American Sewing Expo teaser and wrapping up New Look 6103

I just came home from the American Sewing Expo in Novi, MI.  I had SO much fun.
More pix and details later, but here's a sneak peek...


Bonnie and me with our jeans samples at the conclusion of Jennifer Stern's jeans class.  We learned how to sew the front jeans pocket and the front fly.  We only had to sew one pocket but Bonnie was an overachiever and sewed both and used decorative topstitching.  This was my first time sewing a front jeans pocket and a front fly.  I am SO proud!

I am inspired to sew this weekend, that's for sure!

Oh, and just to finish up some housekeeping details, here's the conclusion of NewLook 6103.  Last you saw it, the pleats looked like this.  They were not well defined.


Thanks to spray starch (first time in my life using spray starch, I admit it), they look like this now:


Much better!   I could have held the pleat out better but you get the idea.

And a big thank you to Jenny Lyon for answering the question posed on the Pattern Review FB page this morning ("What are your favorite sewing blogs?") that my blog is excellent!  That's very sweet of you. And thanks to Bonnie for telling me about it.  I'm not on FB so I wouldn't have known.

Be well! 

Start of a pillow & will you be at the ASE?

Turquoise piping made by moi.

As you know I mainly sew garments and not  much home dec.

The last home dec item I made was the Amy Butler mum pillow here from 2009.


I blogged about it here.

However I was inspired by this pillow tutorial on the Seasoned Homemaker's blog.  So I started making an envelope pillow.  I fused a lot of interfacing on Sunday to the pillow front and back.   Last night I made piping following Leslie's piping directions here.  Very fun.  Making yer own piping is really easy.   I am thinking I will put an asterisk on the pillow instead of a mustache or ampersand. But I might go for the ampersand...

Tomorrow I fly to the American Sewing Expo in Novi, MI for the third year in a row.  I am excited to meet up with Bonnie and Lynnelle.  I will be at the 9am blogger's meetup on Saturday morning and will be taking several classes and also shopping.  I will be at the Friday night fashion show and Saturday Passion for Fashion.  Unlike previous years I am not taking a computer with me, so no blogging from the ASE but I will tweet and of course fill you in on all the action afterward.

Hope to see you there!!!  Now it's time for me to keep on procrastinating with the packing....

New Look 6103 is done! Thanks for your fitting advice!

New Look 6103, a SuedeSays Studio pattern, is now done!!! YAY!


Side:
 
back:

Thank you for all your fitting advice. You gave great feedback. I also tweeted at Suede to ask for help, and he suggested emailing info@simplicity.com. It was the first time I ever asked the Simplicity folks for help, and it was useful too!

Generally there were 4 schools of thought as to what was causing the rippling:

• Suggestion:  Because it was a stretch denim, the fabric was stretched (by me or machine) as I sewed. Either a walking foot OR fusing some interfacing on the seam OR placing tissue paper between the fabric and presser feet would prevent stretching.
• What I did:  I wound up undoing the seam and ironing the fabric again.  Then I fused interfacing in a 3 inch strip down each side.  I noticed though that even in its flat, unsewn state with the interfacing on, the edges were already slightly wavy.  I think this may be because I ironed instead of pressed the fabric, and then pressed interfacing on, instead of pressing the fabric and pressing the interfacing on.  SIGH!  
• Anticipating waviness with the hem, I fused a 2 inch strip of interfacing on the bottom of the skirt which made sewing the hem much easier.  It was flat and not wavy.
• Suggestion:  Iron the seam like there's no tomorrow on a tailor's ham.
• what I did:  I still don't have a ham but intend to fix that when I come back from the ASE.  But I did press what I could of the side seam.  
• Suggestion:  Removing fabric in various ways:  Pull the skirt up at the side seams where it intersects the waist band, pinch some of the fabric out of this area, tighten the area between the waist and hip, or cut down the seam allowance here.
• what I did:  I think pulling the skirt up at the side seams where it intersects the waistband is exactly what I need to do on the first dress I sewed this year.  But for this skirt I took in the area between the waist and hip more and I took in the waist more generally to get the skirt to sit at my waist.  I also cut more of the seam allowance.  I serged the raw edges. and then I pressed to the front!  Yes, pressing to the front seemed to make this less wavy than pressing to the back!!
•  Suggestion:  Sew with a different needle, or smaller stitches
• it is true, I basted and I think using the 2.25 stitch length helped.  I still used a universal needle but I could have tried a stretch needle.

As for the length, everyone agreed, above the knee is more flattering, so that is what I did.  I cut almost 2 inches off the bottom (this was already after taking out 2 inches from the pattern at the cutting stage) and hemmed to above the knee. 

The verdict:  When I'm just standing there, after a fresh press, the side seams are fine, but once I sit, move around, etc (you know, live!) that area gets wavy.  But not as wavy as last week.  If I tug that area down, it then looks less wavy.  So I will wear it to work and see what happens.  The Simplicity folks said that there will be some waviness due to the nature of the fabric. This is what it looks like after walking around and sitting in it:



Back of skirt on dressform:

The kickpleat has this really neat pleating detail. I think I'm going to use starch to try to make the creases stay in...

I used this to mark the stitching for the kickpleat. The horizontal basting was later removed. The tailor's chalk will come right out.

So on Pattern Review folks are taking pix of themselves, mimicing the poses of the models on the pattern envelopes. Right now Vogue has a crazy series of poses on their new pattern envelopes.  For this SuedeSays pattern, the pose isn't crazy but the background is kind of wild.  
Here's the envelope:


I don't have a ladder easily accessible (read: it's buried in the shed) but I do have a paint can! I don't know what the camera was focusing on in the photo, though.  It looks like I purposefully blurred the photo, but I didn't.



I used some of my leftover 2" strip of interfacing to make the "bracelet" on my left hand to match the model.
You can see the rippling here, though I am standing funny...


Also I might make a shirt out of this fabric to go with the skirt...but there is a dress I'd rather work on today instead!

I also braced myself and rethreaded my serger with black thread, so that I could serge the raw edges (the skirt is brown but black was what I had in stash).  I know, it was scary but I did it anyway.  It took two attempts and  I lost one of the needles in the process and  now I think the lost needle is inside my serger but it works!

I still haven't ordered the MaxiLock thread yet, but I had some black Toldilock thread from Joann's in stash.   It's made by Gutermann so I figured it can't be bad.  It worked fine.

Here I ironed on the 2" strip of interfacing and then serged the raw edge. All I had to do was fold the interfaced part in half and sew down.

Farmer's Market flowers this week:

My pumpkins!! This one is 16 days old and turning from greenish to yellow.


I will be at the American Sewing Expo this weekend, will you?  If yes, see you at the 9am bloggers meetup on Saturday!!!

Be well!