Me-Made-May '14 Round-up

My challenge was to wear two handmade garments per week in addition to making three pieces that I can wear in my everyday life.  I think I got the job done on the first part but I only made one garment for everyday wear.  That Sewaholic Cambie dress ate up the majority of my sewing time this month. I opted to get photos where I wore the item so that I could show myself how easy it is to wear things I've made.  That sometimes involved having strangers take my photo which was only awkward for a few minutes. Here's my round-up!

Day 1: Sewaholic Minoru at the Bernina store.

 

 

Day 2: Colette Sorbetto at the antique store:

 

 

 

Day 2 (evening): Sewaholic Hollyburn for a night out.  I love this skirt and I want to make more.

 

 

 

Day 6: Colette Sorbetto again at the library:

 

 

Day 8: Colette Sorbetto (unblogged) at Billy Vanilly in Lawrence, KS which makes the most wonderful cupcakes in the universe (and I don't even like cake!)

 

 

 

Day 10: Colette Sorbetto again, only this time I'm snacking on frog leg tacos at a food truck festival.

 

 

 

Day 14: Sewaholic Minoru again at the supermarket.  Yes I push two carts and yes that's the easiest way to do it.  If they're together in the car cart they're throwing punches by Aisle 3. 

 

 

 

Day 17: Sewaholic Cambie at a wedding. 

 

 

Somewhere around this time I wore this dress to church but even I won't ask someone to take a picture of me there.

 

 

 

Day 25: Hollyburn again to my oldest son's basketball tournament.

 

 

 

Day 26: Colette Hawthorn on a trip to the fruit stand and park with my kids.







 

 

Day 30: Colette Moneta on a run to the paint department at Home Depot. My almost 3 year old took this and I was pretty impressed by his accuracy.

 

 

 A couple of things while writing this: 1) Apparently I only sew Colette and Sewaholic patterns and 2) I need to make more tops.  Or maybe if I just make a million Monetas I'll be alright.  

















Colette Moneta

 

 

I love, love, love the Moneta from Colette Patterns! I purchased both the Moneta and Mabel (which I will not be making as a mini skirt in case you're wondering) plus The Colette Guide to Sewing Knits during the pre-sale which meant I didn't know what patterns I was buying.  So risky but turned out so well! It's a great every-day dress for my lifestyle.  I look more put together than shorts and a shirt but I'm still super comfortable which was the point of my RTW fast.

 

I used a Liberty of London Dufour jersey knit called Gleason from www.fabric.com but it's gone now.  Those Liberty prints are so pricey but so worth it.  It almost feels a little silky and sews up very well.  A standard adjustment for me is lengthening the bodice by an inch because I have a long torso and adding length to the skirt because I generally try to avoid the awkward maneuvering you have to do in a shorter skirt with kids and living life in general.  I did both of those adjustments but the bodice turned out too long and I serged inches off the skirt to get it to hit me at the knee. I don't feel uncomfortable in it but I will take away that inch in the bodice next time.

 

 

I went with the standard collar even though the pattern comes with 5 free downloadable collar variations.  I've never sewn sleeves by reaching between the bodice and lining before.  I liked the finish and will do that again.

 

I didn't realize until too late that the belt is way too big.  That's why I'm holding it with my finger in previous pictures.  It does allow you to see the gathering at the waistline in this picture though:

 

 

The dress is extremely easy to sew but gathering the skirt with the elastic did give me a second of trouble.  It went smoothly after I got the hang of it.  I had to stitch it down every few inches to keep things stable while I stretched the elastic.  Stretching the elastic while trying to keep it at the edge of the fabric for long stretches was too hard. 

 



 

I think I've found a wardrobe staple! It makes me laugh that I used to think knits were super hard.  This is my second knit garment and I'm in love.

 

 

Sewaholic Cambie dress #2

I dove in to the Sewaholic Cambie dress one more time to see if I liked it more with some modifications.  It felt like this project took forever and I was glad when I reached the finish line.  I'm wearing it to a wedding this weekend and there were times during construction when I felt like the fabric choice was going to make me look like I was IN the wedding as a bridesmaid. My initial thought was, "I'm making a bridesmaid's dress and I'm not a bridesmaid!" but my next thought was, "Hey! I made a bridesmaid's dress!" I'm not worried about that anymore.  I think it turned out well. 

For this version, I omitted the waistband and lengthened the bodice by 1 inch.  I also opted to add some pleats to the neckline and finish it with a tie belt.

 

I used this silk crepe de chine from Mood for the main fabric and this silk organza for the lining.  I've never worked with organza before.  The crepe de chine felt a little slippery when I started.  When I finished working with the organza and went back to the crepe de chine, it was like working with quilting cotton.  Organza is shifty.

 

This was a project where my imagination tacked on a lot of time.  My original thought was to leave the waistline plain like this....

 

...but then I didn't really like the finishing on the waistline (more on that later) and felt I needed to add something.  My first plan was a belt with an enormous flower detail on it.  I started cutting the petals out and then decided against it.  My next plan was to add the same pleating at the neckline to the waistline.  After some texting consultations with a friend and my mom, I decided against that too.  My third idea was just to go with a belt.  The right belt is hard to find.  I did a tie belt on this dress and liked it a lot so I went with it on this one.  I like it.  When in doubt, add a tie belt.  And if I ever find a regular belt I can have two options.

 

 

As you can tell from the above picture, the dart on the main fabric and the dart on the organza didn't line up when I stitched-in-the-ditch.  You can tell in the picture but I'm not so sure it's noticeable in person.  I initially lined up all darts and side seams but that resulted in excess main fabric in the front so the mismatched dart on the left side is what I went with in the end.  I want to be very clear that I cannot stand to stitch-in-the-ditch.  I have an edgestitching foot and I still find it to be a very painful task.  I did it three times and then decided it was good enough. 

 

All seams are French seams except for the waistband.  I initially serged it which led to an incredibly bulky waistband.  I then went back and pinked the edges which helped. 

 

 

I like the pleated detail along the neckline a lot.  My only regret is that I made them a little taller than I should have.  They are prone to falling down a little in the middle.  I catch-stitched them together on the back side and that really helped.  To make the pleats, I cut a very long piece of fabric that was 3 inches wide. I folded this in half lengthwise and pressed.  Starting in the middle and working towards the right side, I pinched fabric together on the backside and folded it to the left. 

I repeated this until I had enough for the right side.  When working towards the left side, I pinched the fabric on the backside and folded it to the right.  I basted the pleats and then basted them again to the front of the dress before sewing the lining and main fabric together.  I serged the raw edge on the shirt end.  When I reached the end, I opened up the last pleat and folded the serged edge back inside the pleats.  I knotted the end of the serged edge so I just tacked that down inside with a hand needle. 

 

It's an easy thing that adds an interesting detail to this neckline.

 

 

I did a rolled hem for the first time on the hem and also along the edges of the tie belt.  I tried and tried to get it to look right on my own but I couldn't figure out why those loops kept showing up to the left of the right needle stitching. 

I posted a question on the RTW Fasters Facebook page and received good feedback about adjusting tension.  However, it still didn't work.  I went to my Bernina dealer for some handholding and when I got there she said she was going to show me how to do a rolled hem but first she needed to find a screwdriver to take the left needle out.  And that's when I knew instantly what my problem was. I unthreaded the needle but didn't take it out, so the loopers were looping as if the left needle was making a stitch.  I was so thankful to have the answer that I didn't bother to be embarrassed. 

 

I said after making my first Cambie that the waistband really bothered me but I've worn it twice so apparently it doesn't bother me that much.  It's fun to see how a different choice of fabric using the same pattern changes the finished look. 

 






 



Me-Made-May'14 Challenge

I wanted to participate in the Me-Made-May challenge last year but I didn't because I have very few summer appropriate articles of handmade clothing.  As of right now I have 3 shirts and 1 dress that I can wear during my regular daily activities (going to parks, hiking through the woods, throwing rocks in ponds, hunting for bugs to put in our bug jars, etc).


I'm a RTW Faster this year and I wanted to use this year to really focus on making clothing that I can wear more than occasionally.  So far I've made two wool coats, a dress, a tshirt and I'm in the process of making a silk dress to wear to a wedding.  I did wear the wool coats a lot in the cold months and I wear the tshirt a lot but the dresses are not everyday dresses. Oops.

I'm not letting my lack of handmade clothing stop me this year. I have decided that I'm going to participate but my focus will be more on making clothing during the month of May that I can actually wear during my regular life instead of attempting to wear an article of clothing I've made every day.  Having said that, this is my pledge:

 I, Andrea of www.evolutionofasewinggoddess.blogspot.com, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear handmade two times per week for the duration of May 2014.  Additionally, and most importantly, I will sew at least three articles of clothing suitable for my every day lifestyle and not something that I will wear only occasionally.  

Made-By-Rae backpacks

These were supposed to be Christmas backpacks but I ran out of time during the holiday season so they became Easter backpacks.

I only started following a lot of sewing blogs in the past 6-9 months or so, so I missed out on a lot of great patterns when they were released.  This backpack from Made By Rae was one of them.  My initial intention was to follow the Busy City quilting patterns from Empty Bobbin to make the front end loader and tow truck designs.  I did not realize that the patterns involve paper piecing, which I have never done before.  I stared at the pattern pieces for a couple of days before getting on You Tube.  I get the basic concept but it became clear that in order to get the backpacks done for Easter I would need to draw the trucks freehand instead of piecing them together.  They look homemade up close but that's OK with me.  They ARE homemade!

 

The Easter Bunny left lots of candy in them yesterday but after that's gone I believe we will be using them for supplies when we are out and about.

 

I used a cheap denim from Hancock Fabrics for the exterior.  It was a little flimsy so I lined the bag with flannel that I interfaced with a very stiff iron-on interfacing.  It helped a lot.

 



My boys refuse to wear the most recent article of clothing I've made for them.  This makes me sad but the backpacks were well received. 

Sewaholic Cambie Dress

 

 

I have been meaning to make this dress for months but never got around to it.  I actually made a muslin at the end of last summer but something else took over and I put it on the back burner.  I thought I would really, really, really love it when it was completed but for some reason I'm a little underwhelmed.  There is something about the waistband that I don't like.  I'm thinking about trying it again without the waistband but I don't know how that would impact the design of the dress.  My plan with this pattern was to make an initial version in a summery fabric and then choose a silk fabric for a second version for a wedding.  I'm not sure if I like it well enough to do that.  Decision, decisions.

 

I used a Joel Dewberry rayon challis from www.fabric.com.  I think that rayon challis is my favorite summer fabric. I forgot to take a picture of the lining but it is an extremely cheap voile in the most obnoxious shade of yellow.  I don't remember what project it was intended for but I used it for this one because I didn't want to waste time or money on a lining fabric.  If I had it to do over again I wouldn't have used it.  If I'm taking the time to make something to wear I think it's a good idea to use quality fabric.  You can't see it so I guess that's good!

 

I know a lot of people prefer A-line or fitted skirts but I love a full skirt.  The skirt is so full that you can't even see the pockets.  I actually had to fish around for them so I could put my hands in them.

 

 

 

 

I don't know if the wrinkles in this picture are from the dress lying wrong or if it's due to poor fit.  From the front it seems to fit.  I chose to omit the stitch-in-the-ditch at the waistline, mainly because it's time consuming and I hate it but also because I think the rayon stretched a little and was a smidge bigger than the voile.  When I matched up the waistband seams it resulted in a lot of wrinkling with the main fabric.

 

 

I think I'll wear this to a bridal shower next weekend and see how it goes.  I cut it in a straight 4 with no adjustments.  In the future I think I would maybe use a smaller sideseam allowance to have a bit more breathing room.  It's not uncomfortable as it is now but it would be better with a little more space.

 

 

 Version 2 coming soon.....maybe.

 

 



Sewaholic Renfrew: My first knit project + Several positive comments about Craftsy's Sewing Fashion Knits course

 

 

 

It took me several hours to figure out why I am so insanely proud of the plain V-neck t-shirt I'm modeling in these pictures.  My last couple of projects have been labor intensive wool coats that I have a lot of love for, so I was thinking that this project would be a bit of a let down.  Wrong! When I became obsessed with learning to sew and then joined the RTW fast, I wondered what I was going to do when I needed to replace something simple like a t-shirt.  The answer: Just sit down for a little bit and sew it!  It turns out that you actually CAN sew all your own clothes.  Sometimes it's the little epiphanies that make you the happiest and proudest.

 

There is nothing I can say about sewing this pattern that hasn't been said a million times already.  The purpose of this post is for anyone who is as afraid of knits as I once was.  Don't be!  Holy smokes it's easy!  I wish I had recorded actual sewing time, but that would be hard for me.  I don't know about anyone else, but I can sometimes get a little sidetracked when a text comes through, or someone (ok, one person) hollers at me on Voxer, or I stop to pet my cat, or I go to look something up on the internet and get sidetracked on Yahoo.  Even though this was my first time sewing with a knit I bet actually sewing time was between 1-2 hours including when I had to run to the computer for help.

I had a truckload of anxiety about sewing with knits even though 75% of the stuff I normally wear is a knit. I've had the pattern for months but I thought learning knits would be like learning a foreign language so I avoided it.   I hopped on Craftsy and watched Linda Lee's Sewing Fashion Knits: Beyond The Basics before I even cracked open my pattern.  It was extremely helpful and if you are new to knits I HIGHLY recommend it.  She breaks down preparing fabric, cutting and marking, seam finishes, stabilizing knits, hem finishes and edge finishes.  She takes you through different ways that you can do each of those things.  After watching it through I started to get super confident and thought to myself,  "That doesn't seem that hard.  I probably won't even have to refer back to this class once I start sewing."  Just to be clear, I made it to the second set of steps in the pattern instructions regarding sewing on the neckband before I had to go running back to Linda for help.  She didn't fail me.  Thankfully you can watch the Craftsy classes as many times as you want because I'll be going to Linda's class a lot.

For my bands, I opted to sew on the band, serge the raw edge for a more professional look, and then use a double needle to stitch on both sides of the seam line.  I have to confess that I used to be intimidated when people said they used a twin needle.  Using a twin needle involves buying one, inserting it in your needle slot, threading it, and sewing like normal.  It's that simple.

There are many more knits in my future!  Don't be afraid.  You can do it!