Small steps forward

There has been a lot of waiting for this project. The first blockage was the lack of a compass and protractor in order to attempt the bra cup drafting from patternschool. By the time I had fixed this problem, my bra wires and bra sets had arrived from Booby Traps, so I had 2 different sets of wires to try.

I was not entirely sure that the wires I had would be correct for the bra cup block. Stuart Anderson says he uses a 14D cup wire (14.3cm diameter) for a 12D or DD block - I was not quite sure why. These wires are all supposedly 12D.
The first set of wires (removed from an old RTW bra)showed me why it was so uncomfortable, they are the 36 degree full coverage wires that are at risk of digging in, per Stuart Anderson at patternschool. It was, however, a 14.3cm, or 14D diameter, according to the pattern school table. I believe the sizing of the bra was USA 34D (I told you it was an old bra - I promise I cut it up years ago). The Booby Traps wires (Australian source), ordered as 12D, also were 14D diameter according to the patternschool table, so why doesn't patternschool call a 14.3cm diameter wire a 12D? The Booby Traps wires had the apparently more widely used 20ish degree tail, so I started with these wires to draft the cups.

This was a lot of fun. It did take rather a long time, but I carefully did it twice to make sure I was correct. Unfortunately neither my graph paper, my ruler, nor my compass are precision instruments, but my pattern looks roughly the same shape as the pieces I rubbed off my RTW bra. Unfortunately my drafted pattern looks quite a bit larger than the RTW rubbing. I stopped at this point for some consideration!


Here are the two kits I received from Booby Traps. I am a little disappointed in the colour matching. The reds are very different and none of the pink/peach colours are the same. I do not like the hand of the fabrics, which is the major peril of internet shopping. The laces are very soft, and I am pleased with them. I am hoping the fabrics improve dramatically with washing, or I will just be using the notions, lace and elastics.

Making a pattern

Thank you for the enabling comments about my lin gerie forays. I now feel that I am in fabulous company in the 66 of 28000 on the Stuart Anderson site, and have placed an order with Booby Traps (materials for 2 bras, 1 knickers $60.50 9inc postage - better than $57 per bra RTW for sure). I have also been looking at Fabric Depot, and am sure to place an order on Monday when I get back to a fax machine.
However, I did not buy a pattern. I am feeling stubborn. I traced this off my only RTW bra that is not a moulded cup.
I have actually sewn up a some of a bra from this, but as I do not have any elastic strapping, and have experienced a really poor excuse for a weekend (work, you know, just ruins a weekend IMO), there has not been any sewing progress since Thursday night. I did buy a protractor and compass set for some pattern drafting. I am feeling ambitious.

 

I am in the fortunate postion of having a local fabric shop at which ling erie supplies are available - at least I thought so until I tried to buy some.

 

/ This lot cost $8. The shades are vastly different.
The owner of the shop tells me that she has stopped teaching bra making classes as she was unable to source matching elastics, laces and fabric. Unfortunately I agree with her, these will not make a pretty bra, but it will be OK for practice. She does not stock underwires, so I will use some from an old bra - unfortunately I remember them as digging in and extremely uncomfortable. I think I will get to work with some wire snips. Sewing is getting adventurous around here, venturing into my husband's shed for the wire snips is a a bit of a production.

Instant gratification

A clothing crisis occurred at our house last night. DD the younger had nothing to wear on a Saturday trip to the Sunshine Coast with her sister and Dad. Growth is a wardrobe limiting event.
I prefer sewing with wovens, but have to admit that knits are fabulously fast (when all goes well). Amazingly, this tunic/dress was straightforward and problem free.

I used a probably cotton knit stripe print that was passed on to me by my Mother's quilting group. The waistband is a remnant of cotton lycra knit from Fashionista Fabrics.
My daughter is wearing this with her yoga pants made last year from Jalie 2215, also from the Fashionista Fabric cotton lycra. The pants are a little short, even after I let down the hem, but she tells me ankle length is fine! I will make her another pair once I find some suitable fabric.
The outfit is designed to unlayer as the day warms up. I am in big trouble for making her remove her coat at 6.30am, but wisely insisted on a pre-sewing agreement that she would pose for photographs, in daylight,in the finished product. I was, however, only permitted one photograph without the coat. Her is a close up of the button fastening at the bodice. These are probably not necessary to keep the neckline closed, but we like the buttons.

The last photograph is from my daughter's previous use of the pattern - Lizzie McGuire Simplicity 4568. She made the previous one herself, but is not currently interested in sewing. Maybe I should just give her a pile of fabric next time she wants a new outfit?

This time we used the biggest size, ignored the bust darts/gathers when cutting out, took in all the vertical seams a little as the fabric is knit,added a centre waistband (stretching the waistband a little at the front bodice seam to gather under the bust)and used the width of the fabric, gathered slightly, for the skirt. The bodice is lined with the same knit fabric, and the length determined by how much was left.

Research in my pattern collection

I have joined Sigrid's lin gerie sew a long, as I would like to make a bra. I have been thinking intermittently about this project for quite some time, but I didn't realize quite how long this has been on my list.
Last night I got out my copy of Lee-Ann Burgess's book "Making Beautiful Bras". In the plastic sleeve with the book was the receipt ($39.95 from Lindcraft)with the date - December 1996, reminding me that I originally bought the book because I could not find any nursing bras that I liked. Also in the sleeve were rather a lot of little round rings and sliders - all debri from chopping up old underpinnings. I am sure these will come in handy.
1996 must have been a good year for underpinning patterns. I looked through all my patterns and magazines and found some promising items, the best one being a BWOF sewing lesson on sewing a bodysuit/swim costume with built in underwire bra from stretch fabric(June 1996) and the same issue also has a pattern and a full page of instructions for a corset with underwires from woven fabric. I bought this magazine last year at a second hand bookstall - for a t shirt pattern.
I turned up 2 Vogue patterns - non underwired crop tops, panties, and a Knitwit pattern I have used for panties that also has a non-underwire "lace bra camisole". I found also a 1970's Kwik Sew bikini pattern that includes an underwired top. I guess I don't really need to rush out and buy a bra pattern. However, none of these patterns are quite what I was looking for. I will have to work out fitting issues and fabric issues.
Finally I revisited Stuart Anderson's extremely interesting site Pattern School. I had visited this site previously, and wanted to download one of his free stretch pattern blocks, which once upon a time you could print out to your measurements. However, on entering my measurements, I ran up against a new feature, which does not allow you to enter measurements such as shoulder width, waist to knee height etc that fall more than 4 standard deviations away from the average measurements from his records of other persons with the same hip, waist and bust measurements. It was amusing to me to find that I am one of the 66 in 28,000 persons who apparently cannot use his standard - no wonder I cannot find RTW that fits! He kindly recommends that people with this issue should draft their own blocks. I would much rather be a lazy person on his site.

At this point, I am undecided whether to make a stretch fabric bra, which is what I own in RTW, or to make a woven fabric bra, which is the pattern for which pattern school and Lee Ann Burgess describe the drafting process. I am also not sure if it is worth searching out power net. All of my non-sport RTW bras use a firm cotton lycra or poly lycra knit in the back band, and this seems to work for me. I spend a lot of money on my under things, and figure if it is good enough for Bereli, it may well work for me.

Unfinished business

I have at least 50 sewing projects in my mind, but nothing new to show you. Instead of fantasizing about what I might sew, but probably won't get around to, I will be terribly organized and show you one of the V7903 blouses from my SWAP that I did not post about earlier, due to some misbehaviour on its part giving me a temporary dislike of the garment. I promise, this is not as dull as the last two.(IMO, anyway)

I was inspired by blouse 120 from the January 2009 BWOF. Link to technical drawing Going back to look at this, I see that it is orange, just like mine, although maybe a little more subdued! I bought the fabric for mine at Gorgeous fabrics, and it arrived rather brighter than I had expected. (Prompting the purchase of a Pantone's guide) Thanks Karla!.
The Burda blouse is made from batiste, and has 4 horizontal tucks. My fabric was rather off grain, like a lot of cotton twills, and my first attempt at making tucks was not successful. I posted about this earlier. My second attempt was made after tearing and tugging at the fabric, and I did not use the Burda pattern, just made tucks in my fabric at a depth that pleased me. After stitching these, I tugged at the fabric again, and cut out the fronts of the V7903 blouse in a single layer, then constructed as previously, as if the fabric was flat.


That last sentence sounds rather easy. Unfortunately I had a bit of trouble with the blouse, and not just cutting holes in the wrong places!. I did not like the front openings after I had applied the facing. They did not sit nicely at the pleats on the turn of fabric. I unpicked, and applied self fabric piping to the front edges, which made things cleaner.
I also had trouble with the collar stand. Due to the fronts overlapping, the point at which the collar stand met the neck of the garment appeared uneven. I was not able to fix this, but tend to think I am being over picky. Burda has avoided this problem by having the horizontal tucks start at a lower point on the blouse. I wish I had looked a little more closely at BWOF's blouse before cutting mine out!
I avoided the button hole issue over the tucks by starting the fastenings below the lowest pleat.


I did add a few details to the blouse. I drafted my own long sleeve, cuff and placket, using the instructions from David Page Coffin's shirtmaking book. I am very pleased with the outcome.

I made another "action back" for this shirt. Instead of a back yoke, I made a deep inverted box pleat, and used some machine embroidery over the top to give those stitches on my machine a little exercise. The embroidery is practically invisible when I wear it,just how I like it.

Sort of sewing

Alterations are not sewing. Mending is not sewing. I frequently tell my family these things, but they do not seem entirely convinced. Today I did some alterations, and when I gave the result to my younger daughter she said "Aren't you going to take photographs?" I guess blogging has become a big part of my hobby!
Here she is in an entirely daughter driven project.

 

 

Having just finished the SWAP, I did a little sorting in my wardrobe. I cut off the buttons from this coat, and was just about to throw it in the bin, as I considered it far too worn for Lifeline, when she stopped me. "You can't throw that out, I want it". I remonstrated with her - holes in the hem and cuffs, out-dated boxy style, at least 16 years old as I used to wear it when I lived in Sydney...nothing worked.
The fabric is not bad - pure wool, heavy knit, then semi-felted, so there is still a little stretch but the fabric is quite firm. It is unlined. I cut off the sleeves, then trimmed the side seams from a rectangular to A-line shape which allowed me to trim the shoulders and cut a higher armhole. I narrowed the sleeves, set them in again, turned up the hem, then turned my attention to the cuffs. These were the worst part. I cut them off completely, then faced the new sleeve edge with some tracksuit fleece of about the same weight. Fortunately I had a red scrap lying around. I did need to darn one small hole in the under sleeve. Then I sewed the buttons back on, maybe an hour of work.(Work, not sewing!)
She is very pleased with the jacket, and although I think it looks a bit odd with the pockets so low, I have given in. The peculiar thing to me, is that she is very fussy about her clothes. I cannot make anything she will wear unless she chooses every aspect of the pattern and fabric, and she refuses to wear most of her sister's out grown clothes. I would not have expected her to want my worn out coat!
My other alterations were my idea, but my older daughter is quite pleased. This is a completely unworn pair of trousers that I bought some time prior to my final decision in January 08 to make all my own pants as I was so tired of altering them. I bought them in order to alter them for myself, but it was much easier to alter them for my daughter. I chopped off the side seams, unpicked the waistband for 2cm on either side, sewed up the seams in a skinnier fashion, then reattached the waistband - Easy, but making her the BWOF pants was much more satisfying.

 

 

BWOF 2009-05-111 Pants

It is serendipitous of the BWOF to arrive on a Friday. I could jump right in and start sewing! I was very attracted by a few of the dresses, but the real need for clothes in this house is for winter clothes to cover my poor cold children. (I am quoting). There has been a little restlessness from these people due to my selfish SWAP sewing just for me. Personally, I think some daughters should learn to sew, but one has no interest, and the other is currently obsessed with knitting.
Being a very good mother just before Mother's day (is this like good behaviour for Santa on Christmas Eve?). I made my older daughter some pants from the May Burda, 111. These pants are practically invisible in the magazine, being covered up by a thigh length blouse, but they have some nice details.
Link to technical drawing

I used khaki cotton twill from Michael's Fabrics

 

 

I had not made single welt pockets previously, but found them quite straightforward after using Ann Rowley's double welt pocket Flickr tutorial. I increased the width of the welt to 2cm, as the pattern piece measurements were quite large (maybe a typo?)and I thought a bigger welt would look just fine.

 

 

My daughter is quite pleased with her pants. It is not really cold here yet, but all the children are travelling to Sydney in June/July for a visit to their grandparents, so I am starting early with their travel wardrobes.

However, you can sew when it is too dark to take photographs

Despite my last post, I did do a little sewing this week. I was getting antsy, it was too dark after work to take photographs anyway, and my son needs a new Winter jacket. I wanted to use a Jalie pattern for a polar fleece top with a hood, but I could not find it. I was rather annoyed, as the plan was to work out the construction tweaks with the smallest size in the family, then make a jacket for everyone else as well. No luck.
After my fruitless search for Jalie whatever-the-number-is, I looked through my TopKids Magazines. These are getting rather old now, but if you look at the line drawings instead of the styling, children's clothes look much the same now as they did 10 or so years ago.
I made my son Jacket 22 from TopKids 51.


I have used some really awful red polar fleece for the body (originally purchased for a costume) and some not so bad green polar fleece for the sleeves and hood lining. The pattern had quite a lot of piecing and colour blocking - including the back, but I think it looks pretty good for two mismatching scraps.
My son is extremely pleased with it. I hope he likes the proper polartech one just as much.
Next time I make this I will use a walking foot for the piecing, as some of it is a bit wobbly here, but otherwise the pattern is pretty good. I have reviewed it here

Taking photographs is not sewing

I admit, I was not very good about my SWAP photographs. There was barely a photograph taken during construction, I did not review very much because I used only 2 blouse patterns, one of which I have been tweaking for 8 months, and also made 2 pairs of trousers from another previously used pattern. Then I went away camping for 3 days immediately at the end of the sewing period. So this week has not been about sewing. My poor long suffering daughter has got up early every morning this week to take a few shots. As she says, at least I only have to put make up on once as I am getting ready to go to work anyway!
I was keen to show all the possible combinations of my SWAP on Flickr, as, this year, everything looks good together, instead of there being a few dubious combinations as I had last year.
Things were looking pretty good until I hit a disaster whilst trying to send in my SWAP photographs last night. The jeans did not look nearly as good as I remembered. Was it my pose? Was it my shoes? Had I done something strange with a belt or whilst tucking in my blouse? No, I had simply worn the wrong pair of jeans. Photographing at 6.30am, before my first cup of tea, had somehow allowed me to wear my disaster Jalie 968 jeans for every "jeans" shot. The funny thing is, that they look much better to me now than they did last July. They are still not as good as the Burda pants, but maybe I will wear them after all. Maybe I am skinnier :) !
This morning we squeezed in only a few Burda jeans photographs. Time was short, and I still have wet hair, but they will have to do! I have finally finished the SWAP, and I think the photographs were the most difficult part.

I don't want to spoil the offical SWAP photos, so will leave you with a very boring shot of some SWAP rejects. I do like all of these contenders, and the others that are in the wash, but they did not make the cut. 1. 8034 chiffon blouse - fabric print not the best with the jacket 2. Jalie cross over top - looks wrinkly in all photographs despite looking not so bad in real life 3.V7903 blouse - I like this, it goes with everything, but it is the most boring of all my tops. 4. BWOF 2009-04-101 skirt in gabardine - I had no room for 2 skirts in my SWAP.

Shaker pincushion

The Shaker practical aesthetic is very appealing to me. About 11 years ago, we spent the last month of our time in North America travelling through eastern Canada and the United States. We visited several of the Shaker communites that are now museums, and also spent about 6 hours at the Smithsonian looking at Shaker woodworking. This was a bit of an ordeal with 2 toddlers, but I am still reaping the benefits! Apparently my husband saw a pincushion of this style in one of the Philadelphia community museum farms. We were not able to take photographs in the museum, nor does he have a picture in any of considerable collection of Shaker books, but yesterday he brought up a wooden screw construction and asked me to put a pincushion on top.

 

This had been lurking in the back of his mind for a decade or more. I am interested to see what else is in his construction department, I fancy a steamed circular sewing box.
I think it is a terrific pincushion, but unfortunately it is not for me. He has made one for his Mum for Mother's day, and one for my Mum as well. They are both quilters, so will find these very handy. (I am now off the hook with the mohair scarf until Mum's birthday, Whew! I have knitted about 5cm). I hinted a little bit, and he hinted right back about a nice new shirt. He has been hinting about this since November, when I first made him one, so I guess I will have to wait a while for my pincushion.

Taking photographs

I did not sew on the weekend. I did take photographs, but not of my recent sewing.

 

Aren't the reflections amazing. We spent the weekend (Labour day public holiday weekend in Queensland) on the Noosa River, kayaking up to Campsite 4 from Harry's Hut.

 

There is some sewing in these photographs, see the Gortex jacket lurking under the life vest? I made that. See the skin on frame kayak - I did not make that, my husband did. I would not even let him use my sewing machine. I am very mean. He bought his own (Toyota, from Spotlight) which has come in very handy on occasion. He made the other 4 kayaks as well, but my favourite is mine, stitch and glue (all wooden despite the name)of which I do not have a photograph because I was sitting in it.
I made most of the clothes in the bottom photograph too, everything except the trousers on my younger daughter. It is not very exciting to sew camping and play clothes, but it is very quick and easy!

 

I have been getting my daughter up 1/2 an hour early every day this week to take a few SWAP photos before work. She is a trooper, and we are almost done.

SWAP report

I did not make the Marlene pants. I got home from a truly exasperating day at work at 7.30pm last night, took one look at the gorgeous tropical wool draped seductively over the dining table, and could not even imagine cutting into it. There would have been a big mistake in the first 5 minutes.

I did some lovely soothing round and round K1P1 knitting after dinner instead. One day I will finish this 4ply (fine/sport/baby) cardigan, and will have to take up meditation instead. Or maybe I will start another mindless knitting project.

Back to the SWAP. I have 5 possible bottoms and quite a lot of tops (about 10?)from which I will try to find suitable matches with my one jacket, so that I have some sort of entry to show for my poor planning, but lots of sewing in the last few months. Unfortunately my camera memory card has developed a nasty blip overnight. It does not want to record any photographs. I discovered this when I tried to load a photograph of 8yards of fabric I received today from Textile Fabrics. You will just have to use your imagination - cinnamon washed silk, autumn paisley brocade, a mysterious grey/taupe spongy stretchy fabric described as gabardine, which must be a different animal in the USA, , and a coarse dark brown cotton that is supposed to be Ann Klein shirting cotton but is rather like homespun. I think most of these fabrics will be fabulous for a mini May wardrobe Pattern review or maybe for the wardrobe in a week challenge at Stitchers Guild. I think sewing a lot makes me want to sew even more!