Christmas haul, and Colette Sewing Handbook

Time for presents show and tell!

Not much in the above picture is sewing-related, but it is special because Josh went all-out filling my stocking this year! Look at all those goodies. My mom has always been a fantastic stocking stuffer, but we couldn't go home for Christmas this year so Josh surprised me and kept the tradition alive. What did I do? Didn't even get anything for his stocking. This may be the beginning of a "who can be most thoughtful" battle. I don't know how else to fix the imbalance.

Those of you with eagle eyes may have spotted this hidden under the loot in above photo:

Yay! My very own Colette book. I know many people purchased this long ago, but I held out for Christmas like a good seamstress. I never would have gotten it, though, if hubby hadn't driven me all the way to the French Seam in Indy to browse fabric.

photo from the Indy Star

I'm a bad blogger and forgot to take photos while we were in the shop. What to say about this place? It's cute, it's tiny, and it's the only place to find nice fabrics within 100 miles of Bloomington, Indiana. And they carry the Colette Patterns book, so that's awesome, but no individual Colette Patterns, so that's lame. They have beautiful fabrics (!) but not a wide selection (-). But in a fabric wasteland, I guess I shouldn't complain. If you live anywhere nearby, you should definitely check it out. Just don't go with the hope of buying something specific. They did have some very nice wools and silks and shirtings. I didn't buy anything, but it did give me the opportunity to point out the book to Josh, who would otherwise be clueless about what kind of sewing stuff to buy me. While I tried to hide myself in the the back of the tiny shop, he tried to swiftly purchase it without me noticing. This was impossible, given the size of the shop, but it was still sweet, and I love my gift!

Here's one thing I especially love about Sarai's writing:

"Dressing for your shape can be very subjective. One woman with a large bust may prefer to balance it with a full skirt. Another woman with the same proportions may feel overwhelmed in full skirts and prefer dresses that skim her figure. The truth is, it's largely a matter of taste and how you relate to your body. There are no hard rules, because if you feel good wearing it, there's absolutely no reason not to."  (p. 34)

How refreshing is that!? I know she isn't the first to say something in this vein, but I love to see it in print, especially when sewing books of not-so-long-ago all seem to contain an obligatory rant about hiding figure flaws. Here's one of my favorite excerpts from my sewing library:

"The fashionable figure is a trim one. From the standpoint of beauty, too, all bulges and rolls of fat are ugly. Get some professional advice on the type of garment that will 'trim' you and the correct size to contain you." (Adele Margolis, How to Make Clothes that Fit and Flatter, 1969)

Ouch!

Well, that was written over forty years ago when ideas were slightly different. But we all know we haven't escaped from this:

I'm pretty sure some pattern companies still use this kind of system to guide their customers toward the patterns that some sort of subjective reasoning thinks will be most flattering. And that's why I sighed with content when I read Sarai's take on the subject. Wear what you want, people!

Back to presents. This is my big gift this Christmas:

image courtesy of Digital Camera Resource Page

Soooo shiny and pretty! I love my new camera, and also that Josh thought of this because he watched me struggle to take good blogging photos with my old camera for months. This poor guy has seen me through a lot.

I got him at Christmas six years ago. He accompanied me to study abroad in Italy and everywhere else I've roamed since then. He's documented a whole lot of my life, and even survived a touch-and-go period when I had to open his lens with my fingernail every time I wanted to take a photo. He makes a funny noise when I shake him, like there's some sand still stuck inside. I don't know if I should bury him now, or place him on a shelf overlooking the house like some treasure I've outgrown but can't bear to part with.  I even cringed taking the above photo of him with my new camera. Seems insulting somehow.

Oh, and that spidery thing next to old camera? That's a sweet tripod. Look what it can do:

So twisty! So bendy! So fancy! Now I don't have to balance my camera on my ironing board when I want to take photos of myself.

I could keep rambling, as I would like to talk about sewing ideas for the new year - but maybe I should resolve to keep my posts more on topic. Hmmm.

Finished McCall's 5927

Update! - Just some better photos. Thanks Josh!

I am pretty pleased with this dress, even if it wasn't finished in time for Christmas! This is McCall's 5927, a sheath dress with a couple different sleeve variations. I made view D.

I like this pattern for a lot of reasons: cute little tucks on the skirt, cap sleeves, pockets! I also chose this pattern after decided I need to be a teensy bit more practical with my sewing. Yes, it would be fun to do a glitzy party dress, but it is also satisfying to have this dress which I can wear throughout the winter for many different occasions. The fabric is a stretch corduroy by Robert Kaufman that I got off of Etsy. It has a super fine wale that is almost imperceptible. Also, it's fun to talk about how many wales your dress has when no one knows what you are are talking about.

Me: "Check it out hubby. My dress has miniature wales. Thousands of them."
Hubby: "....."

Okay, it was fun to me at least. You might give it a try sometime. So yeah! Super little wale corduroy with stretch. It has so many benefits! Easy to work with. Comfortable (stretchy) and natural fibers (cotton). And the feel is almost like velvet. The pattern didn't call for a stretch material, but it worked out fine. I didn't make a muslin (shame shame), but I made it work anyway. I guess I could have gone down a size maybe, because of the stretch. I've heard that works for other people, so maybe I'll try next time.

I think the shed in our yard makes a nice backdrop, don't you?

Side shot - I wish I had take my hands out of the pockets for a few of these. They create wrinkles where otherwise there would be none. Oh well! Modeling is tough.

Obligatory rear view.

Yikes, it's cold! I took off my cowl so you could see the neckline. Then we ran back inside.

Anyway, I made the 14 for up top (I'm a 36" in the bust) and graded out to an 18 at the bottom (I'm 44" in the hips). It was still too large though, probably because of the ease built in. Even though my material stretches, I fit it so that it only barely hugs my figure. I even measured the pattern pieces to narrow in on my size, but I guess that didn't work so well. Next time I will try tissue fitting with the pattern pieces and see if that gives me a more accurate result. Also, I might do a muslin so I can fix this issue:

I believe this is what they call, "le sway back." I don't think it looks as bad as this when I stand straight or sit down, so it doesn't bother me too much. But I will try to correct for it in my next dress. What else... I didn't line this dress because I couldn't find stretch lining material except for some silk through Hart's Fabric online. I was just too impatient to wait for it, and I didn't want to spend more on the lining that on the outer fabric. And in the end, I don't think this needed a lining anyway. A note on the sleeves on this pattern - I'm glad I used a stretch material because they are sewn on at a rather sharp downward angle, and I think a non-stretch would have limited my range of movement. That's no good, because it would have restricted my sweet dance moves on New Years:

Is it the hokey pokey? What's with the paper bag? well, you had to have been there.

Happy 2012 everyone!

Vintage Cape Finished! Simplicity 6651

I finished this project back before Thanksgiving, and here it is blogged at last! My vintage cape from Simplicity 6651:

Voila! It's hard to get good photos lately, since the sun is around only once in a great while - so please excuse the somewhat blurry look here. I actually finished this a month ago - just in time to go see my grandparents for Thanksgiving. It's the photos that have been holding me up. I'm glad I finished it in time to see my grandma, because she was the first one to teach me to use a needle and thread, way back when I was seven. Somewhere I still have a quilt square that I hand sewed under her instruction. I'm glad I did finish the cape, because she had a few of her own to show me, made during the sixties. I really wish I had some photos - they are beautifully done. Next time I'm up there I will remember to take pictures.

This cape is the most complicated thing I've done so far, and I consider it a stepping stone to tougher projects - like a real coat! There are a few things I'm very proud of on this project:

1. Working with nubby, thick, loose-weave wool - not the worst, but not easy peasy either. I wish I had a serger for finishing the edges. I tried using bias tape, but the wool was just too thick for the narrow tape I had. I ended up zig-zagging everything, which I think will be fine. Anyone else know how to best finish the edges of such a bulky, loose material?

2. Drafting my own lining! - A cape is an easy project for doing your first self-drafted lining.

Here's some pictures of the inside:

I'm not sure whether it was necessary to draft the lining with facings all the way around, the way that I did. I've seen other capes around the web where the lining is cut the exact same as the outer fabric. But I didn't want that. Don't know why, just didn't. So I extended the center front of the pattern pieces so that they could fold back and create a facing along the opening, and then I drafted additional facings to curve around the rest of the cape. It was fairly simple, although time consuming! Also, I couldn't cut the facing as one long piece - even though it is continuous - because it would have been ridiculously long and odd shaped. So I divided it up into four pieces that were sewn together like so:

I know! It looks like a crazy mess, but it worked! Here's the facings all sewn to the lining:

After this was all done, it was just a matter of sewing the whole thing to the outer cape, right sides together. I left an opening in one shoulder seam of the lining that I used to turn the whole thing right side out. I didn't put a facing around the neck because I looked at a coat of mine for reference, and it didn't have one there. Besides, the wool would have been scratchy on my neck. The lining is just a cheap poly satin, but I think it works just fine.

3. Bound buttonholes - There several helpful blog tutorials on bound buttonholes out there. I referred to those written by two of my favorite seamstresses: Gertie and Tasia. I ended up doing something similar to Gertie's method, and I relied heavily on my Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing. They have not one, not two, but maybe five or six different methods. I won't post photos here for fear of copyright issues, but I will say their most helpful tip to me was to do your buttonholes factory-style or assembly line-style. Don't do one start to finish then start the next. Mark the placement of all of them at the same time. Then move on to the next step, and so on. It helps you maintain consistency, and it probably goes faster too.

Here's some photos of my process:

cutting out the pieces - you need two buttonhole lips per buttonhole, and one patch per buttonhole

I decided not to mess around with the nubby wool on the buttonhole lips. Instead, I used a black cotton from my stash for a little contrast. I think it would have been very difficult to use the wool, especially with how loose-woven it is. Also, while Gertie made her patches out of silk organza, I just used the same black cotton, cut on the bias so that it would stretch when I pulled it through the button window and pressed it flat. This worked fine for the thick wool, but might not work as well on other fabrics. Also, since the patches blend with the buttonhole lips, you don't have to worry if they show a tiny bit.

Interfacing the lips

Since my cotton was pretty thin, I interfaced it to add stability. I just wish I had thought to do this first before cutting them out. Oh well!

the lips are sewn right sides together with a basting stitch across the middle

and then pressed open

I measured the placement on my cape, and then put interfacing on the backside.

Then basted my patches onto the front side.

The interfacing on the back made it easy to mark the exact placement of the stitching:

I think it also helped me to get some control on this loose weave wool. So then, sewed around the rectangle and snipped out the middle:

Pulled the patch through to the wrong side and pressed flat:

the bias cut helps for getting it to lay flat here

And then sewed the lips on and all that. You know the drill, or if you don't you can consult Gertie. And then I sewed just a regular buttonhole on the facing on the backside. And I ended up with this:

A buttonhole which is highly mediocre and kinda gets lost in the thick weave of the wool. Oh well! I think two things could have made this better. 1) slip stitching around the opening like Karen recommends, which will keep the patch in place and out of site, and 2) a different fabric! I'm convinced that with a wool like this, things are only going to look so precise. The looseness of the weave just doesn't want to do better. It's not my fault, I'm pretty sure.

Okay, on to...

4. Working with faux fur - Not that hard! And I made the underside of the collar in the the same gold material as the lining, which pleases me to no end.

I followed Gertie's instructions for drafting a peter pan collar, so that my undercollar would not be exposed. Actually, I did a sped up version of Gertie's. Instead of drafting a whole separate piece for the undercollar, I just used the same pattern and then kinda trimmed off an 1/8 inch from the outside edges of the undercollar and called it good. Worked fine.

And there you have it! A finished cape.

Now I'm going to sell it. I know, how could I? But after all this effort, I look at the photos and think, "That just looks like a sack on me." I still love it. It's super comfy to wear in the car. It's warm. But it just doesn't look all that nice on me. Maybe it could be smaller. Maybe it's just not my style. But I think this one might be destined for my Etsy store. And all is not lost! I learned a lot in the process of making it. Plus, it can fund my next sewing venture. What do you think?

Makeup Bag Tutorial - Dopp Kit Tutorial

I'm not usually that excited by "crafty" sewing projects, but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of this makeup bag I recently made for a friend.

Pretty cute, don't you think? The fabric really makes it. It's a sort of stiff, maybe upholstery-type fabric left over from one of my first sewing projects. That was back when I didn't make the brightest fabric choices. I tried to make this into a pleated skirt. You can imagine how that turned out. So it felt good finally putting the leftover pieces to good use. The lining was another poor fabric choice - quilting cotton I tried to make a shirt out of. So I guess this is the bag of redeemed fabrics!

I used this Box Cosmetic Bag Tutorial that I found through a google search. I really like this pattern for it's simplicity. You could make this bag in any size you want. All it takes is a rectangle. I made mine 12" x 14", which probably isn't big enough to hold a full size shampoo bottle, but it's definitely big enough for a lot of cosmetics, a toothbrush, a hairbrush, or maybe it could be used to store a knitting project, or pack your socks in when you are traveling or... you get the idea. The shape reminds me of a "dopp kit". Does anyone else use that term? Anyway, I didn't follow the tutorial on Skip to My Lou exactly. Over there they used oil cloth, which I didn't have, and a lot of their seams are left unfinished and exposed on the inside of the bag. That's okay for the oil cloth I suppose, but wouldn't have looked so nice with my fabric. So here's my modifications in case you want to do your own.

I followed the instructions over on Skip to My Lou for steps one and two. Cut your fabric and lining - two rectangles of the same size for each. Sew the rectangles to your zipper, first one outer piece and lining to one side, then the others to the other side. Just check out the instructions in the link above, because I didn't take my own photos for this part.

Now you're going to sew the bottom seams, separately for the outer fabric and the lining fabric, rather than together like the instructions in the other tutorial. Lay your bag out like mine below, with the outer fabric on one side, right sides together, and the lining fabric on the other side, right sides together. Sew across the bottom of each side.

Then press those seams flat. Next fold the lining and outer fabrics so that the seams you just finished lie directly over the zipper, like below.

This photo was taken after I did the next step, sewing up the sides of the bag. Make sure the zipper of your bag is open about half way! Otherwise you will have a hell of a time flipping everything right side out later. Like with the bottom seams, you will only be sewing the outer fabric to itself (right sides together) and the lining fabric to itself (right sides together) so that your seams stay hidden. Sew the side seams like in the photo below, starting at the outside edge and sewing all the way to the zipper, but not across it. LEAVE ONE LINING SEAM OPEN - DO NOT SEW SHUT. Sorry to yell like that. Again, if you don't do this, you won't be able to turn your bag right side out.

Here's another view, to show you how the outer fabric and lining fabric are sewn separately. All in all, you will be sewing four seams on the outer fabric and THREE seams on the lining, because you are leaving one side of the lining open.

 Now you can turn your bag right side out! Well, not all the way right side out. Turn it out through the opening in the lining, then stitch up that opening. Then turn it out through the zipper. It's like there;s two levels of inside out. Yeah. I'm not going to win any awards for clarity, but I trust that you can figure this one out. Here's some more photos for illustration.

In the photo above I've turn it inside out through the opening in one side seam. Then I folded the edges of that opening to the inside and top-stitched (where the arrow is pointing).

And here it is turned right side out again, now so that the outer fabric is on the outside. Isn't it pretty already? It's just a flat envelope at this point, but it makes me think this simple design could easily be modified to create a case for a laptop or Ipad. And here's the other thing I like about this design. You get to choose how tall or flat you want your end product to be, just by the amount you fold in the corners. Observe.

Fold the edges into little points.

They can be big points that overlap, making a tall, skinny bag.

Or they can be little points, making a short, wide bag. Here's mine:

I wanted to use buttons to hold my folds in place, but I didn't have any that would work. I think that could be cute though, and you could also sew buttonholes so that the buttons could be undone and the bag could be collapsed flat. But as my astute roommate pointed out, whoever uses this is probably not ever going to want to do that... why would you want to do that? I don't know, because I can? In the end, I saw her reason and just hand-sewed the folds down using embroidery thread. And I like the handmade element that adds. I can live without the collapsible feature.

Here's another picture of my sewing...

And one of the pretty bottom:

I like how the pattern on the fabric worked out. I did plan it a little, but it didn't take much effort since the pattern piece is just a simple rectangle.

And that's my bag! It took about three hours, not counting the hand stitching. I know everyone says projects like these go together really quickly, and maybe they do on the second go around. I also made two and changed the instructions, so there's that to account for. Final words on this project - make sure you use a stiff fabric if you want it to hold its shape. I used a fusible interfacing on the lining fabric to give it a little extra weight, but the bag is still kinda floppy. I'm okay with that. Maybe you could insert a plastic rectangle in the bottom between the lining and outer fabric to make it hold its shape, but I'm not sure how that would work for turning the bag inside out. It would have to be a little flexible. Okay, I think I've exhausted all there is to say about this one little bag. Next up, my finished cape!