Sewing Diversion

So I haven't sewed a single stitch in over a week.  Things have been particularly busy in my life over the past few months, but the real culprit is a new video game: Dragon Age Origins.  I'm a sucker for epic anything, books, movies, and yes video games.  I'm several hours in already and loving the overall game, although the archer playability is not as fun as some others.

I'm hopeful that I will get to some sewing this weekend.  I still need to finish up Bronwyn's stocking and have plenty of work to do on the Colorado Quilt...  Happy Thanksgiving!

Bronwyn's Stocking

After an ill-advised attempt to work with faux leather early in my sewing experiences, I did not get a stocking made for my husband last Christmas.  I came across some fabric-weight faux suede on sale at Joann's at Halloween time and decided to try some of that instead.  So now I'm working on making a neat boot-esque stocking for this Christmas.

My husband decided he wanted a tongue of green satin showing between laces on the top of the boot.  With my front and back cut out and ready to go, I was a little stumped on how to get the tongue in and make it look polished.  I ended up basting the right sides of the boot together up to the point where the tongue would start.

I took a straight rectangle of satin and sewed it right-sides together to one of the fronts of the boot.  I then let the satin sit naturally with right-sides out to find the placement, pinned, and then sewed it.

After cutting off the excess satin, I finished the edges with an overlock stitch.  I then removed the basting stitch and opened up the stocking so that I could insert grommets for the lacing.

With the tongue and grommets in place, I can now sew the boot front and back together with the tongue edge finished under the boot seam.

I'm not crazy about the waffling in the satin.  If I had it to do over, I would try to figure out the placement of the satin piece first and center it on the lengthwise grain of the fabric.  As I was sewing the two sides I could tell the difference in the pull of the side that had more bias in it.  I also didn't do a test for tension and stitch length, which would have been a good idea.  My husband says it looks cool, like the tongue is just floating behind the boot, but I never can tell if he's just being kind.

Sewing Project #3: Christmas Stocking

With a cozy pair of pajamas and a fun but not terribly flattering poodle skirt under my belt, Christmas time was fast approaching. I was working on the Colorado Quilt in bits and pieces, but got excited about the idea of making a custom Christmas stocking.  After perusing some options, I decided to go with a big three pattern, McCall's 5549 to be precise.

I used view B for the basic shape, and went about designing my own decorative elements.  Putting my newfound quilting skills to work, I started with piecing together 2" squares for the main portion of the stocking from Christmas-y cotton quilting fabric.  After adding batting and an underlayer of tulle, I quilted the squares "in the ditch" so-to-speak.  I then stay-stitched around the shape of the stocking inside the seam allowance and cut it out.

I then added red corduroy toe and heel covers with Christmas-y white and gold piping at the edges.  The piping I found was really neat, although I unfortunately don't have any photos.  It looked just like cording you would find anywhere, but it was attached to a flat woven edge.  Very easy to insert.  The trickiest part was lining up the toe and heel pieces on the two sides.  The piping made that especially difficult, as it was significantly thicker there than in the other spots, which made it want to shift.

For the lining, I used a poly shimmery gold brocade that was a bit tricky to work with and unraveled everywhere.

With that done, all that was left was to add a cuff.  I ordered some faux polar bear fur from some place online that I don't now recall.  I stitched it to the lining fabric to create a loose cuff that I could add to the stocking top.  I should have done this first, but afterwords, I cut holy leaf shapes from stiff interfacing and steamed some green satin to the shapes.  I then attached the leaves to the cuff with a single stitch down the center to look like the stem of the leaf.  Three red buttons in the center of the leaves made cute holy berries and the cuff was ready to be attached.  I sewed the lining layer to the stocking with right sides together and then hand-stitched the fur layer in place so that the stitches wouldn't get in the way of the fun bounce of the fur.

The green of the satin is a much closer color to the greens of the cotton in person than they turned out looking on the camera.

A view of the top/inside of the completed stocking.

I was incredibly, absurdly, ridiculously happy with how the stocking turned out.  I enjoyed the ability to be original and creative with the elements of the piece, and I also loved working on something that came together so quickly.

Colorado Quilt: Meager Progress

I have been struck down by the sickness going around this week, so I have made little progress on the current top-priority project, the Colorado Quilt.  I have previously washed and folded up my new pink fabrics, so I was able to get some cutting done this week.

I still have a tad more cutting to do.  I also need to pull apart some of the blocks that I decided not to use so that I can use some of the pink fabrics that I did like from those blocks.  Then it is on to piecing!

So far, my bible on cutting and piecing has been Nancy Johnson-Srebro's Rotary Magic, a gift from my quilting mentor.  She has some great tips on how to get straight cuts and how to fold and store fabrics.  One issue I have been having, however, is if my fabrics are folded for more than a day or two before I get around to cutting from them, I end up with soft creases like you can see in the above picture, that I am sure are affecting the straightness of my cuts.  I think I might iron my fabrics just before cutting next time.

Sadly (in the sewing sense at least), I have out-of-town guests this weekend, so I'm not sure how much I'll get done...

Steampunk Halloween Costume Completed!

I'm back at home now after a whirlwind trip to London, and fighting off a nasty head cold. My time got really crammed trying to finish my costume and all of the other preparations for the trip, so I have a lot of catching up to do here.

To complete the petticoat, I had to gather 9 1/2 yards of fabric, and then stitch that to a little more than 4 yards. Then that 4 yards had to be gathered and attached to the round yoke, which was probably the most difficult part of the entire project.  I was really intimidated by the gathering, but it was quite easy.  My only real issue was when I didn't stop my two rows of gathering stitches at the same spot.  That made gathering consistently quite difficult.

The hemming of the overskirt was also easier than I expected.  It took a long time, but I was pleased with the result.  I basted the entire skirt at the hemline that my husband was nice enough to pin for me.  I then stitched a longish stay-stitch about a quarter inch from the edge of the fabric.  I then pined up the bottom edge, pulling up the bobbin thread as I went to pull in the extra fabric (thanks to Vogue Sewing yet again!).  I then pressed that up into another fold and stitched.  Somewhere in there I removed the basting thread.

I then stitched the lace trim onto the face of the overskirt with two rows of stitches, and attempted to put the whole thing together.

This is where I really did myself in.  I was attempting to insert the zipper so that the netting layer would be treated like a lining.  I wanted the fabric to be finished to the zipper on the inside and out.  I basted, stitched, and stitched again all of the stitches to insert the zipper and put the two layers together, except one.  When the time came to turn the fabric right-side out, the two skirts sat next to each other not one over the top.  So, I tore out all of the stitches and started over with the zipper just hanging out inside the skirts.

Then, on the top of all of the layers, with the fabric right-side out, I stitched a top stitch to hold the zipper in place.  All went well until I got to the very top of the zipper, where the head was, as my sewing machine needle got pushed aside.

It wasn't the most polished zipper insertion known to man, but no one would see it anyway, and the petticoat was complete!  Straight-away I tried it on with the bits of the costume that I had ready.

You can see a little bit of the ribbon-trimmed net layer peeking out.  I realized part-way through the under skirt layer that I had an extra 5/8" on that layer because the pattern expected a 5/8" hem, which I did not do.  I attempted to compensate, but only compensated by adding an extra 1/4" to the seam allowance between the two net layers for a total of 4/8" reduction.  I didn't imagine that my sewing would be anywhere precise enough for 1/8" to matter, but I don't think you'd be seeing that hint of ribbon at the bottom if I had pulled out that extra 1/8" somewhere.

The completed costume (along with my equally steampunk-y date):

Allow me to share some of the details on the rest of the costume.  The corset is Fredrick's of Hollywood's Hollywood Dream Corset, appearing in Halloween costumes everywhere and which I happened to have lying around.  I added a braided trim to the seam/boning lines with hot glue to punk it up a bit.  The choker and wristlets I made with some ornate trim and gathered lace leftover from the petticoat trim.  I also attached a brassy button to disguise the closure of one snap.

The hat I purchased on e-bay from a woman in the UK who makes them, and had it shipped directly to my brother-in-law.

The jewelry I purchased on etsy.  Vintage copper flowers turned into earrings and a vintage vacuum tube with copper necklace.

The shoes were an indulgence, costing as much as the rest of the pieces put together, but I couldn't pass up their steamy awesomeness.  They have a spats-esque style, with ruffle details and gorgeous suede.  I might actually wear them with normal clothes.

And I have to show off the back of the corset, because I love it so much.

It was a lot of work to put it all together, but I was extremely pleased with the end result.  The only thing I would have changed would be to add more details.  But I think it came across steamy enough.  Our costumes were a big hit at the party, especially my husband's.

Update: Steampunk Costume

A quick update on the steampunk costume for Halloween: I've been sewing every night until the point of exhaustion trying to get ready for leaving next week. I have the overskirt of the petticoat hemmed (which was my one of my biggest fears), and the underskirt almost completely put together. I have another half of a seam to pin and then stitch and then put the two together.

All the accessories are in save one, which should be here any day now.

I'll have pictures and more details come the weekend...

Steampunk Costume: Petticoat

I spent most of the day today working with yards and yards of cream petticoat net. There were nine pieces in all, three for the upper tier and six for the lower. As the pieces were perfect rectangles, I cut them out with my rotary cutting tools. Great time saver!

Next, I sewed the pieces together using lapped seams so that there wouldn't be tons of scratchy netting poking me underneath my skirt.

Finally, I hemmed the bottom-most layer, all 9 1/2 yards, with ribbon.

I prepped the under-layer yoke earlier in the week, so all I have left to do is hem the upper layer, attach the lace trim, and stitch it all up!

I only have a little over a week to go and I am definitely feeling the pressure!

Costume Take Two: Steampunk

In my search for awesome fairy wings, I stumbled across this amazing steampunk fairy costume on Etsy.  I had heard of steampunk, but only in the literary sense.  Alla Wikipedia, I soon found myself in a rabbit hole of steampunk fashion fascination.  I had to have something steamy for Halloween!

I didn't have time to make a complete costume, so I started in my own closet and came up with a corset and interesting leather skirt.  For embellishment, I decided that a petticoat was in order, among other, smaller accouterments.

I had picked up Simplicity 5006 when I was thinking fairy costume, and figured I could make it work for a victorian-esque petticoat.  Since my leather skirt isn't terribly full, I decided to go with view B (rightmost).  The pattern called for taffeta for the top layer.  I figured it was as good a time as any to try working with such slippery fabric and dove right in with a gorgeous copper taffeta (polyester, unfortunately) and a cream colored net for the under layer.

The first challenge was shortening the pattern.  My skirt is only 33" long, and the pattern creates a 39" long petticoat.  After much careful measuring, I took 6" off of the bottom of each of the upper skirt's pattern pieces.  I attempted to match the curve by cutting a short piece off of the bottom, then lining that up to the 6" marks for the final cut.

My next struggle was laying out the fabric.  After one false start, I used a rotary-cutting ruler to ensure that my center fold was straight and got both pieces for the upper skirt layed out and cut.

My Vogue Sewing book recommended a straight stitch of 12-15 stitches per inch, and to hold the fabric taut while stitching.  I think this worked pretty well, with very little waffling that I see so often on homemade clothes with shiny fabrics like this.  Next, I used an overstitch foot that came with my machine and a zigzag stitch to enclose the raw edges.  The first seam went smashingly (except for breaking one needle thanks to the my sewing machine's manual's very confusing instructions).  However, the side seams ended up terribly scalloped no matter what I tired.  I think this may be due to the fabric being on a bias at this point.  I might try a straight stitch first next time.

Now, the skirt is hanging to let the bias drop (thanks to Sommerset that I knew that one before reading it in Vogue Sewing!), and I'm working on cutting out the pieces for the underskirt.  Two weeks and counting!

Purple PJ Fix

I wear sewing project #1, the purple pajamas, on an almost daily basis in the colder months.  They are by far the warmest pajamas I have found to date.  For the second time now, the pajamas have come up with a hole in the center seam.

Knowing how these particular pajama pants were constructed, I dug up the purple thread and threw them on the sewing machine to stitch them up.

What I don't know is why this keeps happening.  On a basic level I realize that these pants get a lot of wear, and being so loose, especially have a strain point at the center seam.  But it seems that there should be a way to reinforce the seam so that would make it stronger.  So this time, I sewed two seam lines in the area where the hole occurred.  I didn't get the straightest seam in the world, but the pants are way too loose for that to ever be noticeable.

We'll see how that holds up.

To Sew or Not To Sew...

I am back home after a two-week work trip.  In the intervening time, my husband and I have decided that we will be traveling to London for Halloween, in 22 days!  My brother-in-law, who lives in London, is getting married on Halloween and having a costume ball for the party.  Suddenly I need a kick-ass, awesomelicious costume finalized in three weeks.  Gah!

If I did sew my own costume, I'm learning towards some kind of autumn/woodsey fairy.  The other option would be to rent something, but in that case I would probably go for something more recognizable like a flapper girl or something princessy.

I wouldn't want to go with stereotypical fairy, but something less commercialized.  In looking through multitudes of costume patterns, I came across Simplicity 9966.  View B (bottom left) specifically, could be adjusted to a neat fairy costume.  I would likely make the dress without the sleeves and probably shorten the skirts.  I might also go with a different corset.

Which brings me to McCall 5732, with a very classical fairy corset which might help bring the fairy essence to the costume.  Of course the wings will help too.

At this point I'm feeling pretty in over my head with trying to sew something as complicated as a corset in such a short time frame.  I certainly wouldn't want to end up with something that looked home-made.  Plus, I can probably rent a costume for the cost of the materials that I would want to use, never mind the cost of wings that didn't look grade-school.

I might just have to go rental shopping and see if I fall in love with something...

Poodle Skirt

For my second project, I knew I wanted to make my own Halloween costume.  I'd never gone as a 50s girl, and a poodle skirt seemed simple enough.  I settled on pink acrylic felt and McCall's 5681.

I really enjoyed the process of making the skirt, but was not at all pleased with the result.  Two layers of thick felt gathered at the waist does nothing for an apple girl's figure, especially one with such a short torso.

My biggest problem was the petticoat.  The pattern back calls for netting or tulle for the petticoat fabric.  In my naivete, I assumed they were realitvely the same thing and bought tulle.  Needless to say, tulle did not give any boost to the heavy felt at all.  So, I got petticoat net and tried again, this time with a stiff lining fabric underneath.  That had some structure to it, but still didn't give the skirt much shape.  I wanted to add a ruffle to the bottom of the petticoat but ran out of time.  I ended up wearing both, as seen in the photo below.

After my unenthusiastic wearing of the ensemble on Halloween, I decided to move on to bigger and better things.

Colorado Quilt: Introduction

Part of the inspiration for my recent decision to take up sewing was my second wedding anniversary.  I enjoy traditions and creativity against constraints.  More than six months in advance of the date in question, I decided a cotton quilt would be the perfect second anniversary present.  I wanted something that would be relatively easy and hard to mess up.  When I came across "Splashes of Color" on AllPeopleQuilt.com, I instantly knew I wanted to make it.

Rotary cutter, sewing machine, and a substantial pile of new batik fabrics later, I got to work.  Come February 2009, I wasn't even half-way through sewing the blocks.  I still surprised my husband with the idea, and finished the first pass at the blocks a few months later.

Once I had it all up on the wall, I realized the pinks didn't match the tone of the other fabrics.  (Ah, the value of the quilt wall!)  There were two light pink fabrics that looked almost white compared to the others.

My new pink fabrics came in today.  So now I get the arduous task of ripping up the blocks that I have created and sewing all new ones.  Luckily, I only have 14 to make this time.

MC Hammer Pajama Pants

For my first project, I wanted to tackle something easy and usable.  I decided on pajama pants as the ideal.  No sleeves or zippers to mess with.  And if they came out really terrible, I could still wear them without being embarrassed!

I stumbled on "It's so Easy" 3548 from Simplicity, so I picked out some nice flannel fabric from JoAnn's (in the middle of the summer in Denver) and got to work.

In the end, I was very pleased.  Not only did the pants actually look reasonably like pajamas one might buy in a store, but they were actually long enough! I have long legs, and while I can typically find ready-to-wear pants that are long, I have yet to come across long-length pajamas.  I didn't think ahead and cut the legs any longer, but I used a large size to start with and hemmed as little as possible.  Having pajamas that come down to the tops of my feet made such a difference in the cold winter months!

I call them my MC Hammer pants because the legs are VERY wide.  It's kind of like walking around wearing a blanket.

Welcome!

After over a year of obsessively following accomplished sewists in the blogosphere (see "Inspirations" on the right) and salivating over their skills and creativity, I have decided to create my own sewing story, one stitch at a time.

A little background: I have always been very interested in fabrics and textile arts.  One of my grandmothers was an extremely talented quilter who hand-quilted every quilt she made. The other was an amazing knitter who sewed only when she had to but could make anything you could imagine with yarn.  I was always interested in sewing and had each of them show me tidbits here and there.  My family moved thousands of miles away when I was six, however, and summer projects weren't enough to get me going on my own.

This is what I have to live up to: a quilt made for me by my grandmother when I was just a baby.

Jump ahead 20 years to the summer of 2008.  Both of those wonderful women have passed on to the next phase of life, and I find myself in a new community, far from family and friends, feeling empowered after moving 1,000 miles with my husband and two cats because we wanted to.  I suddenly decided to no longer feel as though I could not sew because I had never been taught.  I wasn't going to wake up one day and suddenly have the skills I felt I would need to be able to enjoy sewing.  Why not enjoy the process of sewing, even if the results are less-than desirable for a long time?  So I went out and bought myself a sewing machine and started sewing...