April MAGAM Completed - Sewing Workshop Poppy Vest

I hadn't decided on my April MAGAM project until this past weekend.  I was thinking about what I would wear to the sewing guild's Spring Event where we will have Linda Lee from The Sewing Workshop as a guest speaker. The event is this coming Saturday, April 29th, so I didn't have much time to make something, but I wanted it to be a Sewing Workshop pattern.

Then I thought of this gorgeous fabric purchased from the sewing garage sale....

There was only a yard of it and I immediately thought of The Sewing Workshop's Poppy Vest pattern. I have made the pattern before, but it has been a long time ago.  So off I go to my pattern stash to pull out it out.  And of course, I don't have enough fabric.  I am short about 9 inches in length and about 6 inches in width.  

So, off to the fabric stash to find something that matches and as luck would have it, I had a piece of plain black wool that was about the same weight and drape as the fabric above.  I added a 10 inch piece that runs from the left front, thru the left shoulder, down to the bottom right - basically just cutting the fabric in half and adding the strip in.  

So now I had enough length wise, I needed to add a section to the left front to make up the width needed.  I added about an 8 inch piece along the left hand side.

Basically, the fabric now looks like it has a giant "T" running thru it.

Once cut out, it was looking a bit plain so I decided to add some embellishment threads to the black pieces:

Now we are getting somewhere.  The black fuzzy is a piece of yarn.  The green is a ribbon I had in my scrapbooking stash and the others were various threads and yarns I had laying around.  Here's a close-up of the threads:

And voila!  The finished product!

I covered a button using the reverse side of the fabric.

I will pair with with some black leggings and either a t-shirt or a turtleneck (not sure of the weather yet for that day).  I think this turned out pretty cute!

Total yardage needed to complete this vest was 1.625 yards.  So after piecing together what I had, I made it work.  And of course, I'm adding this vest to the stashbustin' total for the year.

So far, I'm up to 17.25 yards YTD.  A bit of a slow start this year, but the important thing is that I'm still moving forward and bustin' that stash!

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

July MAGAM - Finally finished - Vogue 8757

It's a few weeks late, but I'm finally finished!  My July MAGAM "Opposites" Challenge was to make something from the opposite season.  We are currently in the middle of a very hot summer, so my opposite was to make a quilted winter vest.  Since the theme for July was my idea, I feel kinda guilty for being so late in posting, but I have some good reasons:

• I ordered a custom color-matched zipper for the front closure.  After waiting for it to come in, I realized that I forgot to add the height of the collar in the length calculation and had ordered the wrong length!  It was too short!  (Math never was my best subject!)
• My lining was too short (which I knew it would be from the start) and I was trying to come up with a creative finish for the inside bottom but my mind was just blank (until yesterday - finally!)
• Our refrigerator decided it had had enough on the last day of an 8 day, 100 degree+ heat wave and it quit working.  So after living out of ice chests and doing some creative cooking for the last few weeks, I'm hoping it is finally repaired and working properly again.   

This vest really wasn't a hard project - but as usual, I tend to complicate things with extra embellishments and stitching.  I wanted to highlight some of the seam lines and used the tan satin fabric to make piping.  After sewing the piping into the seams, I then trimmed the seams and spread the seams and topstitched each seamline.

Here's a view of the inside after the seam has been cut, the piping spread apart and topstitched.  

The original armholes on the vest were very, very snug.  I like my armholes a little on the looser side so I lowered them by 2 inches at the bottom of the armhole and tapered that up about 1/2" on the shoulder seam.  The pic below shows before, after trimming, and after applying bias tape to finish.

After the zipper length disaster, I decided I didn't like the look of the zipper anyways on the front and thought that if I ever wore the vest open with the collar flopped down, the brass teeth on the zipper might catch on the quilted stitches and cause a bunch of snags, so it was probably a good thing that I ordered the wrong length!  Instead, I found a vintage covered button kit in my stash.  These buttons were passed down to me from my Nannie and they are probably from the 1950's (I'm guessing here) and I'm glad I was finally able to use them.  As you can see, they come in three sections - the outside brass ring, the inside section that gets covered with fabric and then the bottom piece that snaps everything together.  After cutting and hand sewing and small circle of fabric to the middle sections, they snapped together beautifully.

Views of the front.  Each covered button has a large snap behind it - those took forever to sew on by hand!!

The old blouse that I used for the lining looks quite sharp!  I didn't have enough material to match up the design lines on the print, but I think it looks ok.  I mentioned earlier that I was trying to come up with something creative for the inside bottom hem.  Because the length of my lining was about 1 inch too short, I needed something at least 2 inches wide for the bottom.  I ended up using the ties from the blouse to make a band that is sewn into the bottom hem and then hand stitched to the lining pieces above it.  Not my usual flashing finish for the bottom, but a more subtle look, which doesn't take away from the busy lining fabric.  

And here it is on me!  A bit grumpy looking in this picture, but it was hot again today and after putting on the jeans and standing in front of a fan for awhile, I managed to snap a few photos before I started sweating to death!  This will be a nice and cozy vest in the wintertime!

I managed to stick to two of my original "opposite" ideas for this project.

- Opposite Season - making something for Winter when my current season is Summer. - Yes!!

- Old versus New - turning something old into something new again by reusing the old top for the lining. - Yes!!

- Zipper versus Snap - Change the closure from snaps to a zipper.  - Nope - went back to the snap idea.

Here are the numbers for those interested:
Vest yardage = 2.25 yards
YTD Stashbustin total = 65.125 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

Vogue 1331 - The Buttons

I knew it would be impossible to find buttons to match this coat so I decided to try something new. Having been recently disappointed with the new Dritz covered buttons kits I decided to try my own version.  FYI - the teeth on the new kits just aren't long enough to hold them together and they fall apart - I wrote the company, but of course never heard a reply from them.

Starting with a scrap piece of the green wool, I couched the yarn in lots of different directions.  I have a bunch of these black ball buttons in my stash and thought I would try covering them.

Next, cut out a circle larger than the button and sew a running stitch about 1/4 inch from the outside edge.

Put button inside and cinch up the thread around the button shank.

Keep cinching and sew back and forth on the back of the button until it feels secure.

Here's the front of the button - much more fitting for my coat!

And here's the back of the button.  There is just enough of the shank showing (although it's hard to see in the pic below) to be able to sew it onto the jacket.

One step closer!

That's it for today.  Until next time - Happy Sewing!

Challenge Fabric leads to Cute Cape!

Every year, the Rocklin Neighborhood ASG Group has a fabric challenge.  And it's not your average challenge. Some of us dread this event and others look forward to it with great anticipation. 

Our lovely fabrics are some of the leftovers from our annual garage sale that didn't sell - so you can imagine we get some beauties!  Each piece is in a brown bag and you never know what you are going to get.  Well, two years ago, this lovely piece was selected by an unsuspecting member who hated it.  I, on the other hand, absolutely loved it when it came out of the bag and asked if she would mind trading.  Naturally, she was glad to trade and I was so excited!   

It's a cheap piece of polyester, silky type fabric, but I knew I had some purple wool at home that would match perfectly with it!  Our challenge was to make something, anything, out of our delightful piece of fabric and I had the perfect garment in mind.

I made the 1930's Capelet from the Decades of Style pattern company.  I had been wanting to make this pattern for awhile and knew this would work out great.  I originally bought this purple to go with this material, but changed my mind when the challenge fabric came about.

I made size B, following the lines for a 36" bust.  The pattern only calls for 2 buttons on the front, one at the top and one at the bottom.  Two buttons wasn't enough so I added the two additional ones in the middle.

The top buttonhole is an inseam buttonhole.  As long as you following the pattern markings, this is fairly simple to do.  As for my covered buttons, they were a bit of a challenge.  Since my fabric was so thick, I couldn't get it to work with the covered button kits.  After a few unsuccessful attempts, I noticed that the fabric seemed to be coming apart - as in there were two different layers to the fabric.  So, I tried to carefully pull the layers apart and voila!  The new "half thickness" fabric worked great for the covered buttons.

Here's the side view.  I am not happy with the bulk of the facing around the bottom, but when you see the inside, you will see why the ridge of the facing shows.

Here's the back view.  The capelet falls nicely over the back.

And that crazy lining!  Doesn't it match perfectly!  I added rick rack along the edges as well.  Each one of the rick rack points needed to be sewn down by hand as well, because they kept sticking out funny.  Also, the pattern doesn't call for a lining, but after seeing this fabric, I just couldn't resist adding one.

Side view of the inside.  You can see the capelet portion thru the armhole.  The caplet is left unlined.

Close-up of the armhole facing.

And more of the crazy lining!  I just love it!

Here's why there is a ridge from the facing on the right side.  Again, the pattern doesn't call for a lining, but I wanted to add one and add the rick rack along the edge.  Since I wanted to add the rick rack, this meant I needed to turn the fabric under to just have one side of the rick rack points show.  So in turning the fabric, I now have essentially 3 layers (2 of the facing layers and one for the rick rack) - this 3 layer thickness is what is causing the ridge to show on the right side.

Now maybe if I would have underlined the base fabric, this ridge wouldn't show, but it's too late now - I'll just live with the ridge.

In this final view, you can see how the capelet portion attaches to the front and hangs over the back.  I left the capelet portion unlined and just finished with some bias binding around the edges.

Until next time - Happy Sewing!

The Sally Shirtdress

No. 124 - The Sally Shirtdress by Serendipity Studio

Below is my version of this wonderful pattern.  I first found the material on-line at Pink Chalk Fabrics.  Although I have never been to the shop, the next time I am in the Seattle area, I plan on visiting.  It looks like a wonderful shop on Bainbridge Island.  Anyways, my husband bought me a gift certificate and I knew when I saw this fabric, it would be perfect for the shirtdress.  


Front view

The pattern is fairly straight forward.  It has a front, back, sleeve and collar.  The bottom trim on the sleeves and hem can either be ruffled or a flat piece of fabric.  I opted for a little ruffle in some red and white polka dot coordinating fabric I found at a local quilt shop. 




Back view

I made a size small and it was very roomy.  The roominess is taken up by the pleats. The 8 pleats around the front and back requires a little math calculation, but it's nothing too difficult.  You can adjust the height and depth of the pleats according to where your waistline is.  I pin fitted mine first, to make sure the pleats were coming out the way I anticipated.  I wanted the pleats to end just below the bust and right at the bottom of the belt - which they did! 


Close up of buttons and belt

I also made the covered buttons and the belt.  I just happened to have in my stash the perfect belt buckle as well!  I think it was given to me by a friend a few years ago, but it matches perfectly!  One note on the covered buttons.  I purchased some new button covering kits by Dritz and they were terrible! My buttons kept falling apart. I've never run into that problem before - especially with just some thin quilting cotton.  I ended up taking them back to the store and using some old ones I already had in my stash. 

Before returning them, I did a size comparison on the new ones to the old ones and discovered that the prongs on the new ones were much shorter and not as sharp as my older ones - hence the problem.  There wasn't enough "teeth" to grab and hold the fabric. I e-mailed Dritz about the problem but never heard a reply from them.  Keep that in mind if you purchase some new button covering kits.  One thing I didn't try was interfacing the piece of fabric - that might have made a difference, but I doubt it.  Now when I'm looking at yard sales, I will buy as many old versions of the button covering kits that I can find!


Another view of the front

This really is a cute dress and very comfortable to wear.  I opted for the ruffle trim on the bottom hem and on the sleeve. 


Close up of hem

I feel like June Cleaver in this dress!  Especially with the pearl necklace and earrings!  


Sleeve detail

I hope you will give this pattern a try.  I'm sure I will be making another version soon!

Happy Sewing!