Loohoo Originals

A gown for a Vegas wedding

2011-12-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

My husband and I were lucky enough (or unlucky, you choose) to be invited to 4 weddings this year, and every dress I wore was made by me, although that wasn't my intention. Vegas in November was the last of them, and I was all set to go store bought for this one. The only request was that it be floor-length. I ordered a great dress online (navy one-shoulder with beading and a slit), it came and fit perfectly except for the length. And the value.

It was polyester jersey with a poly lining, no inner structure at all except for clear elastic applied to the neckline. And $270. No no no no no. I just couldn't do it. I had about 3 weeks to either hem it or come up with plan B. So I ordered fabric swatches from Emma One Sock of this high-tech stretch matte crepe that was touted as a cross between 4-ply silk crepe and matte jersey. They of course arrived in about 2 days, and I loved the color of the navy. I could tell even from the swatch that it wasn't as drapey as the poly jersey, or even true matte jersey, but decided to work with it anyways. More on that later.

I made a copy of the original dress, using a combination of laying the pieces flat over butcher paper and tracing, and measuring seam lengths and hem/strap width. Since the dress is gathered along one side, it's pretty tricky, but I think I was able to get really close. Paying attention to the grain will tell you how much you need to spread the pattern on the side to get the same amount of gathering. It was the same front and back, if you can believe that. I know, I tried it on both ways and it fit the same.

Yes I returned the dress. Within a week's time, and it was no worse for the wear. If you have a problem with this stop reading, obviously my moral compass is not the same as yours. I don't plan to make a habit of this, or do anything else with the pattern.

The fabric was very substantial on it's own, so even though the original dress had a full poly lining (it seemed really flimsy to me, but actually did the job under the nicer poly jersey), I only used a partial lining to the waist. For the beading, I found this gorgeous trim at Shine Trim's website. I actually much prefer this to the one color seed beads sewn to the original dress, and I made mine go down all the way to the top of the slit. Having it stop at the hip looked off to me.

My copy, and the original

When the fabric arrived from EOS, I was able to give it a better stretch test, and it had much less than the jersey. Gathers also lay very different with drapey vs firm-bodied fabric. Not necessarily a bad thing, but any time you change out one fabric for another with the same pattern, even just the color, the results can be unpredictable. I think I added 2-3 inches to the pattern around the body to account for the decrease in stretch, and an inch in the bodice for the lack of drape. I was in a time crunch so I did not make a muslin. (GASP! THE HORROR!) (I never do this, especially not with a brand new pattern).

Either my skills have increased or I got really lucky (probably both), because the fit was really good right off the bat. I couldn't even try it on until I had most of it together anyways. I ended up taking it in around the hip level and below, although the pattern of the jersey dress was straight down from the hip, on the body it curves in more due to the fabric drape. Since mine didn't have the same drape (not that it was stiff at all, it just wasn't drapey jersey), I had to create that look by taking in the side seams.

Inside of dress showing neckline and lining

Inside of dress showing lining and armhole

My invisible zip came out great the first try, although I did make sure to interface the opening, and there's not much that isn't easier on an industrial machine with the right foot. ( You haven't lived until you've inserted a zip with a real metal invisible zip foot instead of those flimsy plastic ones they usually sell for this purpose).

Closeup of beading, and seam with invisible zipper

I applied the beading last, handstitching it down over the gathered side seam. I finished the seams on my serger, and also serged a blind-stitched hem. The fabric behaved beautifully on both the industrial straight stitch and the serger.

Hem

I got a lot of compliments on the dress, and spent about $130 total on the materials. The fabric is so much nicer than the original dress, it feels substantial and has a lot less sheen. The gathers don't lay as flat as the jersey though, and if the fabric were any stiffer I don't think they would have worked at all. But I'm happy I was able to anticipate the differences and make allowances for them.

Original dress

My Copy

Karina Grimaldi maxi dress knockoff

2011-05-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

I've been drooling over this Karina Grimaldi maxi dress on shopbop for awhile now, and finally decided to do something about it over the weekend. Here is the description from shopbop.com's website.

This scoop-neck jersey maxi dress features a racer back and a striped skirt. Unfinished hem. 1.5" straps.

* 56" long, measured from shoulder.
* Fabrication: Jersey.
* 100% modal.
* Hand wash or dry clean.
* Made in the USA.

I started with my favorite tank top pattern, and changed the back to more of a racerback style. I lowered the neckline as well. For the skirt part I cut wide crosswise strips, then serged them together to make panels for the front and back. The only tricky part was figuring out how wide to make them, I really liked the proportions on the model but seeing as I'm not 5'10" I wasn't sure it would work. I tried to guess how long the skirt portion would be, divided that by 5, and came up with 7.2" based on my height. I cut the strips 8" wide (including seam allowances), making them wider at the bottom. I measured another maxi dress of mine to see how wide the bottom needed to be (~35"), and just made the strips narrower as I went up until it matched my hip measurement. Once I had the front and back skirt panels, I pinned them together and serged straight a-line side seams, cutting off all the excess. Even with good planning, I still had to make adjustments as I went along so it would hang parallel to the floor, pinning it to the tank top until I liked how it looked.

8" wide strips serged together

I used 11oz rayon/lycra jersey from Emma One Sock. Whenever I need a good quality knit I head straight for Linda's website. I know her fabrics are always excellent quality and when I spend the time to sew something I don't want to run into pilly knits or poor recovery. Not to mention the time saved not having to look all over the place for the right fabric. I got a yard of the almond and 1.5 yards of the black, and had enough leftover for probably a tank top from each. ~$50 in fabric, versus $196 for the RTW dress. In addition I added a power mesh lining to the top part of the skirt, the 11oz weight isn't see through but in a light color it needs something.

Inside out: power mesh half lining

I did my usual neckline/armhole finishing using my right angle binder, I took some photos right after binding this time so you can see what it looks like before being turning to the inside and topstitched. Depending on how much the strips get stretched when applying the binding, the fabric may look pretty puckered, but it usually turns out okay once it's on the body. I always do a test run to see if the fabric will behave in the binder, some fabrics are just too thick or stretchy for it.

Top: after binding Bottom: after topstitching binding to inside

This is what the top of the dress looks like laying down, not too hot, right? But when worn everything stretches out flat and those openings are nice and stable.

I spent about 8 hrs total on this, which would have been way faster with a full pattern but I do like the flexibility of the tweaking process. Having a dressform to work on is a huge help when trying to picture proportions and lengths.

Yes I am a silk snob

2011-05-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

I tried on this henley tank in Target the other day and loved the shape, but not the fabric. It was polyester and already clinging to me in the dressing room. Fortunately I've got a nice stash of silk prints, including this Cynthia Steffe print from Emma One Sock a few years ago.

I used some old poly to drape the shape on my dressform, cutting and pinning until I was happy with the neckline, armholes, and width. Then I took it apart, traced the pieces onto butcher paper with my tracing wheel, and balanced the pattern so both sides would match. I added seam and hem allowances and the pattern was ready to go.

I used my favorite neckline/armhole binding technique, applied with my industrial right angle double-fold clean finish binder, then turned to the inside and topstitched. I chose not to staystitch the armholes, but ended up handling the fabric more than I usually do so I got some stretching in that area. It's not horrible but usually this binding technique lies perfectly flat or even hugs the body, and it's standing away a bit in the armholes. Lesson #1: Always stabilize bias areas shortly after cutting to preserve the shape.

I used this method to make the neckline placket, I had used it before on the sleeves of one of DH's shirts and found it simple. Not quite as accurate as I'd like, and I had issues with the dimensions given for the strip. (I used a 2 inch strip to begin with). One of these days I need to try two-piece plackets. Also, I only used interfacing on 1/2 the strip, I was worried about making the placket too stiff in this lightweight silk. However this wasn't enough stabilization, the buttonholes distorted the strip a bit. I used the lightest weight interfacing I had, and it probably would have been fine interfacing the whole strip. Lesson #2: Always stabilize openings.

I used an industrial wire hemmer attachment to turn the 3/16" hem, I haven't perfected my technique with it yet but it's passable and so much faster than any other method that I just keep trying to do better each time.

Even with the issues listed, I still love the tank and will get a lot of use out of it this summer. It's a great shape and length to go with skinny pants and jeans.

Here is the construction order (all done on Juki industrial straight stitch):

French seam one shoulder seam.
Bind sewn armhole and neckline. (right angle binder)
French seam other shoulder seam. (on Janome machine to avoid taking binder off Juki)
Bind other armhole
French seam side seams.
Hem (3/6" wire hemmer)
Turn in and press neckline/armhole binding, topstitch.
Mark and cut slit for placket
Sew placket strip to opening, press into shape and topstich.
Buttonholes (Janome)
Buttons (Janome)

Leather Wrap Belt

2010-03-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

I have been sewing on and off, but as you can see I haven't been blogging about it. This is one of my more recent projects, after seeing this belt in a boutique on vacation I was inspired to go home and recreate it. They wanted ~$200 for it in store, and I immediately thought of this piece of red leather I stashed at the PR weekend in LA that was sitting on my fabric shelf.

I'm not going to post any kind of tutorial, it's a small designer and if you're interested in purchasing one you can read about the company here. There's not a lot of pictures online either, I did this mostly from memory since I didn't take pictures in the store. If you have a chance to check one out instore, do it! It's a great design, although not something I've never seen before. It's easy enough to figure out. There are velcro closures on the inside so it's continuously adjustable through about 5 inches of waist measurement.

This was my first time sewing leather, and honestly it was a breeze on my industrial. This is a lighter weight leather (lambskin I think) and it handled it just fine. I broke one 90 needle when sewing through the velcro, but the rest was easy, and I sewed the lining to the leather with a sz 70 needle. They make special leather point needles, but the regular/sharp point worked just fine.

Iterations and binding techniques

2009-09-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

I made another DVF Julian a few weeks ago and already wore it to work, I was making this pattern for a friend of mine and while I had it out decided to cut one for myself. This fabric is a rayon/lycra print from Emma One Sock, my favorite fabric dealer, er, I mean supplier. :-)

Rayon/lycra 'leafy stalks' print in blue, black, and brown on cream

For this fabric I chose to finish the edges by serging 1/4" clear elastic to the neckline and front edges in one pass, then turning to the inside and topstitching. I use a special elasticator foot for my serger, which helps guide the elastic exactly on the seamline and has a tension screw to set how much I want the elastic stretched while it's being serged. Around the neckline I want enough stretch so the fabric puckers a bit when laying flat, when worn wrapped and tied it flattens out and prevents any gaping. When I get to the front edges of the skirt, I undo the tension on the elastic so it doesn't pucker.

The serged elastic provides a nice edge for turning under, it's super easy to get a 1/4" fold.

The dress I made for my friend is the same pattern, but I added some fun details: fake pockets, shoulder tabs, and buttons. Look familiar? She liked it so much I found some poly/rayon/lycra doubleknit that would look similar to the wool. She chose silver-tone metal buttons for hers.

For this fabric, I chose to use double fold binding, as far as I can tell it's exactly what DVF uses to finish the edges of her dresses. It's the same thing as bias binding, except it's done with a clean finish double fold binder for an industrial machine, and you don't preform the fabric. The binder I have takes a 1" strip of fabric, and forms a 1/4" binding. It's designed for light-medium weight fabrics, so when this doubleknit passes through it stretches it a bit, which accomplishes the same thing as stretching the elastic. I use crossgrain strips of fabric, and on the first pass bind the raw edge. Then I turn the whole thing, so the binding is completely on the inside, and topstitch. This edge is very stable and durable.

Industrial binder, it wraps a strip of fabric around a raw edge, making a clean finish.

Lying flat, the front also looks slightly puckered, which is a good thing.

This binding also provides a nice edge for turning under, and I usually topstitch from the inside to make sure I'm catching the binding. Make sure your stitch looks nice from the wrong side though, you may have to loosen up the top tension to be sure the thread is pulled into the fabric.

Simplicity maxi dress

2009-09-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to get caught up with recent projects, this last weekend was quite productive so I'm starting there. :-) I've been wanting a maxi dress for at least 2 years now but never got around to buying/making one. After seeing Cidell's version of this Simplicity pattern (3503) I knew I had to make it up. I recently cleaned and reorganized my sewing room (need to take some pics of that too!) and went through all my fabric, and found a small piece of brown silk jersey, and a larger cut of a DVF brown/cream silk jersey print I bought at Britex in San Francisco with my sister that would be perfect for it.

I made the halter neck, long version, mostly in a size 8 but I had to make a lot of adjustments. I made a muslin first, and from that made the following:

-Narrowed the top back piece by 1/2" on each side (making it less than a size 6!)
-Narrowed the back band by the same amount
-Removed 3/4" from the bottom of the top back piece at the CB, tapering to nothing at the side seams
-Removed 1/2" from the back skirt at each side seam
-Narrowed the neckline and armholes by 1/8" on the lining pieces
-Added a top back lining, used wider elastic in the back and sewed a seam between the fabric and lining for a casing
-Raised the pockets by 1" (they were oddly low)
-Added bra cups inside the lining
-Darted the lining instead of gathering like the outer fabric
-Interfaced all the solid top pieces of brown silk jersey with pro-sheer elegance from Sew Exciting

I wasn't planning on fully interfacing the top, but after fusing a test piece I was loving the way it looked. It just made it look expensive. LOL

I made some changes to the construction order, in general I sewed all the front pieces together, then all the back pieces, and finally joined them at the side seams. This made it easier to adjust the side seams in one go if I needed to. Once I was happy with the top, I serged the skirt on following the instructions. I understitched the lining around the neckline and armholes to keep it from peeking out.

I didn't have enough brown silk jersey to do a self lining, and I also didn't have any thin foam bra cups in my stash. I solved both these problems by buying a clearance dress at Ross for $11, it was made of a decent quality poly and had bra cups in it. I cut it apart, and got almost a couple yards of fabric from the skirt, and some great bra cups. Sometimes the fabric store is not the only place to get supplies!

And finally, I have to thank DH for pinning the hem for me. I was having a hard time getting it just above the floor, so I talked him into helping me. I had to stand there for close to a half an hour, but boy is it even! He did a good job. :-) I did my usual not-so-blind hem finish on the serger.

Can you handle another Simplicity cardiwrap?

2009-09-15T07:52:00.001-07:00

Jumping on the bandwagon, I decided to make a cardiwrap from some Carolina Herrera heavyweight viscose sweater knit I got from Emma One Sock. I bought this fabric back in February, with some type of wrap in mind so after seeing all the great versions lately (love Christina's!) I decided it was time to cut into it. This fabric is super drapey, medium-heavyweight, with a distinct knit stitch to it, and a nice sheen to the ivory color. I made a muslin from some thin rayon jersey first, and decided it would work with the weight of this fabric. What I didn't think about was the slippery-ness of it! It is so fluid and smooth when I throw it over my shoulder it falls right off. LOL Fortunately it will hold a knot, so I can tie it in the front or tie the two corners together and put it behind my neck (forgot to take a pic of that one). But my favorites for this fabric are definitely loose as is and with a belt.

I think this pattern (Simplicity 2603) is great for the overall stylelines, the shape of the front pieces and the gathered neckline are fantastic. However when I was comparing the sleeve and armhole shapes to my TNT self drafted patterns for my knit wrap dresses, the Simplicity pieces were terrible. The sleeve cap was way too short and had way too much ease. I prefer a higher cap with stable knits, I think it lays better. I used a size XS here because, surprise, Simplicity had an inch or so of ease in the bust for a KNIT pattern. I usually use negative ease for knits, and I wanted it to fit snugly, so I sized down. I completely scrapped their sleeve pattern, and traced my own armhole onto the Simplicity pieces. I had to add to the back neckline seam to get all the seamlines to match up, but the shoulder seams were already pretty close to the right length so it wasn't too hard. I also made a full-length sleeve, it hangs to about the top of my thumb. It's so much easier to take pics on the dressform, but my shoulders are actually a tad wider and it looks better with the arm filled out. This is view C, the shorter length front.

I had a hard time trying to figure out how to finish the raw edges, most people have been making this from jerseys that can be left raw as they don't fray. This fabric doesn't necessarily fray, but it does get a bit fuzzy looking, especially after being tied and stretched. I experimented with a bunch of finishes, including several on my serger. All of them were giving me a lettuce edge effect which I didn't want for this. Finally I tried a shell stitch on my sewing machine, and it looked great and had the elasticity and recovery I needed. I was practicing on scraps first, and was a little worried that it would look old-fashioned on the actual garment, but I just love how it looks.

I think it adds something very special to an amazing fabric and a great style. It was easy to do as well, I used my blind hem foot to help me turn under an accurate 1/4" of fabric as I went, no pressing involved. I did all the edges before putting it together, I would definitely recommend this as it's much easier to do before you construct the neckline. The hems can be done after you serge the side seams. I also set the sleeves in flat, and stitched in the ditch at the neckline to secure the neck piece and cover the elastic.

Oh and want a tip for using a decorative stitch, or any stitch really, on a hem? Before you try to stitch over those side seams, trim off a little bit of the seam allowance, fold it under and press with your iron, then take a hammer and pound it flat. Yes a hammer. I believe they sell 'sewing hammers' made of plastic, but I use a regular old hammer and it works just fine. You want to get the bulky side seam as flat as possible to make it easier for your machine to pass over the area, and believe me a hammer does a much better job than your iron. Try it. But watch your fingers. Not that I've ever whacked mine while trying to hold the fabric in place. :-) I forget where I heard this tip, but it was probably at Fashion Incubator. Thanks Kathleen.

A dress form and much-needed tank tops

2009-08-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

I'm super excited about my latest craiglist acquisition, a Dress Rite professional dress form. I just picked her up last Thursday, for a great price and in almost new condition. She has collapsible shoulders, linen covering, thick padding, and is on a sturdy wheeled frame with fully adjustable height. I've had so much fun playing with her this weekend, draping fabric is a breeze on a form, and combining outfits is so much easier. It gives you a very objective look at whatever you are working on. She's a little smaller than me in the waist and hip, so I'll probably try a bit of padding if I want to use it strictly for my own garments. The shoulders and bust are actually really close, it was weird to see my own clothes on her! No name yet, but I am up for suggestions from the blog world. :-)

I've been trying to replace worn items in my closet, and of the 5 favorite tanks I have 3 of them have holes. I made a copy of the pattern (from RTW), which was super easy as its the same thing front and back. Of course the fit isn't 'perfect', but as long as you use a stretch knit it's fine. And the added benefit is you can craft two different necklines, and just wear it whichever way you are feeling that day. I like to make a higher and a lower one on the same top.

The first one I made is from a black bamboo rayon/lycra from Stonemountain Fabrics in Berkeley. I was inspired by this tank from J.Crew and decided to make my own. I cut 5/8" strips of fabric, gathered them using elastic thread in the bobbin, and sewed them to the tank spaced 1" apart. Knits don't fray so you don't have to finish them any other way. Then I bound the neckline and armholes using more strips (1 1/4"), sewing them right sides together while stretching the strip a bit, folding the strip to the inside, and topstitching from the right side catching the raw edge of the strip. I trimmed away the excess strip on the inside. This isn't my favorite way of doing binding but it works. I did all this on my home machine.

And I made another top from this same pattern, from some silk jersey I purchased in Portland at PR weekend. For this one I did the binding differently, this is my preferred method and the one I use on my wrap dresses. I use an industrial double fold binder that takes a 1" strip of fabric and creates a 1/4" binding along the edge. Then I turn the whole thing inside and topstitch. This was all done on my industrial machine. I really need to get around to doing a tutorial on this method. Maybe this weekend. :-)
For hemming knits lately I've been super lazy and using my blind stitch foot on my serger. It's incredibly quick, and if you're not too picky about how invisible it is you don't have to mess with adjusting the foot to get it perfect. I have it set for doing thicker doubleknits, and on these thinner ones the thread is visible from the right side, but it's even and looks better than a topstitched hem.

Back from vacation!

2009-07-25T09:20:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update in case you were wondering where I was. First was the wedding we went to in Burlingame, CA at the Kohl Mansion, which was beautiful, gorgeous, and amazing. I was even able to snap some photos of my husband wearing his wool trousers I made for him. The cleaners did a fantastic job on my dress, the water stain came out and the pressing was amazing. However, I managed to get another stain on it at this wedding, so it's back at the cleaners now, hopefully they can work their magic again.

Kwik Sew 3267, in lightweight wool fully underlined in silk charmeuse. He hates back pockets, so I made single welts then sewed them shut and left off the pocket bags, and sewed on some buttons.

Then we left for a week long camping trip in northern Idaho with my husband's family. We camped in a tent trailer, rode quads, went tubing down the river, and just relaxed for a week. Minus the 30 or so mosquito bites, it was fantastic. Bonnie, our german shepherd, thoroughly enjoyed herself.

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And finally, Vogue put a bunch of patterns on clearance for $5, including this pants pattern. Look familiar?

Remember this dress?

2009-07-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well guess what, I have another wedding to go to this weekend. And I am embarrassed to say this dress has hung in my closet, dirty, since the wedding we went to last summer. With a crappy hem (the fabric, lining, and underlining were all double-folded up together, yikes!) and not quite perfect darts in the back. I meant to fix it so I could take it to the cleaners, but it just never happened.

Anyways, I pulled it out over the weekend and extended the darts in back, they stopped too high and there was a bubble right above the full part of my butt. I guess my ass hangs lower than I thought. Then I chopped a couple inches off the bottom, it was too long the first time, and hemmed it properly. I handstitched the fabric to the underlining, and used my rolled hem foot for the charmeuse lining. I slipstitched the lining down at the back vent and that was it.

It still fits! I think I've lost a few pounds from last summer but I'm happy with it.

The hem could do with a professional pressing, and you can't really see it but I hope those water spots on the skirt come out at the cleaners! Cross your fingers.

Darts are much better now. I'll need a smoother bra but overall the fit in the back is really nice.

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Thank you all for the very nice comments about my last wrap dress! Several of you mentioned taking a horizontal dart out of the lower back that would be hidden by the belt, and that's a great idea that I may do. But right now it's July and I'm afraid that wool dress will sit in my closet until I need to pull it out again. :-)

Dinner at Cindy's

2009-07-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

I've been discussing industrial machines for weeks with my friend Cindy (who I met at pattern review weekends in LA and Portland), and finally invited myself over to her house last night for dinner, machines, and sewing chat. We've been scouring craiglist for used deals, and while I decided on a Juki DDL, she wanted something that was made for heavier duty sewing. She found this Consew walking foot/needle feed combo a couple weeks ago and I think just picked it up last weekend. I got to see it in action last night through no less than 8 layers of denim, and we were both a little scared of the 'beast' after polishing off a bottle of wine.

The walking foot is what you would imagine, a 2-piece presser foot that feeds from the top as well as using the feed dogs on the bottom. But if you've never seen a needle feed before, it's pretty cool. The entire needle bar stabs through the fabric and moves front to back, taking the fabric with it, then raises after forming the stitch, and stabs the fabric again. If there was any chance at all of fabric layer slippage, this machine would eliminate it. The previous owner had made upholstry with it, and the needles it came with were HUGE. It was hard to believe the machine could punch that monster through that much fabric but it had no trouble.

Consew walking foot/needle feed

Cindy's other new toy is this Tacsew T-500 blindstitcher, which she's had for a few weeks now and has had more time to play with. I'd never used one before so she pressed a hem into some scrap woven for me to try and it worked great! But then we both tried to figure out what the problem was when using knits, and neither of us could get it to work. The knit gets sucked up into the area where the stitch forms after a few stitches, and then doesn't want to feed out the back and gets caught between the feed dogs. We couldn't find any adjustment for foot pressure or feed dog height, so we're stumped as to why the knits won't feed properly.

Tacsew T-500

Cindy preparing to enjoy crock pot pasta and some excellent Merlot her husband picked out. Isn't her top cute? It's a BWOF pattern she altered to look like a current J.Crew top.

Thank you Cindy for a fabulous evening and I hope we get to do it again soon!!!

An almost unfinished project and swayback

2009-06-23T14:12:00.001-07:00

I started this dress last October, from some DVF wool doubleknit I purchased at Stonemountain and Daughter fabrics. I had just made a rayon knit version with fabric purchased during the same trip, and was fresh off a discussion on patternreview about swayback adjustments. One of the suggestions in the thread was this, and as I was quite excited about it at the time I modified my pattern and cut out my nice DVF fabric without even testing it in muslin.

This fix did not work for me. In the back of my mind I was wondering about forming diagonal wrinkles from the shoulder with this alteration but it seemed to work for the other ladies so I forged ahead. I still got fabric pooling in the small of my back, but I ended up with those wrinkles too. And on top of that, the original pattern I used was very plain, which looks great with print fabrics but was downright boring with a solid. I threw it into a pile for at least 3 months, tried it on again and decided it wasn't too bad to wear, and embellished it with some flap pockets, shoulder tabs, longer sleeves, and french cuffs. I wore it quite a bit during the last part of winter, and got a lot of compliments on it. 2 lessons here: always test out pattern alterations before cutting into your good fabric!; and don't be too hard on your 'wadders'. They are probably still better than RTW.

I really like the dress from the front, the pockets/tabs and cuffs help to wake up an otherwise plain dress, and the buttons were from a stash Cidell sent me. (Thank you!!) I didn't have patterns for these, I just constructed them from paper until I was happy with the sizes.

Here's what I don't like. The back of the print dress was pretty good, but there was definitely fabric pooling in the small of my back. The problem is too much length in the CB, not at the side seams. But with no CB or waistline seam, your options for removing it are kind of limited. The fix I tried above attempts to pull it up from the neckline, but as you can see it created diagonal wrinkles from the bottom of my armhole, in addition to not fixing the pool of fabric. I think I will go back to my old standby of darting the CB, laying it on the fold as best as you can, and taking a little out of the side seam. (Like what Marji was talking about in that thread on PR.)

But there's nothing wrong with using that belt to tuck some of the extra fabric under and wearing the heck out of it, right? :-)

DVF surgery

2009-06-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine picked up this dress for me (thank you!!!) at the DVF sample sale last week in NYC, I've been dying to get a dress in this print but kept missing it when one would pop up on ebay, I think it's from Spring 08. I hadn't seen it made up into this style before, I think it was unique to the sample sale. I'm not crazy about bell sleeves, so I decided to turn them into a more traditional DVF style, 3/4 sleeves with a vented cuff.

I already had a pattern for the cuff from my other knockoffs, so it was just a matter of cutting off the bell, narrowing the end of the sleeve, making the cuff, and attaching it.

Before, DVF Greer in Spring Shadows print

After!

In taking apart the bell sleeve, I did discover the method used to attach it, so I thought I'd share that in case it's helpful. The bell is faced on the inside as well, up to where it attaches to the sleeve. The very end of the sleeve is understitched, and there is a 1" section along the vertical seam on the inside that is handstitched closed. They also used 1/4" clear elastic in both horizontal seams, the end of the sleeve and the top.

Here are the pieces:

Outer bell piece (roughly in a trapezoid shape, long edge is the bottom of the bell)
Inner bell piece (same)
clear elastic for top and bottom seams

Steps: (Sleeve is already attached to the dress and vertical seam serged)

Stitch vertical seam of outer bell piece
Stitch vertical seam of inner bell piece, leaving 1" in the middle open
Baste clear elastic to one of the pieces at the top and the bottom of the bell (I definitely saw basting stitches in addition to the serging, but I'm not sure which piece it was on, I don't think it matters)
Stitch the inner and outer pieces together at the bottom of the bell, right sides together
Understitch
Baste the outer bell piece to the sleeve, right sides together
Turn the sleeve right side out, it should look almost done except the inside bell piece hasn't been attached to the bottom of the sleeve.
Now reach through the 1" opening you left in the vertical seam of the inner piece, and pull out the sleeve/outer bell piece (basted together), and the top of the inner bell piece that is unattached.
You need to stitch the inner bell piece to the sleeve/outer bell seam, but you'll have to sew in a circle and readjust the piece as you work, you can't expose the whole seam at once. For a really good tutorial/pictures on how to line this up see Kathleen Fasanella's blog post. This is the same thing you do when bagging the lining in a jacket.
Stuff the seam back through the hole, and press.
Slipstich the 1" opening closed and you're done!

New equipment and PR Weekend Portland

2009-05-26T10:08:00.007-07:00

I have been busy collecting new equipment/gadgets in the last month, and as you can imagine playing with them is way more fun than blogging. No offense.

The first piece I need to share is this Elna Aliz e ironing press. I bought mine from sewinginusa.com, they are one of the few etailers that carries Elna presses. You can't type 'ironing press' into google without hitting a million Simplicity presses, but it took some work to find the Elna. I was looking for a dry press as well, which also made it hard. Most of the presses on the market now come with steam, which means holes in the pressing surface. Tiny holes, but holes. Since I mainly planned on using it for fusing interfacing, I wanted as smooth a surface as possible. The Elna had good reviews on patternreview.com and the price was right, so I went with that.

Features I like:

10 second timer that activates when you close the lid. My favorite interfacing needs 20 seconds, so I close the lid twice and I'm done. :-)
Pressure! Lots of it. (100lbs) I'm convinced this really helps the adhesion of fusibles.
Heat! Well duh. But it advertises 392F and it definitely gets hot on high.
Sturdy, it's got locking handles to move it around and rubber feet that don't slide on the table.
Board is made of Finnish birch, so no warping. At least not yet. (All the other presses use steel mesh). I prefer the way the steam permeates through the fabric with a wood board. The metal mesh on my ironing board isn't the same.
FUSING AN ENTIRE PIECE OF INTERFACING AT ONCE! (yes you need to get one of these)

Features I don't like:

It's 20"x9", and when you are fusing interfacing bigger is better. I can fit two collars, or two cuffs, but not both. it's not long enough for an entire waistband, but it really isn't too hard to move the fabric once part of it is fused. It's still light years better than using an iron. But to go bigger I would have had to get a steam model.
Not really a big deal, but having to use a spray bottle for steam. I mean you have to spray interfacing or a press cloth anyways when fusing, but when I use it to press shirts or something it does slow you down.
It came with a spray bottle, which leaked from day 1. I threw it away.

After I had my press for a few weeks, I was reading a blog post by Kathleen Fasanella at FashionIncubator.com about 'the annoyance factor'. She was talking about how to lower your expenses by examining seemingly low cost processes, and although it's aimed towards production sewing it rang a huge bell with me. If you can save yourself even a few minutes on a task that is done repeatedly, or streamline your process to make it require less work or more enjoyable, the benefit can be a huge bump in productivity. I used to hate fusing interfacing so much I'd put it off or contemplate skipping it. Now I'm looking for the next 'bottleneck' to fix.

After scouring Craigslist.org for a used industrial sewing machine for several months, I finally found one in San Francisco at the beginning of May for a good price. I've been picking up a lot more 'for hire' sewing projects and the allure of an industrial machine, with all it's capabilites and attachments, was too tempting. It was quite the fiasco picking it up at 6 pm on a Friday night, in the rain, lining up movers to carry it down 3 flights of stairs (one flaked, DH had to stand in. OMG), driving a full-size truck with a utility trailer through downtown SF, and unloading it into the house. Whew! But it's here. And it's awesome. :-)

It's a Juki DDL5550N-7 computerized single needle lockstitch with a servo motor. Features:

Adjustable speed servo motor, from turtle to rabbit-on-Red-Bull. (holy cow who sews that fast??)
Auto thread trimmer, activated by depressing the back part of the pedal
Auto back tacking at beginning or end of a seam (or not at all)
Reverse
Knee lifter

Control panel. Does anyone know how to use the thingie on the right, or what the 'eye' and 'fan' buttons do? No idea. LOL

I've only made a couple garments with it so far but the fabric feeding is so much better than my Janome, you can adjust everything (love that), I've decided life before auto thread-trimming sucks, and you can probably buy an attachment that does your laundry and cooks dinner for you. I bought some basic feet (left and right cording, zipper, invisible zipper) and a binder so far and am hooked.

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So the reason for the haste in picking up the machine was the next weekend was PR Weekend Portland and I didn't want to miss out on the deal. I had a fantastic time with the ladies of Pattern Review, and enjoyed meeting some new faces as well as spending quality time with Cidell and Christina. I didn't take nearly enough pictures but here's a few plus some borrowed ones, as well as the fabric stash I came home with.

Fabric-Tan Burberry stripe raincoating, L-R silk charmeuse, cotton shirting, silk jersey

Me, Cidell, and Christina

Cidell trying on my Burberry trench. Don't you hate it when other people look better in your stuff than you do?

Fitting/Tailoring seminar with Pati Palmer

Poofy skirt and twisted band tee

2009-05-26T10:08:00.005-07:00

What do you get when you combine lovely fabric bought with a gift certificate (thanks A.!!), a new industrial sewing machine to play with, a 4-day weekend, and plenty of sewing mojo after a trip? Finished garments. :-)

Copied from RTW top, self-drafted embroidered lawn skirt, Coclico shoes

I knew I wanted something short and poofy with this cream embroidered cotton lawn, but didn't really have an exact pattern in mind. I decided to just make it up as I went along, only deciding on the width of the waistband and the fullness of the skirt. The pieces are all rectangles so it's not hard. I wanted the embroidery pattern on the horizontal so I had to cut the fabric on the crossgrain. Then it's just gathered to the waistband and lined, add a zipper and voila! I had to adjust the side seams on the waistband to really make it hug my waist, but that was it. The skirt and lining only have one seam, in the center back. I serged the edges, then sewed the seams and pressed open. I hemmed them before attaching the waistbands, using a scroll hemmer foot. If you don't have one of these then get one!! No pressing, no marking, just feed the fabric into the foot and get a perfect 1/4" hem (or 1/8"). It worked really really well, although I did pop the fabric out of the feeder and form the hem by hand when going over the side seams. But compared to my usual method of ironing the hem first and using two passes of stiching, this was a breeze.

1/4" scroll-hemmed lawn and batiste lining

Seam finishes

I inserted the invisible zipper using my new Juki and a cording foot (the invisible zipper foot I got doesn't work very well, probably operator error).

Lining/facing all finished by machine

I saw these two fabrics laying together and liked the colors, so I made another one of these tees from a taupy gray rayon/lycra knit It was copied from my favorite RTW v-neck, and I added a twisted binding to the neckline to make a little more interesting. I haven't found a favorite method for attaching this yet, this time I serged it on, folded it over and lined up the offset, and stitched in the ditch from the right side to anchor it. I also serged the raw edges of the hems, folded up and topstitched. This jersey was very flimsy, and the edges kept wanting to roll. I knew if I even attempted my usual double needle approximation of a coverstich it would tunnel like mad.

A little note about the construction order though, I notice a lot of RTW tees/tops do this:

Sew one shoulder seam
Bind the neckline
Sew the other shoulder seam
Sew down the seam allowance at the neckline from sewing the last step
Set the sleeves in flat
Sew the sleeve/side seams
Hems

Binding the neckline while it's still flat makes it easier to handle at the machine, and you also don't have to figure out exactly how long to make the binding before attaching it. I like to stretch mine slightly as I sew to make it hug the neck. You will end up with a little seam allowance on one side of the neckline, so it doesn't look quite as nice as setting in binding traditionally, but for quickie tees and tops I think it's perfectly acceptable.

Everything you ever wanted to know about thread

2009-04-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

I ran across this brochure put out by YLI and thought I'd share. It's a clearly written booklet about thread, including how it's made, materials, sizing and size conventions. It also has a nice overview of machine needle types, how to choose the proper needle, and a good glossary. It's not specific to YLI threads either, it also lists other brands such as Gutterman and Mettler. Enjoy!

A Thread of Truth

And another version

2009-04-06T17:36:00.001-07:00

I did end up making a dress version of the J.Crew tank, and wore it to a friend's bachelorette party. I haven't worn a hemline this short in a long time, but some very nice friends of mine convinced me I could still wear this length. :-) I wore it unbelted but took some pics with a belt, I generally don't like the look on me but maybe with a skinnier belt?

I've got one other project I finished up (a UFO from October) that I still need to post, and I've been working on some pants for DH using this Kwik Sew pattern. They should be done this week. Happy sewing!

Weekend sewing update

2009-03-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm getting a little behind on posting finished projects, my sewing space has officially moved out of the kitchen and into the spare bedroom. The ability to leave my mess untouched during the week when I'm away has improved my ability to jump right back in again on the weekend, leaving less time for blogging! I have a long table now with my sewing machine and serger, the iron/board right next to that, and my dear husband has a cutting table in the works for me. I think he really just wants exclusive use of the dining table for food-related purposes. Either way, yay for dedicated sewing infrastructure!

I bought some of this silk charmeuse a few weeks ago without a pattern in mind, but when I saw this J.Crew halter top I knew I had to knock it off. I used this kwik sew pattern as a quick jumping-off point, and one muslin later it was ready. I already want more of these, and potentially a dress length too.

It's a halter style with a pleated front and a keyhole back, long ties form the straps and knot/tie in the back. You can adjust the neckline with the ties, or place the knot to the side if you want. Used french seams for the side seams, and self-fabric narrow bias binding turned to the inside for the armholes. The neckline is just turned and stitched down to form a casing for the tie. I made this one kind of long for tucking into low rise pants and jeans, but it would work in a shorter length untucked or much longer for a dress even.

I'm thinking of making one of these in a dress length from that Milly silk I found at Hancock's! What do you think?

Trench coat DONE

2009-03-10T09:28:00.001-07:00

This project was starting to turn into the 'coat that didn't want to be finished'. I spent weeks looking for buttons, and when I finally tried to put them on 2 weeks ago my machine wouldn't make the buttonhole on the pocket flaps. It kept getting hung up on all the fabric where the flap attaches to the coat. I must have ripped out 15 tries between the two sides. Yes I did make a lot of samples, even trying to duplicate the layers, but the only time it wouldn't work was on the actual coat. I'm lucky I didn't wreck them in the process, this is some tough fabric!

After scouring the internet for help, I decided to bid on a vintage singer buttonholer on ebay. This one comes with 20 templates for making regular, keyhole, and bound buttonholes, plus an eyelet. It uses the zig zag stitch on your machine but moves the fabric around for you, and it had no problem with the pocket buttonhole. It doesn't look quite as nice as my Janome's keyholes, but it worked the first time. It might be an adjustment issue, but I couldn't seem to make the stitch length short enough to get a dense stitch and going around the template 3 times didn't give the same look. There's a lot of settings to play with, so I'm looking forward to seeing what other styles I can make. I used the eyelet template already on the belt buckle.

You can see my previous work on the trench coat here. I didn't make any fitting changes in the real thing, although I made a few style decisions. I added another row of buttons at the bottom, after wearing it around for a week I thought it needed them. However I must have forgotton to sew on one of the bottom buttons, I had placed it with wonder tape to get the position right and it seems to have fallen off before my photo shoot! I added some more topstitching in places, and I didn't care for the button flap that closes the collar stand. On real Burberry coats there is a metal hook, I may do that.

All buttoned up, I placed a flatter button under the chest flap on top instead of making another buttonhole through the flap. There are 2 buttons on the inside facing.

I've got the belt tied right now, I need to add eyelets and I can't decide if I want silver metal or black stitched.

The top buttons also work nicely to hold the flaps back.

I love the back vent on this one, it's not a slit so there's no drafts!

My 'flasher' pic.

I put a hanging chain in the back, sewn on with black grosgrain ribbon in the collar seam. There are raglan shoulder pads, covered by acetate lining in the sleeves only, set by hand. (Twice! I forgot to topstich the sleeves the first time.) All the seams and hems are bound with rayon seam binding. I also bar tacked the pocket bags to the facing, now they stay put instead of flopping around.

I added 1/4" topstitching to the facings, but I wasn't sure how to end it at the neckline until I looked at some photos. All the real Burberry coats turn 90 degrees where the collar joins the collar stand so that's what I did.

I wore it around for a week already, pardon the wrinkles! I added topstiching to the facing in between the armhole seams. This holds it well enough even though the facing is free in the armhole area.

I used the striped side on the underside of the pocket flaps, the collar, the chest flap, and the sleeve tabs. I didn't think of it until afterwards, but I may have preferred ivory thread in the bobbin.

This was a looooong project but I love the results. I know I will have this coat for years and I'm glad I spent the time on all the little details. This was wonderful fabric to work with and now I'm wishing I had some in tan!

The last seam ripper you'll ever buy

2009-03-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

Maybe Gingher doesn't know how many seam rippers I go through because that's a pretty tall claim. I'm not sure if this is a new product or not but I hadn't run across it before. It's 6 inches long and has a retractable blade.

From Gingher's website:

Gingher's seam ripper features a razor edged cutting blade that safely retracts when not in use. The handle is ergonomically balanced to provide the user with fine cutting control in numerous positions. This tool is beautifully finished with chrome over nickel and comes in its own storage box. With proper use and care, the blade should last a lifetime and is covered by Gingher's guarantee.

It runs about $25 from several stores online and there are a few on ebay too. I've probably spent at least that much on cheapy plastic ones, and I toss them pretty regularly because there's not much I hate more than a dull seam ripper.

Kreativ Blogger

2009-02-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

It's a good thing this award is called 'Kreativ' and not 'Frequent' or I'd never get it. Thanks to Ann Smith and Sewuptight for nominating me, sorry it took so long for me to acknowledge the honor!

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I finally finished up my sewing for hire projects a couple weeks ago and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I made 17 dresses in January, and 5 more in November/December from the same design, in 4 different sizes and 4 colors. I ended up customizing almost all of them, either different hem lengths or morphed sizes. Everyone has been thrilled with them so far, but I'm a little sewed out and my shoulder/elbow is still recovering from all the pressing! But I somehow managed to eek out one for myself after I finished all of them, this is the navy color. The fabric is organic merino interlock from Near Sea Naturals.

The dress has a stand up collar, split cuffs, and side waist ruching. Pretty simple to put together, but the effect is flattering, even if I do say so myself. :-)

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I have been searching for buttons for my Burberry trench coat for weeks, and finally lucked out at Joann's (!) yesterday. On Saturday I made a trip to Stonemountain Fabrics in Berkeley CA, and didn't like anything they had, even from an entire wall of buttons. There were some packaged Dill buttons I liked, but they didn't have enough of them. The Joann's I stopped at had just restocked, and I found these thick, shiny, glossy 4 hole La Modes in 3 sizes and bought them right away. I managed to get the collar attached, with hanging chain, and start on the hems.

I made some practice buttonholes, and decided I like the keyhole style on my machine. I'm having a hard time figuring out where the buttons go though, I thought trenches were supposed to button right over left or left over right? The BWOF instructions only call for buttonholes on the right side, not the left. And it calls for 2 'inside buttons', whatever that means. I'm going to have to take a look at a real trench to figure it out. I'm still looking for a belt buckle, but I think I found some nice leather ones here. My local cobbler can put eyelets in for me.

Trench coat in progress

2009-01-06T12:53:00.000-08:00

I've been putting off attempting a coat, just thinking about the time and effort required was too daunting. However I own exactly one 'nice' coat, a 3/4 length J. Crew wool one, and my closet has been crying out for another one. Not that it gets too chilly here, but I do prefer the longer length in the winter time. The Burberry fabric I bought from Michael's fabrics about a year ago has been calling to me from my stash ever since, and with the almost two weeks I had off around Christmas and New Years I managed to choose a trench pattern, make a muslin, adjust it for fit, and construct most of the coat.

I was looking at two Patrones patterns, and this BWOF from 1/2008. I decided to go with the BWOF due to the raglan sleeves, the fabric is a thick two-sided cotton, and I didn't think set-in sleeves would ease very well.

The line drawing is accurate in my opinion, it is very a-line without the belt and was too voluminous for my liking. With the belt it bunched up too much around my waist even in muslin, so I decided some of the width had to go. However everything else seemed to fit perfectly, the shoulders, bust, collar, and lengths. I thought the arms were a bit wide so I decreased there as well, but overall this was not much tweaking by my usual standards. And there was no gaping or seams not matching up like I usually deal with when using the Big 4. Very refreshing. I traced a 38, without adding seam allowances. I marked the seams on my fabric with chalk and added allowances before cutting. This made it easy to mark the seams at corners and other areas that tend to get mixed up.

About 1/4" removed from the bottom seam of both sleeve pieces. (1/2" total removed) This also decreases the armhole seam length, so I took the same amount from the body armhole seams too.

Almost an inch taken out from the side front seam, most of it at the waist and tapering elsewhere. (2" total taken from the front)

Similar adjustment done to the back pieces, most of the width coming from the waist to give it some shaping there.

For my first coat, I'm thrilled with how it looks so far. I chose to line only the sleeves, and I'm really pleased with the overall weight. The fabric was a dream to sew, it didn't slip hardly at all, even on the long seams, and the seams pressed nicely. It shines from the iron, so be sure to use a press cloth. It looks fabulous with topstiching, and even the single welt pockets under the flaps came out nicely.

I used the stripe side for the undercollar, underside of the front flap, underside of the sleeve tabs, and underside of the pocket flaps. It still needs buttons, hems, a buckle, attach the collar, belt loops, and some more topstiching. I got as far as handsewing the sleeve linings to the armholes, then realized I forgot to topstitch the armhole seams. Grrrrrr!! I couldn't face ripping out the linings, so I set it aside for now. This fabric is way too dense for hand topstiching, my fingers would be bleeding by the time I was done. I used a microtex 90/14 needle for all the construction, I got skipped stiches with a microtex 70/10. An 80/12 probably would have worked too but I didn't have any in my stash. As it was I'm already on my 2nd needle, it needs to be sharp to get through this fabric.

Front, with the belt tied around my waist. Where to find a nice shiny black buckle and buttons?? LindsayT?

Back, what a difference raglan shoulder pads make! When trying it on before putting those in the shoulders had a lot more wrinkles.

Inside, CB seam, side seams, facing edges, and pocket bags are bound with rayon seam binding.

Since I haven't made a coat before, I'm not sure if the pattern would be considered a good one or not. The lining pieces are exactly the same as the body pieces, only with lines marked to stop at the neckline facing. If I hadn't read about adjusting the lining at the armholes (less height needed when not going over the shoulder pad, and adding fabric at the underarm), it wouldn't lay as nicely as it does. There is no separate undercollar piece. If I hadn't had experience with shirtmaking my collar would look terrible. I cut the undercollar smaller, and used the shaping techniques I've used before on the collar and collar band. I also made adjustments to the facings, to account for the turn-of-the-cloth when understiching. None of these things were mentioned in the BWOF instructions, but then again they are pretty brief anyways.

I have some sewing for hire to finish before I can pick up this coat again, but I hope it won't be too long before I can post the finished product!

Merry Christmas!!!

2008-12-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Here's wishing everyone in blogland a happy holiday, whatever or whenever that may be. :-) Here at Loohoo Manor we celebrated Christmas this morning with a few gifts, having spent too much money recently (ahem serger) to justify any more extravagance.

I bought this fabric at Stonemountain and Daughter during my Thanksgiving trip with Christina to make DH a shirt, and have been stealthily working on it ever since. Discreet sewing takes a different skill than speed sewing, but they both have their difficulties. I am terrible about cleaning up my floor when sewing, and will often leave fabric scraps on the ground for weeks. Ask my husband how much he likes that. Anyways, I didn't want to leave scraps from the shirt on the floor for him to see, but I also didn't want to clean up everything or he'd be suspicious of that too. So I painstakingly picked out the shirt bits from the rest and mostly left the mess. I think I should just start cleaning up after myself.

Thanks to Cidell, I was able to finish the shirt yesterday afternoon and have it under the tree before DH got home from work. He wasn't expecting anything so it was a nice surprise. He agreed to model it for you all only if he could pose with his newish gun. *sigh*

The fabric is a 100% cotton, but it's got a unique feel to it, not quite a seersucker but it doesn't hold a sharp press. DH gave the thumbs up.

This was a TNT pattern I had made back in June for his birthday, by copying his favorite short sleeve shirt. All the construction methods are straight from David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking book, which sadly was checked out of the library the other day when I went to get it. I had remembered how to do everything except for the collar band and attaching the collar, but a quick email to Cidell fixed that. I owe that woman a gift basket.

We had plans to go to Idaho to visit DH's family for Christmas, but the storms have dumped so much snow the roads are practically impassible. So we decided to stay home and just relax. I hope to finish up some UFOs and mending, and catch up on a few blog posts. Hope everyone is able to find some time to relax as well!

Hugs and Stitches,
Leslie

Vogue 2981 Pants

2008-12-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to finishing my first pair of pants, this Vogue pattern that Adriana nailed recently. If mine look half as good as hers then I owe partial credit to her for all the help she gave me. Thank you Adriana! The other half of the credit goes to luckylibbet, who kindly invited me over to her home to help fit the muslin and take measurements. It was like talking to a library's worth of fitting books! Thank you H. I guess I'm out of halves, but I also got help from other bloggers and patternreview, you know who you are and thank you!!

Here are the adjustments I made to the stock pattern after all my tweaking:

-Straightened hip curve to a straight line from waist to hip
-Redrafted my own waistband from a piece of 2 1/2" bias canvas
-Added 1/2" darts over the back pockets
-Took in 3/4" from each side seam in the back
-Narrowed legs by 1/8" on inseam and outseam
-Changed slant pockets to double welt pockets

Fabrics and notions:

-An amazing black/white/green plaid stretch wool from Michael's fabrics. It was a dream to press, sew, and wear.
-Black silk underlining
-Cotton/poly pocketing from Charles Zarit Sewing Supply, which I really like since it doesn't tend to wrinkle.
-Black 7" YKK zipper, also from Charles Zarit
-Black rayon seam binding for the inside waistband and hem raw edges

I LOVE these pants. The underlining is far superior to lining, especially for pants. It moves as one unit instead of pants-within-pants. And the hem is handstitched to the underlining, so it's completely invisible. The fit is better than anything I've ever bought, it was worth all the tweaking to get here. And amazingly, I made no adjustments to the CB, CF, or crotch curve. I think I found a pattern that works for me.

This was my first project completed with the help of my new serger, and it was tempting to use it on everything I could! I restrained myself and used it only to serge the underlining to the fashion fabric, finish the fly and fly facing edges, and finish the pocket edges. All places I didn't want extra bulk, and I'm very happy with the look from the outside (no pressing cloth or padding required!), but my inner couture seamstress still prefers the look of a hong-kong or bound finish.

This was also my first attempt at double welt pockets, so naturally I decided to put in FOUR of them. Now to be fair, I did spend several hours just practicing different methods, so I felt pretty good about my technique before I tried them on my real pants. Out of the Vogue instructions, Debbie Cook's tutorial, and Kathleen's, I decided I like Kathleen's the best. It is slightly less bulky and quicker, however it is absolutely essential to make the pressing jig, and to sew incredibly accurate seam allowances. After trying the Vogue instructions, which involved seperate welt pieces, I decided I didn't like any of the methods that have you deal with welt pieces. Both Debbie's and Kathleen's are what I'll call 'integrated' methods, the welts are formed through the sewing and folding steps. It's hard to visualize, even with their great pictures, so I recommend trying them out for yourself.

Yes I matched up the plaid on the waistband and fly too. I didn't know you didn't have to so I was very very careful with the cutting.

I accidentally sewed the waistband facing in the wrong way, however in this case the only thing that happened is the CB seam is now offset, but it does reduce the bulk a little there. I forgot about this when sewing on my label. Oops!

Speed Sewing

2008-12-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

What to do when you've got a Christmas party to go to and nothing to wear? If you didn't sew the answer would be shop. :-) Now the only thing that pops into my head is, "What do I have in my stash?!". I remembered this BWOF pattern I had copied from Cidell's issue, and how she was able to make it on short notice too. I had some stretch wool leftover from another project, and a few colors of silk charmeuse available, so I whipped this up in about 12 hrs total, from the time I started adding seam allowances to the traced pattern. Not bad.

I did do flat pattern adjustments before starting, and I have to say they got me really really close. I straightened the hip curve, adjusted for swayback, and added booty room in the back. I checked the armholes against my favorite TNT silk tank pattern and added a little where it would have gaped, and that was it. The back darts still needed tweaking but it was surprisingly close.

Since this was speed sewing, I committed some sins against fine fabric that I would normally never do. Nothing is lined, although it really doesn't need it with the fabrics I chose. I serged (separately) all the seam allowances, including on the silk (yes, 30 lashes, I know), but did press everything open. I chose to bind the armhole and neck edges instead of creating the ruffles, and I didn't hand baste them down either. I got really lucky my ditch stitching caught almost everything with just pinning, and I was able to redo some areas discreetly. I can't say enough good things about a 70 microtex needle and Coats XP fine poly thread on silk charmeuse. So forgiving.

I asked Cidell for help on this one, and she in turn called up the omniscient Marji, for additional help. Thank you both very much for your quick emails, they were much appreciated. Following their advice I put in a lapped zipper on the side seam, instead of an invisible in the back. It was my first time with a lapped, and it wasn't perfect but I was pleased with it. I can see how it will be much less hard on the fabric. And I do like the side seam location, my CB seam is very curvy and I'm not thrilled with the way zippers lay back there. However, the lap itself, even done well, adds some bulk to the side seam and sticks up more than an invisible. So I'm not crazy with the look, but if I hadn't tried that location I never would have discovered the advantage of the side seam zipper. One caveat though, all the instructions I found for doing a lapped zipper involve basting the seam closed, and when you are all done the area that was basted is visible. My charmeuse still shows the needle holes from that basting. FYI. It was fine on the wool.

This was right before we ran out the door, I had an hour to spare after finishing.

You can't really tell from the pic, but that is a burgundy shanked button. The only one in my stash. I bound the keyhole placket following Claire Shaeffer's High Fashion Sewing Secrets.

Top of the lapped zipper caught in the armhole binding. This held the lap down very nicely over the zipper stop.

Yes that's a brown zipper. It was all I had.

Fabric shopping and another DVF knockoff

2008-12-03T16:57:00.000-08:00

Thank you everyone for the kind wishes, it's amazing to me how many people are all too familiar with that feeling of violation you get after a home burglary.

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I have been sewing a lot lately, but using my limited minutes at the machine and not the computer! So again, I apologize for the lack of updates. I had a fabulous Thanksgiving week, I took the entire time off work and sewed, cooked, played with the dog, and slept. I stayed away from the malls completely, and only stopped into one store on Black Friday, Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley, CA. Christina was visiting from Seattle, so I enticed her with a 20% off coupon they sent me. It wasn't hard.

I snapped up some DVF wool knits for, guess what, more DVF knockoffs. As well as some shirting for DH, silk charmeuse for the top of a dress, and a gorgeous DVF woven that Christina said I just had to have. I will take pics of all of it and post so you can drool too. :-)

Christina and I in front of a wall of silks, that's my Patrones skirt, and she's in a BWOF dress, but you can't really see her fabulous tights or grey suede boots.

I got home from purchasing the fabric at about 2 in the afternoon on Friday, by Saturday at 2 I had a DVF knockoff made for my sister's birthday that night. I was going to get her a gift certificate but I think this went over much better.

It has a funnel neck, gathered front at the side seam, and a plain back. The fabric is a DVF wool double knit with a faint diagonal pattern to it, very soft and stable. When my sister came over for Thanksgiving dinner I had her try on the muslin I had made for this dress, she loved it so I told her I'd make her one for Christmas. She sure was surprised when she opened the box on her birthday!

I was also able to almost finish up my first pair of pants, and I sewed a '15-minute top' pattern I got from another sewing friend out of some more wool knit. I can't wait to show you the pants, stay tuned.

I'm back

2008-11-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like a home burglary to steal your sewing mojo. That's right, just a few months after Christina's home was broken into, I came home one night about a month ago to find our house had been robbed. I can't even explain how terrifying it was to have walked into my house, set down my purse, and gotten all the way over to the bedrooms before I saw all the drawers pulled out and realized what happened.

Apparently we had a considerate burglar, because he shut the door on the way out and didn't disturb anything in the house besides taking several guns, my husband's laptop, and one of my jewelry boxes. A bunch of other random small things on the desk were taken too, but overall we were lucky.

I'm going to take a second to encourage everyone to prepare for something like this, no one is immune, and if the police and insurance companies are right this sort of thing may be happening more often. First of all, the second you realize your home has been broken into, GET OUT. Do NOT walk into the house, and if you are already in LEAVE. Call 911 and wait for an officer to come and make sure it's safe to go in. You have no idea if the burglar is still in your home. Second, after you do that you will likely have your cell phone with you, but if you don't have the numbers to your credit cards, bank, etc. it doesn't help in that moment. If you do nothing else, put one of these numbers in your phone. The 3 credit reporting agencies have a 'fraud alert' service, if you call one of them and report a potential identity theft, they will notify the other two. This puts a 90-day fraud alert on your account, so if someone tries to open up new credit in your name they will have to call and speak to you first. And if your credit card is used fraudulently, this shows the card companies you were on top of it.

Here are the numbers for the credit-reporting agencies, all you need is one.

Equifax 1-800-525-6285

Experian 1-888-397-3742

TransUnion 1-800-680-7289

Go here for more information about a fraud alert. (Thanks Christina!)

If you keep bank statements, credit card statements, or anything else with sensitive information in your home, it's a good idea to at least do this much to protect yourself. If you really want to be prepared, then store all the numbers to your bank and credit cards in your phone as well. Having the number to your insurance agent isn't a bad idea either. And finally, what really would have helped is having a good inventory of the house. I wish we had taken an afternoon to photograph the valuables, it would have simplified figuring out what was gone,

and provided evidence to the insurance company. We were able to piece together this information anyways, and our insurance covered everything that was taken, but it was definitely stressful. Just go take a picture of your jewelry box (and sewing machines!), you might really need it one day.

So things are pretty much back to normal now, except for the new alarm system and gun safe (Which my husband had purchased on a trip before the break-in and came home to find the guns robbed!). I had some irreplaceable family jewelry stolen, so since I got a decent amount of money for the gold content from the insurance company, what did I do with it? Bought a serger of course.

Say hello to my new baby, a Babylock Imagine Wave.

I kid you not, I brought the box home, took her out, and was serging within 10 minutes. The jet-air threading and the auto thread-delivery system WORK. You can spend your time fiddling with different stitches and thread configurations instead of trying to balance tensions and thread your loopers. I plan to use it mainly for edge finishing, as I much prefer the look of a pressed-open seam to a serged one, but I do have some knit tops and tanks to make that will do just fine on the serger. I scooped up a bunch of spools of Maxi-lock at a Hancock's sale last week, so I'm set for awhile.

I have been sewing, but it took awhile for my energy to return. I made another DVF style wrap dress in wool jersey that I'm fiddling with, and this morning I should finish up a sweater knit top from a pattern I got from friend called the '15 minute top'. I apologize for my lack of posting, and hope at least one person benefits from what I learned!

La Mode button ad

2008-10-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Lolo for finding this, an ad for La Mode buttons from 1943. First off, I had no idea they had been around so long! Second, the message could easily be applicable today.

Vogue skirt and sewing labels

2008-10-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to meet up with my friend to finish the Vogue skirt, as it turns out a few of us were able to get together Friday night to take her out for her birthday! This is what I was doing until about 15 minutes before our dinner reservation:

Hand-hemming the skirt to the underlining

But it turned out fabulously, she wore it that night and raved about the fit and the comfort. She liked it so much she kindly agreed to pics for the blog, so thanks R!!!!

With a red Elizabeth halter from J. Crew, and her adorable dog Marlo.

And in Summerset's style, here's a parting shot. I received my 'loohoo originals' labels from namemaker.com, and proudly sewed the very first one into my friend's skirt. I am ridiculously happy about these. Maybe it's because I'm such a label slave.

My first attempt at pants

2008-10-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

I had a fairly productive sewing weekend! The seam ripper actually spent a good bit of time in my notions box instead of glued to my hand. Sewing is so much more enjoyable when you don't screw up. I'll just do that from now on. :-)

I finished up my friend's Vogue skirt except for the hem, which I need to pin on her. I'll see if I can talk her into modeling it for us. I also sewed up a copy of a workhorse tank top in my wardrobe, from some rayon/lycra jersey. The RTW ones I have are getting holes in them from the weekly wear.

So my main hurdle this weekend was a muslin of Vogue 2981 Alice and Olivia pants, that Adriana nailed recently. This was my first shot at pants, and frankly I'm confused. I don't know where to start with the fitting. Adjusting the crotchal (is that a word?) area is all sorts of counter-intuitiveness. The actual sewing was fairly straightforward, I followed the Vogue directions exactly for the construction and fly zipper, leaving off the pockets and belt loops. I'm hoping you fitting mavens out there can help me with this. Pardon the crappy Joann dollar table cotton and the occasional panty line.

Front, which is too loose at the top and was falling down. I'm holding onto the zipper to kind of keep it up. I feel like there's too much fabric in the inside leg seams in the crotch area? It's also poking out at the hip where the side pockets would be,I think my hip curve is straighter there.

Here it is pulled up and cinched in a bit at the waist, I feel like this pulls some of the fabric out of my crotch, but I'm holding it too tight at the very top and I'm getting the dreaded 'muffin top'.

Side, again it is falling down and tilting to the back, but there is a breeze blowing from the left side of the photo so the fabric really doesn't fall that far.

Front pulled up, I think the side seams are pretty straight here.

Back, hanging too low and the crotch is too far down. Again feels like too much fabric at the inner leg.

Cinched in at the side seams, this also seems to pull some of that fabric from out of the inner leg/crotch area, but I'm not sure if this makes other things worse?

I'd appreciate any advice you have for me! I cut a straight size 12 on these, no adjustments, and by the chart I should have been a 14, so they seem to run standard big-4 sizing big. On dresses I typically make a swayback adjustment but not much else below the belt. Thank you!

DVF Julian knockoff

2008-10-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

This turned out to be easily one of my favorite dresses. I can see myself making this up in a bunch of different fabrics. I borrowed a DVF Julian wrap dress from a friend of mine (thanks again Lauren!!), and made a copy using the techniques I've written about before, see here. This one is so simple it's almost unfair. Most of the dress is only 3 pieces, a back and 2 fronts. Add a couple sleeves, a belt, some cuffs, and voila! Super cute dress that could go to work with a cami or out and about without. I already knew what the fit was like on the original, and I felt good about my pattern copy, so I completely skipped my usual muslin. I almost always make one with a new copied pattern, you never know how close you got to the original. I made this up in an afternoon, from some rayon/lycra I purchased at Stonemountain in Berkeley. I also found some green wool jersey while I was there, which will be my next reincarnation of this pattern.

Front

Back

I'm starting to think copying RTW requires less time than sewing from patterns! There's a whole lot less fit-tweaking to do, and you can make small adjustments after copying the pattern in places where you want to improve. I have one more dress style I copied as well, with a fuller skirt and long sleeves. Just need to find some more fabric...

Skirt progress

2008-09-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

I managed to make a pretty good start on my friend's Vogue skirt before my husband and I took off for camping last week. It's made of a black stretch wool from Michael's fabrics, and lined/underlined with charcoal grey stretch silk charmeuse. Here are a few pics of the progress:

Front, belt loops were attached to the outer waistband only

Inside waistband, the rigeline boning was stitched through along the seam allowances

Inside of waistband, I only interfaced the front panel as I want to take advantage of the stretchy fabric.

Closeup

Inside out, still needs the bottom edge of the waistband finishing, zipper, and hem.

Back

I am still sort of dreading attaching the lining to the hem vent and back seam, I think it will all have to be done by hand due to the underlining method of attaching the lining. Does anyone have a good method for doing this? My RTW clothing all looks so neat on the inside, there must be a way to do it.

DVF cuffs--a tutorial

2008-09-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

I've made vented cuffs on knits a few times now, following the directions for the infamous Vogue 8379 wrap dress. They work fine, but leave an unfinished seam allowance on the inside that always seems to fold the wrong way when I put my garments on. I recently made a copy of a Diane von Furstenberg dress that a friend lent me, and spent some time studying the cuff. I think I figured out the method used there, and took lots of pictures when making mine so I could put together this tutorial. I hope someone finds this helpful!! I know I was really confused by the Vogue instructions at first but it does work.

DVF Cuff Tutorial

Catching up

2008-09-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

Well a new hard drive later and I'm still having computer problems at home, so sorry for the lack of updates. I have been sewing, shopping, and brainstorming so I have lots to tell you about but my laptop decided it hates blogger and ditches my internet connection every time I tried to get in.

First of all, thank you to Lindsay T and Sigrid for nominating me for a blog award, thank you so much! Lindsay I am so flattered that you want me to blog more, and Sigrid I am amazed that I actually inspire YOU. The debt is certainly on my end.

In other news, I have again accepted a 'sewing for hire' project, if all goes well I may actually let my friend take me out to dinner upon completion. However this time said friend is somewhat local, and she happens to live within 10 minutes of Stonemountain fabric store in Berkeley. No of course that didn't influence my decision. :-) Last weekend I went over her house to fit the muslin for this Vogue skirt, she has a dress by black halo that she adores and wanted a skirt just like it.

Knowing LauraLo and Erica B already made this one up, I figured it was a shoe in. The muslin fit like a dream the first time, even though I had to blend two sizes and take out 3 inches of length between the waist and hip. Girlfriend was obviously talented with the measuring tape, since I didn't measure her! I also found some goodies at Stonemountain, a rayon/lycra print that I already made up into a DVF knockoff last weekend (pics to follow), a DVF wool jersey, some silk organza to play with, and a couple rayon/lycra solids for some knit tees.

I had just recieved a packet of swatches from Michael's Fabrics, with a bunch of gorgeous wools and silks, so I brought that with me for my friend to paruse. She ended up finding a lovely black wool/elastic blend, and I couldn't resist getting some of this great plaid for wool pants. I picked up a couple Vogue Alice & Olivia patterns a few weeks ago, I figure it's probably time for me to attempt some pants. I think this one is the front runner right now.

And finally, I managed to snag a copy of Patrones Extra # 272 from the lovely Christina, who has just posted some pics from the magazine and is kindly having a contest to give one away on her blog! I've got several things earmarked already, stay tuned...

Clothing label sale

2008-09-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

Well I was going to wait to announce the news that I finally purchased my very own clothing labels for loohoo originals, but they just sent me an email about a 20% off sale. Of course I ordered a few days too early to take advantage, but for anyone else who's interested here it is!

Namemaker.com

Code: "halloween" for 20% off the entire website until Monday September 15.

This site is one of the few that makes custom woven labels with very small quantity requirements, I ordered these which take about a month to get according to the site, but the cost is very reasonable, 50 for $22 with the code. And I know Christina at assorted notions has ordered from them before and was happy with her purchase. If you've been thinking about it now's a good time to do it!

Going with the Flow

2008-09-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

Remember this linen shell from months ago? The one I said I had several colors of silk charmeuse ready to go for? Well I finally dug out this pattern again, made some final tweaks, and sewed it up over the weekend. Only it didn't turn out the way I planned.

Do you see anything different here?

Original

Silk Version

Yes the pleats are backwards. That's because I decided I wanted the dull side of the charmeuse on the outside, but forgot when I was doing the french seams and sewed it inside out. Of course I didn't notice after only one seam, I think I had the entire front section together. So instead of ripping it all out I decided to just go with the flow, and make it up shiny side out with inside out pleats. I meant to do that, right?

On the upside, I did draft an all in one facing for this version, following the instructions in Claire Schaeffer's High Fashion Sewing Secrets.* I interfaced the facing only, finishing the raw edge with pinking shears. And I made my very own fabric covered button for the back neckline, and a fabric loop also following Saint Claire's book. Why is there a button there you ask? Oh just a little problem with a too-short zipper. The sewing gods obviously did not want me to finish this shell the way I had imagined. They were probably also responsible for the grease/dirt spots my sewing machine left on the right shoulder when the fabric bumped up against the needle arm. *&%$^$ Luckily after washing it 3 times after finishing it, I was able to get them out. And I can now say with confidence that pinked, interfaced silk charmeuse holds up perfectly well to machine washing.

All-in-one facing, it faces the neckline and armholes together,
and is tacked down at the princess and side seams.

My fabric-covered button (thanks Susan K!)

I will take some outfit photos later this week, but I'm planning on wearing it tucked into skirts and pants with a cardigan. I really needed some interesting layers like this for work.

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In other news, my wonderful friend in DC for whom I made the Michael Kors knockoff is sending me two more Diane von Furstenberg dresses to copy. She has an impressive library of them, (most of which are my size!), and is generous enough to let me borrow whatever I want. Now to find some more silk jersey....

*I feel like I should send this woman more money, I have used so many techniques in that book.

Patrones skirt

2008-08-31T16:38:00.000-07:00

Pattern: Patrones #259, pattern 37

Fabric: Wool/Cotton/Elastane denim from Textile Studio Patterns

Notions: Metal jeans zipper, pink rayon seam binding for the inside waistband and hem, 1/4" elastic for the pocket openings, 2 hook and eye closures

I really needed a skirt like this J. Crew one in my wardrobe, the line drawing of this Patrones pattern jumped out at me as a good substitute. It has a fly-front, straight waistband, and yoked back. I left off the right back flap pocket, and added an extended tab closure, and belt loops.

J. Crew, $98

Front, with flash

No flash

Side

Back, I had some puckering along that center back seam when I took these pictures, I think the topstitching stretched it out a tad. I threw it in the wash and pressed it while damp and that seemed to fix the problem. Whew!

I sewed some 1/4" elastic to the seam allowance of the pocket opening, stretching it slightly as I applied it. It kind of pulls the pocket opening in just a tad to keep it from gaping. I hate gaping pockets almost as much as I hate not having pockets.

You can see the rayon seam binding on the inside waistline here.

Back yoke and belt loops

Inside out, you can see the extended pocket stays I added, and the seam binding at the hem.

I topstiched a lot of the seams with a large twin needle (4.0mm 100) and topstiching thread. The side seams and waistband were edgestitched with a 90 needle and the same thread.

This was my first attempt at a fly-front, and it is easy but there's two tutorials that really helped me. I tried them both and mostly went with Sigrid's. But Debbie's is excellent too, I should have added her edgestiching of the open side of the fly to Sigrid's as I couldn't do it afterwards.

I found a bunch of rayon seam binding at a local fabric store months ago, and have been meaning to use it. Since my queue of hot-pink garments is a little low, I decided to use it here where you only see it on the inside. It's 1/2" wide, so I pressed it in half and sewed it to one side of the waistband, and the hem before turning it up. Super easy. It's very thin so it doesn't add bulk, and it's finished already so you don't have to double turn it. I don't think it would navigate tight corners though, it's not on the bias so I would stick to mostly straight applications.

The hem was giving me fits, it should have been really easy but this fabric has a decent amount of stretch that had to be accomodated. A walking foot wasn't even cutting it. Finally I took out my temporary spray adhesive and sprayed the inside, problem solved.

What is wrong with this picture?

2008-08-31T09:40:00.001-07:00

The finished Patrones skirt will follow, but first does anyone want to guess why I should have stopped working on this last night before I got to this point?

On Vacation!!

2008-08-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

My husband and I are leaving early (way early!) tomorrow morning for a week of relaxation on Ambergris Caye, Belize. We went there for our honeymoon 3 years ago and have been back every year since. I think it's safe to say we really enjoy ourselves there. :-) We didn't make any plans yet, but we hope to fit in some diving, sailing, sunbathing, swimming, and drinking!! Oh and maybe some fresh, in season lobster. Yum! Enjoy the next week everyone, and I'll check in when we get back with some pictures.

***********

And I have to thank everyone for the wonderful, sincere comments you all left about my silk dress. I am truly flattered! It sure makes it easier to forget about all that work. :-)

Just in time

2008-07-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

I just barely finished the dress in time to wear to the wedding last night, I had to do a quickie hem that needs to be redone but it was wearable. I am really pleased with the way the dress came out. Because of the construction order I used I couldn't try it on until it was almost finished, so I was putting a lot of faith in my muslins. They were worth the effort, there's not much I would even consider tweaking.

Right before running out the door!

After, sweating in 90+degree heat outside sure did press in some wrinkles.

Silk charmeuse lining, understitched by machine along the neckline, and hand fell-stitched around the armholes

Zipper inserted, lining attached all by machine

Fell stitching

I am quite proud of my efforts in many of the components of the dress, not the least of which was working with the silk 4-ply crepe. It is truly beautiful but very demanding. I basted the underlining to the fabric while thread tracing all the seamlines, and did a fair amount of hand-basting during the construction, even with a walking foot it was shifty. It shows pin and needle holes so you have to pin carefully and use fine needles, glazes easily with the iron, suffers from pressing show through even with underlining, snags easily, and dulls needles. I went through 3 Microtex 70 sharps, yikes!

But the fit is as good as I've ever done, the 3 layers of slippery, shifty fabric lay perfectly together, my zipper looks fantastic (well a personal best anyways), the neckline and armholes hug my body exactly as they should, and most importantly I feel like a princess when I put it on. Do you all have something in your closet that makes you feel that way? I hope so.

I need to take more pictures of it on and finish the hem properly, but that will have to wait until it comes back from the cleaners. There's some faint water spots from the wedding that I don't want to risk pressing in with my iron, *sob sob sob*. They will come out, right??

6 muslins later...

2008-07-14T12:48:00.001-07:00

My hard-earned lesson for the week: Copying RTW is only worthwhile when the garment in question actually FITS. If you need to make a lot of adjustments you might as well start with a pattern. (Like this Vogue, thanks Carol!) The J.Crew dress I borrowed was 1-2 sizes small for me, with enough room for maybe an A-cup bust. I didn't think it would be as hard as it was to make it work, but I essentially ended up grading the entire thing, as well as fuss with a large FBA that created even more problems.

Here is my 4th or 5th muslin, I lost count after about number 3. I don't know how many times I had to increase the size of those 2 tucks on the bodice, after taking out a dart at a gaping armhole or neckline and transferring it to the bust darts. I also had to realign the shoulder straps, all those armhole adjustments finally pulled them out of position. And I must mention the importance of tracing off your last pattern attempt onto a fresh piece of paper before mangling it, that way you have a record of each step and can go back if needed. In this case I pulled out one of the earlier patterns to check the angle of the shoulder strap, realized it had become tilted, and retraced the old onto the new, reblending the upper neckline and armhole. I also drew a new back neckline so it dips into a shallow V, deepened the back darts, and shortened the back lengths of the skirt and the upper bodice.

Not bad, but still too much ease under the bust, and small diagonal drag lines on the skirt.

Again, this was not my first muslin here. I kept trying to mess with the back darts as well as the CB seam, which obviously wasn't working.

I ran out of muslin and decided to use some leftover linen, it has similar drape and shiftiness to the 4-ply silk I'll be using. I took out 3/8" in length at the CB on the bodice and skirt backs, tapering to nothing at the side seam, leaving the band alone. I redrew the darts as well, making them shaped as opposed to straight. For this muslin I just pinned the side seams on the outside, they were swinging to the front on the last muslin so I knew I would need to realign them. It's always helpful to have large seam allowances at this stage for doing that.

Another small gaping neckline adjustment, which worked, as well as rotating some fabric out of the front skirt darts toward the side seam, to fix the diagonal drag lines.

Back is much improved, but I still need a bit more length off the bodice back.

I started on one more muslin this weekend, after realigning the side seams and adjusting the back bodice length I thought I should check it again, as well as figure out the construction order for the full lining. I am so glad I did, as it turned out to be somewhat difficult with that crossover neckline. I think I successfully reverse-engineered the method used on the J.Crew dress, thankfully I took pictures before I sent it back (whew!). My next post will detail the procedure I came up with.

One more tip to take home: Inserting a zipper to test fit is really easy. I don't have a dressform or a nearby sewing buddy so I rely on this. Just sew your seam normally with a long stitch length, press the seam open, and pin any kind of zipper you have on hand to the inside of the garment, with the zipper closed. Just line up the teeth with the seam. You can even use invisible zippers, it doesn't matter because all you are doing is topstitching it. Sew down one side of the zipper, close to the teeth if you can, then the other. Inside of the garment is on top. Once the zipper is sewn in, run your seam ripper down the basted seam on the outside of the garment, and that's it. Takes me no more than 5 minutes now, and is much more accurate than pinning, especially with a fitted garment.

Yet another J.Crew knockoff

2008-07-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

As much as I wanted to finish the Patrones skirt, when I looked at the calendar I realized I have about 3 weeks to make a dress for a wedding I am attending. Yikes! I borrowed a J.Crew dress to copy weeks ago from a friend, and had some 4-ply silk crepe earmarked for it, but have been putting it off thus far. Yesterday I fleshed out the copied pieces, cut a muslin, and sewed most of it together. I ordered silk crepe de chine for the underlining, and charmeuse for the lining from denverfabrics.com on Monday, which with any luck will be here by next weekend. I hope.

J. Crew Jane Dress

This style has a crossover bust with 2 unsewn darts, wide underbust band, and darted front straight skirt. The top back has a dart on each side, which line up with the darts on the skirt back on either side of the underbust band. Did I mention the J.Crew dress is made in wool twill? Try watching the grain on that. I had a hard time figuring out the darts, what I ended up with was a close approximation of how deep they are, and a marking of where they stopped and started. Claire Schaeffer has a good explanation of how to copy darts, however it depends on being able to see the grain. You basically mark the lengthwise and crosswise grain around each dart, enclosing it in a 3-sided box. Pin a square of muslin to those grainlines, matching the grain. If you followed the grain correctly, you should get a bubble of fabric in the middle where the dart goes. Smooth it flat, and you get a dart. Then you mark the depth, start, and end points. I figured I got close enough and could work out the rest in the muslin. The dress I borrowed was a little small for me anyhow, I knew I would need to alter it.

Pattern pieces, no seam allowances

Here are the pieces I ended up with. I used my serrated tracing wheel/ironing board trick again, I am happy to report it works with wool twill as well, no damage to the fabric at all. Since the copied pieces have no seam allowances, you can either add them before you cut out, or in this case I knew I wanted to mark all the seam lines on the muslin so I cut them out exactly. I used a china marker to trace all around the pieces on my muslin, then cut them out with wide seam allowances, I didn't even measure since I didn't need the edges for accuracy, all the seam lines are marked already.

This is what I got done yesterday, not bad for a first try. Some of the seamlines don't match up, and I'm going to need some more bust room but I need to put in a zipper first so I can see the fit. Asking DH to pin the back is hit or miss. Mostly miss. :-)

Sides sewn down to waist only

Neckline and armholes staystiched and clipped

Now for my favorite part of this whole project: THE FABRIC!!!! Can I tell you how much I love 4-ply silk? It is lustrous, delightfully heavy, smooth without being overly slippery, the dye just emanates from it, and it doesn't want to wrinkle. I want to be buried in it. I consulted Susan Khalje's Bridal Couture for tips, she suggested a silk crepe de chine underlining. After seeing one of her 4-ply creations at a handsewing class, I figured she knew what she was doing. Silk charmeuse for the lining is the icing on the cake. Well pretend the cake is inside out. :-)

Turquoise 4-ply silk from Fabrics Fabrics in LA

--------------------------

And a big thank you to everyone who helped with Patrones translations, I got some very nice emails with additional information that my friend had missed. Thank you!!!!!

No Habla Espanol

2008-06-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

Or at least not well enough to decipher Patrones instructions. Somehow words like 'facing', 'zipper', and 'baste' didn't make it into my 3 years of high school spanish. With the help of Paco Peralta's Spanish sewing glossary, I've managed to somewhat figure out what the instructions say, but not in enough detail to follow. What I have noticed is the first few garments in the issue have more detailed instructions, after that when something is repeated (like a fly-front zipper), they just tell you to refer to whatever pattern number has the details. This skirt is number 37 in the August 2007 Patrones, the fly-front zipper instructions are found in number 6. I think I determined which part was talking about the zipper.

August 2007 Patrones #259, garment 37

Instructions/layout

senalar con un hilvan el centro delante de cada pieza, quedando esta senal a 4cm. del extremo del la vista; doblar hacia dentro la vista del lado derecho, sujetar con hilvan; en el lado izquierdo doblar la vista a 1.5 cm. del centro dejando hacia dentro una vista de 2.5 cm. de ancho, sujetar con hilvan; abrir cremallera, coser un lado de esta en el lado izquiredo de la abertura, al borde, dejando los dientes vistos; cerrar cremallera, formar cruce solapando el lado derecho sobre el izquirdo, sujetar la cremallera con hilvan y coser con pesunte por encima.

I had a non-sewing friend try to decipher it for me, here is what she came up with:

Place a mark (baste?) on the front, center of each piece, 4cm from the edge (?).
Fold the right side over toward the center and secure this (might help if I knew what basting was, but I know hilvanar means to sew, maybe this is a loose stitch that secures the fabric while you are working on it???)

fold the left side inward towards the center, 1.5cm, leaving a 2.5cm wide space from the left edge (I hope this makes sense to someone)
Open cremallera (not sure here, but makes me hungry) Sew on side of the “cremallera” to the left side of the opening (ooh, yeah, zipper, that what we’re talking about. I just say el zipper – lol) on the edge, leaving the teeth visible, close the zipper
Cross yourself – lol
Make a cross, crossing the right side over the left.

Hold the zipper in place with “baste” and sew over it with (pesunte???)

So it sounds like I didn't quite get all the instructions, it's hard to tell when they start talking about something else! But this does at least give me the spacing for the fly, on my muslin I wasn't sure where to line up the zipper.

The skirt has angled front pockets with fly zipper, back yoke, CB and CF seams, back vent, and a waistband. I thought it was a great knockoff of this J. Crew skirt. I've never made a fly opening, waistband, or a back vent, so a muslin was necessary. I used Debbie Cook's excellent tutorial for the fly, and consulted another skirt pattern for help with the pockets and waistband. The back vent was stumping me until I pulled out a skirt from my closet, I've only made slits before but I think I prefer the vent. It certainly isn't any harder to make.

Skirt with waistband pinned, it is still folded down over the top of the skirt since I didn't have time to attach it.

Yes I did figure out you have to attach the waistband unfolded, but not until after I took these pictures. :-)

Can I tell you how excited I am about the fit?? I made a straight size 44 with no alterations (although by the size chart I should have been a 42), and I only have a slight bit of gapping at the center back yoke seam. I will take more pictures once I get the waistband on. Just a word of advice: if you skip the fly shield for the muslin, be very careful when zipping it up. Just sayin'. It's a good thing this wasn't pants for DH.

Silk jersey hem

2008-06-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

I hemmed this dress today right before DH and I went out for sushi, so naturally I wore it fresh off the ironing board. It is over 100 degrees here today so a sleeveless silk jersey frock was just the ticket.

Kwik Sew 3575

I tried tying the belt in front this time, I think the back looks cleaner that way.

This is my 'preferred' method of hemming silk jersey, I like the coverstitch look but lacking a serger I've had to come up with my own method. DVF often uses a blind hem, which also looks nice, but I find hard to replicate on a home machine. With contrasty prints it can be hard to hide the stiches with only 1 color of thread. Either way, I find fusing a band of tricot interfacing to the hem makes it look and hang so much neater. For this method you need a 1" hem allowance, to do a narrower finish adjust the interfacing strip and allowance accordingly.

Once I pin up the hem to where I want it, I press it so I get a nice crease to mark the hemline. Then I open it up, wrong side up, and fuse a 2" strip of tricot interfacing (cut on the crosswise grain to preserve stretch around the hem) to the inside of the dress, centering the strip so 1" falls to each side of the hemline crease. Then I trim off the excess length below the interfacing, and press the hem back into position, folding the interfacing back on itself. I use a twin stretch needle from the right side of the dress, and stitch along the top edge of the hem allowance, catching the edge in the underside zig zag formed by the needle. Between the interfacing and the zig zag, the edges are very well finished and will stand up to the washing machine.

Top side of hem

Underside of hem

You will need to test the twin needle on some scraps first, I find I need to loosen up my bobbin tension quite a bit, and often tighten the top tension. If the zig zag is too tight it has a tendency to pull the two stitching lines together and create a dome shape to the fabric in between. The interfacing helps to stabilize this as well as give the hem some weight and a nice place for the stitches to 'sink in'.

By the time I started on the hem, I noticed my bobbin was almost out and I didn't have a lot of thread left on the spool. I used a different color bobbin, and filled a partial bobbin with the rest of the brown I had to do the twin needle stitching. I was sweating it as got close to the end, this is all I had left when I finished!

Kwik Sew 3575

2008-06-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't forgotten about posting my thoughts about the Coffin shirtmaking method, I've just been interrupted by a spurt of sewing mojo. Taking full advantage, I made up this Kwik Sew pattern with some silk jersey from Fashionista Fabrics that has been chilling in my stash for a few months. I almost finished it last night but the hem will have to wait until this weekend.

I was semi-inspired by this Milly dress, I thought the contrast bands would help the fabric look better against my pale complexion. Light blue tends to wash me out.

Milly Tiki Butterfly dress on Saks.com

The trim is an espresso brown silk jersey from Stonemountain & Daughter, I purchased it locally so I could match the dark brown in the print. The pattern calls for a woven fabric, since I used a knit I cut an XS instead of a S, and eliminated the back zipper. It pulls on easily, even thought the armholes and neckband are quite fitted. The belt is topstitched to the gathered front in a rectangle, then hangs freely and ties in back. Because of this I didn't make any of my usual narrow small back/swayback adjustments.

Belt topstitching, you can see my wonder tape peeking out.

The pattern calls for armhole facings, which I personally dislike. Instead I pulled out one of my Diane von Furstenberg dresses for inspiration, and copied a self-fabric narrow binding technique. I made 1/2" single fold bias from a crosswise piece of the silk jersey fabric, pinned it RS together along the armhole seamline while stretching the binding a bit, and sewed down the middle of the binding (in between the folds) along the armhole seamline. Then I pressed and understitched the binding, pressed again, trimmed the armhole SA to 1/4", and folded the binding to the inside and topstitched. This gives a nice narrow, stable finish, that hugs the body due to the stretching of the binding when attaching it to the armhole. I used my walking foot for all the construction.

Neckline and armhole finish

Because of the modifications, I had to change the construction order quite a bit. I first sewed up the back and side seams, then attached the armhole binding. KS has you attach armhole facings before the side seams, which doesn't work with this method. The side seams need to be sewn before you bind them. I cut the back neckband on the fold instead of using a back seam since I wasn't including an opening. But this makes it impossible to finish the band using the instructions, you need that back seam for turning. Instead I sewed the necklines of the outside and inside neckband together, then painstakingly pressed under the seam allowances of both layers along the outside edge so they matched perfectly, and attached the whole unit, sandwiching the dress between the layers (front was gathered first), by edgestitching. This was very fiddly, I spent some time matching everything up so all the layers would be caught in the edgestitching. I believe the kwik sew instructions were easier to follow, they have you attach the dress to one of the bands first, then stitch the rest together. Prior to this you sew the exposed shoulders as a seam and then flip, which you can do with a back seam.

After the neckband is attached, all that's left is the belt and the hem. I've sewn a few belts from silk jersey now, and after trying a few methods what seems to work the best is spray adhesive, no pins, and a walking foot. Sewing long narrow strips of silk jersey together can be a mess if the machine is stretching out the fabric. The walking foot is a must, but I find using the spray adhesive is even better at eliminating slippage and gets rid of the need for pins. Attaching the belt to the gathered front of the dress was also proving tricky, until I took out my wonder tape and taped over the gathered stitching line. This serves 2 purposes: first it holds the gathers in place once you get them distributed, and second in holds the belt in place over the gathers while you edgestitch.

I just bought a stretch twin needle, I'll be pulling that out this weekend to finish up the hem. I also like to interface the hem on silk jersey with fusible tricot, It gives it a bit of weight and structure that looks very nice with a twin needle finish.

My only bone to pick with this pattern was the back pattern piece was labeled CUT ON FOLD in big red letters on it. In the instructions, pictures, and layout, it all looks to be single layer, and the piece has a shaped CB seam. There's no way it's supposed to be cut on the fold. Shame on you Kwik Sew, you are supposed to be known for your excellent drafting and instructions!

Copying RTW

2008-06-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

I've copied a couple RTW garments now, using a few different methods, but I tried something different on Jeff's shirt that worked really well. And it uses a cool sewing gadget, which I feel deserves extra points. It's always gratifying when you find a real use for some notion you bought months ago that you just had to have.

This is a Clover serrated tracing wheel, it has spikes instead of a smooth or bumpy wheel. I think it's supposed to be for tracing around a pattern onto another piece of paper, on a soft surface the spikes penetrate leaving little holes in the shape you traced.

Clover serrated tracing wheel

However, I found that by placing a roll of pattern tracing cloth down on my ironing board, and pinning the shirt in sections on top of that, I could use the tracing wheel to mark the seamlines. Even though the wheel doesn't penetrate the shirt, it left a very clear marking, and around the hems you can trace directly onto the cloth, which makes nice little holes. I'm sure this would work equally well with paper too. I found sticking the pins straight down through the ironing board (in between the metal mesh) worked the best for holding the fabric taut and staying out of the way of the tracing wheel. You have to press down fairly hard on the shirt with the tracing wheel, but with a tightly woven material like this it didn't disturb the fabric at all. I will have to experiment with more delicate fabrics to see if this will work.

Back of shirt pinned down, tracing around top of yoke, side seam, and CB (through pleat)

Shirt removed, you can see the outline I just traced.

This method works best on uncomplicated garment sections, especially those that can be laid completely flat like a shirt. Darts and gathers require other methods, but most other pieces can be copied easily. Even if a section can't be laid flat, you can copy it in stages, pinning as much as you can flat and then lining up the rest after copying the first part. This is how I copied the sleeves, and it works for princess seams too. Remember to leave enough room around the pattern to add seam allowances.

Happy Birthday!

2008-06-09T07:29:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to my husband Jeff (hi sweet cheeks!), who is 36 today. I just barely managed to finish his shirt in time, here he is (reluctantly) modeling it for you all. He was quite pleased with it, although he completely doubted my ability to finish it in time yesterday. Poor man, he's heard me say 'just 30 more minutes!' waaaay too many times when I'm at my sewing table. Why should his birthday present be any different?

I have a lot of comments to make about the construction, but I'll save those for the next few blog posts. All I can say for now is that David Page Coffin is a genius. I am not worthy.

Armani 100% cotton shirting from Michael's fabrics

Pattern is copied exactly from one of DH's shirts

With flash, it appears more blue here, the true color is somewhat in between the two.

Yes, I did actually manage to match the stripes across the front and the pocket.
And I meant to do that too.

Patrones Extra 268

2008-05-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

I managed to get a copy of the May Patrones Extra, #268, by asking a friend vacationing in Spain to look for it. Begging non-sewing friends to find something called 'Patrones' is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. But chocolate is chocolate, and in general I'm not picky. If I'm not careful this could lead to the sickness known as 'pattern magazine collecting', which I'm fairly certain Cidell suffers from. Admission is the first step, hun.

There's a lot of great designer dresses in this one, plus a pretty good safari-inspired spread, and a maternity and large size selection.

Linesheets

Prada
Lacroix

Some of my other favorites.

I lied

2008-05-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

So I did not even touch DH's shirt over the weekend, I ended up having to return my library copy of Shirtmaking and had no access to the seam allowance chart I started following.* I had a lovely time on Friday afternoon with the sewing ladies who invited me to the Haute Couture Societe show, we met up at one of their homes for a little show-and-tell, sewing chat, and iced tea. (Thank you for hosting Ann!) I was lamenting on my lack of sewing motivation and they wisely recommended a quick simple project to get me going.

I've been meaning to make a muslin of this Simplicity pattern I just had to have after I saw Erica B.'s version, so I figured this was a good opportunity to dig it out.

Simplicity 2938

It's a tank style top with 3 front pieces, the center panel has unsewn pleats at the neckline, and the seams are mostly vertical, falling over the bust line. There is a center back seam and it calls for a side zipper, however I prefer a back zipper and put it there instead. Note: if you move the zipper to the back, add a seam allowance to the back facing piece. Preferably before you cut out the fabric. Not that I would forget something as simple as that, but for you absent-minded readers. :-)

Coral linen?, maybe a blend from a free Fabric Mart bundle

I always trace my patterns onto pattern-tracing cloth, my product of choice at the moment is swedish tracing paper. No I don't prefer to make life difficult, I like to use the pieces as a first muslin. Sometimes I make a full set of pieces, especially if I'm going to be using a print fabric and want to have more control over the print distribution when cutting. This time I just did a half and sewed the pieces together to check the fit. It was very baggy at the waist, and since I knew I didn't want to sew a belt or a ribbon I modified the fit.

Front side panel, cut in under the bust to appear more like a princess seam

Back piece, 3/4" swayback adjustment

I cut a straight size 12 and made the two modifications above, plus added an inch to the length all around. When I got ready to hem I decided to shape the hem, making it shorter at the sides and longer in front and back, so I ended up cutting of that inch at the sides. The armholes fit pretty well but one of them gaps a little more than the other, it probably got stretched during construction. Next time I will stabilize it with a fusible right after cutting. I made matching bias binding for the armholes, and the neckline is finished with a facing. The facing pieces seemed a bit too wide at the bottom, I will take a look at it next time but i don't think it was from my modifications.

Even though it was a muslin, it was turning out pretty wearable so I used french seams on all but the back seam (is there a way to do an enclosed seam with a zipper?). French seams are great for linen because you don't have to worry about fraying, everything is enclosed. The facing was trying to flip to the outside so I tacked it down with some stich witchery at the shoulder seams and the front pleat, since the fabric is doubled over there you can't see it from the front. I hand tacked it at the 2 front french seams. I left the raw edge of the facing unfinished because I was being lazy, because of the fusible interfacing it's not going anywhere but I usually prefer to bind it.

So overall I'm pretty happy with the pattern, I have several colors of silk charmeuse earmarked for a TNT cami/shell pattern. My wardrobe is severely lacking in cute tops to wear under a cardi or suit jacket, or alone tucked into high-waisted pants and skirts. I might tweak this one a bit more to nip in the waist, make it longer so I can tuck it in, and then call it good.

*And honestly I probably wouldn't have worked on it anyways, after working so long on other people's projects I really just wanted to sew something for ME.

Next Up

2008-05-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not done sewing for other people yet, even though my stash is calling to me from its newly organized home. I snagged some of this Armani shirting from Michael's Fabrics last month with a shirt for DH in mind.

I read a bunch of reviews on patternreview.com and settled on this Kwik Sew pattern, 2777. It's a standard dress shirt with double yoke, separate front band, short or long sleeve with placket, and collar and separate stand.

I started tracing off the pattern last weekend and quickly got bogged down, I'm trying to follow David Page Coffin's methods in his Shirtmaking book. (This is an excellent book that I have checked out of the library more times than I can count, I need to purchase it.) First I flat-measured one of DH's shirts that fits him well and compared those to the Kwik Sew. I had to trace in between 2 and sometimes 3 sizes to get it close to fitting. Once I had all the pieces traced out, I turned my attention to the seam allowances. Kwik Sew uses 1/4" for everything, and since I was planning to use flat-felled seams I opened up the Coffin book just to check how much I need to do them. I just about fell over when I saw the diagram, he uses a range from 1/8" to 7/8" and everything in between, not just for the seams to be flat-felled but ALL OF THEM. I started trimming and adding, trying to keep track of which ones are where since my traced pieces started with 1/4" allowances. Sewing is supposed to be fun, right? I got about halfway through and ran out of steam, drinking beer seemed like a much better idea at the time. My goal is to have a muslin by the end of this weekend.

My only plans so far are for tomorrow afternoon, I'm meeting the lovely ladies from the sewing group for a get together at one of their homes. Unfortunately I don't have anything to show off due to my lack of productivity last weekend. Maybe this little meetup is what I need to get motivated.

Haute Couture Societe Annual Fundraiser/Fashion Show

2008-05-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I was graciously given an extra ticket to a fashion show/luncheon/fundraiser for a group based in Stockton, CA called the Haute Couture Societe. They focus on fashion design and fine needle arts with monthly meetings, workshops, field trips, and a scholarship program for students pursuing an education in fashion. I met several ladies at the PR weekend in LA who are members of this group, they were kind enough to invite me into their 'sewing lives' (they have get togethers on their own) which included this event. (Thank you for the ticket Kelly!)

First off, I have to apologize for the terrible photography. I snapped a few, but most of the ones I took during the fashion show didn't turn out at all. I will try to dazzle you with my extraordinary literary skills. Anyhoo...

Before the fashion show I had time to walk around and check out some of the garments on display, all made by members, as well as the tables full of raffle prizes and silent auction items.

Yellow silk dress

Petticoat and cami

Raffle prizes, all donated

Then the fashion show began, they had a runway set up in the middle of the room in between all the banquet tables. Many of the members and various family members modeled garments they had made. There was a wide variety of projects, lots of wearable art, children's clothes, as well as standard pattern fare and self-drafted pieces. The two 'celebrities' for the day were Rami Kim and Marina Glazer. Rami is a fabric artist with a new book out right now on folding fabric techniques. She modeled several of her garments and while not my style, they were breathtaking to look at. Marina is a designer based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, she had several models there to showcase her dresses, thankfully they saved her creations for last so the mere mortals would not have to get up on the catwalk after the 6-foot tall models.

While my camera failed me on taking stills, I managed to capture a video of one of Marina's dresses. It's only about 30 seconds long, when you get to the end look for the older gentleman helping the model down the stairs. I was taken with this man, he is obviously up there in years but he offered his hand to everyone who came down the stairs. So cute.

One of the ladies in our group modeled several of her garments, we of course cheered her on. After her last change, she came back to our table and sat down to watch the rest of the show. We were starving by the time the show was over, so I did not get a pic of the yummy chicken breast sandwich and salad they served us. I think we all inhaled it. However I did take a picture of Barbara's dessert, only because they hadn't brought mine yet and I was staring at hers in anticipation.

And then I realized I hadn't taken a picture of my outfit, this is Burda 7783 in navy cotton with my red J.crew shoes. In the bathroom. After eating. And I'm all wrinkled. I have no shame. :-)

I had a wonderful time and will be meeting up with these ladies again next weekend, hopefully to work on/show off some of my own things! If you would like more information about Haute Couture Societe, their phone number is 209-648-0637. They do not have a website. Their monthy meetings go from September through May so the last one is here in another week or so.

Tagged!

2008-05-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

Christina at assorted notions tagged me with this literary meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Okay prepared to be bored. I was in the lab at work when I read Christina's post, so now you can try to figure out what kind of lab work I do when I'm not sewing.

This is from 'Introduction to Focused Ion Beams' Ed. Lucille Gianuzzi and Fred Stevie.

"And this encapsulation will generally ruin the device by either floating the structures off the surface or crushing them. FIB tools can cross-section MEMS class devices without damaging the unsupported/released structures. Figure 19 shows a tilted view of one pixel of a DLP device, which is a MOEMS device."

Now I will frantically try to choose 5 more people before everyone else does:

Pirouette, Emily, narcissaqtpie, Loopylulu, and Erica B. Play along if you like!

Done!!

2008-05-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

Man I don't think I've ever wanted to be finished with something so bad. I started a knockoff of this Michael Kors dress back in January, it was for a friend who lives on the other side of the country so we mailed muslins back and forth getting the fit right. Then she spent another month looking for fabric. The past couple weeks have been spent desperately trying to finish it up, I ran into problem after problem with the collar and hems. I have come to the realization that ripping out and redoing handstitching is my least favorite sewing activity EVER.

However, it is done, and we now have a magnificent wool dress in May. Details, details.

Front

Back

Inside out, from the back. Bias-bound seams: neckline, waistline, and hem.
Hong-kong finish: sleeve hems, armholes

And here we have the source of most of my frustration, the collar. Isn't it pretty? Looks like it just went together all by itself, huh.

Yeah *&^%$#@ right. I had practiced making it several times with the muslins and determined it would need to be mostly handstitched, to get it to work with the invisible zipper. I sewed it to the neckline by machine, leaving out the outer layer when I got near the CB seam, then put in the invisible zipper. I bound the bottom edge of one of the seam allowances, trimmed the other, and handstitched it to the underlining, not once but twice. The first time I unknowingly caught part of the wool thickness in my stitches and when I turned it right side out there were all these puckers.

I tacked down the inside of the collar to the other size of the zip by hand, and then slipstitched the folded collar to the outside of the dress to hold it in place. So the zip is sandwiched in between the 2 layers of the collar, and the fold lays nicely on the outside of the dress.

Collar showing zipper

The collar wasn't the only item to be handstitched twice. I had originally bias-bound the sleeve hems rather messily, my bias tape wasn't quite wide enough to go over the thick parts of the sleeve hems and I had frayed edges of fabric sticking out. I was going to let it go, until I tried the dress on and raised my arms. Those lovely bell sleeves leave no room for messes at that hem, you can see everything. *Sigh* So out came the bias binding and on went a hong-kong finish and another hand hem.

Sleeve hem, hong-kong finished and hand-stitched to the underlining

So as my first 'sew for hire' project, I've learned a few things. Which I was hoping to do. (Actually it isn't really for hire, the only thing my friend payed for was the fabric, I smartly decided my work wasn't good enough or timely enough yet to charge). Sewing on a deadline is hard. Normally little roadblocks would stop me from working on a project until I had thought about it some more. Often another week or two would give me the time to think of a solution to a problem, and I'd pick it up again after maybe working on something else. When you have a deadline (which I didn't really have either, I suck) you have to just keep going. This led to some less-than-ideal results which had to be redone anyways.

If I ever do this again I will take into consideration how much fitting is involved, what kind of finishing to use (I approached this as I would something for myself, which probably wasn't time or cost effective), and what kind of timeline I'd be under. When you have to work on something as opposed to just wanting to, it kind of takes the fun out of it. But I know my friend will be thrilled with the outcome, even if it took longer than we both expected.

My first Patrones

2008-05-02T11:53:00.000-07:00

After reading Cidell's recent post on Patrones magazine, I sent a friend in NYC out in search of the new issues. I had heard Around the World magazines there carried it, not wanting to shell out the $30 it would cost on ebay to have it airmailed. She didn't find the recent issues, but she did find the August 2007 for $10!

I was immediately drawn to these two coat patterns:

Maybe I just have trenches on the brain since buying fabric from Michaels a month ago. The issue has 57 patters, including 4 formal dresses, maternity, and tall sizes. I don't even know where to start!

Liberty of London on sale at Textile Studio

2008-04-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

I love Liberty of London prints, however the price tag has stopped me from ordering thus far. They typically run about $35/yd, and are usually only 36" wide. That's too rich for cotton, even for my 'champagne tastes'. Textile Studio Patterns just put up a few prints for a great price, and there's an additional 10% off everything on the site right now as well.

$24.95/yd 54" wide

$16.50/yd 36" wide

$24.95 54" wide

And if you need some inspiration, J.Crew is offering a few styles with Liberty fabrics. At their usual bargain prices of course. :-)

J. Crew $98

McCall's steps it up

2008-04-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big McCall's fan, but I do remember being vaguely interested in this dress pattern.

McCall's 5658

Then while browsing shopbop.com I stumbled upon this number. Look familiar? I love it when knockoffs just fall into my lap. Especially when they are Diane Von Furstenberg.

Diane Von Furstenberg Sirabe Dress, $525 on shopbop.com

The Kors knockoff.....to be continued

2008-04-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

I was really trying to finish up this dress over the weekend, but unfortunately I didn't quite make it. Okay let's be honest, when I say 'quite' I mean it still needs a collar, hems, zipper, and seam binding for the waist and armhole seams. So at least a half a day's work at my pace. *

The inspiration: Michael Kors

However it is starting to look pretty nice, even if I do say so myself. The fabric is a dream to work with, and the lining technique went so much easier this time around. I used the same procedure as described here by LauraLo, adding 3/4" to all the lining vertical seams. The last time I tried this I only used 1/2", and it wasn't enough. 3/4" was a little too much it turns out, but this was better than not enough. How much extra to cut is dependent on turn of the cloth, which varies for each combination of lining and fabric. LauraLo talks about that as well.

Front

Back

I'm surprised at how well this technique handled curved seams, the raglan sleeve seams came out very nice. I think I was pushing it with the princess seam though, it looks fine from the outside but inside its a bit bunched up in the deepest curve. I should cut out a notch and sew it up by hand to make it lay flatter. And if I were to do this again I think I will take LauraLo's advice and sew the darts separately, pressing in opposite directions. They are a bit bulky for my taste sewn together. I also did not press the 1/4" seams open, just flat, and did not stitch in the ditch to hold the hong-kong finish to the edge. Pressing would give a slightly better edge but honestly I think it looks perfectly nice without it, and the ditch stitching was not necessary to hold the fabrics in place. With a more slippery fabric this might help, but it saves time if you don't need it.

I'm trying to decide how to finish the waist seam, LauraLo did a dress recently by applying ribbon to it to cover the serged seams. I may try that or I may put bias binding on both edges to match what I'm doing on the armhole seams, we'll see. Any preferences?

*You know those people that say 'oh I just whipped this up in a couple hours!'? I'm not one of them. Probably never will be. I'm choosing to believe it's my attention to detail and extreme pickiness and not my lack of skill.

Presents!

2008-04-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

Getting packages is fun. Even when DH gets them first and says 'did you order MORE fabric??' while holding up the box like it has a disease.

Fortunately this one was not of my doing, Cidell was kind enough to donate some buttons to my non-existent stash, and pass along a few patterns she thought I would like, that coincidentally were given to her by Caroline G. (thank you Caroline!).

I have some rayon jersey that would be perfect for that Hot Patterns top or dress, and while looking at the Vogue 1809 (OOP) I realized the seamlines are scarily close to that Lela Rose dress I was just posting about. Hmmm, I think she read my mind. Or her intern read my mind. :-)

Vogue 1809, look at view A

Thank you Cidell!!!!!!

Silk Jersey Wrap Top

2008-04-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

I managed to finish up this silk jersey top in time to wear it to the symphony last night. This pattern is a morphed version of Vogue 8379 ,which is a dress. The last version was done in a leopard print silk jersey. Yes I have a thing for silk jersey, now let me get back to stalking my online fabric sources for it. :-) I purchased this fabric at Michael Levine in LA.

I made only a few changes in the pattern/construction, I was really happy with it the first time. The first change I made was to interface the cuffs with fusible tricot, they were too floppy without it.

And secondly I took even more fabric out of the lower back on the pattern, I had done a small adjustment the first time but was still getting fabric pooling under the belt. The fit this time around is so close to perfect I'm going to leave it alone.

And here's the inside, I don't have a serger so I make good use of my machine's seam/overcast stitch. I used it for all the seams. It has plenty of stretch and is very strong, however it is the most hair-pulling, expletive-screaming thing to rip out, ask me how I know. I've learned to be absolutely sure of the fit before I sew, and to be super careful the fabric is feeding properly. I only had to rip one small area in this top. So I was able to skip the expletives for the most part.

The top had it's debut during a night on the town in San Francisco, here's a pic of me on the balcony at Davies Symphony Hall with City Hall in the background. See my outfit? I wore the same thing with my leopard top during the PR weekend in LA, and while we were walking to a restaurant Melissa B in WA pulled me aside and said, "Those guys just stared at your butt!!!". Good enough for a repeat I think.
We went to a german restaurant called Suppenkuche and had some extremely rich food, including something called Spatzle that I will have to ask Christina how to pronounce.

Black Forest cake, YUM

And this is how I get DH to take me to the city, with promises of plenty of beer and other assorted alcoholic drinks. He hates the crowds and the traffic, but puts up with it to make me happy. It does make his glass go down a lot faster than mine though. :-)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Spring Sew Stylish Magazine

2008-04-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

I just picked up this issue today for $6.99, there's lots of great articles, including one by Ann Steeves of Gorgeous Things on welt pockets. Here's the rest of the contents from the Taunton website:

Spring Fashion is a special issue from Sew Stylish that previews the newest styles. As you create the featured fashions, you'll also master important sewing techniques that you'll use again and again. Just some of what you'll find here:

Draping 101 - covers dress forms, designer techniques, and how to use draping to achieve different looks.

Construction Zone - shows you how to master the bias, enhance your hand stitching techniques, perfect the welt pocket, and sew without instructions.

It's So Fitting - includes easy sleeve fitting, beyond the basic dart, and adjusting pants from waist to seat.

Best Kept Designer Secrets - gives you an insider's look at how to design by proportion and do-it-yourself modular design.

Make It Happen Studio - offers a quartet of spring fashions that are simple to make and sure to turn heads:

Elegant cover-up with a draped hood
Beautifully layered chiffon top
Show-stopping lacy top with pintuck pants.
Designer coat that you can customize your way
And so much more

Best-kept designer secrets
Charles Kleibacker: Pure Bias Brilliance	16
Design by Proportion	19
Make It Happen Project: The Painterly Touch	22
Discover draping
Meet the Dress Form	26
Magazine Extra: Make a Quick & Easy Duct-Tape Dress Form	28
Draping 101	28
Draping Details	30
Draping by Design	33
Make It Happen Project: Drape & Cover	36
Construction zone
Hand Stitch Nation	42
Perfect the Welt Pocket	46
Who Needs Instructions?	50
Drive Your Sewing Machine Right	53
Make It Happen Project: Sweet Overlay	56
It's so fitting
Let's Get Flexible	60
Easy Sleeve Fitting	63
Beyond the Basic Dart	68
Make the Adjustment	70
Make It Happen Project: The Perfect Pair	74
What else...
Letter	6
Quiz	8
Cool Tools	10
25 Tips to Simplify Your Sewing	78
Common Terms	88
Behind the Scenes	90

Designer Inspiration

2008-04-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

Online snoop-shopping can be a motivational experience, especially when browsing high end sites like Net-A-Porter. This Lela Rose dress immediately caught my eye, first of all it's yellow, a very hot color right now. Second, it can be yours for the bargain price of $1195, so of course I'm curious about what kind of quality that will buy. After staring at the pictures I noticed several details worth mentioning.

Lela Rose Spring 2008 $1195

One of my favorite details of this dress is the seaming in the front, the curved under bust seam and darts, coupled with the vertical and horizontal waist seams, beautiful! The topstitching brings out the detail, and I like how the horizontal seams stand out differently from the vertical seams .

Now take a look at the back zipper, it doesn't go all the way up the collar. I've worked on 2 different dresses with similar collars and never thought of doing this, as long as the neckline is wide enough to get it over your head it doesn't really need to open all the way. I really like how it preserves the line and shape of the collar.

Here's the inside view, this fabric is a double faced cotton so it doesn't appear to be lined right here, although the description does mention a partial cotton lining. Look how neatly the zipper is finished.

One more detail that drew my attention is the flap seam I believe it's called, the flap of fabric encircling the hip seam. I remember seeing a technique like this in Claire Shaeffer's High Fashion Sewing Secrets, but I'm not sure if I have the name right. It's not my favorite look and I probably wouldn't use it, but it is an interesting design feature.

The finished product, voila!

Now of course this doesn't compare to snoop-shopping in person, but you'd be surprised what you can glean from pictures. There's no reason why I couldn't incorporate some of those details in my upcoming projects, and for a lot less than $1195.

Pre-washing fabric

2008-04-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

At Cidell's suggestion I am turning this into a blog post, you seasoned bloggers seem to think of everything in terms of 'how can I format this for my blog?' (which seems to me, 'do I have a picture relevant enough to justify my blabbing about it?'). So here it is, hopefully someone will find this useful.

I hate drycleaning. I wash everything, including silks, bras, wool sweaters, lined skirts, etc. I do however use delicate wash bags, a front-loading washer, and delicate detergents like baby shampoo depending on what I'm washing. About the only thing I won't throw in the wash is a blazer, too much structure to get screwed up there.

One of the big benefits of sewing your own clothes (to me) is the ability to prewash fabric before making a garment. Most fabrics shrink up to some degree when washed; weaving and knitting processes can place a lot of tension on the fibers. When you expose the fabric to water, heat, and/or steam, the fibers relax and assume their final form. As long as you pretreat the fabric in the same manner you plan to clean it when it is done, you can pretty much eliminate any sizing surprises down the road. A few caveats would be some fabrics (like denim) shrink progressively, meaning they shrink a bit more with each wash. I wash new jeans 3-4 times before hemming for that reason. Also, I've heard some silks (like dupioni) lose their sheen when immersed in water, and of course anything with a lot of structure or interfacing (like blazers) don't do well in the washer either.

If you are too afraid to wash your entire yardage, you can cut swatches and test those first to see how they behave. Cidell found these awesome coatings at Michael's fabrics that I immediately ordered some of, they are double-faced cotton with a 'classic' stripe pattern on the reverse. She sent me swatches to test so I washed these 3 in cold water, baby shampoo, delicate cycle, and then air dried.

I outlined the swatches on paper before washing, after they dry you can line them up to see how much shrinkage occurred. None that I could see, this is nice fabric. :-)

I only washed half of each swatch to compare, the washed pieces are on top. There didn't appear to be any change of finish or color.

Other information I obtained from this experiment was the fabric is already somewhat water resistant, it kind of beaded up when I took the swatches out of the washer. The red swatch looked like the color had soaked through to the tan stripe side at first, however once it dried the color returned to normal. Don't ever assume one color will behave exactly like another! And finally it hardly frayed at all, I wouldn't expect a tightly woven double-face to anyways but that's good to know.

Weekend projects

2008-04-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

The J.Crew boatneck top knockoff is officially done! I was having issues with the silk twill drooping lower than the cotton batiste underlining and was debating on whether to start taking apart seams. I decided to just do the hand hemming of the sleeves and hem and hope it turned out okay, this seems to have worked this time. :-) There was one bubble on the right sleeve that I thought for sure I'd have to fix, but somehow in the hemming and pressing it turned out fine for the 3 feet test. (If you can't see it from 3 feet away it's good enough!)

Morph of New Look 6356

Back, showing my puckery hand-picked zipper

Neckline

Inside showing the hong-kong finished seams and hems

And my new Consew iron decided to provide a nice little display of it's power, by scorching a brown spot into my sleeve. Notice how it went on the cream area of the sleeve? Not the brown where it would be unnoticeable? It's so smart. I may have to keep it anyways. Note to self: do NOT lay your almost-finished garment haphazardly across the board and then leave. It WILL fall against the side of the iron. Murphy says so.

And finally I got started on another fabric from the LA PR weekend, a silk jersey from Michael Levine. I pulled out a TNT wrap top pattern morphed from Vogue wrap dress 8379.
It still needs cuffs, collar, hems, belt, and front edges. I should be able to finish it this weekend, but isn't it pretty so far?

New Fabric!

2008-04-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately it's not for me. :-) I offered to make a knockoff of this Michael Kors dress for a friend using this Vogue pattern.

We've already done 2 muslins, and I think the fit is very good. However she is in Virginia, and I'm in California. Did I mention I agreed to do this long distance? So far the only part in my favor is she's very similar to my measurements, although she has a fuller bust and smaller hips. Sigh, life isn't fair. I've had her looking for fabric for a month now, she finally picked this gorgeous tweed wool from Emma One Sock.

I had her ship it to my house directly, and I gasped when I opened the box. That tends to happen whenever I order fabric from Linda at EOS, she has the nicest fabrics. I'm super excited to start working on it, I just have to order an invisible zipper and get some more cotton batiste for the underlining.

And I have to thank Cidell for awarding me my first ever blog award, not bad for only being around less than a week. I will do my best to live up to the honor!

I know I'm supposed to pick 10 other blogs to pass along the award, but honestly I think they've all been nominated already! I'm going to have to do some digging and come up with some others.

Milly at Hancock's?

2008-04-02T16:25:00.001-07:00

I was browsing through my local Hancock Fabrics today when I found this gem tucked in next to some hideous poly 'prom' fabrics.

While inspecting the print more closely, I found the name 'Milly' scattered throughout the fabric, which is characteristic of the designer Milly. Sure enough, I found this dress on Net-A-Porter on sale for $412 right now. The fabric is a lovely silk charmeuse, it was labeled as silk but nothing more, for $16.99/yd.

Milly Satin Bandeau Dress

Does anyone know how Milly fabric found it's way to Hancock's??

More J. Crew

2008-04-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

I like J. Crew. A LOT. * Not only is much of my wardrobe from there, I often find inspiration for my sewing projects on their website and in the catalogs. As soon as this cami came out a few months ago I was smitten.

J. Crew Joelle cami, $78.00

I decided to go out on a limb and make my own pattern, I won't even call it draping because I don't have a dressform and I'm sure I broke all the rules, whatever they are. I just took some muslin fabric and started pinning and cutting. Here's what I came up with:

Now while I think I got pretty close to the real thing, I wasn't thrilled with it. I've been trying to figure out why and I decided it's just not that flattering on me. The gathers at the waist kind of poof out at the belly, and the pleats on the top just look better on someone with a smaller bust.
Like the lithe J. Crew model you see here.

I have 2 more colors of silk charmeuse ready to go that have been languishing while I mulled this over. Leave it to Erica B. to come up with something equally cute but probably a better fit for my figure, this simplicity top also done in charmeuse. I think the tank style, coupled with the princess seams and less tucks will be much more flattering on my shape. It just so happens simplicity is on sale at Hancock's until tomorrow, I think I will pick up this pattern and make up a quick muslin to confirm my hunch.

*DVF you will always have a place in my heart (and my closet), but I just can't wear pretty dresses everyday.

Handpicked zipper

2008-03-30T19:00:00.001-07:00

I took an 'easy 2 hour' New Look top and turned it into a three day extravaganza, and I'm still not finished with it. I decided the silk twill I purchased in LA during the Pattern Review weekend would be perfect for a knockoff of this J.Crew top, however it was on the sheer side so I thought it would be a good candidate to try a technique called flat-lining. This involves sewing the lining pieces to the garment pieces before the seams are sewn. Here is a good description of the process.

So after 2 muslins, drafting sleeves and a new neckline and facings, I started on the top. The silk was so shifty it was nearly impossible to keep on grain. Despite all my basting, by the time I got to the hem the silk was hanging lower than the cotton batiste I used for the underlining, so I had to hang it and repin.

Sorry it's pretty wrinkly, I still need to hem and press.

I had originally planned to do an invisible zipper, but yet again I thought 'why not?' and put in a handpicked. I had recently taken a handsewing class with Susan Khalje while in LA, and it was fresh in my mind. I don't think it turned out too bad, but it looks kind of puckery, not sure if its my fabric or my zipper technique. You're not supposed to have to baste handpicked zippers (just pin), but I used my trusty wondertape anyways, that stuff is like my safety blanket for zippers and I wasn't completely confident in my handstitching skills.

While I was at it, I also used a hong-kong finish on all the other raw edges, the armholes, edges of the facings, and all of the hems. Oh and this also happened to be the first time I've set eased sleeves, all my other projects have involved raglan sleeves or putting the sleeves in flat. Obviously I enjoy a challenge. :-)

I don't think I have the energy to do the hand-hemming yet, it's still just pressed up. I plan on hemming to the underlining only, so it will be completely invisible from the right side. Anyone have tips on how not to catch the fabric while doing this??

My sewing space....new and improved

2008-03-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Leslie, I like to sew. On with the blog.*

I've been getting by with an ancient Black and Decker iron DH bought before I was even a thought. Poor thing has been taking a beating since last summer when I really started sewing regularly, and it was time to put it down. Hearing Cidell rave about her Consew Silver Star CES-300 gravity feed iron made it easy to purchase from allbrands.com for $99.

And then what is a new iron without a new ironing board? The old one was equally feeble, it was so wobbly our hardwood floor has a chunk out of it where the Black & Decker took a spill off the end. DH was NOT pleased about that. Made it easy to sell him on the new board though. I got this european-size Rowenta from Bed Bath and Beyond with one of their 20% off coupons.

So the iron was delivered during the week when I am away from home for work, and DH happily opened the box and set it up for me. He went through several arrangements for hanging the water tank, and finally bent some pipe at work and along with some extra fittings and bolts created this masterpiece you see here: Notice how the tubing is held up at just the right height so it dangles perfectly above the board no matter where you put the iron? DH is so smart. I may have to keep him. He even sacrificed our corner hutch (that he made!) by drilling screws through the top to hold down the rod.

I am psyched, we'll see if this translates into a marathon sewing weekend.

*I tortured myself for weeks trying to come up with the 'perfect first post', I am a sewist after all and perfectionism seems to be one of the side effects. I finally gave up and dove in, please bear with me while I learn the intricacies of blogging.