Tag Archives: whining

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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November 27, 2010 · 9:56 am

Theoretical Sewing

Fantasy jacket, side view

If I may steal a phrase from Elizabeth.

My goal this weekend is to see if I can, somehow, catch up on my much-neglected NaNoWriMo novel (if you scroll down to the bottom of my sidebar, you will see on my widget that I am sorely behind, while the month is nearly done. I blame this squarely on sewing. In my non-sewing (or at least, non-sewing-obsessively-except-when-thinking-about-sewing-obsessively) days I had no trouble pumping out my 2k words a day. This year, it’s been a struggle. Grr. Not helped by the fact that my main character has two small kids and over the course of the story so far has acquired a third, and getting your character to do anything with three kids under the age of five is almost as hard as actually doing anything yourself with that many small children. Who knew? Anyway. So I’m trying to not sew this weekend. Despite that, my brain is fluttering with things I’d like to make. In particular, this jacket-cum-sweater thing. I’ve been thinking that I love the idea of a blazer for everyday wear, but in practice I find them restrictive and end up reaching for my bunnyhug (hoodie to those of you who don’t hail from central Saskatchewan). It’s the bastard lovechild of the Lady Grey and the Kimono-Style Bunnyhug on Burdastyle. In particular, I want to make it out of sweatshirt-material,

front view

with a shawl collar. Which will require—yes, you guessed it—drafting. Ulp. So naturaly, I spent a chunk of time yesterday when I should’ve been writing, looking up how to draft shawl collars. And then working up these sketches. And now, when I should be writing, I’m making a blog post. *headdesk*

I’ll get to it right away, I promise. No tea until I start writing. Ok, no more tea.

Also, my sketching is sooo out of practice. Not surprising—I’ve done very little figure drawing, none of it life-drawing, since Tyo was born—but painful, still. The side view above is decent but the front view is indifferent at best. Bleh. I always did like profiles (you don’t have to get both sides symmetrical! 😉 ). I’ve done scientific illustrations out the wazoo the last several years, but those don’t really use the same skill-set. I love drawing fabric, though. I love drawing clothes. I always have. My main annoyance with most of the figure-drawing I did in early Uni was that it was all nudes. Which are interesting in their own way—once you add clothes you are no longer drawing “a person” but drawing a particular kind of person; the figure acquires layers of connotation that were absent from the nude—but I wanted to practice drawing clothes as they fit around a person.

Anyway, I’m obviously stalling. Off to write!

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November 19, 2010 · 9:41 am

Back to the Future, Jalie Style

Despite my inclination to plunge headlong into another coat—my long-neglected Lady Grey, say (I bought hair canvas! I bought hair canvas!)—I need to do some practical sewing. My favourite pair of Jalie jeans has developed some issues (mostly due to my own shoddy construction decisions… the sort of thing, it appears, I have to learn for myself, because no amount of good advice seems to get through my thick skull), rendering them currently unwearable, though a bit of mending should get them back in the rotation. Am I the only one who’d rather  make a whole new pair of pants than sew a belt-loop back on? Well, that and the pockets (which I made out of cotton from an old duvet I’d retired because of all the holes it was developing… stupid, stupid) are full of holes, which is causing stress in the pocket topstitching, which has broken some of the topstitching threads… so yeah, they are in some trouble. Not to the point of being unwearable (at least once I get the belt loop sewn back on… this is why you attach them with zigzag bars, not just straight stitch). For those of you who weren’t around back in the summer when I began my Great Jeans Odyssey, my pattern of choice is the infamous Jalie 2908, altered based on becca a’s instructions into a low-rise, straight-legged jean and tweaked for maximal skinniness.

Embryonic jeans

Anyway, yesterday I laid out my remaining length of black stretch denim. Apparently I had enough left for two pairs of pants, instead of just the one I’d thought. 3 pairs of pants from 4m of fabric, not bad. If, y’know, I needed three pairs of black jeans… but anyway. I cut merrily away, even remembering to undo my disastrous alteration of last summer.

Pocket closeup

I made some construction breakthroughs. I “fused” washaway stabilizer to the wrong sides of the pockets so they wouldn’t stretch out when I did the embroidery on them. I’m really happy about this… not only does it keep the pocket stable, when you fold the sides under and press them, it melts just enough to really grip the edges in place, so they don’t pop up! And unlike the interfacing I’ve used before, they’ll wash away so that when I finally wear my pants the pockets can stretch with the rest of them! And it didn’t even stick to the iron, which was my main fear.

I remembered to sew the yoke pieces on in the back before the centre seam. I did my topstitching in a regular red thread, using my triple-stitch (the straight stretch stitch) like I did in Tyo’s jeans. It looks great! So much more relaxing than wrestling with the topstitching thread, and I can use the same thread for constructing the seams, plus it slows the machine right down, which is good for topstitching (my Janome does not like to go slow, normally)

And then… I realized… I had sewn the yoke pieces on the wrong sides. The narrow ends were in the CB, the wide ends at the sides.

I had to pick out… two rows of stretch topstitching, the regular stitching, AND my triple-zig-zag seam finish. Yes, I was being all fancy and finishing my seams for once!

This kinda set me back.

then, having recovered from that, I went merrily on my way starting the fly construction…

And forgot that I need to attach the front pockets, first, since I’ve drafted pocket extensions that run into the fly. This makes for a nice, smooth finish on the front of the jeans and helps stabilize the fly… but only works if I actually remember to do it *before* I sew up the CF. So now I’m on the fence whether to rip that (probably only the basting where the fly opening will be, and a single bit of topstitching, need to come out) or just cut off the pocket extensions. Grrr.

This is why we follow instructions, /sigh.

Tyo’s coat continues to elude photography, mostly because with the grey weather we’ve been having, by the time she gets home from school the light’s already going. Hopefully we can get some good ones on the weekend. The sleeves are a real problem, though. With a sweater underneath, she can’t even bend her arms enough to button the thing closed. I’m going to have to open it up and pull out a layer or two in there. *headdesk*

On the up-side, it was -20 this morning and my coat performed adequately, at least for walking the kids to the bus stop. I was getting a mite cold by the time I got home, but nothing that long-johns and a proper hat (I just had my sweater hood up, silly me) wouldn’t’ve fixed. So I think it will be adequate, at least. The next test, of course, will have to be wind chill.

I still want a winter coat that’s both stylish and -50C-worthy. I have a feeling it’s going to take a) a less fitted style, b) a lot of research into materials, and c)more money. Not that this one was cheap, by the way.

In other news, I splurged and took my long-ailing serger in to get serviced (finally… it’s been about two years). The guy at the sewing-machine place confirmed my thought that the problem is the timing, and hopefully nothing else is wrong with it. It still runs fine… the loops just don’t form.

So in a couple of weeks I may have a serger again! Yay!

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November 2, 2010 · 9:46 pm

One step forward, two steps back…

So I figured out how to use Adobe Acrobat to tile the oversize pdf patterns properly. Apparently I am just “Acrobatically challenged”… there’s an option in the scaling box in the print interface. Beangirl, you have my permission to smack me upside the head about now (and any of the rest of you who actually know how these programs work). However, after tiling, the lines were too faint—they still showed up on the screen, but for some reason most of them weren’t printing. Fortunately I’m a LITTLE better when it comes to Illustrator than in Acrobat; it only took me a moment to load the original file in Illustrator, select everything, find the line width, and bump it up a couple of pixels.  Probably too high, now, but anyway. Lovely clear lines. Back to Acrobat, tile again… print to PDF just so I can see what I’m going to end up with, all right, all set, print a test page to compare with the smaller version of the coat pattern, looks like it will be larger by about the right amount, start printing…

out of ink. And the take-the-cartridge-out-and-shake-it trick isn’t working. Nor can I convince the damn thing that because it has two black ink tanks, it really only needs one of them to be full.

So I guess the project is on hold until I can get more ink. Thursday at the earliest.

*head-desk*

ah, well, more time for writing…

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October 26, 2010 · 9:25 pm

Picky zippy

Inadequate zipperosity.

I don’t have a nice grey metal zipper. Why do I give a flying fig about the colour of the zipper in these pants? I don’t know, but I want one that’s metal, either grey or black, and I don’t have one. The one metal zip I do have kicking around was purchased for my Jalie jeans and isn’t quite long enough. Grr. If I had thought about this I could’ve popped by the Sewing World by the train station on my way home from work today, because while they don’t have much that’s of use to me, they do have zippers (and needles… I need a new twin needle, too… my old one finally died, though it lasted much longer than any of its predecessors.)

While I’m wishing, I’d like some pinking shears too.

Anyway, as you can see, I have not made significant progress on the pants.

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September 21, 2010 · 8:47 pm

Bleeeuuuuuaauauagh…

Yeah, that about sums it up. Sorry for the no-post yesterday… I have about enough stamina to run downstairs and heat up some tea before collapsing back into bed right now. Probably I’d be doing better if I could actually sleep, but the general malaise and sinus-balloons aren’t helping there, either. So, anyway, enough whining.

Yesterday, I did manage to take in the white Lydia and hem the sleeves, but not the bottom as I like to iron in some wash-away stabilizer for that, and I’m not up for that much running-up-and-down of stairs. I also spent some time working on The Coat—finishing the hem and making chain tacks between lining hem and shell hem out of some silver embroidery floss I happened to have handy. I have a small

Chain-tack to keep lining and coat hems from shifting too much.

stash of embroidery floss, mostly dating from high-school, when I enjoyed cross stitch, before I realized that if you do cross-stitch, what you end up with at the end of the day is a piece of cross-stitch.

Man, I’m a pack-rat.

Anyway, the exertion of sitting upright for a whole three hours or so was enough to send me back to bed for the evening too wiped to even write, much less photograph my accomplishments.

Today, by contrast, I lay in bed. I did bestir myself enough to open up my Lady Grey pattern, unfold the tissue, separate the pieces, and mark out the size 2 in a felt marker so I can trace them off more easily later. I napped, or tried to. In a fit of boredom, I took another stab at designing labels, this time using Inkscape (since I have it on my laptop, whereas my elderly copy of

Labels made in Inkscape. Also a cooler font.

Illustrator only runs on the old XP desktop). Inkscape is another vector graphics program, rather like Illustrator’s awkward, ungainly cousin. It has one huge advantage over Illustrator—it’s free—and one smaller one, which is that although its user-interface is fairly clunky, I actually find it more intuitive than Illustrator’s, which has to be the least-intuitive graphics program I’ve ever messed with*.

Anyway, you can see the outcome. The illustration actually printed out quite nicely… I was a little worried about

Label, v. 2.0

that. And here is the label in place in my coat:

So that’s where I’m at.

Oh, Self-stitched September.

Self-Stitched September, day 20

Yesterday

Lydia v. 4

Today.

All right. Off to bed.

*I’ve never actually had any formal training in graphic arts. All of my photoshop prowess, which is passable, and my Illustrator and Inkscape and GIMP fu, which are rather less, come from messing around. A lot of messing around. If you have actual training in any of these programs, my hat is off to you and you can undoubtedly make them dance circles around what little I can do.

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September 17, 2010 · 9:35 pm

Remember what I said about the north wind?

Yes, that's snow on my neighbour's roof this morning.

It didn’t stick, but it still sucked.

Canadian winters are sorta like childbirth. They really suck when they’re happening, but then when they’re over you feel all macho and tough for getting through it (why no, I didn’t have an epidural. Either time.). Except that I only had to go through childbirth twice. Of course, this isn’t winter. Winter’s still a good couple of months off, though with La Nina developing it will probably be a nasty one, unlike last winter, which barely counted. It was nice, but not nice enough to make up for the cruddy summer.

I never have understood why people like fall. It’s my birthday season and I still don’t understand it.

Anyway, that’s probably my year’s quotient of weather-whining for a sewing blog, so I’ll move on.

Other than needing to vent over the snow, I might as well have skipped posting today. The outfit’s a repeat, and the only “sewing” consisted of pulling out most of the seam holding lining to coat to re-position it. There was a lot of swearing involved. It may end up not being possible to wear this coat unbuttoned, because I’m not convinced I can keep the front sides from swinging out. Though I guess if I have to tack down all the inside seams, I will. Grrr. Well, I’m definitely learning a lot. I’m sure if I went to make it over again, I would screw up way less.

Anyway, the daily outfit is a repeat, so bring on the goofy poses:

Self-Stitched September, Day 17

Walk like an Egyptian!

Self-Stitched September, Day 17

OMFG it's freakin' cold out here!!!!1!

Self-Stitched September, Day 17

This is what happens when you turn around to see if the camera's gone off yet.

Have a great weekend!

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September 13, 2010 · 8:50 pm

This would be infinitely easier…

Sleeve pinned---almost looking good.

… if I had a dress-form.

I speak, of course, of trying to get the sleeves set in my winter coat. I got the rest of the lining cut out and mostly assembled, so all I need to do at this point is set the sleeves, construct the interlining, and then put the whole thing together.

Setting the sleeves is a problem.

This is because the sleeve I chose to use is not the sleeve which came with the pattern.

Typically when you do this, you choose a sleeve from a pattern that has worked well for you in the past, and then you copy the armscye from that

And straight... still some wrinkling on the inside.

pattern as well.

However, I didn’t actually have a sleeve from a jacket pattern that I liked. All I knew was that I wanted a two-piece sleeve and I didn’t like the sleeve that came with the pattern (which was one piece and designed for a puffed sleeve-head.)

So, I’m using the sleeve from this coat. Yeah, the one that I had all the trouble with. And there was no way I was copying the armscye that went with it.

I’m stupid that way. The armscye length was actually perfect (I measured), but I thought I should enlarge the sleeve a bit and cut the head extra-generous so I would have some wiggle room.

And, y’know, I think it can work. I’ve had it pinned into a reasonably functional position (on me) about five times in the last two hours.

I just can’t get it off to baste it without the pins popping. And I don’t think I can really baste it while I’m wearing it.

I was hoping to make a paper-tape dress form on the weekend, to address this very problem, but that didn’t happen (see the post about Sunday). And it probably won’t happen next weekend, as the hubby works. Unless I can conscript the children… I’ve already had to fight to keep them out of my precious paper tape. We’ll see how desperate I get.

I really, really, really would like to get this coat finished. It’s frickin’ cold here right now and the only coat I have is a very stylish, beautifully-draping raglan-sleeve dress coat I got at Value Village about twelve years ago. It’s been sitting mostly in my closet since then, probably for the same reason it was at Value Village in the first place: it has no buttons.

Yes, function was definitely secondary to form when that coat was designed. This is a bit of a pain, although it works pretty well with my new cardi-wrap if I throw one side of the wrap over my shoulder before I put on the coat. Just like having a big red scarf.

Oh, I guess there is the fur coat from my grandmother and the mink-trimmed coat from my sister-in-law, but a) that’s a bit dressy even for me and b) I don’t really need to be assaulted by PETAns on my way to work.

And speaking of the crappy weather, here’s my outfit today:

Self-Stitched September Day 13

Self-Stitched September Day 13

Top: Simplicity cardi-wrap, Lydia top; Bottom: Kasia skirt.


or

Self-Stitched September Day 13

Taken through the patio door so I didn't have to set the tripod up out in the rain.

Well, I think that’s all I have time for tonight. Wish me better luck with my sleeve-setting tomorrow!

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August 30, 2010 · 7:34 am

One last thing…

Of course, the week that the Selfish Seamstress links to me would be the week that I get next to no sewing done. Sorry, folks, we had company and my sewing machine hasn’t been unbanished from the basement yet. Soon, though.

The days are dwindling. I’m not ready for September for so many reasons (the least of which is my 30th birthday :P). I’m not sick of summer! I need at least a couple of weeks of solidly brutal heat to prepare me for the winter to come. Even though the winters here are fairly pansy-ass compared to what I grew up with, they still bite. I am not mentally equipt for moderate climates. Instead, what we got was a weekend that didn’t get above 20 C the whole time. Yesterday and today won’t get above 15. Brutal!

Anyway, I feel like there’s just time to plan for one last garment before September really begins (I will obviously attempt to keep sewing in September, but it’s going to be limited, and probably focused on my winter coat). So what should it be?

My problem is that what I want to do is fabric shop. I am sick of my (admittedly limited) stash, with the exception of a few pieces that I have garments in mind that I’m not ready for yet. There are all kinds of (comparatively… it is Fabricland, after all) glorious sweater-weight knits at Fabricland that are tempting me, not to mention coating (for the Lady Grey of course). I want to play around with my Lydia pattern more, too, and I don’t have any knits for that. I’d really like some killer denim; I have enough for one more black pair, which is all right, but I’d really prefer a dark indigo wash. Not that there was anything like that at Fabricland last time I checked, mind you. And while you’d think I’d be able to justify some birthday splurging, the always-tight budget is even tighter than usual (still recovering from the summer splurges, and September is always a pricey month with the kids’ school starting). We’ll see. I also need to order the Lady Grey pattern, and if I’m going to do that I might as well order the Ceylon at the same time, right? (I think I’ve talked myself out of Beignet… if I decide I can’t live without it I’ll make up a regular pencil-skirt with a button front instead.)

I did receive some small relief last night in the form of some last-minute hand-me-downs from the Selfish Seamstress. I can see one of the fabrics becoming another JJ. (Because, y’know, I really need another one of those). But I still want sweater knit! I want long sleeves!

Now to reclaim my machine. I have a scheme to set it up on the computer desk, which would be an improvement over the kitchen table where it’s been lurking all summer, and the Monster (aka the 10-year-old) needs to finish her bag… but first I have to do a ton of running around. With no car today, I might add. Argh.

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August 19, 2010 · 7:54 am

Kasia—fitting

Or, A Window To My Insecurities

Kasia: front

I hate fit photos. I have a really hard time making myself take them—straight on, rear view, side view, with no posing or angling or

Kasia: side

twisting to give me the illusion of a figure I don’t have. Also, as usual, any kind of a waistband at my waist makes me feel like an absolute blob. (I am trying very hard to remind myself this is just a feeling and does not necessarily reflect how I actually look in the item) But, for your amusement, here they are.

Obviously the waistband needs to come in a bit, chiefly at the centre back. Big surprise. Also, despite my grading of the waist up a size, the curve of the hips is still a little generous (aka poufy. This hip-pouf is the reason I originally abandoned high-waisted anything), so I will need to take that in. It’s

Kasia: rear

especially obvious in the rear view.

Other than those fairly minor tweaks it’s looking not bad. I think the length will be nice once it’s hemmed. (This is also outside the comfort zone for me… I traditionally wear my skirts really long, like full length, or really short. For functional reasons, this mostly means I don’t wear my skirts. However, the one skirt in my wardrobe that actually gest worn on a regular basis is just above knee-length.)

I have some issue with my zipper insertion (don’t I always?) but since it doesn’t show I’m not overly bothered by it. Now I’m debating how much topstitching to do (all there is right now is around the hip panels). Emphasize the waistband, or the vertical seams? (or both?) Invisible hem or topstitched hem at the bottom? I’m sooo tempted to peg the bottom sides in a bit, too, but I’m trying to resist, as it really looks fine and if it’s too narrow to walk in, I won’t wear it.

Then there’s the issue of how much ease I need in the waistband. Ease at the waist has always been tricky for me. The amount that feels comfortable (i. e. doesn’t leave me feeling like I instantly gained 20 lbs) is very little, which tends to produce rolls when I sit down. Now, muffin-top at my hips bothers me not at all, but rolls at the waist drive me nuts. But so does a loose waistband.

Funny how your feelings about how you look can be so disconnected from how you actually look, hey? Looking at the pictures, I actually don’t mind the skirt. There’s even some curviness at the hip there (aside from the poufy part) that is the main draw of a pencil skirt; though not seeing my bellybutton above a waistband is very disorienting. Wearing it, I feel big as a house. Pregnant. Like I’m driving a minivan. (Yes, driving minivans makes me feel fat. Something about the way they maneuver…)

Hopefully some careful fitting and lots of awesome photos later will help me take care of that.

Well, I hope that was an interesting window into all my little figure-insecurities. Now, I need a cup of tea.

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