch, rather than the triple zig-zag. It’s a bit of a different look; not sure if I like it any better, though.
Testing
Now I really need to make something for Tyo before she notices that Syo’s gotten two (three) things in a row…
Or, y’know, finish the blue tunic.
*Funny story. I wasn’t actually going to *do* a zipper insertion, except then there was a nice dress-length zipper in the proper shade of blue in the package from ElleC, so I thought it was karma and figured I’d throw it in. Bad idea. Bad, bad Karma. Either that or ElleC is sending me cursed zippers, which I might not put past her, but I think the culprit in this case is the *really annoying fabric*.
Filed under Sewing
But there was a problem.
Erm.
I hear it’s supposed to rain tomorrow…
Filed under Sewing
Sewing is what I do when I'm cheating on all my other hobbies...
Tanit-Isis Sews 