Tag Archives: finished projects

June 10, 2012 · 7:46 am

Not my best work

20120609-005049.jpg

Deets

Every time, in the last little while, a friend or colleague has a baby, I think that I should make said baby a homemade gift. I’ve even bought several baby patterns with such things in mind. But so far, every time my own slackitude has won out, and I haven’t gotten around to it.

Well, this piece has, perhaps, made it clear to me why not doing so wasn’t such a bad idea.

This is a present for a little boy born last winter who’s technically my husband’s cousin (or is there such a thing as half cousin?). So this is really a lot of firsts for me—first baby sewing, first little boy sewing. Except, peeps, it’s jeans. I’ve made umpteen however many at this point. Oh yeah, first deep cargo pockets. Joy of 21 Wale did a nice cargo-pocket tutorial a while back that I totally would’ve re-read and applied if I’d had a bit more time, organization, or motivation.

Anyway, details.

This is another pattern from the excellent kids’ issue of Patrones magazine Her Selfishness bestowed upon me lo these many moons ago. Previous makes include this vest and these capris for Tyo. Anyway, there aren’t a whole lot of baby patterns in the magazine, but I did like the idea of the little cargo jeans at the back. I did decide to forego the gathered ankle, and as a result opted to square off the rest of the leg, which was drafted to taper. It has some cute details like the cargo-pockets, and a mid-leg horizontal seam that would let me use up some teeny scraps of denim that have been languishing in the not-quite-scrap pile for… well, since I made my first pair of jeans, frankly.

The pattern came in three sizes, 3 months, 9 months, and 18 months. Since the baby is currently about five months and (last I checked) a rather large specimen, I opted for the 9 months.

20120609-005919.jpg

Syo, modeling.

Um, yes, this photo is Syo modeling said jeans. That would be my almost-nine-year-old, wearing the jeans for a nine MONTH old. I mean, there’s ease (and diapers ease) and then there’s ease. The top of the pattern is basically rectangular, relying entirely on the gathered waistband for shape. Considering that they actually fit OK in crotch depth, I’m suspecting there would be plenty of ease even for cloth diapers. (And you’ll have to forgive the crappy late-night flash photos. The fact that it was dark when I finished them should tell you everything you need to know, considering we’re only a few weeks from the longest day of the year.

Er, yeah, they’re a bit roomy. Maybe he’ll get to wear them next summer…

They would’ve been quite fun if I wasn’t on such a tight timeline to get them finished for this weekend. I used two different kinds of denim, plus some grey

Side view

stretch linen for the detailing, and remembered to add some nice touches like flat piping along the side-seams and random patches and flaps here and there. I even managed to attach the snaps on the  cargo pockets without totally mangling them. (I find snaps stressful.) I did a LOT of reinforcing with soft interfacing, in the hopes of avoiding blowing my topstitching, Some of this was useful, some was overkill, and some just caused its own set of problems. A lightweight knit interfacing would’ve been better, but the only nice knit interfacing I have around here is soft but fairly bulky, which I also didn’t want. In hind-sight, I should’ve done the waistband (which is designed as one piece) with a separate facing in the linen. It’s so nice and soft, whereas the denim I used on the waistband is fairly harsh. Though it does soften fairly nicely with wear.

I added studs, but because I didn’t want any metal against sensitive baby (or, as it will be by the time they fit, toddler) skin, I inserted them just in the outer layer of the pocket, before sewing the pockets together. Strictly decorative. I also used a my usual adjustable-buttonhole-elastic in the waistband, rather than doing a stitched-down elastic waistband as the pattern suggested.

All in all, they were fun, I just wish I’d been less rushed—I would’ve been able to enjoy the process more, not to mention taking more time to screw up less (and fix what I screwed up more.) If jeans are all about the precise details, well, these have plenty of detail, not so much precision.

Ah well. They’re done, and gifted, and the mom and I had a nice chat about how she loves the idea of sewing, and the amazingness of Pow-Wow costumes, and geez if I had a nickel for every time someone says to me “I’d love to learn to sew BUT”…

Ah. well. Done. And I can get back to sewing for MEEEEEE.

As soon as I have the energy to do more than stare at a screen, anyway.

29 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

June 1, 2012 · 10:13 am

Follow-up

More Star Wars

You guys rock my world . Your comments on the Star Wars dress have left me in mushy (geeky) heaven all week, even as I’ve had almost no time or read, write, or comment myself this week. Which unfortunately is probably going to be pretty representative of the next few months of my life. Aiee. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. (Incidentally, I wore the dress to work on Monday. Not. One. Single. Comment. Which says something about my workplace…)

After finishing a big exciting project like the Star Wars dress, there’s always a bit of a “what next” feeling. Obviously it’s not possible to top it, at least immediately. So I backed off, and made Tyo another Young Image tank-top.

Except I decided to experiment with some fold-over elastic instead of a self-fabric binding, and, um, the results were not pretty. I gave it to her for a pyjama shirt.

She wore it to school the next day.

Tyo’s new racerback tank (aka boybeater)

Which is an awesome ego-boost, even as I cringe inwardly that people might actually see it. They know I sew at her school. Someone might notice. Anyway, to redeem myself in my own eyes, at least, I immediately made another, with “proper” binding. The photo is the “proper” one. I couldn’t find the crappy one to photograph—which might mean she’s wearing it again. The fabric is a black rib-knit I found at the thrift store; it’s soft and drapes well but has zero recovery, which works okay for a shirt like this—I won’t say well, but okay. Also when I was putting on the bindings (with clear elastic this time) I didn’t always stretch them quite enough, so when I finished one side of the back armscye was stretched out *way* more than the other. And with clear elastic in the binding, there’s no chance of it shrinking down in the wash. So I trimmed that side to match the other, sacrificing grain-straightness in the process. So probably it will twist weirdly when worn. At least the bottom is still on grain.

That’s a funny thing I’ve noticed, sewing for my kids. They have definite standards for what they will and won’t wear (sewing for Syo, in particular, is very hit-or-miss) but when I do get a hit, they a) won’t take it off until I peel it off with a spatula, and b) don’t give a rat’s ass about the stitching, finish, quality, or even attractiveness. Syo’s favourite homemade pieces are some self-drafted bits I couldn’t even bring myself to blog about, including one she made herself that looks like something a caveman would make, if cavemen had access to lycra and sergers. (And, thinking of the amazing Neolithic art out there, I’m probably being offensive to cavemen.)

Syo’s faves: caveman sewing

And they’re both grubby, having been retrieved from the laundry for this photo. Like I said, peeled off with a spatula. Although the print of the one on the left has these weird grey smudges in it that always looks grubby. The one on the right she made pretty much all by herself. There are some bits pieced in over the butt on the one side. Symmetry is optional.

Thrift store “scores”

Anyway, just to round out this post (since there’s not much to show when it comes to simple tank tops I’ve made before) here’s the week’s thrift store gleanings. Some off-white silky stuff that will be good for a lining*, some random odds and ends from a baggie, and one early-80s athletic pattern of questionable redeeming value. What do you think about those generic woven labels? I love the custom labels people make (even though I forget to use mine most of the time, and mine at least don’t hold up to the wash at all well), but these generic ones strike me as a little, hmm, tacky. “Made for baby with love” and “Made with love by Mommy.” I might have to put them in stuff for my husband. That would be kind of awesome, actually.

It’s our anniversary today, by the way. 13 years.  I believe the plan is to “celebrate” with steak and Return of the Jedi. I was hoping for a motorcycle ride, too, but Osiris slept funny last night and now his neck is killing him, which doesn’t work so well with things like shoulder-checking while leaning forward holding on to handlebars. Maybe a walk instead. The weather is too fab to spend the entire day inside working. 🙂

*There was also off-white poly satin and off-white poly chiffon, which I resisted. Methinks someone was planning to make their wedding dress, then bailed.

28 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 27, 2012 · 1:27 pm

Episode IV

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

The dress formerly known as Simplicity 3965, alias the Star Wars Dress.

She is finished (well, mostly. Still need to slipstitch the bottom of the bodice lining) And I am triumphant, mostly. (I also had WAY too much fun with the Lomo-ish filer in Picasa while editing these photos. Sorry.)

Demure.

I am definitely going to chalk this one up as a victory for Project Drop Waist. Bodice has been lengthened, and it fits, I think, pretty darn well. Minor dart issues aside. I will confess, after completion I took the bodice in a smidge at the side-seams. It was pleasantly skimming, but I fear I prefer “hugging.” Eve if it’s not objectively better. /sigh.

Cute!

Boring Construction Bit:

The only problem with sewing with bedsheets is that your fabric is, well, bedsheet. Which doesn’t always have the greatest drape. So I wanted to underline. Digging through stash spat out a couple of pieces of cotton-poly broadcloth that seemed like they would work well while adding a bit more body to my fabric. I wanted to underline the whole thing, and then line the bodice. Once I cut the underlining, I used those pieces to cut out the shell (aka sheet) pieces. The cream broadcloth was just sheer enough to make positioning the motifs (aka Luke & Leia) a breeze, and I’m very glad I didn’t try to cut them out on the fold. I used this tutorial for the pattern-matching on the back; it’s not perfect, (and I may have thrown the back slightly off grain—but not the underlining!) but I’m satisfied. I didn’t attempt pattern matching anywhere else—I would’ve lost too much width on the skirt. And it wasn’t possible to match the side-seams and the back seam.

Pattern matching across the zipper (on a curved seam). Not perfect, but I’m not going to complain.

I used the trick of stitching down the fold of the dart first, to keep the shell and underlining from shifting when sewing the darts, and it worked like a charm. Sadly, I wasn’t able to completely avoid dart-tip poofiness. I’m not quite as panicked about darts as I used to be, but I am still a long way from mastering their subtleties (I’m just happy they usually turn out more-or-less symmetrical these days). I think the fact that the original pattern was designed for a pointier, early-60s bra didn’t help the situation. Anyway, not make-or-break. I did all my marking on the underlining, with my new chalk pencil (in bright fuschia. I am currently convinced that those marks will never come out…), which worked well except for when I tried sharpening it and broke of a big chunk of “lead”. I don’t think it’ll replace my love of my wash-away marker, but it is nice for larger areas, and comes in loads of colours. I also used a tracing-wheel and some of my vintage tracing paper, which I’ve never really gotten comfortable with in the past. But it was really handy for tracing the dart shaping more precisely than I tend to.

That’s a lot of skirt… (The pile of blue fabric above it is the entire remnants of the sheet)

Once I had cut the bodice pieces, I trimmed the rest of the sheet (it had been a fitted sheet, so there were some odd notches from the corners) into a rectangle (rrrrip!) losing a couple of inches to a small tear that I’m ever so glad I noticed, and determined (YAY!) that I would have enough fabric to make the skirt two sheet-widths wide. I got the sheet-widths stitched together, and the underlining as well, and then had a panic that the skirt was going to be insanely full. I mean, I was going for pouffy gathers, but there’s pouffy and then there’s pouffy, you know. I pulled out the original skirt pattern pieces, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that while my skirt was a bit shorter than the original pattern pieces (remembering that my “waist” is a couple of inches lower, too), the total width I had was actually only a few inches wider than the pattern suggested. Not enough to be bothered about in a skirt like this. Win!

Keeping the underlining and lining of the skirt together, smooth, and not wonky over that whole 3m+ length was distinctly nerve-wracking. To continue my couture efforts, I decided to use the 2″ horsehaid braid I found at Fabricland a few weeks back, for the low, low price of $4/m (fortunately 50% off). I considered slipping the horsehair between the underlining and the fashion fabric, but in the end went with stitching it to the fabric and then wrapping  the hem around it. I was going to just link to Gertie’s horsehair hem posts, but checking them over, none is exactly what I did. Though they’re all lovely methods. Obviously I should’ve taken some photos—oopsie. I then did some quick and dirty retro-fitting to stitch part of the rear seam (but not all of it because I didn’t want it stitched for my zipper insertion) so that I could overlap the horsehair braid at the seam. And then I realized I needed to figure out a way to finish the back edge, again only partially. I opted for binding. More retro-fitting. Not my most well-thought-through process (there was quite a bit of that in this project). But it’s all together, now. I hand-stitched the hem in place, catching it to the underlining (mostly), while watching Chronicle with Osiris last night. That was pretty fun.

Zig-zag casing gathering method.

I used the zig-zag-over-supplementary-thread method to gather the top of the skirt. (I originally learned this method with dental floss, but it occurred to me that the dental floss I buy is the super-fancy-expensive slippery stuff, so probably another sturdy thread is more economical; I used some button thread I have). This is my favourite gathering method, far and away, for medium to large amounts of gathering where I need a precise ratio of gathering. I used this clear foot, which I think is meant for inserting invisible zippers, because the grooves were pretty good for holding the thread underneath, and the clearness made it easy to keep track of where the thread was. It’s still not quite as good for this purpose as a cording foot, but I don’t seem to have one of those at this point. Really any zig-zag foot will work, but the cording foot holds the supplementary thread in a little tunnel, not just a groove, so it physically can’t slip out from under the zig-zag.

Another dig through of my vintage zippers turned up a blue invisible zip in the suggested (14″) length (plastic teeth this time). I was a bit surprised how short of a zipper was called for, but then I remembered that the back of this dress is way low. And 14″ is plenty, although the invisible zip doesn’t really like going past the gathered part at the waist. As per usual, I used this method for insertion.

Back view

The one thing I was concerned about, dropping the waist, was how it would affect the proportions of the skirt. Rather than having a short bodice and a long skirt, I now have a long bodice and a shorter skirt. The skirt comes a bit below my usual knee-length, but I was worried that making it any shorter would just look weirdly odd—like a tutu, perhaps. I considered doing some funky golden ratio calculations but in the end got lazy and decided to run with my current length and see. I can’t really lengthen it, after all, and I can always take it up if I need to. Now that I look at the photos, I think it’s all right—I don’t think I would want it any shorter, though. (And yes, I’m wearing the crazy square-dancing crinoline. It’s not really possible to wear this one without the lace showing, since the inner layer hangs lower than the outer layer. So it’s a design feature. 😉

I was considering adding a waist-stay, but then got confused. where do you put a waist-stay in, in a dropped-waist bodice? At the waist seam (down on my hips) or the actual waist? There’s a couple of inches of ease at the hips, so I’m worried a stay there that was snug enough to take the weight of the ruffles would cause a gathered look at the bottom of the bodice. On the other hand, it might make a weird fold at the waist. Hmm.

In hind-sight, piping the edges of the bodice and even the waist with something dark would’ve been a nice touch. I thought about trim going in and didn’t want to because the print was so busy, but I think a solid navy or black piping would’ve anchored the edges. I also didn’t understitch anything, though I should probably do some hand-understitching to keep the white lining from rolling out.

A little more utter photo ridiculousness.

Still, pretty happy. Now where am I going to wear it?

65 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , ,

May 16, 2012 · 8:00 am

Sweet Finale

Y1111

OK, I promise this is the last on this little dress. Once again, pattern Y1111 from Young Image Magazine, from their first issue, Summer 2011.

Snug. (and that’s the zipper side! 🙂 )

I made the size 128, as per Syo’s chest measurement, however I did lose a small amount of width due to taking slightly larger seam-allowances on the skirt gores. I don’t imagine it was more than one or two centimetres around the whole dress, though, so the dress is very close fitting to begin with. We can just barely get it zipped up around Syo.

Unfortunately, my old camera didn’t want to focus on anything more than a foot away.

Which, of course, she thinks is absolutely perfect.

Side view

I also lengthened the skirt by about 4 cm. It now comes to just below her knees. If I had been actually trying to fit it to her, a small swayback adjustment would’ve been in order. Or, y’know, a bit more ease for that bottom.

Front

Hmm

The hem.

Ok, I am now officially completely out of things to say about this dress. Definitely time for a dress for me.

12 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , ,

May 10, 2012 · 9:21 am

Twee Whee Wheedle Wheet

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!

29 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , ,

April 30, 2012 · 7:25 pm

Weekend 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*.

21 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , ,

April 19, 2012 · 8:36 am

A Silkier Slip

A gift slip

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmm.

Detail

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

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

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

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

The shoulder straps

An adjustable strap

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

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

Back loop

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

The Hem

The Good

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

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

Rolling the hem

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

The bad: messy seam area.

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

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

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

Breathe, Tanit. Breathe.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

37 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 17, 2012 · 12:07 pm

A Fluttery Finale

Flutter Sleeve Top

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

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

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

*eyeroll* *headdesk* *facepalm*

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

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

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

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

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

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

30 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,

April 15, 2012 · 8:21 pm

The Closet Monster Lives!

Monster & Maker

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

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

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

The Inspiration Monster

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

Monster Face

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

I am told his name is "Freddy."

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

Back View

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

Pointy fingers.

The monster appears to have been well-received. I have a feeling we will be making more of these in the coming months…

There was a certain amount of goofiness.

*Turns out it was actually a nearly-brand-new shirt she got for Christmas. Oops.

23 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,

April 11, 2012 · 11:56 am

Clover (anti)climax

Grum

It occurs to me that putting “climax” in a post title may not be the wisest decision ever… oh, well.

You remember my red clovers? No? Maybe that’s because they’ve been languishing in dreaded UFO limbo since, oh, January. I don’t do UFOs, peeps. I don’t always like what I make, but I almost always finish it.

Having cleared (or partially cleared) my sewing room of some backlog clutter on Monday, I was feeling inclined to tackle other energy-blocking projects (I even vacuumed the basement carpet, dammit. Of course, then I spread out and cut a bunch more fabric, but that’s beside the point.) So last night after dinner I picked up my Clovers from their sad little heap and set to work.

My main blockage was the zipper. I had settled on a lapped zipper for the final application (why, I don’t know, since I suck at lapped zips), but when stitching it up (after LOTS of hand basting, something I almost never do) I realized that my ends weren’t lining up with the top of the waistband on one side, and I chucked it in a corner put it away in disgust.

So, last night, I pulled the zipper out, examined the waistband and determined that one side was actually too wide, fixed that, and then set about hand-basting everything back in. Peeps, this zip is inserted almost entirely by hand. Probably not a good idea for a load-bearing area, but anyway. It looks mostly nice (a first for me with a lapped zip) except at the very bottom. Aside from the fact that the side of the hip is not a really good place for a lapped zipper—the over-lap seems to want to gape out a bit. The entire thing would’ve been considerably less brain-breaking if I’d made it more like a typical fly, with the waistband not included in the zipper, but that would’ve required a bit of extension of the waistband pattern, which I hadn’t done. So I made it work. The top of the zip has a wide pants-hook, but I couldn’t find a bar for it so I made a thread bar. I don’t really expect that to hold up, but it’s functional for now.

And then I hemmed, and now they’re done.

And, well, I’m… meh.

The problem is, I’m not sure if there’s an actual problem, or if I just don’t like side-zip, no-pocket, non-jeans-style pants. For one thing, I obviously need different underwear with them. 😛

Fit?

The side-seams are still a bit ripply. The waistband wants to sag down  in the front—it’s still a smidge higher than my “natural waistband groove”, despite me lowering it a good inch. I think this contributes to the wrinkling along the hip, not to mention the front-crotch wrinkles. I’d be tempted to take in the hips and thighs a bit more except it’s pretty much impossible to alter that side-zip. Well, without wanting to kill myself.

Hmm.

The calf is more snug than the thighs, which I think is also bothering me. Not a surprise—I have pretty muscular calves, and have run into this issue in storebought skinny pants. Although for some reason my feet and lower legs look tiny in these photos. Maybe it’s the wedges?

Probably I should add belt-loops and wear them with a belt and see if I like them better with the top held firmly in place. I interfaced the waistband with knit interfacing to retain a bit of the stretch, but if I want to wear them sans belt, I think that removing all stretch would’ve been a good idea. At the time I was paranoid about the whole thing being too small. Also it would mitigate the serious plumber’s crack that happens when I bend over.

Short or long?

Currently I’ve hemmed them full length (I added about 5″ to the pattern). I’m tempted to shorten them (though the picture doesn’t show the short look nearly as well as I hoped it would). I like the shorter look, but I feel like that would really limit their use in my wardrobe. I don’t usually go sock-free until the height of summer, and I don’t think the pedal-pusher look works with much but sandals, at least for me.

But am I going to wear them much anyway?

D’oh.

Why didn’t I just make this fabric into jeans? I really want red jeans…

54 Comments

Filed under Sewing

Tagged as , , ,