Can This Pattern Be Saved?

When I signed up for Craftsy's class,  Sewing With Silks by Linda Lee, it came with a pattern for  The Sewing Workshop's Liberty Shirt.   I've gotten several patterns with classes and I  haven't used any of them.  This  isn't one I would have bought for myself either.  There are no darts or or other fitting seams which makes it not exactly the most flattering garment for someone with a DD cup bust. 

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What looks like a princess seam is actually the stitching line for the facing.  I really hate the floppy standing collar and it would just make my short neck look shorter.  Why is it that most of her patterns are so buttoned up?  I get claustrophobic just looking at this one, never mind wearing it. But in some respects it's an interesting pattern. with an interesting shape.  The question is, can it be saved or should I just give it away to a reader who is better suited to this style?  How would you change this pattern to work for a curvy woman?

Two Tee Shirts

TNT (tried and true) patterns are a real time saver especially when you always have to make lots of  pattern alterations.  I've made this t shirt shorter, longer (these are on the longer side) with more ease, and less.  I've made it with short sleeves, 3/4 sleeves and long.  For the most part they are pretty basic, but they fit and I can cut them out and know that they will work.  I cut a 1" sas to accommodate knits with differing amounts of stretch.  I like them looser when the knit is very light weight like this gray wool rayon lycra jersey.  This silky,  high quality knit is from B&J.  Sigrid was looking for some special pieces of fabric when she was here so we headed to B&J for  our first stop. They have some exquisite and unique pieces; some priced  in the stratosphere,  but there is a lot that is well priced and gorgeous. We both found what we were looking for. 
Python prints are very big this year and when I found this one on Fabric.com I bought 4 yards, all that they had at the time. You've seen the dress and I had enough left over for a t shirt.  But I love the color blocked look of print fronts and solid backs and sleeves. I made this one in a V neck because they are always touted as 'slimming'.  Maybe, maybe not.  But I don't like them too deep in winter because it's cold to have so much exposed chest!

The pants are from the summer in my tnt pattern for pants,  made from a linen lycra blend from Marcy Tilton.  Certainly not for today's weather!  I need a pair of heavier gray pants to wear with this, which is actually next up on my sewing list after the sweater jacket I'm working on. The second top, or rather the third, if you count the black and white stripe Style Arc knock off, is also made with  fabric from Marcy Tilton.  It's another of those double layer textured knits that I like so much. I don't remember what the content is but it has lycra and at least some polyester.

I also made a pair of red linen pants just like these, so I won't bother to post them.

Now for a taste of my new sewing, Burda Style 117 11/13.

The pattern calls for ponte knit, leather sleeves and leather trim.  I'm using this beautiful double sided wool sweater knit from emmaonesock/ instead, with the striped side showing for the sleeves and the plain side for the body of the jacket.  The collar is a single layer and the inside or the striped side shows.  The trim will be black leather from a leftover skin I've had sitting for several years. More next time.

Have a great weekend.

La Mia Boutique #4 9/10 Review

Sometimes a picture isn't  worth a 1000 words. Particularly in some of the pattern magazines. Burda is certainly guilty of looking more like a fashion magazine than a pattern publication.  If there hadn't been a good technical drawing I'd never have known what this actually looked like! The picture is certainly telling me that this is more appropriate for Alex than for my curvy body. But I liked the lines of the technical drawing and I knew with some added length it could work for me.  I made a muslin for this with some really ugly rayon lycra knit. (yes, I actually bought it)  It was a softer, lighter fabric than the cotton lycra I ultimately used. Never having used La Mia Boutique I decided that making a muslin was a smart move.   I am enamored of animal prints, not a surprise huh?  I was seeing a lot python prints in ready to wear. and I scoured the internet for one in a knit.  This one came came from Fabric.com not one of my favorite sellers, but this is a nice quality with good weight.  The biggest issue I had with it, and I have found this to be common in cotton lycra knits, is rolling at the cut edges.  This can make it a pain to sew; lots of pins at the edges is the only way to sew it easily. 

Were the instructions good? I have no idea since I don't speak Italian. I never bother translating because I find the translation nearly as incomprehensible as the Italian.  It's really good way to become less dependent on written instructions. Even when they are in English, as with Burda Style they aren't very good.  I write a construction order to make sure that I do things in the most economical and intelligent way.  Of course this doesn't always work, but it gets me thinking on how I want to proceed.  This was really a very simple first pattern to make with La Mia Boutiqu

Does it look like the original?   As you can see in the photos, it's not really easy to tell what it looks like.  But, I like how it came out and that's all that matters. Actually, looking at the photos I would make it a little shorter and peg the bottom in a bit more. I still may do that.  I wore this bare legged and with gray wedge sandals which I think that it looked better styled that way.

Changes I made  Obviously I lengthened it.  I made a vertical fba, using my upper bust measurement for the neck and shoulders and the amount of negative ease I wanted at the bust.  This depends on how much stretch there is.  I also don't want to make the midriff area tight, so I adjust the bust accordingly and ease into increased width at waist and hips. I always add an in case seam allowance on the side seams so that I can adjust the fit. It allows for difference in stretch  among knits. The pattern magazines don't have a stretch guide like the big 4 do.   There were no markings for how much to gather the side. I made an educated guess. I used narrow elastic for the gathering because when I tried to use basting stitches, the curling was just too difficult to control even with wider seam allowances.

Would I make it again? Probably not since I've got a lot of dress patterns I want to make and I don't wear dresses all that often. 

This was made back in September to wear to a luncheon honoring my MIL.  She's 93 years old and the Asheville, NC. YWCA honored her, along with two other women as a Woman of Influence at their annual luncheon.  That she certainly is.  Her list of accomplishments is way to long to list here.  

 

La Mia Boutique is available from Around the World Fashion Magazines   in both single issues and by subscription.  I was in the store in September and they had a lot of older issues and I think they had this one if you are interested.  Give them a call and ask.

I'm Back

Sometimes the longer you put off doing something, like writing this blog the harder it is to get back to it.  I wasn't sewing a lot and I not one of the patterns I posted in my last blog post got sewn..
Ah well, there is always this spring but in the meantime I have done more sewing this fall.  I have some more pieces to photograph but none of it was very difficult or challenging.  I did finally make a dress from La Mia Boutique which was only challenging because I don't read Italian.  More about that when I post it.
Mostly I used my tnt patterns. I've used this Silhouette Giorgio's top so many times that it's become a tnt pattern.

This is a double layered knit with the outer layer cut to reveal a sheer black knit attached underneath. I'm always looking for unique fabrics like this one from Marcy Tilton.  The pants are from my tnt pattern, much altered from the original wide leg Hot Patterns Razor Sharp Pants.  The original is a fly front faced pant; mine has a fly front and a straight waistband. I've narrowed the leg down here  and cropped it a bit.  The fabric is a light matelasse in a stretch blend from Emmaonesock.  Posing in my new front garden this fall you can see my husband's handiwork in the stone path made from recycled bluestone salvaged from a client's former patio.  The blue plant on the left is Geranium Rozanne, a newer hybrid that blooms all summer long. Really.  I planted it blooming in May and here it is October still blooming.  

Jump ahead to Thanksgivikah otherwise known as Thanksgiving and Chanukah. No, this is not the Style Arc pattern. I had just ordered some patterns from them. When they posted this as the freebie of the month  I really didn't have the budget to order more patterns so I used my tnt t shirt and cut it apart.  It was fun to do  and I like wearing it.  The top fabric is from Emmaonesock, a beefy rayon lycra jersey.  I've been making my sleeves longer than normal because I am tired of having rayon shrink more and making my sleeves too short, but I may have overdone it here. 

If you find wool crepe fabric hanging in your closet in a cleaner's bag that you have no recollection of buying or having had steam shrunk is it free?  Seriously, I found this lovely wool and lycra crepe in the hanging portion of my fabric closet and made yet another version of my tnt pants.  I underlined it to the knee with a stretch silk remnant.   I sewed the darts on lining and outer fabric before basting them together. Then I treated them as one.  I lengthened the cropped pattern and narrowed the pants a bit more.  I've been using cotton and rayon petersham  from Judith M. It's stiffer than the 100% rayon I've gotten from Pacific Trimming and works better as a facing for my waistband.  It's comfortable and stable. I do add some mid weight interfacing to the outer band.

My children were both visiting for Thanksgiving and it was nice having them both here at the same time.  Alex cleaned out more stuff from her room and my dh packed 4 boxes of books to send to Texas. She needs a few more bookcases before they all get sent.

Here is  another of the Vogue 8815 blouses that I made her  for Chanukah. This time it has the usual cb invisible zipper.  I also  used self trim for bias binding as I did fir the silk top I made her last February. 

Unfortunately  none of the pictures were very good.  It's  cotton with woven circles  from Emmaonesock.  Lily likes it too.

More to come. I've got the La Mia Boutique dress and 2 more tops to photograph.

Have a great New Years!

New Patterns

The recent BMV sale was a boon to my pattern stash, or a glut, depending on how you look at it.
I was really surprised that Vogue managed to get it's sold out Marcy Tilton and Sandra Betzina patterns back in stock for the next sale.  This is what I picked up.

I cannot wear this as fitted as this, but Marcy wrote a blog post on the dress and suggested adding ease so that it  just skims the body.  I also will add sheer sleeves to this I think. Sleeves at any rate.

I like the lines of this coat.  I do think that I may play with it a bit.  It's a bit too long for me I think and I don't know if I like the side slits.  It calls for yards of double seam binding which I don't love. I do  love to sew  a Hong Kong finish on seams so I'll do that instead.  Kenneth King, in his new Craftsy class shows a very nifty way to make lots of yards of bias  strips easily.  I just can't find the right fabric for this. I want it in a color that will go with my neutrals. At first I sent for lots of metallic linens, but they seem too much for daytime.  Maybe if I can find the right yellow.  Royal blue, or a marine or light navy  is another options  Question, for those of you who saw this coat in person at PR weekend.  Did she say why she used bias sleeves?  It would save a lot of fabric to change them to straight grain.  

I've never been into crazy pants, but these look really wearable.  I have a lot of yardage of black rayon lycra knit that I bought at Metro a few years ago for a nightgown and robe I never made. It's light weight but these should be roomy enough for it at least for a muslin.  

The other dress bottom in this pattern is the one they chose to make up and it's god awful.  But this one is perfect for a summer linen dress. I've got some acid green linen that would work perfectly for this.  Yes, readers a color!  I bought it at Waechter's in Asheville about 3 summers ago. Time for  me to use it.  

Finally, my first acquisition of Style Arc patterns is here.  I bought the Marita dress for some snake print jersey in my stash.  Yes, now  have two snake prints.  Not the cotton lycra one I showed last time, but a rayon lycra from a sale at Fabric Mart. When?  Long enough ago to not remember I had it when I bought the cotton piece.  It's a different color way at least.

Did you know that instead of telling you what kind of fabric to use that they include a sample fabric?  Great for beginners who don't know fabrics yet.  This is supposed to take 1 hour.  We'll see.  I also got a grading from them which will be helpful in enlarging the hip area. I also bought a blouse and got the free April blouse as well.  I like this month's freeby but I really need to wait until I make this up before I buy any more.  Burda was abysmal this month, so nothing gained there. At least I've got these lovely new Vogues to sew.

That's it for now. Hopefully the next post will actually have sewn by me clothing. 

Have a great weekend.

Spring has Sprung

But you'd never know it from the fabrics I've been buying or pulling out of my stash. 
It's not that I don't like color, I just don't love wearing it.Since I've let my hair go white I have been limiting the colors I wear. I like gray and black on me, so that's what I've been buying.  I will add some color accents to all of this black, gray, ivory and white with scarves until it gets too hot to wear them. I also bought a pair of cobalt blue sandals.  There are  some pieces from last season, like a cobalt blue cardigan that will look good with these non colors. 

These are my knit choices including a cotton double knit(top right) from Diane von Furstenberg that will be a motorcycle jacket for spring. It is the only piece of fabric that I've bought from Sawyer Brook. Unlined, but basically like my leather jacket. I'll add back in some ease in the sleeve cap. 

The snake print left side, second down, is the newest addition to the collection and I've got enough for a top and a dress. I love textured or layered knits and I've got two of those, third down on the left and third down on the right, both from Marcy Tilton.  I've been finding more and more fabrics that I love on her website lately. She has lots of blacks and grays and other 'non' colors that I like.  Third down is a layered knit that looks almost hand dyed with cuts that show the black underlayer. Under that is a rayon knit print with a touch of cobalt blue. There's another knit from Marcy third down on the right. It's another gray and black textured, layered knit from Marcy. Below that is another animal print in rayon and lycra.

For pants and jackets I have, starting on the top left  a Zegna black linen from a Michael's half price sale. I've got about 5 yards of this. 
Next down  is a pale gray Donna Karan stretch linen, below that is an  Armani black and gray small checked rayon lycra blend from a Fabric Mart sale.  A piece of that Marc Jacob's denim is on the bottom.  On the right is the black cotton double knit and a rayon acetate crepe with a  raised stripe from Manhattan Fabrics recent sale. Next is a black and teal cotton snake print from Metro Textiles and last is black cotton and lycra sateen, also from Metro.

Last up are some of my blouse choices. From the top down, white linen, a gray cotton shirting with a fine metallic stripe from a visit to Waechter's three summers ago. Next is a cotton print from Emmaonesock also a few years old. I told you I'd been planning to make blouses for awhile! Below that is a black and white stretch silk from Mood.  The bottom two are from emmaonesock, a  gold layered over gray linen and a black and white cotton shirting.  That last one is Hugo Boss and it's presently on Elliot Berman's website for half price.  Where by the way I picked up 4 yards of a French cotton voile for Marcy Tilton's new dress for Vogue,

V8876.

What other patterns will I use?  I have tnt patterns for pants and jeans now so I'll use those and this  'sleeveless blazer', Burda 111 4/13.

  For one blouse I'll use Katherine Tiltons portrait collar blouse V8834

For the striped knit I like this one by Katherine Tilton as well V8710

That's it for now.  I have lots of sewing ahead, hopefully my sewing mojo won't let me down!

Hot Patterns 1115 Classix Nouveau Dressy Jeans

Does it look like the illustration? If I were 6' tall, sure.  But seriously, I do like the fit of these jeans.  There is no way my pancake flat ass is going to be wrinkle free, but I can live with that.  I finished these in January but never got around to photographing them until today. I've worn them a lot and made a second pair, but I tried to make the fit more 'perfect' and they don't fit as well as the first pair. I  removed my alterations to return to the original pattern.  Actually they fit better before the holidays but that's life.  The knit top I made  after Thanksgiving.  Since it's basically my tnt t shirt, there is nothing to write about except the fabric, which is a gorgeous rayon lycra knit from Emmaonesock. I have found that the silkier the rayon knit the more it has a tendency to pill. This one has a dry hand that wears really well as well as feeling wonderful.  

Back to my jeans. How many muslins did I make?  Who knows, I've lost count. One thing I do recommend if you are about to embark on a jeans fitting odyssey is to make your muslins out of denim. When I found stretch denim on sale at Fabric.com I bought about 10 yards. Even that wasn't quite enough, but I persevered and finally got to a  pair of jeans that I can live with. Several years ago I had attempted jeans but gave up because I had so much trouble using topstitching thread in my Viking Platinum 850. Since then I'd bought a vintage 6010 Viking which  plows through  topstitching with jeans topstitching thread like a champ.  It was a pleasure.  I do use a Schmetz denim size 100 needle, the largest I can find. It sews through layers beautifully.

Don't overfit; you'll get a pair of jeans you can't sit down in!  Remember, we are used to seeing perfect, wrinkle free clothing in magazines.  Not so easy in real life, especially if you are an older woman and gravity has hit or you have pancake butt like I do.  I can get a pair of trousers to fit perfectly, but jeans can't because of the nature of the draft and the realities of my body.  It's ok. I can't find a pair that fit better than this in rtw and certainly the price for jeans in high quality fabric  is ridiculous.  

In this pair I ended up taking two darts in the back yoke because it was too big. I could have recut it, but I'd already topstitched and besides, who's going to see it if I don't tuck in my tops? There is a seam in the center back waistband.  Again, no one is going to see it, it uses quite a bit less fabric, and it provides a place to adjust the fit.

Brian Sews has a nice set of videos on applying a jeans tack button and installing rivets. But I found it hard to get them installed perfectly with a hammer. They kept falling out in the wash. Enter my husband's addiction to machinery auctions. He has two arbor presses, the smaller of the two,see below, now resides in my studio and  applies both tack buttons and rivets perfectly.  In the photos below you can see him installing rivets and a tack button on my jeans.  You still can't apply nipple rivets without crushing them, but if I want to use them he says it's easy to drill a hole in a piece of steel that will fit the nipple and keep it from getting crushed.  

Mood Fabrics periodically has email sales of 50% off selected fabrics. A couple of weeks ago it was Marc Jacobs denim for $5 a yard, which just  happened to be among the samples I had ordered from Mood sometime last fall.  It was also my favorite of maybe 20 samples, so of course I snapped up enough for 3 more pairs of jeans.  I also have some Japanese denim that I bought for 3 times the price from emmaonesock,  plus some colored denim, enough for 5 more pairs of jeans.  

Hopefully the next post will be my finished blouse. Have a wonderful weekend.