I’ve been looking to make a nice pair of pajamas for forever (I think it’s been on my sewing goals for 2 years), but I could never find the right fabric and I was pretty discouraged after the disaster that was the HotPatterns pajamas of doom (which despite the awful fit I find myself wearing because I still love the fabric).  I’ve gotten to the point that I could not keep shoving this project down on the queue anymore.  I’ve lost enough weight now that all of my bottoms are too loose, and the reality is that I’ve been wearing the same mismatched pajamas since at least college through prepregnancy and all the way through 40 weeks twice.  No garment should be wearable at 40 weeks and in a non-pregnant state.  That’s just crazy.

Enter my mother-in-law who kindly bought me 2.5 yards of rayon challis for Christmas.  Why hadn’t I thought of rayon challis before?  It has a nice drape, it’s lightweight, and it keeps me cool which is exactly what I want in pajamas.  Ah, but what pattern?  Call me dotty, but I didn’t really want to spend money on a pajama pattern.  They’re not terribly innovative.  For example, other than how you put the pants on and a few decorative elements, there’s not much technically different between this 1930s pattern

and this modern day Simplicity:

It’s a collared shirt with some pull on bottoms.  Given my Burda stash, I knew the collared shirt would be easy to find, but I had to do a little digging to get to the elastic waist pants.  This is yet another case of why technical drawings are so helpful.

Take out the weird ankle ruching and the top that’s fused to into this hot mess of a jumpsuit, and you get a basic elastic waist pattern (Burdastyle 5-2010-119).

My Dad has always maintained that the way that you beat Bobby Fisher is to not play chess.  So how do you make a nasty jumpsuit fashionable?  Don’t wear it like a jumpsuit.  I cut a straight 34, did a flat seat adjustment and cut the back inseam 2 sizes smaller and they fit great.  I put on some back pockets as an afterthought, so they’re definitely too small, but they still help distinguish the back from the front.

For the top, I really liked Ottobre 5-2007-2–a collared shirt with some shirred ties on the sleeves.  I experimented on this one, grading down the neck and shoulder and sleeve to a 32 and swinging out to a 34 at the bottom of the armscye.  After a petite adjustment in the armscye/sleeve and lowering the bust dart (even after nursing 2 kids, this dart just looks really really high–is that typical for Otto?), it fits perfectly.  I guess for my next Burda, I’ll see how those sizes play out.

As for being on the tail end of this cold, I’m foregoing the gown in favor of the pajamas and watching the formidable Anna Netrebko as Anna Bolena on the DVR.

My review of the shirt is here,

and my review of the pants is here.

Before

After

My sewy friend Linda helped me put in shoulder pleats to bring in the shoulder on this Burda top.  I’m really sad I didn’t get a picture of it before it got thrown into the wash because it definitely was an improvement from the original fit, and the wool was so pretty.  Now it is fitted well, but sadly the original texture of the wool was a bit compromised.  Also, that awesome felty feel and resulting lengthwise shrinkage makes it totally necessary to wear an undershirt to avoid exposure and cut down on skin irritation–something that wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it wasn’t so fitted.  Since this is not the first time (and hey, I’ve shrunk plenty of sweaters myself) that the laundry ate my wool, we’re going to have to put up a bag for items that need special care in our closet.

The upside of the shrunken state of the sweater is that you can see the cute details of my jeans.  Theoretically with the length issue, a skirt is probably a better pairing for it, but the only one that I can think of that would work is grey.

Readers, how do you avoid laundry disasters?

I’m also still backlogged on blogging and have a dress and a top to write about.  Hopefully I’ll be back to better in a couple of days.

In the meantime, go make some soup for someone.  If I had a little more energy, I would have made this one from the fabulous amazing Joanne Weir:

Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup

The boys love this, and even my veggie indifferent hubby is a fan…of course I float some crostini and bacon and homemade harissa on top.

But still I watch an episode or two every season hoping that someone will not be nasty and talented.  I got excited when I saw that this week’s episode was about the designers creating dresses for the opera.  I was hoping there would be lovely scenes of the Met and all of their amazingly inspirational costumes.  And while the winning garment is certainly beautiful,

I was saddened by the elitist mentality that everyone had surrounding the phrase “a night at the opera.”  One of the comments was that one of the dresses needed to be more “socialite”.  If there is one thing that angers and frustrates me more, it’s this notion that opera is only for wealthy people who can afford dresses like the one above.  Or that the opera is only a place to parade around like a peacock, not a place where beautiful music is made in the context of inspirational design.  I don’t care whatever patron history the opera has always been tied to.  The stories told through opera hit on the core of the entire human situation, and it takes people from all different disciplines to pull off any given opera.  It’s a lot of people doing things excellently together.  When I go to the opera, I am not unaware that I am among a handful of people my age.  If opera as an art is to continue, a newer younger generation has to be educated to see it as an art form and not a class ballet that ignorant people like the Project Runway judges seem to believe it is.  And music educators like myself need to fight against all of the negative stereotypes that keep young people from listening to opera in the first place.

So while I won’t be attending my next opera in jeans and a t-shirt, there’s a reason why people of all walks of life lined the streets of Milan when Verdi died.

So watch Natalie Dessay talk about making people dream at the opera ( at 15:40), and listen and watch her here in La Fille Du Regiment (notice how she puts tension in every muscle and manages such flawless fluidity in her voice) and be inspired, formal gown or not.

Readers, I’m really enjoying making jeans.  I keep going through past Burdas and finding more and more possibilities and details that I like that you can’t find except in RTW that most likely fit horribly.  Like these (Burdastyle 7-2010-104):

There’s zippers in the side seams.  So fun, right?

Or more of a trouser with these curved seams in front and back (12-2009-115).  How great would they be on a flat backside?

This next pair is no exception.  When I first got this issue, I thought this pattern would lend itself really well to denim though it suggests stretch wool.  Specifically, I realized its potential as a replacement for my beloved Banana Republic skinny(ish) jeans that I scored for $6 that have been up to this point my real skinny jeans.  Since my workouts of late have yielded me stronger and 15+ pounds lighter than I’ve ever been, the BR jeans have been falling off of me.  The knee that I blew out in them has also passed the point of being a fashionable tear.

As for this pattern, I really like the tabs that double as belt carriers and the wide belt carrier in the back.  

There are back darts and a welt pocket in back which is not typical denim styling, but they didn’t pose too much of a problem (And the welt while not perfect is not half bad).  I added rivets and purple topstitching to make them more denim like, and this was the first time I didn’t use self-fabric in the waistband in the way of some really pretty vintage cotton I had.

Who knew it’d be so much cuter AND more comfortable than bulky denim on the inside?

The fit is getting there.

 I muslined with non-stretch fabric, so I ended up taking the annoying but necessary step of taking in the inseams and the side seams.  I possibly could still use a flat seat wedge taken out.  These feel like pajamas, and because of the skinny cut they keep me warm which I so need right now.  Next up are the famous Jalie 2908 jeans for PR’s jeans contest which I’m seriously considering tricking out with some fun details.

The top is the same modified Jalie scarf collar that I used here in stretch lace lined in the front and back with some nylon tricot.

My jeans review is here.

• I made a coat!  I felt completely ready to take on this task that daunted me last year and the year before.  I took my time, and gradually it all came together in something I love love love love love to wear.  Actually, outerwear is coming to be a part of my sewing, which is great because Colorado is a place you have to layer clothes.

• This whole pants thing is starting to make sense.  I’ve made three pairs of jeans now and this latest addition BWOF 8-2008-122 is showing some real growth (I’ll save info on this latest addition when I can get some pics).  There’s also the grey green cords below and these Sandra Betzina jeans.

• I had a baby and then had to scramble to figure out how to deal with my changing size.  I’m still figuring it out.  From delivery till present, there’s about 50 pounds…not a small amount of change.  I think you can see the change most obviously in my dresses:
•  I think there is some serious petite-ing learning coming my way.  And my ever present annoyance [how do you account for a full bust without adding to the waist?] is rearing its ugly head.  I’ve been cheating by adding to the side seams, but I have no extra fluff on the sides anymore and even less waist.  Arghh.  Back to the drawing board I will go in 2012.
• Making the boys clothes is kind of fun.  I tend to sew just for me because I know how to fix what I have going on and it’s too time consuming and not often appreciated by recipients how much goes into that enough to inspire me to sew for them (the brilliantly cheeky Selfish Seamstress sums it up well).  But most of the time the boys are very appreciative, and there’s little to no fitting issues that need to happen.  Plus, I can scour the $2/lb bin for fabric for them and sewing their clothes helps me up my construction skills.  And they’re darn cute.  Win win for everyone.  Can’t we all just play with boxes wearing robot pjs?

For the new year I’d like to:

• Keep puzzling through this whole pants thing
• REALLY figure out the full bust/small waist and narrow shoulders conundrum
• Learn to make welt pockets that aren’t hideously ugly
• Sew something with silk…it’s just sitting there waiting for me.

First up is a top to some robot pajama bottoms I made a while ago.  I had mistakenly not bought enough to make a top and a bottom, so I braved the crowds and showed up to JoAnn on Black Friday to get my extra yard that I needed plus this Butterick pattern for my robot-loving Noah.  I dodged people going in the door and the herding route that JoAnn employees had set up and instead took my own way to get to the flannel (how could I ignore $1.49/yd?).  I literally just picked up the bolt of robots when some lady said, “I wanted that robot fabric that she just got.”  Sorry lady.  Normally I’m not crazy and competitive like that, but Noah really really loves robots and I had been planning that strategy all week.  I only took a yard too, so she could have gotten it later.  I was so efficient in my strategy that I didn’t have to wait in line at the cut table (I did get more flannel too).  2 minutes later and I would have been waiting for an hour.  The nutty things we do for our kids.

The top was easy enough to put together–it got sewn up in a naptime, which is quick for me with the first round of a pattern, especially one with buttonholes and what not.  My only advice is to cut down the seam allowances to 1/4″ or 3/8″–5/8″ is way too much on such a tiny collar.

Then I pulled out some fleece I got on a fabric.com sale to make some warm gear for the kids.  A pair of pants each and a sweatshirt for Noah that I embellished with some seed beads and appliqued snowman.  I’ve never sewn with fleece before, and it was an interesting experience to say the least.

I can see why people gravitate towards fleece.  It is easy to sew in one sense–the seams don’t need to be finished and it seams pretty easily.  That being said I will not become one of the cranky crazies that show up to JoAnn on sale days to buy their still expensive fleece and treat the employees really badly if they can’t get 100% of what they want when they want it (though they clog up the cut table and registers buying 2 or 3 cartloads).  This stuff does not press at all and it feels just kind of gross.   It also takes up a lot of real estate in the sewing room.  I used every last bit of yardage in 1.5 yds to make two pairs of pants and a sweatshirt, and I still have a lot of fluffy scraps that I’m pretty sure take up the same amount of space that the original piece did.   If it not for the fact that the boys really do need warm clothes, I would not have caved to buy it.  They probably won’t be bothered by it, but I also hate how fleece in all of its synthenticity makes you warm to the point of sweating, and then traps in all of that sweat–so you’re warm, but clammy and cold and hot.  The one piece of fleecewear that I owned I lent to my Costa Rican roommate in college.  In her extreme need for warmth due to her tropical blood, she would go out running in full sweats though it would be like 60 degrees and 100% humidity in the beauty of Houston “cool” mornings.  I lent her that purple pullover (which frankly looked better on her), and never saw it again.  I didn’t ask her about it because I was not sad to see it go.  Given how well this sews, I’m not looking to destash my other colors of fleece, and besides Nathan loves the stuff, so maybe I can actually make something that he’d be interested in. But for the boys, I’ll be sticking to thrifting sweaters.  When I can’t find them, I’ll stay with sweatshirting or sweater knits or other fabrics that creep me out less and that let me get nice crispy pressed edges and seams.

I’ll leave fleece to the likes of the awesome Snuggie people.

Like most of us garment sewists, I have mixed feelings about home dec projects.  I figure if you’re going to be stuck looking at some pillow, you might as well do a good job of it, but once you delve into the world all the interesting details in garment sewing, it’s hard to go back to the long, straight seams involved in home dec.  Still, like everyone else, I found myself in a situation this year where it could not be avoided.

In our first house, hosting Christmas for the first time, I found myself in need of stockings for the fireplace.  Bored with traditional palettes and stocking kits, I set out to make my own pretty stockings.  Blinded by the beauty of the celery corduroy, pink wool plaid, and turquoise faille, it didn’t register that I would have to actually sew 7 stockings.

One morning I found myself wide awake at 3 am.  I knew that cutting out all of these stockings was going to be irritating, so I figured I might as well get cracking since I was awake anyhow.  In an hour I cut out lining, underlining, and the stockings.  My hands were sore (a dumb thing to do before playing violin for several hours at church…)but I was ready to sew.

My kids slept long one afternoon that week and I plunked down and sewed together all 7 stockings.  Stockings are not difficult; they are much like handbags, but multiplied by 7 and attempting to finish in one naptime is about where the crazy train falls off the cliff.  Once I came out of the fog of my frenzied making, I learned some things about myself and about sewing.

• Garment sewing provides natural breaks: Because there are so many different components in a garment, there are more opportunities for mental breaks than there are in home dec sewing.  Sewing long, straight seams and not having to press them as frequently as in garment sewing means that you’re sitting at your machine for a long time going slow because you have big thick fabrics.  When starting a home dec project, force yourself to take breaks every hour.
• Rome doesn’t have to be built in a day: The more annoying I find a project, the faster I want to get it done.  Just because I can make 7 stockings in a naptime doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.  Trying to overload yourself is just going to lead to creative burn out.  And let’s face it, you don’t have time for burn out because there’s some glittering cocktail dress you want to sew for all of those glittering cocktail parties that you go to.
• Really invest some time picking out fabric for home dec:  Though sewing them will be more sleep-inducing than Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, you really will be happy with those dumb pillows or curtains if you only buy fabric that you really love.  I scoured Denver Fabrics for corduroy, wool, faille, and linens, canvas, and some random remnants.  Because they’re all natural fibers, they look fresher and less cheesy to me than stocking kits or prefab stockings and the different textures of these fabrics add verve and visual interest to what are usually pretty boring decorations.  The updated color palette that I settled on just makes me happy too.  Best of all, as I gaze at them on the mantle this holiday season, I am grateful that I will not have to make replacements for them for a very long time.

Bonus:  the scraps provided me more than enough fabric to provide me an my glue gun some quality time together with 92 buttons.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Through both pregnancies and all the weight loss and gain that goes with that the one consistent measurement has been my shoulder width.  I’ve been a 34 in Burda though my weight has been all over the map.  Period.  But I’m starting to think that I need to revisit that measurement as tops are starting to fall off of the edge of my shoulders.

I wonder if in all of my working out that I finally lost some width in my arms themselves that apparently brought in the edge of my shoulders (because it would appear that my shoulder width has not changed by much even though shoulders are too wide on me these days).

Take this top for instance.  It is Burda 7434 in a nice wool jersey from Denver Fabrics.  I’m happy with the width and reasonably how everything fits in general, except that the top of the sleeves are falling off of my shoulders.  Because of the width of the shoulders, the princess seams are falling outside of where they should be as well.

So I’m asking for help.  I know that I need to do a narrow shoulder adjustment of some sort, but can I do that though I’ve made the garment minus hems?  My idea was to split apart the princess seam and make a dart of sorts in the front to take out some width, easing in the back shoulder to match.  Is this a legitimate way to retrofit?

On an unrelated topic, I think WordPress has lost its mind because I can’t seem to fit the gigantorness of the picture…

I made my winter coat.  I finished it well over a month ago but I haven’t been able to photograph it because I’ve been waiting for a good bit of snow and outside picture sessions are limited due to light to the weekends.

It is Vogue 8548–a recently OOP coat (still available on Vogue’s website and one here on Ebay in 14-22) with funnel neck and asymmetric closure.

I picked it up originally when I was pregnant with Sam because I thought it would be a good maternity coat with the empire seam (the waist seam actually sits a little lower than an empire would–I know because I always have to lower the length on empires because of my bust).  Indeed I still think it would be extremely easy to alter for maternity, but in the end I couldn’t justify spending that much time on a garment that would offer me very little use.  I filed the pattern away.

Post pregnancy, I pretty much hate empire waists.  But when I decided that I could no longer ignore this crazy beautiful teal wool I scored from a darling PR’er who was cleaning out her stash (I think I paid $30 all told for over 4 yards of this plus matching silk thread and buttons), I kept coming back to the neck on this pattern.  Being a scarf lover, a lapel hater, and a beginner in tailoring, it all seemed too good to pass up.  My muslin turned out really well and surprisingly flattering, so I decided to forge ahead.

It took me 2 solid naptimes to cut everything out.  Because of the thickness of the wool, I had to cut it single layer, which of course took twice as long.  I decided to interline it with cotton flannel for warmth because there’s a 0% chance that I’m taking the time to make a coat and have it not be warm.  The lining is a random poly I found in the clearance section at Denver Fabrics.  I liked the vintage travel print, it was slippery enough, and it matched well with the wool.

My husband was out of town for a week in October, so you better believe I used up every naptime and late nights that week working.  I was keeping track of my time just to see how long this project took me, and though I lost official track, I’d say it took me around 25 hours.  A big project for sure, but not as unreasonable as I had originally thought a coat to be.

As for tailoring, I drafted a back stay from muslin and catchstitched down all of the horizontal seams.  This was really necessary because though this wool pressed really well, the thickness was far too much for the seams to lay flat when pressed.  It’s nearly critical to do this on the shoulder seam.  It is shaped like an L because the neck edge of the shoulder seam forms the funnel neck.

Because of this, you cannot press the seam unless the allowances are catchstitched open first.  The beauty of the thickness of this wool is that I could easily and quickly catchstich completely invisibly.  I topstitched the princess seams to take care of the same issue while adding a nice detail.

 I popped in small 1/2″ shoulder pads for a nice smooth appearance.  The shoulders are a hair wide in an 8 (I’m starting to think I need to measure my shoulders again because it seems that the last few patterns I’ve made have been “a hair” too wide in the shoulders–I might need a narrow shoulder adjustment), but the shoulder pads make that a little less obvious.

I bagged the lining which was way simpler, cleaner and faster than whatever craziness Vogue was telling you to do.  *Mystery* poly was a surprising delight to sew with–particularly after I hand basted on the flannel for interlining.  It didn’t even slip and slide as I was cutting it.  I was really grateful for not having to cut it too in a single layer.  I like poly too as a lining too because I freeze in rayon, its available in a lot more fun prints and way cheaper than silk.

Though I had matching buttons, they were a bit too small for this project, so I covered two for the closure and added a large snap at the top to keep the neck closed.  The pattern calls for raw piping to be used for button loops.  I can’t imagine that looking all that great.  I made quick loops by taking 2 1″ wide strips and a strip of Steam-a-Seam along one edge.  I folded and fused over the SAS, which gave me a nice crisp edge (useful notion for such thick wool) folded over that and topstitched.  Because my wool didn’t ravel this worked out.  If you have a wool that will ravel you would have to cut the strip wider to accomodate another fold to meet in the middle before you topstitched the loop.

I’m so pleased with how this coat turned out.  In September Sewaholic wrote about what scares you about making a coat.  It was a really thought provoking post.  I think I commented to the effect of “Nothing, I think I’m ready to tackle a coat”, and really I was.  There was nothing about this project that I felt like was beyond me which shows me how much I’ve grown in the past year.  My brain kind of went squishy after I finished this project for a week, but I will attribute that to the magnitude of this project in comparison to my normal project duration which is about 1 or 2 naptimes.

My full review is here.  As for you, dear readers, have you sewn much outerwear?  Speaking of Sewaholic, Will you be jumping on the Minoru bandwagon in January?  I’m on the fence about it as I already want to do PR’s Jeans contest and it is going on at the same time as the Minoru sew along.