New Directions/Jacket Update

Thanks for your concern about my blogging absence. I've been fine. DH is getting better everyday and is returning to his usual active life. Actually, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my sewing skills. I was making some things that I liked, but making many garments that looked pretty bad to me. I particularly had difficulty as I moved into more fitted, tailored garments. I was working very hard and making only small improvements. At the rate that I was going, it would be fifty years before I felt like an accomplised seamstress. If I am lucky enough to live that much longer, I doubt seriously if I would even care. I was working very hard. I was guilty of doing the same thing and expecting different results. It was time to do something different. I pondered that issue for a while. My solutions seem to be working (at least for now). Here's what I did:

1. I added mirrors to my sewing room so I could see the front and back of my garments at the same time. After watching Peggy Sager's webcast on fitting, I asked for the 3 mirrors from Ikea for my birthday. Unfortunately, they no longer make them. When my sweet husband asked about alternatives, they were not very helpful (according to him, anyway). So, he went on a mission to find mirrors that he could put on hinges. Yes, he found them, but they were very heavy. I wanted to be able to move them out of the way. My sewing room is large, but not that large. I think that his solution was creative and continues to work for me. I have glass mirror doors on my sliding closet doors that hide my sewing stuff. He had mirrors cut to fit the wall next to the closet doors and the back of the entrance door to the room. When the door is half opened, I can see my front and back without twisting. It's a bit hard to see in the pictures because the mirrors reflect each other. I hope that you get the idea.




2. I bought a new iron which has made a big difference. One of my irons spit at me and one was so old that it didn't generate much steam. I did a lot of research and bought a Rowenta Expert. It was expensive, but worth every penny. I love it!!

3. I went to a fitting workshop. Trying to fit through the internet was killing my love of sewing. I don't fault the teachers. It was the process of repeatedly making changes and taking pictures. I learned a lot, but I still wasn't satisfied. It works for a lot of people, but not for me. I wanted to go to a recognized teacher and was saving my money (easy to do when I don't buy fabric!). Then, I saw that Peggy Sager was offering a 4 day workshop in Atlanta. The hotel was reasonable and I could drive! So...I was off to Atlanta for 4 intense, wonderful, memorable days. It took her 5 minutes to fit a jacket shell and another minute to fit the sleeve. The pants and jeans went just as fast. Wow! When I think of the frustrating hours that I spent, I get sad. My fitting skills still aren't perfect. A new pattern often takes some time, but it's much, much faster. I feel like I know what I'm doing (for the most part, anyway).

Here are the last jackets I made. I haven't finished my fitted, tailored jacket from the workshop because I needed to do some faster projects. My wardrobe was in bad shape!

Silhouette 211 is a loose fitting cardigan. It still has some shape. I also like the way the front slopes upward - great for my short figure. The fabric is from Coldwater Creek and was sold by Silhouette Patterns.

Silhouette 1850 has a kimono sleeve. It's not droopy like most kimono sleeves. The trim is added to the middle which gives it a more fitted look. Peggy wore hers at the workshop. I had to have it so here is my copy.Silhouette 1750 is a pre-workshop jacket. It fits, but the sleeve caps need improving. The jacket looks better when I'm wearing it. The workmanship is marginal but it's still a jacket that I will enjoy wearing.

LH 5201 cardigan is a wadder. It doesn't fit well. I think that I needed to add interfacing to the neck edge and front. I love LH designs. I've had trouble fitting them in the past. Don't ask me why I tried one of her patterns again. I don't know the answer. I will have to be a lot better at pattern work before I try one of her patterns again!
I'll post the other garments that I've finished in the next few weeks. Now, I'm off to work on my next sewing adventure - a cowl neck tee.

Happy Easter!

Styling Advice Please

I finished Silhouette #311 yesterday. Today, I tried various pieces of jewelry with it and, finally, decided on a simple gold necklace and red earrings. To me, the shoes are perfect although they don't show very well in the pictures. I'm in love with the fabric. I'm pleased with the fit although it may be a tiny bit too tight. The jury is still out on that. Usually, I don't wear tops that are this fitted. I plan to wear it to a casual Christmas party. Once I put it with the pants that I plan to wear, I wasn't sure whether to wear it buttoned, opened, or partly buttoned. First, the closed version:
This is a side view of the closed version:

Then, I tried the blouse opened since the camisole matches it pretty well.

Then, I tried partially buttoned the blouse:

Although I am leaning toward the buttoned view, I'm not sure. What do you think?

I love the small sizing in the Silhouette patterns and the cup sizing. (I know it doesn't matter but it still feels good!) I used the C cup with size 3 for the top tapering to size 4 at the hip. I didn't make any other alterations to the pattern. That's pretty amazing for me! This was a quick, easy pattern to sew. I cut the buttom of the blouse body and sleeves on the scalloped edges. Yea! There was not any hemming! I didn't even do my usually sway back adjustment. I think that the fit of the back is fine without iit

I guess I should have moved the hose for the pictures. It's been so dry here that I just keep it out on the patio and didn't even notice it. My puppy, Roxy, managed to get into a few pictures. She's always close by. I don't think that I could find a sweeter dog. I have a few other garments finished and planned to take pictures of me wearing them. The camera battery died at the end of these pictures. I have some poor pictures of them on Dolly. I think I'd rather wait until I have some decent pictures.

I haven't blogged for a while because DH was in the hospital again. Poor guy is miserable and in pain. I'm not sure that I'm happy with my new role as "Nurse Rose". I never wanted to be a nurse and have minimal skills in that area. Now, I can even change the bandage over large surgical areas. Please don't laugh. There is a lot of skin prep with my hyper allergic husband. I discovered there are special skin pads and tape that can be used. It's so important to have the right tools for nursing as well as sewing.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

First up is the good. This is Jalie 2806 Scoopneck Top. I've made it before and will make it again. I especially like the fabric which is a very comfortable cotton knit from the old Fabric Fairy. Roxy seems to like it, too.

The part that is expecially good is the back. Look..no bunching!!! I didn't even pull the top down. I finally have a TNT back knit top that I like. That is an accomplishment for me. :)

Then, there is the bad news, Burda Style Magazine 08/2010 #120. There is nothing wrong with the blouse except that it looks terrible on me. I love the fabric. I was dressing to go out and DH sent me back to closet to find another top. I really tried. You are looking at 20 pintucks around the neck and sleeves (had to add 2 more on the front and back to fit the neck) where I had to measure, sew, and pull through threads. The top is ENORMOUS. The finished version is big after taking 3 inches off both sides. Normally, I make a 38 top tapering to a 40 hip with a Burda pattern. This time I made a straight 38 because I was concerned that it would be too big. It's going in the Goodwill bag. I just hope someone will enjoy wearing it.

You can see jacket #5 sitting on the bench. It has one button and requires 5. I really need to get those 4 buttons on the jacket. I'm dragging my feet because it is a spring/summer jacket. With only a few buttons to go, I don't want to put it on UFO shelf. (There's not any room anyway.)

The ugly part is my own sewing skills. I seem to be making everything twice these days. I don't mean sewing 2 versions either. That definitely is slowing my progress through the sewing list. I thought that I could make the Jalie top in my sleep. Well, I must have shut my eyes when I sewed the neckband. There was a big gap in the front. I had rip the neckband off, regather the front, and sew the neckband again. I never like frog sewing, but doing it with a knit is a slow process for me. The neckband on the pintuck gapped also so I ripped it, added pintucks and sewed the neckband on again. Hopefully, I can get the neck correct with future sewing. With the orange jacket the binding came loose in a number of places. With that one, I made an eye appointment. My eyes are fine. I guess I need to sew a little slower so I can get it right the first time. I'm going to work on a sheathe dress muslin now. The jacket buttons will be there tomorrow!

Happy Birthday, Roxy

It's a ducky day. Roxy is one year old and still a puppy. She's growing more lovable everyday. When I was shopping the dog toy clearance rank at Petco, I saw this duck. It looks like the same one that Shannon's dog, Hartley , received for his birthday. I use many ideas that I get from Blogland, even buying dog toys! This idea was a definite winner. She loves that duck and continues to shower it with kisses. I tried to get her eyes in the picture, but she won't take her eyes off that beloved duck.

If I can stop watching her, I might get some sewing done.

The Lost Jacket

No, I didn't lose my JAM #4. I'm referring to the TV Series "Lost". Actually, I sometimes felt like I was mentally losing it while working on this simple shrug. It's the Sewing Workshop e-shrug. Here's a view of the back:This jacket started back in April when I saw Robin's version of this pattern. I copied her sewing techniques, including watching episodes of "Lost" while doing the handwork. There is no copyright on blogs, right? I'm not planning on selling the shrug, selling the techniques, or even doing it again! I do like the results and certainly enjoyed watching "Lost". It took me a while to finish because I was doing more watching than sewing and, of course, I had to watch the Japanese subtitles. I got to the beginning of Season 2, but there probably won't be a Season 3 in my future. The series is starting to drag for me and is getting a little too weird. That's good because I started doing more sewing.

Now, I'll get back to sewing process. I used a bamboo knit rather than a double knit. Yes, that caused me problems using techniques that were done on a double knit. If you are interested in the entire process, check Robin's blog. She did not say how wide she cut her binding. I decided (just to make life interesting) to cut a narrow binding. The lesson learned was: drapy bamboo knit interfaced with pro-sheer does not turn easily. I almost got it all done before the interfacing started to tear. The only solution was to serge the jacket edges or make a new, wider binding. In my usual manner, I took the more challenging option. I cut my binding 2 1/2" wide. It was still slow going while turning the binding. Then, I got lots of practice doing a fell stitch. Yes, I do a decent rolled hem which will appear on future jackets of this type.

Many thanks to those of you who e-mailed me about the jacket muslin in my last post. I'm overwhelmed by the amount of caring from bloggers. I do have the back fixed to my liking. The front fits, but the sleeve area does not look just right to me. I'm going to let it set a bit and then look at it again. Overall, I like the jacket. I learned a lot about fitting my body in this extremely tedious and frustrating process.

Can this be fixed?

I have this possibly crazy desire for a fitted jacket. My favorite is FSG 1945. This pattern offers a number of style changes using the basic pattern. The fear of fitting kept the pattern sitting in my pile of "one of these days". Then, I discovered that NancyErickson offers an internet fitting service for her pattern. My Fitting Adventure began with a size 12 which is much too large for me. Although I measured a jacket that fits to determine the size, it's still hard for me with a totally new pattern company. After several weeks of trying to get it to fit, we decided to trash and start with smaller size. Here's the back of Muslin #2. Actually, it looks reasonable compared to my first muslin (not shown to avoid appearing ridiculous). This is size 8 which is the smallest size. It's still too big in the top although I had to squeeze into the hip area.



I took a tuck in the top area, took in the back and side back, and let out the front/middle front seams (gotta have room for the tummy). Here's the adjusted muslin that I'm working on now.

The old winkles disappeared and new ones appeared! I just that's the life of fitting garments. Can it be fixed? I hope so. I'm taking in the back around the waist area and taking a larger seam in the armscye. We'll see how that goes. I'm not showing the front because I haven't worked much on that. I hope that it will look like this:

I also am working on the 1945A front. If all goes well, it will look like this:

While waiting for responses from Nancy, I've been working on two other jackets. I'm 95% done with one (lots of hand sewing) and 1/3 done with another. With an ailing husband, there is limited sewing time around my house these days. I'm going to have to sew like a maniac to catch up with my JAM commitment.

For now, I'm back to my jacket fitting adventure.

T-Shirt Time

A couple of my recent t-shirts are post worthy. If you look closely, you can see the embroidery around the neckline. I wanted to do something simple and a little different. Now I know that embroidery on a light-weight bamboo knit is anything but simple. It's an excercise in patience and many pre-samples.

I used this particular knit because it was a perfect match to my paisley jacket. I also did a pair of pullon pants the same color as the knit. The pants are made out of tropical weight wool garbardine. I won't be wearing or modeling them until the temperature goes below 90 F. It's just too hot!

The second t-shirt is my first attemp at Frankenpatterning (Is that a word?). The top is KS3156 and the bottom is KS2694. It worked pretty well but I should have used my TNT for the top. It fits better. The other thing I learned is the need to ALWAYS shorten the back above the waist. I normally do that but I forgot with my focus on matching the two patterns. As I look at the photo, I also think this top needs a bit of pressing. That one can be fixed easily! I wish all construction problems could be fixed that easily. I'll definitely do more frankenpatterns in the future. Fitting is a big issue with me. I need to use parts of patterns that fit. Otherwise, I'll spend my life fitting patterns instead of sewing. Yes, I love patterns and love variety.
With this t-shirt, I used the banded curved neckline method in Lynda Maynard's Dressmaker's Handbook of Couture Sewing Techniques. I don't think the method really is "couture", but I sure like the way it looks.

I'm back to working on another jacket muslin. I'm dreaming of a TNT jacket!!

Parting Shot:

My sewing companion, Roxy is growing! (You can see some of my project bags, too. I forgot to close the closet door.)