Australian Smocking & Embroidery Issue 83 "Fairy Floss"

I am still unearthing UFOs. I could not think why I had not finished this romper, but when I looked back at my blog realised that I had started 4 projects in one weekend near the end of winter. This was not a good idea! Unfortunately, this meant that I missed the very small winter garment window for the niece I intended to dress in this garment. I had cut out the pattern, sewed the centre seams, and naturally, completed the bit in which I was really interested - the smocking. After this, the romper somehow drifted to the bottom of my sewing pile.

 

The garment in the magazine is made from cotton velour. I love velour baby clothes, but had never seen cotton stretch velour fabric for sale in Australia before it appeared at the Country Bumpkin shop in this issue. It was available in pale pink, for $19.95 per metre. I was tempted, but decided that pale pink was not a suitable colour for rompers worn by a crawling/almost walking baby, and substituted a synthetic velour, which just happened to still be in my stash after making new born clothes whilst expecting my son (now 6). He did wear purple as a newborn, but my husband felt that purple was insufficiently blokey for a male Australian baby, so I did not use the remainder of the fabric - there was only enough for a baby garment.

 

I enjoyed making this, but ran into a few issues. My first concern is the smocking. I have used my own smocking design, as there was only a tiny amount of smocking on the magazine garment, with most of the embellishment being ribbon and bullion roses. I now know why. The smocking does not show up well on the plush fabric, and because fibres of the plush poke up between threads, the smocking looks a bit scanty and uneven. I used 3 strands of DMC cotton, but should have used 4. I don't think I will smock on velour again, but it was an interesting experiment. My choice of lazy daisies and chain stitch was also not ideal. The bullion stitches used on the magazine garment show up much better. I should have used 3 dimensional embroidery for the flowers.
The second issue was the garment style. I do not know many immobile 12 month old babies, and this pattern has non grip feet included in all sizes, including the 12 month size I have made. I don't think this is a good idea for any standing or walking baby in anything other than pyjamas. I eliminated the feet.
The construction of this garment did not seem to take into account the knit nature of the fabric. Piping was used where it would limit the stretch inappropriately IMO. I did use it at the front bodice, but did not like the look of it, so sewed another few mm outside the seam allowance to make it very skinny and unobtrusive, then did not use it anywhere else. I also removed some of the sleeve fullness, as I felt the sleeves were too bulky. I did not include the collar, as I ran out of fabric. I hope the neck is not too wide. The romper is very large for size 12 months IMO, I hope it is not too big for the intended recipient, but I suppose she is not getting any smaller.

As the romper will not fit any of my nieces during winter, I had to look further afield for someone to wear the garment. Rashly, I offered it to a baby whose mother sews. I had not constructed the garment when I made the offer, so of course everything that could go wrong with the construction occurred. I am not going to point out the defects, but I know they will be glaringly obvious to a sewing mum. Now I want to make her something else, just to show that I can do it properly!

Knit tops

I do not find knit sewing very rewarding. I am not at all skilled at this type of sewing, but am trying to improve. I think it is more difficult than it appears. Despite my lack of skill causing some of my dissatisfaction, I am pretty sure after my 3rd attempt that the Jalie 2787 top is not for me. For this version I used a lovely thick cotton lycra knit that I bought at the Sunday markets earlier this week - I have never seen fabric there before. This was much easier to sew than the rayon jersey I used previously (thanks Maree for the words of consolation, now I know I am not alone with my troubles with this fabric). I did not use contrast bindings, making the construction even more simple. I increased the length of the cross overs by 1.5cm to allow more bust room - the previous tops pulled to the front at the side seams. However, there is still puddling and wrinkling at the lower front. The fabric is not at all stretched here in construction. I now realize this is not the fabric, but the cut of the pattern. I could alter the style, but looking at the pattern envelope and the reviews at pattern review,it only now strikes me that this seems most flattering on women with fairly spare and elegant figures, neither of which adjectives apply to me. It is useful, I suppose to discover yet another unflattering style to avoid!

 

I have not done a great job with this version of Simplicity 4095 - how stupid of me to follow Simplicity's topstitching instructions at the neck, because it looked fine before this step, but generally, I think this style of top is more suitable for my shape. Unfortunately, it is not as interesting in design.

 

Fortunately, I think the Jalie top will look very good on my daughters. I am very pleased that it comes in so many sizes.

Jalie 2787, and the perils of internet shopping

I worked on Jalie 2787 this weekend. I am not sure yet whether or not I like this pattern. I think I have a wearable garment from it, but it is not the garment I was planning, nor is it completely successful in Mark 2 version.

 

What I wanted to make, was a sleeveless top to wear right now, in very hot weather. I ordered a rayon jersey print that I thought would work, but when it arrived it was terribly thin fabric. No doubt this fabric is useful for something, but made up in this stretchy t shirt pattern, it was horrid to sew, growing under the needle, and looks awful on - it clings and grabs, the hems and lower front bodice look stretched out, and in general this behaved like a cheap nasty fabric. It was not cheap, and probably I have just picked the wrong pattern for this fabric.

 

This looks like a $2 t shirt from a reject bin to me. I really tried to make it work in this version, but it was not co-operative. Instead, I made a second version, shown at the top of the post, laying the fabric out on another very thin cotton jersey that again, I would not sew as a t shirt by itself and cutting out then sewing the 2 fabrics as if they were a single layer. This has given the garment slighty better body, and I will probably wear the 3/4 sleeve version next winter, but it is far too hot to wear now. I did not make a second sleeveless version from the 2 layers of fabric, as I find 2 thin layers much warmer than a single medium weight fabric, and knew that I would not wear a 2 layer version in hot weather.
I am very pleased to have none of this print fabric left. I seem incapable of throwing out theoretically useable pieces of fabric, so this would have haunted me in the stash.
To close on a better note, I will have to veer considerably off topic. My garden is enjoying the well soaked soil that is the aftermath of all the huge storms we have recently experienced in Queensland. Here are some gardenias in the backyard. I have never seen such big ones, and the scent is wonderful.

 

"Sunshine" Australian Smocking and Embroidery Issue #60

The last time my SIL was looking through my smocking magazines, this dress was one she picked out as a favourite for her daughter (niece youngest-but-one). It is " Sunshine" from Australian Smocking and Embroidery Issue #60, made up in size 18 months.

 

I have used a combination of quilting cottons for my version, which will be part of my neice's Christmas present. I think the name "Sunshine" led me to these hot, summery colours.

 

I am not sure if you can see in the photograph, but the main yellow print has daisies in different shades of yellow. I used my own smocking design for this project, using very simple stitches to make the smocking easy and suitable as a handbag project. Like the magazine version, I used the print as inspiration for the smocking.
I used a variagated yellow DMC embroidery floss for the diamond smocking background, then a red from the distorted grid print for the accent wave and trellis hearts. The bottom row of the smocking is emphasised with the same red, and also the shade of orange used in the matching bloomers. This orange fabric is also used for the piping. I have added a few lazy daisies in the red and orange, with blue centres and a bright green leaf and stem for contrast.

 

I found the construction of this set rather time consuming. Partly this is my fault, as I was practicing with my rolled hem foot again,and making several mistakes, but the instructions also call for a lot of handsewing, and the ruffle is over 3metres long. It looks pretty, but I was thinking seriously about a ruffling foot about half way through. The shoulder pieces do not look buckled when the garment is hung up, I just don't think this top likes to lie flat.

Vogue 8034 #2

This version of Vogue 8034 is made from silk charmeuse. This fabric is my oldest stash. My dad bought it for me in Hong Kong, just after I became engaged, so that I could make my wedding dress from it. He had an very generous opinion of my sewing skill! Fortunately I was more realistic, and also chronically short of time due to starting my intern year, so had my dress made for me (silk taffeta - about 7 metres), but the fabric has sentimental value. It is also very wrinkly due to long storage! I have been very cautious with the iron, but can see in the photos that I should have been more vigorous. The fabric has a lovely sheen, and the photos taken late on this overcast afternoon are not doing it justice.

 

 

I have fiddled a bit more with the pattern. The waist drape is now twice the depth of the stay, and this looks better, and more like the pattern illustration IMO. Because of the very stretchy bias, I also needed to remove over 5cm from the waist drape width in order to have it sit firmly over the waist stay. I had to trim the earlier version too, so I think this is an error in the pattern, not allowing sufficiently for the bias nature of the drape.
I did also add fabric to the shoulder drape, but was not happy with the appearance of the shoulders. In my previous version of this top, I quite like the extended shoulder effect, but this is not how the pattern is illustrated, and I wanted a more set- in shoulder so that I could later try the version with sleeves. To make the shoulder more like the illustration, first I trimmed 1.5 cm from the arm hole at the shoulders, tapering to nothing by the bottom of the armhole. After I finished the armhole, I gathered the shoulder and attached it on the inside to a stay made of selvage. The shoulder is still not quite like the illustration, but getting closer. However, gathering the shoulder and setting it in closer to the neck has given a small cowl effect at the back neck. This is fine with me on this version, but I will narrow the back neck on the next version. In retrospect, I could have cut a 10, rather than a 12, but as this size is not on my pattern, I am unlikely to draw out a smaller size.
I also think I should have thought more about the bias front drape. It has grown longer over the day, and gives a rather droopy effect at the bust. I should have hung up the cut out front for 24 hours before sewing it, then trimmed the piece to fit at the bottom. I will know better next time.

Vogue 8034 - version 1, the trial

I made Vogue 8034 today, of a polyester georgette from Kerryn's Fabric World. I was very pleased with how it turned out.

 

 

I made some minor changes to the pattern, taking in the upper waist a little, reducing the width of the facings, eliminating the waist lining and adding a chocolate voile lining to the upper bodice, as the georgette is sheer.

 

. I gathered the front upper bodice lining so that it would sit close to the body.
I also chose to finish the bias gathered lower bodice seperately from the voile waist stay, which also acts as a lining. This allowed the gathered waist section to drape in a curve front and back, which I quite like. My next version will be in cream silk charmeuse, as I do not have a suitable fabric for the lining to the gold chiffon. I will add a bit more fabric to the waist drape and to the shoulder drapes, as I think this would look more luxurious.
This top would look better with a different skirt. I am thinking of this one from the November BWOF

Vogue 7903 #3 Batik blouse

We had a very social weekend, so there wasn't a lot of sewing, but I did finish the batik blouse Vogue 7903. I had a lot of fitting issues with the first two versions and this one was no different. Following on from the previous two versions, my additional alterations were 1. I lowered the bust dart, and 2.removed 1cm from the back shoulders, and added 1cm to the front shoulders to help remove the built in forward shoulder adjustment.
I like the blouse better with the border trim added to the centre front - thanks Carol, Vicki and Bunny for the comments to help me decide.

 

My original intention was to make this up with bracelet length sleeves, but I did not have enough fabric, so made short sleeves, just above the elbow, using the side border as the hem. This seemed good in theory, but I hated how it looked, so took the sleeves off.

 

I then discovered that the 1cm alteration to the shoulders, had combined infelicitously with the lowered bust dart to give me a lot of bust room at the bottom of my rib cage, and none where it would actually be useful. I unpicked the side seams, and raised the bust dart. I think it may still be a bit low. I also took around 2cm from the back side seam above the waist, as there was a lot of back armhole gaposis. It has improved a little. There is also a funny sticking out thing going on with the shoulder seam. I should probably make it slope a little more towards the outer shoulder. I am also thinking the top is a bit long to wear with this skirt, but as I want to make some 3/4 pants to wear to the park with my 6 y.o., I will leave it this length, and see if it looks better with trousers. I am rather tired of this pattern, which is a bit of a problem, as I had planned to make a few work blouses for my SWAP from it. I am now thinking of the ruffle blouse from the December BWOF - nothing is as tempting as a pattern I do not yet own!

Currently I am working on a wearable trial version of Vogue 8034 (Version A). The real version is for my SWAP, and has jumped to the top of the list as my eldest daughter and I have been invited to a Mocktail party. She has picked out her dress, and said to me "You will need to make something new for yourself". I am taking the hint! I am planning to make the Vogue blouse from a gold silk chiffon that has been lurking in the stash for 3 years.

Another UFO uncovered

I was all set to at last start sewing for the SWAP, but decided that, as I seem unable to work on the jacket, which I will not be able to wear until next winter, I would deviate from my sewing order and start with a cream blouse, which will start working in my wardrobe as soon as it is completed.
Imagine my dismay when, on getting out Vogue 7903, I discovered that I did not have clean sewing decks at all. I had already cut out some batik, back in July when I thought I would make a bead embellished blouse for the capsule contest. What is worse, is that I cut this out in a moment of 5am rashness, BEFORE I had read all the fitting suggestions after posting the green and floral versions of the blouse. It has been lurking in a ziplock back with the pattern ever since.

I started it anyway. I have squeezed a tiny bit of extra bust room from the side seam allowances, and trimmed the back shoulder seam a little in hope of reversing the forward shoulder adjustment that is built into the pattern. (Thanks Linda for explaining this to me.
I got this far last night and this morning, but now I am heading off to work. I am musing over whether to have the front like this, which is not unpleasing, but definitely not pattern matched (there is not enough fabric

 

Or maybe I should include the side border of the sarong at the front in order to break up the pattern? I have cut out short sleeves on the cross grain, so that the sleeves will be hemmed with the same border.

 

I will look at it again after work. I also need to think about the beading. This sarong is a second, and you can see wax markings in most unfortunate places. I will try to hide them at the embellishment stage.

V8739 for MareeAlison

Maree was kind enought to comment on the blouse I posted about yesterday. It was her comment on the original post about the blouse that made me try to work out why I wasn't wearing it. I did like the blouse in its prior state, but I had made it as a work blouse, yet could not wear it to work, so it was languishing.
Maree also asked about the wrap dress I had made earlier. Somehow the photographs had fallen off the blog, and I have not reviewed this pattern at patternreview.
Here are my photos. I did not use facings on either dress. The cotton jersey is finished at the neck with an attempt at a blind hem over swimmer elastic. It bubbles a bit at the neck, so I did not try this on the silk.

 

The silk jersey dress is finished with fold over elastic, but I did not like the look of this either, so turned it under again and topstitched with a very skinny zigzag.

 

I wore both of these dresses frequently through Winter and Spring. I think I need a sleeveless version for Summer.

Clearing the decks before SWAP

The title is what I am pretending to do, but really I have been procrastinating. The princess dress was a sort of necessary procrastination, thank you for all the lovely comments - I think there are a lot of inner 4 year old girls out there!
This is the blouse of shame I made for the 2008 SWAP. It is a blouse of shame because in spite of it co-ordinating with 4 bottoms and one jacket, I have never worn it other than for a photograph.

 

It is not that I dislike it, because there are some things I really like about it, and I kept pulling it out of the wardrobe to try on, but after thinking about it for a while, I decided it was just not fit for purpose - it was not suitable for work, too low and wide in the neck, and it was a bit stiff for wearing as a casual day top, and not dressy enough for a going out top. When I first made it I envisioned it as a work top with a wide collar, and unpicked the neckfacing several times to attempt this, without success. It took me 2 hours to unpick the facing yet again, and refashion to this.

 

The facing is thrown out, it was too stiff. I also unpicked the shoulder seams and took aroud a centimetre from the neck edge of the back shoulders, tapering to nothing by the sleeve, in order to improve the fit at the back neck.
Then I bound the edge with a bias strip of batiste, which I just happened to have in the same shade as the cotton lycra blouse fabric, and added a huge folded over bias ruffle, which I had lettuce hemmed with my overlocker. I fiddled a bit with the ruffle before I was happy with the drape, and now I think I should have gathered the ruffle a little more. Depsite this quibbling, I am much happier with the blouse and have already worn it twice, once to my daughters' year 7 information night, and once out to dinner at a friend's house. This one I am happy about, although I do notice that I am fatter than I was when I modeled this earlier in the year :(.
The next deck clearing was fabric salvage. I made this for my niece, and to practice my slanted feather stitch on smocking, using the stitch in ditch foot, and to play with the under used embroidery stitches on my machine. The fabric is from a top I made that does not suit me at all.

 

The last attempt was very frustrating and bruised my mojo. In the depths of my fabric chest, I unearthed this creature. It is a newlook blouse I made about a year ago. I made 3 at the time, the two others have collars, and are just about worn out work tops. This one was a disaster because I could not make the sleeves ease in, and when fiddling with the facing, I somehow managed to cut a small hole in the centre back of the outer fabric between the shoulder blades.It also fits horribly around the neck - as do the collared blouses, but it is not so noticeable on these.
In a salvage attempt I cut off the neckline, and the sleeves, thinking, button front sleeveless top. The fabric was rather pricey cotton from Ewan Gardams, so I thought it worth saving.
I made some rather jazzy piping from a batik, and tried to make it work around the neck. I failed, the neckline looked OK, but the rest of the blouse looked like a paper bag. Sometimes you should just cut it up into bias strips and put the scraps in the bin, so I did.

 

Now I have no excuse for not starting my SWAP tommorrow.

Princess Costume

One of my nieces turns 4 later this month, and I promised some time ago that I would make her a princess costume for her birthday. I have been putting away suitable fabrics as they revealed themselves, and thought I had best get around to finding a pattern.
There have been lots of beautiful princess costumes on patternreview lately - costumes for Halloween, which is much less ghoulish in the USA than Australia, obviously! I was tempted by some of these, but was lucky enought to pick up this pattern in the local Op shop for 10c a week or so ago. It would have to be out of print by now, it was published in 1992 , Butterick 6428, and looks IMO just the sort of thing a 4 year old princess would love.

 

I had planned to scale down to a size 4, but all the sizes other than the smallest in this envelope, 5, had been cut off the pattern, and I was feeling too lazy to both measure and redraw,so I made a straight size 5. I hope she will like to wear it for more than 1 year. I made a few changes to the pattern.
The princess costumes on patternreview seem to have shorter sleeves, than this pattern, which was just as well, as I made the sleeves and centre bodice from some brocade scraps left over from another project, and really had to squeeze to get all 5 pieces from the odd shapes of fabric remaining. I shortened the sleeves by 10 cm, and the cuff by half. The sleeves also have 15cm of width removed - they were HUGE, and look quite full as they are in the heavy brocade.

 

I crossed some lime green picot edge elastic over the bodice instead of the gold ribbon I had purchased. The elastic was a better colour against the brocade(leaves in pattern on brocade), and I think it will be more comfortable to wear. I also made tiny roses from some bias strips of batiste, as I found the rose in the pattern far too big and heavy for the poly organza drape. (The pattern wanted a double layer of this, but I just rolled the hem on my overlocker and used one layer). I have put the original rose, made according to the pattern, at the back waist of the dress. The main fabric is a mystery synthetic dupion style fabric, given to me by a non sewing friend. She was cleaning out her cupboard and cannot remember why she bought this.

 

The pattern has an attached petticoat with tulle ruffles on the inside. I thought this was crazy - how scratchy!. Instead I made a seperate petticoat, with an elastic waistband, and only two of the three ruffles. I suspect that the 3 ruffles would be needed on the girl's size 14, but there is barely room for two of them on the size 5. I did not make ruffle as full, either - the bottom ruffle is 2/3 of the pattern length, and the dress looks suitably puffy to me. As this is a costume, I rolled all the hems on my overlocker, which was delightfully quick. I also bound the inside waist seam with bias binding, as an anti scratch measure for the organza gathers. I went so over the top with this glitzy costume, and it was great fun.
I am really looking forward to seeing my niece wear this on the webcam.

Leadfoot?

My sewing machine has been playing up for a little while. The pedal seemed to have a mind of its own, frequently continuing to drive my needle after I had removed my foot. This was not amusing whilst trying precision topstitching. I thought there must be a sticky connection inside the foot, but did not want to stop sewing to investigate, in case I had to send the machine away for a service. (I get withdrawal symptoms). After hearing me complain about this far too many times, my husband wrested the machine from me, and undid the pedal. This is what he found.

Apparently, this is a "spring". My husband reports that it is suffering from overuse. This was his gentle way of telling me I am a leadfoot. You can see that I have broken it :(. My wonderful husband made me a new spring from the end of a wire coathanger. He is a clever bloke. The sewing machine now works beautifully again.
Whilst the machine was in recovery, I made up my storyboard for SWAP.

I was hoping to have lots of gorgeous rich purples and greens in the tops, but I cannot make them match all of the bottoms, so it is back to cream blouses for me. I am really glad there is a longer time for this SWAP, as I still want to make all the richly coloured tops, even though they will only match 2 or 3 of the bottoms. I do think the SWAP is terrific for making me sew what I will use, rather than merely what I want. I made 3 cream or beige work blouses in the last SWAP, and two of them are worn out already. 6 cream or beige work blouses is probably a very good plan, even if I find it rather dull at this point.

Shirtmaking - the real attempt

I finished a shirt for my husband today. I spent nearly all week making samples, and from Saturday evening to late today making this, so it feels like a major achievement. I have mixed feelings about it.

I liked trying all the details from the David Page Coffin book, but I need a lot more practice at a number of techniques, including rolled hems, edgestitching, free machine embroidery! It is a book to improve sewing skills. I agree with Claudine, who left a comment (I'm paraphrasing)that making a man's shirt is a bit like quilting - I seemed to use my omnigrid and the edging foot an awful lot!

I am happy that this looks just as good as a RTW sports shirt. It took about 12 hours after the toile to make it this way. I think a trip to Myer would be quicker and less expensive - but then my husband would not be quite so pleased with me! Hopefully the next shirt will be much quicker.

Distractions

Truly I mean to be working on my sewing with a plan ( that is SWAP, to answer JB) see stitcher's guild

. However, I seem to be working on a lot of other things. I finished my younger daughter's socks.
 

These are made from a corn based yarn that I purchased over the internet. We thought it would be cool stripes, but instead it turned out a sort of camo pattern. She still likes them. I used knit in elastic for the cuffs to help them stay up.
I have also been working on a shirt for my husband, and playing with some feet from my old Janome, that I suddenly realised would probably fit my Husqvarna.
Wonderful Vicki has sent me the Claire Shaeffer instructions for the quilted Chanel jacket, and I will definitely do something with them tomorrow. They were very useful yesterday, when I kept distracting myself from horrible paperwork by just having a quick glance at them! Today, when I could have legitimately poured over them at my leisure, I spent most of the day in the garden. When I came indoors, I looked at the very useful links from Anne, and will look through my threads issues for the instructions Blooms mentions in her comment. Thank you very much! I know that several hours on the internet does not seem to get me very far in the short term, but will save me from many mistakes.