Tuesday, September 29, 2015

September sewing

Why hello there! Yes, I am still sewing, and no, you haven't missed a post. Since January, I have:

1) Sewed a shirt for my dad, which I forgot to take pictures of. The same Hawaiian-style shirt, in a nice olive green striped fabric he picked out. My first time sewing with stripes! I forgot to pay attention to the stripes for the most part, but I did perfectly match the pocket.

2) Tried once again to fit the dress that I've being trying to fit for a couple of years now. That's what took up most of the year (that, and abandoning sewing for a bit after that). I have finally given up. I'm not going to try again. I'm not even convinced the dress would have looked any good on me, I just wanted to sew everything in the Colette Sewing Handbook. But not that, apparently.

3) Sewed seasonally-inappropriate flannel pjs for my friend K.


She didn't say they were terrible, so I'm going to assume they fit. I have a sneaking suspicion they might be too short, but that's what fuzzy socks are for, right?


Elephants!

This is the Sewaholic Tofino pattern. I used flat piping, because I couldn't really find nice piping anywhere. Maybe I didn't know where to look. I think my pattern tracing is really going to pay off here, because I can re-use this pattern for myself or others, since I didn't cut the pattern at all.

4) Made my first repeat (for myself)!

This is another Colette Sorbetto, the freebie pattern on their website. Based on the last time I made it, I lowered the dart 1" and did a sway back adjustment that didn't seem to make a difference. But the dart placement is so much better.


The fabric has cat faces on it. Adorable, right? It's an oddly shaped remnant I bought in London. I took the decorative pleat out of the front, because I didn't think the fabric would hold that shape, and then had to add a seam in the back in order to fit the pattern on the fabric I had. I used pre-made bias tape at the neckline and armholes.

I love the shirt, and it's filling a navy-shaped hole I didn't realize I had.

5) Made another a-line cotton twill skirt. I now understand the allure of the tried-and-true pattern. 


Although I did have to make some edits - this was one of the first patterns I used, and I'd cut the tissue along with the pattern. Sadly, I have gained some weight since then (very few of my me-made clothes fit right now, which is devastating) and need the next size up, which...wasn't there. So I had to add some on to all the seams. It worked just fine, except with the waistband, where I messed up somehow. There's a little fudging. If you look at the right side, I ran out of fabric for the seam allowance so I had to just finish it with an overcast stitch. Luckily I don't really ever tuck shirts in, so no-one will see it.


Funny story: I had been planning on making another Sewaholic Cambie (and I still will! I have ridiculous fabric that is calling out to be used), but I would have had to re-fit it, and I thought by the time I finished it, it would be winter. So instead I started this fairly heavy-weight skirt...and finished it while it's still summer temperatures out there. I haven't worn it yet, but I'm sure I'll wear it as much as the previous version.


Pretty topstitching.

Next on deck: another Colette Moneta in a heavy mustard yellow. Except today I felt the urge to make a shirt, so I started making the required edits to the Sewaholic Alma (FBA and swayback, for sure, and possibly a narrow shoulder? Sloped shoulder? If I can get the bust right, I'll look at the rest.) I haven't decided what fabric, but I'm going to pull something out of the stash.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Stretching myself

Hello! I'm back, to finally post about the dress I finished just before Christmas. Fair warning, the photos in this post are terrrrrible. Sorry.


Here it is - my first attempt at sewing with knit fabrics. Short story: I like the result, but the process was annoying. Long story, well, that's the post.

This is some of the fabric I bought in London, on Goldhawk Road. It's great, but I suspect possibly not the highest quality, because I think it's already starting to stretch. I found cutting it out to me a massive pain - it kept shifting and stretching, and it was hard to feel like I was really getting the actual lines of the pattern. I'm sure it would be easier with a rotary cutter and mat, but that's just more things to find somewhere to put.




The sewing part was okay - there's a stretch zig-zag stitch on my machine which I used (and a few other stretch stitches, so I'll have to experiment). I even figured out how to set up and thread a twin needle, which wasn't expressly in my machine's manual - I used that to hem the neckline and arms and hem. The actual stitching felt weirdly slow, until I realized that's because it was - the stretch stitch just takes longer to stitch the same length than a regular stitch.

[ETA: the pattern is Colette Moneta. Forgot to mention that!] I didn't bother doing an FBA (the blessing of stretchy fabrics and a pattern that's drafted for a C cup instead of the normal B), but I did add a little length to the front bodice, and did my regular sway back adjustment on the back. It's still a little low in the back waist, so I took another 1/2 " off the pattern for next time. (Looking at the side photo, I might want to add that 1/2" back on to the skirt at the back, hmm.) And there probably will be a next time - despite not loving sewing with stretch fabric, I did like the end result (dresses with sleeves and pockets, hooray!), and I'm sure I'll make it again. And once I figure out the world of knit fabrics, I have a few other patterns lying around to try.