Sew House 7 Toaster sweater number 1: wangling minky and other adventures

Not long after this fabric arrived I allocated it to this pattern.  It's a rather small piece of minky and I loved the design, which is why I bought it from Blended Thread along with some other pieces. The fabric itself feels very soft and is very floppy, it's quite cozy.  And of course, it has nap. 

It's been a long time since I made this pattern (here.)  So long that I lost my pattern pieces, which is rare for me. I really loved the fit the first time around but I still found it oddly useless in my wardrobe and it didn't stay around.  

So, reprinting etc later. I was really committed to this fabric for this pattern despite knowing it would be a serious tetris game.  I didn't really know how the minky would sew up either. The new modified pattern has new, modified sizing, and I went with a size 2, as the bust is correct and I thought the waist measurement would be a bit irrelevant.  

It was a serious tetris game, and I lost - I decided to just use the rainbow selvedge edge on the hem, which a friend of mine has done on a different project recently.  I wasn't sure I like it as a design feature, but you know, live and learn. 

The real story here is that minky is horrible to sew.  It's like velvet but with higher pile.  Simply sewing two pieces together, they try to shear away from each other, as velvet does, but the real tragedy came when sewing the folded over pieces like the neckband, cuffs and hem.  The pile doesn't like being folded in half and so it would squirrel away from itself.  On the hem I had learned, and basted the hem together.  The cuffs were a pain.  This is a problem that continues post sewing: the neckband and hem don't want to be folded, so they kind of mush up and slide around.  

I ended up really not liking this fit for this fabric.  I debated cropping the top, as when it was shorter it hung more loosely and that was both more flattering and suited the fabric more, but because of the annoying shiftiness of the bands, I decided to give it to a friend along with a shipment of winter clothing, so hopefully she will like it as is!  Her hips are a touch narrower than mine too so overall it will hang more nicely on her.   

I have had mixed feelings about my Blended Threads fabrics - none of them have been quality I would buy again, and this is also the case here.  I didn't find the minky fun to work with and it's polyester feel makes me think it wouldn't be nice in most clothing other than maybe vests or jackets.  I have not seen much fading of the prints on the Blended thread fabrics, but the best of the lot was the bamboo spandex.

Peppermint peplum top plus some Clyde pants

Out of the blue I realised the thing I needed in life was a peplum top to wear under my cropped sweaters.  I needed it to be relatively fitted for that purpose.  I hunted around and settled on the Peppermint magazine Peplum top - a free pattern! Win! I made a practice version from some linen scraps.  Smallest size, no modifications except that I self lined the bodice instead of using bias tape.  I prefer this most of the time, however the armpits can sag, so I might try a clever interfacing along the armscye next time I do this.

It was a fun top to make, and easy. However it's not fit for purpose. It's too short to hang out below my sweaters and it hangs too far away from my body.  I considered whether I could introduce a dart into the top but I couldn't figure out how you just add in a dart, and I worried then I would need a zip as well.  I thought in the end I will make the top again and lengthen it, as it is quite short, and see if that's enough. I might decrease the A line shape of it slightly as well.  In the meantime, this is a cute top on its own so I'm not dissatisfied. 

AND I know I'm always talking about how I'll never make any more Clyde pants...but I got this amazing cashmere coating.  And in my defence, in the shop it was nice, thin, lightweight and the most fantastically soft coziness...and I thought it would make great Clyde pants.  Once I washed it it fluffed up and felt kind of ridiculous to be using for pants but I carried on anyway.  And so it does make very cozy Clyde pants and they are rather like wearing a cashmere coat on your legs, and it does feel great but a bit ridiculous.  This is a good pattern for fabric like this which has a lot of body.  I used my usual pattern pieces which are size 4 short.  I had kind of angled the front waistband down previously and I ditched that, as it was harder to get the waistband to fold over.  Just accept a long crotch... 

Comments on dresses: reviewing the Camber set and the Botany dress

The Camber Set.

I really always promise myself that I won't make this again.  But then I forget.

This time I felt like for sure I could modify the pattern and it would be great!! 

Made up in a kind of shifty dry linen (I used the rest of it for my Georgia top.) 

The only adjustment is a wide shoulder adjustment I applied to it awhile ago. You can see that in the back view as it kind of hangs off my shoulder.  I think this is actually the incorrect adjustment for me to make, but it's taken awhile to realise it.   

 

I think it's time to just simply confirm I don't like this dress.  In my head, this is exactly what I like wearing.  But I make it and each time I think ew.  Fixing the shoulders would probably not make me inspired to reach for this shape dress.  Ironically the other dress by M&M, the trapeze dress, fits me *perfectly* through the arm yet for some reason I keep not making it again.  Note to self: trapeze dress.  Maybe in a knit.  Hm...

Botany dress 

When I made this before I thought it was unsalvageable as a pattern and I gave it to a friend.  She loves it and went on to make herself a bunch more.  But then midwinter I got these cockatoos and the fine drape of the voile made me think it would be fine. Shapeless dress for summer? Yes please!!  I was wrong. 

This is theoretically salvageable if I removed the skirt, took 2 inches off the bodice and reapplied.  It's a great dress for those with long torsos, my friend Tessa loves it.  Because I am lazy and I have some cockatoo fabric left, this is going to a less picky friend.  I might stop trying here.  I think I need another Botany top with ruffle, because I gave away my red one and kind of loved it.  Oops.

I think I've moved on from shift dresses in the styles I keep attempting here.  I like the Georgia dress reasonably well and that seems to be the shift dress style that is a win for me, but my 3 Georgia dresses still are inconvenient because they don't go with bike riding, and my Georgia top isn't the favourite of my shapeless square tops (Botany, LB, Strata...I think the LB is actually the best fitting for me.)

The Wheaton Windbreaker: worth the effort?

I've been planning to make this ever since it came out.  I have a large queue of jackets, you see, and each time I make one I need to recover afterwards.  A nice jacket has a lot of small details, and all that sums up into a Big Project.  For some reason it also seems like it's really hard to produce a jacket pattern that is both a good jacket, and that has good, genuinely helpful instructions.  Thus, the queue just stays the same length no matter what I do!

There was the Glide jacket, by Made it Patterns.  No comment. (I think I have said enough.)

And there was the Arare jacket: beautiful, success, really a bit too small considering my claustrophobia putting things over my head, but definitely a keeper.  Pocket instructions a bit bad for Waffle patterns, but everything else was great.  

I tried Very Hard to make the Wheaton pattern fit on a piece of waxed cotton at some point last year.  A meter piece.  It didn't fit, but left me the legacy of my pieces cut out in a size 0 when I'm a 4 on the size chart.  Right. So then Tessa and I went to buy fabric in Auckland and got matching nylon to make matching Wheaton windbreakers.  We got 3m each.  And even better - when I had a reason to come up to Hamilton for sewing day, we decided to make them together.  

Tessa made size 12, as she was between 10 and 12 on the chart. She reported a size 10 would have been fine. If you are following the size chart, the ease is generous.  The size 0 fits me though I would have liked it a bit bigger, the size 4 would have indeed been optimal.

I prepped ahead of time because I couldn't bring scissors etc with me on the airplane. I cut out my size 0 pattern (sigh) and though I had wanted to use the gradient of the fabric on the cross grain I couldn't make it fit so I had to use it with the gradient going across.  I had enough fabric to be a tiny bit picky, but barely.  I interfaced everything per the instructions.  Tessa really struggled with 3m of fabric but just barely got the entire thing cut out except the pockets.  

Tessa started her jacket the morning of sewing day. She only interfaced as she went along and was less finicky with details.  She quickly passed me and had finished the jacket by the end of the day, while I still had the cuffs to put on, the hem to sew, and the facings to tack down.  This is the summary of the day: the more you follow these instructions, the worse things will go for you.  We agreed that this was the worst sewing day we had ever had together because we were collectively miserable at every single step of the process. (Usually we are at least sewing different things and can cheerlead each other on.)

First: welts.  As every pattern designer seems to think they have to reinvent the welt-wheel, these welt marks are very confusing. They are inside out arrows, instead of a box.  Save yourself, and draw the box around the arrowhead ends.  Then you line up the welts with the sides of your box, per usual.  Also, don't fold the welt lip ahead of time, because then you're constrained to use it without adjusting it to cover the space. Wait til later when you can adjust it to fit - a better pocket results. 

Next issue: interfacing.  Don't interface *anything* that has go to around a curve.  This pattern is drafted so tightly that it just won't go.  Don't interface the hem, don't interface the neck part of the facing. If you have fabric that requires interfacing, it's worth cutting the interfacing down so it is not on the seam allowance.  Tessa beat me here by only interfacing as she went along, and didn't interface things that didn't need it.  She was able to ease in her hood and the hem without catastrophic amounts of seam ripping, whereas I lost a few hours undoing and getting frustrated.  

Tessa:

(In these photos I still hadn't done the facings although the exterior was put together.)

Subsequent drama: the cuffs.  WTF?  You cut out 4 little pieces but as best we could understand, you need 8, 4 for each side.  A LONG TIME after finishing the jacket I suddenly wondered if you are supposed to actually do the cuffs as a facing inside the sleeve, but that doesn't make sense because the sleeves are already super short.  So, if you are doing normal cuffs you need 8 of those little pieces.  Also I forget now what the instructions said but best to ignore them and do normal cuffs - attach to jacket and thread the elastic through the casing.  It will save you some stress.  Consider measuring the length of sleeves and lengthening if not happy - they are pretty short.

Finally if you actually sew the facing and hem facing down to hold the pocket in, you lose half the pocket.  If you want full sized pockets, they have to be outside all those facings and flappy around.  A peeve I have.  

 

In summary, we both finished our jackets, although I took another month to recover from the very memory and finish mine. After taking these photos I did add elastic into the cuffs. Tessa says that she has been wearing her jacket to work every day and gets so many compliments on it, which gives her the opportunity to tell everyone how awful it was to make.  I don't know if I can get over the experience and I will probably give mine to my cousin, who has asked for it.  (I did, and she loves it.)

If you love the shape of the Wheaton this is the advice I can offer: 

It creates a very high quality jacket though with some flappy but nice and deep pockets.  

It might not be fun along the way.  Do a practice welt pocket, interface only as you go and as really needed, and lengthen the sleeves ahead of time if you arms are anything longer than average or if you want to try a sleeve facing instead of a cuff.  Don't plan to do it in a day or your creative vocabulary will come out!  Plan bribes to get yourself through it. 

The Assembly Line hoodie dress, a review in 2 parts

 Oh this has been on the queue for awhile!  And at some point, bolstered by the truly glowing reviews of this pattern, I attached it in my head to this lemon printed fabric I have had slumming in my stash for years.  It is stretch poplin and I was going to make a Grainline Morris jacket from it before I faced how much I don't like open jackets like the Morris.  Then I was going to make pants from it and probably I should have stopped there.  Oops.  I read the blogs and went with a size S and cropped it about 20 cm.  However I didn't have quite enough fabric, especially once I realised it was directional, and I did NOT dig through my stash to discover I had a large, similar weight matching stretchy navy blue piece...nope, I didn't do that.  Nor did I decide to make it sleeveless.  Instead, I somehow decided that using oiled cotton for the hood would be smart.  

Don't be like me 

 

This fabric mixing is only part of an unfixable problem.  The hood is crappy and sits up at attention due to the firm oiled cotton.  I don't find it to be a perfectly amazing hood that encircles my head, as others have said.  It's just your usual fashion hood.  The dress is overall massive.  MASSIVE.  I couldn't maintain the attention span for any hem elastic.  I get that the hem elastic probably pulls things in quite a bit, but I had about 20 cm of ease through the entire front body and chest from the upper chest down.  I could wear an entire outfit under it.  I will probably restrain myself from sending it to the op shop while I think of little shorts or things I can make to salvage this great fabric.  

In the meantime I managed to harvest the size XS out of the pattern pieces and I have already cut out the entire dress in a disturbing shade of bright celery greenish-yellow, which is a fabric I actually bought from The Fabric Store specifically to make this dress and which with the Wise Eye of experience I should have used first.  It's also stretchy - I have serious clothing claustrophobia and if I feel any entrapment whilst pulling it on I will refuse to wear an item.  I think I'm committing to the entire dress this time. 

***

When I finally got around to sewing it (it's been 3 months) I had basically zero expectation.  All the joy had leached out on the first go-round.  It's a satisfying dress to put together, with all the pieces matching up nicely.  Except, of course, the elastic cuffs. Since I had neglected to use them the first time I had not paid attention to the weird construction method recommended.  It might work on the hem, but I think it's a horrible idea on the cuffs unless you have an ultra-skinny arm option for your sewing machine.  I also have PTSD from my Wheaton windbreaker which had similarly catastrophic cuff issues, and that didn't help.  I did try to do both cuffs, and they were a loss.  I scavenged in my scraps and out of sheer luck I found the scraps from this cutting (again, recall it's been months!) and I redid normal cuffs, also did the hem in the usual way of attaching the cuff, then inserting the elastic.  I used 1.5" elastic instead of 2", so it would fit nicely inside the cuffs and hem band.  

 

So, my measurements are 33-27-37 and no way would I have made the XS going by the instructions or the size chart.  However, in my stretchy sateen it is clearly the best fit.  It still seems kind of shapeless through the chest due to the lack of real waist shaping.  I absolutely couldn't make this dress in a non-stretch fabric as I would have killer claustrophobia and wouldn't manage to get it on, but in this bright stretchy fabric it is a glowing tunnel to reach the neckhole-exit.  It's not something I'll make again in a woven though I have a sort of curiosity if it could be hacked with stable knits at some point.  The yellow dress has certainly garnered attention and compliments at work, also was pretty good to bike in since the elastic keeps it snug on my thighs, so despite the subjective feeling of shapelessness it seems to be a win - enough that I'm kind of wondering whether I should return to the lemon dress.  I think if I make it sleeveless or short sleeved and remove the hood it would already be quite fun, and I could then evaluate if it's worth applying the hem elastic.