kbenco's projects

Merino wool jersey vs. Wicking polyester knit and some fabric acquisition

2012-01-28T11:38:00.000+10:00

Several people asked me about, or commented on, the knit fabrics I used for the travel wardrobe, I hope I am answering these questions with this post.
Wicking polyester knit fabric
Sources
:My main source for this fabric is Stretchtex, although I have also bought some from Seattle Fabrics, it is available at The Rainshed, and I have also come across it occasionally at Spotlight.
Advantages:
1.Price The wicking polyester fabric I own was approximately 1/4 of the per metre cost of the wool jersey or silk jersey I can purchase (note, I bought a large amount of wicking polyester in 2006 and 2007 and am still using it up, the large purchase was one of the factors in how I purchased it so inexpensively) I am happy to use this fabric for childrens' technical clothing, which they may only wear a few times before outgrowing the garment. I am much more stingy with my use of the merino jersey.
2. Absorbtion: Wicking polyester does not absorb moisture readily. This makes it good for water sports (kayaking shirts, beach sun protection tops)

and for vigorous exercise in the heat. Merino knit tops absorb so much moisture that they sag and stretch when worn for these activities to the point of impracticality. Think wool swimming costumes!
Wash and wear: Wicking polyester can be washed in the machine with regular detergent and requires no blocking after washing. I line dry, but others dry these garments in a machine without problems, other than occasional shrinkage ( source, cycling group, not my stretchtex fabric)
Disadvantages
1.Construction: Wicking polyester can be difficult to sew. Two of the fabric colours I have used (dark blue and dark pink) are needle resistant. I have to use a new microtex needle for each garment (including overlocker and coverstitch) and still get skipped stitches.
2. Smell. Wicking polyester holds odour readily, develops its own peculiar odour as the fabric ages and breaks down, and becomes musty if not bone dry. At home I soak all wicking polyester garments, (including purchased cycling jerseys, so it is not just the stretchtex fabric) in an anti bacterial/anti fungal pre wash product called Canestan, or, at a pinch, Napisan, to combat this problem. This works but is an extra chore I do not need for non-exercise clothing. Wearing a garment for a few hours of sweaty exercisewhere it keeps you cool, then washing it immediately is fine, wearing a garment for 12 hours of walking about and then putting it in a dirty clothes bag in your suitcase because you have a plane to catch is another thing entirely.
Euuw.
3. Longevity. Wicking polyester stains easily, pills, breaks down under UV drying conditions and generally looks like a rag after a year or two. Hand washed merino jersey garments look good for much longer.
4. Texture This is personal taste, but I find the texture of wicking polyester slightly unpleasant and on occasion clammy. This holds for purchased garments as well as the stretchtex and seattle fabrics. In warm weather I also find it hotter to wear than thin merino jersey, and definitely hotter than silk jersey. I also find the same fabric less warm in cold weather than either of the natural fabrics.
Wool jersey
I am a big fan of merino wool jersey for normal life garments and for travel clothes. It is as easy to sew as any cotton or rayon or poly jersy of a similar weight, I find that it is warm in winter, not too hot in mildly warm weather compared to poly knit fabrics of a similar weight. I hand wash it and dry small light garments on the line, heavier garments lying flat on a towel. A light merino knit t shirt hand washed and rolled in a towel then hung up in a hotel bathroom dries just as quickly as a poly knit t shirt of a similar weight and size, and does not smell musty if packed slightly damp.
Disadvantages
1. Absorbtion:I do not like merino jersey for exercise clothes, due to perspiration in my hot climate. It sags and stretches. However, this makes it useful for baby soakers. An acquaintance of mine makes these for sale from merino jersey.
2. Moths and cockroaches :Wool jersey is subject to insect attach and requires careful storage where I live - all wool clothes are packed away when not in circulation, in an airtight container, which also contains a fabric square dampened with eucalyptus and lavender oils.
3.Texture :My son and husband find some of the wool jerseys itchy when worn next to the skin. I have not found any of them itchy so far.
4.Merino jersey is not cheap. Personally, I find it worth the price.
Sources
I have purchased wool jersey from an ebay seller in Sydney
, gaining a light weight t shirt type jersey,
from Gorgeous Fabrics, gaining a much thicker terry style knit

and from Michaels Fabrics, gaining a heavy smooth knit, of wonderful texture but a terrible progressive vertical shrinking habit.
Wool jersey internet descriptions do not appear to be consistent regarding weight, stretch nor texture.
More recently I have confined my wool jersey purchases to those where I can see and touch the fabric at Global Fabrics (New Zealand)/The Fabric Store (Australia). Although I have only been once each to the Sydney, Wellington and Dunedin branches, on each occasion this fabric shop chain appeared to stock most the weights and types of merino wool knit fabrics available in RTW, in lots of colours. There is a new Brisbane branch, which I have not yet visited,and the shops offer a mail service to rural customers, which I have not used, but as far as I know there are no internet sales.

Here is my merino haul from Dunedin, last week
The fabrics to the left are light t shirt weight jerseys, the blue one is slightly heavier, with a diagonal waffle pattern, and the far right is like a merino terry, backed with a knit nylon, which I plan to make into a lightweight hooded cardigan. These were all 30% off, except the nylon backed one which was $8NZ per metre instead of about $30NZ per metre as when I saw it in March, so I am pleased I had a very light bag of clothes with room for such purchases.

To make my fabric confession complete, here are the two rayon knits and the cotton print I also purchased at Global Fabrics,which is cleverly located close to several outdoors shops, three cycling shops and a sweets shop for the entertainment of husband and children. (46 minutes in Global Fabrics - my son was counting). I am very grateful that this shop is open on a Sunday.

Here is a boy's shirt portion of cotton Kiwiana (selected by the boy) and a heavy embroidered cotton remnant from this very nice fabric shop in Oamaru,

nearly opposite the museum with a SteamPunk display -11 minutes. Sigh, I prefer shopping without my children.

It was fortunate for my fabric shopping interests that I wore my boots out on the last official day of walking, otherwise I might have been tramping the Otago peninsula before our flight instead of bringing home goodies.

(Gail, I have posted about this dress previously here)
I throughly enjoyed my trip to New Zealand. Here is my last souvineer photograph.

Travel clothes 3. South Island New Zealand

2012-01-27T07:52:00.000+10:00

Hooker Lake Walk, Mt Cook National Park
The rest of the family needed some additions to their travel wardrobes too.

Leggings BurdaStyle 01-2011-130, made from a rayon/lycra knit from Gorgeous Fabrics. This was sold as suitable for jeggings (which I think are psuedo super stretchy leggings with jeans type embroidery, being an interesting denim look fabric, but unfortunately was far too thin for this use. It worked nicely as leggings for travel, drying quickly, but the fabric was a bit too fragile for New Zealand scrub, and became rather full of snags and pulls after a week of hiking. I squeezed 3 pairs from 3 yards, so was rather pleased with the economy of the cutting out.

2 poly wicking t shirts adapted from BWOF 09-2008-143( I have to use up that polywicking stuff in the stash somehow) and polar fleece trousers adapted from BWOF1-2009-143 pyjama trousers. I used wicking poly knit for the trouser waistband and cuffs, which dried very quickly, particularly important for the cuffs which were subject to puddle abuse and creek crossings.
I did not think my son would really need polar fleece trousers, but my husband convinced me, and he was right. It snowed, quite unseasonably, in Milford Sound whilst we were there,which was very exciting, as my son had never seen snow before.
(yes, I know, hardly any snow at all, but we live in the subtropics)

I also made a poly wicking turtlenecks from BurdaStyle 09-2010-121 for my daughter.

This pattern had looked so hideous on me that I threw out the tracings, but my older daughter traced it out again for herself, and it suited her very nicely, and was very quick to sew. My younger daughter, who has a more similar figure to mine, found the turtleneck equally unflattering, and wore a previously made one from a Kwik Sew pattern. I have no photographs of the turtlenecks as they were worn under coats and jackets.
Lucky last, in fact, so last that I sewed the button on in the car on the way to the airport were a pair of seersucker cotton shorts for my older daughter.

BWOF 07-2009-113

I suspect that these are more suitable to the subtropics than New Zealand, but again they dried quickly, and were worn with the leggings for the warmer days.

Travel Wardrobe. South Island New Zealand. Trousers BWOF 04-2009-118, t shirts

2012-01-26T08:39:00.000+10:00

A particularly annoying thing about outdoorsy techical clothes is their incredible ugliness and unflattering nature for non-20-year-old-ectomorph figures.
I find this particularly notable in the trouser selection, my figure being trouser resistant. Shorts are worse.
Despite these feelings, I made a pair of trousers that convert to shorts for my travel wardrobe. The fabric is not-quite-thick-enough wicking woven nylon from The Rainshed. Sometimes practicality trumps feeling nicely dressed, and although we did no overnight hiking on this trip, there will be future trips where convertible clothing will save me pack room.
Fortunately I do have a TNT trouser pattern.This fits sufficiently for my trouser tolerance.
I converted my adjusted BWOF 04-209-118 trouser pattern to a convertible shorts/trousers pattern in the following way.
1. Lengthened the legs by 10 cm in the general region of the knee.
2. Constructed the trousers to hemming stage, then stood in front of the mirror with a roll of masking tape applying horizontal lines at possible shorts cut off lengths until I had a ~~only slightly disgruntled~~ happy compromise between no-zips-at-knee-creases and covering-sufficient-leg.
3. Added hem/cuff allowance to thigh end of this line (7cm-which was not quite enough as it turned out), and cut off the lower leg, marking the front of each lower leg with a pin
4. Discovered that the leg circumference was longer than any light coloured pairs of separating zips in my stash other than chunky zips.
5. Applied chunky zips to one leg, then folded down a cuff to cover the zip. (This is why the 7cm cuff allowance(+3 cm for the zip seams) was insufficient), as my cuff needed to be deeper than the 6cm I had erroneously allowed to cover the zip sufficiently, next time I would increase by 15cm rather than 10.
6.Discovered that chunky zips are too bulky and stiff for such an application and are also rather uncomfortable under the back of the thigh when sitting.
7.Removed chunky zip.
8. With reluctance, bought 2 overpriced Sullivan junky, thin separating zips from Lincraft,due to time constraints, still at less than the circumference of the leg due to the limited usefulness of Lincraft.
9. Reapplied zips, thigh end with wrong side of zip to right side of fabric, lower leg side with right side of zip to wrong side of fabric, gap at outer side seam.
10. Added button tab to cover gap.

11.Hemmed ankle end of trousers.
This covers the shorts conversion.

My other additions were to fold gussets into the back pocket vertically and horizontally, to give more storage room. I had to tack down the gussets where they crossed to avoid a very unflattering protusion when the pocket was empty.

I added an internal waistline pocket.
I wore these as trousers several times in New Zealand, with leggings and stockings underneath.(The weather was not entirely wonderful at all points of our trip).

Very windy walk to Rob Roy Glacier, near Wanaka

Gerturde Saddle walk, Fjordland National Park
I wore them as shorts only when staying at a backpackers' lodge at Milford Sound for trips to the showers - it is unpleasant to have trouser legs contact a wet floor whilst dressing.
The t-shirts I made for the trip co-ordinate with both the bone trousers and the burgandy skirt.

The pattern is an adaptation of the two layer t shirt in Burda Style 08-2010.
The dark purple/brown t shirt is a rayon knit, with a dark brown voile bias strip gathered and stitched with zig-zag to the neckline.
The print is from scraps of silk jersey left over from a wrap dress I used for my 2010 trip, with the neckline bound with fold over lingerie elastic.
I used these knit fabrics after my good experience with them as quick dry fabrics for a previous travel wardrobe. I find the wicking knit quick dry polyesters no faster to dry, less pleasant to wear, and prone to nasty smells if they are even slightly damp when packed, whereas the silk and rayon (and merino) do not seem to become musty in the same way.

Travel Wardrobe Part 1. South Island, New Zealand. Burda Style 10-2011-129 skirt

2012-01-25T14:54:00.000+10:00

The other task that interrupted the blogging was a review of my travel clothes for a family holiday. For this type of holiday, the clothing needs to be quick drying, hardy, provide for outdoor activity in all weathers, and take up very little space. I find packing requires considerable thought. Unfortunately, the skirt and 2 pairs of trousers I made for a 3 week trip in 2010 have mysteriously shrunk in certain regions since I stopped the unsustainable 10 hours per week cycling I was doing at the time ( this unusual activity was in preparation for a cycling trip), so I had a very good excuse for some new travel clothes.
Here is the ~~result of hours of vacillating~~ considered selection for a 10 day trip to the South Island of New Zealand, where we spent most of our time walking in National Parks.

Two t-shirts, one pair of shorts/trousers,one skirt and the leggings are new additions. The shirt dress, lace two layer t shirt and raincoat have been displayed previously on the blog. The polar fleece jacket and the sun hat are old purchases (hmm, I think the polar fleece jacket is older than DD the second), and the wardrobe also inluded purchased tights, 3 pairs socks and smalls, and a hand knitted woollen hat. It fit in my day pack carry-on if I wore the jacket and raincoat, which is not really possible when leaving from 38 degrees C and 90% humidity, but is a nice idea in theory.
I forgot my woollen gloves, but fortunately it is very easy to buy warm gloves in New Zealand.
Skirt Burda Style 10-2011-129

Skirts being more forgiving than trousers, I was just considering the wearability of my slightly too snug dark brown A-line woven quick dry nylon skirt when Mary Nanna posted a fabulous A-line skirt in corduroy, saving me from searching through my Burdas for a suitable skirt pattern (procrastination blog reading is an important part of any sewing rush job). Aside from the other charms of this skirt, the pockets struck me as particularly useful for a travel/walking garment. I used woven nylon wicking fabric from the Rainshed, purchased 2010,which is a fabric used by outdoorsy shops for their travel clothes, found after much real life and on-line hunting, and not in the colours I particularly wanted. After seeing Mary Nanna's silk duponi version I am thinking a silk version would possibly have been more glamorous and equally practical, as the fabric cannot be tumble dried, although it hardly needs it, as the skirt washed by hand, wrung in a towel, dries fully between 10pm and 6am when hung up over the sink.

Unfortunately for me, the particularly charming buttons I placed on the pockets, per Burda, provided unecessary visual width at the hips. Having unfilled scraggy buttonholes looks better, I assure you.

Instead of lining the skirt, I made a voile petticoat, with elastic waist and button loop waist closure, using the skirt pattern pieces. It is easy to dry two layers if you can separate them. I used a blind stitch to make a scallop hem on the petticoat.

My concession to the walking aspect of this skirt was to add an invisible zip to the bottom of the sideseam.
I took this idea from a RTW outdoorsy skirt, and it worked very nicely, allowing me to leave the skirt as a fully covering garment when worn in tourist places,

Garden, Otago Peninsula
and to scramble up rocks (worn with leggings underneath) in less groomed locations.

Greenstone track, Fjordland National Park, and there is a skirt under the several outer layers.
My other concessions to the drying requirements for travel were to use hemp for the waistband lining (resists mould and bacteria) and to finish the hems with the overlocker and a single rather than double turn.

Elephant rocks near Duntroon

Niece sewing in person. Simplicity 7225 dresses, Shams' Tablecloth skirt

2012-01-23T20:11:00.000+10:00

Due to certain time management strategies that I fail to apply to my sewing, almost as soon as I had finished the leather jacket, there was a certain blogging interruption or two.
First some of my nieces visited. It was far too hot for leather jacket photos anyway....
We had no sewing plans, but during their visit, my daughter decided she would like to make a skirt. All the cousins decided they would like to sew too.
My daughter did not quite finish her skirt, but here is a shortened version of Sham's tablecloth skirt that I had ripped out the other day and sewed for my daughter instead of taking over the construction of a skirt she cut out from Burda, whilst I was sewing with my nieces, which may or may not have been her original plan for my afternoon.

Isn't Shams clever? I like the skirt just as much in this length but strongly suspect that teenager legs are rather an asset here, and am not in the least tempted to make a knee length one for myself.

Here is the niece sewing.

This is my delightful eldest niece, who is about to ask her mother to teach her to sew. She made the whole of this dress herself other than a touch of assistance in applying bias binding, despite having touched neither a sewing machine nor iron previously. I would like to draw your attention to her pattern matching at the bodice seam, which she arranged as if by instinct without any instruction from me. I was very impressed, and am waiting for some urgent instruction-seeking phone calls from my sister concerning the threading of the sewing machine or related matters.

Here are my equally delightful and slightly younger nieces.

One of these dresses was a team effort,

and the other dress had considerable design input to the point that a certain 6 year old is sure she made the thing entirely unassisted and spent half an hour on the phone to her Dad describing how she did it.I could hear the convinced "mmm" noises from here. One has a certain reputation to maintain as a sewing Auntie after all.
The next interruption was for a travel wardrobe. I am trying currently to disentangle sewing relevant photographs from holiday snaps, but am starting to think this is a lost cause. You may be getting both.

Leather Jacket BWOF 10-2009-126 Collar, facings, lining, sleeves, hem and cuff

2012-01-05T10:27:00.000+10:00

The leather jacket project is full steam ahead. My daughters are cooking this week ;). I love school holidays.

This post is full of mutinae and error management, although the project is proving quite satisfying.
Collar and stands, facings
The last thing in the previous post was the attachment of the outer collar band. I topstitched this straight away, which was a mistake, as later on you are supposed to topstitch through both inner and outer collar stands.
I did not unpick it.
Next I contstructed the collar. I should mention here that I used no interfacing for this jacket, although it is used by Burda. My leather, goat skin, has plenty of stiffness without any interfacing. I would use interfacing with a more pliable leather such as the much more expensive lamb skin that I have lurking in my stash. In my sample session I used iron on interfacing and it adhered nicely at the silk setting without scorching the leather.

I had some idea of making the collar as if it were regular fabric (right sides together and topstitching for seam flattening), but my leather was too thick to turn the points properly. I cut out another collar, glued the wrong sides together at the edges as per the Burda instructions, but trimmed the undercollar by 5mm and pulled it taught to get a bit of curve. As the leather glue is strongly and quickly adhesive, this worked quite well, and the collar maintained a little shape after topstitching.

I glued the collar inside the outer collar band. This was a 3 hand job again, due to the curved collar and I recruited a gluing assistant.

Sew back and front facings together

I found my dress form invaluable for the next few steps. I turned the jacket inside out, and glued the back facing to the inside of the neck seam allowance, snipping the facing seam allowance as needed.

After this was dry, I did the same thing to the neckline of the front facings, allowed these to dry, and glued the front facings to the zipper tape/butting up to the zipper guard, to within 1 cm of the bottom of the jacket. (I had cut the facings extra long, as I did not bother transfering the FBA to the facing during my pattern alteration phase.)

The next step was quite confusing. My little elephant, the sole reviewer * of this pattern at pattern review, (it is a very good description of her construction process) described some difficulties here, and said she would be interested to see how other people managed it.

The instructions are rubbish. They jump straight from attaching the collar stand to finishing the hem of the body of the garment, then jump back to the collar. Reading the step of the instructions whilst considering only the collar has one looking for a hem to fold up, glue and stitch where actually you need to trim all the seam allowances from the inner collar stand, which is something Burda forgets to mention.

With the jacket still inside-out on Genevieve my dress form, I glued the trimmed inner collar stand over all my messy seam allowances, most satisfying.

Unfortunately I then had to deal with mistake management. Having already topsitched the outer collar,I had some trepidation regarding topstitching again, thinking it would look horribly messy.
I had no qualms about topstitching the facings, which I did from the outside as a second line next to the zipper topstitching. This matched nicely the two rows of topstitching I had used for the joining seams throughout.
I made some samples, and decided to topstitch the collar stand from the inside instead. I had been using regular thread for the bobbin stitches, and although you can see these stitches if you look closely, they are not as obvious as the jeans topstitching thread, and fortunately, the stitches are all within the two rows of topstitching already present on the outer stand.

At this point I had some thread ends that I could not pull through to the inside and tie off, nor could I pull them between the collar labels, due to glueing and the permanency of holes in leather.
I researched this issue at work. One of my long term clients is a retired leatherworker (I have some very useful people coming into work). He said I could melt the thread ends without hurting the leather.
I was dubious.

I was wrong,it worked perfectly, although I admit to blowing the match out extremely quickly, and pinching the (polyester) thread as soon as it started to melt. There is a tiny black blob at that corner.

Sleeves
The zipper construction for the sleeves is the same as for the zips at the front peplum. Again the zip length described by Burda is incorrect. I have no idea why they ask for 10cm and 14cm zips, as both are too long for a size 19 (38 petited) jacket. This time I did not shorten the zip, I lengthened the zip cut-out on the sleeve instead, much less work! Again I added zipper guards.
The outer seam is glued and single lapped, and the under arm seam is stitched wrong sides together. I used my Janome,a 100 Denim needle (it was auditioned earlier as it was already in the machine and worked fine, so I didn't upgrade to to a leather needle). Burda wants you to open this seam and glue down the insides, but as I was ~~winging it~~ correcting my earlier cutting out error here, the seam is tiny, and I did not have much seam allowance with which to glue, so I skipped this step.

(The zippers are hanging out the end here as the cuffs are attached later, after the lining)
Having previously made this pattern without pinning, I was not concerned about sleeve insertion, but the leather was not nearly as co-operative as the denim of my previous jacket. I tried paper clips, bull dog clips and hair clips at the shoulder point, but they kept slipping as I turned the armscye on the machine bed.

The haemostat worked perfectly, being designed to hang on until unlocked. It would have been even more useful had I more than one in my sewing kit.

The sleeves were sewn to the jacket on the Janome again.

Lining
I have deviated wildly from the Burda lining here, due to my ~~hem cutting error~~ decision to add a facing to the peplum of the jacket rather than have a turned up hem.
My lining fabric is sand washed silk. To make the lining pattern, I used the sleeve pieces and upper bodice pieces without the peplum. At the front I abutted the shoulder with the yoke and front to make one piece, and the side fronts as the other pieces, at the back I abutted all the pieces above the peplum and added a 5cm pleat to the centre, following the Burda instructions. All the pieces were cut out 5cm longer than the pattern for ease. I sewed them on the Janome, using a size 60 microtex needle. At the outer sleeve seam, which has a zip in the leather, I finished the open edges with rolled hems. The other seams were finished with pinking shears, after a wildly unsuccessful pass with the overlocker lead to a decision that this would be a nice finish.
Burda has you bag the lining. I didn't do this.

I put the jacket,inside-out with sleeves turned in, on the dressform again, and lay the finished lining over it, tucking the edges of the lining under the facing, and marked the line of the facing onto the lining with tailors chalk. I then basted this line on the lining, and used it as a guide to the seam line to stitch the lining to the facing, right sides together. I had forgotten to change the needle, and this (size60 microtex) sewed easily through the silk and leather.
During this process I added a small pocket to the front, under the bust line.
This was not very successful. I tried sewing the zip right side to the leather and turning, which was bulky. In retrospect, I should have lapped the leather facing over the right side of the zipper tape.

I covered up most of the mess with a faux welt, hand sewn to the lining, and the pocket is both functional and not apparent from the outside. You can see above that sandwashed silk shows every needle hole, the bullion roses I used to hold up the pocket bag on the inside, and for fun on the welt.

I hand sewed the rolled hems to the zipper tape and the stitches attaching the zipper guard at the sleeves. I would have liked more length ease in the sleeves, 5cm is barely enough.

The peplum facing is the back and front peplums abutted. I sewed this, right sides together to the bottom of the lining front and sides, easing the lining slightly to fit, then turned it right side out.
I glued the peplum at the hemline of the jacket, and at the sides to the zipper tape. Later this will be topstitched and trimmed at the hemline, like the collar.

Now it gets messy. The facing does not extend to the zipper at the lower front. I had to glue in an extra piece after glueing the hem of the facing and was in a bit of a quandry about what to do with the lining hem.

First I hand stitched the lining to the facing where it was not machine stitched (piercing the leather), then sewed the hem of the lining by turning it under and stitching through the back of the stitches from the peplum-side topstitching. This might have worked better with a less slippery fabric,

I though about sewing a trim of some sort over my dodgy seam, but did not have anything suitable. This is a bias tube of some voile with a print containing both the lining and leather shades, best I could do at the time. I am hoping it will not annoy me too much when I put on the jacket.

The cuffs are glued to the free zipper tape and the bottom of the sleeve. I rolled some rags inside the sleeve, and did this in two stages for each cuff. Next the cuff is folded to the inside and topstitched at the zipper tapes and sleeve to attach both layers. Then it will be finished!
I am pleased with what I have learnt from this project, and I think the jacket looks good - photo shoot after the last little bits are completed.

Materials Sources: Leather,glue
lining silk
brass zippers
Other things I found useful: Singer 28 hand cranked sewing machine for straight topstitching and oomph in piercing many layers of leather. Double tracing wheel to mark seam allowances unobtrusively on leather,Jeans topstitching thread, heavy needles (110 and 100), disposable gloves for glueing (I used about half of a 100 box,there is a lot of glue a bit-wait-a-bit(sew something else whilst waiting)-glue a bit),helpful extra person to help hold curvy seams whilst glueing, dressform for collar and facing glueing, draping lining, haemostat for clamping seams togther.

Vital: well ventilated area for glueing

Some on-line reading about leather jackets.
The sewing lawyer
Leather jacket sew-a-long at Stitchers Guild
How to sew leather on a standard machine, links to other leather sewing advice
I also used my 1970's Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing, which has good tips about choosing your leather.
*(Debra Martin has written about making this pattern in faux leather here, which has been very useful to me)

BWOF 10-2009-126 Leather jacket progress report

2012-01-02T19:42:00.000+10:00

I have had a very nice day today working on my leather jacket. It is not going too badly, despite including multiple new experiences.

1. Cutting out the leather.

I lay the skins out on the floor, and after inspecting them for holes and thin spots, lay out all the pattern pieces with room for seam allowances.
I cut them out by placing a cutting board underneath the skin of interest, weighting the pattern piece, and tracing around it with a double tracing wheel, set at 1.5cm seam allowance. I then cut on the seam allowance line with a rotary cutter, freehand, something I had not tried previously.

2. Audition thread, needles, feet and machine to use

I used jeans topstitching thread, a long stitch, and a size 110 denim needle. As I was using my hand cranked Singer 28, I was not able to use a teflon foot nor a walking foot, but the Singer fed the leather through rather nicely.
I had bought a leather needle, but decided not to use it on this relatively thin leather, as the 110 denim needle was working quite well.

I made this little bag as my needle/thread/tension test sample.

2. Glue and stitch construction
I felt as if I were making a kayak here. (My husband builds glue and stitch kayaks and canoes)

The Burda instructions are to use a glue stick to attach single lapped seams, then to edgestitch. I had read elswhere that only leather adhesive should be used on leather, as other adhesives can weaken the leather and make it rot, so I used leather glue that I purchased at Packer's tannery Narangba. It is rather tacky, has instructions to wear gloves and safety glasses, due to toxicity, but dries in 2 minutes, so made the gluing process relatively quick. It dries clear, and whilst still white, can be removed with a damp cloth. I used a lot of damp cloths.

The Burda instructions are a little confusing regarding the direction of the lapped seams, so I looked closely at the magazine photo to help me choose the direction and order of construction.
I found it difficult to mark the leather using tailors chalk or removable pencil. I used the double tracing wheel on both pieces to remove the seam allowance on the over piece, and to mark the placement line on the under piece. The tracing wheel made a just visible line, which was not apparent once the seam was glued and sewn.
2. Fronts
Inner yoke over outer yoke
I decided that a double row of stitching was both more practical and more decorative, and have used this stitching throughout.

Here I was glad that I had plenty of leather, as I stitched badly, and recut and sewed the upper yoke in an attempt to improve my stitching accuracy.

Lower inner front over yoke

3.Attach front side zips - diversion
The zip length required for this zip is not the same as the length Burda describes in the pattern requirements. This was a little annoying. I tried removing the zipper stops per the Burda instructions for shortening the central zip, but had no success.
I called in the calvary.

Removal of the stops required the use of a cats claw nail puller, wedged under the stop, and struck firmly from above - a 3 hand job.
After that, removing zipper teeth and re-applying the zipper stops with normal pliers was pretty easy

I attached the zips to the lower fronts with a single row of stitching, as I had decided to save the second row of stitching for attachment of a peplum facing.

Upper side fronts over lower side fronts

Central front over side front

This was tricky. There is a FBA here, and the seam is rather curvy. I recruited my daughter to hold down one end of the seam whilst I carefully pressed out the ripples against the tacky glue.
I also added a zipper guard when stitching this seam.

Centre back over back shoulder
Centre back over side back
Upper back over back peplum

Front shoulder over Back Shoulders

Back side seams over Front side seams (obeying Burda, in retrospect I would have left this until after the collar and front zip insertion). This was also tricky, as I had failed to add the adjustments I made to my denim version to the pattern, and somehow just cut out the side seams per the pattern, instead of adding one cm to each seam - I did not trim the seam allowance off, and overlapped the seam by the smallest possible amount

Outer collar stand over neckline

Front zip, no raw edges, topstitched, and with zip shield added.

I am really keen to keep going, but am feeling a bit too tired to continue - I would be sure to make a mistake.

I am back to work tomorrow, but hopefully can get more done during the week.

Best and Worst of 2011, show ponies and to the knackers

2012-01-02T08:02:00.000+10:00

I ~~threatened~~ mentioned that I planned a second wrap up post, being very bad at condensing, so here is the fun and frivolity part of my sewing
Best outcomes (wearability and sewing success), in reverse order
3.Beach dress Burda World of Fashion 07-2009-105

This is an incredibly practical garment. I wear it at home a lot, but feel quite respectable wearing it to get the groceries (and to the beach).It was out of my comfort zone in both fabric and pattern shape, but turned out very well.

2.Collette Parfait (1003),with 4 gored flared skirt added

This required minimal fitting, I made 3 at the end of last summer, and I wear them constantly.
1.Vogue 8728 reproduction 1946 dress

This is a terrific pattern,flattering,easy, well drafted and using less fabric than one would expect. I have made two so far, and version 3 is in the pipeline.

All dresses. You might think from the last post that most of what I make are t shirts, but dresses are my first sewing love.

Most fun sewing
No dresses.Here is impractically and sewing self indulgence. This counters the workhorse sewing nicely.

Collette Lady Grey Coat-lengthened, and buttoned, brown cotton velvet with washed silk lining.

I made this coat during the QLD floods early this year. As MaryNanna pointed out in the leather jacket post, it is rather a warm climate here for this sort of garment. However, I did wear this several times during winter, which lasts at least 8 weeks, and during which I always seem to have to attend evening events at outdoor or unheated venues.

In fact, it saved me from a serious wardrobe malfunction, which brings me to the Worst outcomes of 2011
1.The disappearing skirt. This was a straight skirt I whipped up to attend a conference dinner, no fault of the pattern, but an interesting crinkly bronze/brown synthetic fabric from Kerryn's Fabric world. The fabric split in several places during the evening, and the skirt was not tight. I was only saved by my knee length coat.Whew! I will be tugging all synthetic fabrics prior to purchase in future.
2.

An internet surprise fabric, this print was too large and loud for me.
3.Burda Style 06-2011-102

I tried really hard to fix this dress,but it is now sitting on the mending pile waiting to be turned into a blouse. Win some, lose some.

This year, I want to make a leather jacket and use more silk. I think I can manage that level of planning.

Best Patterns of 2011, Workhorse category

2012-01-01T10:09:00.000+10:00

I am not very good at reflecting. I like to dash forward to the next thing, which is why I posted about my current project yesterday instead of writing this end of year post. However, the leather is encouraging procrastination, so I have decided a little reflection is a good thing.
I sew most of my own clothes, and quite a lot of my family's clothing, and also sew for pure frivolity, so my best pattern post needs a few divisions.

Workhorse Patterns of 2011
This category recognises those reliable patterns that allow one to cover the body, not necessarily in a stylish or fashionable manner, and the inclusion requirement is purely numercial - how many garments were produced from this single pattern, which lends the category to quickly sewn projects. 5 of these patterns are new to me in 2011,, so I have found some Very Useful patterns this year.

In reverse order.

10: Burda Style 02-2011-107 skirt
There were several contenders for this spot, at 4 garments completed for one person, so I have included the one I think will have most longevity as a workhorse pattern, a shaped pencil skirt.

9: Ottobre 05-2010-19 and 20, sharing this spot with 4 each, for one person, as they are frankly too dull to deserve two places in the top 10

8: Burda 04-2009-118 my TNT trouser pattern. 2 work trousers, 1 pyjama trousers and 1 pair of side fastening cream linen trousers, all for me.

7.Vogue 8096 man's shirt, 5 of them for my spoilt husband. He appreciates spoiling.

6.Burda World of Fashion 09-2008-144, boy's woven collarless shirt, adapted to knit t shirt shape for 3 t shirts and 2 pyjama tops.

5.Ottobre t shirt 02-2011-1, 5 t shirts, for 2 people

4.Jalie Sweetheart top 2787, 5 t shirts, for 3 people, with variations to the pattern

3.Jalie Yoga Pants 2215, 6 pairs, for 3 people

2. Not really a workhorse pattern, but a production sewing effort, the Oliver + S ra-ra top I made for my 8 nieces for Christmas.(They were very well recieved, there is nothing like an almost 2 year old running around on Christmas morning yelling "my pretty" whilst clutching her new top to warm the cockles of a sewing auntie's heart)

1. Ta-da, The mystery pattern, Ottobre 02-2011-20, from which a finished garment has never been seen on the blog, despite over 20 items being made from this pattern this year for 3 persons in the house, from remnants.

You can't get more workhorse than that.

I will post about my other categories for best patterns later,.... maybe... my leather is looking less dangerous.

Burda 10-2009-126 WIP jacket, denim version

2011-12-31T19:35:00.000+10:00

I have been planning to make a leather jacket for quite a while.
In June, I bought the skins, then ordered zips from the USA for this pattern( zipsnot available in Australia at this length, in any colour with bronzed metal teeth apparently), Burda Style 10-2009-126.

I had done nothing about it since. Sometimes delaying for a parcel can ruin the sewing stride.

After tidying my sewing room from the aftermath of production Christmas sewing, I finally started on this project. It was about 3 layers down on the "I want to make this" pile, and suddenly appeared very attractive.
I hadn't tidied in there for a while.

Today I finished the denim version of the jacket.

Unfortunately it was nearly 6pm when my daughter took the photos, so you will have to put up with the crooked collar and terrible lighting. I promise that the collar stands up properly when put on properly. I am very keen to write all about the lovely time I had with topstitching and binding the seams, and can't wait for better photos tomorrow. I hope you forgive me for being more interested in sewing than photos.

I am starting ahead of myself. I am rather nervous about sewing a leather jacket.
The first thing I did, before buying the leather, was to trace out all the pieces so that I could lay them out in a single layer on the leather at the tannery shop (Packers Tannery, Nerangba) - no cutting on the fold for leather, and separate pieces for each side. I seem to have enough skins for the jacket. This might also be because I bought 3 more than required by the pattern I did not feel comfortable about getting out my pattern pieces at the tannery.

Next( ie, this week) I made my normal Burda pattern alterations - FBA, and large biceps adjustment. I did not make a square shoulder adjustment, as the pattern calls for shoulder pads, nor did I take in the waist, thinking that a jacket might need more ease.
The pattern is a petite, but I did not alter for length, as the finished jacket length provided seemed just right, at 50cm, and I had not tried a Burda petite pattern previously.
I made a toile in calico, butting several of the front pieces together to make this quicker.
I was mostly pleased with the fit

The main issue was that I had trouble raising my arms.

I addressed this in the denim version by adding 1cm to the side and undersleeve seams, then taking in the waist a smidgeon (technical term)

I had the best fun with the inside finishing. See my bound seams?

I also added an in-seam zip pocket, just credit card size.

I added a covering placket and inner shield for the zip.
The pattern calls for single lapped seams and raw edges throughout. I wanted to mimic the construction as preparation for my leather version, so although using normal seams, I topstitched most of them as if they were lapped, and made the whole garment without using pins.

I used my hand cranked Singer 28 and jeans thread for the topstitching. I had a bit of trouble with it at first (that would be the awful topstitching around the in seam zipper pocket) but had no issues at all once I found a size 110 needle. Even a size 100 needle kept the thread snapping.

I am really excited about the next version. I plan to start it tomorrow, wish me luck!

Deadline December: Pyjama/Lounging shorts male versions

2011-12-23T19:30:00.001+10:00

We are a bit late with our decorating. Here are some Christmas trees inspired by an article in Donna Hay. My daughter saw a birch branch construction in the magazine advertised at $399, and said. "We could make that". I wonder where she gets that from?

She and my son both made a mini Christmas tree from findings in the back yard (with a little help from my husband).
Aren't they clever? I wonder where we have put the rest of the decorations?
I kept busy and out of the way. Woodwork is not my thing.
I made pyjama/lounging shorts.

These are for my brother, and my husband.

The pattern is Kwik Sew 2022, which I found in an op shop, and the fabrics are quilting cotton, both from fabric.com.

I turned the waistband to the inside, as they are rather high waisted for current styling IMO.

Here are a couple of pairs of pj shorts for my son, made from remants of quilting cotton from some of his favourite out-grown shirts.
I used the children's pj pattern from Burda Style 11-2009, which is for a knit, and too small, but I added a bit of height and width and am hoping the elastic/drawstring waist with casing fixes any fitting issues.
I have tomorrow off work, which is delightful, but hopefully I have finished with all my deadline sewing, unless of course I fancy making myself a new dress for Christmas

Deadline December: The seaweed scarf

2011-12-20T07:39:00.000+10:00

This is the scarf of doom. I have been knitting it on and off, mostly off, since March.

It looks rather innocent and easy here, doesn't it?
That would be deceptive.
This scarf started out as a strip of stocking stitch, straight from a pattern for a tube like scarf that my mother admired, and had asked me to make for her from this rather slippery yarn,(it has attached sequins) (jo Sharp Lumina - viscose and cotton strands loosely plied).
Unfortunately, she did not like the scarf once I had finished it, due to the curling edges inevitable with a stocking stitch scarf. Being a kind mother, she placed the scarf around her neck and pretended that she would wear it, but I could tell it was destined for the bottom drawer.
I ripped it from her neck and sat her in front of a knitting magazine or two.
She found a scarf that she liked, but it was in an advertisement, not a pattern.
Airily, I said "oh, I'm sure I can work that out" and started ravelling the first scarf.
The yarn did not like being ravelled. It formed a kinky tangled mess. After some fiddling, I worked out that if I knit straight from the unravelling scarf, rather than trying to form a ball with the yarn, knitting was easier - if rather bulky to transport.
I made up my own pattern.
Here it is

Cast on 25 stitches using cable cast on.
First row: Knit
Second row: Cast on 4 stitches, cable cast on, turn work, cast off 4 stitches, knit to end.
Repeat second row to lenght of scarf desired. Occasionally cast on 5 stitches, cast off 4, or cast on 3, cast off 4, to make the edges a little wavy. Every so often, return to the 25 stitch row count, and have the last 3 rows at 25 stitches to balance the scarf.
Cast off last row.
2 and 1/2 balls of Lumina, 4.0mm needles

Caution: There are 9 swimming lessons, 2 Miss Marple Movies and 1 Terry Pratchet movie in the making of this scarf - I suppose multi-tasking is the advantage of knitting over sewing.

Deadline December Vogue 8096 Bicycle shirt version 2

2011-12-18T09:00:00.000+10:00

After I foolishly gave my husband his Christmas present early. Mary Nanna commented that she hoped I wouldn't have to give him something else. Of course not! I thought, but as Christmas drew closer, the thought of him not having something to unwrap on Christmas day was making me feel bad, so I made up the other fabric I had ordered from Spoonflower at the same time.

I enjoyed making this shirt, as I gave considerable reign to my tendency to overembellish - something I generally have to restrain when making man clothes.

That is a chain machine embroidery stitch, being topical and holding the placket inside down most effectively.

These are the cuff buttons, with a little bullion stitch hand embroidery, which no one will ever see, as my husband will wear this shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

So here is the flat felled seam on the sleeves, which will be constantly visible.

Unfortunately I was not nearly so impressed with this fabric as I was with the first bicycle shirt.
The fabric is an off white, and does not have as pleasant a hand as the other piece. In addition, the print is off grain, and as the print is rather large, this was an issue in pattern matching.

I chose to match at the centre back yoke, and let the other wheels be a little off, which I think looks OK. I did I kept the back pleats at the sides, as shown in the pattern, rather than in the centre, which I generally prefer. I used the same central only matching technique with the sleeves at the yoke seam. At the front, I matched the wheels across the placket, so I hope the fronts being off grain does not affect the hang of the shirt too much.

I topstitched using my hand cranked Singer 28. It has a beautiful straight stitch, and made the topstitching very easy.

I used a black and white pinstriped shirting cotton from Michael's fabric for the collar and cuff contrast, with self fabric for the placket and cuff interfacing, and fusible shirt interfacing from Fashion Sewing Supply for the collar and stand.

Off topic, I took the photographs on our back verandah, which is at canopy level for our Lilli-Pilli trees, in fruit at the moment. This fig bird was eating the Lilli-Pillies 2 metres away from me.

Does this look like a Christmas card to you?
It looked even better when the bird had 3 berries in its beak, matching its cheek plumage perfectly.

Remnant creation nightie

2011-12-16T20:33:00.002+10:00

Thank you for all the kind comments re my niece sewing. Yes, I do try to make something for all my nieces (some of whom technically belong to my husband) each Christmas. I had a sewing Auntie when I was young, and vividly remember the fabulous 80's wild print board shorts she sewed all the cousins each year. We loved them. She stopped sewing in the 90's for some inexplicable reason, but her recent acquisition of a grand-daughter (her son is the same age as me, and has a not quite 1 year old daughter, whilst I have a nearly 17 year old!) has started her sewing again, I wonder if she will join the internet sewing community)
Some of the niece sewing was from remnants. This made me feel very clever.
However, there were some colour requests. My first niece asked for purples/green/light blue. I had just bought some fabric that matched this description perfectly. The only problem was that I am a selfish Auntie, and had bought it for myself for a specific garment. Not only that, but it was from Spotlight, and was rather a skimpy width, which is their nasty habit for making the fabric look less expensive than it actually is per square metre.
Naturally, I had to cut out my project to see if there was any left over for my niece, and naturally, once I had cut it out to create a small remnant, it would have been incredibly annoying to have a cut out nightie lying around in my sewing space whilst I did all my planned Christmas gift sewing.
See what happened?

This is my favourite nightie pattern, from Burda 11-2009, about # 134, the fabric is cotton voile. I went to Spotlight a few weeks ago (a multi hour trek) as fellow Queenslanders Katherineh and Bernice both posted that they had found some very nice cotton prints from Spotlight recently, and this was a great tip, I bought about 25m of different prints in voiles, lawns - one even a Tana lawn, and slightly heavier weaves. (Kawana Waters, if anyone who is reading lives around here).
I felt delightfully self indulgent whilst I was sewing this. There is nothing like a bit of gift sewing to make you appreciate the gift of time used for yourself.

Deadline December Niece Project, Oliver + S Ruffled Halters

2011-12-14T20:01:00.000+10:00

Did you miss me? I have been glued to the sewing machine making Christmas presents.
I may have rashly talked about Niece November, but only managed one birthday dress with petticoat during this month. Unfortunately, Niece November was supposed to be all the Christmas present sewing for my 8 nieces. My plan failed dismally in the timing aspect, due to unavoidable working, inadvertant sleeping and having lots of friends over to visit, so in my annual rush of production sewing I present to you 8 versions of the free download Oliver + S Ruffled Halter pattern from the Oliver + S Blog, started on December 4 and finishing today. Yay. The relief is considerable.

My criteria for production sewing are 1. Simple shapes 2. No fiddly fastenings and 3. Cuteness factor. I chose the Oliver + S pattern because it looked as if it fulfilled these criteria, could be made from lightweight cotton fabrics (easy to find in the stash, easy to wear, easy to launder) and because it marvellously covered the entire size range of my nieces, whom are aged from 19 months to 11 years and 10 months (although the latter niece is actually a size 10, as is her 10 year old sister, making her auntie's lfe rather easy)
I started with the Melbourne set, despite these being the largest, and likely to be worn the longest versions, as postage to Melbourne is rather slow at this time of year.

The first one is made from Liberty Tana Lawn, with the front lining being a pedestrian cotton batiste.
I made this pretty much to the instructions, and was a little surprized to find that the front wraps around to the back with the elastic applied at the (very generous) width given in the instructions. My additions here were rolled hems for the flounces, cutting the lower ruffles on the straight instead of the bias for fabric saving reasons, and edgestitching the top edge of both the front halter casing and the back elastic casing as I feel this gives a more appealing finish to the gathering. I also made a turned tube for the tie, rather than folding over the fabric and topstitching.

The next one is similar, but uses voile and batiste with no brand name. This one has all the ruffle layers cut on the bias, but in my opinion, if you are finishing thehems, there is no real design advantage to cutting out the garment on the bias rather than on the straight in these light fabrics.

Next I used some Debbie Mum quilting cotton with a border print.

These garments, size XL (10-12) and L (7-8) I found that the overlap of the flounces was a little skimpy, and as I had used a different fabric for the lining layer, I had to adjust the position of the ruffles and cut the lower ruffle a little longer to provide sufficient cover.

I posted these ones off with the purchased parts of the presents, and started on the Sydney set. I seem to have forgotten to take a photograph of the blue quilting cotton print, but here are the next two, in a cotton Indonesian batik (I love this fabric), and another quilting cotton using pretty remnants.

I got a bit carried away here, forgetting that I was doing production sewing, and used French seams and a little secret machine embroidery on the lining hem.
I also used buttonhole elastic for the back, as the Melbourne nieces will be visiting me for adjustments in January, but the Sydney nieces are less accessible, and have no local sewing relatives.

After I ran out of buttonhole elastic, I added a buttonhole tab to regular elastic for the next version. For all of these versions, I lengthened the ruffles for overlap, as again I found this skimpy (size L, M (5-6) and( S 3-4)

Lucky last were the sewing for my smallest nieces, sizes S and XS (18-24 months), who live in Brisbane, and whom I will see over Christmas. The green one is quilting cotton, and the other one is Liberty Tana Lawn and shirting cotton.

I used the same techniques on these versions, but the thought of a toddler flashing the lining constantly encouraged me to add a partial lining of the outer fabric to the top of each ruffle.

I was using remnants of both the Liberty Lawn and the shirting cotton, so did not have a sufficiently large piece to self-line.

The co-ordinating hair clips were made by my daughter.
Overall, I am pleased with the pattern, and the ruffle tops, but feel that the pattern is a little bit too "beginner" in finishing techniques for my personal taste. Pretty good for a freebie though! If I had younger children I would be looking out for the Oliver + S patterns to buy.

Oh, and I made my only nephew a t shirt, - and bought him a screaming monkey slingshot ;). This is older sister revenge for the very loud rattling lawnmower my then childless brother bought my 3 year old. I was kind though, and put in some Lego too, so my nephew still has a present when his monkey gets lost somewhere......

Vogue 8728 Indulgence dress

2011-12-05T19:30:00.000+10:00

Although Deadline December is breathing down my neck, I indulged in a little selfish sewing. I had cut out my next Vogue 8728 for Frocktober from a venerable Liberty Tana Lawn and was itching to sew it all through Not-for-me-November.
I like it, but not as much as my grey linen version.
The Liberty lawn is wonderful to sew, and beautifully cool to wear, but I think my younger self was more enthralled with getting Liberty for a bargain price (Lincraft Brisbane City selling off all their Liberty stock - so you can tell how old it is!) than the actual print.
I have used this print before. I rather foolishly made myself a luxurious loose front buttoning blouse as a nursing top. When this became inedibly (and inevitably) stained, the shirt was very young, so I kept the unstained back the sleeves for a future project, along with the metre and a half of unused fabric. This is why the print of this dress is upside down - I had to use the blouse pieces upside down to fit in the width of the cut on almost sleeves at the back.
I made a few small changes to this version of the pattern.
The deliberate change was to underline the waistband with cotton organdy. A non deliberate change was that I somehow seem to have enlarged the vertical dimensions of the waist at the same time, leading to billowing, which is not present in the grey linen version.

Naturally I only discovered this enlargement after I had piped the waistband and inserted the invisible zipper - another deliberate change (I loved Sherry's piped waistline detail in her 50's red spotty frock). Next time I will be measuring this section twice. This time I am just leaving it because no one will notice except for all the sewing blog readers ;)

Refashioned sundress.

2011-12-04T20:19:00.000+10:00

I am a happy seamstress this evening.
See what I made today, well, partly made today.

See how horrid it was before, and how much my daughters despised it
(that is daughter the second reluctantly agreeing to wear this dress briefly)

Before Photo
Review of original pattern, White Linen, from Australian Smocking and Embroidery Issue 23, which was the only pattern I have made from this magazine that was a complete and utter disaster.
I liked the smocking and embroidery, and the rather expensive white linen I used to make this dress orginally, which is why I have held on to it for the past 8 years.
The main problem with this dress was that it was way too big for an 8 year old, and also that the bottom of the smocking did not line up with the waistline.
First I unpicked the waistline, and re-sewed it to be level with the bottom of the smocking.

Next I chopped off the shoulders, and held the dress up to my daughter. Amazingly, I still had to chop off 5cm, front and back, from each side seam starting at the curve of the armholes. I think the original pattern was a tad oversized.
After doing this, I had plenty of fabric from the skirt to use to fill in the armhole.

I machine embroidered over the original armscye binding, and added a new bodice and armscye binding from a blue and white herringbone twill cotton that is about the same weight as the linen.
At this point, my daughter and I both felt that the dress looked more 6 year old than 16, but she wanted the dress to stay loose at the waist, for coolness.

I altered the front neckline to a sweetheart shape, and the back to a shallow v, and took the skirt up to just above the knee.

Somehow this transformed the dress to an instant favourite.
This sort of success could almost make me change my mind about alterations

Desperate December sewing

2011-12-03T21:03:00.001+10:00

I am quite sure that I am addicted to sewing. This week has been horrendously busy, and my sewing has been very slight, but I managed to squeeze some in by neglecting other things of less importance, such as sleeping.
Last weekend, when I was muttering about despising the white buttons I had earmarked for my husband's cycling shirt, my daughter came to my rescue by donating the perfect grey/blue buttons from a RTW shirt that she had out-grown.

Naturally, the sight of this buttonless shirt in my sewing room provoked me to some activity, but unusually for alterations, it was not thrusting the object to the bottom of the nearest drawer. First I replaced the buttons, with sweet little pearlescent white shank buttons, which required stitching the buttonholes a little smaller. These are much more pretty than the grey ones now on my husband's shirt.
The original girl's shirt was a blouson style, cinched at the hips with a self fabric tie, now too short and a little snug at the hips.
I chopped off most of the sleeves, to make a cap sleeve, then used the sleeve fabric to insert a godet in each side seam.

Now it is a nice new blouse for work, to wear tucked in. I was very pleased with myself, and my daughter was equally pleased, as she is working full time in an office job until Christmas, and was getting rather bored with her clothes.

Next up, there was a kitchen issue. My son, in his yearly production of gingerbread men (and ninjabread men) to give to his classmates, discovered that his apron, made about 5 years ago, had mysteriously vanished, and that the adult sized aprons in the bottom drawer were rather too large for a 9 year old, being a tripping hazard.
He selected this fabric, liking the vegetables (he is a keen gardener), and requested extra large pockets for the storage of garden produce and eggs.

I made bellows pockets and have another token sewing project completed this week, and used up some 13 year old fabric in the process. Another winner.
Maybe I will have some real sewing time tomorrow.

Slight shirt strangeness in not-for-me November, Vogue 8096

2011-11-29T21:07:00.002+10:00

My husband is a most conservative dresser. He saw Mario's Dr. Who Dalek shirt, by Karen of Sewing by the Seat of My Pants whilst I was reading her blog some months ago.
He was very impressed. He suggested that a shirt with bicycles on it would be equally amusing and well appreciated.
I was astounded. I thought the men of my aquaintance had no fun with their clothes. How could I resist such an opportunity? Even if it was another Vogue 8096....

The fabric is from Spoonflower, with our cycling group logo on it. My husband designed the team logo some years ago, and I secretly filched it from his computer files and had Spoonflower print it on the fabric. Unfortunately this is quilting fabric, not shirting cotton, but the print turned out nicely.

I was not confident of matching at the collar and cuffs etc, so used a stripey shirting fabric from Michael's fabrics as a contrast.

I rather like the front placket effect that reminds me of a road. I used David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking book for the construction techniques - except for the armscye seams. These are overlocked and topstitched in a manner worthy of a quilting cotton shirt.

I did match the back pleat, but that was all.

I was planning to save this as a Christmas present, but having finished it before the end of year cycling party, handed it over early for an outing.
He was very pleased.
Can anyone explain why this appreciation does not convert to modelling for photographs?
I don't think Genivieve the dressform has quite the right figure for this shirt.

Silly Santa Cycling Sewing

2011-11-28T15:02:00.001+10:00

I felt as if there was a lot of sewing for this year's Cycling Christmas party (in November, how silly) but now that I look at the photographs it is pretty tame really. I was fantasizing about starting my leather jacket, which is rather impractical anyway.
I made some fabric envelopes and drawstring bags as wrapping for most of the gifts.

There is a gift exchange that is very silly. Each person brings a wrapped gift, and picks a number from a cycling helmet.
The recipient of the lowest number picks the first gift, then unwraps it. The holder of the next lowest number selects another gift, then decides whether they will keep the gift, or swap it for a gift someone else has already unwrapped. There is a lot of good natured carrying on about this.

Some of the cyclists have been mentioning every five minutes or so that they would like me to make them an under helmet head scarf like my husband's (modelled here by my daughter, who was making ninjabread men at the time). I have been successfully ignoring these hints, but thought it might generate some interest at the Silly Santa Session.
I was right.
However, I brought home one of my own cycling apron and tea towel sets :).

I think it will be Very Useful. Much better than the Suduko toilet paper roll ;)

Shams' fabulous tablecloth skirt pattern

2011-11-26T11:55:00.003+10:00

Shams' skirt for Thanksgiving looks terrific. In her incredibly clever fashion, she has worked out the pattern for a very interesting designer hem detail, made a skirt with a gorgeous and perfect fabric, then generously provided instructions for how to make a similar skirt using one's own measurements.
Now I know I am supposed to be in the midst of a not-for-me-November, but I could not resist this pattern.
Ta-da!

Here is my interpretation of Sham's tablecloth skirt tutorial. I used a muted print of quilting cotton, and added a regular waistband using the quilting cotton for interfacing. The skirt opening is by a lapped placket, buttoned. I used Sham's length measurements, and my own waist measurement with 1 inch of ease added. I did not use my hip measurement at all :), just made a nice long placket.

I am thrilled with this skirt. I made it in one evening after work, and I think it looks very good. I love the movement at the hem, and the lightness of the skirt. I am wearing it here for an exciting trip to the supermarket on Saturday morning, but imagine that its proper location is wandering along the beach in the early evening. I will be making more of these. Thank you so much Shams for your clever pattern.

I did make one change to Shams' pattern that I will not be using in future versions. One of the commentors at Shams' blog (Janee's originals, no link on the comment) suggested that an oval waist might be preferable to a circle, as tutus are apparently made this way. I thought this idea was worth a try, as my waist dimensions are more ellipse than circle, so instead of cutting a circle with the circumference of my waist, I cut an ellipse, after roughly measuring the lateral and anterior-posterior dimensions of my waist, and using an on-line calculator to tweak the measurements to meet the circumference of my waist.

I drew this out on gridded pattern making interfacing, and lay it out on the folded main pattern piece as instructed in Shams' tutorial, having the top and side edge of my ellipse hanging 1cm off the folded fabric to allow for seam allowance.
This all worked very nicely in the construction phase, and I put the placket at centre back.

However, the oval waist means that the skirt folds hang unevenly. When worn with the longer curve of the oval at the front and back, there is more fall of fabric at the hips. Not my best look.
Fortunately, when the placket is worn at the side (short curve to the front and the back) there are more folds at the front and back than over the hips, and the skirt is more flattering to me.

I will just use the circle waist next time!

Get that fabric out of here, a couple of very quick projects in knit

2011-11-17T09:45:00.000+10:00

There are many approaches to stash management. Long ago, I decided that fabric that one does not exactly like seems to multiply in the depths of the stash until you open the fabric cupboard, carefully holding back the overflowing top shelf, and realise with dismay that there is nothing to sew in there.
I am improving my stash management.
Only a few weeks ago I received an internet order containing disappointing thin, minimal recovery knits. One went out straight away as a trial version of a knit pattern, but the other was a lot more fun. I used it for sewing experimentation.

(Please note the garden hose in the photo, almost as good as a rubbish bin - photo taken before school in a big rush, we have quality pictures here)

I made this last night after dinner. It is inspired by a RTW knit skirt.
I did not draw a pattern, as I was just playing around.
I cut out a semi circle,with the stripes parallel to the diametre, then marked two points equidistant from the centre, each half of the waist width, then cut the sides at a pleasing to the eye angle from the outer waist mark to the bottom edge of the skirt. I folded the skirt in half to check symmetry, trimmed a bit, then cut the waist edge to a slight concave curve. I did not take photos because they would have been lousy, taken- inside dark ones.

The waist is two layers of the knit, cut so that the stripes on the inside match up with the stripes on the outside, as the colours show through the white spaces otherwise.

Construction was
1 Sew skirt seams together - matching chevrons was the only part requiring a little care.
2 Sew short edge of waist pieces together
3 Sew waist piece to waist edge of skirt, stretching to fit (about 5% difference in measurement)
4. Cut strip of elastic to 2cm less than waist measurement, sew short ends together
5. Sew elastic to top edge of waist, right side, then turn elastic over to wrong side, turn waist edge over again and topstitch using 3 step zig zag.
6. Hem skirt.

My daughter is very pleased with her new skirt, and I do not really care that the fabric is likely to wear out after only a few washings, as my time investment in this project was very small.

Unfortunately, there was a garment sized piece of fabric left over. I struggled with this wastefulness on the way to the bin, and my tightwad nature won.

I made a tank top with fold over elastic trim for my older daughter to wear as loungewear/pjs.

It looks better in the photo than in real life.
I guess that was the problem with the fabric in the first place!
Hopefully that will help prevent the ugly fabric multiplication disease in the collection.

Christmas Tree Napkins

2011-11-15T19:06:00.000+10:00

I like Christmas craft.

Christmas is at my mother's house this year, and I thought I would make some fancy, silly napkins to take (in addition to the summer pudding, savoury cheesecake for vegetarian husband and nice salad that are our requested contribution - my mother is very organised). I am making them now, so that I can give them to her next weekend and pre-empt any other napkins about which she might be thinking.
The idea has been perculating since I saw these napkins on Kathryn's blog last year.
I made 12x 10 inch radius napkins, translating this to 25cm to draw a semicircle on the side of a carboard box as a template.
I folded 114cm quilting cotton in half lengthways, and found that this was a perfect width for the napkin + seam allowance of about 1cm. I cut 6 from each of 2 doubled fabrics, but forgot to measure how much fabric it took. Kathryn says it would be 3 and 3/8 yards of each fabric, and that looks right to me. I have more fabric, in case there end up being more guests, which often happens due to my hospitable parent. (12 is only one extra at the moment)

You sew two constrasting fabrics right sides together, leaving a space for turning, trim, press, turn, press, stitch up opening. Easy-peasy.

Kathryn gives links to some blogs with measuring, sewing and folding instructions, but they are both for smaller napkins. In my opinion you would not want to go much smaller than a 25cm radius, Christmas napkins need to be generous to cope with too much eating and drinking whilst in one's nice clothes.
The folding is fairly intuitive, but I took photos anyway.

Ta da!
they were very quick.
I wonder if my son's teacher would like some for her Christmas pressie?

Niece November #1 _ 128 Chery Williams Basic Square Yoke, lap 2 of endurance gift sewing

2011-11-13T12:10:00.001+10:00

The birthday dress (niece turning 7) is finished in the nick of time.

I used, Chery Williams Basic Square Yoke #128, copyright 1994, updated from a mid 80's version, which I own in both the small and large versions.

There are 10 variations of the pattern on the instruction sheet, but I have used a different variation of my own devising.

This is a very simple dress, with a lined bodice, darted at the waist, and the neckline and armscye re-cut for a sleeveless version.

I have piped the neckline, back opening and armscyes, and added an embroidered (lazy daisies) and counterchange smocked pocket.

The ribbon sash is held with thread keepers at the side seams, and also at the centre back, where in my experience, little girls' sashes tend to sag.

Being unfashionably fond of matchy-matchy, I have also made a hair ornament from the same ribbon as the sash. She is free to wear this with a completely different outfit instead, but it makes me happy ;)

I have added a ruffle to the hem, over 6m long for proper twirl factor, after shortening the dress . All the ruffling has been done using my hand cranked Singer with ruffler attachment, something I wish I had purchased at the same time as the pattern. The ruffler made it very easy to make the essential twirl and sticky-out factor petticoat (cotton batiste), no pattern used, just 2 ruffled tiers, the first is 2 fabric widths, the second is 4 fabric widths, attached to rectangle with an elastic waistband.

I have used this dress pattern at least 50 times. Whilst thinking about the 2012 SWAP, which is about developing TNT patterns, I thought about the TNTs I already own, and decided this one would have to be the top of my list (although the Jalie sweetheart top might be challenging it shortly). Using this pattern makes me feel nostaglic for my past sewing.

Here is the third dress made from this pattern, and the first time I used it for a birthday dress.

and here is the first dress (yellow one) and about the 15th dress.

You can see why I am grateful for niece sewing, all that girly sewing becomes addictive after too much exposure. Be warned.

A gift sewing endurance event lap 1 Burda Style Magazine 11-2009-134

2011-11-10T19:32:00.000+10:00

Mary Nanna wrote, in a glow of virtue I could see from here, that the theme at 1/11/11 was "not- for- me- November". Fortunately, she did not berate the sewing internet community with stern instructions to sew-a-long. However, this little aside raised some guilty feelings here (all self inflicted) as I too, feel that I should be sewing from my gift list instead of wallowing in new dress patterns for myself. You may notice that it is the 10th of November already, and so far there have two dresses and no present sewing. Oh well.

This is a birthday present for a friend. I gave her a piece of fabric for her birthday (silk charmeuse from Global Fabrics, Wellington), with little sketches of possible garments. Last week she gave it back, having picked out the camisole. (Burda Style 11-2009). This is my favourite sort of gift sewing, because a)it was my idea b) I got to pick the fabric and c) I was in charge of the pattern selection. I may just be a control freak.

The advantages of this pattern are that I have made it numerous times previously, and it is possible to make it adjustable, so one needs only a rough idea of the measurements of the recipient. The bust drawstring is intrinsic to the pattern, and the strap length is changeable.

I had not made it in silk charmeuse previously, but was quite keen to try it in this fabric. The charmeuse was rather wriggly. I used a walking foot with microtex needle, French seams, and hand stitched all the bias binding.
I used adjustable lingerie straps (Greenfield's, Sydney), and wound thread around the drawstring tube ends to keep them neat.

The camisole lower bodice is cut on the bias. I let it hang for 3 days, and the hem stretched far more than I had expected.
I am glad I did not just finish it off without hanging. I lined it up on the cutting mat grid and sliced off the excess with the rotary cutter.

I hope she likes it. I think is is more pretty in real life than in the photographs.
Next up we have mostly- niece- November, starting with a birthday dress due this weekend, which seemed like a good idea whilst I was making birthday dresses for her sisters in August - or maybe I will put a zip in my Liberty mumsy dress.

Vogue 8728 reproduction 1946 dress

2011-11-06T22:02:00.001+10:00

My third "new" dress pattern is a new favourite.

I was inspired to buy this pattern by Erin at A Dress a Day. Despite her many posts about her lovely versions of the pattern I was a little worried about the possible bustiness and underarm exposure, which she talks about here and there in relation to this frock. The pattern calls for under 3m of fabric, and I thought it was worth a try.
I made the above version of the dress in a lightweight linen, in an oxford weave of pink in one direction and dark grey in the other, from Michael's Fabrics. I received this as part of a Zegna bundle I purchased in 2009. Lightweight linen is one of the recommended fabrics on the pattern envelope. I found it perfect for the pattern, and used less than 3m, making the skirt from one x 148cm width.
I don't think the dress looks too buxom (D). I did not make a FBA, and despite leaving out the shoulder pads (and not making my usual square shoulder adjustment), I do not find the armhole too deep. I turned the "sleeve" hem in further than instructed and assure you that no underwear became visible in the process.

I had considered using silk jersey for the dress (another recommended fabric on the pattern envelope) and made a trial version using possibly the worst fabric I have ever received over the internet,

(beware of that butterfly print knit and the stripey knit, they are AWFUL)
an alleged cotton/lycra knit from Fabric.com, which was about the same weight as light silk jersey, but had no discernable recovery. I got what I paid for, at about $4 per yard. Fortunately the wovens I received in the same package, at much higher prices, are far superior fabrics.

These are the "will I bother making this dress in real fabric" photos. I started with a size 12, according to my high bust measurement, and the awful knit version is large and droopy at the bust, back and waist. I decided not to start with a knit version, but to try a size 10 for the bodice and waist in the linen, which was another trial fabric, as it is not a colour I usually wear. I threw out the remaining butterfly knit. I did not think it would even make a good cleaning rag.

Going from the no-recovery knit to the linen, my sizing changes were not entirely smooth. After going down a size I then had to let out the waist a little by sewing skinny seams and adding bias binding for zipper attachment, but otherwise the fit was very good. I will taper out to a 12 at the waist for a woven, should I make this again, but a 10 would probably be OK in a knit (one size smaller than envelope measurements suggest)

I underlined the front waist with silk organza, another inspiration from A Dress A Day.

I sewed the upper and lower bodice right sides together and topstitched rather than overlapping as in the instructions.
I used a regular zip in the side seam, hand sewn, as per the instructions. I don't think this looks terrific, I will use an invisible zip next time.
I bound the armscye/sleeve hems as suggested, before topstitching, but found that this made the hems stick out from the arms.

I rolled them under by hand and used an invisible stitch to finish.
I overcast stitched by hand to reinforce the bottoms of the armscye, and the top of the side zip opening.

I have cut out another one. I am breaking into the Liberty - I must really like this pattern.

Revisiting Burda Style Magazine 06-20110-102

2011-11-05T19:51:00.000+10:00

I appreciate the advice re the maternity look of this dress.
First I unpicked the darts, as the general consensus seemed to be that the darts were doing nothing good.
Then I tried the dress with a belt. It did not look good, the fabric pouffing around the belt was not flattering.
I considered just getting used to the loose fabric around the waist, but had the nasty feeling that the dress would languish in my cupboard instead of being a useful garment.
I added shirring to the front and back waist.

It was rather tricky, as the garment is bias, already sewn, and I had lost some enthusiasm for the dress, so it is rather wonky when viewed closely.

Despite my half hearted retrofitting, the work was partially successful, as the side view is much improved, and the dress looks O.K. from the front and back.

(it was windy today)

However, making the waist more fitted has made the slight bust tightness more apparent. I am not sure that it looks any worse, but the tightness feels more noticeable. I am hoping that the dress will stretch with wear, it is bias after all.
I do like the style. I am thinking of making the top version instead, surely tucking the into a fitted skirt will improve the shaping.
I will make sure the next dress has waist emphasis.

Seasonal 6 piece report August 1-October 31

2011-11-01T16:19:00.000+10:00

Elizabeth came up with the idea of a 6 piece seasonal sew along 2 years ago, and, finding this a very clever idea, although not one to which I can always discipline myself to complete, I sporadically join in, with mixed finish rates.
For the most recent seasonal sew-a-long, I started out with some clothes for myself, but was derailed by the terrible stiffness of my trouser jeans. I did not manage to get back on track.
A sudden lack of clothing in the more junior wardrobes in our house distracted me.
Here is what I finished for my younger daughter during this sew-a-long. You have seen most of it before, so I will spare you details.

Two pairs of shorts and 4 t shirts. Fortunately for me this makes 6 pieces, so I can call it finished, even though the final piece, the outerlayer, is not quite at a wearable stage.

Knitting takes longer than sewing.

You may notice a small ring-in in the collage. My daughter not only carried out her own fabric embellishment for 2 of the t shirts, but made herself a pair of black leggings to wear under her short shorts. She even traced out her own pattern. The photograph is of the leggings under a petticoat. I could not convince her to pose for one whilst wearing them with purely other 6pack pieces.

It is nice to have a happy post. These items were all successful. I was unpicking darts before work this morning, so it is good to remind myself that most things work out these days, even after my series of whiny whingy posts that might make people think that I did not like sewing at all. Sorry, patient readers. I will try to improve the local tone. I do love sewing.

It is particularly important to remind myself of this to prevent scissor fright.
Look at my extremely sewing mood improving mail-type post from yesterday.

Isn't it beautiful? I love the card co-ordinating with the fabric. It makes me strongly suspect that Bernice has a far more artistic eye than myself, and would have made something fabulous with this, had she not generously given it away to fortunate me.
Thank you Bernice.
I am thinking hard of a suitable project for this scissor scaring fabric.

Frocktober 2, Burda Style 06-2011-102

2011-10-30T22:05:00.000+10:00

I have been inspired by Gail's Frocktober posts, but have been a little remiss with my personal application of this idea, as October is in its last gasps. My plan was to try several new frock patterns this month, but the trouble with trying new patterns is that the fitting and sewing can be rather fiddly and time consuming.
Here is frock #2, Burda Style magazine 06-2011-102 in its original version.

As this was an experimental pattern for me, being a different shape from the dresses I usually make, I started with some fabric that I would not miss, should the pattern prove disastrous.

I bought a pale coral and cream linen check about 10 years ago at the Sunday markets, which has fabric only very occasionally. I was rather pleased with it at the time, at about $15 for 3m or so of lovely medium weight pure linen, but unfortunately my husband felt that it looked rather like a tablecloth.
Inspired by Carolyn, who manages to transform rather dull bargains into amazing new fabric, I thought I would try dying it, and after 30minutes of boiling, ended up with a nice blue shade, with no hint of check. The lack of check was a little disappointing, as I had rather fancied replicating the blue plaid beachy version shown in Burda. Here is a photo of the pink silk version, which I had not planned to replicate, not being favourably enhanced by wearing pink.

This dress is cut on the bias. After reading the reviews at pattern review of the top version of this pattern (there were none of the dress when I started) I decided to try mostly size 38 without a full bust adjustment (usually D). I scaled out to a size 40 at the hips.
I did not raise the neckline, even though this is a Burda pattern.
KatherineH pointed out in an earlier frock post that raising the neckline reduces a strong vertical design line in a garment and that a narrow neckline is not so revealing as a wider one. I took this advice to heart, as she is completely correct. I have a terrible tendency to embrace frumpiness when I modify patterns for modesty. This neckline is rather low, for my usual taste, but I do not feel overexposed in it, as the neckline is quite narrow. Keeping the deep neckline gives some unfrumpiness to an otherwise rather concealing and post- Christmas-dinner appearing garment.
I used Mary Nanna's tip for making vilene tape substitute, using bias cut interfacing applied to the armscyes to prevent stretching.

Unfortunately I had no fusible interfacing on hand, but the non fusible stuff seems to work reasonably well also.

I reduced the sleeve gathers to mere essence of gather to allow room for my sturdy upper limbs and to make the puffy sleeves more appropriate for a 40 year old woman.
I am not entirely happy with the sleeves. They are cut on straight grain, which I think might be the reason for the slight puffiness at the shoulder seam,as the body of the garment is on the bias. If I made this again, the sleeves would be on the bias as well as the main body of the frock.
Unfortunately, this fabric might just be carrying a jinx. On first viewing this frock, during an early trying on phase, my husband dubbed it "the sack dress". He rarely comments on my clothes, so this was rather scathing.

I added some embroidery to the neckline. This did not help at all. He recommended something along the lines of "cut your losses" whilst I was working on the embroidery. I persisted, husbands are not always the best judge of clothing.

I rather liked the dress.

It was a little puddly at the lower back, but still? I appealed to the teenage fashion panel.

One of them took this photo, making a point of mentioning that they thought I should see a close up of the stomach appearance in this dress.
Someone mentioned that they felt it was rather late to be expecting a new sibling.
I added some darts, front and back. I was feeling a bit outnumbered.

They like it better now, but have reservations. It is apparently not my best look.

I like it less now, being rather unhappy with the darts in the bias fabric.
It might be a case for the magic wardrobe.

Exercise tops, Ottobre 05-2010-20

2011-10-26T15:49:00.000+10:00

After the dull-but-useful sewing of exercise bottoms, naturally the next step was exercise tops.

I have progressed from the knit-trousers-laid -out- flat-on-the-verandah photo, to an attempt at introducing the currently lovely purple scenery at the town park for version 1 of the Ottober 05-2010-20 top, with the #19 trousers from the previous exercise clothing post.

I think the clothing and model do not quite live up to the flowers, particularly if I crop sufficently to show clothing details.

Hmm, perhaps a background photo with no foreground

The Ottobre top is rather deceptive in my opinion. In the model shot, the neckline and straps of the under top are clearly visible.
On me, although you can just see the under top at the front, it is not visible at all at the back.
The under top is also very high cut under the arms, which might be fine for some gentle pilates or yoga but would cause unpleasant chafing on a longer run. I usually run for about an hour.
Looking back at the magazine to make sure I had traced out the pattern pieces correctly, I saw that the technical drawing shows the under top only just peeping out, and not showing at all at the back, just like my version.(My photography aspirations are dwindling rapidly.....)

I can't see the point of this. The neckline and armscye are the most time consuming part of this top, why make 2 necklines if you can't see them?
Unfortunately, I had already constructed x3 outer layers before I realised the problem.

You can see here that I am making a faux underlayer, not full length, as it gets hot here, and I want the appearance of wearing 2 layers without the extra fabric around my middle.

This may seem like an excess, but, I do need this many. Despite appearances, I exercise 7 or more times per week. I am trying to confound my dreadful paternal medical history, and the 95% or so chance I have of developing type 2 diabetes, having experienced the gestational type during all my preganancies. Wish me luck, I probably need it!

I added a tiny panel to the front neckline and a tiny bit of binding to the back neckline of the black outerlayer ( right middle)
I used just the front piece and straps in purple for the underlayer in the beige/black outerlayer, attaching the panel at the side seams and at the back neck.
I coverstitched most of the side seams after severely trimming one seam, to make a flatter, less abrasive seam under the arms.
.

The beige fabric is wicking polyester, and the other fabrics are cotton/lycra knit, both from Stretchtex. I will use the knit tops for stretchy type exercises and the wicking tops for running, or on the windtrainer.

Finally, I made a new version of the outerlayer, so that the underlayer is visible.

I had to lower the neckline rather a lot to achieve this effect.

Sewing with Ottobre is not at all like sewing with Burda :)

Jo Sharp Knit 7 Ra-Ra cape,.

2011-10-22T08:59:00.000+10:00

My daughter asked me to knit this cape for her, but now that it is finished, I think she finds it a bit out there for her personal style.

The cape is constructed of 5 different pieces, from 10 yarns knit or crochet by themselves or in combination. I used mainly remnants from my statsh for the construction, as very little yarn is used of each type. None of the pieces are very difficult to make, and they are connected by rough threading together with i-cord.

I varied the pattern a little - mainly by using the same shade of mohair yarn throughout, but also by adding a row of shell pattern border to the crochet ruffle to make it a similar width to the knitted lace collar piece on the other side.

The cape is shown in the pattern book as being worn in several different ways, but my daughter really only likes it worn in this direction, which is the same way the model is wearing it on the cover of the pattern book.
I am interested to see if she wears it frequently. It was certainly a different type of knit garment to what I usually make. It is good to experiement occasionally.

Doldrums and prosaic sewing Ottobre 05-2010-20 active wear

2011-10-19T16:02:00.000+10:00

Before you read on, this is a very dull post. It is more of a personal record for my useful sewing agenda. If I leave it here, I will be able to find it again ;).
I did not sew last weekend. Instead I spent the weekend in Brisbane.
This photo looks rather nice, the jacarandas are in flower, I was on the river.....however, despite appearances, I was working - at a course. I have put in the photo so there is something to look at.

This is the view of my ferry trip from the hotel to the course venue. I did enjoy it, even the storm - the sky set off the trees so nicely.

My family accompanied me, but only as far as the hotel, and dinner. They had a tourist weekend, and out of the kindness of their hearts, my daughters visited Gardams in the city and bought 3m of fabric each, with no input at all from me. Their training is off to a good start :). I don't have a photo, clear lack of organization.
I have hopes that these fabrics will turn into summer dresses without too much further input from me, but we will see.

Whilst I was packing for the weekend, I noticed the terrible shabbiness of my exercise clothes. I am generally able to pretend I am invisible whilst I am exercising, , but for some reason the thought of exercising at relatively close range to other people (a Pilates class) made this seem difficult.

Ottobre 05-2010 to the rescue.
I used some bottom weight stretchy fabric from Stretchtex, called liquid titanium, that had actually been purchased for my daughters' dance gear. It is nice and thick, but not too hot, as it is wicking fabric.
I cut a 38 for the front and a 44 for the back, once I was below the waist, having found this effective for the underwear I had made from Ottobre, but possibly the fabric was too stretchy for the pattern - I took in about an inch at the side seams, and shortened the front crotch by an inch, and the trousers are still a bit loose for exercise bottoms. They were also much too long, being below mid calf before trimming. I have short legs, but I suspect these would be longer than RTW on most people. I also found the trousers to be quite high on the waist. Despite the need for fitting tweaks, I am very happy with the pattern.
I have alternated these back and front for viewing of the added sacral pockets, but you might have to take my word for it that they are present- and that the trousers look better on, and under a long t-shirt ;)

I made the first two pairs, with definitely invisible-in-the-photo internal front pocket (key and coffee money), on Friday night, and the next two on Monday morning, changing the coverstitch colours on the side seams, hems and yoke detail, and adding some cotton lycra facings and judicious waistband piecing to eke 4 pairs from the 3m of fabric that allegedly should have made me 3 pairs. I like a free garment!
I have some experimental pattern choices to display later in the week, I just need a bit of hand hemming -so maybe it will take a few weeks.......

Experiment, softening cotton denim with cocoa cola

2011-10-14T21:41:00.000+10:00

When I made my failure denim trousers, Shams suggested that I try softening them with Coke. I had not heard of this fabric treatment before. Naturally I meant to do this straight away, but having no Coke in the house (we prefer to ingest our caffiene as coffee), and no real desire to wear the jeans, it took me a while to get around to it. Here are the two denim garments suffering from excess rigidity, folded in half and placed on the table on my back verandah, hem and waist to the table. Skirt to your left, jeans on your right. Note the height of the fabric piles in comparison to the coke bottle. This is a fair dinkum experiment with evidence;)

I was not entirely sure how to proceed for the most effective softening. I bought a 2 litre bottle of coke (cheapest per mm price at the supermarker), and later found this thread at Stitchers Guild, suggesting that 2litres might be overkill.
Overkill meant that if it didn't work, it wouldn't be because of an insufficency of the product, so I placed the jeans and skirt made from my stiff denim in the laundry sink, poured in most of the Coke, topped it up with water so that all the fabric was covered with liquid, and left it to froth and bubble away for 24 hours. (The remaining coke was reserved by someone who wants to soak a dirty old coin in it)
Our laundry is under the house. Coke is attractive to insects, and fatal. Yuck.
After specific insect removal, I washed the coke soaked denim in a standard cotton wash in my front loader machine, 30 degrees C, using powdered laundry detergent, then line dried the garments (I don't own a clothes drier)
Results.

The skirt, which I have worn and washed about 10 times prior to the experiment, is noticeably softer to handle, and seems less tall when placed on the verandah in the same manner as previously. The jeans, which were only washed during the fabric storage phase, and have never been worn, feel just as stiff as previously, and do not appear noticeably shorter in this photo.
Verdict - inconclusive, but in a statistically non signficant manner due to small subject sample size, appears to work on cotton denim that has been washed on multiple occasions prior to the Coke treatment.
I would try it again if it cools down enough to wear jeans.

psuedo BWOF 09-2008-143, another embellished t shirt

2011-10-12T10:43:00.000+10:00

I sat down last night with the dubious dress from the last post, and thought quite hard about deepening the neckline, adding a stay, shortening the skirt and unpicking the waistband to add a new, contrast colour belt. I am very appreciative of this good advice, please don't think I took no notice, but I am a weak woman.
Thinking about doing it was rather exhausting, and lasted about 5 minutes. I put the dress in maybe later pile (AKA the wardrobe) and got out an elephant stamped piece of knit fabric instead.
It was much quicker than retrofitting, I'm sure :).

I embroidered around the elephant with stem stitch, varying between two and three strands for different emphasis, and left some thread ends for the tail.
Then I sewed it into a t shirt, using the boy's woven cossak shirt pattern from BWOF
09-2008 again, coverstitching at neck and hems in pale grey elephant colour thread. The fabric is a nice medium weight cotton/lycra knit.

Unfortunately the elephant had wandered a little off centre during the sewing process (I was rather tired). I added some flattened grass at the rear, and a little upstanding grass to the front to explain the wandering.

I am quite pleased with it, but the boy would not model the t shirt. I hope this means that he does not like modelling, rather than meaning he does not like the t shirt.

Vogue 8513, a dress of less success

2011-10-10T20:54:00.000+10:00

I like Gail's idea of Frocktober. At this time of year I usually feel that I do not have sufficient dresses with sleeves.
Unfortunately, I seem to have started Frocktober with an excess of virtue.
This pattern was one I bought from BMV in order to make my order up to 7 patterns. In my personal sewing accounting system, I cannot buy 6 patterns if the inflated postage to Australia is the same level for 4-7 patterns. (The postage cost is about twice the US post sticker price on the delivered envelope). I did not read any reviews of the pattern before I purchased it. I should have. It was printed in 2008, and is allegedly a dress pattern for moderate stretch knits, with a fitted bodice and below knee skirt. There is no photograph on the envelope. Sewing for about 25 years has not yet taught me that I should be very wary of Big4 patterns with no photographs. I must be a slow learner.

The fabric was a purchase from Fabric mart. Early this year my husband arranged a short term freight forward address so that he could buy a part for a woodworking machine that is not available in Australia, so naturally I had to buy some fabric from a shop that does not ship to Australia to take advantage of this arrangement. (My sewing accounting system thinks that this is a money saving strategy) I quite liked the inexpensive Shetland wool I purchased to make 2 coats (neither of which quite made my winter sewing)(see how I save money by buying fabric?) but this rayon lycra knit was an internet surprise - I think there is a fair bit of poly in the rayon, the fabric is a bit shiny, and the polka dots are not only much larger than I expected, but multicoloured, not white. It reminds me of clowns.
After all this whinging, you are probably not surprised to hear that I am not very impressed with the outcome of this project.

I have no explanation for using a fabric I don't much like, with a pattern I almost threw out after reading the two not-very-pleased reviews at Pattern review. I do not know what I was thinking - other than that I had nothing to lose. However, a certain daughter told me whilst I was tracing out a wrap dress from the latest Burda that I had too many wrap dresses. I am easily influenced :).
My first rendition of the dress had elbow length sleeves and was just below the knee, version B.
I did not make the dress exactly to the pattern.
I did not line it, raised the neckline 7cm, made a square shoulder adjustment, used clear elastic at the hem and gathered neckline, bound the neck and attached the belt only at the back so that I could tie it to the side rather than centrally.
The dress was extremely dowdy.
I chopped off the sleeves, made the skirt length just above the knee, and sewed a lettuce edge hem with the overlocker to add a bit of movement to the dress. I was more pleased with it after these changes, but you can see in the end of the day photo that the fabric has grown with wear, as the skirt is below the knee again. The design feature of gathers at the front does not stay in place in real life in this fabric. This may be an unfelicitous combination of fabric and pattern, but I don't think I would be bothered making this dress again, as it is also horribly fattening, even when arranged with the gathers sitting at the centre front. I have made the dress one size smaller than my measurements, with no FBA, and the "fitted" bodice has a nasty matronly blousing effect above the waist.

It looks even worse with my favourite cardigan, which is the same shade as some of the dots. Oh dear.
Unfortunately, this dress has several advantages, so I probably won't throw it out nearly soon enough.
1. It does not wrinkle
2. It covers my arms
3. It is currently unstained, unfaded and new looking.
4. It is not a wrap dress
I may need to pay a bit more attention to my transitional season wardrobe.
At least I have used up most of the dubious fabric and dutifully tried this pattern. I might have to break out some too-good-to-use fabric in my recovery from this sows ear.

Other people's creative work turned into clothes - t shirt overload

2011-10-02T19:06:00.000+10:00

A few days ago I displayed a photo of post-creative mess. I spent today making clothes from the fabric painting/stamping/stencilling.

Here is my attempt at fabric embellishment. I think I have a winner here with my stamped and painted frog and embroidered insect combination (don't tell anyone I was covering up the smudges with my insects)- provided the judge is a 9 year old boy.

The pattern is BWOF 09-2008-144. If you have seen this pattern you would know that A. It is not a t shirt and B it is not for knits. Due to some strange oversight, I do not seem to possess a pattern for a boy's t shirt in size 9 year old . This astounds me, but 1 hour of research in my extensive collection did not turn up anything . The pattern is for a sort of woven "cossak shirt". I have shortened it, widened it and added a contrast colour to lengthen the sleeves and body due to earlier inadequacies in cutting out the piece for embellishment. I tried out the pattern first in a sleeveless version with the boy's fabric embellishment. He said he would like pyjama tops, sleeveless.

Done. No doubt it is good for me to practice using my coverstitch.

To be honest, I was not too worried about the above projects. My son would not be bothered if I wrecked his fabric stamping.
However, my younger daughter made some fabulous efforts, with which she was very pleased, and whilst making her t shirts, I was quite anxious that I not damage her work. This was much more nerve wracking than cutting out $45 per metre boucle.

Naturally, this meant that I cut a hole in her t shirt whilst trimming the neck binding. I should have looked a bit harder for the duck billed scissors.

Fortunately, it was on the less favoured t shirt, at the unembellished back, and I covered it up. She hates this, but tells me kindly that no -one will see my applique, as she will always wear this t shirt with her hair loose, to cover it up.
I think it is a pity that this will cover the nice back v neck of Ottobre 02-2011-1
I have made a size larger for her than last time, as this fabric is a cotton-lycra, rather than the extremely stretchy rayon/lycra I used previously. This was the first version where the back neck feature actually worked.

Here is her most favoured embellishment attempt. The sleeves of this t shirt are from Ottobre 02-2011-107, but the body is the same #1 as made previously. I love how the Ottobre sleeves are interchangable. You can't see here the bodies and antennae of the black butterflies, which are white sparkly puff paint. She had fun with this.

Next week, I plan to sew something for myself.

What is that thing and who said they would make one?

2011-10-01T22:01:00.000+10:00

I am not a morning person. I like to sleep in on Saturdays if I am not working. This morning, my morning person husband brought me a cup of tea in bed (after his 2 hour "short" bike ride). My resistance is low at this time of day. I was very pleased with the cup of tea, but I should have known what was coming. He left this next to the cup of tea.

Tomorrow, there is a 5 or so hour bike ride, and this peculiar looking item, partially upicked to make the job easier for me, which is very useful for the mature male cyclist who does not want to be sunburnt through his helmet, or at the back of his neck, will not be dry by then. He would like one by 5.15am thanks.
It is not an item easily purchased, as it was a freebie caught from the Corolis truck during the Tour de France last year. I do not think we will be going to the Tour de France too often, worse luck.

It was surprizingly well made - all edges finished, edgestitched and topstitched. I traced it out to make a pattern, using the grainlines of the original item, then decided that I could line it up a bit better!

I am not allowed to have a front view.

It was an interesting reverse engineering project.

He would like 3 of them.
Hmmmmm.

Shirt of rocks and school holiday mess making project

2011-09-29T19:24:00.000+10:00

The making of new shirts has exceeded the photo modelling ~~capacity~~ tolerance of my son.

Here is the last BWOF 09-2008-143 for the moment, now that there is one to wear, one for the wash, and one for spare in the right size.

The print is allegedly a quilting cotton but is tightly woven, has a very slight sheen, and is a little more thin than your regular quilting print. It is cotton, no poly. I think it is more like a nice shirting cotton. I don't suppose that fabric printed with lots of rocks (or my husband says potatoes) sells as shirting fabric very often though.

The contrast print is regular quilting cotton. I used this print for the tabs, which are inspired by Carolyn's shirt posts. (She is not to blame for the print, I meant the tabs) I was finding the unadulterated boy shirt a little dull, even with such interesting fabric.

I had the day off work yesterday, in order to spend quality time with my younger children, and managed to convince them that playing with fabric would be fun. Much more fun than making another shirt
They took to it with considerable enthusiasm, and mixed results.

I wasn't thrilled with my fabric painting/stamping/stencilling. I think I should stick to sewing when I play with fabric!
I have a few t-shirts to make now, with crafty insertions.

The pointed question. BWOF 09-2008-143 boy's shirt again

2011-09-26T19:00:00.000+10:00

Mary Nanna's comments make me laugh. I have here a perfect example of how her insight helps me to keep amusement in my sewing.
I love this fabric. It is a beautiful lawn, and is far more tasteful that the fabric for the last boy shirt, as it was given to me by Hen, when I met her in London.
Unfortunately, it was given to me by Hen, just to make a shirt for this boy, more than a year ago, and boys have this habit of growing whilst their mother allows fabric to mature irresponsibly in her stash because it is special.

I had to cheat a bit on the sleeves, because 7 year old boys are not so consuming of fabric as those who have passed 9. (There is a pocket in that photo too, but despite doing no pattern matching what so ever, it is not terribly visible)
The direction of the cars, I suspected after irreversibly cutting them out instead of some more intelligent option, might give rise to, as Mary Nanna says " pointed questions like, "hmm, did your mother make that..?" ". . I regret this mistake, this does not happen to fabric that is still stash.

When I visited my dear friend this afternoon, with my well dressed boy in his new shirt, I had to explain why her kind question provoked fits of laughter.
She has been kind about my sewing for about 12 years now. I wonder if she will ever be able to talk to me about it with a straight face again?

Patterned Denim skirt Burda Style 02-2011-107

2011-09-25T19:25:00.000+10:00

Version 3 of this skirt is in almost ubiquitous denim. I wear a denim skirt a lot, finding it more comfortable than jeans, but suitable for casual occasions in the same way. This particular skirt is made from the patterned denim purchased from Gorgeous Fabrics, previously used as an inset in my long a-line denim skirt. The plan is that I shall be able to wear all the same tops and jackets with both skirts.

However, it is rather warm today, so I am wearing it with a t-shirt, not winter woolies, as shown with the long skirt.

This skirt is made with the facing at the waist, just like Burda instructs, and by some judicious taking in, it fits much better than the elastic waist versions. There is no lining. I don't line denim.
I top stitched the back seams to add vertical emphasis - having sufficent emphasis in all other directions naturally. I don't think I have anything else to say about this project.
I like this skirt. Do you think 4 versions would be too many?

Loud boy's shirt BWOF 09-2008-143

2011-09-24T19:23:00.001+10:00

My son likes shirts made in loud prints, which are rather fun, and I usually make him 2 or 3 each year. He selected the fabric for this one last summer, (local quilting shop) but sadly, his mother has been rather neglectful of his wardrobe lately in favour of fun teenage girl's clothes. I enjoyed the print challenge, especially as I have a sneaking suspicion that there are only a few years left of it.

The shirt is BWOF 09-2008-143, in the largest size 134, which is appropriate to his height.(I will have to look for a new pattern for next year, very sad) His girth is closest to size 122, but having made this shirt previously in a straight 110, 122 and also in a height 128, girth 122, I felt that the shirt is cut rather slim for Australian boy styles, where the shirts tend to be loose, so left it 2 sizes too wide. Men's shirts described here as European cut are more slim through the body, so I guess this would hold for boy's shirts. As in my previous versions, I reduced the height of the collar and the collar stand by 1cm, although this may not have been necessary this time in the largest size - there is no height variation between size 110 and size 134, and I am sure the neck length increases over this height range!

Because I am proud of my pattern matching, here is a close up of the front buttoned.
There may be a little skewifidness of the button placement to assist in the pattern matching, but only a seamstress would notice ;). I would probably have done a better job of this had I considered the lap direction when I was cutting out.

I lengthened the shirt by 7cm, finding it rather short in the body, although the sleeve length is fine. This is the first time I have made a version with long sleeves, but it was a particular request from my son. I think he fancied the plackets on his Dad's shirt, as he asked for a contrast fabric, and selected this one himself. It is not what I would have chosen, but I think it works quite well.

I drew up the placket taking David Page Coffin's placket from Shirtmaking as a guide.My calculator got quite the workout scaling it down, but I did not think the Burda bias strip would have been nearly so satisfying.

The contrast fabric is also used for the inner collar stand.
I used David Page Coffin's method of folding over the fabric x2 for the front buttonbands, and flat felled the side and sleeve seams (dastardly difficult on the skinny sleeves of a boy's shirt, but otherwise left his methods well alone. This made the shirt much quicker than his father's. I used the lined yoke by machine method for the lined yoke, described here.

I made the back lower piece a little wider, planning to pleat it as needed to ensure reasonable pattern matching.
The pleats are very small, but allowed me to line everything up satisfactorarily. I used the walking foot to help with this, and only unpicked once, which might be a record.

Despite his determination not to smile for photographs, my son is quite happy with his shirt.

UFO, one down, one to go, Vogue 8096 men's shirt

2011-09-23T18:45:00.000+10:00

I have trouble with UFOs. They lurk, balefully, in my sewing room creating a nasty sense of guilt whenever I start something else. At the beginning of the week, I had two of them, and could hardly see through the gloom in there. Something had to be done.

This is the failed birthday shirt - the one that had flat felled 1/8 inch armscye seams with backward sleeves, placket completed. Nasty behaviour, wasn't it? It has been looking at me since mid July.

A few weeks ago I gave up on the unpicking and sliced off the seam. This was disturbingly satisfying.

Naturally this created a fitting issue, so the partial shirt had to sit on Genevieve the dressform for a few weeks whilst I worked out what to do (and started some other sewing). I decided to slice off the body seams as well, making the shirt a little more narrow in the body as well as the shoulders. I would like to show you that this was fortuitous, as the shirt now fits better than the previous versions, but my model was not willing to have a second photo shoot after the first one at work turned out rather blurry and crumpled - looking.
This shirt was made to order, nearly. Carolyn posted a few months ago about the problem with wearing out very useful basics - do you make the same thing, or make your wardrobe more varied? As far as my husband is concerned, the answer to this is that you replace the item exactly. He wore out the first shirt that I made him, and asked for its twin.
However, I could not cope with this. I need variation in my sewing. I cheated. This is the same fabric (chambray colour oxford cloth cotton shirting fabric) and the same pattern, but I changed a few details.

I used a Greek key embroidery stitch to reinforce the back pleat, and across the top of the chest pocket. The undercollar uses contrast fabric.

I used the constrast fabric to make offset partial plackets. I am fond of the buttons, but as they are an unusual colour, stitched the left over one close to the hem.

The inner cuff and the plackets are contrast too.

The other UFO has been stopped by the requirement for 2 lightweight fawn seperating zips, which are not available locally, and must be ordered. I think this need for ordering should stop the gloomy emmations. I am sure I have some very cheerful and tasteless fabric somewhere that could fix the mood in the sewing room!

Outback a bit

2011-09-19T11:53:00.000+10:00

Last weekend, I did not sew, but went on a small camping trip with my family - for the first weekend of the spring school holidays.
I had intended to sew myself a pair of hiking trousers, the sort with zip off legs that turn into shorts, but alas, on Friday morning, they were still lacking half a leg and the waistband facing, and I had a last dash of work to do at the job that pays me, so no early morning sewing could be squeezed in. There went my cunning plan for a fabulous natural backdrop for my finished object post. Oh well.
Fortunately for my blog addiction, my travels unearthed another topic.
We stopped for lunch in Gayndah, and I not only trawled the op-shops, but found an old-fashioned drapery shop, which actually had dressmaking fabric as well as the inevitable quilting cottons. How exciting!

This particular shop was built in 1921, and has the shop-length cutting counter, fabrics and haberdashery behind it on shelves, and the claim to fame of a flying fox, from about 1890 (the previous shop burnt down, but the flying fox survives) that carries the cash/change to the back of the shop to a teller. My daughters really liked the flying fox, apparently it is a cool steam punk object.

I bought some thin, non-stretch denim here, possibly for another jeans attempt. There were fixed length offcuts, of many different types, at $14.65 per metre, very reasonable for denim compared to my other relatively local retail options.

My op-shop trawling was also successful.

I think the postal pattern might make a fun apron, and the dress has definite possiblities in a knit. There is not much of the seersucker, but it looks like pyjama bottoms to me. $1.50 the lot - definitely cheap entertainment.

This was about 40 minutes of my weekend. The majority of it was more like this.

Unfortunately there was a lot of burning off, and a dust storm, so all my photos of Cania Gorge are hazy. You will have to take my word for it that it looked amazing - just as well I had no new clothes to photograph!

Burda Style 02-2011-107 and that Threads contour elastic waist, yet again

2011-09-12T12:15:00.000+10:00

I fear I am repetitive. This is my the third version of this skirt, 02-2001-107.
The Burdaesque photograph where you cannot really see the skirt was the idea of my 14 year old photographer. She was feeling creative, who am I to argue?

I like the fit of the skirt, having worn version 1 at least twice a week since I made it in June. Version 2 suffered from fabric failure - I whipped it up in a brown crinkly mystery remnant with gold bits that I bought from Kerryn's Fabric World, wore it out the same evening to the opening of an Instutitute of which my husband is a board member, and the fabric split in 4 places by the end of the evening! The skirt was not even tight, so I was fairly cross about it.
Fortunately, I was wearing my knee length velvet coat over the top, as it was hideously cold in this 1890's building, so the fabric failure was only evident to me. Whew, that was a close one! I had planned to take photographs of the garment the next morning for the blog, but I'm sure you are glad that I thought better of it.

This version is a nod to my rather large pile of unsewn winter projects. A skirt from this fabric has been in my mental sewing list for the last 2or 3 winters. The fabric is a loose cotton and wool blend that I bought when Textilestudio was selling off their stock, and I love the colours and print, despite the unecessary attention drawing qualites of such a fabric over my behind. Note that I am not showing you a back view ;). Maybe I should wear my coat with this one too.
I have cleverly turned Burda's fashionable high wasited skirt into a very basic pattern by chopping off most of the height of the waist, and making the length just above the knee instead of mid calf. I have lined the skirt and not used a waist facing.

Once again, I attempted the contour elastic waistband from Threads, September 2008 for this skirt.

This time, I sewed a thinner, more flexible elastic to the seam allowance of the waistband seam, stretching it very slightly. The elastic is between the outer and lining fabrics. I then topstitched, stretching the elastic again.

The elastic is sewn down to the zipper tapes through both lining and outer fabric, using stab stitching. The elastic pulled too much when sewn to just the lining fabric (polycotton batiste).

I added an inner button tab, idea taken some years ago from Sue (her tabs are much neater and do not have crooked buttonholes), to help support the elastic and also to hide the v I had left at the top of the zipper due to topstitching too far.

This waist looks less bulky than my previous attempts, but I am not completely sold on this method. Maybe elastic waists are just not my cup of tea.
I am making the skirt again in a light denim. I might try a facing this time, just for a change.

.

Spring sewing

2011-09-07T11:42:00.000+10:00

In Spring, a woman's thoughts turn to refurbishing her verandah furniture.
Sad, isn't it. It must have been the terribly messy state of the sewing room,(even after I tidied it a little by picking that denim fabric from the floor ;) Thanks Sue!) that drove me outside, and what did I see but this.

Obviously, I have been managing to ignore this for a considerable time, but last weekend, it finally annoyed me enough to did through the stash and find some canvas.
I had this nice dark blue from a Michael's Fabric bundle. Originially I thought this was clothing fabric and made a pair of work trousers from it, which was a big mistake (world's ugliest trousers) but there seemed enough left to fix this disreputable chair cover.
I took off the old cover to use as a pattern, and the new one was very, very quick, and looked quite smart.
So I made another one, for the next most disreputable chair, then pieced the remaining fabric for another two. Just like eating chips!

Unfortunately, this was the last of the blue canvas. There are 6 chairs.
I did have some murky mushroom brown canvas, but it did not look at all good next to the wood, or the blue chairs. I was stymied, until I recalled the cleverness of Liza Jane, who recently made a lovely skirt from thin cotton fabric by underlining it with broadcloth.
I made another chair cover by underlying quilting weight novelty cotton with some canvas. This chair amuses me greatly.

There was a problem.

The wood looked rather old and weatherbeaten all of a sudden. This is the trouble with housework, once you start, more becomes visible. Sigh. This is why I don't like to start it too often.
I oiled the wooden parts of the chairs, and the table, and the other outdoor chair and table set - very bad for the sewing productivity, but the chairs look better.
I finished up with another underlay version cover for the final chair, in a left over bit of thin twill stripe, also from Michael's Fabrics.

Then I sat on the verandah with a large glass of mandarin juice. It was delicious.

I do realise that chairs are not terribly exciting photographic subjects, although they are most co-operative and do not fidget, whine, moan nor require bribing, so will pad out the post with some more attractive subjects.

Do you remember those birds that were canoodling at the park the other day? Here is a pair (Rainbow lorikeets) finishing off our late mandarins (Honey Murcotts)

- about 150cm away from the verandah, at eye level, looking a bit bedraggled due to having mandarin juice all over its face.

Here is another one eating the bottlebrush.
There is plenty of entertainment in our back yard. I must mend the bird net over the mango tree!

Another go at Burda Style 08-2011-130: Shorter shorts

2011-09-05T13:42:00.000+10:00

Sometimes a pattern won't let go. I made stretchy woven shorts, and thought I had figured out a successful item from this pattern, but I still felt like making version with snaps. I also wanted to try these in a non stretch, my own ranting about the silliness of Burda having made me think about this fabric discrepency far too much, so did not put the pattern away.

A small piece of denim was lying around, thinking it might be an A- line Christmas present dress for a 4 year old niece, but when the shorts pattern happened to lie close enough to it on the floor (yes, I should tidy my sewing room), I somehow found myself cutting out a pair of mid thigh length denim shorts - non stretch denim. This was much more fun than tidying my sewing room. Truly I had entered the room with the sole intention of doing some housework in there, but the atmosphere is very persuasive.....
Here they are.

As expected, the fit is rather more snug that the stretch pair, and I did not do any of the dart or waist taking-in that the stretch pair had required. I also sewed the side seams with a skinny seam allowance. However, the fit difference was not as great as I had anticipated. The pattern pieces are the same as the stretch pair. This is a thin denim, and although there is no official stretch to the fabric, we all know how denim behaves. I expect these to loosen with wear.

The side snaps are my daughter's favourite feature in these shorts. I found them rather tricky to apply. I find any sewing project that involves hammers and a visit to the shed a stretch to my comfort zone. Unfortunately, one snap fell off, due to insufficient bashing, and had to be reapplied. My husband kindly applied superior force to the cap side of the snaps, but was not available for the eyelet side. I may need to recruit him again, should there be any more wardrobe malfunctions. I have suggested to my daughter that she wear these at home for a day before trying them in public ;).

I am pleased with the inside.

I used a cotton/hemp blend as interfacing for the waistband and button placket, and bound the waist facing with a bias strip of quilting weight cotton. Having some of this left, I then bound the crotch seam, for no reason in particular. I think cleaning procrastination had taken over.

My sewing room is still very messy. The procrastination was most effective.

Dance costume McCall's frankenpattern OOP 5367 and 5039

2011-09-03T11:54:00.000+10:00

The costumes for my daughter's annual dance concert are much more interesting than usual this year. She is dancing in both a theatrical and a contemporary piece as a particular character. Her teacher gave the dancers a mood board for their character, and had them provide RTW clothes, or design their own costume for someone to make, based on their interpretation of their character, with some restrictions. The main restriction was colour. The piece is supposed to envoke a sepia photograph, and of course the clothing had to be suitable to wear whilst dancing.
I'm sorry I couldn't get a photo of the mood board - it was very romantic, with flowing dresses, faded flowers and lots of lace-like crochet!

This is the outfit she came up with, made by me, as my daughter is rather overloaded with school and dance work at the moment. The fabric is a quilting weight cotton.

You cannot see the hand knitted, tea-dyed lace gauntlet, but it is very important to the style :)

Fortunately I had already made this gauntlet, writing the pattern for a local bridal shop at their request, but as they did not follow up after the commission, I tea-dyed the earliest prototype for the costume and am glad to get some use from it (I couldn't actually see the point of cotton lace gauntlets when I was making them). That will teach me to offer to write a pattern without asking for an up front fee!

The dress is the bodice from McCalls 5039 and the 8 gore, full skirt from a very old pattern, bought in 1992, McCalls 5367. As both patterns had the natural waist marked, I laid the modern McCalls skirt pattern over the dress skirt pieces and cut the dress pieces from the same high waist point.
The modern McCalls pattern bodice is gathered to fit the high waist of the skirt, so I did not even have to size down the old pattern to fit the size 8 bodice.

You might notice that I have laid this out with the little patterns below and to the side in slavish imitation of Carolyn (except to the wrong side, being a bit like that)
The reason for this copying is that I looked up my photo albums for a photograph of last time I used this McCalls dress pattern, and am using Carolyn's idea of displaying my earlier sewing, as I enjoy these peeks into her past sewing life.

I made the MCCalls 5397 dress when I was 21, and was very unhappy with it, because it looked like a sack. This was because I had no idea about FBA, or any other fitting for that matter, and bought and made the pattern to my actual bust measurement, which is what it tells you to do on the envelope. It was a great shock to me to learn that pattern instructions are full of lies.
The sack like nature made it a very useful dress to wear post baby number 1. You can see it looking sack-like here, along with my bad 90's fringe.

The model seen earlier in the post is wearing here a fitted nappy and bloomers made by me, and a bow thing on her head from my MIL. It reminds me of the lace gauntlet ;)

Jalie Sweetheart t-shirt 2795, variations in white

2011-08-31T11:51:00.000+10:00

It is very pleasing to me that my daughters now wear the same size in tops, with a few fitting tweaks. This makes it very easy to cut out two at once, but means I need to introduce variation.
The pattern is the tried and true Jalie Sweetheart top, and the fabric is cotton/lycra knit. Gee, how exciting, white t shirts!
Version 1.

No changes other than the addition of a little bow to the centre front neckline, and a slightly wider neckband to fill in the neck a little. (I also make the cap sleeves 1cm longer, make a square shoulder adjustment and raise the neckline 1.5cm) The bow idea is directly lifted from Mary Nanna, who posted about a top similar to this pattern, with the bow added, which I thought looked pretty. I had a lovely time searching through her Burda makings on her blog last night, but did not come across the post I thought I remembered, so maybe it is some other pattern company. - I did not look far enough, it is Burda 7760, and I must have been thinking about it since May 2010. Wow, I am slow. Now I have 50 or so more things of Mary Nanna's that I want to copy....

This version of the t shirt adds item #3 to the Spring 6piece capsule for my daughter, by providing another option to wear with the Burda 08-11-2011 adventurous shorts. (By the way, when I took my daughter to meet the bus for camp, all her girlfriends said "I love those shorts, where did you get them?" (4 in a row) except her best friend, who said "Did your Mum make them? I am so jealous"
I found this interlude disproportionately gratifying. Mothers of 14 year old girls need all the peer pleasing moments they can get. Of course we both ignored the next comment from another girl, which was " You had better not let Mr. X see those (the teacher known for his sartorial eccentricity), because he has a pair just like them". Some people!)

Version 2

I had thought, for about 20 seconds, that a trim using the shorts fabric might be suitable with the shorts. I then reminded myself that matchy-matchy is currently only OK on babies and toddlers (this was tricky for me, as it is my natural tendency) and decided that this idea could be applied to another person's t-shirt.

I think this has worked quite well. This was a little surprizing as the check fabric is a stretch woven, not a knit, but maybe this just shows the ridiculousness of the stretch factor.

The t shirt looks good with jeans, and there are also some black shorts in the wardrobe that might work.

I don't think they look toooooo similar next to each other (meaning the t shirts, althought I see that the girls look equally pleased to be posing for photographs to keep their mother happy) but I suppose my daughters will decide if they want to wear these t shirts at the same time as each other.

In parting, I would like to show you one of the birthday dresses on a birthday girl, as my sister in law has sent me some photos, and permission to put them up here (I told you she was lovely). I think the pocket was a hit.

Adventurous Burda Style 08-2011-130 shorts, Jalie top, sewing for camp

2011-08-29T17:01:00.001+10:00

My younger daughter is firmly of the belief that she requires completely new clothes for any special occasion or trip away, so I should not have been terribly surprized when she announced on the weekend that she had no clothes to wear to school camp.
She fancied these "heavy jersey" trousers in our current Burda Style magazine, and whilst declaring that the corduroy shorts version were ugly, felt that "heavy jersey" shorts would look terrific.

I was a bit sceptical. I am unfamiliar with the "genoa corduroy" Burda advises for the shorts, but it seems to me that a pattern for a knit fabric should be different from the pattern for what I assume is a woven fabric, and the Burda patterns for the two different versions vary only in length. I also thought that the fastening of the knit with snaps over the hip would be prone to bagging.
I offered my daughter a red denim with about 3%lycra, or a mysterious probably poly, heavy and extremely stretchy black and white check that was given to me a few years ago. I was pretty sure she would choose the denim, but know from experience that it is best to offer this particular daughter a choice of fabrics.
I was quite wrong about her choice, she picked the mystery super stretchy woven. As this fabric had been selected from the dress-up pile, I had nothing to lose.

I made no pre-cutting alterations to the pattern (Burda size 36), but cut out the shorts in a single layer to allow matching of the checks - the fabric was a bit scanty for perfect matching at the waistbands, but I did my best.

I added woven selvage to the crotch seam to reduce bagging during wear, and applied clear elastic to the upper and lower waistband seam, stretched very slightly, to prevent excess stretch during wear without recovery.

I made the back darts a little wider during fitting, but the shorts needed no other changes, aside from a tiny extra overlap of the waistband at the fastening that was managed with button placement. This truly makes me appreciate the genetic advantages I have given my offspring by marrying a slim man with long legs ;).

I used the clean facing method I first saw at the Slapdash Sewist's blog for the side opening button plackets. The interfacing is one designed for knits, as I was not sure that the fabric would tolerate much heat from the iron, and the knit interfacing fused at the lower temperature.

I was anxious about the buttonholes, this fabric is really stretchy. I backed the placket with heavy calico (muslin if you are North American) to make the buttonholes more firm, then pinked most of it away.

Next I made a black Jalie sweetheart top. Apparently these shorts look awful when worn with the t-shirt tucked in, and I am under strict instructions to describe the previous photographs as purely for sewing only exhibition of the trousers and to show you how the outfit will be worn properly.

My daughter is very pleased with her outfit.

It even stands up nicely to vigorous activity.

Flowery Summer Dress

2011-08-27T18:13:00.000+10:00

In the comments on my last post, where I showed a dress intended for my almost-5 year old niece, Uta askeed me

I'd love to know, if it isn't too nosy, how long this takes complete with smocking and embroidery? (Still trying to be more productive here...)

I have been asked this before, and could only say that I didn't know, as to me, sewing is hobby time, and I don't time myself unless it is to allow myself half and hour of sewing before I take on some required task that I don't really fancy. However, I started another little dress on Thursday night, intended for niece A, who turns 3 in a fortnight, so felt this was a good opportunity to document the construction effort to answer the question. This will undoubtedly be too much deadly dull information for most. Read on at your own risk.

Disclaimer - there is only a little bit of smocking and embroidery on this dress.

Thursday evening, just before bed:

1.Find pattern, easily located, which is a bit unusual, due to research in pattern stash for previous dress, already traced due to multiple use, - cut out dress and lining, 15 minutes.
2. Sew and press shoulder seams and skirt seam, 10 minutes

Friday morning
3. Make 3 metres of piping from purchased bias binding. I only had the 40mm binding, so cut it in half lengthways first. 15 minutes.
Leave for work, reluctantly....

Friday evening, whilst dinner is in oven, children engrossed in Pottermore and husband reading computer. (This is when I acutally started timing myself to the nearest 5 minutes, prior to this I am guessing)
4. Sew piping to neck, armscyes, sew bodice and lining together, press, turn, press, sew side seams of bodice, press, sew waist line piping 25 minutes

After dinner
5.Change thread and wind bobbin for Singer, use ruffling foot to pleat skirt.
10 minutes

Saturday - unparalleled sewing opportunities as the weather is dismal, Saturday sport and exercise are cancelled, and my husband is out for the day. Only a few errands and household tasks to do and a mother's taxi service call. I have multiple sewing sessions as follows.

6. Centre back seam of skirt, skirt placket, sew skirt to bodice. Unfortunately this includes some unpicking and repleating of the skirt due to earlier measurement error.
25 minutes
7. Pleat small piece of fabric for smocked pocket. Fortunately the smocking pleater is already threaded, left over from a previous project 10 minutes.

7. Apply bias binding to heem. Trial of rolled hem foot for second pass (this is the other half of the trimmed 40mm tape and only single fold). Trial of rolled hem foot unsuccessful, muttering and 15 minutes of unpicking result. Reapply bias binding to hem rolling by hand. 30 minutes
8. Hand sew bodice lining to waist seam 30 minutes
9. Mark and sew hem tucks, press 25 minutes

10. Find buttons and make machine buttonholes 10 minutes
11.Watch a television programme recording with the children. Hand smock pocket section, sew on buttons, make thread sash keepers.Programme length 100 minutes - inefficient sewing time as I did stop sewing often to watch the show. Allow 60 minutes pure sewing time

12. Cut out pocket and lining, wind bobbin, rethread machine,apply piping and construct pocket, attach pocket, hand stitch down pesky lining that peeped out inappropriately
25 minutes.

13. Press again, 5 minutes.
Total sewing time 280 minutes = 4 hours and 40 minutes

I could buy a very big box of Lego if I worked at my real job for that long. I don't suppose though, that I would get to watch a televison programme in the middle.

Spotty summer dress

2011-08-26T10:24:00.001+10:00

To three of my 8 neices, I am an only Auntie. In addition to this particular status, I am the only seamstress in their extended family (my mother-in-law quilts, but doesn't sew garments). I have been happily making them frilly things as presents, but as they pass out of toddlerhood, wondered if they might be feeling these gifts were rather dull, sort of "Oh, no, Auntie Kbenco has made us another dreadful thing we have to pretend to like"

I suggested to my lovely sister in law, that maybe this year a book or some Lego might be better.
She was very quick to tell me that the girls did not think this was a good idea.This is called making a rod for your own back.
Here is the dress for neice C, turning 5 on Monday. She told me she likes red flowers.

The pattern is self drafted to the measurements of my niece, with a loose waist so that it is comfortable to wear during hot weather.
I would also like her to be able to wear it straight away, so chose a limited colour scheme to allow the dress to be worn over a skivvy or t shirt whilst it is still cool.
I am prone to overembellishment, but think I have restrained myself adequately this time. I pleated the skirt using counterchange smocking in a lozenge pattern, only two rows, and used red piping, with a red and white spotted grosgrain ribbon as the sash.

Not being quite able to completely restrain myself, I added some lazy daisy flowers to the bodice and peeping from the smocked pocket.

I gathered the ruffle using the ruffler foot on my hand cranked Singer28. I wish I had owned this machine when my girls were small and I seemed to be enlessly gathering. It was very quick and easy.
The ruffle is bound with purchased bias binding (I also used this to make the minipiping at the neck, armscyes and waist seam), and I used a decorative stitch on my Janome, flowers, to topstitch the ruffle seam.

Unfortunately, I could not find any red flower buttons. I like the strawberries though the middle one is a little different. I am hoping this looks deliberate.

Wardrobe and Capsule Sewing

2011-08-25T11:51:00.000+10:00

Several people commented on the last post that they were not familiar with the term capsule sewing, so I thought I would give you my take on it.
Capsule sewing is the construction of several garments specifically planned to be worn with each other in a variety of combinations, to form more outfits than the construction of an equal number of garments sewn at random.
There are many links to different types of capsules and wardobe plans, as well as discussions of the pros and cons of this type of sewing here and here at Stitchers Guild. There are frequent sew-a-longs and challenges for particular types or time frames for capsule or wardrobe sewing at both Stitchers Guild and at patternreview.(The links are to examples)

Personally, I have benefited greatly from sewing garments to a plan, as if left purely to my own whims, my sewing tends strongly towards pretty dresses, frilly blouses and overdecorated children's clothing, which leaves me with no clean trousers to wear to work. As purchased trousers require, on average, 6 hours of alterations before being wearable, this is a slight practical problem. I have participated in several challenges a, competitions and sew-a-longs for capsule wardrobes, and have even made some without the helping hand of a discussion forum.
The capsule I was describing in the last post is unfinished.

Capsule sewing is much more difficult than it looks. The garments have to be the right shape, colour/pattern and texture to co-ordinate with many other pieces successfully.

I am unhappy with this particular selction as a capsule for several reasons

1. I do not like the skirt with the blouses. In real life this does not matter, because I have been wearing the brown wool skirt at least once a week with different knit tops.
2. I have not used sufficiently different fabrics for the 2 pairs of trousers and the 2 blouses. This makes the capsule look too much like a uniform, as I have repeated the same pattern.
However, in real life this does not matter, as the difference between dark olive and dark brown trousers is more apparent in close up, and actually I have a lot of different work blouses that I can wear with these trousers.
Sewing a series of capsules over time has meant that I find it fairly easy to wear different outfits with a restricted number of garments. I tend to use this method of sewing mainly for work clothes, as my requirements for work are fairly rigid and conservative. To improve this capsule, I plan to make another 2 or 3 work blouses in a different style, in colours that will co-ordinate with the two pairs of trousers.

Here is quite a different capsule. I made this one to make sure my frivolous purple skirt did not become a clothing orphan. This strategy worked so well, that the the purple linen skirt is looking rather faded and shabby after only one (admittedly 7 month) season, and needs replacement, should I wish to wear it out of the house.
Last but not least, capsule sewing is particularly suited to travel. Last year I made capsule wardrobes for myself, and for my husband

using existing garments and new items from lightweight, quick drying fabrics, to allow us to pack for a month in Europe with a very small bag each. It was quite hard to force myself to wear any of the garments again after a whole month with such a restricted wardrobe, but there is no denying the practicality of this system.
Here is a travel wardrobe I made for my then 10 year old daughter when she went to France with my mother for a month.

Lately I have been participating in Elizabeth's 6 piece capsule each season. This means that whatever else I fancy sewing, over a season I add several practical pieces to my wardrobe, that potentially give me a wardrobe backbone as my clothes wear out.

Multiple trousers BWOF 04-2009-118 and Jalie 2215 . How even TNTs can be exciting - not in a good way.

2011-08-23T19:07:00.000+10:00

I have the best intentions with capsule and wardrobe sewing. Every so often, I decide to make a set number of garments that work together so that I have lots of outfits to wear. Usually I even sew a few of them.
This winter, I joined the Northern Hemisphere centric Summer 6 piece sew along at Stitchers Guild, running May to July. Naturally I ignored the Summer bit. I planned a capsule for work, as I seem to wear out these clothes with depressing frequency. I made a couple of blouses, a pair of dark olive trousers, knitted a cardigan and made a brown skirt that did not look good with the blouses, and I could only wear very occasionally to work anyway. 4 pieces, and a ring in, not too bad. Then my mother stole my cardigan. (It looked better on her) 3 pieces and a ring in. Only one month over the deadline I have I made another pair of trousers, dark brown wool, very thin (so I can wear them as it warms up) lined with cotton batiste, same pattern, same pocket as the dark olive pair made previously.

BWOF 04-2009-118 technical drawing, mine have devolved quite a bit

I might finish this capsule by our Summer. I am pretty sure I ame confusing capsule sewing with uniform sewing, but unfortunately, my work clothes are severely limited by what is practical for the tasks requried.

Worn here with a 2009 Vogue 7093 blouse (2009 SWAP). Rather repetive sewing I am afraid. However, sewing has excitements even when using the same pattern. This trouser pattern was last used for the world's most unflattering trouser jeans. I was quite nervous sewing this pair,in case they had the same strange crotch shortness and elephant leggedness of the denim pair, but they fit very nicely. The relief was considerable.

I have dragged my photographer to the park after work to add a little background variety to the photo shoot. Pity it was raining, and almost dark. Oh well.
Here is some more repetition, Jalie3 2215 yoga pants in Polartech powerdry.

These were quite exciting to sew though, mainly because there was an certain urgency in their construction.
It does not rain here much during winter. The school sports uniform, which in winter includes black tracksuit pants or similar, gets hung outside overnight to dry. This can be a problem. Some teenagers seem to think that wet yoga pants in the morning due to unusual overnight rain can be fixed by their mother sewing them a new pair before work. At least she made me a cup of tea. There is nothing like sewing induced adrenaline for waking you up! I hope you didn't miss my Supermum aura in the previous photograph, or maybe it has worn off by now.

Whilst we were at the park, it was very noisy, as the Rainbow lorikeets roost in the Bunya pines overnight, and were starting to return as the light faded. We can tell Spring is coming, some of those birds are sitting very close to each other.

(This tree is a jacaranda, not a Bunya Pine - the tails show up better without leaves in the tree)

Costumes: RTW cop out and Burda Style 11-2009-143 variation

2011-08-21T19:59:00.002+10:00

I quite like making costumes.There is nothing like a dress up party or book week for making the seamstress mother feel quite superior. There are also no indications for couture techniques on a costume.
However, when I was walking past a dress shop on my way to the bank on Friday, a RTW dress on the pavement sale rack caught my eye.
Does this dress look like a ballet costume to you?
My daughter has a solo in her concert.(She will not be wearing her black wool school uniform tights for the ballet concert) She threatened to model this with hiking boots when I asked her if she could put on her ballet tights for the photo, so I thought it better to just be grateful for the modelling despite the incongruous tights.

The dress was $35, and far too big, but I could not buy the 9m of tulle in the 3 layer skirt for $35 locally, let alone the other fabric.
I added shirring elastic to the back, rather haphazardly, reminding myself that this was a costume when I thought about unpicking, and added ribbon straps for the exercitations of dance and the slender bosom of the dancer.

Inside view of shirring.

I did not have the right colour ribbon, so added decorative machine stitches to the ribbon using thread that matched the dress.
She is quite pleased with it. Although I usually loathe and avoid alterations, I am glad I did not try making it from scratch.
Next up, was book week at the primary school. Due to the retirement of a wonderful teacher, who used to run every fun thing at school, my childrens' school has not celebrated book week for 5 years, putting rather a dampner on my costume sewing showing off. Last week, the newsletter finally announced that a book week parade would be re-introduced, and the requirement was to dress as a character from another country. Naturally I assumed that this character would be from a book. I quizzed my son "Which character will you be ?" He said, "a farmer from Mulan, Mulan is from China and I have a sword from China". I pointed out that Mulan was a Disney movie, and suggested that he dress as a character from the Dragon Keeper series, set in ancient China, which we have just finished reading together. My son was quite exasperated. "If I dress as a book character, no one in my class will know who I am!". Obviously, I am out of touch with book week.
Here is our Chinese farmer turned Mulan's soldier.

Apparently a weapon is a requirement for dress ups if you are an 8 year old boy. I am not sure that Chinese soldiers wear farmers' hats. I strongly suspect that the costume is merely a background excuse to take a bamboo sword to school.
I suppose this makes a change from magic wands.
The pattern is Burda style 11-2009-143, boys' pyjamas, with the gathering cuffs left off, the top lengthened and turned into a wrap top. The trousers are cut down from a pair of mine -the fabric is a sort of polyester hessian that kept coming apart at the seams (I bound them for the costume). The top is a vaguely Asian print polyester woven, given to me by my grandmother about 20 years ago. You never know when these things will come in handy.
The hat is a gift from his aunt to his sister, from Vietnam, and the sword is a gift from his uncle, from China. Nicely international, and quite inauthentic.

Boy's trunks

2011-08-20T07:48:00.001+10:00

Sewing underwear is not everyone's cup of tea. However, when you are incurably stingy, and there are lots of knit scraps lying about, underwear sewing is strangely addictive.
My poor sewing neglected son has not been a recipient of this sort of sewing in the past, as whilst it is quite easy to chop up a pair of feminine underthings and make a pattern, the additional piecing in the masculine version requires more seam matching than I have been willing to attempt.
Katherineh to the rescue. The skilled and generous author of Blooms Fabric Obsession has launched a pattern blog. How exciting! Her first pattern at Strawberry Milk Run is starting from the bottom up, is free, and includes an excellent photo tutorial for the sewing instructions, and a fitting tutorial. I am very impressed.
The pattern is nicely drafted and true to size. I made size 6 trunks, but cut out the waist height for size 8, as the recipient has a girth between size 5 and 6 on Katherine's pattern, but is size 8 in height according to the Australian children's clothing standard measurements.
I made a little printing error first (see previous post) due solely to my own failure to interact intelligently with my printer, and made a half scale pair. This second pair, above, were originally photographed next to a rather worn out pair of size 4-6 trunks, to show the sizing of the size 6 trunks I had construted in comparison to RTW, but after I lightened the photo to show the details, the RTW pair seemed as if you wouldn't want to look at them without a warning. They are the favoured style of undies, so the similarity of Katherine's pattern was well received. The waist is a litte higher than the RTW pair, so next time I will cut out the standard size 6.
I timed myself with the second pair. Having already set up the machines for the half scale version, it took me 20 minutes to print out, cut out and stick together the pattern, and completely finish the garment. Quicker than a trip to Target, and much more gratifying.
Here is the originial photo if you can cope with worn out boys underdaks.

Delays, distractions, distasters and doldrums

2011-08-17T12:27:00.000+10:00

There is a horrible thing lurking in the corner of my sewing room.
I am ignoring it, but it seems to be casting an evil influence over the output, even when I turn it to face the corner.

I often make sensible, practical sewing plans, completely unrelated to any nasty UFOs in the corner. Just recently, for example, it became glaringly obvious to me whilst viewing jacket and top photographs that my 2009 jeans had really seen better days.

I decided to make another pair of jeans. Jeans are not my most flattering garment. I rarely wear them when another garment would do, but they are almost required wear for some circumstances.
I delayed. I made a denim skirt. I wore it to a 40th party last week - outdoor barbeque, where every other person was wearing jeans, and felt just fine.

(Thanks for the styling tips, I think Tropical threads really hit the nail on the head though - thick and cosy winter clothes look bulky whatever you do, and a person of my figure does not do bulky well)
However, this month I have an occasion where jeans are required, as part of a uniform, the other half of which is a bright yellow sponsor t shirt. I know this will look quite awful, but thought at least my new jeans would improve things slightly.
I was wrong.
I used my favourite trouser pattern, from which my 2009 jeans are constructed (BWOF 4-2009-118). First I ran out of fabric.

I pieced one leg, and added some distracting decorative machine stitches overlaid with some hand embroidery. I enjoyed this bit, although realising that it would detract from the usefulness of the garment.
Then I tried topstitching with my 1951 Singer. I bought this Singer for topstitching and the cool feet, but have a rather unsatisfactory relationship with it so far -

it does this sort of thing far too often. I think it is a clapped out 1950's Singer.

I read rather too much on the internet about refurbishing Singer sewing machines, then reminded myself that my hobby is sewing, not sewing machine repair, and that I was on a deadline for these jeans. I got out my other Singer, #28, circa 1933, which my husband bought me because he liked the look of it. I encourage these sort of purchases.

I had not used it to actually construct anything, as it is handcranked.

It has a shuttle bobbin, which is quite fascinating to use.
It topstitched beautifully. I now know why people rave about their Singers.

Unfortunately, despite the pleasures in construction, and my previous sucess with this pattern, the jeans are so unflattering (stiffer denim perhaps?) that my teenage fashion panel not only advised me to wear a knee length tunic over the top, but imposed a veto on the publication of a photograph of myself wearing them. Apparently this would be embarassing to my offspring.
I am to ask for an XXXXL t shirt.

"They look fine in real life Mum" did not sound terribly convincing after these instructions.

I wanted something quick and useful for my next project. Something new, I trawled the internet, speaking sternly to myself about my pattern diet when BMV's $ 4.99 sale popped up, and came across a real treat. Katherineh had published a very useful pattern, free. How clever and generous. I had been restraining myself from buying a Jalie pattern for just this thing due to innate stinginess and my pattern diet.
I printed it out. It was strangely small. I checked my print instructions - A4, no scaling, no shrinking, the print out remained very small. I made it up anyway, being a bit desperate by this point. It went together very nicely, the drafting was perfect. Yes, it was very small. This had to be my mistake.
I sought technical advice. The printer itself had been set up to half pages - quite independently of any computer mediated instructions for particular print jobs. I felt inept.

So in case you were wondering, half page print out of size 6 boys trunks are a pretty good fit for a 12 inch teddy. This will stop that bear from lounging around naked.

I gave up. There are 7 patterns on their way from Vogue. It was that or chocolate. In fact it might have been that AND chocolate.

A-line yoked skirt with insert. Burda World of Fashion 06-2009-122 revisited

2011-08-01T15:32:00.000+10:00

There seem to be a lot of a line skirts about recently. As I am on a pattern diet, I did not buy myself yet another A line skirt pattern, but adapted, after internet inspiration, the knee length A line skirt with a bow, #122 that I made from my very first Burda magazine, 06-2008. This not only made me feel thrifty. It also, after much muttering at my former self, allowed me to see how much better I have become at pattern alterations for my figure in the last 3 years. The internet is great for improving your sewing. My changes to the pattern, other than fitting, were to fold out the pleats, and add an insert below the yoke at the same width as the pleat. I left off the yoke bow and moved the zip to the centre back.
I rather like the above photo, which gives the illusion of leg length and sveltness (well, considering the reality!), but in real life the denim (Greenfields, Sydney, @ about $3.50 per metre - are you listening Mary Nanna?) is rather stiff, and I am not sure that I have quite got the length of the skirt at a most flattering point.

In the interests of honesty in blogging I have to admit that the insert denim, which has an overprinted pattern, was from Gorgeous Fabrics, USA, and was about $15 USA per metre + shipping, and that the Greenfield's bargain denim which is fortuitously exactly the same shade also cost a return plane ticket to Sydney and at least $85 in airport parking, an expensive lunch out and even more expensive cycling shop detour for my husband. I think internet shopping is cheaper.

I took trouble with this skirt. The yoke is interfaced with a hemp/cotton blend, and lined with Japanese cotton woven. The horizontal seams are stabilized with woven selvage and topstitched to prevent stretch. The vertical seams are topstitched also, but for mere leg lengthening illusion (wishful thinking, I know). The lapped back zip is hand picked. This is because I have trouble matching topstitched seams in denim otherwise.

I added machine embroidery to the insert after deciding that the fabric pattern alone was too dull to do justice to my fabulous new green handknitted cardigan. (Maybe I was spending a bit of time knitting in front of the telly whilst the Tour de France was on.)

The cardigan is another one of the Jo Sharp garments than can be worn up side down.Knit 10, Silkroad DK Tweed.

The cleverest thing about this one is that it has shape at the back worn either way, because of the stretchy corrugated stitch pattern - very clever design, as most of these garments can be quite blocky.

Unfortunately, I don't know that these garments, which I like individually, really make a great outfit. Any tips? Is it the shape of the skirt, or the length? Are the colours too contrasting? How do you decide what will look good together before you make it?

Gift sewing. Vogue Man's Shirt and David Page Coffin

2011-07-25T10:48:00.000+10:00

It is possible that you have noticed a lack of posting around here lately. I could blame this on work, but really, I sew all the time whether I have lots of work to do or not. I just don't do any housework or go to bed on time. I think I am an addict.
Here is the real culprit.

This is my husband's birthday shirt. You may take culprit to be either the husband or the shirt. I dearly love my husband, but I find it rather tricky to sew for him. He has clear shirt standards.
The shirts he likes to purchase are these from Rodd & Gunn. He never likes the $139 ones, either, only those scaring $200. I didn't really have a problem with this, recognising his different upbringing from mine, lack of thrifty gene, and that he can spend his money how he likes (especially if he wants macaroni cheese for dinner every night). However, unfortunately, 2 years or so ago, I made him a shirt according to David Page Coffin's dastardly Shirtmaking book (which took me 3 intense sewing weeks), and he instantly recognised that David Page Coffin is not happy with Rodd & Gunn standards.My husband fully appreciates 1/8 inch flat felled seams and steam shaped collars (I am not sure I have quite met the 1/8 flat felled seam yet, but I am trying). Aaargh, I should have kept very quiet about David Page Coffin. I had made my husband 4 shirts before this one, and he had been hinting for rather a long time that he would like some more. How can a seamstress resist that sort of flattery from her beloved?

Here is the inside of an embryonic birthday shirt. See that flat felled shoulder sleeve seam?

I was so happy with this - until I realised that I had sewn on both sleeves backwards, with their beautiful plackets already finished.
You may notice that the finished birthday shirt bears no resemblence to the embryonic one. That is why I have been sewing this shirt for two whole weekends and 7 weekdays.

I promise you that there is no big belly under that shirt - the photo opportunity was very brief and did not have any room for tucking in instructions.
He did roll down the sleeves for me though, so I could show you the plackets. The inner cuff is on the bias.

I have labelled him at the top of the plackets with my initial. I want credit for this shirt.

The most fun bit was the chevron collar and back yoke.

The fabric is very nice shirting cotton from Goldhawk Rd, with the front placket contrast a chambray from Gorgeous Fabrics (sold out) - see entirely self inflicted disaster to embryonic shirt above. If you notice that my sewing machine was not co-operating with the topstitching here, please do not tell my husband, who is currently unaware of this detail.

He is very happy with this shirt - just as well!
He might be getting a chambray one for Christmas, without flat felled shoulder seams, if I can face it by then.

My Quilt, made by my Mum

2011-07-16T13:29:00.000+10:00

A little while ago, I turned 40. Fortunately for me, my family went to town with the presents for my birthday. I felt very spoilt.
Here is the quilt my mother made for me.

My mother is an accomplished serial craftswoman. Pottery was her main hobby when my siblings and I were small children. When I was about 10 years old she took up spinning and knitting, which she continued until she moved to Queensland in the early 1990's. She took up quilting seriously at about the time she used up her last fleece. This is actually the first quilt she has made for me. She claims she kept waiting for me to take up quilting myself, but has finally given up. (She is a wise lady, quilting is not my cup of tea, particularly when I have my accomplished mother to quilt for me!) There are lots of her quilts in our house, as she has previously made quilts for all my children, and my husband. This one, I am quite sure, is the nicest. It is also huge - I had to have the children hang this over the verandah to take the photograph. I just love her fabric choices and the pattern. Aren't I lucky?!

Interesting knit top challenge - bandage t shirt.

2011-07-11T09:54:00.000+10:00

RuthieK's original post concerning her knit top challenge was to make one or more knit tops inspired by some garments from CCfashion

I quite fancied this one.

I used the Jalie sweetheart top, 2794 as the base of the t shirt. I chose this because not only have I made it many times, but the upper front bodice has an overlay section that I thought would make it easy to attach the gathered strips to the front just above the bust.

That part was pretty easy. I gathered the top of two rectangular pieces of the thin merino knit, (The Fabric Store, Sydney), finished the long edges with a coverstitch, and lay the strips over the lower bodice, which I had pinned to my dress form. I started the gathered strips 2cm above the Jalie neckline. I then wove the pieces.
However, I did not like the appearance of the t shirt with the woven strips sewn into and added empire seam. It was mysteriously flattening to the bust and added unusual lumps to the belly, not my best look.
I started again, as fortunately I had not chopped off the ends of the gathered strips yet and could unpick my machine basting. Instead I crossed the gathered strips under the bust, and sewed them into the side seams.

This was much better, but unfortunately, there is no back interest to the shirt, as I did not have enough fabric left over to extend the strips to the back at the waistline, which was my orginal intention. The side seams of the shirt are pulled forward a little by the gathers, which I think would be prevented if the lower strips met at centre back instead. I also forgot to make a square shoulder adjustment, so the top is a bit high at the back neck, but this is not necessarily a bad thing for a winter top.
Orginally, I tacked the woven strips to each other where they cross, as suggested in Pattern magic 1 for the woven top in this book, but I found that this was not successful in the knit fabric, preventing the strips from moving freely with trunk movement. I unpicked these, and the strips appear to stay in place very well after wearing the top around the house for a few hours.

I am quite happy with this top as a first attempt. My teenage fashion panel admire it, and as I have used wool, layered at the front, and cut double at the back, this will be a lovely warm top for going to casual dress events in the evening - we have a 40th birthday BBQ to attend in a country hall next week, it is sure to be very cold!

Loungewear version of Ottobre 05-2011-18 "Ginger"

2011-07-10T12:55:00.000+10:00

I am being so practical at the moment. Feeling a strong inclination to lie on the couch under a blanket all day, I have made myself something slightly more suitable for day wear than my pyjamas and dressing gown, which is what I really feel like wearing around the house (with woolly socks - it was -2 degrees C last night, and we do not have central heating).

The pattern is modified from Ottobre 05-2010-18.

I lengthened it to a mid-thigh tunic so that I can wear close fitting yoga pants underneath and not hold my stomach in. I also made a square shoulder adjustment, but otherwise made the garment according to my measurements on Ottobre's sizing scale. It is a good fit for an overgarment. I am wearing it here over a merino wrap top.I did not have to shorten the sleeves, which is unusual for me.

The fabric is Polartech100 from Milldirect textiles. I had to buy this with the powerstretch for my running gear, because all fabric collectors know that if you only buy one piece of fabric from a particualr vendor, it will get lonely in the box and might wither away before it gets to you.

The Polartech100 is very stretchy. The pattern calls for softshell fleece, which in my experience is thicker, more firm on the right side, and much less stretchy than the fabric I used. This may be part of the trouble I had with this pattern. I used a stretch needle, a walking foot, and 3 step zig-zag at 1.0x1.0mm for all stretch seams and straight stitch for all woven seams. The hems were coverstitched.

Part of the reason for choosing this pattern was the zipped welt pockets at belly level. There is a single internal kangaroo pouch pocket at this level, with the welts and pocket using cotton poplin fabric.

After my trouble with inserting exposed zips to the yoga pants, I wanted to see if adding a woven fabric to the zip application would make the sewing easier. Unfortunately, I did not find this to be the case. I used a thinnish cotton (with eyelet embroidery) for the pockets. I liked how this fabric scrap co-ordinated with the fleece, and thought the textured fabric due to the eyelet embroidery would look better than something more crisp once the garment had been through the washing machine. I did not use an iron, but fingerpressed the fabric, as I did not want to risk melting the polar fleece. This made it very difficult to keep the welts even, and the pocket opening rectangular. If I was to make this garment again, I would use another layer of woven fabric or stay tape for the edges of the pocket before applying the welts.
The Ottobre instructions for applying the pocket to the welt involve twice stitching in the ditch of the welt seams, and afterwards sewing the inside pocket to the free edges of the seam allowances of the welt after topstitching. I found the 1cm seam allowances called for in the pattern left very little room after the turn of fabric from polar fleece, and 3 layers of cotton woven fabric. If I were to make this garment again, I would increase the seam allowance for the pocket welts.
I found that the pocket pieces were too small for my front piece, and had to recut. This, of course, may have been my error in either marking the welts, or tracing.
I do not really like the hang of the garment with the internal kangaroo pocket. It can bind across the stomach. I would either use stretch fabric, or make two separate pockets if I was to repeat the garment.
I used only one invisible zip at the neck. By the time I got up to the neck I was not very happy with the garment, and did not want to waste 2 zips, should it proove unwearable. I did not stabilize the edge, wanting my zip to truly be invisible, and not feeling that polarfleece + stabilizing fabric would turn nicely, and naturally found that this meant the neck seamlines did not match across the zip.This annoyed me even more when I found that I could easily slip on the garment over my head without undoing the neck zip at all.
I chose not to unpick, and embellished the neck seam with a wide machine embroidery stitch, starting above the lower seam, and finishing below the highter seam, to give an illusion of seam matching. I felt better after this :).

I fully lined the hood, not being fond of exposed raw seams.
I particularly dislike the hood. It is ill-fitting and unflattering when worn on the head.

It is a bit sad that my secret flower applique that can only be seen when the hood is up will never be visible. Sigh. If I were to make the garment again, I would draft a new hood.

Production sewing Jalie 2215 trousers

2011-07-02T19:46:00.000+10:00

I have a weakness for very expensive athletic wear. This is not due to any athleticism on my part, but an unreasonable fondness for technical fabrics in even my sedate exercise programme. Nylon lycra from Spotlight does not quite do the job.
Due to this weakness, I recently recieved a parcel from Mill Direct Textiles (Malden Mills), with some wicking Poly/Nylon outer, velour inner Polartec Power Stretch 9401, that was intended to make me some long running gear.
This minor project resulted in heartfelt pleas from the teenage fashion panel concerning their cold legs, and an upcoming cycling tour - inland, and at ungodly hours of the morning. (Did I mention that we share the house with a cycling fanatic?)

My pair, from the deservedly popular Jalie "yoga pants" pattern 2215, has added front pockets with exposed zips.

This was such a fiddly thing to add to the pattern that my daughters' pairs have internal, hold-your-change-and-a-key only waistband pockets instead, zipless.

I swapped the sewing for a photo subject. 16 year old girls look better in these legging type trousers than their mothers - at least in this family.

The fabric is very nice indeed. The outside is firm but stretchy, without shininess, and also thick and smoothing to the middle aged figure. The inner surface of the fabric is a luscious velour. It was worth every penny of the considerable total.

I did not waste any of the fabric.

Here is a kindle cover for my husband (that zipper tag was stolen from my trousers once I realised I wouldn't be on the cycling trip this weekend, and that the kindle would)

To use up the very last scraps I made a size G pair, which allegedly fit a 3 year old girl.

I did not really fancy the plain black for such a small person, so added a flower to one leg. The flower is appliqued polar fleece, and there is machine embroidery in 3 colours to embellish the applique and make a stem. I like it better in real life. The recipient has bright red hair, and I plan to make her a purple polar fleece jacket to co-ordinate with the flower because I like matchy-matchy.

I made a few small changes to the pattern, the top of the trousers is raised closer to the waist, and the 3 smaller pairs are faced at the waistband with a contrast cotton-lycra knit.

Despite the value in production sewing, I am ready to do something a bit more challenging. Unfortunately, not only am I a bit unwell, but our tax year has just finished, making my work load quite unreasonable. Maybe I will have the energy to sew a pillowcase or something of similar difficulty..... I hope to improve the interest level of my sewing before too long, wish me luck!

T shirts with embellishment

2011-06-29T10:18:00.000+10:00

Inspired by RuthieK's interesting knit shirt sew-a-long, I have made a couple of t-shirts. I would not go so far as to call them interesting, but they are embellished, which I think is a start.

This t-shirt is made from the left over self fabric lining from the smocked t shirt. It is a thin and unstable, but soft and pleasant to wear rayon knit from Gorgeous Fabrics.

As the fabric is super stretchy, I finished the neckline with robust fold over elastic, using a bridging stitch.
I made a long rufle by folding a strip of the knit over with a 2cm offset, and gathering with a single row of long machine stitch, then pulling it up to a pleasing distribution. I left the edges raw.
I placed one short end at centre front, and attached the ruffle evenly aroudn the neckline using a narrow 3 step zig zag. At the centre neck, I was careful to place the upper edge of the ruffle over the starting raw edge, then continued past the centre neck at an angle that placed the ruffle above the bust. This section of the ruffle could have been a bit higher- I had not allowed for the extent that the fabric stretch skewed my placement, but it is too difficult to unpick for correction.

The center front end of the ruffle ia short section sewn seperately below the starting end of the ruffle.

It looks continuous with the neckline ruffle in place. I cut the end of the ruffle in a taper shape.

Due to the thin and unstable nature of this fabric, I used hand catch stitch again for the sleeve hems, and left the bottom un hemmed, as I will wear it tucked in.

This purple t shirt is inspired by a RTW one that a friend was wearing. Hers has a lot of short lengths of ribbon running vertically at the front only, but I like tops to have some interest at the back as well, so I placed my ribbon all the way around the neck. The fabric is a medium weight cotton/lycra knit, and is quite stable. I cut small holes in the t shirt after construction, and wove the ribbon through, tying the ends in a bow, too easy! I have worn this a few times, and the ribbon stays tied - I was worried that it would come loose during wear. I put a peg on the knot of the ribbon when I washed the t shirt, and the ribbon did not work loose or fray.

Lattice smocked t shirt, the winter version

2011-06-23T11:04:00.000+10:00

Last summer, I made some t shirts from knit fabric which I had smocked, using Counterchange/North American smocking. I was very pleased with them, and wore them frequently. The best thing about them was that I was able to use up some of the very thin and clingy knits that I had bought over the internet, thinking they were more robust than was the case.
Due to overwhelming demand (well, one or two half hearted requests) I wrote a tutorial post for the smocking. This so exhausted my enthusiasm for counter change smocking that I left the smocked fabric I had made for the tutorial abandoned in my too hard pile instead of making the intended evening top to wear to a New Years Eve party.
I have a hectic social life, which mainly revolves around driving my daughters to their friends' houses. Nevertheless, I need an evening top by Saturday. My sparkly gold knit rayon with lycra knit from Gorgeous Fabrics seemed just the thing, particularly as I had already done half the work.

This time, I wanted the smocking to be on both the front and the back of the t shirt.
I had smocked further from the border of the fabric, so that I could use the unsmocked edge as a facing.

I draped the smocked edge around my dressform, and holding my breath, cut out an armhole at the right side, after pinning the pattern piece to the front for approximate placement (the pattern is t shirt 112 from Burda Style 08-2010).

I marked the shoulders with pins, then lay the fabric flat and cut out the side seams and left armscye following the pattern and my original cutting.

I then returned the pieces to the dressform, and hand sewed the left shoulder seam across the smocking whilst the pieces were draped on the dressform. I sewed the remainder of the shoulder seam by machine. I used the walking foot, 3 step zig-zag at 1.0mm width and length, and a size 60 stretch needle. Sewing this fabric was still rather difficult, due to its incredible stretchiness, and tissue-like thickness.

Front

As the fabric is so thin, I had cut out another layer of the fabric for the fronts and backs, intending to use this as an underlayer, and to sew the facing to the underlayer to keep the neckline in place. However, once I had sewn in the sleeves (one is inside out and backwards - the price of mid-week evening sewing, but I am not unpicking this fabric!) and tried on the t shirt, it seemed that the incredible stretchiness had made the t shirt around 8 sizes larger than the last time I used this pattern. (I am very glad that I orginally intended this t shirt to have a very high neckline). This new oversized style removed a lot of the clingy potential about which I was concerned, so now I also have a stretchy gold singlet that might be the base for this years New Year party oufit as well as this winter evening top. There is nothing like planning ahead ;)

I tacked the facing at the necklines to the outer fabric at some of the gathering points at the smocking, so that it is not visible from the outside.

Back

The back has a cowl effect that I quite like.

I finished the sleeve hems by hand, using catch-stitch, as I wanted a very narrow hem and did not trust this fabric under the coverstitch. I did not finish the hem at the body, as the top is almost dress length, but I will be wearing it tucked in. It is now an evening top with built in petticoat!

Nomenclature continued due to serious ommissions in the previous post

2011-06-20T11:14:00.000+10:00

Wow, this is a hot topic. I have learnt some new words from the comments on the last post - Bev, I am particularly impressed with the term "nasty" for a nappy. Maybe this is a more suitable and precise term for one that needs changing :).
Unfortunately I left out some very important words, and fully accept the remonstrations from my fellow Antipodeans. I will try to stick to clothing (and accessories, in a half hearted attempt to keep the list down.

These, dear overseas readers, are thongs. A thong is when only one item of footwear is present. Any resemblance to extremely uncomfortable underwear must be a co-incidence. ;) I admit that I steer away from this word when in international company, because conversation concerning the nether regions attracts smirks, even when you are actually talking about beach footwear and being entirely respectable and serious. Fortunately thongs are not serious clothing.

(I did take my own photo of the pair that lives at the back door for use on trips in the yard to feed the chooks, but decided that they were too disreputable for public viewing)

I had considered putting in the next item in my previous post, but left it out because I could not decide what to call them.

When I lived in South Australia, these were called bathers. When I entered Grade 2 in Victoria, I was ridiculed for this term, and told it was a "cozzie". When I moved to New South Wales, the term was swimmers, and in Queensland, they are called togs.
I mostly stick to the more formal "swimming costume", as I am a little confused. I checked with my children, and they tell me that "swimmers" and "togs" are both understood at school, and using either term would not gain attention, but that "cozzie" or "bathers" would attract strange looks and possibly questions.

Over your togs, you wear a rashie,, so that you will not be sunburnt.

I think the reason this is not a universally understood term is that only countries with high rates of skin cancer use these items of clothing, although I have heard this sort of clothing called a "sun protective top".

I did not sew anything this weekend. Can you tell?

Nomenclature. A trifle for my own amusement

2011-06-19T01:25:00.000+10:00

In my last post, several people commented that dressing gown was an unusual term to them. Clothing terms can be regional, in my experience, having lived in 2 English speaking countries and several states of Australia, so here is a short list of possibly problematic regional terms in use in my mid Queensland hinterland, Australia location with pictures for your edification.

Robe

Dressing gown

Singlet

Vest

Waistcoat (although purists might claim that a waistcoat requires not only buttons, but a collar)

Skivvy

Pants (well, more commonly, underpants, but still.....)

Petticoat(s)

Pinafore

Nappy ( my mother's group in Michigan thought this was hysterically funny - I still haven't worked out why, but it was an easy laugh anyway)

Bunny Rug (imagine a baby wrapped in this)

Jumper

and best of all, confusing native English speakers from 2 continents

Tracky daks! (note, this is slang and my mother hates the term)

:)
and here is one for the Australians from other states

Port

I am fascinated by the range of English, such a flexible language.

New Look 6816 . The source of project inspiration.

2011-06-17T19:27:00.004+10:00

It is interesting to read how people are inspired to make things. Some people who sew are definitely artists, and seem to be inspired quite laterally. My mind does not work that way.

I am not a sewist.

For this project, I was not inspired by beautiful fabric, I was not inspired by a fabulous, fascinating pattern, a photograph of a garment, nor by anything more abstract.

I was inspired by getting up at 1am, and realizing that my dressing gown was not rated for below 5 degrees Celcius.

I chose this fabric because it is very warm, and I had 4 metres of it. Unfortunately it was one of those internet purchases where you think you are buying grey polar fleece for boring man-and-boy sewing and you end up with an unflattering pale lavender colour reminiscent of your Nanna instead.

I chose this pattern because I own it.

I did not think this project would make a very interesting post, and was not planning to write about it. Thinking of trying to keep a good impression in the minds of my readers no doubt.

Then I gave myself a strict talking to.
I have revealed yoga pants, highly amusing jeans, underwear and backyard clothes on this blog, any illusions that my sewing journal is about beautiful fabric, patterns and eventually clothing are entirely in my imagination (and the un-used silk pile in my stash). The people who are kind enough to read this blog and give me great pleasure by leaving comments can presumably cope with prosaic sewing (although maybe not too much of it).

I admit that I am essentially a practical person.
I sew mainly very useful clothing, and there is very little in my wardrobe that I do not wear frequently (although my stash is unbalanced - see above confession about silk).
This has required years of self training (and years of impractical silk purchases). I am (intermittently) proud of my craftmanship (when it works), not the artistic, fashionista eye that I do not possess. I read other people's blogs for that.(Some people actually sew with their silk, how amazing!)

Usually when I make something not-very-interesting, I take shortcuts. This time, with the wisdom of Barbara Eumondi somehow lurking in my brain " You should spend no more time sewing than you do wearing the garment" (I paraphrase, but have read this philosphy in many an Australian Stitches article) I decided to slow down a bit. I am not really sure that she means you should spend hours and hours on a dressing gown that will be worn for a while every day, more that you shouldn't spend 3 weeks on a party dress that is worn once, but I like to be contrary (and quite like spending 3 weeks on a party dress, should I feel so inclined :) ) What I have taken from Barbara's articles, in addition to plenty of amusement, is that frequently worn clothing deserves effort.

I made samples!! Something that has annoyed me about polar fleece dressing gowns from this pattern that I have made in the past are the edges of the cuffs, and the facing.
In the past I have tried:
1. Turning under the raw edges and topstitching, as per the pattern - difficult to catch the bulky polar fleece consistently
2. Hand sewing the inner edge, again folded under - takes a VERY long time, and after the 98th wash , tends to come undone, polar fleece being a little abrasive to thread, and my fondness for hand sewing polar fleece being minimal, and leaning toward sloppiness),
3. Topstitching by machine without folding over ( I hate the raw edge, even though it doesn't ravel)
This time I used a very wiggly decorative stitch on my machine (Janome 6600, stitch number 62 )to oversew the raw edge.

I lined up the foot so that the stitch width covered the raw inside edge of the fabric at the collar and front facing, cuffs and lower hems.

It worked like a dream - no raw edge appearance on the inside

- a decorative line of stitching on the outside,

There is even a little stretch built into the seam. I used the walking foot, and 5 x100m reels of thread, but I felt the thread hog behavior of this stitch was worthwhile for the benefits.

I left out the side pockets, previously finding them a completely useless shape, and added a front patch pocket with the now ubiquitous free machine embroidery. Unfortunately the placement of the patch pocket when the dressing gown is overlapped recalls not my skinny Nanna, but Star bellied Sneetches. It is fortunate that I was not after glamour.

I like my Nanna-ish ugly dressing gown. Do you admire her flattering profile?

Everyone in my family wants one too, (In fact the first comment I received concerning it was "Why didn't you make a blue one for me?) but they can stay cold and jealous. This one is MINE.

I plan to pet the silk in my stash this weekend. I need some more fantasty in my sewing life ;).

Jalie 2795 Jacket. Very Useful Patterns

2011-06-15T11:22:00.000+10:00

The older member of the teenage fashion panel has an excellent garment acquisition technique. When someone points out to her that a particular item of clothing is outgrown, or shabby, and that she should buy or sew herself a new one, (DD1 has a part time job, and therefore financial responsiblities), she wears it constantly. I suspect this is to annoy her mother.

If her outgrown 2009 Jalie jacket has not been on her back every day for the past 6 weeks when not in the laundry, I would be very surprized. I may be maligning her. It is possible that the reason for this overuse is the unusually chilly weather. Regardless, I could not stand the sight of it any longer with her wrists sticking out and made another one.

It turned out quite nicely, as it should, seeing that I have made this pattern 4 times previously.

I deviate from the pattern a little. The pattern has a lot of piecing that is not necessary for shaping - particularly in the sleeves. I stick all of the sleeve pattern pieces together to make a normal one piece pattern.
I also cut the lower band as one piece.
For fitting, my daughter's jacket is a size R, in diameter, with 7cm lengthening to the body, 5cm lengthening to the sleeves and 5cm lengthening to the hood for a more relaxed look.(The pattern hood is very close fitting, presumably so that it can be worn under a rainjacket hood).
I add an internal zipped pocket, which is simply a panel with a zip inside it, sewn to the wrong side of the inner section of the front pocket lining before applying this to the front.

I line the hood, and add a front facing to cover the inner zipper tapes. I use woven selvage under the zipper to stabilize the front edge.

For this garment, I played with the fancy stitches on my machine again. The welt bands have a layer of thicker fleece inside (the same Polartech 200 as the main garment fabric), and I lay thin non fusible interfacing at the underside of the folded welt before adding the flower stitch, trimming this away after stitching.

At the back I used a diamond stitch pattern to machine stitch a flower. It amuses me that it can only be seen with the hood up, very secretive.

The sleeves are a teensy bit long. This is deliberate. I don't want to see those wrists again if she hits 5 foot 10.

Sewing is the world's most frustrating hobby

2011-06-12T13:32:00.000+10:00

My husband did not ask me to make him running shorts. This is a tale of self inflicted woe, well, mostly.
Cycling is my husband's choice of leisure activity and exercise. However, 3 weeks ago, he was asked to make up a relay team for a local half marathon. He came running with me a few times. At 5.30 am, we are needing considerable coverage for this activity (ie tracky daks). The race was to be later in the day, and he mentioned several times that he would need to buy running shorts.
I kept quiet. I do not even make my own running shorts. I find them very boring to sew.
Thursday night was his last opportunity to buy running shorts before the race (late night shopping). He did not get any. He mentioned this after dinner.
I was very stupid. In a rash moment of thinking I was Superwoman, I mentioned that I had some supplex nylon in my stash, and could make some before Saturday. After all, how difficult could it be to whip up a pair of elastic waisted shorts?
I stayed up late (he went to bed, not being a night person), cut out and sewed up slightly lengthened and newly flyless shorts from a Kwik Sew boxer shorts pattern that I had made him previously. My husband finds being measured a form of torture second only to being required to model my sewing for this blog. It is easier to keep using the same patterns.

I added an internal key and cash pocket, used cotton lycra knit on the inner waistband for comfort, and flat felled all the seams to prevent chafing. I pat myself on the back a few times for being a noble wife and went to bed with an agreeable feeling of virtue and a strong feeling that I had earnt Brownie points.

In the morning, I asked him to try them on. He did this whilst I was in the shower, which was rather annoying. When I emerged from the shower he told me that the shorts were too big. He also mentioned that he would not try them on again as A) He had already tried them on, B) It was too cold to wear shorts, and C) He was leaving for work.
I spent the 3/4 of an hour remaining before I left for work taking in the shorts by the precise measurement of "a bit" that I had been given. I pat myself harder on the back and left for work with my feeling of virtue restored.

Early that evening, after some convincing, he tried the shorts on again. Too small.
I exercised great restraint by reminding myself that he has considerable credit for being my dearly beloved for 22 years, and did not abuse him.
Instead I made him another pair, in the next smaller size from the same pattern.

We were to go out that same night, so I was a bit rushed. This would explain why the sewing machine did this, for 3/4 the length of the waistband.

I did get this unpicked before we left, but it was a struggle.
At the social event, the bloke who had organized the relay team told us that he was pulling out, had not managed to get another runner, so the race was off.
I should have been relieved and thrown the dratted things in the bin.

Instead I was a bit cranky. On Saturday morning I forced all likely members of the household to try on shorts 1. They did fit someone, but she said that she was not wearing Dad's daggy running shorts under any circumstances. She has no trouble expressing her views :)
I finished pair 2, and added side panels to the too small pair 1.

I interrupted my husband in the middle of a crucial woodworking project, fixed him with a beady eye, and insisted that he try them on - now.
Being a sensible man, and a kind husband, he did this.
Pair 1 was too big and pair 2 was a tiny bit tight.
He said they were perfect.
I think he ended up with the Brownie points.

To relieve my feelings and use the black thread in the sewing machine, I made myself a pair of Jalie Yoga pants (2 layers of cotton lycra knit, and the waist a bit higher).

Here they are with my oldest hand knit socks. Comfort clothes and comfort sewing - I feel much better.

Burda Style Skirt, with Elastic Contour waist finish.

2011-06-11T21:00:00.000+10:00

Another victim of the insects-under-the-bed was a trouser suitable length of brown wool, in a coarse weave. With judicious cutting, I managed to fit a straight skirt on the hole-less pieces.
The fabric ravels in an indiscriminate manner, and I didn't enjoy sewing with it very much. I am almost grateful to the insects for munching so much of it.

The pattern is Burda Style 02-2011-107. I was inspired to make this particular skirt by Dawn's post, in which she describes her use of an elastic contour waist finish, as detailed in Threads, September 2008, to support the high waist. I had used this technique previously, with mixed results, but thought Dawn's application of the technique above the natural wasitline would work much better than my earlier attempts. Please, if you are comparing the skirts, remember that this particular skirt is definitely not a size 34, like the reviews at pattern review. This is a flattering skirt for a curvy person (size 40, with generous backside allowance added - very useful back panels for this adjustment are present in the pattern. The waist is about size 38, skinner at the back). My version has an added front central seam for insect avoidance reasons, and I used no seam allowances at the waistline, or hem, length B, to allow for my short waistedness and short leggedness.

I like the fit of the skirt. I am not thrilled with the elastic contour waist again. This time I followed Dawn's photos, where the elastic is applied to the right side of the outer fabric (lining underneath for me), which gives a doubled over edge of elastic at the waist seam.
I think my elastic was too stiff for this technique. It did not like being doubled over on itself, and was only tamed into position by understitching (3 step zig zag).

Later I tried this technique on another garment, using bridging stitch that just caught the elastic, so when the fabric was turned right sides outwards, the elastic was not folded, and I prefered the turn achieved in this way.

Despite my unhappiness with the elastic. I have worn this skirt 3 times in the past 10 days. The waistband is comfortable, if gappy, and having the unfortunate tendency to stand up directly from my hips,

I must have been in desperate need of a brown winter skirt in my wardrobe. I plan to use this pattern again, and to keep fiddling with contour waistbands. I will look out for soft and forgiving wide elastic. I will also work on my photography.
How is this for an edgy country town decay background? ;)

Aren't you glad I did not attempt daily photography for Me-Made-June?
Maybe I should work a little more on my photography.

BWOF 10-2008-116 Jacket. A cautionary tale.

2011-06-05T20:50:00.003+10:00

I do not tend to plan my sewing in great detail, or very far ahead. However, under the influence of the SWAP at Stitchers Guild. I had planned to sew this jacket for my 2009 winter wardrobe.

I bought fabric specifically for this project, a gorgeous piece of cashmere and wool knit from Michael's Fabrics. It was on sale, but still a rather extravagant purchase for me.
I was too scared to cut it. I procrastinated, and ran out of 2009 winter.
Last winter was rather mild, and I didn't sew many warm clothes. This winter is already far colder than any I can rememeber in this location. I got out my fabric, improperly stored under my son's bed, where I am ashamed to admit that due to the slovenliness of 8 an year old boy and his disorganized mother, it sometimes shares space with dirty school uniforms and unemptied lunch boxes, and found this....

The silver lining to this dastardly attack was that I instantly lost all fear of cutting my fabric. It was already ruined.
I washed the fabric, hung it on the line, inspected it closely with the sun behind it, and marked the thin spots and holes with tailors'chalk. Somehow, I managed to cut out most of the pieces without holes, using a single thickness layout and very thin seam allowances. I did need to do a little darning, but am fairly happy that most of this is not visible - where it was, I disguised it with an embroidered leaf - this one is under the left armscye.

Fortunately for me, my procrasination gave me the opportunity to benefit from several excellent reviews of the pattern at patternreview. (Thanks KayY and MaryNanna). I knew to add a back centre seam for sway back adjustment, add a FBA, and that lengthening the sleeves would look just fine. Off my own bat, I added a square shoulder adjustment. I did not make a toile. I have given up on toiles for knit fabrics.

Due to insect attack, I did not have quite enough fabric for the front facings, but was able to find an appropriate substitute by cutting off the skirt from this dress. (I needed another knit top anyway)
For the neck facing, I benefited from the Slapdash Sewist's post showing a nifty technique for a clean facing finish .
I cut out the interfacing with a bottom seam allowance included, and sewed it by this method, right side together with the facing, then turning and fusing.

I am very pleased with the neat finish. I wish I had thought of this brilliant idea! I catch stitched by hand the yoke facing to the seam, to allow a little stretchiness in the seam.
I found the sleeves a little too boule for me at the wrist, and extended the pleats to the mid forearm. I added 2 more pleats to take in the sleeve a little more.

I also left off the belt loops.

I really like this jacket.

It is just as comfortable as my polar fleece Kermit jacket, but I think it looks much more smart.
I will have to save up for some more cashmere knit. Next time I will not leave it under my son's bed.

Kermit the jacket. Jalie 2795

2011-06-02T17:14:00.000+10:00

I like to wear neutrals. They co-ordinate, no one remembers them, and they tend to elegance rather than stridency (although are always at risk of dowdiness). Despite this, I have a weakness for bright colours - mostly buying them rather than sewing them! Here is an outbreak from my ancient stash in my least flattering garment category - exercise sports wear, and in thick polar fleece. Might as well be hung for a sheep while I am displaying my backyard clothes ;).

Jalie 2795, hoodless, shortened at sleeve and hem band and taken in at the waist. Next time I will make a square shoulder adjustment. I have added a contrast facing at the front opening, as the exposed inner zip looks messy to me on the previous garment when worn open.

For a polar fleece jacket, this has a reasonable shape, and looks quite okay in all zipper stages.

I added a machine embroidery detail to distract from the nightmarish topstitching.

I do not like it as much as my son's robot alien. Perhaps machine embroidery on polar fleece looks better if you are 8 years old. Seeing as I am often acting like an 8 year old in the back yard I guess this does not matter very much.

I have also added a zip fastened inner pocket so I can carry a key if I wear this out of the back yard.

My other alterations were to use a double ended zip - due solely to having to order in lots of 3 zips, and to use the constrast lining fabric (cotton lycra knit from a RTW garment I chopped up) for the weltish pockets. As this fabric is a lot more thin than the polar fleece, I wrapped it around a single thickness of the polar fleece before attaching the welts to the jacket front panels.
Unfortunately for my chiffon plans, these photos have revealed to me that I am in desperate need of new jeans. More backyard clothes coming up.

Burda Style 01-2011-107 blouse again

2011-05-30T10:46:00.000+10:00

My second version of the Burda Style 01-2011-107 blouse is in lawn, which I feel is a much better fabric choice. Unfortunately, the lawn, which has always been intending to become a work blouse, was a remnant (Goldhawk Rd, London),in an amount a tad less than I required for comfortable cutting out of a blouse in directional fabric. It was also a little off grain, just enought to drive me batty, as the print is geometric.

To deal with both these factors, I added an inset to the button bands - cream linen. This means that I do not have to look at off kilter squares failing to meet each other as I button my blouse. I also made the button bands a little wider so that an ordinairy shirt button can have a horizontal button hole, rather than vertical as in the previous blouse. I do not trust vertical buttonholes under horizontal strain. (The linen is a scrap left over from my cream linen trousers so that I can be matchy-matchy in another outfit). I have topstitched the linen joining seam with a dark brown embroidery stitch, but have failed to have my photographer take a close up so unfortunately this is decoration is not visible in my photograph.

My pattern changes this time around were to re-shrink the sleeve to nearly its former dimensions ( other than a little width remaining to allow for my square shoulder ajustment). I rearranged the pleats in the sleeve to my liking, rather than Burda's, and shaped the cuff across the overlap corner.
I moved the gathers at the front yoke so that they mostly allowed for additional room at the bust, rather than just next to the armpit. This seems a more flattering placement ;).

I made the back pleat a little more narrow, purely for fabric squeezing reasons, and took in the waist a little at all the darts and the side seams. Unfortunately I failed to realise in the earlier version that the waist of the blouse is a touch lower than the waist on my body. Oops!
Fortunately I plan to wear the blouse tucked in, so this little issue will not be much of a problem.

Easy cardigan Knit 10

2011-05-26T11:06:00.002+10:00

I am participating in Elizabeth's 6 piece seasonal sew-a-long, in order to encourage myself to complete some work clothes.
Living in a subtropival climate, in winter, I wear much the same clothes to work as I do for the rest of the year (air conditioning is a good thing for work), that being trousers and a woven top, but I also need another layer for the trip there and back, all 10 minutes of it :). The terrible length of this commute has often lead to travel in my shirtsleeves, but this can be rather chilly if I have to collect a child, or do the grocery shopping on my way home.
I knit myself a new cardigan for these occasions. It is beautifully warm, and took about 10 hours to knit (2 yarns, large needles), but I am afraid it is rather too casual and shapeless/arty for a work look.

I am wearing it over the new work trousers and the Burda style 09-2010 skivvy, but I think in real life the bottom half will be jeans. (I don't wear skivvies to work, but the new blouse is in the wash, having performed successfully yesterday). the cardigan is symmetrical at the bottom, I think it is the rolling edge and the way I have pinned it that make it look a bit uneven in this photo.
The yarns are Jo Sharp mohair knit together with Aslan Trends Artesenal, a cotton/wool/alpaca blend. The pattern is from Jo Sharp Knit 10. The only shaping is in the yoke, but I did add a little shaping to the sleeve.

I am vaguely thinking of a proper jacket, but I still have a perfectly good one from 2008 .10 minutes a day, for about 8 weeks of winter per year is not very hard on my jacket collection. It is a good thing I only own one structured jacket, I think that gives me the perfect excuse to make another one - the need for variety.

Burda Style 1-2011-107 blouse

2011-05-22T20:21:00.000+10:00

Whilst looking through my Burda magazines for a work-suitable blouse, I was strongly attracted to 1-2011-107. It was the collar.
Here is the blouse.

Here is the line drawing.

Neither of which display the real attraction.

I had never seen a collar like this before.

I love the drafting - can you see how the shortened collar stand exactly matches the front yoke seam. This was ridiculously pleasing to me. Unfortunately the collar was quite unexciting once I had finished it. The collar does sit up a little better than a dressmaker collar at the back, but looks exactly like a dressmaker collar in the front. I think a collar with a full stand does look more smart and crisp.
The rest of the blouse was sort of ho-hum at first. This is a trial version, so the fabric is mere quilting cotton, which apparently displays my lack of sophistication, and fabric stash. The first is correct and the other, misleading. I quite like to sew with quilting cotton.
The teenage fashion panel think it is a little fattening. I think it will be better when the fabric softens a bit with multiple washes, and much better in a lawn version.
There is a lot of ease in this pattern for a Burda. I made my standard 38, without my standard FBA, and it is rather loose. I did add extra width to the sleeve at the mid upper arm - gathered with an extra 2 pleats at the cuff, and I did not need this extra room- most unusual for me with Burda. I will adjust this suitably next time and reduce the rugby player effect.
I made my usual square shoulder adjustment, very easily as the shoulder line is marked on the pattern piece, Yay. I added a lining to the yoke so that I could use my favourite yoke by machine method. I also took the darts in at the waist.
I put on the petersham ribbon trim at the button band, as called for in the pattern, but suspect this makes the blouse look a little wonkily home-made. It would look even more wonky, had I lapped it in a feminine direction. You do not want to see the underneath button band. Buttonholes in petersham ribbon are not my forte.
I left off the interfacing at the button bands, as in my opinion, interfacing + petersham ribbon would be stiffening overkill. I did a lot more finishing by hand than the pattern called for. I hand stitched the inner collar, the inner buttonbands, the inner sleeve plackets and the inner cuffs. This made me consider how it would be useful to improve my topstitching techniques. Oh well.

I think I will wear it more often with the collar open.

I have a whole work outfit from my last two projects, and am feeling incredibly virtuous as a result. This is a sure sign that a chiffon break out is imminent.

Here is the back view of the blouse with the action pleat.
See, Very Useful. I am amazed that I actually enjoyed sewing it. Why is it that my sewing pleasure seems inversely related to the utility of the garment?

Workhorse garment, workhorse pattern, BWOF 4-2009-118 trousers

2011-05-10T19:25:00.000+10:00

Thank you for the expressions of sympathy in reply to my last post. I appreciate them very much.

Over the weekend I made work trousers. I used my TNT trouser pattern BWOF 4-2009-118, (is it wrong to feel smug about being able to write tried and true about a trousers pattern?) which so far this year has been tracksuit pants with a side zip, cream linen trousers, and pyjama pants. None of these earlier efforts had much in the way of details, which is usually how I like my trousers - inconspicuous.
I put in a bit more effort this time, but hopefully still have inconspicuous trousers. I am trying to embrace the seemingly constant lack of work trousers in my wardrobe by smartening them up a trifle, so I actually fancy sewing some.
Fortunately, I managed to have a few photographs taken of these trousers before I spilt tea all over them whilst eating breakfast this morning. No wonder I am always needing new work trousers!

These trousers are made from vintage fabric I purchased from a lady in her 80's.

The fabric is Lincraft brand wool, with the name woven into the selvage, and is at least 20 years old. It is rather nice fabric, so it is a real pity it is no longer produced.
I used the internal waistband pocket and extended buttoning tab I have described before, as I find this pocket very useful for my mobile phone whilst at work. I am trying to train myself not to keep a pen in this pocket, as leaky pens have been the demise of more than one pair of my work trousers. I am hoping that making the pocket 5cm too short for my pen will assist in this endeavour.

I lined the trousers with cotton batiste, and bound exposed seams. This sort of secret inside sewing almost makes me enjoy work trousers.

The gift of handmade

2011-05-08T19:42:00.000+10:00

I like to make things. This would come as no surprise to anyone who reads my blog. I also like to make things for special other people. My favourite gifts to recieve are hand made. I find both the giving and recieving of hand made objects an act of love.

My grandfather died a few days ago.

My grandfather turned 95 just less than a fortnight ago.

I know the people who read this blog are mostly not very interested in knitted objects, but I want to show you this anyway.

I knitted him this vest for his birthday, and watched him open the present in hospital.
When I started this project, 2 months ago, my grandfather was in good health. He was playing tennis a few times a week, and doing all sorts of other things no-one would expect a 94 year old man to do. It is tricky to think of an appropriate present for a 95 year old man. My grandfather had been downsizing for years.

I wrote this pattern specifically for my grandfather. I telephoned him and had him take his measurements, and looked at all my photos of him to check out his favourite clothes.
I thought about him as I knit.
He never wore this vest, but he was pleased that I had made it for him. Being of a generation that did not buy knitted objects in their youth, he knew how much work was in this garment. He laughed at me when I told him the no-seam short row shoulder finish was the knitting equivalent of dovetails. He made things too. Maybe it takes a craftsman to appreciate a home made gift.
I was chopping salad vegetables this afternoon and was thinking about my grandfather. I happened to be using a portable kitchen trolley with a built in chopping board that my father was building for me just before he died. My grandfather finished it, and gave it to me the following Christmas.
No bought present can compare to that sort of history.
My children made me chocolate cheesecake muffins, and blueberry muffins today for Mother's Day.
I am glad my family can make things.

Evidence of past sewing and Burda Style 09-2010-121 skivvy

2011-05-06T14:22:00.000+10:00

I have been parted from my sewing machine for nearly 2 weeks. This is difficult for me, even if I am having a wonderful time. I did lots of knitting.
See my new scarf?

I really like it, particularly as it fits nicely into a poacher pocket on my jacket.

See my children's new scarves? They are at Lorne Station, Lightening Ridge. The children claimed to like their scarves, but appear rather disgruntled in the photograph. This may, or may not be, due to my insistance on taking their photograph when they would rather be doing something else.

I had great intentions of posting photographs of assorted family members actually wearing their sewn-for-hiking-and-camping garments, but unfortunately the weather was mostly against me.

That would be a spectacular view from the top of a cliff...... if the fog lifted.
There is some sewing under those coats - and I did sew 3 of the raincoats, but that is old news. The jackets worked very well for walking 20+km per day in mostly heavy rain, although in my jacket, the section of the poacher pocket for which there is no flap was a mistake. I will have to sew it shut and insert a zip internally if I want my muesli bars to stay dry.
Did you spot the mittens? They are fairly noticeable in the lime green remnant polar fleece
.

The pattern is Green Pepper F790, which I have been using for about 15 years. It was a very useful pattern when I lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but I had not made new mittens for a while. It takes about 15 minutes and itty bitty pieces of polar fleece to sew - just as well when the boy discovers that he mysteriously has no gloves during the chaos that ensues at our place whilst packing for a trip. (He rejected the pink leopard print hand-me-downs for some strange reason)

In this gratuitous shot of Katoomba Falls, (we had terrific weather for waterfalls) there is an excellent view (well, the most excellent view that I was permitted to take) of the boy's favourite hat. This has been his favourite winter hat for several years now, and unfortunately, when he tried to put on the original, reversible version, it did not fit. In the other hour of sewing during the packing evening, I separated the two layers of the original hat, and added a new band, to make the hat deeper. Fortunately I had gathered the original hat at the brim, so there was no circumference growth issue. It still surprises me that retrofitting and mending takes me far longer than making a completely new garment - or maybe it just seems longer ;).

During the second day of hiking, the rain stopped briefly, and I was able to take a photo of the robot hoodie in situ. He is very pleased with it.

Here is some more temporarily clear weather,on the way to Mt. Solitary, and one of the man merino tops on the recipient, alas under a rain coat. He is fairly pleased with it too.
On the third day of walking, I can show you, under 2 other layers, one of these tops - Burda 09-10-121 (with an 08-10-112 sleeve, because I had already adjusted it for my sturdy non-Burdaesque limbs)

photo on the fire trial of Narrow-neck.

You can't see it? You are tired of my raincoat?
Here is a photograph with more garment clarity, in the first, cotton-lycra knit version.

I thought this was okay, for a skivvy, so made a merino jersey version, after shortening the neck by about half. Naturally it fits completely differently, as knit fabrics are like that, even if you think the stretch is about the same.

The garment doesn't thrill me sartorially, but it was gratifyingly warm, yet comfortable for hiking. I just wish I had used my beautiful merino on something more becoming.

This week I have been returned to the vicinity of my sewing machine, but sadly report that I have done nothing with it other than mending one of the tents, which is my pet hate, and does not count as sewing. Unfortunately there seems to be lots of dull work on which to catch up, but I have high sewing hopes for the weekend - after I make some new work trousers to cope with the effect of Easter eggs on my dimensions ):. We should have walked further!
I leave you with clear evidence of the sewing brainwashing I inflict on my offspring. My children spotted this whilst we were visiting a (tourist converted)opal mine. Two of them called out in chorus "Look Mum, a sewing machine!"

I was completely convinced of their veracity for at least 2 seconds.

Burda Style 01-2010-125 Boy's jacket

2011-04-20T16:54:00.000+10:00

Terrible thoughts of hypothermic children are haunting me whenever I think about our planned hiking in the Blue Mountains. Delving further into the polar-fleece-under-the-bed, I found a dusty piece of boyish blue Polartech200. Just the thing to relieve my nightmares.
I looked through my Burdas (no April 2011 yet) and found some lovely warm looking, well bundled, children playing in the snow. I suspect it was summer at 2000m elevation, but anyway, pattern 125 from January 2010 seemed just the trick - although a bit boring.

Machine embroidery stitches to the rescue. This started life as a robot, these being the current fad, but it seems to have morphed into an alien through adding eyebrows. Perhaps it is an alien robot.

I hope it passes the boy test. I have kept the colours very low tone, just in case it is a bit babyish....

Instead of zip exposed internal pockets (I may be slightly scarred by the last project, but am using the lack of 2 black zips of the same size as my excuse) I have added a nice easy Kangaroo pocket. These are good for boys who lose gloves (in a mild climate).
I have bound the pocket and hems in swimwear nylon lycra, matte side out, stretching slightly as I applied it for a bit of gather.

I lined the hood with hopefully the last bits of nasty thin Spotlight polar fleece, rather than using a facing, hoping for extra warmth and a more finished look.
I used 3mm elastic cord and stoppers, with the ends of the cord sewn inside the casing, rather than regular cord,to gather the hood, as these are less likely to catch on things than loose ends during adventurous use.

The jacket looks a little big to me, but this is not a bad thing, boys being prone to growth. The Burda jacket was for quilted fabric with fleece lining, so oversize was probably the plan.

I feel warmer already.

A series of sewing disappointments that did not end too badly McCalls 3923

2011-04-17T19:45:00.000+10:00

In mid-week, I received the April Burda magazine. I quite liked this issue, and picked out a few things to make straight away, which usually means, in the next 12 months.
This weekend, I was all organized to make a whole outfit from the April Burda- nice easy sewing, a long 6 gore skirt with welt pockets, worn with a short sleeved mock turtleneck top. I picked out the fabrics, and was all set to go on Saturday, except that I could not find the magazine.
2 hours later, I had an unnaturally tidy sewing room, but no Burda. I was a bit annoyed.
Instead, I had this McCall's pattern, which I last made in 1989. It would be out-of-date.

Risking datedness and dowdiness, I went ahead with the McCalls skirt, view A, adding about 3 cm to the longest length to mimic my vague memory of the Burda model photo. Unfortunately I did not have quite enough fabric. It was cut at an angle, so that I thought I had enough fabric, but was actually about 10cm short at one end. 1 of the side gores was too short. To make the skirt symmetrical, I trimmed back another 2 gores, then added a 10cm band to the bottom of the 4 side gores.
My next rather frustrating episode was the attempt at the welt pockets. The fabric is a rayon/poly woven. I bought it over the internet thinking it was a knit - entirely my mistake. It is a woven. A ravelly, not very stable woven, with a faux suede type hand.
I had some trouble with the ravelling whilst attempting a ribbon welt pocket, per Kenneth King. The short ends were unco-operative at turning under. Instead they disintegrated when I breathed near them. There was also a 1/4 inch operator error in the application of the welts. To overcome these nasty issues, I satin stitched over the short ends, and decided that I had really intended to have an exposed zip with sort of weltish things at the sides only.

It almost looks intentional.

Next I applied the waistband. You may be amazed to hear that this was quite straightforward. I started to think that the sewing Gremlins had done enough work for one day, and might have knocked off. I used the vintage button for the outside, and also attached the inside underlap of the waistband with a less pretty button. I used an invisible zip for the side seam fastening.

Overall, I am not sure if this skirt looks more 2011, or 1989.

I suspect the latter. Regardless, it will be a nice warm skirt for a trip down south, if worn with a petticoat and my Wellington warm tights. (You can't see the welt pockets because they are almost on the side seams - my husband took the photo, so no side shots, I am missing my teenage photography team)
Next I am making a long sleeved mock turtleneck from Burda Style 09-2010 - unless my April Burda shows up before I cut it out.

Bell Bottomed Jeans Burda Style 2009-11-125, version #2

2011-04-16T13:51:00.001+10:00

My younger daughter is thrilled with the response to her jeans. She is claiming to have started a trend (thanks Joy) and to be very fashionable. I unkindly pointed out to her that using a 2009 pattern probably meant that she was not quite on the cutting edge of fashion, but this did not seem to have much effect on her euphoria. I thought sewing euphoria only worked for the seamstress, but it seems to have a wider effect than I suspected. I am pleased to join Joy's sew-a-long, as I have already finished! (The only way I can finish on time at the moment seems to be by starting early)
The flattering cut of the jeans did inspire a request for a pair from daughter the first. As seems to be the case lately, this was a last minute, rushed job. She left for a visit to her grandparents on Thursday night, and I started them on Tuesday night, after finishing daughter the second's pair after work on Monday night so that she could wear them to her friend's house on Tuesday. I am getting good at this mid-week sewing! I am using this as an excuse for the dodgy hem photo you will see later in the post.

To respond to justlikeaboughtone this is how I sew a lot. My only sewing "secret" is that I sew all-the-time and instead of doing other things (including some where my decision to sew instead of doing them is not necessarily the correct decision). Also, I am now in the fortunate position of having a sewing room, where I can leave a project in the middle, with all the pins in and the scissors on the table, as my children are past the dangerous objects up high stage. Not having to put things away saves a lot of time.

(Daughter the first did wag a "spare" at school so that we could measure for the hem - don't tell. I said in the note to school that she had to keep an appointment, just didn't mention the with me bit)

The pocket stitching is from her design, and were much more tricky to sew than her sister's. Can you tell she takes Graphics?

As she was not permitted to try on her sister's jeans, I had her try on the calico toile, which was a little tight in places. Completely forgetting my last post, where I whined about denim stretching, I carefully adjusted for the tight places, so now both girls have slightly too large jeans. Fortunately they do not care. I also lengthened the toile by about 7cm, for the longer legs, but mysteriously, then had to remove about 3cm in hemming. This may have been measurement error, or possibly my addition of back crotch length after adjusting for leg length. The hemming issue has reduced the volume of the bell a little, but the trousers still have a pleasing shape.

Despite the enthusiasm for this pattern in the comments on the last post, when I looked at patternreview last week, it had not yet been reviewed. As Audrey points out, this pattern is from one of the Take1-Make4 articles. There is one review of the straight pair, #124, but I thought I would detail my design and construction changes to the pattern here as I may not get around to writing a review for a few days. They fit the girls pretty much like other Burda patterns, so the fitting adjustments were not unusual. They may be slightly longer than standard Burda trousers.

1. POCKETS
Instead of patch pockets with a buttoning flap at the front, and in-seam side pockets, I chose to use more traditional jean style pockets. The back pockets are from Jalie jeans 968, and the front pockets were drawn free hand on the toile, and checked for position and hand access at this point. The inner pocket part is quilting cotton, but I left the visible, under part of the pocket as denim, as there is a front stay pocket extension.
When constructing the pockets, I stitched in the ditch of the front leg central seam to further attach the stay and to prevent pocket bulge.
2. TABS
For the first pair,in the last post, I reduced the length of the tabs at my daughter's request. I also only used 3 tabs, as one was wonky, and I was feeling lazy. The bottom of the tabs have a decorative button attached, which required pliers to pull the needle through 5 layers of denim and 2 of quilting cotton ( the inner waistband and the underneath of the tabs are made from a cotton print in my version, to reduce bulk)
In this second pair, I used 5 tabs at the pattern length, to hold a belt better at the back, and have not yet got around to sewing the buttons on the tabs. (time constraint problem mentioned above)
3. GODETS and TOPSTITCHING
I did not agree with Burda's instructions here. I wanted the point of the godet to lie flat, so pressed the leg and the godet seams to the leg (opening the leg seam, but pressing the godet seam to the outside.

This allowed me to topstitch differently from Burda.

Burda's trousers have an asymmetry at the top of the godet. I prefer symmetry. When topstitching, I stitched along each side of the leg seam first, then topstitched inside the godet seams, stitching across the top and crossing over the first part of the stitching to form 2 triangles. I am quite pleased with how this turned out, particularly for these godets at the back in a variegated thread, where somehow the hot pink has managed to hit at the top for both legs.

~~Sewing luck!~~ This of course is entirely due to my precision sewing. (smirk)
I have enjoyed making these jeans, and am slightly sorry that they are not in the house at present, as I had vague thoughts of squeezing in to them to see if they would suit me too. Maybe this is why I made them a bit big. However, as my daughters have long slim legs, and mine are quite the opposite, (they take after their Dad) I strongly suspect that I will have to enjoy these vicariously.
I am looking forward to seeing other versions in the sew-a-long.