My Big Bad Sewing thread

[Teallaura]

I like it - it looks good that way.

[Dee Dee Warren]

it fits much better now that I took in the sides a little. It could just be that I lost weight between the fitting and the sewing. In my diet, since I started, I have lost two inches so far off of my waist. If I lose all the weight I want to, most things I make won't fit at all anymore, but hey, I'll take it. I am not sewing anything expensive of time consuming that could be a total no-wear four months from now. I will wear the heck out of this skirt while I can. I think if I go lose more, I might alter it again, but the side seams won't take being taken apart again, I will deepen the darts.

[moreta]

But what a great excuse to buy more fabric and make more things!

[Dee Dee Warren]

Here is my next project. I am presently in the muslin making stage. In reading the pattern reviews over at patternreview.com it says that the waist tends to be huge. I cut a smaller size, but it still might be too big. It doesn't give finished garnet measurements for the waist (grrr) but does give it for the hip, which "seems" right. I tend to overestimate the amount of ease I prefer. Don't laugh, but I have never lined anything that doesn't have separate lining instructions, and I think this sort needs a lining. I have the book Easy Guide to Sewing Linings, so maybe I will break it out and attempt to create a lining. I am broke until next week so I can't buy any lining until then anyway. I have another skirt (simple elastic waist girlie skirt) I want to make, so I might just cut both out while I am waiting to get paid and buy more supplies since I want to add a crinoline layer to the girlie skirt. I have an idea I got from RTW, so if it comes out good, I think it will be really cute.... picture on that project when I begin to cut it out.

This skirt I am presently making is part of Project: Effie Trinket in that I am deciding which skirt pattern to use. If I use this one, it will be minus the peplum. It will all depend upon whether I want a waist band or not since they are both simple straight skirt patterns that I am choosing between.

I am making View B, the same one as the picture.

newlook6003pattern.jpg

[Teallaura]

But what a great excuse to buy more fabric and make more things!

Um, wait - she needs an excuse?

[Dee Dee Warren]

I found some lining fabric at Joanne's at their sale for only $2 yard.

[Teallaura]

[Dee Dee Warren]

newlook6003front.jpg I have screwed this one up so many ways, some of which I have not yet figured out. Let me try to list them. Oh, there is just a picture on the dress form because Mistake Number One: Overfitting. More on that later. I am presently too fat to wear it on the Internet. I can squeeze into it like a sausage, and I ain't too proud to wear it to work, but there is no way yet I am posting a picture of me in it like Tuesday's kielbasa. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Bang head on sewing machine. Convince myself not to quit sewing. So here are the numbered milestones to DISASTER.

1. Overfitting. I don't care what the books say. Make the waistband when you are making a muslin, especially if you happen to be me. I am apparently unable to visible a waist style line "two inches below" natural waist without the waistband. So this puppy is nearly up to my boobs like grandma now that I have the waistband on and is so tight, well I mince my steps like the daughters of Jerusalem. If you don't know the Old Testament, that is NOT a good thing. They were hussies.



2. Overfitting. Now that wasn't entirely my fault. The waist was ridiculously big. It was ridiculously big which I think inflamed my over fitting urge. Here is pic of how much I had to take out of just one side. Never mind that I added front darts, and this is just one side, multiply that by FOUR. The pattern had no front darts. How ridiculous is that? I think it is made for gals with no discernible waist. While that is fine, if you happen to have that shape, I don't.

6003waistedit.jpg


3. Lining. I feared adding a lining when the pattern didn't call for one, so of course I screwed it up worse than I could have imagine. Lining fabric sucks for the first thing.
For the second thing, clearance dollar-a-yard clearance fabric is so sucky that sucky is insulted by being ascribed to it. The lining somehow ended up way too small, so I couldn't attach it to the zipper tape, so there is no lining across the back four inches of rear.

4. Lining. I scorched (I am very zealous with the iron) the bottom portion of the lining, so I had to cut it off, so there is a half lining, which is only half good, which of course means it HALF SUCKS. At least it was the bottom portion.


newlook6003back.jpg

5. Waistband. Oh yeah, just a simple skirt pattern you say. Sure. I still try to read the directions. And I still screwed up the waistband. First screw up was that I used this special "waistband interfacing." Yeah, maybe for men's suits. It was so friggin stiff I can't even tell you. Bad enough, but I sewed the waistband on wrong and figured that out AFTER I trimmed and graded the allowance, with the lining inserted. No way to undo all that. I sewed the shorter edge to the main skirt rather than the longer edge. Oops. I am used to straight waistbands rather than curved ones, and to be honest, the directions did suck in this portion. So instead of the wide waistband (good thing because it already rode too high), I folded the one with the thick interfacing in half into this stiff narrow strip of wavy cinchness. Ugh. Ugly, so I covered it with a grosgrain ribbon, which hid the waviness, but made it like twice a thick which I needed like I need a zit on the tip of my nose.

5. Peplum. Oh yeah, I though it really needed to be underlined, which is fine in theory, but somehow I royally screwed it up in practice. It is like my hips are enfolded in armadillo scales. Well almost my hips, since the thing is about two inches too high.

6. Fabric. Pattern is way too fussy for this busy polka dot print. Needed to be plain. I don't think I have ever used a plain solid fabric by choice. EVER. But that is what this needs, though it could be shiny or metallic or something to satisfy my inner magpie.

Well its done, and I am glad for it. Will I make the pattern again? Yes. The fault is almost all mine.

But I can't bear to sew another thing to wear right now... so I am going to work on the muslin for the Effie Trinket jacket. Oh God, please don't let me screw this one up!

[Teallaura]

It actually doesn't look too bad. I had wondered about the fabric but honestly, it works okay. I agree, you'd be better off with a less busy print or a solid but it's really not all that bad. I bet it would work well with a matching solid as either the waist or the skirt proper. (So if you ever get really ambitious, take it apart and make two new skirts! <ducks> ) I kinda like the ribbon, myself.

You need short puffy sleeves on the accompanying blouse - it's an empire waistline, after all!

[Dee Dee Warren]

It looks better on the dress form than on me, that's for sure.

[Teallaura]

Don't they all?

[Dee Dee Warren]

Haha... which is pretty bad because my dress form is a duct tape dummy of me.

[Dee Dee Warren]

irononhemtape.jpg

Behold Wright’s Iron On Hem Tape. This may be a very old product. Maybe my Joanne’s (or however that store is spelled, it gets me every time) just got it, but I am truly in deep love. I know some other curious sewer also was intrigued as the sole package left at the store was opened and fondled. I finished with New Look 6003 (which from now one will be known as a Wearable Comedy of Errors–ugh!), and if it were not for this luscious hunk of sewing love, it would be in the trash can. So what does it do you say? What doesn’t it do! It does the laundry, spanks the kids, and cooks dinner. Okay, well maybe not all that, but it beautifully finishes hems with a glossy ribbon. What a joy with ravel-ly icky slick lining fabric that I detest. What a joy with that zipper extension that I forgot to finish before inserting the zipper that is all wedged in with my first attempt at lining without a pattern?

I love you Wright’s Hem Tape.

[Dee Dee Warren]

twofeet.jpg

Do you also have a foot fetish? I have boxes of vintage and modern feet, but little clue what to do with them. Here are two that I just played around with a bit, for the same task: attaching bias binding to a seam. For the wide bias binding, I prefer the binding foot, you can easily attach it close to the edge in one pass. For narrower binding, I am not sure... the vintage edgestitcher does the job, and the various slots have so many possibilities. Here is a very useful PDF (with pictures) on how to use the vintage edgestitcher.

[Dee Dee Warren]

hookandeye.png

I used to dread sewing these. I can’t say that I enjoy it now, but I don’t dread it. The image to the right is from Threads Magazine Number 117. Isn’t it nice and neat? Mine were as far from that as can possibly be, so I read the article, and it suggested using a blanket stitch to sew them. What a difference that one thing made! My hooks and eyes, while not as neat as that idealized picture (and much tinier) are now respectable.