Tag Archives: finished projects

September 24, 2011 · 7:53 pm

Not an impressive day

Expectation, I suppose, is the problem.

I started today with great expectations. The hubs was working (poor him) so all I had to do was get the house recovered from its weekday-chaos state and then I could sew. The kids had friends over all day, which contributes somewhat to the chaos but a lot more to the “me being left alone”, so everything was great. I had cut and started sewing up the muslin for hubs’ frock/Matrix coat yesterday, so I finished that up pretty quickly.

And then, I was at a loss.

I tend to sew with a bit of a one-track mind—start project, finish project, next project. I don’t multitask well at the best of times. And usually this works fairly well. But my brain was oozing COAT, and I couldn’t do any more on the coat until hubs came home and deigned to try it on—which could take days.

Fingers twitching, I moved to another project occupying the sewing table, a shirred-bodice dress for Syo using up the last of the fabric from my niece’s Mini-Minnie dress. A little more mindless than I was looking for, but not as exhausting as pulling out, say, a blazer pattern and starting a muslin for me.

Enjoy this picture. This is as good as it gets.

Unfortunately, it was finished in fairly short order.

Flailing, I pulled out fabrics and put them down. Dug through the scrap bin. Hunted for elastics, considering making undies. Eventually pulled out my knit-tee sloper and started to mess around. I’d like to make a cowl-dress like Oona’s. I even have some gorgous red jersey. Oona used Ichigogirl’s cowl-dress pattern, which I’ve made before as a shirt and found a bit too deep-necked for me. I wanted something with a wider, shallower drape. So I traced out my sloper and played around with slashing and spreading.

Cowl neck

I am thinking that slashing and spreading is a REALLY BAD method of getting a cowl that drapes the way you want. I would be better off draping the cowl part on the dummy and somehow merging that with my sloper. Or something. Because I keep coming up with some pretty “meh” cowls… and when I do knock it out of the ballpark, it’s pretty darn accidental.

It’s not awful, but it’s not quite what I was going for, either.

Raglan sleeve (with bust gather)

Determined to salvage something from this particular fabric, I pulled out the raglan-sleeve top. Boring, but dependable, and despite the insanely good weather (high of 29C today!!!!) I will be wanting long sleeves very much, very soon. In this fabric, there was plenty of stretch to experiment with bust-gathering.

Back view

I think it will be OK after I take a couple of inches off each side. This is the same pattern a the Where’s Waldo shirt, of course, but that fabric had very little stretch, while this stuff grows while you look at it.

And then the hubs got home and it was time to make pizza (why did I decide to use the oven on an actual hot day?)

Shoes make everything better?

At least I found some cute shoes at the thrift store yesterday (a small consolation considering the entire pattern section has been purged. There wasn’t any good fabric, either.)

I guess three pretty-much-finished objects is pretty good for one day (even if they’re all ridiculously simple pieces). I guess I was expecting to have something I was excited about, though.

Those darned expectations…

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September 18, 2011 · 4:11 pm

Yawn…

Jeans

Jeans are done.

They’re fine.

The Back

Buttonhole FAIL.

There was the requisite “OMFG how the HECK are these ever going to fit?” moment. There was the usual buttonhole drama (Featherweight and vintage buttonholer were not up to the task, although they might have done better had I remembered to put the presser foot down). There was the “crap, I think I cut these belt-loops too short” moment, followed by the “Wow, those belt-loops are way too big” moment.

Side view

There’s always a bit of drama involved in attaching the waistband on stretch denim jeans. OK, there’s always a bit of drama when I do it, anyway. This is because the jeans denim stretches, the heavily-interfaced waistband doesn’t, and how the HECK is this supposed to work? (Incidentally, if you look at low-rise RTW stretch jeans, often the main jeans denim is stretched to fit the waistband. This looks funny and square on the hanger, but just fine once they’re on the body). One of these days I’ll finish killing one of my precious pairs of Buffalo Jeans and autopsy the waistband to find out what, if anything, they put in there, because it sure works better than anything I’ve tried so far.

Waistband, opened up to show interfacing, before being attached.

Sometimes I sew waistband and jeans together flat. Sometimes I stretch the jeans denim just a little bit. I did that today, and it worked out. Sewing them together flat works better if you haven’t interfaced the waistband as much as I did  this time (but then you end up with a flabby waistband). Observations of my favourite RTW pairs suggest that when the regular denim stretches 50%, the waistband stretches only about 10%. Possibly dark and necromantic powers are involved.

Waistband with bound edge, before being attached

I used the bind-the-inside-waistband method this time. It’s simple and much less futzy than slip-stitching down the inside or, worst, trying to topstitch it in place from the outside.

Pocket and back belt-loop

Although I loved using the Featherweight for my topstitching, I’m thinking with thread like this (which my Janome didn’t object to… probably helps that she’s freshly serviced, though) I should use a stretch stitch from the Janome for the pocket embroidery. I keep hearing threads go “snap” back there, plus I think it would make a smoother silhouette if the stitches were stretchier.

The finished front: button, bar-tack, belt loops, and rivets.

I think I actually managed to put the button in the right place so the fly doesn’t try to gape open. I actually saw a gizmo a little while back being sold (I think in a gas-station) that would extend your jeans waistband—basically a loop that buttons to your buttonhole—and, having been pondering flies that lie smooth and zippers staying up, stared at it in amazement. It would never work. The fly would have to stay open.

Well, I know some people do this when they’re pregnant (hair elastics work well, I’m told… I was not that ingenious and just wore overalls). This requires a long top to cover it, though. The gizmo made no mention of the long top. Maybe it was assumed.

Now, the four-million-dollar question: should I try my hand at distressing them? I’m getting a little bored of plain dark-wash, but on the other hand am I brave enough to take bleach and sandpaper and pumice to my brand new jeans?

In other news…

I got a birthday present! Heather of Sewing on Pins made up my birthday pattern as a top! Yay, happy dance. (And she didn’t hate it, even though she thought she would! Yay!) (Incidentally, while I naturally want you all to go make up a version RIGHT NOW, when it’s not your style/season/you have something better to do you don’t actually have to.)

Anyway, have a hedgehog! And a great week. 🙂

Superfluous hedgehog.

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September 9, 2011 · 1:21 pm

The Where’s Waldo Shirt

Where's Waldo? Shirt

Since it appears I can’t escape my clothing’s cartoon references, I guess I’ll embrace it. I am thus proud to dub this the “Where’s Waldo” shirt.

This is one of those fabrics I eyed at Fabricland for quite a while. I thought I liked it, but wasn’t quite sure. Eventually it made its way to the clearance section, and I picked up two metres of each colour—blue and red stripes—for whatever ridiculously low price it was going for.

And I’m glad I did, although I’m also glad I didn’t pay more.

Where's Waldo in the back yard?

This is one of those terribly annoying knits that rolls like crazy. It also doesn’t have much stretch, so it’s fairly easy to cut and sew (aside from the dreaded rolling.

I used some of the blue to make an ill-fated attempt at a cowl-neck top last spring. The cowl was a disaster—this knit hasn’t got the drape—but I really liked the way the rest of the shirt fit, and the “feel”, if you will.  So it was only a matter of time before it became other long-sleeved knit tees.

Where's Waldo back

This shirt was also inspired by this Burdastyle pattern from ages back. There are some cute versions on Burdastyle, too. But why would I pay five bucks to download a pattern when I have Lekala 5672 for free?  Of course, it doesn’t have the seaming, I (again) skipped the gathering on the front, and the neckline, at least in this fabric, is not quite the signature Burda plunge. But it has stripes and the wide raglan neckline, right?

Fun in the Sun

The fit of knits varies massively depending on the knit itself. This same pattern can be dreadfully loose or scandalously tight depending on the fabric. This is a “tight fitting” fabric, so the armpits ride a little high. That’s all right—better than saggy, which is how my first take on this pattern turned out. I could probably narrow the arms a little bit towards the wrists, but we’ll see.

I decided to go easy on myself and use the self-rolling properties of the fabric as a design feature on the sleeves and hem. For the neckline, I stitched on some clear elastic and turned under twice, stitching with a stretch straight-stitch. I was tempted to let the neckline roll, too, but decided against it. Just barely. I did screw up and keep on turning under past where I should have, so there’s a portion that’s turned under three times and a bit of a kink at the end of it, but picking out the stretch stitch was doing more damage to the fabric than the thread so I am leaving it.

I couldn’t quite resist the obvious combination with the Sailor Shorts for the photos, sorry. I’m sad to say that these shorts haven’t gotten much (any) wear this summer. Partly because these days I only wear shorts for beach-bumming and creek-walking, but mostly because of the fit. The rise is a little high for my taste, and only made higher by the fact that I’ve been a little, ah, chubby most of the summer. It’s only about 5-10 lbs, but my physiology puts it  right around my middle, exactly where you don’t want it from a health perspective, and exactly where the shorts waistband falls. Urk.* Anyway, I’ll probably hang onto the shorts through next summer and see if I’m any more into them, but I have a feeling they’re not going to become faves. Too bad, because it really is a cute design.

It was really nice to whip something up quickly. This top took less than an hour, and at least ten minutes of that was finding the pattern. I REALLY need to organize my patterns better. I love it when I can throw together a knit top faster than it would take to shop for it. Plus a store-bought one wouldn’t have long, scrunchy sleeves.

*Incidentally, I try not to complain much about my body on the blog. It’s a pretty good body even if the tummy isn’t what she was a few years ago.  But I’m not one of those people whose weight fluctuates a lot, and aside from childbearing I’ve been mostly around my preferred weight all my adult life. The excursions from this ALWAYS coincide with periods where my usual minimally-healthy lifestyle tips over into chips-and-lazing-around. This summer definitely qualifies. Now that the school routine is back on, I will hopefully slip back to where I should be. Provided I can break this chocolate-bar habit.

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September 7, 2011 · 10:16 pm

Happy Birthday to me…

Grecian Sundress---Knee-Length Version

I live in a tree
I look like a…

Hmm, never mind that.

Grecian Sundress Front

So, ehm, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is I have a new dress! The bad news is I underestimated the time it would take me to get the pattern graded—or rather, I significantly underestimated the amount of time I would spend this past weekend traipsing along the creekbed taking photographs of the enormous (insert sarcasm font) fish my family are catching. Given how rare weather like this up here, especially this late in the season, I’m not even going to apologize for it. But anyway.

So, at this exact moment the pattern is still only available in Tanit-size, which is roughly a Burda size 36 or a Big 4 size 10/12. The good news is that this style is REALLY forgiving. There’s plenty of ease, you can adjust the length of the shoulders by adjusting your gathers, and adjust for various bust sizes by altering where you start your shirring.

Either way, you can now find the pattern:

Grecian Sundress Instructions

Grecian Sundress Pattern—US Letter version

Grecian Sundress Pattern—A4 version

And I WILL get it graded, really, really soon.

Grecian Sundress Back

So, what’s there to say about this version of the dress?

The fabric is a print I’ve been eyeing at Fabricland for ages now, but it finally made itself through the marked-down section to the final clearance, which like most things was 50% off this past weekend, so for $2/m I finally bit. It’s a really nice weight for this pattern. I’m not 100% sure the crinkled look was intentional, but I liked it and it also works well with this pattern, so I didn’t go too crazy with the iron. I did do some ironing-down of the pleats, and when I wash it I may even try giving it the  full-out broomstick-skirt treatment, which I think would look fun.

I had been planning on another maxi (gee, surprise?) but it turned out that 3m of 150 cm-wide fabric (all that was left on the bolt) is not enough for the maxi length of this dress. Be warned. I could have made it about tea-length, but decided to go with my just-above-knee cutting line for demonstration purposes. And, y’know, it’s a length I like. I’ve also included a tunic-length cutting line as I feel like this would make an interesting tunic. I’ll get around to that one of these days…

Shirring: cute, not so straight

Incidentally, in the instructions I suggest that you use an elastic tied under the bust to mark the location of your top line of shirring. This way you get it in the exact right place, and it’ll look straight when it’s on you. I did NOT do it this way, just marked the line from the pattern and shirred away, and as a result my shirring does not run in a straight line around my body. Lean from my mistakes! 😉

I feel cute.

This version doesn’t have quite the stepped-out-of-a-marble-sculpture elegance of my first version, but I like it, and it feels light and summery and casual, perfect for throwing on to a barbecue (which is what I did today) or even pulling over a bathing suit at the beach. Which means I’ll get exactly three wears out of it before the weather turns, but hey.

It probably SHOULD have a slip or at least a lining in the lower section (maybe attached at the start of the shirring). Partly because the fabric’s a wee bit sheer (and I don’t think this design would work well with a heavy fabric anyway—too much bulk in the gathered shoulders) and partly because it catches on my butt like nobody’s business. You have no idea how many rear shots it took to get one that isn’t hung up on my backside. Mind you, my swayback doesn’t help.

I had meant to hunt down links to some tutorials on shirring and maybe a narrow hem, but it’s late and I want to get this post up tonight, so I’ll do that in the future (or post your own favourite link in the comments 😉 )

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September 4, 2011 · 2:22 pm

The Last Gasp of Summer Dress (part IV!)

Lonsdale Maxi---Finished

She is finished.

And I must be out of practice taking photos, because I’m having a hard time getting good ones, but these will have to suffice.

So, thoughts…

I don’t regret the length (2″!) I took out of the bodice, although in hindsight I could’ve taken out less and just shortened the straps more. It’s comfortable as it is, though, and the bottom of the waistband sits right on my (ridiculously high) natural waist.

There’s not much more to say about the construction (check out other posts here). Tasia’s instructions are lovely and simple; her sewalong, on the other hand, gives you the super-couture version, and I really like some of the tips she includes like staying the upper edge of the bodice.

Inner waistband, slipstitched down at bottom.

The bodice seams are all enclosed (yay!). For the skirt, I added a light cotton lining, and used French seams for the sideseams and Hong Kong binding for the front and back seams. I bound the CF seam on the skirt before stitching. This was a Bad Idea. For one thing, I hate trying to stitch evenly along already-finished edges. Even if they’re just serged, the edges always try to scoot so they don’t lie directly overtop of each other (my tendency to use pins as little as possible may be a factor here, too), and it was way worse with the binding. For another thing, after carefully stitching and trimming, I realized I managed to put the HK binding on backwards, so the un-finished edge is visible on the inside. *headdesk*

CF seam with backwards binding

After I had the entire dress constructed except for the back seam, I did a fairly thorough pin-fit to figure out where I wanted the zipper seam to fall. I wound up trimming a bit from the CB top, narrowing to nothing at the waist.

CB zip on inside (K-Line, this one

I waited until the zipper was inserted to bind the back seam. This creates a lovely finish of the sort K-Line would (I hope) approve, but when/if I ever have to replace the back zipper (which seems more of a when than an if, given how much trouble the invisible zip has going over the waistband), it will really, really suck.

Bodice side

All right, let’s see. Syo took some photos for me, only half of which came out hopelessly blurry.

Back: nice and smooth, wonky bow.

Some of you may recall that I traced the skirt pattern to the full length of the size 16 (about an inch longer than the 6 I used for the rest of it), and then added another inch or so when I was cutting, plus a little more at the CB of the skirt, to make up for the 2 cm I removed above and below the waistband for swayback adjustment. This was all I could squeeze out of my 5m of 45″-wide fabric (that bodice is a fabric hog) but was still a pretty minimal length (for me), reaching my ankle but not brushing the tops of my feet, which is where I like a maxi to fall.

Hem with facing

For the hem, I wanted to keep as much length as I could, so I made a nice, wide (4″) bias facing. I really like this as a method for hemming A-line and circle skirts. Just iron the bias in a circle first (basically pull on one long edge and shrink in the other, to get it into a curve) and you’re good to go. It also satisfies my tastes for nice, wide, satisfying hems. I think I only lost about 1/2″ of length here. Although that’s still more than I would’ve liked.

The Knot (photography by Syo)

All right, I think I ran out of things to say before I ran out of photos…

Full front (photography by Syo)

So let’s just look at pictures

Pocketses

Hmm, I could’ve sworn I adjusted the exposure on this one. Bleh. I like the picture, though.

So, fall arrived last week: Monday (Aug. 29) the high was 30C, Tuesday it was 13. It’s finally creeping up again and the forecasts (which I trust about as far as I can spit) are promising highs in the upper 20s for later this week, including my birthday on Wednesday. So this dress is truly ready for summer’s last, last gasp.

Note: we are out on the river enjoying summer’s actual last gasp so I’m just going to hit publish! I’ll edit later to finish up links and stuff…

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August 22, 2011 · 5:59 pm

Not Worth Blogging About?

Hrmm.

Ever make things you’re just not sure are worth writing about? I like to document my flops alongside my successes, (although I’ve noticed that it often takes me a while to realize what is actually a flop vs. a success), but I’m talking about throwaway pieces. Stuff you just knocked together because it would serve a purpose (or because your kids were bugging you, as the case may be). It’s sloppy and half-ass, simple, and maybe the fabric just drives you nuts.

No? Just me?

More excessive cute

This pair of tops for Syo falls into that category. I’m writing about them only because, well, I have nothing much else to write about right now (unless you want me to start in on the weather again 😉 ). I keep looking at my Lonsdale pattern. I ALMOST got the pieces laid out yesterday, but ran out of time. Anyway.

This fabric is left over from one of the cowl-neck iterations. It’s got a lovely, soft drape, an interesting knit stripe, is wriggly as hell to cut out (we pinned it to the carpet), tends to grow like crazy when handled, and a dull colour that just irks me. It looks like the colour the block of white paint turns when everyone’s been mashing other colours into it. Hmm, I may have been spending too much time entertaining small children lately…

Syo was inspired by the fabric (she does love wriggly knits >_<) and Babydoll’s dance-rehearsal outfit from the movie Sucker Punch. Yes, we probably do have questionable taste in what we let our children watch. At least it’s with parental guidance.

There were actual patterns involved!

In particular, McCall’s 4821 (View B, the one-shouldered top) and Kwik Sew 2448, the long-sleeved tee from view A. What do you mean it doesn’t look anything like it? Both of these are thrift store finds, although I don’t think I’ve blogged either of them before.

Sassy Girl

Ok, so let’s start with the McCall’s pattern. This is another of those “Sassy Girl” brand of patterns, illustrated to pique the imagination of any little girl. I used another of these for Syo’s vest. They’re adequate patterns, I guess, but I find them really simplistic, to the point where I suspect the final result is likely to be compromised. I haven’t read the instructions, so I can’t really comment on them. For a simple knit top like this, though, I guess there’s not going to be much to the pattern in any case. The smallest size in my envelope was a 7, which is borderline too big for Syo; given what I know about this fabric—it GROWS—I figured we would need to narrow it a fair bit.

McCall's 4821

I took out something like 4cm of width and then re-drew the front and back top curves. I didn’t adjust the length at all and it’s a bit short, but that may be a) deliberate and b) an effect of the prodigious width-wise growth of this fabric. Because the fabric was so thin, we double-layered it, which made finishing the top easy. I used clear elastic to reinforce the neckline side of the strap, and the small shoulder seam, but not the arm-hole seam. I’m glad I did, as I think it would be quite saggy without. We haven’t done the hem yet, but probably will at some point, although I don’t think twin-needling will hold up terribly well on this fabric.

Back view

My serger tends to turn soft, light fabrics like this into ruffles, so we sewed it all on the newely-serviced Janome, which worked like a dream. Syo would’ve stitched the entire thing if I let her, but I’m not quite sure she’d be up to keeping an eye on the seam allowance width and the clear elastic at the same time. She did quite well on the armscye seam, though, even without pins, and would’ve done the side-seams but it was the end of the night and we were in a hurry.

Side view

I think we just about nailed the sizing, actually. Which means if I use any other fabric in the world it’ll be way too small.

Little tie-sweater

Kwik Sew 2448

The little tie-sweater is based on Kwik Sew 2448. What, you don’t see the resemblance? Use your imagination! Actually, I traced off the pattern pieces for the long-sleeved version of the top, which is an utterly ordinary knit tee pattern. I cropped it short at the “lengthen and shorten here” line, which wound up being a bit short (but again that might just be the fabric), and turned the cut-on-fold of the front into an extended tie.

Syo originally wanted 3/4 length sleeves, so I shortened the length of the arm to a size 4 (I was tracing the size 6). They still turned out mostly full-length, which she says she is liking for now, but we may very well shorten them in the future.

Tee front pattern piece, altered to tie. We are so precise in our cutting around here...

I’ve noticed in my one Kwik Sew pattern that has an adult-sized tie top, the ties angle down considerably, and looking at how it sits on Syo it seems like this would probably have been a good idea to emulate. (I might have paid closer attention but on inspection the only pattern pieces actually in the envelope of the adult pattern are for the leotard. Poop! So I’m going by the illustration of the pieces on the instructions)

Syo stitched the underarm seams for this one. Kwik Sew uses 6mm (1/4″) seam allowances, which are a bit harder for her to maintain, at least in this fabric, than the wider ones on the McCall’s pattern. I used clear elastic to stabilize the shoulder. Considering how this fabric grows (especially as I didn’t use anything to stabilize the neckline) this seems like a very trim-fitting tee pattern. Which I guess makes sense for something meant to go under a dress.

In any case, Syo is, at least momentarily, satisfied, and this godawful fabric is out of my stash. There was a very tense moment while sewing when Tyo nearly started WWIII over the fact that Syo was getting two tops in a row, but it was headed off (grudgingly) when I pointed out that these two tops together, including tracing, are still less time-consuming than Tyo’s last shirt.

I think it’s time to make something for me, don’t you? I do like sewing with my kids (as opposed to for my kids), but I think I’m ready for something for me. 😉

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August 20, 2011 · 11:07 pm

Tyo’s Too-Tight Top

Tyo's Too-Tight Shirt

So, just for the record, when you have a child who’s 140 cm tall, and the pattern is for a child 120 cm tall, even if the chest measurements match, it’s still going to take more than just lengthening the sleeves to get it to fit.

Just so you know.

Tyo being Tyo, the shoulders fit pretty much just right.

Now, before I get into the details too far, you will have noticed that the exuberant photo above is, above all, of craptacular quality. Guess what didn’t make it home from vacation? Yup, my camera charger. Blog, meet iPhone photos. IPhone photos, meet blog.* Here’s hoping my inlaws are better at mailing stuff than I and can be bothered to mail it back to me before we go back for Christmas…

Tyo's shirt. She is sad it doesn't fit the way it's supposed to. She'll probably wear it anyway.

For this reason I haven’t got much in the way of detail shots. I took them, they just didn’t turn out.

So, I’m feeling brutally mixed emotions about this project. Mostly because it didn’t fit. Mostly because the pattern wasn’t the right size in the first place (see first paragraph). Tyo’s also, to her father’s dismay, begun increasing in the chest measurement recently, so that may be playing a role here, too. On the other hand, it’s a pretty fun pattern (Lekala 7171), I think, a simple shirt with a striking detail on the back. Everything went together well, and having the MPB Men’s Shirt sewalong to reference pretty much makes up completely for the lack of instructions.

Collar

The execution is far from flawless, but it’s reasonable, I think. Topstitching on the Featherweight remains fun (although I’m using regular thread, not topstitching thread, so it wasn’t as fun as it could have been). I re-did the entire collar and stand, widening it by about 3cm and cutting out each side individually so that I could (almost) perfectly match all the stripes. Yay me.

Pockets

I used cardboard templates for shaping both the pockets and the sleeve plackets. Getting and keeping the bias-cut pockets square and even was quite a pain. Washable glue-stick was helpful. On the other hand, all the stripes make for super-easy positioning on the front, so it’s not all bad. Oh, and you can just about see the minute side-bust dart in the pic above, to the left of the pocket. This took in about 1 cm total of width. The original pattern had vertical, double-ended darts below the bust, too, but as they were about .5 cm at their widest point, I chose not to bother with them.

Placket (not an iPhone photo)

The plackets. This is only my second set of plackets, and thus far both have been made out of flannelly material, which is probably not the easiest stuff for it. I’m reasonably happy with how they turned out, however, despite a certain amount of user error. This is the little-house-on-the-placket style of placket, I think. I say I think because instead of the little house with an addition on the side shape of the other pieces I’ve seen, this one had a double peak to the roof (AA instead of A_ if that makes any sense… I’m too lazy to make a real diagram). I managed, by re-reading Peter’s post, to refresh my memory enough to put the plackets on the right side facing in the right direction (although it was a bit chancy). The user error came in in not allowing enough extra length at the top for the little house-roof-thingy. If I’d paid more attention and made my slash the length recommended by the pattern, it would’ve been fine. It’s still fine, except the opening is about an inch too long (note I didn’t lengthen the placket when I lengthened the sleeve—although looking at the technical drawing I suspect that they just didn’t change the length of the placket when they graded the pattern, so it’s a bit long for the shirt to begin with) so the opening goes clear to the elbow. Also it could really use a button halfway along, but I forgot when I was putting in the buttonholes.

Back view. Very glad I added that extra width at the bottom.

The back looks pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself. As you can see, the fit across the shoulders is pretty good in the back, even though it won’t quite close in the front.

The back on Syo

It felt really good to do some real sewing again finally. I spent most of the morning (whatever wasn’t spent ferrying my father-in-law around and mediating among four little girls. Who don’t actually seem to fight any more than two little girls do, but man those preschoolers can CRY) in the sewing room. With a lot of company from my four-year-old niece (of the polkadot sundress fame) telling me about how she’d love to have this and this and that sewn for her.

Weird flash-face. Note horizontally-matching stripes on the front.

Out of curiosity, I got Syo to try it on (she is roughly 120 cm tall). It’s none too spacious on her either, although it does close, at least. The shoulder-fit is remarkably similar to on Tyo, though. It’s pretty obvious which of my kids got my broad shoulders.

Side view on Syo

Syo likes to flex and show off her muscles. They are pretty impressive, frankly.

Syo

Gratuitous pics, I know. But I couldn’t resist the weird foreshortening in this one.

Sleeve rolled up

Both kids agree that the sleeves are better rolled up, anyway. They just possibly might have inherited this from their father.

Sorry if the post is a bit incoherent and disjointed. The shock of going from zero to four children (two of them now on antibiotics) in the house in under a week still has me a bit flattened. Though I’m glad to have mine back and to have the chance to spend some serious time with my nieces. I just wish I could’ve spent more of the week enjoying them, rather than trying to work in, around, and between interruptions.

Oh, and just for the sake of completeness, the pattern is Lekala 7171, and here’s the technical drawing again:

Technical drawing

*My camera is a Sony point-n-shoot, which is the only calibre of camera I’m qualified to manipulate. Interestingly, my friend’s Sony smart-phone takes awesome pictures. Obviously Apple has not completely cornered the market on awesome. Which does little to reduce my overall iPod addiction, but anyway.

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August 4, 2011 · 2:23 pm

The Mini Minnie Dress

Fyon's Mini Minnie Dress

I firmly maintain that Minnie Mouse has no monopoly on red with white polkadots, any more than Miss Piggie has a monopoly on pink. Nonetheless, this is the thing I have heard second-most-often about this dress, in either of its iterations. Sheesh. Fortunately, the most-often-heard thing has been random, awesome compliments. And despite being first on the list to make the Minnie Mouse crack, my ever-sweet husband has also requested specifically that I wear my version several times, so it must be a winner. Sigh.

This is the version created for my four-year-old niece, who requested it last month, with much batting of eyelashes and many applications of  “Auntie, I love you!” Let’s just say that as long as the cute holds out, she should do well in life. You may have to click through to the full size version to see the polkadots on this one. They are small, but I promise you they are there.

Young Image Summer 2011 patterns

The pattern I used as a base is Y1109 from the Young Image Magazine Summer 2011 issue (third down on the left in the image above). You can browse through the whole magazine here, but it won’t let me link to a specific page; there’s a good view of the dress on p. 19. It had the right general lines, in particular the centre-front bodice panel.

I made the size 104, the smallest for this pattern; my niece is 106 cm tall, although her bust and hips were a little narrower than the 104 called for. Still, I’m glad I used the 104 rather than a smaller size (had one been available)—the amount of ease is fine but definitely not excessive.

Naturally I couldn’t just make it up as is. So this is not really a fair review of the pattern or the magazine, although I did use all of the pattern pieces provided. The instructions are, well, distinctly translated, and in so many languages it can be a bit tricky to figure out where the information you want is; it’s mostly segregated by language, but not entirely. Also, the pattern pages are only marked in two languages, neither of them English (my guess is Dutch and German, but I confess I didn’t actually pay attention), so be prepared to do some translating. That being said, they’re not nearly so over-crowded as Burda pages and each pattern has its own colour, so that part was not bad at all.

Dress back

The pattern calls for a rear zipper in the bodice (not extending into the skirt as far as I can tell), but I opted for buttons, instead. You do have to add seam allowances. They may tell you that somewhere, but if so I didn’t find it. I just figured that all the European pattern magazines (maybe European patterns in general?) don’t have seam allowances, and an examination of the size/shape of the pieces will confirm that.  If I’d been less pressed for time I would’ve read up a bit more on how much to add for a centre button placket, but I was in a hurry, so I winged it. It’s not exactly ideal. I should probably have drafted facings or used a self-lining (which I think is what the pattern calls for), but I didn’t. And I’m balls at understitching, so my white cotton lining peeks out a fair bit. Ah, well. I also put the straps on the wrong side, I’m pretty sure they are supposed to angle with the shoulders, not puff up the way they do, but they look cute anyway.

Underskirt for dress for niece.

The skirt in the pattern has a slightly-gathered, shaped upper portion and a ruffled lower portion. In the photo (page nineteen of the magazine, again, but I can’t do a direct link and I don’t have the physical magazine with me to photograph), the dress has quite a deep ruffle on the lower part of the skirt; it looks much shorter on the technical illustration, which I found rather confusing. There’s no pattern piece for this, which is fine as it’s just a rectangle, but I couldn’t find the information on how deep it should be, either, just how wide it should be at the different sizes. My original dress had a simple dirndl skirt, so I did that for my niece’s version, too, but I used the pattern-piece provided, plus a lower ruffle tier, for the underskirt. I was winging it for the length at that point—I did a quick comparison with some dresses from Tyo’s closet that I thought were in the right ballpark length—overshot, and wound up hacking about four inches off the top of the underskirt. Ah, well. It all gathers to the waist, anyway ;). For extra flouff, I gathered some tulle onto the underskirt. I should’ve used more. I also couldn’t use my favourite gathering technique, the zig-zag over a supplementary thread, as my zig-zagger was frozen at this point (she’s in the shop as we speak), so that was a wee bit annoying. Yes, I used the gathering foot, but getting the precise length was not happening so I wound up hand-basting and gathering it that way anyway. *headdesk*.

Dress

Instead of little ruffles on the centre front panel, I made an altered, double-length version of the CF piece to create the ruching. Gather it to the side-front pieces, construct bodice as usual.

Buttons closeup

I was a little concerned about the button-placket not extending into the skirt. After all, even on rectangular little children, you want to be able to open it a little below the waist, right? So after some cogitation, I decided to add in an extra-wide continuous lap placket at the centre back to finish off the button placket. Of course, for these to work properly you really have to fold the outer edge of the placket to the inside, which I completely forgot to do. So it’s a bit wonky in that area. Fortunately it’s pretty much hidden in the gathers, anyway. And cute ladybug buttons make up for all manner of flaws.

I have been having some fun being the sewing fairy, I must admit. I have been refusing to sew for my adult relations (well, unless they come to visit me for fittings, which, considering we live 600 km away, is a bit of a deterrent), but this summer I dared to hand down a couple of pieces. My stylish sister-in-law had greatly admired this sundress last year when I wore it, and after thinking about it, I decided to give it to her. I still like it a lot, but it feels like a lounging-by-the-lake (or in the back yard) kind of dress, something she does a lot more of than I (which is not to say she is lazy, quite the opposite, but she is currently at home with small children in a house with no AC, rather than spending her days in an overly-cooled lab like I do). Rather more recently, I made a tunic cloning a RTW one that I absolutely love. I liked the clone, too, but it was a bit too short through the body. So with some trepidation, I handed it over to my going-on-fourteen-year-old-niece. I am absolutely terrified of trying to sew something for anyone in this age-set without their direct input, but figured it had a better chance of working for her than for me and was reasonably stylish reasonably recently, and she steals lots of clothes from my stylish sister-in-law (I should perhaps clarify that my stylish sister-in-law is the mother of the four-year-old who received the Minnie dress, but NOT of the fourteen-year-old), who I feel pretty comfortable about guessing styles for. Anyway, she claims she likes it and as she’s only 5′ 1″, the length issue is rather less on her. So we’ll see. I still need to make the longer version…

Oona, this one's for you

Before I left on vacation, I did bring home one more piece of thrift store fabric: this crazy border-print. There’s only about a metre, but it’s very wide. Whatever it gets made into will obviously be dedicated to Oona of the Carnival Stash.

Whew! I must now return to hanging out with my in-laws, soaking up the sun, and wrangling somewhat obscene numbers of small children. Gotta love vacation…

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July 18, 2011 · 8:38 pm

Something small

Lace panel from thrift store

In between unpicking the skirt from the halter sundress and procrastinating, I did actually (almost) finish one rather small piece. You may (or may not) recall a large piece (several metres) of starched white cotton I found at the thrift store back in June. It was the kind of lovely, plain, basic fabric you rarely find at the thrift store, so I would’ve picked it up just for that, but one end had also been worked with the most amazing panel of handmade lace I’ve ever seen.

Now, admittedly I don’t know much about lace-making. I have no idea what techniques are employed, except that it looks to have been done by hand, with gorgeous patience and precision. I assume this is some kind of heirloom stitching taken to an astounding extreme. It’s one of those pieces that makes you wonder about the person who had the fabric before you, though. What kind of piece was this worked for? Was it meant to be the yoke of a shirt? Part of a Christening gown or something? Why would someone put all that work into making the lace, and then never make the final garment? (The shape and positioning on the fabric suggests garment to me, but I suppose I don’t really know even that).

Anyway, obviously it needed to become something that would showcase the beautiful lace. After some hemming and hawing, I made my decision, and cut out a second version of my sundress bodice, with the lace in the centre front panel. I toyed with the idea of putting a coloured fabric behind, to show through at the lace, but the white cotton was too sheer to hide it, so I just lined with another layer of the same fabric.

The top. Unfortunately this was the only shot where the light didn't totally wash out the lace.

It still needs straps. I had some cut out and pressed and ready to go, but somewhere between bringing it upstairs to do the handstitching I mislaid them. It actually stays up remarkably well, with that large shirred back, but I’ll feel much happier with straps anyway. I used the facing piece to make the little “collar” top, which I really love, although since I forgot to add a seam-allowance to the CF, it wound up not reaching quite to the side-seams. I hand-stitched the bottom of the bodice front together for a nice finish that doesn’t show on the front. I maybe should’ve put some interfacing strips along the V-point in the front, as it’s a bit wavy and floppy, but it’s not awful.

It looks good with shorts, but wouldn’t it be perfect with a full, puffy skirt? 🙂

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July 17, 2011 · 5:27 pm

Sometimes you just have to walk away.

Hmm

McCall's 3415

I have a feeling this dress is going to spend a little while in the Magic Closet.* You know when you reach that point when you’ve unpicked a seam so many times the whole thing just starts to look mashed and no matter how well you re-stitch it it’s still going to be a bit wonky? Yeah. I’m there.

That being said, I think once I’ve had a little bit of space I’ll quite like this dress. We just need a bit of time.

Front view

So, after all y’all’s** sage advice last week, I put on my big girl panties and unpicked the skirt (yes, removing zipper in the process), and made Alterations.

Specifically, I lopped 15 cm (about 6″) off the top, re-cutting using the top of the pattern but blending out to a wider width quite quickly (maybe a little too quickly…). In my paranoia over having enough ease I actually made the skirt a bit wider even at the top, electing to ease that in.

Side view

This fabric doesn’t ease so well, did I mention? Well, I mean, it does—there’s no pleats in the seam—but it sure shows the puckers. Not even going to go into how many times it took me to get the zipper straight and smooth and matching up, either. On the up side, I did get it smooth and relatively straight (and relatively invisible!) eventually, so I shan’t whine too much. And I did a slightly better job stitching on the bodice lining on the inside this time, although with all the grading and clipping and fraying from being unpicked so many times it still doesn’t look peachy. But I think I have the theory down, anyway.

Back view

There are still some issues with how the back hangs—I think somewhere in my alterations the grain got a bit skewed—but at least it’s not straining over my hips and making my belly look like a stuffed sausage anymore. (It actually looks way better in this pic than when I’m just standing straight.  I miss the pockets, though. I wonder how much more work it would be to put them back in, now there’s enough ease for them… (walk away, Tanit, walk away…)

Hem facing

Having removed six inches in length, I didn’t really want to lose much more in the hem, so I put back the hem lace I’d been planning to use and dug out a package of teal hem-tape from one of my thrift-store scores that’s probably been in its package since about the time this pattern was new. I actually really like using a bias facing in curved hems like this. It works a bit better if you “circle” it first—iron it while stretching it into a curve.

Hem facing

Plus after thirty-odd years in the package it really needed to be ironed. Fortunately the skirt is quite narrow, as it was only a 1.85m package, and I had to discard about eight inches at one end where the tape that held the end in place all those years had turned yellow and marked up the fabric. I had just enough. The hem facing is a fair bit darker than the rest of the dress, but I think it’s a fun flash of colour. And it gives me the feel of a full, yummy 2.5″ hem without losing more than about 2 cm in length.

Having said all that, I have to admit something.

Halter styles are something I have a problem with. Meaning, I like them. I love the exposed back, I love how they look on other people and on pattern illustrations. But somehow when I see them on myself, I always feel line-backer-ish. Like they just emphasize the breadth of my shoulders. I keep making them because I really like the idea. And I keep thinking that next time, it’ll look “right.” There probably should be a name for this kind of stylistic insanity. On the other hand, I am actually liking the photos a lot better than I like the reflection in the mirror, so perhaps its one of those things where my brain exaggerates what I’m seeing beyond all reason.

Anyway, I’m hoping that some time in the Magic Closet will help me forget about most of my issues with the dress. Although the halter one’s probably there to stay. Next up: jackets in summertime. Unless the Lonsdale pattern arrives, anyway ;).

*You know. Where self-made pieces go to wait out the period while you forget all the stupid mistakes and messes you made.

**I don’t actually talk like this, but it sure is fun to write sometimes. Also my town is infected with cowboys at the moment, so it would be surprising if I didn’t have at least a few symptoms.

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