New adventures in gardening!

Not a lot of sewing going on around here. First, because my lace for my 1970s tunic took about a month to show up and then wasn't the right color. Sigh. Second, because the weather is beautiful and my landlord has been instructing me in the garden! We have a nice big gardening plot in our backyard, and Judy happens to be a Master Gardener. At least, that's how I've heard others refer to her, and I can only assume that's an official title reserved for an elite few. I've no doubt she's earned it, because I've enjoyed tomatoes from her garden next door and admired her flowers. Just look!

 I don't know a thing about gardening myself, but I can't imagine a better scenario for learning than having a Master Gardener next door. Here's a look at the garden at the beginning.

Actually, I forgot to take a true "before" shot, and at this point we had already weeded out all the old, dead asparagus that had gone to seed. Can you believe a little ol' asparagus can grow into that huge gnarly bush? Now I really understand what "going to seed" means, although I certainly didn't before. Essentially, if you trim back a plant regularly (like snipping the asparagus or broccoli or whatever) you can keep it from growing like crazy and sending out seeds and becoming inedible (also called "bolting"). Plants before they go to seed are tasty and tender. After they go to seed they are tough. At least that's my newbie understanding of it (please correct me if I'm wrong). At the end of the season, when we're done eating the asparagus, we'll let the plants go to seed so that they reproduce next year.

Anyway, underneath all that "gone to seed" mess, we found this:

Tiny little asparagus (asparagi?) already popping up. I was pretty excited to see new, beautiful, edible plants underneath all that dead stuff.

Cricket used to hide in the asparagus bramble, and tried to cozy up in the waste pile after cleared it all out of the garden. Sorry Cricket. You'll have to wait til it goes to seed again.

Here's the asparagus a few days later and after I pulled all the weeds in this patch. The asparagus has been growing pretty quickly since our weather has continued to be beautiful. They're purple, but they turn green as you cook them. And yes, they are delicious.

The next task was to recover the strawberries hiding among the weeds in center of the garden. Turns out, there were loads of strawberries - more than we could possibly use. Judy told me strawberries have to have plenty of room or they won't produce many berries, so we went about transplanting them into neat rows, pulling all the weeds in between, and putting all the extra strawberry plants (and there were a lot) into a bucket to be planted elsewhere - in Judy's garden or some other lucky person's.

starting to establish the rows - neatly designated with stakes and string

Judy's fast in the garden, but I was quite slow. I don't know how many hours went into this strawberry patch, but I worked for several hours on Saturday and Josh and I went at it again on Sunday for at least five more hours. It went kinda like this - insert a stake, line up the string, find the nearest strawberry plants, pull all the weeds around them, dig all the strawberry plants up, dig new holes for them (at least 10" apart), plant em, move on to the next row. Tired yet? My mom always wonders that I ended up in archaeology since I used to complain when I had to work in the dirt with her (pulling weeds, diggin for sapphires). But there is something really satisfying about seeing this garden take shape, even if it's a lot of work.

Like my get-up? Overalls are the best gardening gear. And a wide brim hat, of course.

Not sure what I'm doing with my hands here.

Josh unloading the mulch

Adding to my gardening vocab, I now know the meaning and purpose of mulch! It's basically anything that you heap around a plant in order to: 1) keep it warm, 2) cover up weeds and make them die from lack of sunlight, and 3) give it nutrients? Maybe? Depending on the mulch I guess. We bought a truck bed full of the fancy stuff, but Judy said you can use all kinds of different materials, including wood chips or even the weeds you pull up. Following Judy's advice, we laid down long strips of paper between our rows of strawberries and covered these over with mulch. The paper helps smother the weeds (you can also use cardboard), and it also helps your mulch go further.

And here is our cleaned up strawberry patch!

Not bad, eh? Just compare that to the first garden photo and you oughta be impressed. Actually, you may notice there is one more row at the end that we didn't finish. We were exhausted. But tonight I weeded it, and tomorrow I will go back to transplant those strawberries and mulch around them so that it is as beautiful as the others.

I'm really excited to see how the garden does, and I hope I'll have the energy and dedication to keep tending it throughout the season. We still have to decide what else to plant, which is the really fun part. I'm going to do a few flowers - gladiolas! They're so pretty, and they remind me of New Mexico. We're also thinking about heirloom tomatoes, sweet peppers, jalapenos, beans... so many options! I'll keep you posted!

Muslin puzzlins

How do you muslin? Yes, I verbed that noun. I know muslins are important for achieving the proper fit, so I finally made one for the seventies blouse/tunic I'm working on. Specifically, I'm curious about what happens once you finish adjusting the muslin to fit. How do you transfer your alterations to the paper pattern? There's a ton of fantastic tutorials around the sewing blogosphere on how to fix specific problems, but I don't think I've seen a basic overview like the one I'm going to post here. Maybe because it's that elementary. So here it is: My super simple you-probably-already-know-this guide on how transfer markings on a blouse muslin that needs to be made smaller. I'm only posting this in hope that someday a beginner sewer happens to type in the right combination of words into a Google search and happens to stumble across this post and happens to find it useful.

So as a reminder, here's the pattern:

And here's my muslin:

No, I did not make the sleeves. I'm proud that I even bothered to finish the collar!

Too big! Too blousy! (Why am I always trying to make blouses less blousy? Maybe I should be making something other than blouses.) So I sewed some new side seams, curving in at the waist, and I added some darts in back. Then I turned my muslin inside out. Here it is, with my seam ripper pointing to the new side seam (hard to see, I know). Notice I didn't trim the excess off the seam allowance.

Next, I used a red pen to trace over my new stitching line.

Now Tasia, who does excellent tutorials, recommends thread tracing all your muslin pieces before sewing everything together. I'm not going to nay-say her - she makes professional, excellent stuff. But if you want to play it fast and loose, I think tracing over your seams with a pen after you've sewn them is a valid alternative.

I did this for the back piece too, and I also traced over the darts. Then, I seam ripped everything apart. Well, actually, I only seam ripped what was necessary to get half the front piece and half the back piece separated and lying flat once more. I did have to give them a quick press with the iron. Here is the back:

Next, I laid my pattern pieces down over my muslin pieces. The red marker showed through, but not enough to show up well in this picture. I traced it in Photoshop to show you.

Thus, I was able to neatly transfer my muslin markings directly and accurately onto my paper pattern pieces. See my new dart lines:

And the new side seam lines...

Now since I am marking the new seam or stitching lines, I still have to add in the new seam allowance to the pattern pieces. So I got out my clear ruler and measured 5/8" away from my dotted line. In the photo below, the blue arrow is pointing to the new stitching line, the red arrow is pointing to the cutting line, and the green arrow is pointing to the old stitching line.

Now, connect the dots on your cutting line with your handy hip curve ruler... 

And voila! you've transferred your muslin markings to your paper pattern!

1980s turned 1950s refashion

I finished perfecting Eileen, and this weekend I put her to good use refashioning a dress I found at Goodwill. The dress fabric is quite pretty - a big floral print, cotton probably, looks sorta vintage. It has some nice lines too it too - princess seams and a six gore skirt. But the neckline of the dress - not so flattering. Here it is part way through the transformation process, after I cut off a good foot of the length (because tea length just isn't for me).

[Sidenote: Do you spy the hem marker my mom sent me? Love it! It worked quite nicely, especially since this skirt is about a half circle if not more.]

I apologize for the shoddy photography. The photo above is at a kinda weird angle, but you can see it had a high neckline. The bodice also angled in slightly at the shoulders, kinda like a halter neckline. I think that kinda cut makes your shoulders look bigger, and I was definitely not a fan. Why do that at all on this dress? Oh, because it's the 80s. Right.

So I spent some quality time with my seam ripper and removed all the facings around the neckline. Unfortunately, the neck facing was drafted together with the armhole facings, so those had to go too. Then I laid a piece of fabric over the bodice and drafted a new neckline onto it, used that as my new facing, ironed some fusible interfacing onto it, and sewed it right sides together to the dress. I also took the dress in a little at the princess seams because it was bustier than I. Hmm. I suppose I should have taken some photos of the whole process. But I was in a hurry! Isn't that always the case. Here's the new neckline:

Sigh. Much better. The sweetheart shape makes it feel more 1950s to me. Now all it needs is a petticoat to give the skirt some oomph. And a good washing. There are some spots I'm hoping will come out. Then again, maybe it's better they don't. That way, when I wear this dress to a summer barbecue and spill sauce all over it, I won't be too sad. I'm not too invested in this dress because I only bought it as a favor for someone (explanation later). But, I am excited about this added bonus:

Pretty excess floral fabric. Hmm. Now what does this remind me of? Oh yeah!

Gertie's beautiful rose dress, inspired by Joan, naturally...

and featuring appliqued roses, rescued from a vintage tablecloth.

I would love to put my flowers to a similar use. Maybe on a yellow dress? That would be a lot of fun.

Now the explanation. I bought this dress because a friend and fellow seamstress has asked me to be a model in a (very small) magazine ad for her (very small) vintage store. It's an extremely low budget production, so low budget in fact that she asked if I had a dress I could wear under the apron, which is a featured item in the ad. What do you know, I found this dress the next day. I guess it was meant to be. The ad is supposed to be sorta pin up style, and I'm trying to prepare myself for possible humiliation because a) I am really no good at modeling, b) I have to style my hair myself!?, and c) we couldn't even get a studio so we'll be taking the photos in a rather public location. So if anyone has any tips for modeling, hairdos, and pretending that pictures in magazines are not in fact you, please let me know. Thank you!

Dress form upgrade, and a blouse in progress

Oh blog, how I have neglected you. Oh sewing. how you have languished in the background while I pursue other endeavors. What have I been up to for the last month? Well, some school stuff (valid excuse), some video-gaming (a little less valid), and some knitting (gasp! how could I!). After finally having finished the Honey Cowl of eternal frustration, amazingly enough I didn't give up knitting but launched myself into several other knitting projects. I have since finished a second cowl for a dear friend, a cowl for myself, and I'm working on a cowl for my mother-in-law. I know! I will try to get some photos of the recipients modeling their cowls so you can see the results. For now, here is me in my bandanna cowl:

And here is a link to the free pattern. The yarn was a gift from my friend Rebecca (thank you Becca!). It's called "Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester Aran." Yarn names are a mystery to me. I know they are all secret code, but I haven't deciphered it yet. Anyway, it only took one ball of the stuff, and after I figured out how the heck to do short rows, it was a satisfying and speedy project.

With all this knitting going on, I've begun to feel like I'm cheating on my sewing. The real problem is, my sewing drove me away. First my bra project flopped. I don't wanna talk about it, but hopefully I will try again later and will have something positive to report back. Then I tried to whip up a Meringue (from the Colette Sewing Handbook) without doing a muslin first. The result was a very lack-luster fit. I've abandoned it for now but hopefully will fix it later. I also decided that no further sewing could be accomplished until I did something about my dress form. Do you even know about Eileen?

She is my duct tape stunt double. We've had a somewhat rocky relationship. We started out quite close...

But I grew to resent her for 1) being bright red, 2) being homemade and not sleek and professional, 3) having lopsided parts due to a rush-job by Josh, and 4) slowly sliding down the pole I mounted her on until she sank all the way to ground level. How can I fit anything on a dress form that sits on the floor? Highly inconvenient! But after doing some research on dress forms and reading a lot of forum postings over at sewing.patternreview.com, I began to appreciate Eileen a little more. No commercial dress form will match my crazy measurements (size 6 at the waist, size 14 at the hips? ha!). And who wants to spend a lot of money on a dress form and then more money on the special supplies to pad it out to the correct measurements, which will still only be a rough approximation of your shape and not a true body-double, like Eileen. So I finally took charge of the situation and built her a proper stand.

Ta da! I drilled a hole through the curtain rod which runs through her and inserted a dowel for her to rest on. And there she sits, like a canary on a perch. Only too late I realized that the dowel must be several inches shorter so that it doesn't get in the way of dresses I am fitting. Duh. But once I fix that, she'll be just about perfect. I also need to stabilize the pole with some L brackets at the bottom, and I would like to replace the casters on the bottom (bad idea, they don't roll well at all) with a ball-bearing lazy Susan type apparatus. But this is still a big improvement. She's very nearly my height, and I'm already dreaming about how easy it will be to mark hems now. Hooray!

Here she is, modeling a muslin of my next sewing endeavor:

And here is the pattern:

In my effort to be a more practical seamstress, I chose this blouse pattern because it's interesting but would also be very comfortable and wearable. And here is the pretty floral print that the finished version will be in:

crappy cell phone for scale

It's a Swiss dot that I got at Joann's, of all places. Apparently they are starting to carry nicer apparel fabrics to meet to demand of the fashion design program at IU, but I'm not getting my hopes too high. But this fabric seems to be a fairly decent cotton, nice and light. And I'm going to look for some grey lace that I can use to trim out the pleats or the yoke. The only thing holding me back now is that I think the blouse is too large as is, but I'm hesitant about how to re-size it. I could just wear it cinched, like so:

 

 

 But doesn't that still seem like a lot of extra fabric? It will drape a little nicer in the fashion fabric, but I still think I need to take it in. But where? The side seams? Darts in the back? I'm off to experiment...

The Dressmaker's Handbook and other sewing gems

I have a habit of checking sewing books out from the library, thinking I will read them and refer to them during my sewing projects, but actually I just let them sit in a pile collecting dust and overdue fees. But yesterday I brought home this book...

and I almost read it cover-to-cover in one sitting. The techniques and photos were that enthralling. Okay, maybe enthralling is the wrong word. But they were like little gems. Little beautiful pieces of information that I can't wait to put to practice. For example, I learned what "stretch-pressing" is and how it will improve my bias bindings.* Sort of like Colette Pattern's "Snippets" series - also a treasure-trove of useful tips.

The Dressmaker's Handbook starts out with no less than 12 techniques for binding a neckline without using a facing, and each of them looks oh so lovely and smooth and professional. I'm going to share just two little photos to give you an idea, and hope that the copyright police don't come after me.

I would love to try that bottom one - a ribbon with a picot stitch over it - to finish the sleeves on a Taffy blouse.

If it happens, I'll be sure to document it - because I've reached that level of sewing geekdom. I don't know how I got to this point, but I'm sure glad there's the internet community to help validate my concern over things like bound buttonholes and seam finishes. And if you too are into that sort of thing, here is another sewing gem (sewing nerdery) that I found today:

Hand sewn Colette Sencha blouse on Peanut Butter Macrame

Fellow sewing geek and blogger Peanut Butter Macrame just finished a beautiful silk Sencha blouse that was mostly stitched by hand. So lovely! And I'm sure this picture isn't even doing it full justice. A few years ago, I would stifle a yawn at this kind of stuff. In fact, I did just that when I helped our local museum catalog 100+ historical garments. I just didn't have the practical knowledge to appreciate what I was looking at and what the garment expert was telling me. I thought she was eccentric and strange. Oh how the tables have turned.

Here's something funny in parting. I looked up The Dressmaker's Handbook on Amazon to see if other reviewers were as entranced as I, and check this out:

I tried to make those arrows red, but Photoshop continues to thwart me.

A thousand dollars for this book?! What are those wacky people thinking? I love it, but not that much. I checked a few other websites, and they advertise it at a much more reasonable $26.95. So who knows what those folks at Amazon are up to.

That's all I've got for now! Anyone have some sewing gems to share? Favorite sewing books?

* Since you're dying to know! When you cut a bias strip, you pin one end to your ironing board and gently pull the strip as your iron it. It will stretch, decreasing in width a little, and supposedly this will prevent your bias strip from rippling and pulling when you apply it to a neckline, armhole, etc. I haven't tried it yet, but for some reason I just trust this Lynda person.

Sewing 2012!

I think it's going to be a good year for sewing. Mostly because last year I think I made some extra progress along the steep slope that is the sewing learning curve. I tried to represent this is graph form to show you all.

As you can see, I have progressed much more slowly along the Photoshop learning curve. I can't figure out the pen tool, but I did accidentally create the abstract art you see above. I'm just going to leave it at that. This image represents a year of sewing that includes my truly wearable garment, invisible zippers, catch stitching, bound buttonholes, a little bit of drafting, and my first lined garment. If you're not seeing it, I guess you just don't understand my art.

So what's next!? I would love to make a few of these skirts:

Meringue, from the Colette Sewing Handbook

Some cute skirts are just what my closet needs. I did a closet cleaning yesterday, and realized (not for the first time) that I own a lot of things that I don't like to wear: thrift store finds that are just so-so, things I shrunk, things that are black or neutral, things that are too dressy for everyday, dresses and skirts that are too short, and miscellaneous t-shirts and tank tops I would only ever wear to bed or the gym. Not so inspiring! So next on my list are some very wearable and eye-pleasing projects: a Meringue in purple corduroy, and maybe another in some of the wool I bought?

Also uncovered in my closet cleanup, garments that are not or cannot be worn and which must be salvaged and reborn as something better:

sun is so bright this morning!

The green is a very eighties dress I thrifted because it's silk. Doesn't fit, but it can definitely be made into something, right? Even if it's just a camisole. The color is too pretty to give back to the thrift store. The pastel floral thing is a skirt, silk again. It definitely has a dated or elderly look to it, but again, it's silk! When I finally learned about how fabric content counts, I kinda went nuts tracking down silk things at the Salvo. Any ideas on how to make this dated skirt into something cute? The black on the left is a pair of capris which I also got at the thrift store, with the intent to rip all the seams and make a pattern from them. After my disaster with the Bella pattern from Burdastyle, I'm convinced that the only way to make myself pants is to make my own pattern from pants that fit. And last, the black blouse on the right I never wear, because it's black. It's also silk, and stretchy, which makes me think it's destined to become...

Underroos! Or a bra rather. This will be an adventure, but I'm very excited to try. If it works out, I'm saying goodbye to store-bought, rib-poking, cheaply made bras forever. For a long time I've been ogling the stretch lace at the Etsy store, MaryNotMartha:

MaryNotMartha on Etsy

For inspiration and guidance, I can thank the sewing blogosphere for both verypurpleperson:

one of her many very beautiful lingerie sets

and also for A Few Threads Loose:

who has been doing lingerie sew-alongs which I recently discovered. How I love the sewing-internet!

And finally, for this year, I finally have a sewing buddy! A good friend of mine has decided to re-take up sewing, and we are going to tackle Colette Pattern's Peony as her first project.

Peony from Colette Patterns

I've been pining for someone to share my sewing exploits with for a while now, so I am very excited about this new development. It should also ease the burden on my husband and roommate of having to listen to my chatter about patterns, fabrics, and sewing techniques. A win-win situation!