Sewing Workshop Bells Shirt

The Sewing Workshops' Bells Shirt featured on the cover of Threads Magazine - August/September 2011 was the inspiration behind this blouse.

Here's my version.  I used three different fabrics in this blouse.  The main blue is a wonderful Italian cotton I purchased at the Robert Talbott outlet in Carmel Valley, CA.   The two coordinating fabrics are quilting cottons.  The lighter one - an aboriginal print, was purchased at a quilt show and the darker floral was purchased at Ben Franklin in Grass Valley.  

The back has two fitting carts and a shirt tail hem.  I made a size small and it's rather roomy.  

The bands around the cuffs and the placket are sewn with the floral print.

And the cuff lining with the aboriginal print.

There are three different bands that make up the front button closure.  Two that actually function to hold the blouse closed and one flap that just hangs there that you can button in different ways using the buttons in the front.  I also wanted to highlight all of the different colors going on in the fabrics, so I used different colored buttons down the front.

I used the aboriginal print for the under collar and the floral for the shoulder patch.

This project really made you think when cutting out the fabrics and sewing everything together.  I did a line drawing when I finally decided what I wanted so I wouldn't forget the order.  This came in very handy because it took a few hours each weekend to finally finish it.  Everytime I wear it, I get a bunch of compliments.  It is quite fun to wear and very comfortable.

Until next time - Happy Sewing!

Vogue 7764

This is Vogue 7764 - a fitted, supposed to be unlined but I made it lined, below hip, military style jacket.  It's made from a nice wool, I believe I picked up from the ASG garage sale.

Jacket front

There are a total of 16 darts in this pattern so it is very nicely fitted.  The pockets have a box pleat in them as well which mimics the box pleats on the back of the jacket.

Close-up of front pocket

Here is the back view with the box pleats both above and below the waist.  It looks a bit floppy on my dressform, but fits me quite nicely.

The pattern called for just sewing triangle stitching lines at the top and bottom of the pleats, but I had some blue leather that matched perfectly so decided to sew them in place to add a little emphasis.

The jacket also has epaulets on each sleeve (optional of course).  I like the jacket with them.

And of course, I had to throw in a crazy lining.  The pattern doesn't call for a lining, but since my fabric was wool, I had to have one.  Wool just itches me like crazy but it sews beautifully.

Back view of the lining.  The jacket doesn't fit so well on the dress form because the shoulder pads are trying to lay in a different direction - you get the idea though.

Until next time!  Happy Sewing!

Garment of the Month Challenge - February Disaster Project

This project was doomed from the start. I should have felt the "bad sewing vibes" from the muslin I made, but oh no - I was bound and determined to see this project thru to the bitter end!  Well now, I am just thoroughly frustrated.  Not so much with the project, but more with myself - mainly because I didn't even follow my own advice!  The front isn't looking so bad, but the back is a disaster!

Dress front - needs to be taken in a little at the front waistline

My number one rule with buying fabric is to only buy odd numbers of yardage - 1 yard, 3 yards, 5 yards, etc.  NEVER buy even numbers - 2 yards, 4 yards, etc.  I learned this from a Roberta Carr seminar years ago and that rule has never failed me.  So naturally, when I pulled out the red fabric, I figured I had 3 yards.   Instead, I measured and it was two yards!  Oh the horror!  So this meant I needed to change things to make the pieces fit on the fabric.

After pinning the skirt bottoms to the muslin on my dress form, I could lose about 5 inches from the length of both the front and back pieces (there was 10 inches saved).  And, I really didn't need to make the belt that was included (another approx. 24 inches saved).

Length was way too long, so I could save some fabric here

After laying out off of the pieces, the only way I could get them all to fit was to skew the grainlines on the skirt pieces a little bit.   And, I didn't want to move anything after I finally got everything to fit, so I just cut it out on the floor.  I felt like I was back in high school again crawling around the living room floor cutting out my latest project.


I had various disaster moments after the cutting out was done....

My disaster muslin. Quite obvious it doesn't fit properly in the back

From my last posting on this project, after making the disaster muslin - here is exactly what I said:

All is not lost though - I did learn quite a few things from this (muslin):

1. I do not need to install the invisible zipper in the back.  I can pull it over my head just fine.

2. I do need to take it in at the back waist a little.  This will make it a little more fitted in the waist - and cause another problem in the process - the lining up of the pintucks.

3. Because I will need to take in the dress at the waist, I think I will wait to do the pintucks south of the midriff panel until the garment is almost finished.  I may even leave off the last pintuck on the top portion above the midriff panel as well because of the waist fitting.

4. I need to be more diligent and accurate in my markings.  There are alot of circles and squares and notches that need to line up in this dress so I need to take my time when cutting it out and be sure to mark every single one of them!

5. I will trace the pintuck lines onto the dress, but understand that they will need to be adjusted - probably freehand the final lines when the dress is near completion.  

6.  Lastly, give it a break for a few days!  I think I've been thinking about it too much and need to do something mindless for awhile!

Did I follow any of this?  NO.  

Let's review what went wrong:

1. Yes - I did need to install a zipper in the back.  In my muslin, I forgot to take into account the fact that the lining has part of the facing pieces sewn to it so naturally, the neckline will appear bigger if you don't sew the facings to it.  Here's the top of the dress pre-zipper.  Perfect time to adjust it but I didn't.

2. Did I take in the waist before sewing ALL of the pintucks - NO!  Instead I sewed in the invisible zipper (hand basting first of course to line up all of those pesky pintucks) and the realized after trying it on, that I needed to take it in!  Here it is with the zipper installed.  It's about two inches too big in the waist!

3. I did all of the pintucks south of the midriff panel before even trying the thing on!  Again - where was that advice I was supposed to follow?  

I even did test pieces to try out my new pintuck foot and pintuck blade for my new machine.  I don't know if it was the knit fabric or what, but as it turns out, my new machine makes terrible pintucks - especially when sewing over seamlines.  The top 5 rows on the sample below were made on my new Pfaff Performance 5.0.  I adjusted the tension, stitch length, everything I could think of to get them perfect but to no avail.  So, I got out my old Pfaff 7550 and voila!  Using the same foot (no blade though because it wouldn't fit), it made perfect pintucks with no adjustments at all.  So now, I was using two sewing machines (no serger at all) to make this goofy dress. 

Stitch length practice samples....

4.  More diligent in marking - ok this one I actually did follow.  I followed it so well, I don't think a garment has even been marked better.  I chalked the pintuck lines twice, and marked every single circle, square, triangle, etc.  If it had a shape, it got a mark.  I started off by highlighting all of the pintucks on the pattern pieces with a pink highlighter.  Then transferring them to the fabric with tracing paper.

Then, I redrew all of the lines using a chalk marker. 

Then, after fusing interfacing to all of the seamlines, I marked the darts and the circles, squares, etc. with chalk as well.

5.  I followed the first part (trace pintuck lines onto dress), but didn't heed the second part (understand they will need to be adjusted after I take the darn thing in!)

6.  Give it a break for awhile.  Ah hah!  Something I can do now! Probably give it a break for a month!  

The dress may just hang out on my dressform for awhile until I get in the mood to do some ripping out - there will be alot of it!

Until my next project - Happy Sewing!

Butterick 5954

Here is Butterick 5954.  A knit blouse made out of the scraps from this project.  This blouse is close fitting at the top and flares out at the bottom.  Sleeve options are either:  sleeveless, short, 3/4 or long.  I opted for 3/4 due to the limited fabric I had.  This fabric limitation also caused a few other fun design things to happen. For the front, I didn't have enough fabric to make the stripes on both fronts lay vertically, so one of them ended up being horizontal - I think that adds a little bit more interest though.

I didn't have enough fabric to make the cowlneck collar out of one piece either, so I decided to cut strips of fabric, sew them together and then cut the collar out of the pieces sewn together. Here are the pieces when they were first cut out.  Notice not all of them are on grain either.  I was trying to squeeze as many pieces out of the scraps as possible and figured since the cowl neck folded over and sort of flops around a bit, the grainline wouldn't matter too much in this case.

Here are the pieces sewn together.

Pieced fabric ready for the collar pattern piece.

Ta-Da!  Here's the pieced together collar piece all cut out.  Looks pretty interesting at this point!

Here's the back view.  There is lots and lots of room at the bottom.

Here's the bottom with the flared sides pulled out.  See - lots of fabric here!

I'm surprised I was able to make these from a leftover project.  One more piece of fabric out of my stash!

Here's a side view of the floppy collar.  I like the pieced collar.  I think it adds a little something extra to the design.

Sorry for the short post today - I'm working on my February Garment of the Month Challenge dress and it's not going so well!  I just thought I would post this quickly to feel like I have actually accomplished something today.  

Happy Sewing!

My favorite sewing glasses!

Not really sewing glasses but sewing related glasses.  How cute are these!  They are Karl Lagerfeld, yes the designer, glasses with zippers on the sides!

Front view

The right frame leg has just zipper teeth.  

Right side

But the left side has the zipper teeth and the zipper tab as well!  The zipper tab has "Karl Lagerfeld" imprinted on it.

Left side

These are sew cute!  I get tons of comments when wearing them to sewing related events as you can imagine.  I'm not sure if they are still in production, but the frame number is: KL704 in case you are interested.

Happy Sewing!

Simplicity 9669

Here is a lovely vintage pattern from 1971 - Simplicity 9669.  I seem to have a thing for patterns from 1971 lately - see my blue coat post here.  I don't recall how I ended up with this pattern, but it sure is a cute one!

Pattern front

I made View 2 - the shorter cape version with 4 buttons on the upper left of the front.  I had some cheap black/red/white woven plaid type material in my stash that I wanted to get rid of and thought this would be the perfect pattern to try it out on. The cape required a little more than 3 yards and that's about what I had so I was in luck! I already had some black rayon lining in my stash as well and with some buttons to suit on hand as well, this project didn't cost me anything!

I know what your thinking - "It had to cost something - where did you get the supplies from to start with?!". Well, here's my way of thinking - if the fabric, trim, button, etc. has been in your stash and adequately aged for more than 2 years (meaning, you can no longer remember the cost of it), then it's free!

Pattern Back

For a free garment, I think it turned out quite cute!  I had debated whether or not to add some 1" wide red ribbon near the bottom of the cape, but decided against it when I pinned on the ribbon as an experiment and the dear husband walked in and commented that he thought it made the cape "look cheap".

Here's the back view.  Kinda makes you feel like a superhero in a cape!

Until next time!
Happy Sewing!

February Garment a Month Challenge

Have you ever have one of those sewing days where everything you touch seems to go wrong?  Well, this was one of those times.  Thankfully, I was just working on the muslin for fitting purposes and not the actual garment.

So I'm making Vogue 1135 - a Chado Ralph Rucci designer dress with lots of pintucking and gussets, and bias pieces, etc. for my February garment.  Well, to start off with, I had the wrong size pattern and it looks a nightmare to try and size it down a few sizes.  Since it's now OOP and I bought it ages ago (probably not paying attention to the size and just grabbing it on sale), I knew it wouldn't fit.  Thankfully, ebay came to my rescue with a new, smaller pattern.  That was the first mistake (wrong size pattern).  Here's the pattern drawing below.  I had the DD size (12 - 18) and needed the AAX size (4 - 10).



Then, I decided to buy some cheapo knit fabric from Wal-Mart to make my muslin.  Now, I can't really blame the fabric for the sewing mistakes that I was about to make, all I can really do is blame it on my lack of concentration and trying to rush the muslin.

Once I traced the pattern and cut out the pieces, the errors began to multiply.  First, I sewed the wrong sides (or would that be right sides in this case?) of the top front and back together.  Well, I didn't notice at the time, but this caused me to sew the gussets under the arms in incorrectly as well - not just one time, but 3 times!  Holy cow!  I think that is a record for me.  Then, the midriff piece went in incorrectly as well.  Oh joy!

Front view of the muslin

Next came the skirt.  Somehow I managed to trace the correct "Cut Here for Lining" line on the front, but managed to trace a tuck line on the back - so now my side seams don't match either.  Aye, yi, yi!  I did, miraculously manage to sew these two pieces together correctly though.  Yippee - one piece is right (sort of)!

Back view

As you can see here, the bottom side seams don't match at all!  The dress looks really, really frumpy from this angle too!  It did fit me much better than my dress form buddy.

View of the other side isn't any prettier!  Just so you know, those little square dangly pieces at the underarms are meant to be there.  They are little stabilizer squares because the angle of the gusset is so sharp, it needs a little something extra there so the seam doesn't rip.

So now my muslin is sewn half right sides together and half wrong sides together. Lovely!  Oh well, at least it's the practice garment and not the real thing!  And, I know how it fits.  Maybe I could add some lace to it and wear it as a nightgown!  Ha! Ha!

All is not lost though - I did learn quite a few things from this:

1. I do not need to install the invisible zipper in the back.  I can pull it over my head just fine.

2. I do need to take it in at the back waist a little.  This will make it a little more fitted in the waist - and cause another problem in the process - the lining up of the pintucks.

3. Because I will need to take in the dress at the waist, I think I will wait to do the pintucks south of the midriff panel until the garment is almost finished.  I may even leave off the last pintuck on the top portion above the midriff panel as well because of the waist fitting.

4. I need to be more diligent and accurate in my markings.  There are alot of circles and squares and notches that need to line up in this dress so I need to take my time when cutting it out and be sure to mark every single one of them!

5. I will trace the pintuck lines onto the dress, but understand that they will need to be adjusted - probably freehand the final lines when the dress is near completion.  

6.  Lastly, give it a break for a few days!  I think I've been thinking about it too much and need to do something mindless for awhile!

Until next time!

Happy Sewing!