New Look 6195 | Tanit-Isis Sews

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June 23, 2011 · 8:16 am

The littlest sweatshop, I mean, seamstress.

Dresses for nieces

The children have decided (however temporarily) that hanging out in the sewing room is their new favourite way to spend time with mom. This may just be because it’s easier to get me to pay attention to them when we’re making something together. We have all kinds of projects planned—dresses for my nieces, zippered pouches for their teachers—all of which need to be completed in the next week or so. I foresee evenings of ~~toil and drudgery~~I mean bonding and quality time.

Shh! It's a secret!

This would be work enough (especially since we have the massive birthday party from hell on Saturday: both kids’ parties at once, so roughly 20 kids aged 8-11 running around the house and yard for five hours while my husband is at work. Probably water-balloons and the lawn sprinkler will be involved at some point), but Tyo also wants to make Syo a dress for her birthday. That is a surprise. As in, it can only be worked on when Syo isn’t in the sewing room. See the first sentence as to why this is a problem. Out of the leftover fabric from my 70s tunic, which of course requires lining and nice seam finishes and stuff. I’m not 100% convinced she knows what she’s in for. For those of you to whom kid-related sewing is absolutely mind-numbing and irrelevant, I apologize. This may not be a good week for you.

Teacher-present fabrics

Also, the hunt for teacher-present-fabrics led to spending a dangerous amount of time in the quilting section, something I generally avoid like the plague. Apparently this is where they keep all the nice prints (I’m much more favourable about prints when I’m not trying to imagine myself wearing them, I guess). This is especially dangerous as I have twee-little-sundresses on the brain. For which quilting cottons could actually be appropriate.

So what did I do yesterday?

Lekala sailor shorts

I decided, on a whim, to take a stab at Lekala 5465, a set of sailor-buttoned shorts.

I haven’t tried making sailor shorts, so I can’t really compare various methods, but I really don’t like this one. It doesn’t help that I didn’t really do it right, but basically there’s a point of weakness at the bottom of the slash that I don’t think anything is really going to fix.

The shorts (in progress)

I tried to compensate with excessive bar-tacking.

Depending on how incompetent I feel when I finish these, I may go into the construction process and how I screwed up. Or I may just throw them in the wadder-bin. I did take a lot of in-progress photos, though.

In Me-Made June news,

June 22

Yesterday was easily the nicest day of the year yet. The high was 25C (that’s like almost 80 F!), which since we’re still inured to barely-double-digits felt like heaven (or hell, to hear Syo tell it… that child does not like being hot.) I took the opportunity to wear my lace T-shirt dress

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as Kid-Made, Lekala, Lekala 5465, Me-Made June, New Look 6195

September 26, 2010 · 5:34 pm

Mellow yellow

Syo's Yellow Sundress

Back around my birthday, when I was feeling splurgy, I let Syo pick out a metre of fabric from the bargain section at Fabricland. She chose a soft, super-stretchy, lycra-y border-print in yellow stripes trimmed in flowers. We got home, and she picked out a pattern, New Look 6195, a kids’ sundress Ip icked up at Value Village. I settled down and traced out a size 7 (length 8)… and there the project sat, although the fabric got plenty of use as a blanket, veil, fairy wings, shawl, cloak, cocoon, and pretty much anything else a creative seven-year-old could do with it.

Dancing

This afternoon, however, Tyo had a friend over, while Syo did not. This (like most of their interactions) was threatening to bring on World War III, so I suggested we make up the dress. This was possibly even better than pissing off her sister, so Syo agreed.

Now, as usual, I am incapable of actually following the instructions (or good sense). The pattern was for a woven. Syo’s fabric is stretchy. VERY stretchy. On top of that, it is one of those pesky border-prints with the border on, y’know, the side. So the only thing to do was have the pieces go crosswise on the fabric. Creating, y’know, maximum vertical stretch. Exactly what you want in a dress.

Nonetheless, we bravely laid it out (man did it shrink a lot in the dryer, too, this took some ingenuity), cut our pieces, ironed interfacing on to the front facing, made the straps (Syo turned them inside out herself. It’s much easier to do in a knit, isn’t it?), and got to work.

It’s a cute sundress pattern. Simple. Not quite sure what purpose

Twirling

the back seam serves… it has a little shape but really, given the overall A-line of the dress, why bother? They have a very nice technique for sewing the side seams and facing all in one move, which gives you a nice finish and means that there’s absolute no chance to adjust the fit of the elastic before it’s sewn in completely. Which, of course, was too loose being designed for a woven (and probably with too much ease in the original pattern, too) and probably a little big for my rather petite seven-year-old at the best of times.

And then, there is the facing.

Now, I’ve heard facings are a bad idea in knits. As a result, I’ve never done them. This time, I decided to follow the pattern. Well, as you can see, the facing is a problem: it’s showing through like crazy. It was also turning out a bit, though you can’t see this in my rather blurry photos. I have since top-stitched it down at 5/8″ in (to match the elastic casing in the back). This should take care of the roll-over, and I will probably trim the bottom of the facing to match

Front with topstitching

It’s a fairly slapdash effort. Aside from the fudged facing, the elastic back was (inevitably) too long so I took a two inch tuck in it at the centre back, which is kinda bulky but can theoretically be released in a year or two when she grows into it. I left the selvedge at the hem, which has a bit of a lettuce-leaf look that I like. If it doesn’t work out, I may actually lettuce-leaf it at some point, but for now it’s fine. I eyeballed the ties, and it shows, but only if you look close ;). The seams are also a bit puckered, but hopefully that’ll soften up with a wash. The back hem tends to sag quite a bit, I think partly due to the halter cut itself, but certainly not helped along by the heavy, drapy fabric.

Nonetheless, her Sevenness is mighty thrilled. She might even get a chance to wear it, as the forecast is

Sundress back, showing tuck in elastic and the Facing of Doom

looking above-seasonal for the first time since August. We may even make it above 20 for much of the week!

In Self-Stitched September news, the weather has me HAPPY. Syo took the pictures, so they’re not full body, but I promise you those are my blue Jalie capris. Yay! I am getting so darned sick of the two other pairs… 😉