This Week in the Sewing Room

I'm having one of those weeks (or maybe months) where my planning is going something like this: I want to finalize my sweatshirt pattern so I need to make another sweatshirt but I can't find any fabric, so I'll spend my time cleaning off my cutting table instead, but it has some unfinished projects sitting on it, so I should work on those, but I need my husband to help me mark some things and he's not home so I can't clean off the table, so I'll clean off the counter but before I can put away the things on the counter I need to make room in the drawers, plus the unfinished sweatshirt pattern is on the counter and if I put it away I'll forget about it... (pause for a deep breath).

It actually gets worse.  I want to paint my sewing room but that would mean moving everything out of the room. Do I really want to tackle that right now? Maybe, because I can move everything into my son's room and he doesn't need his room for another 10 months.  But if I'm going to paint I really should do our bathroom door first because that's been at the top of my to-do list (and the top of my don't-want-to-do list) for a couple years. Guilt tells me the bathroom door has to come first and laziness tells me that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. It's no wonder I can't get anything done. My thoughts keep going in circles and I need to just jump in and start somewhere.

Here's what actually is happening in my sewing room:

1. I have some fabric prewashed and ready to go for a second try at my sweatshirt and button-up shirt patterns. I think it's safe to say that JoAnns is single-handedly responsible for the overabundance of black in my wardrobe.  Is it just me, or does it seem like the colors of most of their fabrics are just a little bit weird?  Maybe they were the stylish or trendy colors a couple years ago but now they look a little bit old and tired? Or maybe it's just the fluorescent lights.  Whatever it is, it seems like I always end up buying fabric with a lot of black or gray in it because everything else just looks off to me. For now I'll just say that both the fabrics I bought are partly black.  Pictures will follow eventually if I ever find my motivation again.

2. I took my sewing machine into the shop yesterday.  It's not running as smoothly as it should.  Maybe because it's nearly 20 years old, or maybe because I've been overworking it lately.  Nothing is seriously wrong, it just isn't making it's usual happy purring sound when I sew and I miss that.  A little TLC at the sewing machine spa should fix everything.  Except that I won't see my machine again for FOUR WEEKS!!  Luckily I have a "guest" machine in my sewing room and I don't think it's owner will need it back anytime soon.

3.  I bought myself a book for my birthday last month: "The Couture Cardigan Jacket" by Claire Shaeffer.  Now I have absolutely no use for a couture cardigan jacket, but I'm getting some ideas about how to adapt this for my lifestyle.  Hmm, we'll see if I ever get past the "idea" stage.  I can at least read the book at watch the included DVD while I pass the time waiting for my sewing machine to return.

4.  I bought myself another book.  (You can never have too many books!)  This one is "Draping: the Complete Course" by Karolyn Kiisel.  It also came with a DVD.  Looks like I better figure out how to use the DVD player.  I'm really looking forward to working through this book.  I want to get my dressform padded to my size first, but that's the project that actually bogged me down a couple weeks ago and sucked all the motivation out of me.  I'm so close to finishing, I should really take a day off from all my other responsibilities and get it done.

I have plenty of things I should be doing.  Sometimes with so many things to choose from it's easiest to do nothing.  I'm going to blame it partly on October.  I love October in theory.  It's warm but not hot, the nights are cool but not freezing.  There's not as much yard work.  I don't have to run the air conditioner or the heater.  It should be the perfect month!  But for me, it's not.  The ever-shortening days wear on me.  I sleep more, I lay around and do nothing more.  I feel a little out of sorts.  Sorry October, you just don't measure up to April.  

Fall Sewing - Sweatshirt

I'm not a big follower of fashion trends, but have you seen those sweatshirts in the magazines and catalogs made out of something nicer than sweatshirt fleece?  That's a trend that I think would work well for me. I want to be casual and comfy but I don't want to look like I just rolled out of bed.  It's a great project for fall, am I right?

I already had the perfect fabric in my stash, a polyester/rayon "sweater knit" in a black and white tweed. It's really terrycloth, which for some reason I didn't realize when I bought it. I love the look of it (and I already have a skirt made out of it) but I can't completely get over the feeling that I'm wearing a towel. By the way, I'm not sure there is really such a thing as tweed terrycloth, but that's what it looks like so that's what I'm calling it.

What I really needed was a chunky black ribbing to go with it. I found some great ribbing in brown and gray, but no black. I checked all my favorite online fabric sources and still no black.  Plan B turned out to be some black Ponte that I found on sale. I wasn't sure it would work for the neck edge. Would it hold the curved shape of the neckline or would it want to stand straight up? I pondered that problem for a long time, and also formulated plans C and D, before I finally just cut a sample and tested it. It seemed to work well enough so my ribbing problem was solved.

The next challenge was coming up with a pattern. I already have a self-drafted t-shirt pattern so that seemed like a good place to start. I love the raglan-sleeved sweatshirts I've seen in stores but I look terrible in raglan sleeves so that wasn't an option. Dropped shoulders are definitely much better on me so I measured across my shoulders to where I thought I wanted the sleeves to hit and extended the shoulders of my t-shirt pattern by 2 1/4".  I also lowered the sleeve cap by about that amount.

Sweatshirt pattern on top of t-shirt pattern: I extended the shoulder, lowered the underarm, lowered the neckline (but I wish I hadn't), and widened the bodice.  

I really had no idea how much ease I wanted in the sweatshirt so I took a trip to the mall and tried on a couple. I came up with some general measurements (at least 6" of ease, 14" upper sleeves, bottom band around my hipbones) and adjusted my pattern accordingly. The pattern seemed to come together really well. Almost too well. Could it really be that easy? At this point I started to feel a little panic. What if this project didn't turn out? What if I put in all this time and had nothing to show for it? What if I fail? These are the kinds of thoughts that have haunted me all my life and kept me from trying new things. Time to let go of that. For goodness sake, it's just a sweatshirt!

I finished the pattern and cut out the fabric. There was one more detail I wanted to add so it wouldn't be too plain. My plan was to sew a 6mm coverstitch along the shoulder and armscye seams, from the wrong side, with wooly nylon thread in the looper. This would give a thick black line of stitching on the right side to set off those seams. I tested the stitch, adjusted the tension, and kept testing, adjusting and practicing until it gave exactly the effect I wanted. Then I stitched the first shoulder seam. It started out great then something went wrong and the rest of the stitches were all loopy. Back to my test fabric (a piece of the sweatshirt fabric). Everything was great on the sample, but it would not work on the sweatshirt! There was no difference between the test piece and the sweatshirt, but apparently my machine could tell the difference and took great pleasure in thwarting my plans.

Ok, I'm smarter than a machine but I know when to fight for what I want and when to switch gears. Time to save my sanity and try something different. I switched to the narrower 3mm coverstitch, the stitching worked beautifully, and although I still would have preferred the wider stitch I love the finished effect.

The neckband went on easily. I should have cut the piece a little shorter but it's good enough that I'm not about to redo it. The sleeves turned out to be the perfect length.  I pinned the bottom band around my hips, decided where I wanted it to sit, and shortened the sweatshirt to that length. An easy and quick alteration to the original pattern.

The actual sewing time was really fast. Now that I have a pattern I could whip out a whole wardrobe of these things in no time! I learned a couple things that I'll take into account next time: 

1. The shoulder seams aren't quite in the right spot. I didn't notice on my t-shirts but the extended shoulders accentuate the problem. It doesn't bother me that much because a ready-to-wear sweatshirt would be the same or worse, but I'll fix the pattern for next time.  

2. Ponte doesn't make the best ribbing substitute. It's stiff and doesn't stretch a lot even though it contains spandex. If I push the sleeves up to my elbows I might just cut off my circulation. 

Despite the imperfections I love this sweatshirt! I'm looking forward to wearing it and to making a few more like it.

Two More T-shirts

It looks like I don't have much to show for all the time I've spent in my sewing room lately. I've been working hard, just not on things I'm going to share. Those "top secret" projects include some cleaning, organizing, planning and fitting. Not really secret, just not very interesting.

I did whip out a couple t-shirts a couple of weeks ago. I realized a few weeks ago that while I've been working on perfecting my fitted t-shirt pattern, tees have been getting looser. How did I miss that? I added some ease to my fitted t-shirt pattern and made a black tee out of the two XL Gap shirts I bought last spring. I also played with my sleeve pattern a little, making the sleeve wider and the sleeve cap lower. I didn't love the results so I won't use that sleeve pattern again. I cut the hem and sleeves hems along the existing t-shirt hems and cut down on the sewing time. It still didn't make up for the time I spent taking the shirts apart but it helped.  The black tee turned out really good. Not perfect, but certainly something I'll wear often.

I also made a pink tee from the new front and back patterns but with the previous version of the sleeve.  It's a keeper, and probably the last t-shirt I'll make until I start sewing for next spring. It's time to think about sweatshirts, long-sleeved shirts and jackets.

I think it's about time to have something to show for my sewing time. Hopefully I'll have a finished item of clothing within the next week.

Great Gatsby Costume

I've been working on a huge project.  Well, the mostly-finished product doesn't look that huge, but the process sure felt like it!  What is a mother supposed to do when her daughter says she just might die if she can't be Daisy Buchanan for Halloween?  Now, this isn't a grade school aged daughter throwing a bit of a tantrum, but a college student studying costume design who has just seen "The Great Gatsby" for the third time and is having a perfectly understandable emotional response to the amazing costumes in that movie.  If that mother is an over-achiever type with some sewing ability, who thinks she can do anything (with sometimes disastrous results) then she drops everything to make a Great Gatsby inspired dress for her daughter.

You would think that with the popularity of Downton Abbey and The Great Gatsby there would be all kinds of 1920's costume ideas all over Pinterest, but I really didn't have much luck there.  I found very predictable-looking flapper dresses, but that's not at all what I wanted.  I used to be a costume purist. If something was set in the 1920's I expected the costumes to be authentic to that time period.  I got over that last year on my field trip to New York City.  One of our stops was at a costume shop, where the owner talked about their design process.  He actually used the 1920's as an example, saying that the styles of the 20's were shocking for their time, but the boxy shapes might seem a little frumpy today.  If an audience is to get a feel for the mood of a show set in the 1920's, the costumes need to have enough modern influence that the audience can interpret them correctly.  Now that I understand that, I can truly appreciate the artistic genius of Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin.  They put more details into one movie than I've ever had in my brain in my entire life.  With that in mind, what I wanted was not an authentic 1920's dress, but a dress inspired by both the 20's and by "The Great Gatsby".

I decided I wanted a bias-cut dress so that it would be somewhat form-fitting, with seams mostly on the straight grain so it would be easier for me to sew.  This was my first general idea (and yes, I know I'm not an artist):

I generally hate dresses with a shorter hemline in front (aka mullet dresses) but for some reason it seemed like that's how this dress should be.  I had no idea what to do for the sleeves, I only knew there needed to be sleeves and I figured I'd slap a square piece of fabric on the shoulder, with one corner hanging down the arm, and see what happened.  

I have a duct tape "double" of my daughter so I draped this basic design on the form, first in paper then in rayon challis.  It turned out that my design lines wouldn't quite work right on my short-waisted daughter so I had to make some changes, but I kept the general idea.  This was the first attempt, sort of:

This is actually the back of the dress.  I put it on the dress form backwards because the front looked so horribly bad but I wanted to text a picture to my daughter.  The bodice looks basically the same either way, but the "mullet" hemline?  Well, it turned out looking more like a "pageboy" hemline.  My measurements made sense when I drafted the skirt pattern, but between the diagonal hip yoke and the effect of the bias the skirt ended up being nearly straight across in front, above the knee, then curving sharply down to the back where again it was almost straight across.  Epic fail, but at least it was an easy fix.  Luckily at this point in the process my daughter came home for a 2-week summer break so she could help with and try on the final product.

 We made some design changes, re-cut some pattern pieces, and added some trim, beads, and sequins.  There were small challenges along the way but we muddled our way through them.  My daughter made the headband that's hanging around the neck of the dressform.  She didn't finish the beading before she went back to school but I'm sure she'll be able to finish it before Halloween.  The dress is certainly not perfect, but I actually think it's beautiful, and it was really fun to be able to stretch my draping skills to the limit and to work together on a project with my daughter.

Flashback: 1983 Wool Suit

Thirty years ago this week I waying to finish my annual 4-H project.  l finished this suit on the morning of August 15, 1983, just in time to model it for the judges later that day.  Sadly, I don't have any pictures of my 15-year-old self in the outfit, but believe it or not I still have the suit in my closet.  It's been badly moth eaten over the years and is way past salvaging, but I can't bring myself to throw it away because of all the good memories attached to it. That suit earned me trips to the State Fair and the State Make-it-with-Wool contest.  I wore it quite a bit and I got a lot of compliments. I should point out that a lot of credit goes to my Mom who spent many summers patiently helping my sister and me with 4-H projects.  She was my source of all sewing information and I learned far more from her than I ever have from magazines, college classes and online tutorials.

Here's a picture of the original pattern.  My pattern might possibly be buried in a drawer somewhere in my parents' house but most likely it was thrown away years ago.

 We found the fabric at our usual source, the Pendleton Woolen Mills outlet in Pendleton, Oregon.  Back then they gave customers Pendleton labels to sew in their garments.  I bought some wool there last summer as we were traveling in the area and I don't think they do that anymore.  Too bad.

Look at all those bound buttonholes.  They are pretty dang good for a 15-year-old!

The pockets are real, not just "fake pocket" flaps.

I'm a lot bigger now than I was at 15 but surprisingly I can still almost get into the jacket.  Sure I can't button it, but the front edges almost meet if I tug a little.  The skirt has a 24" waist.  There's no way it will ever fit me again.

It doesn't fit me perfectly in the back, but better than anything else I've sewn for myself in the past 30 years so I may use it in my quest for a fitting shell.  Or maybe it just looks like it fits because it's so tight? And yeah I know the skirt CB seam is in the wrong place and it hangs weird, but that's because it's waaay too small and only held in place by a pin at the hip.

It's kind of sad that I haven't made myself anything that ambitious in the 30 years since, but I guess I know I could if I really wanted to, right?  Maybe this suit will inspire me over the coming months and I'll see what I can do now.

Learning About Leather

2013 was supposed to be the year I finally bought myself a "grown-up" purse. I don't know if that means I'm finally admitting I'm an adult or if I'm just becoming self-conscious about the ratty-looking bags I've been carrying around.  Either way, my under $20 pleather purses are long past their life expectancies and I can't bring myself to buy another one.  The thing is though, I'm not ready to be in a long-term committed relationship with a purse and I can't bring myself to plop down hundreds of dollars for something that will be a fleeting infatuation.

Of course, the next logical step in my thought process is "I can make one!"  I really should stop right there, but once my mind becomes attached to an idea I may as well follow through or I will never be free of it.  I knew I was doomed when I first saw the Craftsy class "Making Leather Bags".  Craftsy has become my enabler. Yes, I enrolled in the class.

It just so happens that I had another leather project in mind anyway and the information in the class, even though it's about making a tote bag, has been very helpful. I started a motorcycle-type jacket for my daughter and she thought it would look better with leather sleeves. My husband had an old leather jacket that he donated to the cause.

When I separated the leather from the lining it suddenly transformed from a plain old leather jacket to the most luxurious material I had ever held in my hand! I wanted to wrap myself in it. Can I make a leather blanket?  As much as I hate taking things apart (because usually that means I'm ripping out my mistakes) I actually loved disassembling this jacket.  I felt like I was freeing the leather.  Finally I had some large flat pieces of leather that I could use to cut out the sleeves.

Problem #1: You would think it would be easy to cut size small women's sleeves out of a size large men's jacket, right? Wrong.  I had to do some strategic piecing and add some seams that I wasn't planning on.  In the end it worked out pretty well.  I matched up the seams I added with the existing seams in the leather so it pretty much looks like that's the way I planned it all along.  

Leather is really pretty easy to sew, at least in my limited experience.  My sewing machine has a walking foot so I didn't have problems with the leather dragging under the presser foot.  I ordered some leather tape to stick all the seam allowances in place after they were sewn.  That was a lot more fun than pressing everything into place, but wow is that stuff sticky!  I'm actually a little bit surprised that I'm not permanently adhered to the jacket.  If anyone ever needs some of my DNA they should look on that roll of tape.  The trickiest step with the leather was probably setting in the sleeves with no pins and no second chances.  It wasn't really hard, just nerve-wracking.

And here's the finished product!

I used Simplicity 2056, and while the reviews of this pattern are generally good I have to say I wouldn't make it again.  Maybe that's because I expect too much of patterns though.  For a jacket that you're only going to wear for a short time I guess it's fine, but if you're going to put the time into making a jacket, shouldn't it have a lining?  Also, while I like exposed zippers, I'm not a fan of having the edges of the zipper tape on the outside.  It reminds me of the t-shirts with the seam allowances on the outside, or anything with raw edges showing.  It just doesn't look finished to me.  But since I only paid 99 cents for the pattern I guess it's fair that I had to redraft some of the pieces and make my own lining pattern.  You get what you pay for, right?

I'm not sure a leather bag is next on my list of projects but it's certainly in the top ten.  I'm really looking forward to learning more about buying and using leather.

Making Labels

For years, decades actually, I've been trying to come up with an idea for personalized clothing labels. After all, I put a lot of effort into making and sometimes designing clothing for myself or my family and I should give myself some sort of credit, right? I was once given a gift of some of those pre-woven labels that had my name printed on them. That was at least 15 years ago and I used them in some of the things I made for my kids but they weren't really my style. I have always been drawn to the idea of using my initials (KC) but every time I played around with the letters I ended up with something too close to Calvin Klein's CK logo.

I kept seeing ads for label companies and I just couldn't bring myself to commit to a logo for 100 or more custom labels. What if I hated them? What if I changed my mind before I could use them all?  I couldn't make up my mind but I never stopped playing around with my initials in my head wondering how I could make a logo out of them.

One day I was looking in my closet, wondering just how many years a certain shirt had been hanging there without being worn, and I had a eureka moment. My initials plus the year, and I would have a label that both identifies and dates my work. Form and function, that's my style!

Fortunately there are either more DIY label options now, or at least I'm more aware of them. I briefly toyed around with inkjet printing on fabric, iron-on transfers and even screen printing, but I finally settled (for now) on rubber stamps. There are lots of tutorials online for making these labels so this is far from an original idea, but here's how I do it:

1. Decide on the label material. I think it should be all-cotton but I haven't tested that myself.  It could be fabric cut into rectangles with all edges turned under, but I decided on cotton tape.  I ordered a 36-yard roll of 5/8 inch "fine cotton edge tape" from Wawak and that's what works for me.  I'm also trying some cotton twill tape that's a little wider.

2.  Prewash and dry the fabric or tape.  Get all the sizing and shrinkage out.  I cut sections of the tape a couple feet long and washed them in a lingerie bag so they wouldn't strangle the rest of my laundry.  Here's what it looked like after washing: 

I guess I should add "iron the tape" as part of this step, but I think it's pretty obvious.

3.  You'll need a stamp or stamps.  I found a set of lower-case alphabet stamps, picked out the letters I needed, and stuck them together on the block from a rubber stamp I already had.  I had to cut around the letters so they fit close together.  For the year I used a date stamp from the office supply store.  The numbers were spread a little too far apart so I just nudged them closer together.

4.  I tried a lot of ink and most of it washed out.  Finally I found Tsukineko brand Versa Magic multi-surface chalk ink at Joann's, and it was perfect.  I got a variety pack so I can change colors when I'm bored with one.  

5.  Now stamp whatever you want on the cotton tape or fabric.  Every time I do it I need a lot of practice to get it right so plan on doing a lot of stamping at once.  Or maybe I'm just lacking stamping talent.  I put paper on my work surface so I don't get ink all over everything.  Only about half of my stamped letters look really good, then only about half of those look good after I add the date. Maybe someday I'll get the hang of it.

6.  Now WAIT!! Set your labels aside for at least 24 hours to let the ink set.  Ok, I haven't actually tested it but I'm going to follow that rule anyway.  I wouldn't want to mess up my good labels.  After 24 hours you need to heat-set the ink with an iron.  I always use a press cloth and press from both the front and back.  The ink has never transferred to the press cloth but I always use it anyway.  

7.  Now wait again.  Nope, I haven't tested this either, but I always wait at least 24 hours between pressing and washing.  I don't think it's necessary to wash the heat-set labels before using them but it's my way to make sure they still look good after washing and before I sew them in my clothes. 

Now I have some cute, simple labels in all the clothes I make.  I can't believe it took me this long to decide on labels but now that I've done it I'm more excited to make things to put them on!