Summer sewing dreams #1, #2, and #4 realized

Hey!  So I just finished watching the finale of season 4 the GBSB and I cried, which really took me by surprise!!

So it is summer here in NJ, glorious sunny fantastic summer. Spring and summer are my favorite seasons and I hang on to them with all my might.  I eat outside as much as possible, sometimes staying outside til dark, looking at IG periodically while the sun sets.

Near the start of June I made a list of "summer sewing dreams".  I know there are people who sew with a plan or sew to make coordinated items.  I'm just not one of those people.  I sew what I like pretty much when I feel like it.  I'm also slow at sewing.  And sewing is supposed to be fun, not my own personal sweatshop.  So calling these ideas "plans" feels like setting myself up for disappointment, whereas calling these ideas "dreams" seems more appropriate somehow.  I make these kinds of lists frequently.  I like seeing all my "dreams" in front of me.

And somehow, sewing dreams 1, 2 and 4 happen to coordinate with each other (sewing dream #3 was the cherry print dress in my last post).

Sewing dream #1 is the Jalie 3246 shrug.  I wrote a big post last December with tips on how to sew this shrug.  After sewing for PR weekend, I took a 3.5 week long sewing break, and sewing the shrug seemed like a nice way to transition back to sewing.  The fabric is a delightfully textured cotton sweater knit from my fabric dealer Kashi (Metro Textiles) in NYC last year.  I bought 2 yards and I'm glad I did because it is not wide fabric at all!  Normally a yard is enough to make a shrug but not in this fabric.

Sewing dream #2 is the gray skirt.  It's actually Vogue 1247, which I sewed back in 2011 in the same fabric, but this time I omitted the pockets and the horizontal seaming across the front and back of the skirt, which gives a rather lumpy appearance in this spongy fabric.

This fabric is from Jomar in Philly and was purchased during PR weekend in 2010!  I have been wanting to sew this basic for ages, and needed to sew it to get it off my mind.

Sewing dream #4 is the lacy yoke top. This shot up to the top of my list when I saw the same lacy colorblocking on IG that rosiejanesews made.  I really liked Simplicity 8016 when it was released but did not want to do any new fitting, so I took S1283 (the pattern I used when I sewed a sweater from a cotton knit blanket) and cut it so that it had a yoke and a lower neckline.  The neckline and armholes are bound in Nike Dri-Fit then twin needle stitched from the top, and the hem is a rolled hem on my serger since I didn't lengthen the top enough.


 The raspberry stretch lace is from Apple Annies online (2015) and is underlined with raspberry double knit from Michael Levine (2013).  The gray bottom piece is from some gray double  knit from who-knows-where-or-when.  The fit was waaay better in my chunky cotton sweater knit than it is in all this ponte, but it still makes me smile.


I originally sewed a piece of this lace into a tank top for the gym last year.  The raspberry stretch lace will make another appearance in a different incarnation here soon, so stay tuned!


So how about you?  Are you living the (summer sewing) dream? Did you watch the GBSB??  Did you cry??

Be well!

Simplicity 1688 : Striped #epicjacket

Is there something you've always wanted to sew, but you haven't sewn it yet?  That item pops up on your "to sew" lists over and over, but the only place it is finished is in your imagination?  I can think of a few such items, like a raincoat I've been wanting to make since 2012 or a red denim jean jacket that's been on the list since 2013.  I'm not sure how long this Cynthia Rowley boxy cropped jacket has been on the list, but it's been at the front of my "jacket" box for ages now:



And now, it is sewn.  :)




So how can this be an #epicjacket if there are no cuffs, no collar stand, nary a collar?  Mainly because it was 19 pattern pieces and it took three weekends to sew.  I continue to massively underestimate how long it will take me to sew garments.


Exterior pattern pieces, pinned to the front and back of my dress form, so I don't lose any of them.

Fabric

Tomasa captured me on the hunt for denim.  There's my neoprene backpack in action.

The exterior fabric is two coordinating denims from Mood, purchased during the MPB Day Winter Frolic in early March.  The darker of the two has incredible drape, and I wish I could buy more of it for a denim shirt dress.  The interior fabric is a luscious rayon bemberg, also purchased at Mood the same day.

Piping
Based on seeing a PR review where the seamster piped it, I made my own piping using this continuous bias tutorial from The Seasoned Homemaker.   The cording is from Joann's.

Making piping

Clipping the piping on

Piped sleeve edge

Sizing
I traced the lining pieces (basically view A) in a size 12 onto Swedish tracing paper and sewed the tracing paper as my muslin, but couldn't get the jacket on easily without dislocating a shoulder.   I wound up going with a size 14 and then tapering in the side seams of the real deal.

Stripes

So, those stripes....the line drawing shows the stripes match all the way across the front and the back but when I sewed the first sleeve in, they did not match.  At first I thought I did something wrong, but was perplexed because the sleeve seemed pretty decently set in to me.

 Then I realized the line drawing and pattern do not match.  You can see the small circles do not correspond to the same stripe.  On the front, this difference is only .25" but in the back the difference is about 1.5".  Earlier this week, Simplicity asked me on IG to email them to discuss the issue offline, and I did, but I haven't heard back.  Anyway, I had no more fabric to recut the sleeve, and no real interest in redrafting the pattern, so I forged ahead and finished the jacket anyway.

Sleeveheads
I added sleeve heads as per this tutorial to give some support in the shoulder area and make up for some slightly imperfect sewing there.  Drafting and making the sleeve heads is honestly a piece of cake.

Sleevehead sewn in



Sewing the lining to the jacket

It takes a village...of wonderclips to help set in the sleeve.

Instead of following the instructions, I think I basically bagged the lining, so the only part that is handsewn is the bottom of the jacket.


Before sewing the lining in...

With the lining in, my tag, and the Mood tag



Hooks and eyes
This might merit its own blog post.  I think I'm going to sew the hooks and eyes in again.  I didn't do any RTW research before sewing them in; instead I went by my 1960's sewing books.  The bottom set of hooks and eyes keeps coming undone as I wear the jacket.


Styling
I've paired my jacket with my Sewaholic Davie navy blue dress.  I think it's a great combo.





Be well!

Simplicity 2154 Epic Skirt Post #5: The Completed Skirt, Modeled!

Thanks everyone for following along on my posts about my #epicskirt adventure:   #1 (the wool), #2 (rayon bemberg lining), #3 (sewing a lining to a kickpleat), and #4 (attaching lining to the zipper, the waistband, square snaps, and thread chains).

  Today you get to see the completed skirt, modeled! Yay!

Summary of materials:

• Thick textured neon (fluoro as per velosewer) wool:  Elliott Berman, NYC
• Gray rayon bemberg lining:  Vogue Fabrics, online
• Interfacing:  Fashion Sewing Supply, online
• Gray invisible zip:  SIL Thread, NYC
• Large Square Snap:  Botani, NYC
• Small Square Snap:  Daytona Trim, NYC
• Pattern:  Simplicity 2154, a 1960's Retro pencil skirt

Sorry, the back is wrinkled from my commute to work.

I really took my time with this skirt and learned a lot along the way, as I shared in my previous posts.  This skirt took 2 weekends for me to sew, but I really got into the process.

High-level lessons learned:

• Wool is awesome to sew and press
• Slippery rayon bemberg isn't as difficult to work with as I thought it would be 
• Lining a garment really makes the exterior of the garment look good.  I saw the difference after lining it.
• Using a RTW garment as a guide is super helpful.
• The only thing I would possibly change about this skirt is to miter the corners on the inside of the kickpleat.  The RTW study guide did NOT miter the corners, and it didn't occur to me to do that until I read Peter's post about how to miter the corners of a kickpleat which was about a week after I finished my skirt.  I was tempted to undo what I had done, but I am going to leave well enough alone.

Caption this photo

Styling a neon and gray skirt

I bought the shirt I'm wearing for $4 from a thrift shop in Princeton.  My tights are also gray.  I don't currently have any gray shoes, so I wore my navy blue shoes instead.

I would like to make a gray sweater knit top using S1283 as the base with the neckline and giant collar of the Sewaholic Renfrew.  I think that would work too.

Be well!

Simplicity 2154 Epic Skirt Post #4: Zipper, waistband, square snaps, and thread chain

Thank you for your comments from post 1 (the wool), post 2 (the rayon bemberg lining), and post 3 (sewing the lining to the kickpleat).

Today's Epic Skirt installment centers around the zipper, waistband, square snaps, and thread chain.

The zipper
Instead of sewing the zipper at the side seam as per the pattern, I sewed it at CB.

I followed Sunny Gal studio's tutorial on how to sew an invisible zipper without an invisible zipper foot.  I really enjoy this tutorial and have used it for a few years now.




In my last post I wrote about my study garment, a brand new Talbot's skirt I bought at a thrift shop for $6.    I looked to see how the lining was sewn to the zipper and it was machine stitched on, so I did the same thing.  I had previously pressed back the opening of the lining where the zipper would be , so there was a nice press line there.  I had already basted the lining to the top of the skirt so I had to undo some of the basting so that I could flip the lining and skirt inside out in that area, then used my zipper foot to sew the lining to the zipper tape.    I then basted the lining back to the top of the skirt in that area.

The waistband



I always cut my waistbands longer than they need to be, sew them on, then cut off the excess. That way I won't wind up with a waistband that's just a little too short.  Since the kickpleat, from the outside, is overlapped left over right, I did the same thing with the waistband and lapped it left over right. 





When I first basted the waistband on and sat down in the skirt, suddenly the whole thing was too small!  I undid the waistband and let out the side seams  near the top of the skirt and skirt lining (I had taken out some of the hip curve previously, and that was still fine, it was just the top of the skirt that was the problem. I will say at this point I was SO GLAD I had not serged the raw edges of the lining together-that instead I had serged the edges separately and then sewn them.  That meant I could still alter the skirt in this way--phew!!!

I then stitched in the ditch from the outside to sew the waistband down.






Square snaps
Square snaps were then sewn on, as I prefer snaps to a hook and eye.  The large square snap is from Botani and the small one is from Daytona Trim.


Thread chain
The Talbots skirt had a thread chain (I don't know what else to call it) near the hem of the skirt to attach the bottom of the lining to the bottom of the skirt.  I made some serger tails and then hand stitched them on.


What's Next??
The big reveal: me wearing the #epicskirt!  

Be well!

Simplicity 2154 Epic Skirt Post #3: Lining a skirt with a kickpleat

Thank you for your comments from post 1 (the wool) and post 2 (the rayon bemberg lining).  Today's Epic Skirt installment centers around lining a skirt with a kickpleat.


I had sewn skirts with linings before (easy, just cut the lining an inch shorter than the skirt) and I had sewn skirts with kickpleats before (S2154 being one of them ~5 years ago, followed the instructions just fine) but I had never sewn a skirt with a lining *and* a kickpleat.

I looked in my pattern stash; I had no skirt patterns with lined kickpleats.

I looked at my RTW skirts; none of them had lined kickpleats.

Tutorial for drafting and sewing lining to a kickpleat
So, I googled and found this tutorial by Blue Ginger Doll for drafting and sewing a lining one of their skirt patterns with a kickpleat.  The first photo is "not found" but whatever it's of, it's not needed.

The drafting was pretty straightforward and non-scary.  Only the back of the skirt needs to be drafted; the front pattern piece can simply be turned up 1" for cutting out the lining.

I made two samples first using black to represent the exterior of the skirt and muslin to represent the lining.

I think Step 10 should be clarified to include "sewn stopping at 5/8" at the top of the kickpleat".

In the real deal, I sewed step 14 by hand, to have the greatest amount of control as Sarah Veblen would say.

I didn't worry about not understanding the whole tutorial up front, just followed step by step and wow, it came out looking pretty ok!

Also I did not sew the darts into the skirt as per the Blue Ginger Doll instructions, but rather converted the darts to pleats as I had seen Handmade by Carolyn using that technique.

Left over right
I sewed the samples on Super Bowl Sunday (which has no meaning to me!  I'm just using it as a marker in time);  the kickpleat overlaps right over left.  That Wednesday I went to a local consignment shop and a thrift store and found that all of the RTW skirts with lined kickpleats overlapped left over right (if you have the skirt right side out and are looking at the back of the skirt)

When I made the real deal, I reversed the tutorial instructions so that the left would overlap the right.
I also felt the kickpleat was too high and lowered the S2154 kickpleat by 1" (I had taken 3" out of the pattern at the lengthen/shorten line.)



RTW investigation
I bought a Talbot's skirt (with tags and original $109 pricetag attached) for $6 at the thrift store.  It does not fit me but it has a lined kickpleat and could be used as a "study garment".
1. The kickpleat  exterior fabric is interfaced, on the wrong side, so I did this too.
2. The zipper exterior fabric is also interfaced, on the wrong side.  I had already sewn the zipper to the exterior fabric so I missed the boat on interfacing there.
3.  The Talbot's skirt was brand new, but the RTW skirts that had been worn all seemed to have a tear in the lining at the stress point where the lining is sewn to the exterior skirt.   As a result of this, I interfaced the lining too in the kickpleat area.

Hemming the lining
I pressed up 1/2" (using the hot hemmer, on the wool setting with a dry iron and without a press cloth--my Black and Decker probably does not get as hot as a Rowenta) and stitched it down; then turned and pressed another 1/2" and stitched again for a double folded hem.


Hemming the wool

I serged the raw edge for a clean finish, then used the blind hem foot on my sewing machine to sew most of the hem.  I hand stitched the fiddly bits of the kickpleat then pressed with my Elna Press and it all came out looking ok!  Achievement Unlocked!

Next post!
So, I still needed to attach the lining to the zipper, add a waistband and snaps, and add that adorable little thread chain that keeps the lining attached to the bottom of the skirt...details next post!