motorharp | Entries tagged with sewing

I see a lot of books come in through work with titles like "Unexpected Soups" and "Unexpected Houseplants" or "Unexpected Knitting" and always laugh a little - like, did you not see that coming? You have to get ingredients or supplies.

I kind of get it now.

There's a knitter I follow (on ravelry) who not only knits sweaters at an impressive rate, but has embroidered some of them beautifully. One of the artists she got inspired by is Yumiko Higuchi who has written a few embroidery books, and work happened to have "Zakka Embroidery" available.

I looked through it and took it home to see if I would be inspired.

After some unplanned and random digging, I found the leftover floss from my western shirt, embroidery hoops, researched needles to see if I had the right ones (sort of), got out linen (her fabric of choice) from my stash, and started. Whoa. Unexpected.

The next morning, while running errands, I realized I was (unexpectedly) close to a store that was open that had embroidery needles, so ran in and got those. They worked much better.

After a few hours I had this:

And then I ran out of thread. And of course, this is the one color I had that was not DMC floss. But it had the equivalent color number on it! Off to JoAnns, the only store open late in the area that had embroidery floss.*

But would the color match?

I've embroidered before... 7 years ago. Pulling up those memories was s l o w. There were stitches I made after which I said, "Oh right!" and then, "Not fixing it!"

I finished it up that night at, I think, 10:30. Despite the late hour, I noticed I was stitching much faster that when I started. Yay!

Then I thought, "What am I going to do with this?", figured out this little bit of embroidery would fit on the sleep mask pattern in the same book, and sewed it the next day.

Yellow orange embroidry on black linen sleep mask

I can't notice any color difference, can you?

So yeah, unexpected embroidery.

*One store is only open on Tuesdays for 5 hours?

I just finished reading Overdressed by Elizabeth L. Cline (2011). In it she talks about how fast fashion is bad for the environment, workers, and, well, fashion. One of the ways to she says we can mitigate the effects of fast fashion is refashioning. It was timely because - I did that!

I have been doing that with my clothes and thrift store clothes for years, decades at this point.

Earlier this year, I went through my closet and sorted things into piles: keep, toss, mend, I want a new one, and I wish this were something else.

I made McCall's 7439 c. 1964 size in black corduroy with Bemberg Cupromonium Rayon underlining a few years ago.

McCall's 7439 vintage sewing pattern c. 1964

I made the collarless version. I thought it would be a nice basic wardrobe piece. It was not.

I've had Simplicity 3369 c. 1960s size 14 on my to-make list for a long time.

Simplicity 3369 vintage sewing pattern c. 1960s

Could I get this jacket out of the dress?!?

Since the dress had raglan sleeves and the jacket had set-in sleeves, it looked dicey. I held the jacket sleeve pattern pieces to the bodice pattern piece and kind of held it over the dress. (Suuuuper not technical or precise.)

Surprisingly, the finished dress bodice was pretty much the same exact width as the jacket pattern. The jacket pattern just had straight side seams. I could just reuse the bodice!

The sleeves looked ok? So they could stay attached!

Which was weird because it was a really fitted dress. They were both a size 14 - maybe the pattern companies all used the same fit models and slopers?

But oh well, I just wanted to make something, so I dove in, removed the side zipper, ripped the side seams, took out all the darts, took off the skirt, and started laying out pattern pieces.

I still had scraps in my stash.

So, would there be enough to make it? Yes! Sort of.

Note: The photos show how wrinkled it is because I'm wearing the heck out of this jacket.

And I loathe ironing.

The skirt made the jacket longer (with pieced lengths), filled in the side seams, and lapel facings (which are pieced).

The sleeves were almost long enough as is - the cuffs, when undone, were a lot of extra length.

Scraps made up the collar and finished the lapels.

And the corduroy was done. Slivers were leftover.

So sturdy cotton pajama fabric lined the collar and pockets, and extra lining to cover horse hair canvas that should have been under the underlining.

Worst finishing job on the inside of a jacket ever. Worse than fast fashion, though?

Because the lapels had so many pieces, it's super bulky and won't iron flat. Do the buttons and buttonholes work? No! But I wouldn't be able to button it anyway because it's a little snug.

But I don't care! I love this thing. I've worn it approximately 34 times more than the dress. It's exactly the sort of crumpled, vintage-y looking jacket I wanted.

What do you do after a week of closet cleaning and mending? You make an impulse purchase of a pattern, cut up some old clothes and stash fabric, and make a New Thing.

The Wiksten Haori was shared with me by a coworker a few months ago, and I hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. I had a medieval linen tunic I made and wore once to an SCA event a decade ago hanging in my closet waiting for me to do something with it. The linings were harvested from a 20s robe I made out of velvet and silk lining that I never wore, and some silk dupioni that was a failed garment just waiting in my stash.

As usual, I did not take before photos.

I managed to eke out an XXS (I'm a Small, according to the measurement chart) and spent two days sewing and combining all the pieces into a very comfortable, lightweight jacket.

If I make this again, I'd probably try the S, or make the sleeves wider. I made it 7/8" longer, which corresponded to the largest size length, and it's just right.

Photos will get posted at some point.

Pajamas wear out way too fast, which is why I decided to use lightweight twill for these. I will never have to make pajamas again. If these last 40 years, that is. If I'm lucky. /too dark?

Anyway.

There is a yeti somewhere in the idyllic landscape print. It is Yeti Toile from spoonflower and designed by chris_jorge. As mentioned above, I had it printed on lightweight twill.

Unfortunately, the printing was off grain. By about 4"! Fortunately, it did not affect the final pjs, because you have to order whole yards at spoonflower, I had enough fabric.

I've ordered other fabric from spoonflower and have never had this happen. ???

How to make a scarf with just a serger and wash away stabilizer.

I could use some of these techniques, especially for creating fringe, with the leftover sandwashed rayon from my twisted dress.

The coworker who gifted me a few pieces of vintage fabric was at work yesterday, and I was finally able to tell her that in addition to the bag, I made a dress from some of her fabric.

We got to talking and she mentioned she'd been making bibs for her granddaughter, which then led to a general workroom discussion about how awful modern bibs are (too short and don't stay closed), which then led to her talking about how her family has been telling her she should make and sell them.

Like me, she really doesn't want to have to put in the massive effort and time that would require, for little monetary return. She said something that really resonated with me about why we both sew unique things and don't want to do manufacturing/production sewing:

"I like how sewing opens up more options for what I can have in my life."

😊

Another sewing bookmark! Large tracing paper is hard to find, but oh-so-handy.

倒す - Direct translation means "kill", however I'm guessing it means "press". With an iron.
表 - Direct translation is "table", but means "right side of the fabric".
バイアス - "bias" which is spelled with katakana characters.
バイアス布 - "bias cloth" - would this be specifically "bias tape"?

接着テープ - "adhesive tape". This is double sided tape used to baste things together? Possibly like Dritz Wash Away Wonder tape? I can't figure out from the amazon.jp page if 接着テープ washes out. Or maybe it is just plain sewing and craft tape that doesn't wash out. I couldn't imagine you'd want to have the tape stay in your garment. Unless it's also a stabilizer. Uuurgh.

表 - right side of fabric / main fabric
裏 - wrong side of fabric / lining
前 - front
側 - side, edge
後ろ - back
肩線 - shoulder line
肩 - shoulder
線 - line
布目 - cloth (with “of” means grainline?)
右 - right (directional)
左 - left
ヨーク - yoke
ダーツ - dart
ダーツ止り - dart stop
下 - lower
上 - upper
身頃 - body
と突き合わせる - match with
中心 - center
裾 - hem
スリット止り - slit stops
スリット - slit
止り - stop
袖口 - cuff
別布 - Separate cloth
薄手 - thin
木綿 - cotton
バイアス - bias
袖ぐり用 - for sleeveless
袖 - sleeve
袖山の - sleeve cap (sodoyama, sleeve mountain)
用 - for
衿 - neckline/collar
縫 - sew
縫い - sewing?
で - so, in, on
止め - iron or press flat (finishing blow)
つけ - attaching
に - at/into/to/in/on
を - to
ベルト - belt
芯 - core? Interfacing

脇 - side, side seam
見返し - looking backwards/inside the cover
中表 - right sides together / middle table

Bookmarking For a Rainy Day on the Rolling in Cloth blog with waxed taffeta jacket and link to how they waxed the fabric.

Book-marking again from the internet archives. This is Kazz the Spazz's version of the whack-a-mole dress from Pattern Magic 3. Good construction notes. I want this dress!

My cousin was cleaning out her vintage pattern collection and sent them to me!

Click for very large photos

Plus some toy sailboat instructions. I think I said "Oh my gosh" at each pattern. There are some stunners in here. There is what I thought was a beautiful dress, but turns out it's "just" a housedress.

There are the usual suspects - Simplicity, McCall, Vogue, Butterick, and the lesser known Advance, DuBarry, Hollywood, Marion Martin, and newspaper mail-order. But also some I'd never heard of - Clotilde and Superior. Clotilde patterns come in a delightful glassine envelope. Superior patterns definitely look superior!

Wow!

Wow.

I interfaced the entire front bodice of my circle dress based on the example dress I deconstructed. I found that Pellon 865F Bi-Stretch Lite was closest in look and feeling to the interfacing in the RTW dress.

Also, it did not have the normal sewing industry interfacing instructions - hold the iron on one area for 10-15 seconds. They said to glide the iron across the surface. And I had just read Fashion Incubator's "How to apply interfacing", in which Kathleen Fasanella said basically the same thing, but much more in depth. I used to hate fusing interfacing because it took so long! Just ironing it on is such a relief.

After I figure out whether I need stabilizers on my back darts, I intend to construct the dress using a combination of what I learned from the RTW dress and, again on Fashion Incubator, articles about "A better way to sew linings and facings" part 1 and part 2.

The article "Interfacing, 10 tips" has good info, too.

I sewed the circle dart and the CF seam. The circle seams are 1/4" and the CF seam is 3/8". Sewing a curved seam with 1/4" SAs is so amazingly easy. I did not have to clip anything and it went together so smoothly. SO SMOOTHLY.

Oh, and I may need to trim the back darts?

From Wikipedia: "A sloper pattern (home sewing) or block pattern (industrial production) is a custom-fitted, basic pattern from which patterns for many different styles can be developed."

I've been working on a Bunka-style sloper since December. The Bunka sloper is used in the Bunka Fashion College in Japan, as well as the book series "Pattern Magic" by Tomoko Nakamichi, and the Japanese fashion magazine "Mrs. Stylebook". I was thoroughly fascinated by the pattern and fabric manipulation in Pattern Magic¹ when I first came across it. People have made some pretty interesting garments from it. I wanted to try, too!

Then I found out about Mrs. Stylebook - a fashion mag for older women that had the patterns in it, and that you drafted from that same sloper! Whoa! Why can't there be a periodical in America catering to older, fashionable, sewing people?

I used the bodice sloper in the back of Pattern Magic to try the "Inserting a circular design line"². It worked, but did not fit me at all. Enter the Bunka Fashion Series Garment Design Textbook 1 "Fundamentals of Garment Design" put out by the Bunka Fashion College, as well as a sudden deceleration in my progress forward. Wow. This is not a book for beginners.

I drafted a sloper based on my measurements which did not fit. I had no idea how to fix it based on the fitting instructions as they were not detailed enough for me - I need to know specific points on the body where the seams and darts should end. For example, is the wrist point above, on, or below the wrist bone?

So I gave up on the instructions and just adjusted things. With the help of my sister and lots of photographs, I finally got something that I think fits.

I scanned my patterns and loaded them into Inkscape, then traced them with a tool I don't know the name of. It's the one you can make the lines bendy with.

There are three lines:
red - the stock Bunka sloper
blue - the sloper I drafted with my measurements
black - the final adjusted sloper

Three Bunka bodice slopers overlayed for comparison

Square shoulders, anyone?

The Fundamentals book does mention the Bunka sloper is drafted based on average measurements of women in their 20s and that older bodies are shaped differently. Yes, thanks.

The next step is to get the line drawing of my final sloper in a format that will print out actual size across multiple pages. I found a spot-on tutorial on creating tiled sewing patterns on a blog called Grow Your Own Clothes. Missing instructions: Move the printing stuff to the Page Area, then choose Edit -> Resize Page to Selection.

^{1. as well as the Drape Drape series by another Bunka Fashion College graduate, except they have premade patterns - there's no drafting.
2. This is a particularly cool example.}

I sewed a cute little bag today while I have a cold. I am now exhausted.

The fabric is vintage barkcloth a delightful coworker gifted to me. There was just enough for the bag. The lining was in my stash and there was even less of that. There was some eke-ing.

The bag pattern can be found at allpeoplequilt.com, a site that has not switched over to the required https. Once you get past that, it sometimes requires you to sign up for a free account. Maybe you have to click on the link five times before it skips the membership screen?

Barkcloth knitting bag with straps crossed

The straps are different lengths, and the longer one threads through the shorter one

Barkcloth knitting bag inside with pocket

Woohoo! I had a piece with printing on the selvage edge
so of course I had to make it a pocket.

At least one of my knitting projects now has a nice new home. The other five, well...

Innovative Pattern Cutting - coursework at University of the Arts London

Draping the Art and Craftsmanship of Fashion Design - a book by two Dutch experts. Lots of pdfs of it online, it seems.

Studio Faro - has, or used to have pattern challenges. The Vivienne is my favorite.

metric pattern cutting for Women's Wear - used to make basic blocks.

I "finished" this apron in January, but then had to go back and re-adjust the front so it didn't gap. I took in a 1" dart at the top of the sweetheart neckline and strap join.

The pattern is a mail-order pattern from... the 40s? There were several mail order services that provided patterns from the same company, possibly called Reader Mail. This particular one was from a magazine called Hoard's Dairyman and is 2299.

The fabric is from one old curtain (late 60s, early 70s) acquired from home over the holidays. I love the fabric. The trim is pretty darling, too. I now have all the curtains and am plotting what to do next. I'm thinking "quilt".

I lengthened this by 3" because I need more coverage. It's still too short. Have you ever gotten peanut butter on your knees?

I modified the shoulder straps to instead go around my neck. After having an apron with crossed straps, and straight straps, around the neck is most convenient for me. The shoulder straps needed an additional 4" (!) taken out of the back.

If I made this again, I would probably fully line it, ie make two aprons, sew them together like a pillow case, and turn right side out, instead of hand sewing all that binding around ALL THE EDGES.

Can I write a end-of-year AND monthly summary in under a half an hour? I've already been online way too long this am.

Tried to get glasses. Made the mistake of going to Lenscrafters. I'm closer to figuring out what kind of glasses I really need, though.

Finished my Christmas letter on time. Finished all Christmas presents on time. It was so wonderful to make things for people this year.

Donated to MJFF - they are making great strides in finding a cure to Parkinson's.

Hamstring is continuing to heal.

Out of my control, but thoroughly enjoyed the two snow days we had. I made a conscious effort to enjoy them and did - not a usual thing for me. Work being closed for those days also helped to finish Xmas gifts.

Finished a pair of pants I may not be able to sit down in.

Got my pedal felts changed in prep for recording.

I am still working on the muslin for a dress to play the harp in. My excuse for not being done with that, and the final dress, and have already purchased shoes to go with it (and a whole other host of harp-related things), is how unbelievably hot it was this summer, but it's more a combination of that and minimal internal encouragement. So much so that I've been repeating one of my favorite quotes while sewing this morning more than usual: "There are no experimental failures - there's only more data." -Bryce Lynch in Max Headroom. It has kept me sewing this morning. Seriously.

The muslin doesn't fit and look exactly like I want, but I'm unable to adjust it further because I have no seam allowance left, and I started with 1" SA!

I also read through my Deconstructed Dress post to see if I wanted to add any stabilizers. The type of stabilizing on that dress won't work with a dress that's underlined.

Off to collect more data!

I've got the muslin for my harp dress more or less all pinned up.
So far:
- I've had to adjust the shoulders to be more square (no surprise)

- I put darts in the back V neck because my back is so flat.

- the skirt is hard to draft - is it a-line? is it straight? how are the darts folded?

- I don't think I have enough fabric in the skirt - it's maybe not as full as I'd like? I think I need another 10 inches in width all around, at least. It definitely doesn't look like the above picture. Right now it's 60" in circumference. I will have to muslin with the brocade, too. I may not have a choice in fabric design placement, ulp.

- the underarm gusset definitely needs to be two pieces as Gertie has you draft in her book "Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing".

- I was going to put a side zip in, but that would interfere with pockets and I don't want to try to do that with a gusset, either - too much bulk. But putting an invisible zip in the back in a v-neck is making me leery.

Also, this dress is really hot. Not as in "I look awesome" but as in the fabric is heavy. This could be a problem if I suddenly develop the ability to sweat. Right now, it's just uncomfortable.

But wow are kimono sleeves the most comfortable thing to play harp in ever. Even better than raglan sleeves.

ETA: Whoa. I just figured out the darts, and measured, and I need about 50" for the front and back panels, ie 100" (~2.75 yds) circumference. That's 40" more than what I have in the muslin. I have 4 yards of the brocade, and it's only 30" wide. That means the skirt will be cut on the lengthwise grain. Unless I piece it. Which could present some interesting design opportunities.

But what to do with the muslin skirt? I could just put a normal waistline on it and gather it? Ho hum.

I also had a thought about what to line the muslin with. Since it's eyelet, I thought putting a dark fabric underneath could be interesting, but then I thought I'd want it to "pop" and wondered if I could find something fluorescent. THEN I thought: REFLECTIVE FABRIC. Now that would sparkle on stage.

Since my camera is broken, I'm going to try to use my words to make pictures. ha.

I took apart two different frogs - one that I ordered off the web and arrived from China (black), and one I took off a cheongsam dress (black and green).

The black one was made of single fold satin bias tape and copper wire that looked to be about 22-24 gauge, but was much stiffer than the silver wire I use to make jewelry. The decorative part (flower) was bent into shape and the loop and ball part were completely separate and hand sewn onto the ends of the flower, kind of sandwiched in between the two sides of the bias. The loop and ball did not contain the wire. It was a single length of bias tape, the wire in the fold and the turned-under edges stitched together. The center folds/points of the flower were stitched together to draw them tightly together.

The black and green had similar construction, but used two lengths of satin bias tape - the green was single fold, and the black was simply a strip folded in half with raw edges. They were also glued/starched to be even more stiff. I don't know if the bias tapes were starched and dried, or starched and folded when wet. The green tape only was used to make the ball and loop, and was an extension of the flower, so only one raw edge of the ball/loop was attached to the flower and sandwiched between the bias tape.

I'd be interested in making my own designs - it seems pretty easy.

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A month of months

Entries tagged with sewing

Unexpected embroidery

Changing a dress into a blazer

Wiksten Haori Jacket

Surreptitious Yeti Pajamas

Idea for a scarf

Sewing quote

Where to find large tracing paper

My own Japanese sewing pattern translations

Wax your fabric yourself

Whack-a-mole dress from pattern magic

Vintage pattern scoooooore!

Circle Dress part 1

Pattern Magic Bunka Sloper

Knitting bag

A few pattern-making links, or clearing the paper clutter off my desk

One-yard apron

December 2016 Recap (and now I'm not liking the word "recap", either, urgh!)

The slowest sewing project

Eyelet muslin

How Chinese Frogs are made