Hanging a Sleeve

You may remember that I was working on a white blouse with black piping.  It was temporarily abandoned to finish Alex's blouse.  There is still some work to do on it, but in the meantime anonymous asked if I could clarify how I fit the sleeve. Sew  the underarm, should have read  baste 3" on either side of the underarm seam.  

 When I took the sleeve drafting class with Kenneth King we sewed up half of our blouse sloper and one sleeve with 1" sas in the armscye and sleeve cap.  After sewing the underarm make sure that you clip into the sas on the sewn portion.  The seam line is marked on both pieces and you fold the seam allowance back on the sleeve cap and pin in place matching your notch to the shoulder seam.  On my own, I hung the sleeve on my dress form and then tried it on.  I have a right shoulder that is about 1" further forward of the left one so my shoulder mark is forward of the original marking. Because the sleeve was fit to my  blouse sloper made from the  moulage  I made in an earlier class, the shoulder seam placement was already correct, but my arm itself is forward of this.   He didn't change the shoulder seam placement when we fit the sleeve. 

 I kept shifting the sleeve backward and forward until I got the sleeve to hang well with no twisting. Sometimes you'll need more height in the sleeve cap and the 1" seam gives you enough room to adjust it.  Mark with pencil slashes(on muslin) so that the new placement is marked on both the sleeve cap and the armscye.  The underarm seam will have to move as well so that the ease is evenly distributed.  In my case I have to move the underam on the sleeve towards the back an inch. It won't match the side seam but it isn't seen. It's better to have a sleeve that hangs well than a matched underarm seam!  Before I sew it I'll pin it and baste in place to double check the fit.  

Because my arm is so far forward, my right sleeve has more room in the front of the sleeve and a flatter back curve than you get in a commercially drafted sleeve.

If you find that the sleeve still needs adjustment in the good stuff mark the new placement with a Frixion pen.  Don't know what that is?  It's a cool pen that disappears with heat, an iron, and will reappear if you put it in the freezer for a few minutes.  It disappears permanently if you wash it in the invisible stage. Available in a  variety of  colors, but unfortunately not  in  white. It only works well  on smooth fabric. I got a 3 pack at Staples, but Amazon has them in a nice assortment of colors.

By the way, this pj like top was the inspiration for my blouse.

Changing a Garment to Fit The Disabled

That easy to install center back invisible zipper that has become ubiquitous in rtw today is not so easy for anyone with shoulder injuries that prevent full range of motion.  My daughter Alex is only temporarily disabled, thank goodness but she still can't, and won't be able to for quite a few months yet, get into any of the dresses in her wardrobe because she can't get that damn zipper up by herself.  She had surgery at the end of January to repair a posterior labral tear in her left shoulder  that she suffered in the fall from a climbing mishap.  For the uninitiated, that's the part that keeps your arm connected to your shoulder. It was worse than the MRI showed and she probably has 6 more months of physical therapy until she regains full mobility. Fortunately, she has very good insurance with unlimited PT.

I had fit Vogue 8815 for her in the fall when I saw her, but didn't finish  it until this week. There were so many other projects to work on and really, lack of sewing mojo lately made it a late birthday present. Not that late, her birthday was the 21st of March. She is visiting this week, it fits and she loves it and happily posed for me.

The blouse is silk charmeuse from Mood Fabrics in NYC that she had picked out some years ago. It also lines a suit  jacket I made for  her with pants and a skirt a few years ago. We never got around to a blouse.  

Changes I made;

As far as fitting changes unrelated to  mobility, I added a 1/2" full bust adjustment. With a 32 DD bust you'd think that she would need more room, but there is only a 2" difference between her upper bust and her full bust.  She has a muscular back and pectorals from climbing that accounts for the B cup measurement.  I made a size 8, the smallest size.

The second alteration I made was to narrow the cross chest measurement by 3/8" making it 3/4" narrower.

For mobility I changed the back invisible zipper to a regular zipper installed on the side. I made it open at the underarm and the opening is as long as I could make it.  There's a small hook and thread loop at the waist seam to keep the zipper from opening when she wears it.  I bought Susan Khalje's Couture Dress class on Craftsy, and I installed the zipper by hand using her instructions.  I've done this before, but not in many years.  It was easy, probably easier than sewing it in by machine on such a slippery fabric.  She wanted it on the right side opposite of the usual placement, but it worked better for her injury, which is her left shoulder.   
Now of course the neck wouldn't fit over her head. I could have made a v neckline or a deeper curve, but she liked the high neckline.  Keeping the back seam I just made a turned and hand picked opening in the back with a hook and eye to close it.

As you can see, she can get into it on her own.  The hook at the neckline is a bit of a pain one handed but she can always get someone in the office to hook that for her.  

SPAM!

What is it with all these spammers?  I have been spending good time deleting obnoxious, and outright lewd comments from anonymous posters lately and I've had enough. If you are a legitimate reader and post anonymously, I am sorry but to post from now on you'll have to register.  
What's the point of all this spamming?  They always end with visit my blog or website and really, who would  really visit after reading absolutely irrelevant and off topic, obnoxious comments?

Do You Pipe?

Burda style 135

Piping has been on my learn to sew list for quite awhile now and I am finally going to use some in a blouse.  Pattern Review is hosting a fitted blouse contest and since that's also been on my list of things to sew, I am making a white blouse with black piping.  I don't like collar stands with my short neck but I found this blouse BS135 from 5/12 with a convertible collar.  Perfect. Well except that I wanted long sleeves that don't button, and it needed to fit my bust so in the process it became more fitted with vertical darts added to the existing side bust dart.  I thought about making them into two vertical darts but I didn't want it that formfitting below my bust. I did balance the darts since the side dart became very large. I rotated a portion of it into the vertical dart. Much better.  I added a cb seam so that I could make my usual flat back alteration, and a pair of back darts.  I thought I needed them to meet the fitted blouse definition but since a pattern that only had bust darts met the criteria I may leave them off.  Or not.   The blouse will be in a white cotton poplin; expensive, gorgeous, silky white cotton shirting that I bought at B & J when I met Claire Kennedy in NYC a couple of years ago. I would never have spent that much on cotton shirting on my own, but Claire was buying some and I couldn't resist. The piping, which I made today, is black silk and linen from a very good sale at Michael's Fabrics.  I have lots of it, it's gorgeous and I have never made anything from it.  I was really thinking about a pair of pants and a matching top, but I'll get to it. 

The pattern is ready to cut out first thing tomorrow and my cutting table is actually clean and ready to go. I made a full pattern to accommodate the difference in my shoulder so my 5' wide cutting table will come in handy.  When I took the pattern drafting class with Kenneth King  I learned that my right shoulder is quite a bit forward of the left. Not only does the shoulder seam need to come forward at the shoulder tip, but the sleeve cap has to have quite a bit more in the front of the sleeve as well as flattening the curve out in back.  The muslin was good without the binding I always get at the front sleeve cap.  I also had to move the match point on the right sleeve quite a bit to the front, while the left sleeve was fine.  KK had us sew the under sleeve for about 3" on either side of the underarm seam so that he could adjust the sleeve forward or back until it hung correctly.  I did the same thing here and it worked. Of course it is a bit harder doing it on yourself!

I am really hoping that this blouse will become a tnt pattern since I have quite a bit of shirting material in my stash.  After all a blouse has been on my to sew list for a number of years now and a girl needs more than one blouse, doesn't she?

What's Wrong with This Jacket?

This jacket is by Vanessa Bruno and  retails for $770.  Did no one look at this and say, hey the sleeve is inserted incorrectly?  If it fits the model this badly who does it fit?  Maybe the sleeve is even in backwards?  I imagine it could happen in the factory, just like it's happened to all of us a time or two.  But, we don't  leave it like that. 
This jacket was featured in an email I received from Mode Walk today.  Did  they not notice how bad this is?  
I don't shop retail unless I am snoop shopping or, looking at websites.  I was in Neiman Marcus in Austin in January and I thought that the clothing I was looking at was beautifully made.  Of course I was on the designer floor and all of it was expensive.  This is probably well made too, but quality control was certainly sleeping when this one went by.

I will be back to my regularly scheduled blogging soon; I needed a break but sewing has been going on.
Have a good weekend

Up Next

There are two walls in my sewing room, one of them has windows and the second one is a movable wall hung on barn door track. The surface is homosote and I pin various things on it, including this design canvas. I took some muslin and use it for pinning fabrics, moving them in and out to see what combinations I like best.  The photo pinned to it is my current inspiration, pulled to the front when I got some lovely wool gabardine samples from Michael's.  You can see the blue Italian cashmere and wool gabardine above.  Gabardine is definitely not my favorite wool to sew with. It's hard surface is difficult to press and it doesn't have the same drape as  plain weave worsteds or even better yet, wool crepe.  But, it was the exact color of the photo and hell, I am tired of black and gray for pants.  You'll recall the leopard print?  I  didn't have a green quite as vibrant as the tweed coat, but I did have this green wool blend doubleknit in my stash. It's the sample above the black, gray and white knit print on the board.  It's much brighter in real life, much greener than the photo shows.  That will be a zip front cardigan and the knit a top.  That black and white tweed to the left of the blue is a silk charmeuse that will eventually become a blouse for this collection.  

Lots of steam and pressure is necessary for pressing gabardine flat, but by the same token it marks very easily.  Press as sewn first and then press it open.

Gabardine presses flat better on a hard surface. I have this on a wood cheese board(don't know why it's called this, but it's not for cutting cheese!) with muslin covering it.  The envelopes keep the seam edges from imprinting on the outside. Lots of steam, a clapper presses it flat and then I leave it until it's cool before moving.  It's worth it. In the picture above you can see the seam that was pressed and clapped on the left, the envelopes still in place and the pressed open but not clapped seam to the right.  It's open, but it doesn't stay flat.  Lots of time but it's worth it.  Sometimes I think I spend more time pressing than sewing.

I have not given up my color blocked coat but I needed something easy to sew, and for me that's a pair of pants.  I found a pattern for the coat in an old Burda and I'll trace that and make a muslin while I sew this group.  

Next up, the latest class with Kenneth King.

I Voted

Hopefully you have already voted or are planning to get to the polls.  I certainly urge you to do so. I was brought up in a family that never missed an election as was my husband.  We taught our children that voting is a privilege. How many people are there in the world who don't have that right?  

My family has all voted. My children took advantage of early voting in their states, Alex because it was easier to do it on her day off, and Josh because he's in China. My dil was at the polls at 6:04 this morning so that she could vote, take Jakob to daycare and get to work on time.  

Vote.  It's important.