Stuck

I’ve been trying to gather the motivation to tackle my next project.  Several weeks ago I traced off and went through muslin #1 of Burda 05-2010-110.  Wouldn’t you know that I can’t find anyone has written about it or made it up yet?  Where are you petite sewers of Burda?  I need your help.

There are two problems–one that I can fix and one that leaves me with my head a scratchin.  #1–CF is way too low for my taste.  There are some pleats that make raising it by the 2.5″ I estimate I need (I usually raise it only by 1″ if that gives you an idea of how low it is) a little tricky, but that I can figure out.

The larger problem #2:  What on earth is this sleeve?

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how it’s supposed to fit into the armscye.  In typical Burda style, the directions are cryptic and somehow semi-clear on the topic of the sleeve too.  I’ll quote: “Trim allowance on outer edge of cap sleeves to 1/4″ wide, press to inside, and stitch.  Press allowance on straight back edge of cap sleeves to inside.  Baste cap sleeves to neck edge, from each front section seam to back abutting line, with wrong side facing right side.”  Looking at these directions and the line drawings and this almost makes sense.  There’s some kind of placement line that I think the straight part of the sleeve is supposed to be attached to.  I need to go back to the pattern sheet and puzzle it out.  I’m convinced I’m making it harder than it really is.

The good news is that there’s nothing I need to change on this pattern other than the height of center front.  The fit is perfect right out of the gate.  Yee haw for petite patterns!

Watercolor Splash blouse

I’m loving this fabric that I found at Denver Fabrics last month.  At first, I was confused by my cursory burn test, but after I did a more serious test, I figured out that it is mercerised cotton which has been lovely to work with and it’s left me wishing I could find more of it.

The mercerisation process not only adds this lovely sheen to the fabric, but it makes the fibers accept dye more easily, which explains why the colors in this fabric are so beautifully saturated.

As for the blouse itself, it is Butterick 4985, again taking inspiration from Katie at Kadiddlehopper.  I really love the flutter sleeve on this one and I’ve been on the hunt for a good tie neck blouse for some time.

Butterick 4985

What I learned:

French Seams:  I love French seams.  I used them on my first big project–a duvet I made from two sheets in college by hand.  I wanted a nice clean look on the inside, so I used the French seams for everything.  If you’ve ever tried matching seam intersections with French seams, it’s a bit tricky.  Some of them were great the first try, and others took more perseverance.  I see some sewing etude practice with French seams in my not-too-distant future.

Mark the buttons silly!:  I’ve started marking everything on the wrong side of the pattern pieces and in the seam allowances.  This works great for many things, but CF lines and button markings on a blouse, not so much.  Marking buttons afterwards especially just didn’t work on this empire line.  I think the buttons look okay really only because this print is so busy and I used a very neutral button.  Not my best effort here.

More seams=less distortion:  I know people love doing FBA’s the Palmer Pletsch way.  I’m not saying it’s not a good way to go about it, I just think it doesn’t work for everyone, and I’m one that it’s not helpful for.  I mean not to put down their method–I know they’ve helped a lot of people, and you, dear reader might be one of them.  I am not.  The starting point leaves me swimming in my neck and shoulders, and I end up with 6-8 extra inches of fabric to deal with in the waist and hips.  There’s a couple of techniques I’ve been experimenting with, and they’ve all given me a better fit than a traditional FBA. 

For starters, I trace off a size that fit my shoulder point to shoulder point measurement.  This ensures that the garment is the right size at the point that it’s hanging off my body (i.e. from my shoulders–picking patterns based on the high bust may work for some, but if you think about it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense because your garment isn’t hanging from your ribcage).  2.75″ along the armscye seam, where my full bust level is located, I use the armhole portion of a French curve to curve out to the next largest size, which gives me a little more room for my bust.  This is a fairly fitted top, so I knew I would need a little more room still, so I borrowed space from the seam allowances included in this pattern (5/8″).  I sewed the side seams at 4/8″ and each of the side-center front seams at 3/8″.  Because the change was across 4 seperate seams, there was no distortion in the waist that I must deal with in traditional FBA’s, and the blouse retained it’s overall shape.  I could use a little extra length in the upper bodice, but not too much.

I’ve been so excited to finish this blouse and once I started feeling better yesterday, it’s been all I could think about.  While I like the farm blouse, the colors and the style of this blouse are so much more me.  My heart is just filled with big splashy bright colors all the time–might as well wear them, right?

My full review is here.

Why I’m thinking more is less

I’ve had very little motivation to make my second skirt in my June plan (Burda 02-2008-111).  I haven’t been able to pin down why until I went outside.

It’s really hot.  Okay, not as hot as you poor dears in TX, and certainly not as humid (I do NOT miss TX summers), but after sweating through my shirt pushing about Noah in the CO sun, I’ve come to some conclusions.

I don’t want to wear close fitting skirts when it’s hot.  I’m looking at that stretch cotton in my stash and thinking I just might suffocate in it.  Give me a nice A-line made out of a breezy linen or something equally cool and I’ll be a much happier camper in the heat.  So I’ll put this skirt on the back burner until fall.  Until then, I will gladly be in my swishy skirt or something else with more fabric that allows the breeze to get to my legs.  And pass the iced tea please!

Swishy

It’s been slow going around here.  Noah had a stomach bug a couple of weeks ago that caught up to me and my Mom on Monday with a vengeance.  I’m sticking by the notion that it was food poisoning, but does it really matter how you got sick when you’re lying about in agony?  Probably not.  Recovery has been slow, and Noah and I have had lots of quality couch time playing this week.  I’m still not 100% and right now I’m in a hazy sort of jetlag feel, so I apologize if this post is more scattered than normal (and my hair is a little bit more crazy Claire than I realized too).

I’m really grateful that I managed to finish 2 more garments that had been sitting on my table during my sicky time.  Here’s the curved godet skirt.  This was really a pretty fast sew, though it had to be hung since the godets are on the bias.  Without the hanging, there was probably 2 hours of construction involved.

BWOF 2-2007-113

What I learned:

I’m not near as wide as I think I am:  I’m hippy, but I also have a small waist, and when I lose weight, I lose it first from my waist.  The problem that I run into with skirts is that the waist is so big when I choose patterns based on my full hip that the finished skirt will fall clean off me were it not for those hips.  If they don’t fall off me completely, the skirts settle at a point below my waist that is not the most flattering.  I need to start being realistic about where I want my skirts to fall and be strict about that measurement.  This skirt’s waist is better than my previous skirts, but it’s still sits lower than I’d like it to. 

I cut a straight 38 which fit my hips beautifully.  I’m glad to figure out that this is my base size in Burda.  Once I figure out the waist problem, I’ll be doing better on sizing skirts.

Stay tape!:  The very inspirational Katie of Kadiddlehopper posted not to long ago about stabilizing the waistline of a linen skirt she had made with twill tape.  I took it to heart and did that for this skirt.  This may be why it doesn’t fall off me near as much as most skirts end up doing, plus it made for the nice clean look which I’m always looking for in linen.  Gertie wrote a quick primer on stay tapes last week, so now I’m thinking about them a lot especially with skirts.

Bias love:  I love the movement in bias skirts.  It makes all of the fiddly hanging and marking that comes with hemming bias worth it.  I’ll throw out there that to keep the godets (which are on the bias) from stretching as I sewed them in, I put them next to the feed dogs and kept the straight grain pieces on top since they are more stable.  I used a fusible bias tape to interface the hem too which made things very easy to deal with. 

I do love this skirt, and I wouldn’t mind at some point making another one with some changes to the waist.  For now, I’m grateful to have a cool skirt for summer.

If you’re interested, my complete review of the particulars of this pattern is here.

Family Reunion Top

Things are going well on my plan despite Gnomey being out of service for a couple of days.  I threw off her timing bigtime fishing out the needle tip.  My very very kind machine repair guy charged me for a normal service though he spent much more time trying to figure out what was going on.

Back to the plan…my curved godet skirt is hanging, awaiting hemming, I’ve finished the black gingham top, and this latest knit top.

This is for my family reunion that is coming up in a couple of weeks.  The idea is that each branch of the family is supposed to wear matching t-shirts.  I’m not really a t-shirt wearer, and I certainly can’t nurse in a traditional one, so I’ve been weighing my options for a while.  I settled on this Simplicity 2369, which I really can’t recommend enough.    When I went shopping for fabric, Denver Fabrics had no solid royal blue (my family’s color), that was suitable, so I went with this floral ITY.

Simplicity 2369

What I learned

Using your serger makes your serging better: this goes without saying, but since I haven’t been able to serge without a great deal of hassle until very recently, my serging has been not so nifty.  I’m starting to understand it now though since I can roll between both machines.  The seam allowance gauges are starting to make sense to me now too, which are a little funny on a serger.  I serged all of the seams on this top with a 3 thread setup to give things more stretch.  This is hands down my best serger work.  Yay!

Steam a Seam and ITY:  I’ve taken a break from using Steam a Seam in the hems of my knit projects for a while as I’ve been trying different techniques and building my skills working with knits.  I came back to it on this project because I had a bit of a notion that a nice crisp seam is what I wanted, especially on the full sleeves.  I’m sold.  I will ALWAYS use Steam a Seam for ITY.  The hems just hang really nice with it in them.

All in all, I’m grateful to have a nice comfortable top that’s appropriate for the get together with my family, and I’m thinking depending on what fabric you use, this top could be appropriate in a lot of different settings.

My full review is here.

Next up is the Butterick 4985 from the mystery floral fabric in the middle of this lot. 

I fitted the pattern yesterday, and I just need to shorten the lower bodice pieces before I cut things out.

Old and new

I don’t mean to hate on quilters or quilting, but I’m not a fan of the act of quilting myself.  Though I love the end result, I’m not a fan of cutting out the pieces, and I find the sewing just kind of boring.  But once in a while, I simply can’t keep away from the rich saturated colors that you find in quilting fabrics. 

So when I found these amazing squares of very vintage fabric

at the thrift store one day, I knew that they should be a blanket for Noah.  I bought some fabric at JoAnn yesterday to flesh out the palette, and I’m enjoying the contrast of the vintage fabrics with the modern ones.  

I serged everything together since Gnomey is getting her timing fixed.  This was pretty quick except I didn’t bother measuring for my borders, so I kind of pieced haphazardly which is my way anyhow.  The back is some IKEA fabric I won along with lots of other goodies a long time ago from decor8.  I’ll tie it when I get some batting.

Farm blouse

With my family reunion coming up, I knew I’d have to have some cool blouses handy to beat the sticky Nebraska and Iowa heat that happens in July.  I’ve had this tiny black gingham in my stash for a while, and I knew it’d be appropriate for hanging out on my aunt’s farm.

Burda 2-2007-109: Black gingham blouse

What I learned:

You too can fit a button down blouse!:  Button-down blouses are my nemesis.  I’ve never had one that fit me in the bust that wasn’t 8 sizes too big everywhere else.  Back in January when I wrote down my goals for the year, sewing a button-down was on my list.  As my starting point, I traced of the shoulder size that matched my shoulder point to shoulder point measurement the best after I measured the pattern.  I used to use my high bust measurement as Fit for Real People and other fitting books will tell you to do.  The problem is that my shoulders are narrower than this, so using my high bust measurement makes everything too big in the shoulders and neck, making things rather uncomfortable and generally awkward.

From there, I transitioned to the next size up 2.75″ below the armscye seam with a French curve.  2.75″ isn’t some random number–it’s precisely where the fullest part of my bust is.  I deepened the waist dart by 1″ via the seam method, and I sewed my side seams at 3/8″ instead of the 5/8″ that I had allowed for myself just to give myself a tiny bit more room to breathe.  Honestly, I don’t know why I’ve been avoiding button-down blouses until now because this was truly not that bad to fit at all.  It helps that Burda patterns are drafted for C cups instead of B…

Poofy sleeves:  I’ve never quite shared Anne Shirley’s opinion of puffed sleeves.  I’m not really sure why I don’t like them, I just never really have.  But these just seemed sweet to me.  And what with the excellent way that Burdas fit my arms, I knew they were worth a try.  I was not disappointed.  Maybe I can appreciate Anne’s tastes after all now. 

Perseverance:  The only tricky part of making this blouse was the collar.  The stand does not go to the end of the band.  The front edges of the collar get sewn to the ends of the bands instead.  At first I thought I really messed up bigtime, but I read others’ reviews on PR and found that things were supposed to be like this.  Of course they were–I’ve never seen Burda make a 2 inch drafting error!  I reduced down my seam allowance on the collar, stand, and the neckline to 1/4″ to make things easier to move around.  I did a practice collar and got such noticeably better results by not sewing 5/8″ seams, that I will always use 1/4″ seams for collars in the future.  Once I had the collar+stand made, I basted it by hand to the neckline so it would be easier to control.  There is a band of bias that covers the collar seam on the inside.  I sewed with the basted side up and the bias on the bottom which made things very simple to manipulate.  I’m really glad I stuck it out with this collar. 

As a teacher, perhaps one of the most exciting things to see is the process of your students puzzling through things that they might come to a point of understanding.  To see that growth in myself is no less exciting.

I’m pretty jazzed to have a blouse now that fits me so well and that will keep me cool in the summer heat.  Did I mention the buttons? 

I love the little vintage feel that they have.  I’d love to make this up again with that vintage poly chiffon that I used for my niece’s dress, but I’m not sure about how to make it less sheer.  I’ll be thinking about this…

My full review of this pattern is here.

Use the right tool for the task

(Picture from here)

Yesterday I made a very simple insert for our duvet from 2 thrifted sheets and some cotton batting.  The normal comforter that we have in it year round is just too hot for the summer, but I hate sleeping under just sheets.

Things were going swimmingly–I layed out the sheets together with the batting on top and serged the edges.  I turned everything and started stitching my opening I’d left for turning open and I busted a needle.  It’s my own fault for thinking the 70/10 needle I’d been using for my black gingham shirt would go through 2 layers of sheeting selvages plus a layer of batting.  I figured–hey, what’s 10 inches?  Not my brightest conclusion…

So after some time unscrewing the bottom of my sewing machine, I spotted the wayward needle tip that had broken off.  I tried to get at it with a piece of tape and ended up jamming it in further.  More screws off and several hours later, it came out on its own.  After putting the screws back in their place, something got misaligned and Gnomey started making this awful squeaky whirring.  So Gnomey is in the shop.    Sad sad sad.  Hopefully it will just be a little fiddling with the screws and things will be back to normal.  I imagine that’s what’s will happen given that we weren’t poking around or whacking anything about.

The Aesopian moral?:  The next time you go to do a job, whatever it may be, ask yourself if you’re using the proper tool for the task.  Sometimes you can get away with making do, and sometimes your laziness gets punished dreadfully.

Batch fitting

Last week I sat down and drew out my goals for sewing for the month.  I am in need of summer clothes fast that aren’t scrubby t-shirts or shorts that I bought 11 pounds ago and are now falling off of me.  For once, I want to have a summer where I can beat the heat with my clothes and look like a lady too.

Here’s what I came up with: 

I’ll out myself and say that I sew knits as often as I do not just because I like them but because they’re a gazillion times easier to fit than wovens.  If you notice, there’s only 1 knit item in this batch.  This will be a great opportunity for me to figure out some fitting with wovens. 

I also decided that fitting takes up a whole lot of mental space.  I measure my patterns, trace them off, cut out a practice, see what I need to change, trace out more if necessary, cut out more practices if necessary, get things nice, cut out real fabric, construct, finish.  To repeat this cycle endlessly can sometimes feel not unlike the plight of poor Sisyphus.  I feel like if I can do one big round of fitting for several garments at a time, maybe I’ll save my brain some strain at the bottom of the hill later. 

I’ve been fitting the patterns, and paperclipping each one together and hanging them on the peg board before going on to fitting the next.  It’s been 3 days and I’ve made 4 seperate muslins for 3 separate patterns.  2 went rather quickly and didn’t need much tweaking–a little shortening here, but nothing dramatic.  The button-down blouse has taken a little more thought process.  I managed to avoid an FBA, which I’m grateful for because I’ve always ended up with so much waist distortion when I’ve done them in the past.  I will say that I’ve felt really relaxed and calm about fitting all of these instead of the usual frenzy/panic I put myself in at the start of a new project.  This seems rather counterintuitive that more causes less stress, and I I can’t say that I’ll batch fit all of the time, but I’ve actually enjoyed it this time.

Here are 3 of the fabrics in this first round of my plan.  The mini black gingham is on my cut table at the moment, but I’m sure you can imagine what that looks like.  I’ve actually fitted the pattern for the mini black gingham and not the red and blue floral fabric, but I forgot that the mini black gingham was on my cut table when I snapped this.

The red and blue floral isn’t actually cotton as I thought when I bought it.  It burns like silk, but usually at Denver Fabrics, they separate their silk flat folds from the rest, so maybe it’s a silk blend.  Who knows?  But a good old bit of mystery fabric never hurt anyone, right?

Sewing room update, part 2

As I said, lots of changes have been made to my sewing space.  The one that I’m a little tickled about is the curtain.  Usually for curtains I take a whole lot of Kona cotton and stamp it.  Sometimes I like the results (note my backdrop), and sometimes not.  The problem with Kona cotton as curtains is 3-fold.  1)It doesn’t drape well as it’s meant to be flat on quilts 2)It’s pretty opaque, which is great if you’re looking for privacy, but not so much if you live in a rather dark apartment and 3)The 44″ width means you’ll have to piece the curtain, leaving an awkward seam in your curtain and you’ll have to buy twice the yardage.

A couple weeks ago I was on the hunt for cotton lawn for a Burda dress I’m in the muslin stage of.  I found some really nice lawn at fabric.com and it is $4.19/yd!  I knew this leaf pattern would be too big of a scale for me to wear but perfect for the window.  At 58″ wide, I only had to buy 2 yards, making this a really inexpensive project.  The green makes me smile, plus it’s not too girly to share the room with Noah.  It lets in more light than the previous stamped Kona curtain did too.   

The biggest change was the table situation.  I’ve been sewing on a card table which is pretty unstable and not very space-efficient.  It’s actually so unstable that I damaged my serger when I first bought it.  I’ve since been dutifully serging on the kitchen table which is much more solid, but it’s made serging work rather user unfriendly.  In addition to having to move everything, it’s much harder to play defense with the baby and the cord at the kitchen table.  I’ve been haunting the thrift stores trying to find something that would fit both machines and give me just better space.  I was really blessed to find this amazingly solid conference table a few weeks ago for the whopping price of  $20.  We can stand on it and everything!  We did have to rent a truck for another $20 to get it to our place, but even at $40 this table is a bargain. 

Bonus–there’s room underneath to fit a filing cabinet to make easy, organized access for my patterns.  The box I have had all my patterns in has been repurposed for storing muslin fabric, which is a relief as my muslin fabrics are usually stuffed in weird places all over the apartment. 

At the other end of the table, there is space for another little cubby for fabric storage. 

Josey and Gnomey really are very glad to be together again. 

To cap it off, I covered a little jewelry box with some fabric using a glue stick for my little thread and serger detritus.  Before Noah, I dutifully cut every thread and tossed it in a little trash can at the end of my table.  Mostly he carries around the trash cans or slides them across the floor, so I’ve been trash-canless for a while now.  This is much better.

As I step back from this room, I realize that it’s all a culmination of a little dream that my husband got behind full force 3 years ago.  I’m so amazingly blessed to have him, and it’s been so fun to see how I’ve been able to really begin understanding who I am and whom I’ve been created to be simply because of his belief in me.  I love you Nathan!