Drape Drape 2, no 4

Similar to the first drape project, the onerous part was sitting on the floor tracing out these big rorschach-blot monster pieces and sticking them together.  The piece was easy to cut, and then again I sewed it in the order I liked.  Basically it just gets folded over and then all the loose parts are sewn.  I did not pay attention to how you are supposed to roll and sew the drape side sleeve opening, and mine was a bit messy.  The Singer really showed how it didn't like knits here - I had to constantly tug my stitches to get them straight, and my final seamlines are wavy.  I attached the neckline as I did on the first drape project - I sewed the inside like a bias binding and then folded it over with the raw edge out.  I did initially hem the opposite sleeve, but my hemming was too tight, and so I cut the sleeve edge off.  I left the bottom raw as well.

I cut the S/M again here.  
The fabric is a mostly-cotton, very very thin knit, from one of the shops in Milan.

This turned out to be an amazing tshirt that I loved right away.  Lizzy was right!  I already have about three more planned, most of them in stripes.  I am not sure how to finish the neck and the sleeves better, though. 

By Hand London Georgia dress

This wasn't a pattern I jumped on but my interest rose when I saw Ladybird's version - short!  And of course I saw it on Lizzy in person, and hers was fabulous.  During my perambulations around the city, I found some stretch twill on sale and it seemed just the thing for a simple dress that wouldn't require too much equipment.  I wasn't exactly enthralled by the idea of hand sewing the entire thing, but I suppose it could be done... (nah, there's got to be a sewing machine I can borrow somewhere, right?)

Since I had so much time to think about it, I thought about the bust, and about my history with BHL bust problems.  I thought maybe I should do an FBA.  I bought a pair of shorts to rip up and - crazy! - muslin the bodice!!!  Before I did that I read the sewalong that the lovely ladies at BHL have done.  They advise that an FBA is needed when the high bust is >2 inches smaller than the bust, because that would correspond to a C-cup.  Hm....wait a second.  My big problem is that my high bust is 1+ inches greater than my bust, although some of that is because of my back muscles.  So should I actually be doing a SBA? I decided to be smart and just muslin the normal pattern.

normal size

I can easily pinch out an inch

SBA of about 1 cm, I only pinned it, but it's much smoother and fits more closely

There is still a bit of excess, but it's less.

This is what I got, see top photos (after I hand sewed my first muslin like a good 14th century frau).  Empty pointing boobies...I guess I do need that SBA, although I'm not sure what happens at the bottom of the cups where they attach to the dress.  Because I didn't totally believe in it, I shrunk it by only 1 cm.  And because I was getting lazy, I just pinned it instead of sewing it.  But already I can see a huge difference - the bodice lies flat against my chest and there are no empty cups.  I can also see that I might have gaping at the top of the bodice, but that will be easy to fix by just sewing a bigger allowance at the top of the centre front.  After all this, I also think I better find a sewing machine, because my stitches don't look very reliable to me, but at least I can get on with cutting before my flatmate comes home and needs the living room floor.  (Yeah!  And the iron is in the basement!)

This is more true to the actual colours.  My camera hates purple, apparently.

I found construction to be straightforward, although I had slight trouble with the centre back point.  The front was off but even after taking out about a 1cm wedge from the centre top front, it still gaped, so I gathered it there, similar to what Lizzy did on hers.  Then you can't see my slightly off-kilter centre.  Compensation came later: no zip!  Since this is a shoulder-free dress and my fabric is very stretchy, I didn't need it.  Hurrah!

I did as suggested by others and tried the dress on inside out.  My heavy fabric doesn't show marks, so I drew lines down the side to flatten out the extreme-hip shape (my hips are low?)  I considered pulling in the back a bit too but I didn't want to overdo the changes.  Because I know that I have a short strap-distance, I planned ahead and left the back straps out.  Once I tried on the dress, I inserted them into their holes and sewed these shut.  I wasn't bothered by having sewing marks on the back of the dress, although I could also have sewn it on the inside as you do for the Sewaholic Cambie.

I cut a 6/10.  This is my usual size for BHL.
I still don't know if the SBA mattered at all.  The bust fits ok.  But the bottom of the bust is high.

A finishing touch - the BHL label!  None of my previous patterns came with the labels so I suffered from envy of everyone else with their amazing labelled By Hand London projects.  Now I finally have one of my own!

I think this dress, because I worked on it so slowly and attentively, has come together much better than my rushed projects in the past.  I put a lot of effort into what I personally needed so that I would consider this a "wearable" dress, and that truly makes a big difference and is something that you don't learn right away.  In some ways it was also a more enjoyable process because I didn't rush.  

Drape Drape 2, no 2

I admit it, I'm a follower, at least when it comes to sewing.

Lizzy got me interested in Drape, Drape - book by Hisako Sato, in case you haven't heard of it - in January, when she was overflowing with her plans to try out some of these patterns.  Initially I had zero interest, but while in Bern my interest grew since I was seeking projects that weren't equipment intensive.  (I got a sewing machine at least!)  I managed to buy some cheap mystery stretch fabric in Italy and got to work.

The most intensive part about the Drape Drape projects is tracing the pieces.  As others have mentioned, the pieces for all the projects are overlapping on 2 sheets, and so they must be traced.  Luckily, for this project the tracing is mainly straight lines and simple curves.  I used a 1cm seam allowance, not whatever was marked.  My measurements would have me be a M/L but I cut the S/M as I know people have said these patterns run large.

I basically folded the dress in half and then sewed everything in my favourite order (shoulders, side, hem) leaving the bindings for last because I do not like sewing them.  I found the lengths advised by the pattern - 80 cm neck and 60 cm armhole bindings - to be generous and ended up cutting off 10 cm from the neck and about 6 from each sleeve.  My technique for sewing these on is not very glamorous, I just started at one side, pulling some tension until I got to the end.  I didn't fold my "bias tape" over for a clean finish, just folded it once over to the front and sewed with the fabric edge out.  I think this look matches the style of the dress pretty well.  On the sleeves I decided to try just sewing the binding on the outside and letting the jersey curl naturally, but it required then finishing the seam inside and I may still later sew it down, so that wasn't more efficient.  I know others have used a variety of different options for these bindings but my goal was to avoid walking allll the way down to the basement to iron anything so I wasn't keen to actually iron my bindings flat.

Initially I wasn't sure what to think but sure enough this dress has really grown on me!  I love the drape after all.  I gave it a generous hem, which I just eyeballed (and yeaaahhh, I didn't iron it)  but even the ridges in my hem, um, match the drape.  When I put this on it was super comfortable so I'm thinking it's going to get quite a bit of use.  Especially if I can make it work-appropriate, as I'm being shunted back into the office for the summer. I definitely think of this blah taupe version as a muslin for a more beautiful set of stripes though.

I did finally learn why many people are afraid to handle knits.  My old Janome My Style 20 was not well known in New Zealand - it must be a model that has gone by other names - but it was a hard working beast and never caused any trouble with knits.  My stitches stayed even and I didn't have trouble getting good tension.  With my little plastic Singer, I had huge issues with tension.  I had to sew everything once normally on a straight stitch, pull it until the fabric flattened and the stitches snapped somewhere, and then resew the spot where the stitches snapped.  I'm sure that's not what you are supposed to do.  I've noticed that it left my seams very shaggy looking.  I don't know if it's because this fabric is a super super thin knit, or if it would happen with all knits.  I used a 70 ballpoint needle.

On the topic of the cheap mystery stretch fabric: fabric shopping in Italy is not, actually, a wonderland of cheap amazing things.  I tried out my luck in Como and in Milano.  In Como I found an expensive shop with some lovely wares (Chanel fabric!) and ended up with a few silk and linen scraps to try making into pants, but they weren't really cheap.  In Milan I checked out three places: Self-service dello Scampolo near Porta Genova, Tessuti Raponi, on Via Panzeri, and Tessuti & Scampoli, at Via Lario.  My experience was similar to shopping in LA.  I think I'm just not really keen on shopping for fabric when I don't know what I'm getting, and the huge bins of different coloured stuff turn me off really fast.  Luckily this time I had the drape projects in mind and so I concentrated on finding fine cotton or rayon jerseys. There is some great striped viscose in Bern, but of course it's 39 franks/meter.   

From Milan I ended up with 4 different pieces of stretchy maybe-mostly-cotton.  The sum total of my shopping was about 40 euro for these four pieces (a total of about 6-7 meters) plus the silk and linen pieces that I mentioned above.  Definitely cheaper than Switzerland...but still not very dreamy.  

Me Made May 2014!

I wasn't going to do it, because in Bern I didn't have enough me-made items to make it possible.  But my plans changed and I'm in Seattle, at loose ends.  So I made a decision and I'm joining me-made-May. 

I vow to wear one item of me made clothing every day for the month of May 2014!

I'll be posting to Instagram as soelimano.  You can follow me there.  I am already starting to reorganise this month's sewing plans because I don't think I can live in dresses after all.  I guess that's what it's for - reflecting on what I wear and how to make that me-made.  But I have a lot of half finished and sort of in progress things that I've carried all the way from New Zealand so hopefully I can also clean up some of the disorder (finish projects!) while waiting for some more secure life plans to hatch. 

Even I knitted a sweater!

Everyone is knitting!  And everyone is knitting lovely sweaters.  So...if you can sew yourself a wardrobe, you should be able to knit a few sweaters to go along with it?  Sounds convincing but although I can knit, the pair of socks that I started in 2002 are 3/4 finished, eg I have 1.5 socks.  I've finished legwarmers and scarves.  And definitely nervous at the idea of a knitting pattern as I have trouble remembering which is knitting and which is purling. 

I finally clued in that sweater making is actually supposed to take a month.  I definitely still have an issue with this and with a short attention span.  I'm also nervous at the idea of making sense of knitting patterns.  However, I love Gather, a knitting and yarn store in Napier, and every time I went to Napier I had to stop in and see what was new.  And one of the interesting projects on offer was a super simple sweater pattern to be done on huge needles with thick wool.  The wool is actually pretty cool - it's recycled wool and alpaca bits, so not as itchy as plain alpaca, and in pink how could I resist? Nikki, the owner, promised that it would take less than a month.  It's a pattern that she has made and that she gives out together with yarn purchases.  In fact, real knitters apparently can do it in a day...

Finally I caved in and made it my travel project.  Nikki gave me a quick lesson on things like what is stocking stitch?  and made sure that I understood the directions.  The result: I carried this pile of wool and needles across most of New Zealand, half of Australia and to Seattle (it was halfway done on the 14-hr Mel-Sea flight!) before I finally finished it on my flight to Zurich!  Yesss!  Winter sweater, just in time.  (Well, anyway, still in time, since I was freezing the entire month I was in Seattle.)

I did a lot of emergency youtubing along the way.  How to add stitches?  How to remove them in the middle?  I didn't do a very good job of the neckline.  The basic pattern is to knit a rectangle, add stitches to the middle, cast off and then back on to make a head-hole, and then to cast the sleeve stitches off.  The entire thing is folded in half and makes a sweater.  I found the instructions straightforward and most of the time knew what to do in theory if not in practice.

The result is a big sweater!  It's warm and currently shedding everywhere, which I hope will improve when it has been washed.  Although it isn't my dream sweater (can't see having 5 of these in my wardrobe)  it has definitely given me a bit of confidence that another sweater is worth trying to knit.  Like, next winter. 

Burda 7841: I made my dad some pants!

Well, I wasn't the one to plan this project.  My parents were at the Pendleton wool factory in Oregon state at some point because I had a cousin working there.  My dad, not long retired, picked out some wool and figured it would be "easy" to sew himself a pair of pants.  He was an aeroplane engineer and I guess he figured drafting and sewing by a pattern were the same, right?

So a month with nothing to do on my hands seemed like a good time to save him from this misconception and sew his pants.  He had already chosen the size.  I compared the pattern with his most recent pants (made by his tailor in Taiwan in 1998 for 1000$, he said.  Hm...not sure I'll compare.)  Anyway it looked like the crotch depth on his favourite pants was about 3" deeper than the more modern pattern but I warned my Dad of it and told him I wasn't going to make any changes.  After the tragic fitting of my Thurlows and my Peter and the Wolf pants (they are going to be lounge pants - no way to shrink them), I wasn't feeling up to pattern modifications.

The wool is an interesting pale blue and grey loose weave.  It didn't cause me too many problems although it was sometimes difficult to remove stitches because they sink deeply into the fabric.  For mostly my own entertainment I used an old scrap of my mother's flower fabric for the pockets but to save my dad's sanity I put the bright colour to the inside. I was making these at the same time as I made a pair of Grainline Maritime shorts, and it was strange how many different ways there are to put a fly together.  I think the Thurlow way made more sense than any of the others but I don't have my pattern anymore, and I was also wary of diverging from what Burda wanted me to do.  A few times the pattern seemed confusing but it was usually my reading of it, plus the general situational irritation of sewing at my parents house.  However at one point I was supposed to sew together 4 layers at the fly, and with the thick wool that wasn't happening.  I made do...

I think I now understand why it's so amazing to have your own sewing space!  I was switching between two sewing machines, in two rooms, with the iron in a third room, my cutting space the dining room floor (and that floor was also my sewing table...my back will never be the same.)  These pants took me nearly the entire month to make and it felt like they would never get done.  It was a huge difference from the calm environment I had in New Zealand where I commandeered the entire dining room, with two walls of windows and direct overhead lamps, to be my sewing room.  At the end the sewing machine bobbin became a thread snarling monster and I stopped trying to neaten up a few loose edges, but the pants were done by then.  This lack of machine-control was also annoying.  The Necchi downstairs didn't have any zipper feet, but it had the only semi-functional buttonholer.  (Until it turned to the dark side.)  The machine upstairs had a broken bobbin winder and I couldn't learn how to thread the stupid machine.  So I had to keep ferrying between the two and getting my mother to thread the sewing machine...sigh.

In the end the pants are done!  They are a little more modern than my 83-year old dad is used to but he professes to like them. 

Deja vu: Grainline Scout, now in silk velvet

I couldn't part with my silk-velvet scraps when I left New Zealand so I quickly did the wide shoulder adjustment I'd been putting off and cut the project out.  It was my first thing to set up when I arrived at my parents and surveyed the Necchi.

Welllll, how did that go?
It ends up that velvet is made up of all these hair-like fibers that stick up.  Remembering to iron it with two layers of velvet stuck together - that was pretty easy.  But getting things to line up for sewing was tricky.  It ends up being nefariously shifty, not like silk, but like suddenly shifting a 1/4" as the fibers all simultaneously bend.

Put this together with some bias tape and I was screaming bloody murder and blaming it on the machine.  The poor plodding thing wasn't really at fault though...so I'm really glad I did a velvet practice project.

Moral of the story: don't sew with velvet.  Hah!

Luckily the Scout is easy and until I got to the bias binding I didn't have real trouble.  A walking foot would have been nice but the tin full of feet is full of weird feet (except for a rolled hem foot, I recognised that one, yippee!) and none looked like a seamonster-walking foot.  I zig-zagged my edges and then for the hem and sleeves I just folded that over and sewed it down.

In the end even the neck isn't too terrible, because once the bias tape was attached all the mess disappeared inside the shirt.  However I am really dissatisfied with the final fit.  My best friend, Dana, taking the pictures insists that it looks great but the sleeves seem to downright droop off my shoulders (was 1" too much?) and the usual shapeless Scout looks particularly shapeless in velvet.  Or is it just me?  This is the same size 2 that I have made for all the other versions, except that I idiosyncratically lengthened the hem, more in back than front for a bit of asymmetry. 

Not sure about this one yet, but it was a good practice project.  And I'm done with Scout tees for awhile!


Pattern: Grainline scout, size 2, slightly lengthened, 1" shoulder widening.
Fabric: silk velvet with a touch of nylon, from Global Fabrics in Wellington