Completed SWAP collections are up

The Stitcher's Guild SWAP's are up

Click here for the Flickr site

or here for my entry

I am always tired of the SWAP concept by the time I finish one, but looking at everyone else's fabulous wardrobes makes me enthusiatic about the idea again.

Chosing from a wardrobe

Now that I have finished sewing, I need to take photographs for the Stitcher's Guild Sewing With A Plan challenge.
This is harder than it may seem, particularly as the only way I seem to be able to manage to fill the requirements of these plans is to sew more garments than are actually required. Now I have to choose.
This year, I was aware of my basic planning problems, and did not start out with a strict storyboard and list of patterns and fabrics. Instead I made a knitted cardigan first, and pulled out all the fabrics that I thought might co-ordinate with the cardigan. I started sewing outfits - a bottom and a top, pretty much as patterns took my fancy, only restricting myself to wovens, and "office suitable" patterns. This random tendency meant I had to meet the extra criteria (buttons as a feature and pattern or stripe matching right at the end- but I have already ranted about this and am trying to forget how tricky it became)
I ended up using mostly fabric I selected at the begining, only introducing some white batiste at the last stages.
I have 7 blouses, 6 bottoms, and 2 short sleeved cardigans from which to select 6 blouses, 4 bottoms, and one additional item.







First I think I will exclude the non-photogenic items. One of the blouses has a slight rayon shiny stripe through it which looks smart in real life, but very tacky in every photograph so far. This is rather annoying as it is one of my favourite garments. Another 2 bottoms, made from the same fabric as each other, show every minor crease and wrinkle in photographs, but I may end up including one of them because I really like the topstitching.
Just to make things more tricky, the weather is very windy, and now raining.
I am almost sure that photography is harder than sewing.
I think this is the best wardrobe I have sewn so far. I wonder if it becomes easier with practice?

Vogue 8322 blouse with a stab at stripe matching

I finished it, after the glass of wine, and amazingly there were no sewing disasters, and I did not even stay up late.

I whinged to my entire household yesterday evening, and they obviously felt that I would be unbearable should I fail to finish the SWAP (although they kindly refrained from telling me this)and my husband cleaned up the kitchen after dinner so that I could sew.

I hope you are all jealous :).Those of you with domestically inclined husbands can just keep quiet :).

He then asked me to sew him a cycling cap. I will think about it.

My stripe matching is not perfect, but there are bits with which I am pleased.


I have more stripe matching photos, but even I am not finding them terribly interesting, so I imagine that they are deadly dull for other people.

I changed a few things about this blouse, mostly following an article in Australian Stitches by Maree Pidgeon, shirt maker extraordinaire. I had used the collar and front neck from this pattern (Vogue 8322) for an earlier blouse in the SWAP list, and was disappointed that the chest opening was narrow, and the supposed-to-be-standing collar much more wide and high, than shown in the pattern envelope illustration and technical drawing. Maree's article demonstrates widening the opening at the upper chest and shortening the collar by 1.5cm, and both narrows the collar and reshapes the end to make them more rounded (and just like the pattern illustration on the envelope) Bad Vogue!
The use of bias panels for the front and back sides is also Maree's idea. Her version also has piping and extra long contrast buttonholes, but I felt the fabric I used (Michael's Fabrics lightweight cotton twill) is sufficiently busy without further embellishment. The short sleeve and bias finish on the sleeves are my idea. The other alteration to the pattern is a princess seam small bust alteration, otherwise this is a straight size 8. I am happy with the fit.
My daughter really likes this blouse. I feel much better about SWAP today. Thanks for the kind comments following yesterday's rant.

To SWAP or not and BurdaStyle Magazine 03-2010-124 blouse

First to answer a question from Rosa a few posts ago. SWAP stands for sewing with a plan, which is a sewing challenge/competition at Stitchers Guild to make an 11 item wardrobe, finishing today.
I like the idea of SWAP, as I have a tendency to sew dresses and orphans when left to my own devices, leaving me, and my family with full wardrobes and not much to wear (unless a dress will do, which is fine for nearly everything except work and the male family members)
Last year I sewed boring work clothes for myself, very, very useful, and all the blouses are still in circulation, although I killed or wore out the trousers with my usual speed, and have since made two replacement pairs. I almost got a TNT work blouse after making 7 versions of a vogue pattern, and 4 muslins, but still hate the collar. It was worth sewing the SWAP 2009.
This year I have been sewing a work wardrobe for my daughter. She needed the clothes, as she has an office job and a shop job for after school and weekends, and also will be spending 2 weeks undertaking "work experience" through school later in the year. I am quite pleased with the wardrobe to date, but am fed up with SWAP. What I am hating today, is the extra requirements. The idea is to challenge the seamstress, but frankly, I am sufficiently challenged by sewing 11 items that co-ordinate.
The extra requirements are
1. Embroidery or embellishment - done, machine embroidery as I am not wasting hand work on an office blouse. This is not tricky for me, and I made it early.
2. Unusual closure 0r buttons as a feature- whilst I appreciate this as an artistic idea, I am not artistic. This is the blouse I made this week with buttons as a feature. Burda style 03-2010-123, with lots of half sphere buttons.





This was tricky to photograph, being white, but it was foggy at the crack of dawn this morning, so I took advantage of my very sleepy daughter and made her model whilst I had soft light. That is one way to limit the clothes requests :)
I have evicted one blouse and one skirt so far because I can't take a nice photo of them, so I was relieved that this one worked out.
3. Match stripes, plaid or pattern
My problem. I couldn't match the print for a skirt that I thought I might include, as there was insufficient fabric, so I thought instead I would make a striped blouse, then had to work all last weekend (long weekend here) with NO sewing (I feel quite deprived). I have buttons and collar to finish still, and I don't think I like the blouse. I feel quite stupid for sewing a blouse that I don't want to sew, just for a sewing challenge.
A truly mature and sensible person would have a glass of wine and read a good book this evening.
I am trying to convince myself that I am mature and sensible.
Edited to add: Several commmentors have asked if I can include a previously made or purchased garment and finish the SWAP. Unfortunately, no. I have plenty of previously made, and indeed several additional garments made within the time period that co-ordinate, but none of them have a matching print, plaid or stripe, so without this last garment, I do not meet the requirements.It might also seem that I should be at my sewing machine, not my computer, but I am on the computer for work, and am giving myself little sewing thought breaks - the advantage of working for yourself!

Burda Style Magazine flippy skirt 12-1009-122 - 123 blend

I have been wanting to make this skirt BWOF 12-2009-122/123 ever since I saw the magazine. Sue's and Mary Nanna's versions just made the feeling more insistent. Unfortunately, the person who needs clothes the most at our house at the moment is not I, so I had to use this pattern for my daughter. I couldn't resist trying it any longer, although I did try to hold out until I start my travel wardrobe.

I used Marji's viyella for this, so it took forever, because I wanted it to turn out well and took no short cuts (except for the ribbon technique for welt pockets, but I have already confessed to that).

Can you see the hours of hand stitching? (Mostly in the hem)
Of course not. That is the idea. If it wasn't so windy when we took the photographs you would see how beautifully this skirt hangs and how perfect the invizible zip insertion is, as you would expect on attempt #3 and handsewn.



I have lined it with pink imperial batiste, and it is the lining that adds all the pouf to the flippy curved bit at the back and sides in this version, as the viyella is quite a light fabric. If I didn't like the sticky-out-ed ness, I could have made a straight skirt lining, and saved myself half a metre or so of lining fabric.



I really love this skirt. Do you think anyone will notice it is the same pattern if I make a psuedo cotton version for myself?

Alternative garments worm their way into the SWAP and ruin the P part

I have been knitting, school term time being prime knitting opportunity (swim class, music lessons, cross country carnival etc, etc), and just finished this wrap top for my daughter. She picked the colour, and design, saying she wanted it for dance class, but look how nicely it goes with the pale blue SWAP skirt, and a BWOF blouse that I made her last year.


Do you think it looks better than this knitted cardigan type top that was the original SWAP contender?



I expect that we will end up with another 20 garment wardrobe, and still have trouble finding 11 items that mix and match perfectly. This wardrobe planning is tough.
I am still planning to make the flippy skirt, but have traced out a pencil skirt pattern from Burda 3/10 this morning before work, in order to make a patterned denim skirt that is apparently urgently needed. I am inclined to make the recipient sew it herself , but she is finishing a very complicated wall hanging for Home Economics over the holidays, and just doesn't have spare time. I, on the other hand, must have plenty!

McCall's 5522

I bought this pattern for myself, after I saw it was not only a Pattern Review favourite for 2009, but has multiple front bodice pieces for different cup sizes.I am not at all fond of making full bust adjustments.



However, my daughter beat me to this pattern. She asked for the full on, puffy sleeved, ruffled, over the top version A, with the in between length sleeve from version B.I was a little dubious - the monstrous sleeve gathering and the 2 inch wide front ruffle worried me.
I was then a bit annoyed to find that this pattern is only multiple cup size for larger than B cup, she needing an A, but I lazily used the pattern piece that stated it was for A and B - doesn't McCall think there is a difference? I thought the ruffle would be sufficiently disguising in this area to allow some laziness.





As usual, my daughter's eye for what suits her is better than mine.
This blouse is made from a $4 piece of probably poly cotton from the Op shop (that is vernacular for "Opportunity Shop" Elizabeth, and yes, it is apparently known elsewhere as a thrift or charity shop. I will have you speaking Strine yet!). I chose this fabric due to my doubts about the puffiness, and the drape seems just right (the price was even better). I still think the sleeves could be overwhelming in a fabric even slightly more crisp.

In the interests of full disclosure I admit that I used my overlocker to finish nearly every seam in this garment. This caused some problems with the hem - overlocked seams being rather difficult to fit through a narrow hem foot, and also some muttering when I found that the lower part of this blouse did not fit at all ( I used size 8 - according to my daughter's top half measurements) - see the godets I insterted at the back?



In the end I cut off the horrid overlocked seams in order to instert these. I think this sort of outcome is why I do not use my overlocker as often as I feel I should.
I also took in the shoulders around 3 cm, again after I had overlocked the seams to finish them - I was lazy again, and just sewed 1.5cm inside the original seamline.



My daughter is extremely pleased with this blouse, and wants it in her SWAP. This means that the pale blue trousers and skirt have just been evicted from the plan, as the colour is too close for the garments to be worn together. I am thinking of a nice grey flippy skirt from Burda 1/2010.

Burda World of Fashion 09-2008-126 blouse

. Technical drawing from Burda website
The next blouse for my daughter's wardrobe plan is from the September 08 Burda World of Fashion magazine again. I have made the short sleeve version, but gathered the sleeve instead of pleats, as I have used this short sleeve with pleats or tucks on the last two blouses.

I made a size 36, which meant I had to scale down a size, and shortened the sleeves by about 7cm, as they looked quite dowdy at the original length when gathered. This was a bit of an unpleasant surprise, as the tucked and pleated versions looked fine to us at the pattern length.

You may be able to see in the back view that I did use the elastic gathering at the waist at the back. When I first finished the blouse, and tried it on for placement of the elastic, I did not think the elastic was necessary, as there is not much ease in the blouse. However, my daughter felt that the blouse was too boxy, so we compromised on no front waist gathering, but including the back waist gathering, but well above pants level, as gathering right at the pants waist looked rather messy with the blouse worn tucked in.
The real feature of this blouse is the concealed button placket. I think I did this backwards, but the end result is OK.

I made some construction changes to the blouse. In the magazine, the yoke is unlined.
I chose to line it with white batiste, and used a no-hand-sewing technique gained from making dozens of baby dresses. First you sandwich the back between the yoke and lining.

Then you pin the yoke to the front, right sides together, then twist the yoke lining around the armscye so that you can sandwich the front bodice between the yoke and lining. This gives a neat finish. On a baby dress it also prevents the baby's skin from irritation due to exposed seams.

The only other change I made to the pattern was to use white shirting scraps for the undercollar and inner collar stand. The fashion fabric print showed through, and I did not like this effect.
Materials cost: Pattern - free as magazine previously used
Fabric - left over cotton print (Laura Ashley dress) from Spotlight at $8.99 per metre, about 1.3 m $12
Buttons - recycled
Thread, interfacing $3.
=$15.

Burda World of Fashion 08-2009-121 skirt

Just ignore the blouse. The garment I have just made from the August 2009 Burda magazine is the skirt. (technical drawing from Burda website) It has a side zip and a back walking ease opening not shown above, I think the most fun thing about this pattern is the front shaping and hip pockets.
I had some trouble with this skirt. The reviews for this skirt at patternreview seem a bit lukewarm to me, reporting a very narrow fit at the hips and some other fitting issues. However my difficulties with this pattern were quite different.
I found the hips on this skirt to be huge. I took fully 2 inches from the hips and more from the waist for size 38 on my daughter. To be fair, my daughter has slim hips but a generous backside, considering her BMI of 18, but 2 inches is a lot more than I usually need to remove. It is not so unusual for me to take in the waist for my daughter's clothes, but after removing 3 inches, the waist is still rather large.

I think I may have made a mistake in my tracing of the front waistband. Even after removing 2 inches from the hips, and 3 from the waist of the skirt body, it was too short.
I had trouble making the front pockets sit nicely. Dawn's review of this skirt suggests that the front pockets should be caught in the center front skirt seam as a stay, but the pockets on my version were not close enough to the centre seam for this to occur.

Possibly my fabric choice is not wonderful. I used cotton twill (gabardine) from Michael's fabrics, and it may be a little too light, and a little too stiff, for this skirt.

My other fitting changes included adding darts to the back yoke. Unfortunately this fabric shows the outlines of the tucked in blouse. Maybe I should have lined it.

However, worn with a blouse over the waistband, this is quite a flattering skirt, and having no lining makes it cool to wear.

I am tempted to make this again in denim for a more casual look.

One new thing I have tried with this project is the addition of a stretched out metal eye to the top of the walking vent. I thought I saw this in either the most recent issue of Threads or of Australian Stitches, but a brief flick through these magazines is not showing me this tip. The story is that it will prevent the back seam from undoing. I will see how it works.

Another BWOF 09-2008 Frankenpattern blouse/ Vogue 8322

The next SWAP blouse was originally to be Vogue 8322.

However, I was not really keen to fit this princess line blouse for my daughter, especially as the fabric earmarked for the next blouse was a crinkle stretch cotton blend, which is not the easiest fabric to sew. I wanted to keep seamlines to a minimum.
Instead I laid the size 8 neckline and front of view C from the Vogue pattern over the BWOF 09-2008 pattern for the blouse that I made earlier. I lined up the centre front lines, and thought hard whilst I was cutting out so as to remember the difference between the non-seam allowance and full seam allowance pattern pieces. The sleeve is 09-2008-126 again,this time constructed with the pleats, placket and cuff as shown in the magazine.


I was not fully confident about the back neckline, as although the length of the 2 pattern pieces was the same on the stitching line, the shape was different, but I decided to try it in the BWOF shape with the Vogue upright collar and see how it went.
The upright collar was not a success. It is too high, and looked nothing like the line drawing. This could be a) my different back neckline b) the stretchy, crinkle fabric or c) the pattern. Fortunately, both my daughter and I like the collar worn turned down, even though this shows the different facing fabric.

The different facing fabric is one of the strategies I attempted to minimize the inherent problems of sewing crinkle fabric. I was not able to match the colour of the grey crinkle fabric exactly, but fusing dark interfacing to pale lavender batiste made a toning shade to the grey, and a firm fabric base to use for the front facings and collar. My other crinkle fabric strategies were to sew woven selvage to the shoulder seams for stability, to bunch up the sleeve fabric when sewing the armscye, and the hem, to minimize rippling, and some retrofitting at the shoulder seams, front tucks and side seams once the garment was sewn as it was a little too large due to the fabric ease.

Unfortunately this fabric does not photograph well. The lycra in the stripes gives the fabric a subtle sheen, which reads as overall shiny through the camera. In real life this is a much more matte fabric than it looks on my computer monitor.



Materials cost: Fabric: 1.3m cotton blend crinkle fabric from Sckafs fabrics, $26, batiste, about $2
Pattern: Vogue 8322 from USA, about $11 inc postage
Buttons: 5x 65c, $3.25
Interfacing and thread: $3
$45.25

....................................................................................
Answers to questions and responses to comments from previous posts

The Slapdash Sewist asked re BWOF 09-2008-107 "Is it comfortable to pull on and off? Wovens without a button front seem like they'd be too constricting."

The blouse is made of an extremely stretchy, stretch woven. As Claudine commented, this stretchiness makes the blouse easy to pull on over the head, although it is fitted. My daughter finds it quite comfortable to wear. I was actually able to try this on myself, to get an idea of the shape on me, even though I am quite a bit larger than my daughter.

Neighbourhood gal asked "What kind of work does your daughter do? She looks so young to be working."

Queensland is the only state in Australia to not have an age minimum for employment, although there are restricted hours for workers of school age. The minimum age for employment in other states is 14 years and 9 months, which is less than my daughter's age. There are exceptions for some jobs, such as newspaper deliveries, and for family businesses. My daughter carries out reception and administration tasks in one of our family businesses, for 2 hours, twice a week after school, and as a relief worker for the vacations of other staff in school holidays.

Gail commented "Your daughter has amazingly sophisticated taste for a young girl. My dds are all jeans, t-shirts and mini skirts.

Our business has a strict dress code. I wrote it :). My daughter wears t shirts, shorts and sundresses at home. These are work clothes, and she selects them according to the dress code, which is rather limited.

Patricia commented Did you know that there is a lovely little sewing tool called a "Sharpie" It is a permanent felt tip marker with a fine point? The intended use of which is to tone down/alter thread mishaps such as yours. I have them in a huge range of colours. It might be worth a try if the thread colour continues to bother you."

This sounds like a great tool. I have not come across Sharpies locally. Does anyone know where I can buy these in Australia?

Thank you for all your comments and questions. I really appreciate the feedback.
Karen

Burda World of Fashion 09-2008-115 frankenpattern blouse

I made version B of this blouse from the September 08 Burda magazine back in June (plain collar). My daughter really likes the first version, so for her next SWAP blouse, I planned a summer version of the same pattern. Unfortunately, she is now the next size, so I had to trace it out again. Boo Hiss.

Whilst I was tracing it out again, I decided to make different sleeves. These sleeves started as the sleeves from #126 from the same issue. There does not seem to be a technical drawing of the 126 sleeves on the website, but basically they are pleated short sleeves into a cuff. I had to scale down to a size 36, then I flared out the bottom of the sleeve a little so that I could make inverted pleats mimicking the inverted tucks on the blouse front and back. They are held in place by a strip of contrast fabric. It was not going to be constrast, but I had none of the cream and blue check left, not even a scrap for sleeve trim. See that contrast inner collar stand and pieced, bias cut collar? That is fabric squeezing, not a planned choice.

I am quite pleased with the sleeves, and would be even more pleased with them had I been able to wait to make them until I could buy some more dark grey thread. That pale grey is really showing up in the photo! I am not good at waiting for sewing supplies before finishing a project. If I feel bored one day I will unpick this (not likely)

This time, I had to release the back tucks at the bottom for fitting. The tucks end about 7 cm below the waist, which does not allow for any backside. Models must have flat backsides. In the photo my daughter is wearing the blouse with the 12-2009 pants again.
Materials cost: Fabric - I am tempted to call this a scrap, as it is left over from a 7 year old work blouse for me (still in my wardrobe, in near rag state, this is a good excuse to throw it out), however, there was about 1 metre + scraps left, and the fabric was around $20 per metre from Kerryn's Fabric World. It is good quality medium weight cotton, and wears very well :) =$20. (cotton quilting scraps for inner collar and sleeve trim, free)
Pattern - free, second use of pattern
Buttons - recycled. I love these square buttons.
Thread and interfacing $3

Total $23.

Burda World of Fashion 03-2009-105 pleated skirt

I am still working from March 2009 Burda Magazine. I liked this skirt as soon as I saw it in the magazine, and even more after I saw a few reviews. I think this was the skirt from which I took Quilt Sew Sue's brilliant button tab-at-the-top-of the zip tip.


Mary Nanna made an interesting comment about Burda's use of a slightly older model for this issue. I think this particular skirt looks smart on this model, much better than the belly gather blouse, but agree with Mary Nanna that not everything the model is wearing in the magazine seems to fit properly. This really shows up design issues for those of us with post teenage figures. However, as I made this skirt for my teenage daughter, I did not need to worry about such issues for this project :).
I find this photograph very amusing. My model was waiting for me to get organized, with her library book. Does anyone else find it odd that the Burda model has an English language newspaper?

My main concern was that this skirt, selected by my daughter in the full knowledge that it was to be made from navy blue cotton twill, would look exactly like a school uniform skirt. My daughter has no particular dislike of navy blue, (her school uniform being a green and white plaid) and she assures me that the nifty pockets and knee length remove this from school uniformishness. (Her school uniform has to be worn at mid calf length - highly unflattering, but I digress)


The skirt went together quickly. I made a straight 38, then took in all the pleats and the side seams at the waist. I used Sharon's recent tutorial for the invisible zip, so naturally, for about a 1/1000 chance, I did not need to move the zip (Sharon's tutorial lets you do this easily). Burda had a whole extra page with illustrations for the pocket, so this was easy too.


The only change I made to the pattern was to bind the facing, and to edgestitch only near the waist seam instead of topstitching at the bottom of the facing.


I finished the hem as Burda suggested, but if I was to make this skirt again, for someone who will not grow out of it in 3 months, I would blind stitch or handstitch the hem, as I can see it. This is piece 4 of my daughter's work SWAP.
Oops, nearly forgot the materials cost
Fabric: Cotton herringbone twill from Michael's Fabrics @$AUS12 per metre, 1.3m =$16
Button and zip recycled (that would be why the zip is dark purple, but hey, it is invisible) =0
Interfacing, call it 10c, Pattern, free as second use of magazine,scraps for binding, free, thread $3.
$19.10

BWOF 03-2009-109 blouse,

This blouse is one that caught my eye straight away when I first saw the March 2009 issue of Burda World of fashion, but not in a good way.

I really dislike the isolated gathers below the bust. The magazine photograph looked horrid and unflattering IMO.

(Photographs from Burdastyle website)
However, when my daughter and I were looking through the Burda magazines for SWAP ideas, she fancied the neck and placket on the line drawing. She asked, could I gather the whole front? She has good ideas. Normally, I make a small bust adjustment for her, gathering from above the bust instead worked nicely IMO, and was much less trouble.

Here is the blouse worn loose, over the 12-2009 trousers I already showed you.



I have used machine embroidery (mode3, #68 on Janome 6600) in pale grey thread on the neckline and placket. I have also tried to make the fastening snaps invisible from the right side, rather than use them as a decorative element as shown in the magazine.

I also used machine embroidery on the cuffs. Neither of us liked the ties in the magazine, so the cuff is just sewn in the round.



I like the blouse best worn tucked in.



Materials Cost:
White cotton shirting fabric, about 160cm wide I bought the end of a roll at a closing down sale for about $6 per meter. Call it $7
Pattern - the first use of this magazine, so $10.55
Thread, one roll of white, one roll of grey, $6
4 snaps, at $1 for 20 pairs, and a smidgeon of interfacing
Total, approximately $24.