The T-shirt Project #12: a v-neck faux henley

It’s the end!  I’ve been really looking forward to the end of my year-long commitment of a t-shirt a month because I don’t think I can get a SWAP together until the first project is out of the way.  I think I’m like that.  Rarely can I handle multiple projects–I like things wrapped up before I move on.

To finish, I pulled out Onion 5038, a v-neck henley with an empire seam.  I called it a faux henley because the buttons are simply sewed in place.  The v-neck makes the otherwise masculine henley shirt some femininity.  The over-shoulder gathers and the variation with the buttons up the cuff add to the girly flair.

In comparison to the other Onion patterns I’ve made, the sizing seems to run snug.  I ended up overlaying my TNT t-shirt pattern over the pattern when I was cutting, keeping the style lines from the Onion and aligning the patterns at the waist.  Indeed if I had cut according to the pattern, my top would have been about a size too small.

I lowered the empire seam by an inch and gave myself a wider SA in case I needed it (I did) to avoid the cut-the-bust problem that I always have with empire seams.  I also stuck to my rule of using a print with an empire seam as I dislike the general look of empire seams.  I will say that the use of an empire seam in this pattern makes for easy easy construction of the binding/placket.  There is no funny slashing or exactitude necessary because the bottoms of the placket are simply sewn cleanly into the empire seam.  At some point I will compare this to my henley variation tee as I love the over-shoulder gathers and v-neck but would prefer a plain front.

I have another copy of this pattern to give away, but I’ll save that for a wrap-up post for the project as it seems more fitting.

My full review of this pattern is here.

The T-Shirt Project: The search for your perfect TNT, part 2–Perfecting your pattern

Sorry, a lot of text today and not many pictures as I tend not to take many pictures while I’m fitting.

To review, a TNT=tried and tested pattern.  Having a TNT in your pattern stash will allow you to quickly assess if other patterns will fit you as well as giving you a base to add any number of changes.

So you picked a pattern, how do you go about making it work for you?  I’ll start with universal strategies and move on to different avenues that will get you to the same result (as we all learn differently).

Things that will help you perfect the fit of your t-shirt:

• A critical eye:  In assessing fit, whether you tissue fit, progressively learn from projects, or muslin, you need to be able to take an honest look at the mirror and assess what is in front of you.  It will take perhaps a lot of failure.  It’s just part of the process.  I’ve wiped away many frustrated tears trying to figure out fit.  Figuring it out is worth every drop of pain it takes to get there.  The alternative is to keep on feeling bad about yourself every time you go into a changing room, hoping that RTW will finally fit–but we all know that far more often than not RTW will not fit well.
• A mirror, possibly two or three:       In my sewing room, I have a long mirror and a vanity mirror that came with our bedroom set that we’ve never used behind it.  Between the two mirrors, it’s easy for me to see every angle of a given garment.  Sometimes I have to move my long mirror, but it’s lightweight and easy to do that.  You don’t want to be twisting at all to see various things because whatever garment you’re wearing isn’t twisting in real life as it hangs from your body.  You will want to assess it as it is, and a couple of mirrors will make that simple.  Here’s a tutorial on making your own 3-way mirror.  You could even simplify this by starting with 3 mirrors with wooden frames and just grab some hinges and the appropriate screws from Home Depot (shouldn’t more sewing projects start there?!).
• A friend (optional, but possibly extremely helpful):  Friends aren’t always helpful when assessing fit.  For when they’re not, I can’t more highly recommend Peggy Sagers’                      Fitting Yourself By Yourself.  There’s lots of really helpful advice in it and she really clearly shows you how to drape a garment (as she does on most of her webcasts and in person too).  But let’s not dismiss the idea of using a friend to help you fit–she just needs to know what to look for.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have a group of ladies to do just that.  We all joined together to keep working on our pants after a class we took last year.  The teacher took on what I think was too many students that day.  In her inability to give us the individual time I think we needed, I think she just kind of applied a formula across the boards even though we were all clearly differently shaped (hello, I was like 7 months pregnant!).  We meet once a month and bring garments that we’re working on in whatever stage they might be in.  One of the ladies has taken a lot of Palmer/Pletsch classes and is on her way to being certified, so she’s rather knowledgeable about fit.  Although I have had little success with P/P, it’s still great to have people to bounce ideas off of.  Just sitting and talking about fit with all of these ladies has really helped me codify what I look for when I’m fitting myself.

As for specific ways to go about fitting and transferring those changes to your pattern, you have some options:

• Tissue fitting:  Palmer/Pletsch is all about tissue fitting.  I know a lot of people have success with this, and I can see the time-saving benefits it can afford.  There’s a great video from Marcy Tilton fitting a t-shirt.  Part 2 is here.
• Progressive project learning:  Call this an extension of the “wearable” muslin.  To an extent we all do this, but basically, in this way, you can just make up projects as you would normally and check out what you like and don’t like and change those things for the next time you make a project.  Michelle of Cheap and Picky did this with rather comprehensively with pants a while back and if you go back through all of her pants posts, you can see how things progress.  This can easily be applied to t-shirts.
• Muslin/draping:  This is my chosen method.  Basically, you just make up a garment in an inexpensive version of whatever you will use and do all of your changes on that and then transfer those to your pattern.  The benefit of this is that you’re assessing fabric that is going to behave similarly to your fashion fabric.  If you work out taking the wrinkles out of your muslin, you won’t have to worry about getting them out of your actual garment.  It seems costly to do make something up in trial fabric, but if you’re shooting for a TNT, you will only have to do this once or twice, and once you’ve perfected the fit on your muslin, you won’t need to do this again.  Also, consider that you can make a muslin in leftover fabric.  Peggy Sagers again describes this method really well in Fitting Yourself By Yourself.  At one point she did do a webcast on the same topic, but it looks like it’s not available on the replays.  For specific t-shirt fitting, there’s also these webcasts from Peggy Sagers.  T-shirts and French Darts, Fit Those Knits, and for help on sewing with knits in general Sew Knits with Ease.  Peggy’s construction advice is golden.  Golden.

Printed resources to help you fit your t-shirt and transfer changes to your pattern:

• Fit for Real People by Pati Palmer and Marta Alto–                                                                                the Palmer/Pletsch guide to any kind of fitting question you could have.  It will walk you through tissue fitting and help you learn to assess garments.
• Fast Fit by Sandra Betzina–  I love this woman.  She gives you a lot of options for fitting any given area of your body, and her steps are clear and comprehensive.
• The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting by Sarah Veblen–                                                         an excellent resource for draping with some other thoughts that you see in Fit for Real People and Fast Fit.  She talks about a horizontal balance line in it, which is a really valuable concept.  Lori interviewed Sarah on Sew Forth Now about the book here and here.  In the first podcast, she explains the balance line.  Do yourself a favor and listen to the podcast.
• Fitting and Pattern Alteration by Judith Rasband et al.                                                                         This is the seam method of pattern alteration.  The idea is that you alter patterns where the problems are occurring rather than make a lot of changes that either cancel themselves out or cause problems elsewhere.  I’ve had some success with this method and I certainly like the concept behind it.  There’s a couple of earlier editions of the book, but the other ones only show you how to use the method on very basic styles, so it may not be obvious how to apply it to anything beyond a basic darted blouse.  The edition I linked is pricey, but also extremely thorough in the styles it shows you how to alter.

Hopefully that will get you started with fitting a t-shirt pattern.  As always, Patternreview is a wonderful community and resource when you’re in the middle of a project and are just plain stuck.  I keep contributing to their site because it’s been so valuable to me.  Browse around there if you never have, and I promise you will learn something.

What I did with my melted collar

Whew!  I got a little over my head the past few days what with my birthday and preparing to host like 30 people for a Seder dinner tomorrow.  My brain’s been stuck in flashback mode from my former catering planning days–very fun, but also all consuming.  So while I’ve had the jacket finished for about 2 weeks, I haven’t gotten around to writing about it properly until now (which is funny because it was something like 86 today!).

Thank you all who contributed to helping me decided about my melted collar.  As I let the jacket hang for a couple of days in the sewing closet, I came to agree with all of you–the pieced collar didn’t look all that weird.  So I sewed it on in and finished off the jacket.  And now I can present you the final jacket!

Burdastyle 12-2009-111

I made this up in a really pretty cotton twill from Denver Fabrics.  I was going to use wool for this jacket, but the realization that Spring was going to come quick and fast here dawned on me, so I went for the cooler cotton (that it was $5/yd vs. the $18/yd that the mint green wool I was eyeing probably pushed me over the edge).  It has a soft, brushed surface and a pretty drape.

I scored bigtime with the lining.  I’m always looking for prints to put in for lining.  I feel like if you’re bothering to sew a jacket, you might as well make it interesting.  After scouring the silks, the flat folds of polys (I did find a nice abstract floral that also would have worked), I found this print buried in the general flat folds that they have at DF.  It feels and sews very much like rayon Bemberg, but I haven’t done a burn test to confirm this.  But the print kills me–such lovely floaty feathers.  I love birds, and I’m so so happy that feather and bird prints are in right now.  The salmon and vermillion really go well with the blue–even if I’m the only one who notices or knows that it’s there.

I decided not to topstitch the collar as the faux leather proved difficult to work with in my machine.  Even with my nonslip feet, there was enough drag on the leather to make some dragging stress marks.  I also couldn’t take advantage of my friend Linda’s genius idea to piece the collar with a zipper in the seam because the “leather” tears apart when you try to pick out stitches.  I think I have a lot to learn in the way of spotting quality faux leathers vs. cheap ones.

It’s probably good that I put in the zippered welts before the collar incident because I don’t know that I would have had the heart to try after it.  The pattern just has you make a narrow little window around the zipper typical of most zippered welts and then topstitch around it in a big window.  Instead, I followed the advice of Ron Collins on the little extra DVD in Sandra Betzina’s Power Sewing Toolbox v. 2 and made it into a wide double welt with a zipper centered between the faux leather welts.  I’ve never had a welt pocket that I was really proud of, but these suckers turned out great.  Ron Collins is a great teacher, and it was entirely unstressful and simple (even with heavy brass zippers) to do this pocket with his instructions.

This was the first separating zipper I’ve put in.  I can’t believe how easy it was.  You sew one side to CF, and the other face down along the raw edge which will get flipped over as it’s sandwiched between the facing.  It was not a problem that my zipper was too long either because the tops of the zippers were covered on the left by the shoulder yoke and on the right by the top of the facing.  I still made a thread stop at the top of both sides, but really I didn’t need to.

I unfortunately cut the belt a little too narrow for my buckle, so I folded it to the right width and covered over where my raw edges couldn’t meet with bias tape which sadly shredded after I added the eyelets.  Can I rant a little about Dritz eyelets?  They only have one part, so after you smash them, they will not cover whatever hole you made to make room for them (presumably even if you didn’t have to cover over your mistake with bias tape).  Gross.  The belt looks fine from the right side, but I imagine I’ll have to remake it at some point.

The rivets are leftover from my jeans, that I bought from Cawaiiland.  They have lots of super fun accessories for really reasonable prices.

I made shoulder pads out of fusible fleece via this tutorial.  I did it without the toxic-o-rama spray glue and instead tacked down the layers with some quick basting stitches on my machine.  I will do this again as it makes for a pad with minimal height but good shaping–my preference indeed.

If you add the sleeve facing and the shoulder yokes per the pattern, it’s a little tricky lining up the topstitching lines.  You are forced to do this in the round, which super stinks.  To get the lines to line up, you end up with a hair too much ease in the sleeve cap.  I ended up with one teeny tiny pleat on the back of the sleeve cap just past the top of the sleeve.  Miraculously, I ended up with the same pleat in the other sleeve, so I left itbsx.  If you make this, either leave out the sleeve facing or I’d suggest adding 5/8″ SA on the bottom of the shoulder yokes and facing, and only fold back 1/4″ on the shoulder yokes before you topstitch.  This will place the topstitching lines a little further down the armscye on either side, so you’ll have more room around the sleeve to distribute the extra fullness smoothly.

I will save my “winter fox” faux fur that I was going to use for an extra detachable collar for when it’s not 86 degrees outside.  I was hoping to finish this jacket so I could get some use out of such a collar, but it’s not going to happen this season.  Expect this jacket to resurface with a collar out of this at some point though.  Even without the fur, I still think that the jacket is in the spirit of the Wardrobe Basics Sew Along.

There’s a funny little bit in the magazine about the jacket (you German speakers, it’s always my question–is this text as funny in the German version, or is it just bad translation on the part of Burda?):  “I can go anywhere in my biker jacket!  It’s perfect for walks in the woods or jaunts through the asphalt jungle.”  I couldn’t agree more.

My full review is here.

A buttony sort of skirt

After my jeans, I’m pretty in love with buttons.  I’ve made my peace with my buttonholer and the two of us are getting along so smashingly that buttons are popping up on a lot more things than they used to.

Enter my camel skirt for the Wardrobe Basics Sew Along.  I knew immediately that I wanted to do something in wool (remember I have no wool skirt in my closet after the laundry ate this one), and with CF buttons.  I love Colette Pattern’s Beignet skirt, but it’s high-waisted which is a bad, bad look and a very uncomfortable style on my short waist.  It occurred to me that I could just add a button placket on a skirt with a CF seam.  Up popped Burda 2-2007-105.

vs.

It is a pencil skirt with a CF two way separating zipper.  It also has adorable little slot pockets in the yoke seam.  The instructions for the zipper were a little convoluted, so I was glad that I was doing buttons down the front this round.  I think if I sat down with them that they would work, but they are far from obvious, which sadly is often the case with Burda instructions…but at least they do work.

Also the instructions for the slot pockets were missing any talk about the second half of the pocket cut from your self fabric.  I serged the top of the self side of the pocket and folded it over and topstitched and then serged that piece with the lining, keeping the bottom edges of the pocket even. This meant that when I sewed the pocket into the yoke seam, I had to flip the finished edge of the self side over the seam allowance on the yoke just in the pocket area.  I was surprised that this did not create bulk and did not make the pocket flip out or do weird things.   In future, I think a better solution is to sew the pocket lining to the skirt front, and the self side of the pocket to the skirt yoke and join them after you sew the yoke seam, but I will test that theory.

I picked up a 1 yd flat fold (so rare to find just one yard) of this fabric at Denver Fabrics for $10.  $10/yd is kind of pricey for me, but it was the perfect color, had lovely flow, and was a great weight for a skirt.

I kind of got literal with putting buttons ALL the way down the skirt and put one directly in the hem area.  By the time I realized it, I had already cut the buttonhole.  Oops.  It looks a little dorky, I’m not going to lie.  I will just unbutton that bottom button and pretend it’s not there.  I will mention that I marked all the lines for the buttons with the Frixion pens by Pentel.  Have you tried them?  I heard about them via Amity, but then one of the ladies in my fitting group let me try hers at our last meeting.  The ink erases with rubbing…there’s little erasers on the ends of the pens, but an iron literally zaps out the ink.  To boot, the pens have a very fine line and there’s lots of colors.  Why can’t actual fabric markers be this awesome?

There’s limited button color choices in camel, so I opted for small 5/8″ cover buttons instead.  I didn’t realize that this would be the path of pain and character growth, but I will not soon be using such small cover buttons again unless my fabric is super lightweight.  This is not the thickest wool, but it was not easy to poke the fabric into the teeth without it bunching up.  I used the end of a small paintbrush to help the process, but I still had to trim out some excess to get the backs to snap into place simply because there’s so little room in such a small button for fabric excess to hang out.

As for fitting this skirt, I’m relatively happy with how it turned out.  I’ve never successfully completed a pencil skirt.  They’ve always pulled horribly across the hips or not fit in the waist, etc. etc. etc.  Since I’ve slimmed down, I’ve had a lot fewer fitting issues with my hips, so I cut a straight 34 and forged ahead.  I did have to borrow from my seam allowance in the hip area–sewing 1/4″ seams through my hips and back to my usual 3/8″ below that, but that did the trick.  The fit is not perfect, but it’s the closest I’ve ever come with a pencil skirt.  I’ll keep working with it as I would indeed like to attempt the CF zipper.  I wouldn’t mind doing another skirt with CF buttons, but I’ll probably opt for a non-pencil skirt since pencils are not very practical in my stage of life.

ETA:  My full review is here.

Vote for my jeans! Plus a Flatlocked turtleneck

The Jeans contest has ended, but voting is up for Patternreview members.  Would you consider voting for me and my jeans?  The voting page is right here.  End shameless plug.

Moving on…

Since I’m now double covered on the jeans front, I thought I’d move on in the Wardrobe Basics Sew Along.

My next item to finish is a black turtleneck.  As I never do black unless work required (and by ‘required’ I actually really truly mean required), I chose a heathered oatmeal rayon knit–decidedly a better color for me.  Though I had to resize for this version of Burdastyle 9-2010-121, I knew it would come together very quickly.  Knowing this, and inspired by an article in Threads #155 (June/July 2011), I thought I’d make things more interesting by trying out some flatlocking on my serger.

I thought that I needed a fancy pantsy serger for flatlocked stitches.  According to the Threads article (entitled “Flatlock for Fashion”), not so!  After fiddling around a bit, I can honestly say I have not been getting my money’s worth out of my rather humble little Janome serger.  I really want to do a little video tutorial for a flatlocked hem in particular (crazy excited about this hem), but I’ll give a fast run down to give you an idea.

Kathleen Fasanella gives a thorough explanation of flatlocking here.  Basically, a flat lock stitch lies flat (crazy, right?), but how you achieve that makes for some interesting effects.

• You want your serger to be in a 3-thread configuration.  Take out your right needle if you want a wider stitch or take out the left needle if you want a narrower stitch.
• Set the tension on your chosen needle to the lowest setting (0 for me, perhaps different for you).
• Increase the tension on your lower looper to the highest setting (or higher than normal, but you know how playing with serger tension works…).
• Keep the tension on your upper looper where it usually is.
• Flatlocking can have two different looks:  ”loops” or “ladders”.  To see “loops” on your right side, serge with wrong sides together.  To see “ladders” on the right side, serge with wrong sides together.  For whichever you choose, once you’ve serged a seam, pull gently on the seam to expose the ladder stitches (this will flatten out the loops on the opposite side).  Press well.  Tada!

Besides having a decorative look (especially if you use some decorative threads like Wooly Nylon), the flat seams are really unexpectedly noticeably more comfortable than traditional serged seams.  You see these seams in a lot of athletic wear just for that reason–the flat stitches reduce chafing during exercise.  Who’d a thunk it?  And I just wanted to play around with my serger.

I updated my review of the turtleneck here.

Turtleneck with jeans.  Oops, there they are again.  Have you voted?

Wardrobe sew along: turtleneck progress

I’m finishing up my jeans slowly, but since I’m still waiting on one more piece of hardware, I’m moving ahead with the sew along.

I’m on to a turtleneck.  I made the famous Burdastyle 9-2010-121 when I was pregnant with Sam, but for obvious reasons, I had to retrace everything.  Since my Ottobre experiment with shoulder sizing, I graded down the neck and shoulders to a 32 from a 36 (boo) and the side seams to a 34 (not a big deal).  I wish Burda would do as Otto and offer everything in 34s to start with.  Ah, but we can dream.  Until then, I think I did an okay job of grading from my muslin.

Since there’s not much to this pattern and literally can be made up in about 30 minutes from cutting to wearing, I’m thinking I might try my hand at some decorative serging.  There was a good article in a Vogue Patterns magazine I picked up at the library about flatlocking which I’ve always wanted to try.  It turns out I didn’t have enough gray jersey to make this work, but I do have a pretty heathered oatmeal (with bits of yellow and gray) rayon jersey that I picked up at the Sew Expo this past weekend.

I do love the simplicity of this pattern, but I’m also very attached to this turtle tie neck sweater I have.

Since I started sewing, copying this neckline has been high on my list.  A cursory glance at Polyvore didn’t reveal much variation in turtlenecks…some are more funnel-shaped (much nicer I think since it follows the neck) and others are more tube like (not very flattering as far as I’m concerned), but nothing super detailed or interesting.  I did find this Rick Owens biker jacket with ruched turtleneck with the zipper running all the way up asymmetrically on the neck.  So cute, and a detail easily copied.

Readers, have you found any interesting turtleneck variations?

Wardrobe Sew Along #1 and quick planning

I’m cheating on the sewalong because it’s allowed!  My first item for the sew along is my skinny jeans.  I already wrote about them here.  I’m linking that post in the linky party at Girls in the Garden, but reposting the pictures on this post.

I will add that a wardrobe basic they certainly are.  I’ve been wearing them nearly non-stop since I finished them.  They work with boots, flats and every top in my closet.  And I love the little details of the flaps and the purple topstitching.

Where can you get purple topstitched RTW jeans?  Oh the reasons we sew!

Here’s the sewalong list and a quick list of how I’m adapting (some of the suggestions are not my taste) in italics:

1. Slim Black Pants (on the segment they called these ponte pants)–I have some gray RPL from Emma One Sock perfect for this because I have it and because I don’t do black.
2. Dark Skinny Jeans–check!
3. White button shirt–wrap shirt as I hate button-downs, and probably not white
4. Black turtleneck\–gray
5.Camel – khaki skirt–Boot wearer that I am, this would be a really useful piece.
6.Tie Waist Sweater–Yay!  A cozy sweater to replace my stolen-stolen back 70′s sweater from my Mom?  I’m so there!
7. Puffy Vest–I’m thinking about alternatives because I don’t understand adding bulk to one’s upper body
8. Faux Fur Vest\–I think I will make a jacket with a detachable fur collar for the same reason as the puffy vest reservations
9. Black Dress–in another segment of the Nate Show they had a knit print dress instead of an LBD, and I’ll probably go this route since I only do black dresses if I’m playing in an orchestra

I have bigger, more extensive ideas roughed out on one of my Pinterest boards.

Wardrobe Basics Sew Along

Katie of Kadiddlehopper has inspired me to join the Wardrobe Basics Sew Along going on at Girls in the Garden.  It was inspired by this really good segment on the Nate Berkus show on 12 Winter Wardrobe Basics.  On the show they combine them into 30 days of looks, but 12 tone serialism lover/music theory nerd in me knows that they can be combined into a whole lot more than that.

While I try to not sew orphan garments, the fact is, that they just happen.  You find some random really cool knit and you sew it up and realize that it matches with nothing.  Nothing.  Remember this jacket

that I spent so much time on?  It’s gotten not near the use it deserves.  It does not play well with dresses, my covered snaps kept popping open, and it’s generally kind of big on me (At the time silly me thought that using a 36 in the neck and shoulders wasn’t an issue–no wonder I had so many fit problems!).  It’s only been very recently that I’ve realized I could fix the snaps and pair it with a slim fitting long sleeved undershirt and jeans.  I want to avoid having really nice garments like this one hanging around for no reason in the future (it’s so sad–I love this jacket!), so the idea of a basics sew along was pretty appealing.  The fact that there’s no timeline per se fits makes this a lot less pressure than a lot of sewalongs out there, and I can sew most of it from stash too!

I think when I started sewing I avoided sewing staples because they’re [*snore*] boring, and I’m sewing because I don’t want to do boring among other reasons.  I know now that I can make staples like these jeans

as interesting as I want to, and the more I think about combining things together, the more sense it makes.  I have limited time to dress while running after 2 kids…why not make it easy by giving myself some options?  I’ve tried the wardrobe concept before when I was pregnant with Sam,

but 5 garments doesn’t give you as many combining options as 9.  The long and short of it is that I’m in for this sew along, and I’m looking forward to reading others’ progress too!