Vote for me!

My tuffet fringe wristcushion is in the running for Sew Mama Sew’s Scrapbusters contest.  Vote for me here (I’m in the second group

On to other things:  I’m not a knitter.  I can’t crochet.  I must seriously be a shame to my family on this point given all of the beautiful doilies that my Mom’s mom made during her life and how my Czech great-grandma could make lace the real way by hand (she also made me an entire crocheted bedspread when I was little too complete with big yellow crocheted roses–amazing).  My Grandma tried to teach me–I couldn’t get everything nice and even and like most things that I don’t automatically take to (like sports) I gave up.  I really have come to terms with this.  I don’t think I could handle having bits of yarn all over anyhow as I (unlike my son, whom I strongly suspect is part cat) am neither fascinated nor inspired by bits of string.

But it’s getting cold here and my beloved turquoise wool scarf is showing some age these days!  But wait…I have fabric scraps and I remember seeing a friend in Bible study with a quilted scarf and I thought–that’s so cute and perfect!  So I cut wee 3″ by whatever length scraps from my stash, joined them with 1/4″ seams, pressed them, cut some flannel 2.5″ wide by the length of the scarf, basted some polar fleece scraps that were 2″ wide to the flannel, basted the flannel/fleece to the patchwork, cut a back, put right sides together, stitched around 3 sides and turned the whole thing, pressed it, stitched up the open end, and hand quilted it with bright pink and yellow embroidery floss.  Whew.  My neck is warmer.  And my son has a new toy to fascinate him while we’re out and about.

Puzzling through

 

I’ve started work on my Burda jacket and it’s gone really well so far.  I cut it one size smaller and did a FBA on my muslin which turned out to be the perfect thing to do.  It fit great across my back and once the FBA was done, things were good on the front too. 

I found a lovely navy blue lightweight cotton twill which will be the outer fabric and then I’m lining it with a really cool poly print I found at JoAnn–actually they have a lot of really cool poly prints right now…if I liked polyester more, I’d buy a lot more perhaps, but in general I’m not a fan.

There is all this shirring in the waist area in the jacket.  I don’t like the idea of the raw elastic being on the inside of the jacket–methinks it just looks a bit messy.  To solve this, I did opt to line the jacket.  My dilemma with lining it is two-fold.  I can’t cut the lining pieces from the same pattern as the jacket because of all of the shirring…so I can only partially line the jacket (defeats the purpose for me), shirr the lining too (too bulky), or treat the lining and jacket as one fabric, thus shirring them together (I like smooth linings).  I’ve also never worked on a jacket before, so to think about lining the whole thing  is a bit much too.

Here’s what I came up with.  I made all of the shirred pieces (fronts and back) exactly as they would be in the finished garment in my muslin.  I had to do some math to figure out how to distribute the elastic across the fronts and the back.  I did this because I’m going to pull the thing apart and use the shirred pieces as my pattern pieces for the lining, hoping that they will fit the outer fabric once it is shirred itself.  I’m not sure if this is going to work, but it just makes the most sense to me.

Other people on Patternreview have lined this jacket but none to my knowledge has written about their process in lining it, presumably because they’ve all lined like a million jackets.  Monique of Peacock Chic made a fantastic version (her jacket inspired my own hunt for this copy of Burda in the first place) and wrote a lot of helpful hints for the various parts of the jacket, but she did a Hong Kong finish instead of a lining.  I’ll try a Hong Kong finish sometime–but on a project with fewer and shorter seams.

I ordered some interfacing, so sometime next week I’ll be able to start the jacket for real.  I’m excited.  I think I’m going to love it.  I love it already in muslin–(it’s Nathan’s opinion that the muslin would make a nice bathrobe, but I’m not too convinced what with the overwhelming smell of the Ghost of Dryer Sheets Past coming off of this material) it’s very feminine and pretty. 

In other thoughts, you dear readers have asking me about fit and how to and so forth.  I consider myself no expert by any means, but if I can throw a few bits of wisdom out there for the benefit of others, I’d like to try.  So keep looking for some fitting advice here very soon.

Fitted in Five

I don’t write much about using my serger as she’s not doing terribly exciting work other than finishing seams.  Today I will try to give her some equal time.  Here’s a lightning fast project that only uses the serger.

Fitted cardigan

I’m not much for finding used clothing and turning it into something else…partly because it’s not really my aesthetic, but mostly because I have bad luck finding used clothing with bones that are good enough to rescue.  My dilemma is that I have this black cardigan…which is really more like a shrug given how I can’t button it because it’s made for someone whose chest is a lot smaller than mine.  No bother–I love my black sweater and wear it with nearly everything.  It has a hole in the sleeve seam and the sleeves themselves are getting a bit stretched out but I still can’t bear to part with it. 

The more practical, less-sentimental part of myself realized that the old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be and went looking for some sweaters to refashion.  I hate spending money on big chunky sweaters because I look like a gnome in them and they are so terribly expensive.  I wanted cardigans or something that could easily be a cardigan with a fine sized knit.  As luck would have it, I found 3, each for about $2.  The other 2 are sitting in my closet ready to be dealt with, but I decided to fix this one today.  It’s a lovely Scottish lambswool (a bit itchy, so I’ll have to line the sleeves somehow to make it more wearable for me…this is one reason why I’ve hung onto my dear sweater, which is a non-itchy viscose blend for so long).

The original sweater was really baggy in the arms, but my favorite sweater fits really well in the sleeves, so I used it as a template.  I took my favorite sweater and lined up the top of its sleeves with those the big sweater underneath it, which I had turned inside out.  I drew a rough chalk line around my favorite sweater, leaving a good amount of seam allowance.  I pinned a good 2″ inside of my chalk line and cut on my line  (Repeat this process on the other side).  I then used the serger to sew a new seam along the cut edge.  I buried my thread tails and that was it!  You almost can’t get more instant gratification than this. 

(pay no attention to the pajama bottoms)

Scrap Busting Tuffet Fringed Wristcushion

Are you a stabber?  I sure am.  Somehow I manage to not step on pins, but I’m always pricking my fingers with them and my only defense seems to be a good pincushion…but then, I forget where I’ve put those.  So I figured out a solution–attach it to myself via wrist.  But then there’s the stabbing issue on a larger, less calloused part of my body.  Here’s my attempt to fix that problem too:

Fringed Wristcusion

Materials:

Coordinating (or not if that’s how you roll) scraps of cotton quilting fabric approximately 6″ long and any width

Scissors and/or rotary cutter

See-through quilting ruler

1 scrap of cardstock measuring 4″ X 4.5″

Your trusty sewing machine

1 scrap of canvas or other heavyweight decor fabric about 2″ X 2″

1 strip fabric about 1.75″ X 8″

1 scrap of fabric 2.5″ X 3″

28″ ribbon or bias tape

Needle and thread

A big fistfull of polyester stuffing

1 Dritz pins box bottom and the pins, of course!

glue stick!!

hot glue!!!

1/4 yd fringe trim

Directions:

1. Stack about 4 of the 6″ strips on top of each other.  Stagger the edges by about 1/4″ so that they won’t all be the same width when you cut them.  Using a see-through quilting ruler, cut through your stack at the 1.5″ mark.  Do this 2 times. 
2. Using a 1/4″ seam allowance, join your strips of fabric in any order on the 6″ sides.  Press the seams in one direction.   
3. Lay the cardstock template on top of the right side of your little pieced rectangle you made in step 1 and cut around it with a rotary cutter (or trace around it and cut it out with scissors).  I put my template down not straight with the seams, but you can orient it any way you like.  
4. Matching right sides together, stitch the 1.75″ X 8″ strip around the 2.5″ X 3″ rectangle with a 1/4″ seam allowance.  You might have a little extra–no bother–just trim it off…it need not be perfect. 
5. If you’re using bias tape, bring the long folded edges together and stitch to make a ribbon.  Center the ribbon (or bias tape) on the bottom of the little box you made in step 4 and stitch it in place.
6. Put the plastic pin box in the center of the fabric box.  Apply glue stick to the outside of the plastic box and wrap the fabric box around it, pressing the edges down so that they stick.  Apply a little more glue stick on the inside edge of the plastic box and secure down the raw edges of the fabric. 
7. Using a doubled and knotted length of thread, fold over the raw edge of the rectangle from steps 1-3 about 1/4″ and sew around the perimeter with a long running stitch.  Stick the canvas piece in the center of the wrong side of the bottom and start filling with the stuffing.  As you add more stuffing, pull the thread so that it gathers tightly around the stuffing.  Keep adding more stuffing as you gather a little more.  Be careful not to add too much at one time or your thread could break and you’ll have to stitch again.  When you’re done, it should be a plump little tuft and the stuffing will stick out a bit at the back.  Knot the thread securely.
8. How fast can you glue gun?  Let’s find out!  Put a good dollop of hot glue in the center of the inside of the plastic box and stuff the little tuft in before the glue gets too cool.  I apologize now if you burn your fingers–I sure did…it didn’t feel good, but darn it I love my glue gun.  One by one, secure the edges of the tuft with a little more hot glue applied on the inside edges of the box.  You’ll probably have a little glue rearing it’s ugliness on the edges of your lovely little tuffet…but don’t fear–you have fringe!!!
9. Run a bead of hot glue around the top outside edge of the box and press in the fringe trim, covering up any glue mess from step 7. 
10. Stick in your pins (just try and stab yourself through all that plastic), tie it on your wrist and you’re ready to sew!

Date Night Top

I’m so ridiculously happy about this top (my photography is less than stellar, but my photo assistant is relentlessly plugging away at finishing his dissertation–3 more weeks and hopefully that’s it).  After trucking through another muslin I finally figured everything out.  I think my back is narrower than my front, so I took out an inch from the center back and things were much less poufy and weird…and this would also explain the gappiness in my last couple of tops in the back.  I think since the FBA makes extra width across the front, I end up with too much at the back…this is my theory anyhow.  Sure enough, when I took out the extra inch at the center back I could eliminate some of the other things that I had tried (I tried a rounded back alteration because that was the closest alteration that could explain what was happening). 

This fabric was also a dream to work with–very supple without being slippery, pretty wrinkle resistant, soft, lightweight yet somehow warming.  It gathered like nothing else.  I wish there were different prints of this same fabric (Vogue fabrics also has a pink colorway of this fabric, but it’s so distinct I don’t think I’ll get it).  The darts I added in the back added a lot of structure, took out extra fluff in the waist and added a nice slimming detail.  Shockingly too, for being kind of sort of fitted, this is a very comfortable top.

What I learned:  a whole lot about altering a pattern to fit my body.  All total I lowered the front neckline, added shoulder darts, 4 back waist darts, shortened the bodice, did an FBA, and made the neckline bigger in front and in back so the thing could fit over my head.  Sometime in the not too distant future, I’m going to make a fitting shell so that when I make a pattern there is less troubleshooting I will have to do.  In February there’s a sewing expo with lots of fitting classes that I think I’ll also take to figure this stuff out.  As much as I have enjoyed this process and am pleased with my final product, if I have to do this for everything I work on, it’ll be pretty tiresome indeed.  Good thing there were only 3 pieces to this top.

Grading a pattern up.  I used this method outlined out in Threads.  In retrospect, I don’t think I needed to.  My next pattern, I’m going to cut a size smaller and see if, after I’ve done my FBA if things aren’t closer to reality than they have been.

French Seams.  I’ve actually known how to do these since college when I made myself a duvet by hand (my first sewing machine was that much of a lemon), but this was the first time that I’ve done them on a garment.  I figured with the lightness of the fabric, they’d be a nicer choice than my serger.

I think this is the first garment that I’ve made that I’m not nitpicking internally every time I put it on.  I just feel pretty (in a cheesy West Side Story kind of way).  I can’t wait to wear it out on a lovely date with my wonderful sweet husband.

2 days, 3 muslins

 

I’ve been stalking the February 2008 copy of Burda World of Fashion since March of last year.  You would think you could get an issue 1 month after it’s been published fairly easily…not so much.  So finally, I found it on Ebay a couple of months ago and I pounced on it.  Originally, I bought it for this jacket

(which I love and I’m totally making–I have the fabric ready to go despite the fact that it’s snowed already this week), but then I saw this,

and I really liked that too….and nearly everything else in this issue.  It makes me think I could ever subscribe to Burda.  I’d be over my lifetime ability to sew everything I want to in a couple of issues.

This blouse itself is pretty simple–just a front and a back and a collar piece.  The collar itself is a mock tie–so fun and very my style as I am often rarely without a necklace or scarf around my neck.  It sure has been a long haul to get this to fit me though.  The magazine comes with patterns for like a million garments, but you have to trace everything first (unless you actually want to go blind trying to read the different lines).  Sadly, I’m between Burda sizes, so I had to grade it up after I traced it off, then I did my standard FBA and added a side dart because I like them.  This all took me to muslin #2 (#1 was to see if I liked the style enough to bother).  Then the neck opening was a bit small to be comfortable and was pulling up and kind of choking me…not so fun.  I lowered the neckline 1″ and things were about a million times better.  Off to #3: The neckline is gathered in the front and the back in the pattern…this was fine in front, but made me look a bit hunchbacked in back.  I did a small adjustment for a round upper back (which I don’t think I have, but it seemed to help) plus I pinched out the excess fullness to get the tissue to lie flat when I was tissue fitting myself.  After I decided to try to add a couple of darts at the neckline…and the neckline issues solved themselves.  To bring my waist in, I did waist darts on the back only.  I wanted to maintain the style in the front, and also all of my extra fabric seems to be in my back.  I’m really starting to wonder if I can’t go down a couple of sizes on my back pieces…hmmm….must investigate more.

Though I sewed this sucker like 3 times, it never took me more than an hour.  I spent more times on the changes than on sewing the muslins.  I learned so much too that it was worth the extra time.  Although, there’s not much left of the poor sheet I pirated.

At any rate, things are fitting very well now, and I’m so excited to do this in real fabric.  I hunted down this fantastic batiste from Vogue Fabrics.  It’s so beautiful.  It’s been draped over Tina for a couple weeks now and I can tell she’s rather loathe to part with it.

I think it’s funny that it’s approaching winter here and I’m sewing sleeveless blouses.  Tee hee.  I guess I’ll just throw on a cardigan over it.

My Mom can’t believe this one.

In my life I’ve never done frilly things. Ever. My Mom tried to put me in bows and lace and ruffles and I protested every time. Not that I wasn’t girly…I was always plenty girly, just not like that.

I think she’s laughing inside now that I’m discovering that lace is pretty fun–particularly to sew and that ruffles are also fun to so and rather intriguing to me.

Hence this Simplicity top. I picked it up during one of those Hobby Lobby $.99 pattern sale a few months ago(the coolest sales ever!) and I’ve been taken with it ever since. There was no need for me to do an FBA because the pattern so kindly provided a seperate pattern for B, C, and D cups. Thanks Simplicity!

Simplicity 2599

What I learned:

1. How to sew a ruffle  It’s so stinking fun.  I basted it on by hand once it was pinned to the top–much easier/less scary than using the machine.  It also was a better choice because this gingham is pretty sheer.  I made a camisole the other day to go under it because all of my camisoles don’t fit my post-pregnancy body. 
2. How to make waist darts  I’m slowly learning how to fit my body.  I’m short (5′ 2 1/2″), but I’m also curvy, and if I don’t fit my waist well, I look about 15 lbs heavier than I actually am which on my frame is rather elephantine.  Although my waist measurement is between 2.5 and 3.5 inches larger than my pattern size (depending on the time of day…grr), I find that commercial patterns are ALWAYS too big in that region.  So I’ve been basting the sides together and trying on my tops and pinning out the excess and resewing along my new lines.  The problem is, as much as I need to typically take out right at the waist causes drag lines under my bust…not so cute.  I posted on patternreview and a very helpful lady suggested adding waist darts in the front and the back–GENIUS!!!  This takes care of the fullness that happens at the waist while additionally adding some very figure flattering contouring.  It’s like the best of all possible worlds.  Here’s what she writes:  ”Draw a vertical line down from your apex parallel to your CF, this will be the center line of your dart. At your waist line, make a cross mark 1/4 in. on each side of the line. The dart should start 1 to 1 1/2 in. below your apex & end about 3 to 3 1/2 in. below your waist & pass thru those cross marks. You may be able to take slightly more than 1/4 in. depending on the shape of your abdomen.

   You can make your vertical line in back the same distance from your CB as your front line is from CF. In back you can mark 1/2 in. to each side of the line. It should start about armhole level & extend to 4 1/2 or 5 in. below your waist.

   If this is still not enough shaping you can duplicate the same darts about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 in. away from the 1st dart (toward your side seam).”

3. How to blind hem  I’ve really wanted to do this for a long time, but every illustration/tutorial I’ve seen hadn’t made sense.  I saw this one via another blog.  Now I get it.

Things I’m wondering about:

1. This is the second top I’ve made recently that had a center back opening and it gaped a bit at the top.  I’m not sure if that’s something with my body or the style…must investigate.
2. I finally get that silly “back waist” measurement that’s on the pattern envelope and how it relates to me.  I have to shorten every bodice–now I get by how much!  On this top I kind of guessed at how much to take out instead of taking out what I needed to…not bad, but it could be better.

I cook good food now.

I’ve been kicking this idea around for a while now.  I love food writing and I love to write about food and darn it cooking is about my favorite thing to do in the whole world.  My dilemma is that ~E Made This really has turned into more of a sewing blog than anything else.  I have too much to talk about in the way of food to justify keeping my food posts here where if you’re here, perhaps you’d rather be seeing sewing.  Perhaps the fact that I also have pretended for years what I would say to Martha were I a guest on her show trying to teach her how to make flatbreads has convinced me that I need to write about food too.

So as a matter of housekeeping, all my food love will be poured into ~E Made This Dairy Free from now on.  I’ll put up a link in my sidebar.

2920

No sci-fi here (that’s my husband’s dept–I don’t get it), just another yoyo quilt finished.  I like this one.  I used a lot of fabric scraps from other projects–linen from some pants, linen from a skirt, poly charmeuse from the last yoyo quilt, some quilting fabric from the diaper bag I made a while back, and some AWESOME blue cotton sateen I made an apron from as a wedding present for a friend (why didn’t I buy more of that fabric?–it was fabulous).

2920 is the number of wee tiny seams connecting all 1500 yoyos together.  This time, just for kicks, I used Gnomey to sew them all instead of joining them with a blanket stitch by hand like I usually do.  There are pros and cons of this.

Sewing yoyos by machine pros:

1. It’s wicked fast–though not as fast as you would think
2. It super saved my hands from the usual tendinitis flare ups that occur with yoyos for me because being the taskmaster that I am, I try to do too many in a given day
3. A good old #14 needle tackles some nasty thicknesses of yoyos that otherwise make your hands pretty sore

Downside of sewing yoyos by machine:

1. The quilt is smaller than usual because of the seam allowance.  A hand blanket stitch joins the yoyos right at the edge so the seam allowance is MAYBE only 1/16″ as opposed to a scant 1/8″ by machine.  Seems small but it’s not…but that’s one of those things that only I would notice–it doesn’t affect the appearance that much.
2. It’s hard to manipulate the edges of the yoyos as you sew them so that they are totally flush with each other.
3. You have to cut all the little machine threads so things go slower than you think they ought to.
4. This is really the kicker for me and why I will go back to hand sewing on my next quilt:  it’s just not as neat as the hand stitching.  When you cut the threads it’s virtually impossible to cut them down to the ends of them without damaging the fabric.  As anal as I am about thread clipping, this really bothers me, but not so much that I’m going to get every little one…I don’t need a repetitive motion injury from a yoyo quilt.

At the end of the day I’m glad to have this one done.  I have one more to go for my circle of girlfriends before I’m done and I can make one that can stay in my house.   The last one I’m looking forward to though–the recipient and the color palette I’m choosing for her because it fits her well is the one that also fits me the best.  I’m looking forward to bathing myself in those lovely colors.  More on that in several months, LOL!

Sometimes it’s fun to color outside the lines

 

I took on the challenge on the current project at Tie One On.  Make a plaid apron.  I studied an article in an old issue of Threads to gear my brain up for the task.  I drafted a simple apron bodice and decided to fit it to the front skirt of Vogue 7735, which is just a basic 8 panel A-line skirt I had in my stash.  On the pattern envelope, it of course said the pattern was “unsuitable for ….plaids…” Bah! I say!  I folded up my seam allowances and carefully pinned and cut out each section of the skirt one at a time.  Sure things aren’t on grain, but I figured…hey, it’s an apron…I can still use it, and the experience of matching stripes is more valuable than if it’s 100% on grain. 

The pocket is from Colette Pattern’s Parfait that I did a while back.  I like it in plaid.

All of that being said, I’m over my fear of stripes…it’s tedious to match them, but kind of fun…like a big ole puzzle.  Sandra Betzina recommends using double stick tape instead of pins to hold things in place even more carefully when matching patterns.  Methinks I shall try this next time.