April MAGAM Determined - Vogue 1382

The theme for April's Make a Garment A Month Challenge is one I suggested - make something from the oldest piece of fabric in your stash.  Since this theme was my idea, I guess I better get started! Sorry fellow MAGAMer's who are cursing the theme right now - I take full responsibility for it!

This selection of fabrics is the oldest in my stash.  I know they are all over 15 years old because I had them before we moved into our current home in 2001.  The two on the left are raw silk, the ikat in the middle is a cotton and the three on the right are linens.

Using Vogue 1382, an Anne Klein design, I'll attempt to use of these pieces in some combination to make the dress.

I think I'll mock-up a drawing of the garment too before I start slicing and dicing the fabric to see which placement I like best.  That seemed to work well with my last garment.  And - this dress will require a muslin so more to come on this one!

Happy "Stash" sewing everyone!

Star

March MAGAM Completed - Vogue 9108

My March MAGAM Challenge - More, More, Moreish March is complete and I am very happy with it!!  Here's Vogue 9108 - a Marcy Tilton pattern.  Warning, this post is quite picture heavy, but I hope you will enjoy it.

Front View

Side View

Back view

I first started this garment by doing a few pencil drawings to determine the placement of the fabrics.  I settled on version #5 as my final garment.


And the final version came out pretty darn close to the concept....

This jumper is described as "close fitting thru bust", but that's where the close "fittingness" stops.  I started by pin fitting the tissue pieces together on the dress form to see just how much I was going to pinch out before I even cut out the pieces.  Here's the front view just pinned together.

And side view - just look at how much tissue there is!!

Next, I started pinning out big triangles of tissue.  Starting at the top, I kept the bustline the same and then folded together a big chunk and pinned again.  I started by folding out 5 inches from the center back piece (for a total of 10 inches) and 10 inches on the side back pieces (for a total of 20 inches overall).  Here's a before and after pinning view of the back. 

And the same before and after pinning of the sides.

I did not pin out any fabric on the front pieces to start with because I wanted to see what the jumper would look like so far.  And, I knew I could take in the side seams to make it work.

On the back panel, the hem is supposed to end about 4 inches above the side back panels as you can see in the pic below.  I didn't care for that hemline, so I added in a piece to the back to make them even.  I guess I could have just extended the back panel a few inches, but that didn't occur to me at the time and I made a separate pattern piece for it.

After cutting everything out, I sewed all of the front pieces together and all of the back pieces together along with the straps and did a pin fitting of the side seams on the dress form.

I still needed to remove more fabric.  Here you can see the back side panel is pinned another 6 inches and same with the front piece.

The center back panel sagged funny on the upper back so I decided to pin out some more fabric and make further adjustments.

I ended up taking about 6 inches off of the straps - which moved the entire back section up quite a bit.  The good thing with doing this is I can wear this jumper with a strapless bra and without the t-shirt underneath on hotter days.

This picture isn't very clear, but you can see how much fabric I removed on the side seams.  The pic on the right has a faint line of red basting I did prior to sewing.

Here's the final garment once completed.

Of course I had to add in some fancy trims....

The back now lays nice and flat with no sagging with the addition of the box pleat in the back.

The criss-cross straps in the back are pretty cool.

Here's the original and my version front views.

And the original version compared to mine for the back.  You can see my straps are alot higher, there is alot less fabric in the back and the addition of the back bottom panel piece changes the hemline.

I am super happy with how this jumper and top turned out.  

I started with a size Small and after all of the tissue pinning adjustments and final alterations, I ended up removing 54" from the bottom hemline.  That might give you an idea of just how much fabric is in the original pattern.  

This entire garment was made with pieces from the stash adding a whooping 5.125 yards to my YTD total of 27.875 yards.  Whoop!  Whoop!  

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

The "Must-Have" Office Supply Sewing Notion

Here is a must-have office supply tool to add to your sewing notions.  The humble staple remover.

Instead of using a pair of good scissors or another sharp implement that could possibly cause personal injury (don't ask me why I know this) to remove those stubborn staples from buttons, how about a staple remover! How clever is that!  Yes - you can thank me later...

That's it for today.

Happy and safe sewing everyone!

Star

Trailer Pajamas

I recently purchased this top for $5.00 - what a deal!  I thought it was so stinkin cute that I couldn't pass it up and it would make the perfect pajama top for yet another pair of pajamas for our travel trailer.

These two trims in the stash matched the shirt graphic perfectly!  You'll probably recognize the floral trim as I have used it multiple times before - as the hem tape in Vogue 9031 skirt, and a trim on Anna Maria Horner's Study Hall skirt. I still have quite a bit of it left so you might see it crop up on another garment in the future.

Using some gray knit fabric from the stash and McCalls 3017 for the pattern, I added the two trims to the bottom calf region of the pants.

And voila!  Another pair of comfy pj's!!

Total stash yardage used for these pants = 1.75 yards.
Total YTD = 22.75 yards.

Happy sewing everyone!

The Annual Sewing Guild Garage Sale is coming....

The Annual Sacramento Chapter American Sewing Guild Garage Sale is coming and you don't want to miss it!  If you live within a few hours driving distance of Sacramento, California, I highly encourage you to attend!  And bonus -  we have extended hours this year - we will be open for business until 2:00 p.m. - another hour to find some great deals!  Be sure to arrive early - the line starts forming around 8:00 a.m. and last year there were 75+ people in line upon opening.

Event Details:
Sacramento Chapter American Sewing Guild
Annual Garage Sale
Saturday, April 9, 2016
North Highlands Community Center
6040 Watt Avenue
North Highlands, CA
9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

If you would like more information on the garage sale or are interested in selling some of your own treasures, please click here for more information.

Here are some garments I have made from past garage sales fabrics:

Burda 7342 skirt with matching scarf:

New Look 6762 skirt and top

Butterick 5353 dress

Butterick 5917 dress

 Frankenpattern using Simplicity 1607 on top and New Look 6224 on the bottom

New Look 6224

Simplicity 2281

 Simplicity 3503

Study Hall Skirt

Vogue 1331

I hope to see everyone at the sale!  Be sure to flag me down and say hi.  I will be in my usual spot up on the stage doing the bookkeeping - right behind the cash registers so you can't miss me!

Hope to see you there!
Happy sewing everyone!
Star

Burda 7342 #2!

This could be my favorite skirt pattern.  This is the second one I have made and absolutely love it.  Burda 7342.  The first one I made earlier this year out of a nice wool plaid.  This version is made from a piece of black crepe I had in the stash.  I did some topstitching along the top edges and the mock pocket flap edges.

And of course I had to throw in a wild lining trimmed with some ribbon from the stash.  The lining is a piece of polyester that I bought at a fabric store in Eureka, California (sorry, I can't remember the name of the store!) that sells fabric on consignment - what a concept!!  So if you happen recognize the piece below, it could have been yours!  Here's the back views inside and out....

And fronts inside and out....

And a close-up of the topstitching.  Sorry - the picture is a little blurry.

And here's a close-up of the ribbon trim I used between the top yoke and the skirt pieces on the inside.  It's a very nice woven ribbon that was sewn-on by hand.

Just a quick post today but here are the latest statshbustin' stats for me:

Yardage for this skirt = 4.375
YTD = 20 yards!

Happy sewing everyone!
Star

More, More, Moreish March!

The theme for the MAGAM Challenge for March is "Moreish March".  My interpretation of this is the More fabric the better!  My garment choice for this fabric abundance challenge will be Vogue 9108 - a Marcy Tilton pattern.

Using these various knits and trims from the stash, I'll see what I can create.  I can't wait to get started on this one!

I have already started with my layout selection too.  Using the sketch from the back of the envelope, I enlarged it on a copy machine to an 8.5 x 11 size.

Then I traced the drawing, got out the colored pencils, and started drawing.  In reading the reviews on patternreview.com - the pattern runs large (so I'll go down a size or two and be prepared to take it in even more) and there is no bottom back panel included in the pattern as I've drawn in these pics.  I'll be adding that piece to make the hem even.

Sketch number 5 is the winner.  Now - we'll just see if I have enough of these fabrics to make it work.  Some of them are pretty small pieces!

Until next time - Happy sewing everyone!
Star

February MAGAM Challenge Finished - Half successful.....

February's MAGAM Challenge was a double whammy for me.  One of my goals for this year was to make my own workout wear and with the theme for the month being "Freaky Fearful February" it was time to give workout wear a try.  And I did give it a try....but it didn't end well.....I am very thankful I was using old scrap fabric for this trial pair rather than some good stuff.

Using Butterick 6295 as my pattern, the workout pants started out ok.

But when I tried them on the first time, I found a hole in the front thigh.  I don't know if I accidentally cut the hole or if it was in the fabric to start with.  Regardless - there it is...

And, the bottoms were so big from the hips to the waist, that I started taking them in on the serger with reckless abandon. Now the one piece yoke in the back had a seam up the middle and the seams didn't line up properly with my careless sewing.  And the front - well - let's just say without a gusset in the pattern it was starting to creep into places it wasn't meant to just during the try-on stage.  I'd hate to imagine where they'd end up during a workout!  At this point I still had the waistband to put on - which was now way too big.  And to top it off - the white fabric was completely see thru!  There was no way I was going to ever wear these so into the bin they went!!  I'll be purchasing myself a Jalie pattern with a gusset for my next trial pair....I hear the Jalie Cora leggings are good....

I had much more success with the top pattern though. Here's the top (with purchased pants).

The top has a built in, lined shelf bra that can hold lightly padded cups.  This was a first for me.  I used completely the wrong fabrics for the shelf bra, but since this was my practice top, I didn't really care.

The straps criss-cross on the back.  There is a little gaping between the straps in the back though when my arms are raised up.  And, you can see a line where the shelf bra joins the casing for the elastic.  No big deal, but it's visible.

No gapping between the straps when the arms are down.

I did wear this top during a Boot Camp class on Monday and it was very comfortable.  No riding up when doing mountain climbers and no fidgeting with straps moving or falling off.  I used a narrow zig zag for the seams and they didn't pop and a double needle for the hem and it didn't pop or stretch out either.  I will be making this top again, but next time, I will sew the elastic directly to the shelf bra and eliminate the casing all together.

Total yardage used for top and bottom = 4.75
Total yardage YTD = 16.625

Happy Sewing everyone!

Star