I met velosewer!

I took last Friday off from work because a very special Aussie was coming to the Big City...


It's Velosewer Maria, from the blog How Good is That!

We hit 7 fabric or notions stores in 8 hours, plus lunch and doughnuts....quite a whirlwind!!  and we both wore outfits made by our own hands...my McCall's 6078 shirt and J Stern Design Jeans and her peplum Vogue 8815 top and purple Vogue 1204 jeans (I remembered the purple jeans from her blog!)  The topstitching on her jeans is superb!

We made Metro Textiles our first stop, as you know it is a sewing blogger rite of passage to have one's pic taken with Kashi.  Plus I haven't seen Kashi since May 2012.  Definitely time to revisit.

And while we were there, we met another Kashi customer, Barbara, who asked us how we know Kashi....that led to the discovery that we are all on PR!  We had such a nice time time shopping and chatting with Barbara, who makes jackets to sell.

The shirt I was wearing was made from the fabric that was on Kashi's mannequin on the Friday of PR weekend.  That was the fabric that was less than a yard!!!!

I really enjoyed listening to Maria banter with Kashi and teasing him...


Of course he wants you all to know that he has new fabrics and wants you to come visit him.  And if you've never been to Metro, the background of these pix really give you a sense of the store!

We did really well there.  Keep in mind, Maria has to haul all this fabric back to Australia!

The haul from Kashi

Honestly, every day is a sale day at Metro!
Here is my haul from Kashi's (I had it shipped; it was on my doorstep on Tuesday):

Then it was time for MOOD.

Sadly, Swatch took the day off due to threat of rain and wouldn't be back til Monday.


Antoinette, this is the remnant bin at Mood, under the staircase, but it was mostly Home Dec:

We were able to meet up with Meg who works in marketing for Mood, and she took this picture of our Mood hauls.  Meg is the original author of the Shop the Garment District blog, which Mimi took over when Meg started working at Mood.  The map and info on that blog is excellent--the map gives store addresses, phone numbers, and even indicates which stores have bathrooms!

In the mood foyer:

ha

Here is what I bought at Mood (I had it shipped; it was on my doorstep on Monday).  That bottom piece is the most luxurious piece of stretch corduroy ever, from Alice + Olivia.

Then it was time for the big reveal at lunch! The 7 hour zipper pouch!!

It turns out that the interior fabric is her favorite color, a bright green! Woot! That just happened to be what I chose from my stash.

Maria had gifted me with Tim Tams from Australia ( a quite delicious chocolate cookie covered in chocolate with a layer of chocolate between the chocolate cookies, yes, chocolate chocolate chocolate!) and she asked me to hold up my bag:

Maria had her first ever mac and cheese at one of my favorite Chelsea restaurants, named Cafeteria. Then we went to my favorite doughnut place in the whole world, Doughnut Plant.

Then it was kind of a rapid succession of stores: City Quilter, Pacific Trimming, SIL Thread, then Maria went to Spandex House while I went to Daytona, then we reconvened at Parone.

Pacific Trimming zippers

One of my main goals was to get cotton lining, zipper and thread to match these fabrics from Joanns and Kaimuki:

zippers and thread: SIL Thread
Lining: Parone

Here was much of my haul:



I have already made something from the items above, but that will be my next post.

I bought more of that cat fabric that I originally got at Kaimuki, online from a local (NJ) seller....and happened to find webbing to match for bag making (I didn't even know I wanted webbing to match, but I did when I saw it!):

webbing: Pacific Trimming

This is the fabric from Parone:

I had brought swatches of various with me, so I could find linings and thread to match.

I had a fantastically fun time with Maria. She is warm and witty and caring and kind. I'm so happy I was able to meet her!!  Like I said, for the past 18 months or so she has commented on almost every blog post of mine--that is dedication!

And I am planning on doing a post devoted to my favorite NYC places...in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Here are your Princeton Farmer's Market flowers for this week:

Maria, I wish we were going to the Garment District again this Friday!
Be well!

McCall's 6256 view C done: The 7 hour zipper pouch

Thanks for your comments on my last post.  I wound up going with mystery project #6 from my last post (and also did one mending of #5, many more pieces to go!)

Sooooo....here's my second round at zipper pouches.  It's McCall's 6256 view C.
Is it possible to be in love with a zipper pouch?  I think it is.

It took me 7 hours, because I did a lot of ripping out and redoing.  I think I could sew it again in 3 hours or less.  So below is how I finally figured out how to do this pouch and make it look good.  (also next time I will serge raw edges and maybe interface the exterior like I was supposed to...and also sew the label on the inside first before doing anything else)

Here's the pattern, I made view C, which comes in two sizes, large and small.  I made the large.


I am in love with the zipper tabs. I had to make them larger, though, as the tabs with the pattern were skimpy! (I cut mine 3.5" tall by 2.25" wide, then folded under with .5" SA, then fold in half again to "wrap" around the zipper and sew down.  For centering the words, I made sure to center on the top half of the tab).  Also, note that you cannot sew over a metal zipper.  Ask me how I know (as Jennifer Stern would say).

Here's an in-progress pic of the zipper tabs:

Here's the back of the bag.

Here's a view from the top:


So....unlike other zipper pouches where it's sewn by making a zipper sandwich (where the zipper is sewn in between the exterior and interior fabric), I followed the directions in which the lining is sewn to the exterior fabric, right sides together, so that upper edge has, like, a lip.  In this pic, the top edge and corners are sewn together, right sides together, flipped out and ironed:

Then, that lip is sewn onto the zipper, which means the zipper tape is visible from the inside of the pouch. I thought that was going to bother me, but it doesn't. I used a size 16 jeans needle since the interior fabric is denim, and the zipper tape is pretty thick.

The pattern calls for a 12" zip but they didn't have one so I bought the 14" zip and cut it down. Then I used wonder tape to "attach" the upper edge of the pouch right up against the zipper teeth instead of pinning. Wonder tape is amazing for this. This zipper is a meaty Coats and Clark "designer metal zipper" from Joann's. It's such a fat zipper that the fabric is not going to get caught in the teeth, so placing the fabric right against the teeth was no problem.

I used my overcasting foot, using the right side of my foot as a guide, butting it right up against the fabric edge:.  This worked well since the right side of the foot was on the metal zipper teeth. (When I initially tried this step, er, several times, I used my zipper foot which was terrible, the fabric got all wavy and crumpled looking underneath and I ripped it out and tried again and again.  The overcasting foot plus using a size 16 denim needle took care of that, I think because the teeth are so thick, they acted as support for the foot instead of getting in the way. Also as I sewed I would occasionally raise the zipper foot to neaten the fabric, that helped too and the end result does not look wavy.)

When I got to the zipper pull, I lifted my presser foot with the needle still in the fabric, turned the fabric ALL the way around (well, 180 degrees) and was able to somewhat easily slide the zipper stop out of the way. That was somewhat of an epiphany moment, as just lifting the presser foot and trying to slide the zipper stop back wasn't working, it's again, a very thick zipper with a thick zipper pull.  Then I rotated the fabric back to where it was and was able to finish topstitching.

This was the most clever way of attaching the lining to the exterior fabric:

It's step 10 and I totally didn't think it would work.  I trusted the instructions and voila, it worked!

In the finished product, you can see the lining from the outside...because it's not a zipper sandwich. But somehow I'm ok with this too.

The inside is super cool, isn't it?
I sewed on a tag bought long ago...and made me laugh!  Sadly I forgot til the pouch was all done, so it's actually sewn on through both layers.  Oh, and I attached the label with wonder tape first before stitching so it wouldn't shift around.   Here you can see really well how the zipper tape is visible from the interior, but it looks pretty cool, methinks.

The tabs can be tucked in, but I prefer them out.

Tucked in

Not tucked in.
My two main gripes with the pattern were:
McCall's didn't provide the full front pattern piece! Why not provide the full pattern piece to make it easier for centering?? Note also that on the fabric, the word Manhattan was not centered over the blue and orange subway lines. I decided to center the front over the subway lines instead of the word.

Also those zipper tabs were really skimpy (they're in the pic on the right, above), so I enlarged them like I said earlier. Also the width of my zipper is probably larger than a regular zip that was supposed to be used.

Ok, I am so smitten with this pouch, I brought it to work and showed everyone.  I was carrying it around like a 5 year old with a blanket. Or like I was a 5 year old at show and tell.
It is pretty big and it holds a wide variety of stuff:

I'm writing this post Thursday night but am scheduling it to post on Friday.  That's because I'm giving it to velosewer on Friday while she is visiting NYC. Back in January she sent me two zipper pouches when I was initially into my zipper pouch woes and now I'm returning the favor with this one.  I'm really excited that an Australian is meeting up with me in NYC!!  She has commented on almost every one of my posts for at least a year and a half now, so how cool is that?

Anyhoo, I'm trying not become too attached to this pouch. I will make myself one very very soon!!   And this success has reignited my drive to sew again, yay!

The exterior fabric, by the way, is from The City Quilter in NYC, and was designed for their store and cannot be bought elsewhere.  When I was there with Antoinette in May, I meant to buy some but got distracted.  So I bought it on their website.  I also wanted the laminated version but didn't see it on their site 2 weekends ago--it turns out it *is* on their site.  I hope to go get some of the laminate in person tmw!!

The interior is green denim from Joann's, a longtime resident of my stash.

Here are last week's Princeton Farmers Market flowers:

Be well!

7 summer sewing ideas: getting back in the saddle

Thanks everyone for your encouragement with my last post. My online sewing instructor for the Altering Pants class on PR, Angela Wolf, is going to try to figure out where it all went wrong.

It feels like ages since I've sewn an actual garment, you know?  It's basically summer and trousers can wait til the fall. Here are some ideas I have for getting back in the sewing saddle:

Idea #1:  Make shorts from the Thurlows, as the problems are really in the back of the leg from about halfway down the back of the thigh onward. Shorts would cut off the problem, so to speak, and give me more practice with double welt pockets and fly front trouser zips.

Idea #2:  Or try Gertie's high waisted rolled up pants, that are calling me like a siren song...there are three reviews of the Gertie pants on PR, all enthusiastic thumbs up.  Or, maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.


Idea #3: Or...try a t-shirt or button down shirt (but make it short sleeved).  That NL on the right; I made in 2008 but did not keep....the pic I took of it then made it look really good, I'm so sad I didn't keep the shirt, but I still have the pattern at least...

Idea #4a:  Or...go back to my sewing roots and make a dress! The pattern on the right has TWO pieces and high praise on PR! The one on the left is calling me in brown linen-look with honu coconut buttons, and the middle one, I've made twice before in 2007 and still wear both of those dresses every summer!

Idea #4b:  More dresses! That NL in the middle MANY peeps have made and loved; the Butterick on the left, likin' the orange one, but without the armhole ruffle; the one on the right, I searched high and low for the appropriate polka dot fabric and never really found anything appropriate....but I have something that is close.


Idea #5:  There's also this pile of mending/altering.  Some of my twin needle hems are coming undone on knits after 2+ years of frequent wear; those iron-on patches never stay on the UW and I have some assorted hemming and altering of RTW items.  Oh!  and hand sewing in an invisible zip on my favorite black skirt that I made last summer but that zip didn't work out.  I think hand sewing the zip in will work just fine.




Idea #6:  I have a secret plan for this NYC subway fabric....it's from the City Quilter in NYC and exclusive to their shop.
.
Idea #7:  Not exactly sewing, but...there's also belt making (left) and I'm interested in learning Sashiko and thought the kit on the right would be a good place to start.

So what idea will I pursue first?  How many of these ideas will work out and how many will fizzle out?  Which one is the best idea to get back in the saddle again??

The Princeton Farmers Market is back!

These lovelies are still going strong after a week!
Be well!