Tag Archives: kids’ clothing

February 22, 2011 · 9:25 pm

An edgy little vest

Vest---closeups

One cool kid.

Tyo wanted to make her Patrones vest out of the same fabric as her lounge-pants. This was not ideal, but when has an inappropriate fabric choice stopped us? 😉 So I interfaced the skull print pieces with an iron-on knit interfacing, used scraps of sweatshirt-knit left over from the Kimono Lady Grey for the rest, and went to town. Tyo did much of the cutting out, but I did all the sewing. Mostly because I haven’t done many shawl-collars and was kinda winging it and didn’t want to confuse her and screw her up. It was also my first time making a lined vest since learning about the trick where you sew the neckline and the arm-hole edges before the side-seams so you can pull them right side out without hand-finishing. So I wanted to try it myself. I did manage to sew one of the side-seams with the front twisted around the first time… have I mentioned how much I hate picking out serger seams? And I managed to pick out half the front princess seam first, by mistake. *head-desk*

I did a particularly poor job on the little belt at the back, which I really should have interfaced, too, but fortunately it really doesn’t show (it does need a buckle still, but anyway). I wish I’d had enough of the skull stuff left over to do the front side panels in it, too, but it was touch-and-go as it was.

A stylin' girl

Her one request (besides the fabric) was the little pocket inside the front. Just the right size for her MP3 player.

Other than the little belt, I think it turned out really cute!

Also, nothing like a quick before-bedtime photo-shoot to bring out the silliness:

Stylin' Syo

But the Badass Badguy takes her down!

Even bad guys like to chill with their tiger.

Just for the record, I’m pretty sure that’s the only toy gun we have in the house. Toy swords… plenty. Guns… not so much. We are not really gun people.

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February 17, 2011 · 5:31 pm

The jeans of many sizes

Possibly subtitled “the best laid plans…”

Instructions: "Look cute."

In a fit of obsession yesterday afternoon, Syo and I decided to tackle her jeans. The project was simple; all the materials were on hand: one traced version of Jalie 2908, size K (aka 7); one metre of dark blue stretch denim; gold jeans topstitching thread, and a little metal zipper.

The pattern is the same size I traced out for Tyo’s jeans last spring, which she had outgrown by August. Syo is now wearing these jeans, quite comfortably, so I was feeling pretty confident about the fit. They would probably be a bit long, but otherwise shouldn’t be problematic.

Syo required only one, simple alteration. Tyo’s jeans had been flares, the pattern’s basic shape. Syo’s must be skinny. Yes, my seven-year-old is much more on-trend than my ten-year-old. Which probably says everything you need to know about their respective personalities. So I measured what seemed like a reasonable distance out from the midline of each ankle, drew a line that angled out to the knee, and we folded the pattern in along that line. Just in case Syo wants a pair of flares in the future (not likely, but this is how I roll). Oh, yeah, I double-checked my reduced width with the circumference of her pointed foot, to make sure she could still get her feet through. All seemed good, so we set to cutting it out.

Syo really wants to be able to sew. And cut out fabric. Unfortunately, the fabric shears

The back

are still too big for her little hands. This didn’t stop her from doing her best with the embroidery scissors on the pocket lining, and she actually did an excellent job, but man, it took forever.

Pocket closeup, with fancy stitching.

After much discussion, we settled on stars for the back pockets. The first pair I made Tyo has stars on the back pockets (stars are nice and easy to embroider on stretchy denim when you don’t have an embroidery machine and are too lazy to stabilize your fabric).

This is the first pair of jeans I’ve made since I got my serger back in order, so it was my first chance to remember to serge seams after sewing, but before  topstitching. I mostly managed this. (Note: this pattern only has 1 cm seam-allowances, so you need to serge without cutting anything off or your second row of topstitching may not catch the seam-allowance.)

I like the Guterman jeans thread; it’s not as heavy as their topstitching thread, so

Side view

doesn’t require dirty tricks to get the upper tension high enough on my machine. Still, I can tell that my newish Janome doesn’t quite have the balls of the Grand Old Dame when it comes to stuff like this. The Dame would eat projects like this for breakfast—the Janome I have to baby along here and there. And this is with really thin denim.

I only hit one hitch in the construction, when I realized I’d cut the size Q back yoke (my size) rather than the size K. I think the size K yoke piece may have evaporated… oops. Another reason why I love tracing my patterns. However, I was pretty sure the outer width of the yoke was pretty close, so I just trimmed the wide, inner portion to fit. If there is any actual difference in the size, it’s well within my usual cutting-inexactitude; the side pieces went together just fine.

Calf detail

Oh, yes, and I added in a detail on the back lower legs ripped off from some RTW skinny jeans owned by one of Tyo’s trendier friends: basically a long, thin topstitched dart with a stud at the top of it, forming a very small amount of shaping below the calf. I keep meaning to do this on jeans for myself, but forgetting as it has to be done quite early in the process. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be, though, though I suspect my studs are not perfectly aligned.

With the aid of Debbie Cook’s tutorial, I once again achieved near-perfect fly insertion. I actually had double-sided wonder-tape to use to stick the zipper down this time, and it was very nice indeed, although using pins instead really isn’t that terrible either. I did manage to put it in backwards (so girl-version, as opposed to boy/jeans version), but in my defense this is because I was matching the topstitching direction of the crotch to the one I’d already done on the rear of the pants, and I find it pretty much impossible to think that far ahead. The moral of this story is that I should probably construct the jeans front and fly before the back.

My straight-stitch topstitching is getting so good!

Fly... almost perfect.

My around-pocket and around-fly stitching… not so much. Perhaps I am sloppy because they’re for the kid… I’d like to think I wouldn’t wear such shoddy work.

I can’t promise anything, though. I’m pretty lazy about un-picking.

I sewed up the outer sideseams, and Syo came to try them on…

and they were HUGE.

Now, I don’t want to repeat my mistake with Tyo and make pants she’ll outgrow in three months. But these are supposed to be skinny jeans, not tapered-but-baggy jeans. I took in the side-seams by a cm on each side (so 2cm off each leg).

Better, but not perfect. Take another cm off. Hrrm. Well, maybe that’ll do. Keep in mind this is the same pattern as the other pair she’s wearing that are actually getting a wee bit tight. The only thing I can think of is that the first pair shrunk, which isn’t impossible, but I have a pair of my own out of the exact same “denim” that I’m still wearing just fine, and I promise you I definitely haven’t shrunk.

CB belt loops. Can you spot the booboo?

Putting waistbands on kids jeans is so much more relaxing than putting the waistband on a pair for me. For one thing, I use the pattern’s straight waistband piece, instead of my own contour band (coopted from the Ellen pants, if you must know). I also didn’t bother with interfacing. The only thing to remember was to put in buttons and buttonholes for the attaching of the buttonhole elastic. I did have one problem with the sizing, as my waistband wound up being too short to centre the CB seam on the back and cover the fly-extension. Maybe I’m doing something wrong with the fly extension, although what I end up with seems to be the same as what I see on my storebought jeans, so I don’t know what. Rather than fuss around, I gave in and put the CB seam of the waistband about an inch off of the true CB seam. It’s a problem, but it’s mostly covered by the belt-loops anyway.

Her coolest pose.

Finally, all that was left was to hem them to an appropriate length. This is always dicey with children, and skinny jeans are even worse than flares in this department. In the end I opted for a length that would be floor-brushing in socks if they weren’t being pulled up by the front of her feet, and just folded the excess 2″ of fabric under, topstitching three times to make sure it’s well in place (this mimics the three rows of topstitching on the top of the pockets, so it’s a design feature, right?). In theory this means that when she hits her next growth spurt and grows three inches by summer, I can let out the excess length. In practice, we know this’ll never happen, but hey, allow me my fantasies, all right?

Also, Syo was very helpful in the hammering of rivets, and only hit my thumb once. And Steph, the awl from your sharp and pointy giveaway kit is divine. How on earth did I live without it?

So that’s one more project down on the “madly off” list. Which leaves, mainly, shirts for my hubby and those skinny cargoes! If I can get the neck alteration figured out for the hubby’s shirt before he abandons me, I can putter away at that until he gets back. And I think I’ll take a stab at the drafting for the cargoes this weekend, if I can find paper I like for it. I’d rather use craft paper than tissue paper for stuff like this.

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February 10, 2011 · 11:06 am

Madly off in all directions

The majority of this post was written before I spent the last two days shuffling Tyo around medical centres. Which basically means not only am I still jonesing to sew, I’m even more behind in my regular work. Speaking of Tyo, thank you all for the well-wishes for her. After urine tests, blood tests, and finally an ultrasound, they have ruled out appendicitis, so it’s most likely a virus of some kind. Which really doesn’t make her feel any better, but does mean it’s not likely to kill her. Also, since the post is a bit light on photographs due to being, y’know, pulled out of my ass, I’ve decided to take some inspiration from Karin and throw in some of my drawings for no particular reason. These are (I hope obviously) portraits of my children, sketched around this time last year, and jazzed up a bit after scanning. I miss my drawing tablet terribly whenever I try and work things up digitally these days.

Tyo in blanket

I’m feeling torn.

As usual when I have something else I really need to do (annotated bibliography on the morphologic problem in modern phylogenetics, anyone?), the sewing inspiration is strong.

I need to alter the collar band on the men’s shirt muslin—when I finally did manage to prod him into trying it on, everything else seemed okay but the collar was a good inch too small, which makes sense as his neck is a good inch thicker than the neck measurement suggested by the pattern, but I had tried a tissue-fit of the pattern and thought it might be big enough; I suspect that I “tissue fitted” the collar piece higher on his neck than the actual band sits. Fortunately for me, Tasia made this exact same alteration on the shirt for her sweetie before Christmas, so I’m in good hands (assuming I can get him to put it on again sans collar so I can mark where it needs to be enlarged). Unfortunately he gets more pleasure out of annoying me by refusing to try it on than he does from the prospect of a completed shirt. Yes, some days our relationship does resemble something right out of second grade. If I had pigtails, I have no doubt he’d pull on them, and probably put frogs in my desk.

His response to muslin pictures

Tragically, he has declared there shall be no muslin photos. Not even for purely-fitting, non-blog-disclosure purposes. (See above about how much he enjoys pissing me off. I sulked all Sunday night about this, which I think was the high point of his day.) It’s REALLY HARD to check fitting without a photo, especially when he won’t obligingly stand around modelling for hours on end. I’d complain that he’ll end up with a non-fitting shirt, but the tragic fact is that a)he’s man enough to not notice and b) if he does notice, he’ll probably feel too exposed and that he looks fat (eyeroll). The man has body-issues that make most women’s pale in comparison.

Aargh. (Actually this photo is from last summer when I was trying to get him to let me take pictures of the first shirt I made him. But the response is identical.)

This entire outfit is right up Tyo's alley. So far we've traced off the vest.

And Tyo has decided it’s time to make this vest, from the Patrones kids’ issue I got from Her Selfishness back in the summer. Frankly that whole outfit just screams Tyo. Interestingly, she’s pretty close to a straight size 8 in the Patrones sizing (whereas in the Lekala kids’ sizing she was a 6 on top and a 12 on the bottom). I’m not sure if this means that Spanish children are more pear-shaped than Russian ones, or what. Anyway, I foresee a lot of fun with Google Translate (which Tyo is apparently a master of from school… no wonder she still can’t use her dictionary*!)

But, Tyo got pants just last weekend, so it’s very clear that it’s Syo’s turn for a garment, and she wants skinny jeans. Which really shouldn’t be too bad, as I will just use the same pattern I traced off for the ones I made Tyo last spring—which Tyo outgrew by August and Syo is now wearing quite happily with the aid of a small amount of buttonhole elastic in the waistband. Altering the legs for the requisite skinniness, of course. Both of them grew 2″ last fall alone, and the mass of jeans Syo came home from summer vacation with are all too short. So I just have to decide which of the two pieces of stretch denim I have in stash I want to sacrifice for children’s clothes. Maybe the black, as there’s masses more of it at Fabricland on 2-for-one right now…

Syo portrait

And then there’s the circle skirt I started cutting out on Sunday during my sulk (see above about men). I want it to have a much cooler waistband than the first version I made, which is just a straight band-at-the-waist that does absolutely nothing for me.

Skinny cargoes

And that’s without Amber’s inspiration for knocking off these “skinny cargoes”. Yoshimi did an awesome version a few months ago, too. Amber used the Ellen pattern, which I’ve used before but gives a rather different look as it’s not made for a stretch fabric. I’d like to re-draft my Jalie jeans and try it with a stretch denim. I’d have get rid of the back yoke, add in the front and back seams (what a great opportunity for butt-shaping!), and decide if I need to muslin since there’s really not much option for fitting if you have to sew up the outside seams first (which you would to put the pockets over them, I would think). Also, wouldn’t some teeny little cargo pockets on the butt be the cutest thing ever? (Ok, on my butt, which needs all the help it can get.)

And that’s without talking about the finished versions of the man’s shirt, which I have to do to get him to let me photograph him at all (grr!), or the other Patrones shirt I’d love to make for Tyo, or the second little coat for my younger niece…

must go do real work… must go do real work…

*My kids are educated in French, in case that comment was confusing to anyone. Vive la difference!

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February 4, 2011 · 10:17 pm

Skully Pants and Sleevy Plackets

Tyo’s pants may now be unveiled! They still need hemming, but taking photos before hemming is practically a tradition around here…

Tyo's Skuly Pants. Poses by Tyo. Guest appearance by Slimer the Turtle.

And, y’know, they turned out ok. Especially considering my various screw ups (the original drafting, and then pinning the two edges of the fronts together instead of front-to-back and not noticing until Tyo had it all sewn up…)

Tyo did all the sewing, on the serger, except for the elastic casing, which I sewed in a stretch stitch on the regular machine. She was really unsure and irregular to begin with but by the last few seams she was getting much more consistent and steady. She threaded the elastic into the casing, too.

May I just say I detest this skull-printed fabric? It’s a thin, stretchy cotton rib-knit with no recovery, and the printed pattern is not as stretchy as the fabric, so it’s already looking worn and crappy anywhere that gets a bit of stretch.

In MPB Sewalong News

Shirt plackets: the ugly truth

I sewed my plackets! Urg. This is the kind of precision sewing I normally resort to hand-sewing to deal with, but obviously that’s not quite appropriate here. I tried using my blind-stitch foot for the topstitching the first time, as it has a keel that theoretically should help guide the stitching. I say theoretically because it’s mounted on a screw and doesn’t stay in place. Ever. Second attempt, I reverted to using my rolled hem foot, of all things. Something about the way the toes of the foot are positioned (not the roll part) works really nicely for guiding the fabric for perfect edgestitching.

Er.

This is me we’re talking about. Perfection and precision are not my strong suits.

I used washable glue-stick to try to hold the triangles in place, which worked better than pins, and might’ve worked better still if I had the patience to let it dry for a few minutes before sewing. I wonder if making a template to press the triangle top around would be worth it…

I made the row of stitches crossing the placket run just above the funny folded part on the inside (bottom right picture), but a quick inspection of my hubby’s RTW shirts shows that they run the stitch about 1/4″ below this. Will keep this in mind for the next version.

Testing my fabric marker

Also, I decided to test out my blue disappears-in-water marker. I’ve heard horror-stories about these before (especially if you press the ink), so I’ve been pretty skeptical about it and haven’t actually used it until now. Well, the fact that it’s a fine-tip and doesn’t really mark most of my fabrics well didn’t help.

Anyway, here you can see on the top, the plain marker, and the bottom which I wrote and then ironed over (with heavy steam on maximum heat, my typical MO as long as the fabric will take it.) Interestingly, even the steam seemed to start to lighten the markings, which could be annoying.

Took the piece to the sink, add water, and—voila!

Just add water!

Anyway, that’s enough for tonight. Tomorrow I will get the yoke sewn up and maybe even rope my hubby into a fitting if I’m extremely-extra-lucky. And Syo is agitating for a project she can help with, so if I’m extra ambitious maybe we’ll start on some skinny jeans for her, as she’s been begging for a pair of those since last summer.

Speaking of Syo, we must keep the post balanced, so I will leave you with:

Syo---yes, she knows exactly how cute she is.

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February 3, 2011 · 12:10 pm

Bits ‘n Bobs

Men's shirt pieces

As usual, the during-week sewing is scant and slow. I did manage to cut out my mens shirt muslin, as the long-awaited MPB sewalong is finally under way. I’ve marked (a lot more than I typically do), with my “allegedly disappears with water” marker, and interfaced half the cuffs and one of the collar bands. I am not going to interface the front button placket, as per discussions with the Sewista Fashionista. I can’t wait to start sewing, but I guess I should keep in step with the sewalong. I’m not doing pockets (today’s post) but maybe I’ll take a stab at the sleeve plackets. Or not, as I’d kind of like to hear what tips the other sewalongers have for them (and if any of the allegedly fabulous Negroni instructions for this area get passed on). I’ve only done continuous lap plackets before. Grum. Maybe I’ll prep the collar band or sew up the yoke (since I now know how to do that!)

I’m still up in the air over whether to bother with flat-felled seams on this one. On the one hand it’s a muslin and if I do need to make fitting changes it’d be much better to not have the seams felled. On the other hand, I could probably use as much practice as I can get my hands on, right? Blargh.

Tyo and her skull-print fabric

Just to keep me on my toes, though, Tyo decided to pull out the skull-print knit she picked out back in the fall. Apparently it needs to become a set of lounge pants. Unfortunately, I haven’t got a pattern for these. Well, how hard can it be to make one up? Just a narrow set of pantaloons, really, right? In a knit, no less.

Er. Well, I should’ve cut them wider. I forgot to add in width for the crotch. I should know better by

Tyo, cutting out her pants.

 now. Sorry, kiddo. The good news is we’ll add in strips up the outside of the legs and they will look just fine. Intentional even. It’s a design feature, dontcha know? The bad news is she managed to cut one of the strips in half while she was cutting it out. Kid’s got talent, I tell ya. Hopefully there’s enough of the insert fabric (we’re using the remnant from my Kimono Lady Grey) to cut another one…

I did make her sew the crotch seam (on the serger, no less) and will be putting gentle pressure on her to do the rest herself as well. Well, as independently as Tyo does anything, anyway. I suspect the hemming and possibly the elastic casing will fall to me.

Can I blame it on the fact that I was trying to measure Tyo and “draft ” the pattern while cooking supper and supervising Syo, who decided she should cut up the chicken for last night’s supper*?

Oops. Too narrow.

Hmm, in hindsight, I think there probably is a kid’s shorts or karate-gi pattern in the basement that would have a basic, unfitted pants-type-pieces.

Aaargh.

*I hate to discourage her, as the only person in the house who seems to actually enjoy cooking. I have visions of my children turning into culinary geniuses who get home from school, throw me out of the kitchen, and emerge two hours later with a three-course sit-down meal. No? Hey, a girl can dream.

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January 14, 2011 · 7:22 pm

I was going to wait

until the little coat was done. But, as usual, I am impatient. And Syo was eager to model. Really, she twisted my arm.

So here it is, sans lining hem and buttons. With the puffy fleece lining it’s a bit snug on Syo, which is a good sign, although the sleeves, which I folded up a trifle more than strictly suggested by the pattern, are just right, so they will be quite long on Fyon.

Erm. Perhaps next time we’ll comb hair before the modelling sesh…

Also, did I mention I am dreading the buttonholes?

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January 13, 2011 · 11:34 am

Curveball

Coat, interlining, lining

I feel a little unpatriotic for picking a baseball over a hockey metaphor. Oh well. Progress on Fyon’s coat was continuing incrementally but steadily (holidays are definitely over) until last night I realized that the coating fabric really should’ve been underlined. It lets a bit too much light through to be lined with light fleece. WHOOPS! Fortunately I had purchased just over two meters of black cotton flannelette the other day for a (hopefully) wearable muslin of my sweetie’s shirt. But there was just over 2m left on the bolt, which I was worried would not be enough for a man’s shirt after flannelette’s notorious shrinkage. So I guess it can become girl coat underlining, and I’ll pick up some more. It’s not like it was expensive. Of course, the other problem here is that I have already constructed both shell and lining. So I guess the “underlining” will be more of an interlining. On the upside, flannelette is such a dream to cut and sew that I almost don’t mind the extra work.

One cute little collar, coming up.

The collar is also sewn and steamed, for whatever good that will do. 😉 I think I am starting to get the hang of the whole turn-of-cloth thing, for collars like this, anyway. Also getting a bit better at those tight corner curves… A little bit, at least.

I fought off the temptation to try and machine-blind-hem, mostly because I wasn’t confident I could get the crease out after, as I’m trying to avoid hard pressing on this spongy fabric. So it has a hand-stitched outer hem, anyway. I think I will check out Gigi’s post on finishing hem/facings to see if I can make head or tails out of it. Usually my lack of precision is hampering in these areas and I compensate with lots of hand stitching, er, couture detail.

Oh, and I remembered to put in a label and hanging loop! This ribbon is perfect for

Label and hanging loop

the coat—although I’m not convinced how sturdy it will be. Ah well. Odds of small fingers managing to use the loop even if it is there? Minimal, I’d say. Anyway, all that remains is hemming the lining, attaching the collar, and attaching lining/facings to coat. Not necessarily in that order.

I have a feeling my next “for me” project will be the fluffy petticoat. I seem to have fallen off the “practical clothing” bandwagon this year (so far. Maybe because my wearable wardrobe is no longer critically low, or maybe because, like everyone else, I’m just sick of winter sewing (although this

Fluffy petticoat supplies

doesn’t explain the continued coatitis). But the materials have been building for ages—the chiffon (background, left) since Aug. 2009, the idea since sometime in the summer of 2010, and the whole spool of gathered lace (top left) appearing at Value Village last weekend seems to have pushed things over the top. Now, making a tiered skirt is dead easy—this is ultimately just a shorter version of the tiered dance skirts I’ve made several times now, on various scales. But I really like Sugardale’s tutorial because of how she uses ribbon to finish the seams, so I’ll be going that route. Zena has another method that produces nicely-finished results, more for dance skirts (hers are like better-made, better-finished versions of mine). And I will have to consider how to use the vintage lace with the coral flowers. I would have used it on the lower edge but there’s only 4m, and 4m is not a full enough hem for a petticoat.

Just for the record, I have no skirts at all to wear with said petticoat. Yet. But then I’ve been thinking about a circle skirt since summer and been disinclined to make one because I only like how they look with petticoats under. Chicken and egg. But I’ve decided that the petticoat will be my egg, and hopefully once it’s done chickens will ensue. Yeah. If that makes any kind of sense at all.

But first… I have a little coat to finish.

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January 12, 2011 · 7:56 am

Attack the pink fluffy bunnies

Attack of the pink fluffy leopard print bunnies

Well, I have started work on the coat for my older niece. This is my first experience sewing with fleece and it’s, well, interesting. For one thing it’s filled my house with tiny pink blobs of fluff, which are getting EVERYWHERE. For another it seems to combine the annoying qualities of knits with the annoying qualities of velvet. Joy.

The pattern is McCalls 3374, a thrift-store find back at the start of my sewing adventure, just over a year ago now. As a bonus it came essentially un-cut, with the size 3 fully traced out and part of a size four. I traced the rest of the size four for Syo’s coat last winter, so this time I have no tracing to do! Whee!

This may be another exercise in “looking past the envelope” as the envelope cover

McCall's 3374

has a lot of fun-fur, fleece, and animal print. Despite the above rant about fleece, the fleece is strictly for the lining. My outer shell is black and sparkly “boiled wool camry blend” (a completely different fabric, however, than the stuff of the same name that the Russian Princess coat and my Czarina coat were made of. They were a knit, dense and felted. This stuff is a woven, tends to fray, and reminds me of boucle in its thick individual yarns.) It would’ve benefited from block fusing, but I am far too lazy to go there in coats for preschoolers. I did preshrink with wet towels in the dryer, which reduced the width by a good 10cm (4″) so I’m glad I did.

Coat shell

This first coat is for my four-year-old niece (let’s call her Fyon henceforth); she was also the recipient of the twirly Popover Sundress last summer. I decided against cutting out both coats at once as I was pretty sure that would inevitably result in me sewing size 4 sleeves onto a size three front or something. I will note here that the size four still fits Syo fine, so it will be plenty roomy on Fyon, although their size gap is not as extreme as you might expect from the three years between their ages, since Syo is a compact model, possibly even a Smart Car, while Fyon is more

Fuzzy pockets!

of an SUV type.

The best thing about this pattern is that the (very flat) sleeve caps have almost no ease, so they’re a cinch to put in flat. This makes for very quick construction (and I promise I’ll grab a photo of that stage on the next coat.)

I decided to cut the pockets out of the fleece, which will make them absolutely yummy to stick your hands in. This time, I knew enough to make the seam from coat to pockets narrower, so the fleece rolls nicely to the inside, unlike the last time I sewed this coat.

I debated about foldover cuffs, since I’m not overly thrilled with how this part of the pattern is drafted, but they do look so much more finished than just a plain sleeve ending. (Tabs do too, but I’m much too lazy to draft a tab for these coats.) I had considered interlining the coats, as well, but decided the fleece is bulky enough. It was the

Foldover cuffs. I love the texture of this fabric.

thickest, softest stuff we could find at Fabricland’s new-years sale (still expensive even at 50% off). I think there’s enough left over for an itty-bitty scarf, too. I had debated making the collar and cuff-fold out of it, but I really wanted to keep the outside of the coat “serious” (except for that hint of sparkle) (probably I wouldn’t’ve had enough fleece, either). Hopefully the girls won’t find the wool collar and facings too scratchy; it doesn’t feel scratchy to me, but it’s certainly not as wonderfully soft as the fleece.

Note to self: you forgot to cut out the back neck facing. Also, don’t forget to add one of the Bookemon & Ebichu labels and a hanging-loop before you sew on the lining/facings.

The pattern is inexplicably unlined, but I’ve just used the same body pieces for the fleece. I considered adding  a back-pleat, but I don’t think it’s necessary with the stretchy fleece. Next step: assemble the lining and facings (I will just topstitch the facings down on top of the fleece).

One Eyed Jack (left), Bandit (centre), Tigger (right)

In sadder news, we got up this morning and discovered One-Eyed Jack, the smallest and hardiest of our goldfish, was missing from the tank. I soon found him on the floor by the couch, where he had leapt to his doom. The smallest of our fish, he was still a good 6″ long, and had survived the Great Filter Malfunction of 2009, a 600-km migration in a glass jar in 2007, and a brutal cichlid attack that cost him his left eye (and gave him his name) probably sometime in 2006. Not to mention nearly four years of my rather indifferent fish care. I honestly thought he would be the last of our dwindling fish to survive, but I hadn’t counted on his adventurous nature. Usually he was a bottom-hugger, as his one-eyed state made it hard for him to find food until it had settled on the bottom. Tyo was stoic (her best friend’s dog died of an accident on the weekend, so compared to that the loss of a fish may be minor), Syo was stricken and still crying when I put her on the school bus, and I was a lot more freaked out than I should’ve been. Jack is now in a box in a freezer to await burial in the spring. He’s too special to just chuck in the garbage like the other goldfish we’ve lost.

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December 9, 2010 · 6:06 pm

A loud little shirt

I think my eyes are bleeding...

Well, Syo’s request is complete, though I think I’ll be seeing after-images of this print for days. Overall, it went fairly well. Unsurprisingly, the shirt pattern I used as a base had way too much ease. It was designed for wovens, so I did go down a size, but evidently that wasn’t enough. So I took out about an inch of excess from each side and under the arm to get it to a fit she would approve. Fortunately with this design I didn’t need to worry much about what that would do to the armscye.

There were the usual technical glitches that crop up when I wing it. I decided in

Can you spot what's wrong here?

advance that I would sandwich the front of the straps in between the drape and the shirt bodice, so that it would be firmly and neatly attached with the end hidden inside the double-layer drape (I didn’t want to attempt to do the back of the straps this way as I was pretty sure I would mess the length up). However, my first attempt at this fabric sandwich resulted in the picture at the right. That’s the straps peeking out from underneath the drape. Not going to work. So I had to pick them out (which took forever) and re-position.

It turned out that the way things rolled, the under-layer of the drape needed to be shorter than the outer, so I had to trim it off, after.

A satisfied cutie

Then, my first attempt to sew the lower edges of the drape together to make a nice, enclosed piece (except for a small opening that had to be hand-finished) failed, leaving me with a mobius-strip-like wad of fabric that couldn’t be unravelled. So I cut off the seam on that (no way was I unpicking that much), which cost the drape some width. Ah, well.

My next attempt, fortunately, did work. I tried to take a picture of what I did to show it but it made no sense to me looking at it after, so I’ll leave it to your imaginations. Unfortunately, pinning wasn’t really an option for this method, so combined with the somewhat irregular trimming and cutting, the drape didn’t end up all going together as flat and smooth as it might. Ah, well. The look’s not bad (perhaps I should’ve rotated it all an inch, that way the pulling would look more intentional?)

The hems were kind of my waterloo. I used my latest double-needle. Can we say

Side view

“tunneling”? My usual trick of ironing wash-away stabilizer into the hem before sewing failed because the stabilizer would not stick to this slippery swimsuit-feeling fabric. To make matters worse, the serged edge I put on the bottom of the shirt (to neaten the inside of the hem) kept squishing up between the two needles, making the tunneling between them even worse. And while this wasn’t the wiggliest knit I’ve ever worked with, it is the wiggliest slippery knit. So don’t look too close at the hems… it ain’t pretty.

And no, I didn’t make her a matching skirt. That’s Tyo’s contribution so far, turning the remnant of the fabric into a wrap skirt.

Also I couldn’t find my twill tape for putting in the tag, so I substituted a bit of pink seam-binding from one of the vintage sewing notion scores. It seems to be working, though we’ll see how the transfer adheres after washing (I find it sticks better to the textured twill-tape than to the satiny ribbon I’ve sometimes used).

Straps and a cute little label

Now Tyo can’t decide if she wants a shirt like this, or a sweater like my Kimono Lady Grey (which she’s been stealing on me, by the way). I told her I’m not making her any sweaters unless she agrees to hand down some of the myriad of bunnyhugs (hoodies to the rest of the world) she’s been hoarding for the last few years—y’know, the ones that don’t cover more than half her forearm but she somehow can’t quite give up?

The construction is a mix of the old stretch stitches on my regular machine and the serger; mostly depending on how much control I needed at any given point. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to construct things entirely on the serger, but not yet.

Next up: more fun with Lekala patterns (and unfortunate fabric choices… sigh…)

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November 20, 2010 · 2:27 pm

The Russian Princess Coat

The Russian Princess Coat

Girl in a red coat

Full Disclosure Edition

Seems to me like a Russian Princess coat, anyway. Or Madeline, as celkalee said.

Walking

The coat was finished, and not a moment too soon (actually a little late), as winter arrived on Monday with about six inches of snow (and another six on Tuesday, and again Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and today have been snow-light; more is forecast for tomorrow). Also, of course, providing the perfect backdrop for this coat. Snow and spruce trees for the win.

Even after four coats, I still haven’t really got that “facing/hem” thing figured out. I know there’s a way to make it happen really neatly (I’ve read two or three different sets of instructions on it, even), but somehow my pieces never quite line up and I end up fudging and hand-stitching to make it work. Ah, well. If some future couturier in distant decades dissects this coat, they’ll find plenty of other construction quirks to puzzle over (like, oh, how I padstitched the collar after sewing it… yeah, yeah.

Vent being pulled wonky by ining

The only bit I’m really not happy with (other than the sleeves still being uncomfortably tight) is the rear vent. I used the Cupcake Goddess’s instructions and while the basic principal is sound, I can’t figure out how to do it without creating and offset in the lining so you have a seam allowance (or making the cut-out side shorter). This, added to the difference in the length of the lining vs. the length of the back, meant that my vent-extensions lined up really poorly, and while they lie flat when worn, the lining is a bit short and makes the coat hike up if anything goes off of plum. Also the whole thing requires a degree of precision I find difficult to achieve at the best of times, much less when wrestling five pounds of wool coat around my sewing machine.

The rear view

All in all the pattern went together fairly well. My only serious objection with it is the narroweness of the sleeves. I added 2cm in sleeve width after the second muslin, but they are still really snug—it makes an attractively slim line, but not a comfortable coat, and it’s pretty impossible for Tyo to put a sweater under it at the moment. Thanks everyone for their suggestions on this problem, by the way… I’ll probably be tackling it in the next week or so. Or, y’know, tomorrow if I’m a good mom.

Next up: jeans and a stab at Lekala patterns!

Click to go to slideshow!

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