S'Update (Spring Update)
9 May 2008, 12:02I had the day off yesterday, but I did not sew a single stitch. Yes, I am feeling okay, but I was looking a bit green yesterday…
This week I’ve been mostly busying myself with gathering materials for future projects. I ordered some gorgeous charcoal grey, 100% wool coating fabric from Rosenberg’s (they’ve got lots more fabric than what’s listed on the site!) which will be made into a new, long overcoat for next winter (I doubt I’ll be ready in time for Marji’s coat sew along, sadly!):
In looking for suitable outdoor waterproof and fade-resistent fabrics for the boat, I came across a UK Thinsulate supplier so I will have the warmest underlined coat ever! I’m still undecided on the lining fabric, but I know I’m really rough on my RTW coat linings, so I think silk will be too fragile and snag-prone. Anyone have any suggestions for hard-wearing, slippery lining fabrics? I’m trying to stay on the side of natural fibers these days, but I think the use of Thinsulate throws that out the window anyway!
Oh and remember that secret project I was working on a few weeks ago? Well, I’m very happy to report that my work was on a few submissions for an upcoming book, and one was accepted! I’m going to be published!! So I think I’m going to save the other two projects and post them here as tutorials around the book’s release next Spring, but I don’t want to give too many details until everything’s signed, sealed, and delivered. No need to jinx it all, you see… So if I’m quiet for the next few weeks, you can bet I’m putting all my sewing energy into meeting that deadline, with occasional forays into James’s yellow linen shirt, which is proving to be quite a good project to sew ten minutes at a time (ten minutes isn’t enough to become frustrated!).
Tags: shopping, woolComment [4]
True blue
6 May 2008, 11:16I had a busy weekend of sewing, but it was mostly alterations and some beginning work on James’s linen shirt, and not terribly exciting. I’m finding recently that sewing is a useful bartering tool – in the span of two days last week I managed to trade some alteration work for several technical CAD drawings of our bedroom and lounge renovations, and also for the installation of new tongue & groove wall boards in our captain’s cabin bedroom! But amongst all the DIY work over the long, Bank Holiday weekend, I managed to sneak in a quick knit top I’ve been coveting from the April KnipMode magazine.
I had my eye on this ever since I saw it on the cover of the magazine, but I was recently asked questions about its construction over email, and thinking about it and dissecting the pieces got me REALLY excited to make it and I felt I needed a break (and a boost) from all the technical work on the linen shirt, so I just had to sew it up right away! So thank you, Linda, for inspiring me to make this even sooner!
This was a really quick top – it took less than two hours from start to finish, including cutting time, but it does take quite a lot of thought beforehand to understand exactly how this pieces together. It also doesn’t help that the technical drawing for this is absolutely awful and doesn’t show the correct seam lines or the shoulder gathers. I think the photos are more helpful here so I’ve drawn on the approximate seam lines overtop (pardon my wobbly lines – I was at home without my graphics tablet!):
The real twist in this pattern is how piece 2 curves back on itself and creates a tiny little hole for the central loop to go through. It makes sense when you’re sewing it, but on paper, the pattern pieces really look weird, but they do have a lot of symbols to match up to help out. I laid out how the front pieces fit together on the floor first to show approximately how the front of the shirt fits together (be aware that the pattern piece for the back, #3, is split and needs to be joined with the end of the sleeve before cutting your fabric. KnipMode and Patrones do this sometimes when the pattern pieces won’t fully fit on their sheets).
With all patterns in another language, however, you have to come up with your own order of construction if you don’t want to spend every other word on Google Translate. Some people might ask, well, how do you know which order to sew everything?
After sewing enough patterns, you tend to notice a rhythm to the order in which basic garment types are constructed: piece the front together, piece the back together, attach at the shoulders, finish the neckline, sew and attach the sleeves, sew the side seams, finish the sleeves and hem.
In case anyone else wants to take the plunge and make this top (which I heartily recommend!!), here’s my construction order, in more detail:
KnipMode April 2008 #13
- Join pieces 1 and 2 between the closed circle and the star
- Join piece 1 to the other piece 1 between the open circle and the hem at the centre front
- Gather (“rimple”) along the tops of pieces 1 and 2 between the filled square and the filled circle
- Join the fronts (1 and 2) to the back (piece 3) along the whole shoulder and upper arm seam, matching up those filled squares and circles
- Sew the centre back seam of the neckband, piece 4, and fold that lengthwise and attach it to the neckline of pieces 3 and 1, aligning the open squares to piece 1 and putting 4’s seam at the centre back of 3
- Then form the central gathering on the front of the top, which is mostly just folding piece 2 back onto itself so that the two filled triangle pieces match up, and sew piece 2 to itself between the filled triangle and the “opening” mark
- There are two pieces you have to measure out for yourself – A is the sleeve band that just attaches onto the end of the sleeve, and a tiny B piece which is the bit in the very centre of the top (this looks too small to have seam allowances included so I definitely think you have to add them onto these drawn pieces, too).
- Finish the edges of piece B (I just doubled it and made it a turned loop) and thread that through the openings on the two 2 pieces and fasten on the wrong side.
- Then finally sew the underam and side seams, attach the sleeve bands, and finish the hem.
The only change I made to this pattern was to shorten the sleeves by about two inches so that the band fell just above my elbow. I have a very well loved RTW blue knit top with sleeves this length that I was looking to pay tribute to. I find that elbow length sleeves stay put whereas 3/4 length sleeves tend to bunch up for me. The only other change I might make in the future is to take in the centre front seam a bit in the bottom, as I notice I get a little pouch of fabric there depending on how I’m standing, but that’s a very minor (and very easy to fix!) complaint. Though depending on your figure, a bit of extra room there may not be such a bad thing!
I’m really pleased I got to use this blue ribbed knit I bought in Dublin – it’s so soft and super stretchy and comfortable, and I think this pattern was the perfect match for it. With all the twists and turns, it’s really cool to see the obvious grain lines in the subtle stripes and appreciate how everything’s moving around. I’d love to see this in a stripey fabric, as you could really play up the stripes on the sleeve and neckband to a greater extent than I did here!
Oh, and last of all, I was walking home on Friday night when I noticed a huge throng of paparazzi photographers outside the Design Museum. And then a cloaked woman came out and revealed herself to be Dame Vivienne Westwood!!
She only stayed out for literally 20 seconds but it was enough to me to get this photo with my camerphone! It was very, very exciting to see such a design icon less than 100 metres from my home!
Tags: knipmode, knit, magazine, top, tutorialComment [10]
The Porsche dress
28 April 2008, 12:10What a difference a week makes! Spring has finally come to London, meaning I could wear my new dress outside without fear of goosebumps (the reverse – I actually got a bit sunburnt!).
If you recall from earlier, I bought a vintage Porsche cotton duvet cover and pillowcase off eBay for £8 (including shipping). It was in great condition and even had a full wraparound print which meant I had a lot more fabric to work with than I ever imagined when I clicked Bid Now…
I decided it’d work best with a suitably vintage pattern, so I decided to use Simplicity 3780, using a bit of careful pattern placement to get the most out of the different printed areas of the duvet cover (so the stripes along the bottom of the duvet became the red halter straps, for instance).
I made a few changes to the original pattern, the most obvious of which was to shorten it by 9 inches so that the hem falls above my knees rather than at the incredibly dowdy mid-calf length. I followed Simplicity’s almost magical bodice lining instructions (which were fantastic at encasing all the seams and making an immovable lining layer) but added three lengths of vertical boning to the front of the bodice lining (under the black “Porsche” letters) in addition to the two lengths called for in the back bodice seams. The boning really helps to keep everything in place and stop wrinkling when I sit down, and isn’t uncomfortable in the slightest – I don’t even notice it’s there!
I also opted to have a standard centre back zipper application rather than the intended lapped zipper because, well, those really annoy me. Since I knew the zipper topstitching would be pretty obvious, I took the time to actually hand baste the zipper in place before sewing it down with the machine, which really helped to get a clean finish. The back neck band fastens with two button loops sewn into the seam, and I chose two fantastically vintage white plastic spherical buttons to finish off the look, hiding a snap further down to keep the “tail” of the band from showing, as I had about 3 inches too much length there.
I decided to stick with the original pattern and not line the skirt but instead flat-felled the skirt’s side and centre back seams to make a clean finish, and I hand stitched white lace around the waist seam in the inside to hide the seam allowances there. My new rolled hem foot even got a workout on the hem, but my god that was a frustrating experience! I thought the point was that the foot did all the work for you, but I really had to continuously hand fold the edge and feed it into the foot. I couldn’t take my eyes off it for even a second or it’d all go pear-shaped, but at least I’ve got lots of curved hem practice now!
So for the recycled fabric-spotters amongst you:
- The main fabric came from an old duvet cover
- The lining came from one of our boat’s old hotel bed sheets
- The zipper came from an IKEA pillowcase
And since it was so gloriously warm and sunny on Saturday, I’m afraid it may have all gone to my head a bit and for a split second I worked the 1950s pinup girl pose, which James happen to catch!
It’s definitely either the sun or the dress’s influence showing through, but I’m just not sure which!
Tags: boning, dress, recycled, simplicity, vintageComment [9]
A fine tightrope
24 April 2008, 13:17A few months ago I was devastated to find that all the big London haberdashery shops suddenly stopped carrying Gutermann thread and switched to Coats Duo. I’ve had awful experiences with the cheap and nasty Coats & Clark thread they sell in the States and it wasn’t a good sign that Coats Duo is the same price as Gutermann, but for less length on a spool. Questionable quality for high prices? No thanks, I’ll stick to Gutermann, which has never ever once failed me. It’s quality stuff and I appreciate quality after having sewn with terrible thread – life’s too short for random breakages, inconsistent thicknesses, and frayed edges.
So I was very interested to hear from my friend Alex that the haberdashery shops by him in Cheltenham still stock Gutermann, and since he’s coming to visit us this weekend anyway for one of our charity dinners, I sent him off with a shopping list.
He grabbed me some fantastically huge spools of white, beige, navy, and gold (I’m still well stocked on black after Dublin, and we’ve worked out a swap where I’m paying him in a case of Alphonso mangoes (if you don’t start salivating at the mere mention of these, then you’ve obviously never tasted them!!).
Most disturbing, however, is that he pointed out to me actually how much thread I’ve got: “That’s 4.5km of thread. Enough to cross the Thames at the point of the moorings seven times. “ I reckon this haul of neutrals should last me until the end of the year. Or we could blow it all and make a fantastic tightrope to Wapping!
If you ever find yourself in Cheltenham, make sure to stop by Sue’s Crafts on the high street, where he was able to pick up all this thread for me (and it appears they stock general craft supplies in addition to sewing stuff, too). And straight from the local’s mouth, here’s a few other diversions in Cheltenham to occupy you after you’ve gorged on craft supplies:
“There’s quite a few little useful shops like that, such as the tiny little watchmakers in Tivoli who said he’d look at my digital callipers for me, and accepts payments for watch batteries on the honor system. We have a local co-op which is really well-stocked and friendly, and on Bath Road we have the Natural Foods supermarket. Sells organic meat and dairy, not just veggies and hemp tampons. Very good – and open 8-8, 7 days a week.
A good Red Cross charity bookshop – at least three times as deep as it is wide, some flashy cookwear shops, one decent local DIY shop, Burger Star (the best by far) who do american-style burgers you’d actually want to eat… “
Oh also, a heads up for any Londoners or visitors – the Borders on Charing Cross Road have officially stopped stocking Burda WOF now (I suspected since Feb though. pooh.) So now your stockist choices in that area are RD Franks or Oxford News… Hopefully my subscription will kick in next month and I won’t have to worry any more.
My only sewing purchase this week (apart from the thread bartering) was the March, April, and May issues of KnipMode magazine from Naaipatronen.nl, which should give me plenty of Spring and summer eye candy to work through, since it appears that we might actually get Spring weather this weekend!
Tags: magazine, shoppingComment [7]
A Walking Advertisement
21 April 2008, 16:19I was out all day Saturday hiking near Guildford with our monthly walking group, but a friend staying at ours said it snowed back in London. Ugh. It’s still too cold to wear either the silk blouse or the ikea skirt apart from their hurried photoshoots, so of course I’m sewing practical winter clothes to suit the weather…
Ha! Gotcha! No, I’m sewing a sleeveless, cotton halter-top dress, out of this vintage Porsche duvet I bought on eBay:
I left a friend’s birthday drinks early on Sunday so I could have some downtime in the evening (if I’m away all weekend, I just don’t feel like I’ve had a weekend at all and I get cranky), and I made great progress on the dress, finishing the bodice:
First reaction: Wow, I’m glad I took my time with the fabric placement! Second reaction: Wow, Susan (my dress form) looks stacked! This may turn out to be the Wonderbra of dresses…
It’s completely lined (with a plain white cotton bedsheet!), so I actually won’t need to wear a bra at all, which is great considering the open back, and I added lots of boning in the front midriff to match the boning in the back. I’ve just got to add the skirt pieces, the back zipper, and hem, but it may take a few evenings and mornings of accumulated sewing time to get that far. And I’m running out of hope that I’ll ever get to wear this before August at this rate! If you’ve got warm weather where you are, could you please send some our way? I should start a warmth fundraising appeal, as we Londoners are definitely in a warmth drought, situation critical!
Tags: boning, dress, recycled, simplicity, vintageComment [7]
You're it!
18 April 2008, 12:12No, we’re not back on the school playground, but you’ll now see tags all over FehrTrade. I’ve been wanting to add more flexible linking for a while now, so I installed this plugin for Textpattern so I can now add any number of tags to the end of each post, and you can see a cloud of all the tags on the left, under the Google Ads. And another new addition over there is the search box, which should be working now across all pages (but if you find a circumstance where if looks weird, please send me the URL as I probably just missed a template!). I spent quite a while going through all my old posts and tagging them appropriately, so I apologise if you suddenly get a bunch of old posts in your RSS feed reader (mine still seems to be fine though, so fingers crossed!).
Anyway, enough of this housekeeping nonsense, what of the sewing, eh? Well, I’m going full steam ahead on my Porsche dress, and I carefully cut our the pattern pieces last night, taking note of the best possible placement for all the pieces. It turns out that I’ve got lots of the duvet cover (and all of the pillowcase) leftover so James might get a shirt out of it yet, too. I wasn’t sure when I bought it whether the print was only on one side, but luckily both the cover and the pillowcase are double-sided prints, and the cover is folded at one side so I’ve got a pretty huge piece of fabric to work with! The pattern calls for some boning in the bodice seams, and since I ran out making my high waisted tuxedo trousers, I picked up a 5m roll of flexible coated boning while I was on eBay. The next step is to cut the lining out of one of Hendrik’s old hotel sheets, and then the fun can begin! I’m so excited about this dress, I have a feeling I might try and sew it up in one sitting if my schedule allows…
Tags: recycled, shoppingComment [5]
Not Much to Show For It
14 April 2008, 15:14I spent all Friday evening and Saturday afternoon and evening sewing up a storm, making myself mentally exhausted in the process. Unfortunately I can’t actually say what I was so busy working on, but I should be able to by the end of the month. I know that’s a tease, and I’m sorry!
Anyway, if you recall, I was going through all my sewing machine feet earlier and I asked if anyone could help me identify some of them. Big thanks to Debbie for identifying the straight stitch foot, and also to Lis and Noile for telling me that the mystery notion in the upper right is a seam gauge:
Noile even gave me a clue how to use it, and sure enough, my sewing machine had three little screw holes, and this fit into one of them! How very cool to see it working after 4 years of it sitting in my little box…
I’m still waiting on the felled seam and rolled hem feet I bought off American eBay (see, I was right to only buy from there as a last resort! It’s been two weeks and counting now…), but I just had to share my latest purchase from UK eBay – Porsche sheets!! I’m so excited to sew these up into a suitable retro dress, Simplicity 3780, and my boy is such a petrol head that he’s already dreaming up parties where we can attend in matching car clothes (I made him a button-down shirt from Hot Rods fabric a few years ago). The sheets arrived today, so with some tricky pattern placement I’m hoping I can use that fabulous border print and pillowcase to my advantage!
Tags: machine, shoppingRefashioned Ikea Patrones skirt and bag
8 April 2008, 12:26I’m no stranger to repurposing Ikea – so far I’ve turned two pillowcases into four placemats, a shower curtain into a dress, and a pillowcase into a skirt. I picked up some blue, pre-hemmed table runner fabric back at the same time I bought the shower curtain, but it’s just so narrow that I couldn’t really think what to do with it and it’s languished in my stash ever since.
But I’ve been in the sewing doldrums lately, waiting for the weather to warm up, so I had another look at the table runner and saw the potential for a cute, flirty skirt using this Patrones skirt pattern from the October 2007 issue (#261, pattern no. 22). Big, big thanks to my generous Patrones benefactor, Zoe, for letting me borrow her past few issues so I don’t go broke on German eBay!
Because the Ikea table runner fabric was so narrow, I had to get out my seam ripper and unpick one entire hem in order to make the skirt as long as possible. I kept the other side hem intact to use as the bottom of the skirt to save myself a construction step!
I made a few changes to the Patrones pattern – the pattern has four pleats across the front of the skirt, with the outer ones facing in and the inner pleats facing out. Rather than coming close together as in the line drawing above, they were actually about two inches from meeting and looked really odd, so I changed the direction of the outer pleats to also face outwards. I also prefer back zippers in all my skirts, so I cut the back (unpleated) skirt pieces with a centre back seam rather than the intended fold. Finally, the pattern called for a waistband facing that was only an inch or so deep, which just would’ve looked and felt awful. So I made double the waistbands so my facings would be the full waistband depth, making the inside seams much, much neater. I also placed the waistband pieces across the fabric so the stylised bulbous flowers went across rather than down.
This fabric is a bit louder than I’m normally used to, and it’s definitely as close to an ethnic print as my white girl bod is going to get without looking completely ridiculous! The nice thing about this fabric is that it works so perfectly for this shape of skirt, holding the pleats and keeping the full shape in front like the silhouettes are moving to for spring and summer.
I had just enough fabric left over to make a shopper from the rest of the table runner, and I measured the straps so I can wear it over the shoulder or held in my hand without skimming the ground (as modelled above). I also replicated my “reusing Ikea’s hem” trick and placed it along the top, open edge of the bag. This bag used the full width of the fabric (running from top to bottom on the bag), so you can see how narrow it really was!
For you, lovely readers, I braved sub-freezing temperatures in a short skirt and sleeveless top for the above photos. Watching the models at the photoshoot on our boat in January inspired me to suck it up and mentally turn off the shivers when the camera’s going…
Tags: bag, ikea, patrones, recycled, skirtComment [8]
No small feet
4 April 2008, 12:08I was planning on next sewing up a long-sleeved linen shirt for James using BurdaStyle’s Jakob pattern, but having read through Shirtmaking: Developing Skills for Fine Sewing by David Page Coffin, I soon realised that all my previously sewn shirts were terribly amateur and that I’d learned SO MUCH in just reading the first ten pages that I’d no longer be able to go back to my own ignorant ways after eating from the tree of knowledge.
One of the things Coffin said is absolutely necessary is a felling foot for your sewing machine, which I don’t have. These seem to be a rare item for non-Pfaff machines in the UK, so I’ve had to buy one off American eBay (along with a rolled hem foot from the same seller, which Coffin also recommends).
Before I bought the feet, I had a quick rifle through my sewing machine feet box first to see if I already had them and just didn’t know what they were. When I got my sewing machine from my sister-in-law, she threw in a little plastic box full of feet and spare bobbin casings and screwdrivers and all sort of random pieces that she thought went with the machine. Some I’ve been able to identify, but others are still a mystery, so I’m hoping some of you will be able to help me out…
The A Team – the feet I use all the time! From left to right: the standard foot, the adjustable zipper foot, and the walking foot
First Division – which only see occasional use. From left to right: the invisible zipper foot, the roller foot, the button foot, and the clear standard foot
The “I Might Use Them Someday?” Feet – From left to right: The darning/embroidery foot, the blind hem foot, and ??? (I have no idea – anyone know what this is for?)
Please Help Me Identify Pile – these are some bits that don’t look like feet but were included in the box. Does anyone have any idea what these parts do? I’d be very grateful, and who knows, I might have a fantastic gem hidden in here that could save me lots of time in the future!
So while I wait for the felling and rolled hem feet to arrive, I’m finally putting an old length of IKEA table runner fabric to good use, and making a quick Patrones skirt and a new shopping bag…
Attention old sewing machine owners! Krista is compiling a list of reviews of old sewing machines to help out beginning sewers who may find machines on eBay or freecycle or flea markets and not know whether it’s a good machine or not. I’ll be adding my retro beauty to the list, and you can add yours by emailing her using the link on the site.
Tags: machineComment [9]
La Mia Boutique
3 April 2008, 11:53I had an optician’s appointment which brought me into the center of town last evening, so I took the opportunity to see if Borders or Oxford News had the April issue of Burda World Of Fashion magazine yet. It turned out I was a bit too early, but Oxford News did have one copy of the Italian pattern magazine La Mia Boutique left, and since it’s one of the few pattern magazines I haven’t tried yet, I couldn’t say no!
I’ve already compared Burda WOF vs KnipMode vs Patrones magazines so I thought I’d give you a peek of La Mia Boutique, since there’s not much information online about it, and I can’t even find an official site anywhere!
Here’s the cover of the April 2008 issue. The cover price is about the same in euros as KnipMode or BWOF, though the pound markup makes it a bit dearer for me!
You can see from the April 08 technical drawings (part one) and April 08 technical drawings (part two) that this contains about 40 patterns, and about ten of those are plus patterns. For some reason their plus size numbers are lower than the regular size numbers, which confused me into thinking they were petites at first, as BWOF uses low numbers to size their petites.
Here’s the La Mia Boutique’s size chart so you can have a look and see where you fall. When compared against KnipMode and Burda WOF’s measurements, you can see that (at least for regular women’s sizes) the bust measurements (“Seno”) are similar for the same sizes in the other magazines, but the waist (“Vita”) and hip (“Bacino”) are several centimeters smaller. So even though I’m a very standard size 42 in BWOF and KnipMode, I’ll be sewing up a 46 or 48 in La Mia Boutique!
La Mia Boutique seems to be geared toward beginners (at least if you speak Italian!), and they have a full three pages of beginner’s sewing techniques laid out with diagrams, so if you come across a tricky part in a particular pattern’s instructions, you can refer back to the beginning. I found it interesting that what we call a “French seam”, they call an “English seam”! And they actually give instructions for a hand-picked zipper, which I consider to be more couture than beginner!
Like in BWOF and KnipMode, all the pattern instructions are in a central, newsprint section with the pattern sheets folded at the very center. The pattern sheets themselves seem to be of a slightly heavier weight than BWOF, KnipMode, or Patrones, and come on bleached paper rather than newsprint, with little line drawings of the matching patterns around the edges.
Not knowing Italian, I can’t vouch for how well written the instructions are, but they seem to cover about the same page amount as KnipMode or BWOF, and also contain the layout diagrams and yardage information, as you’d expect.
Truth be told, there was really only one pattern in this issue that really grabbed me – the dress on the left below. I like the opening, that the portion above the waist is buttoned normally, but below the waist it’s just pleated, with a few buttons below the divide carrying on with the appearance of a placket. I’m seeing this made up in two different linens (as I’ve got a lot of colours in my stash!) as a nice casual summer dress.
Bosco approved of my photoshoot, but decided he wasn’t in it enough and so made quick work of that. Either that or he was trying to tell me which one to make, I’m not sure!
The other thing that sets La Mia Boutique apart is that they contain a few general women’s articles, with a makeup section, recipe and nutritional section, and even a horoscope at the back, which I believe BWOF used to do until a few years ago. I really wish I knew enough Italian to see if the horoscopes were sewing-related!!
In other news, I’d like to send a big thank you to Stacy Sews for sending me CraftStylish’s Quick Stuff to Sew magazine. It was the only one of the *Stylish range I didn’t have, and without being able to flip through it pre-purchase, I was afraid it’d be a disappointment like the Gifts and Embellishment issues. I’m very happy to say I was wrong, and that there’s actually some really great projects in it, so hurrah!
I also had a peek through the current issue of Prima magazine (a UK women’s magazine that happens to have one pattern in each issue that you can ring up and be sent for free) while at Border’s, and this month’s pattern is actually really nice. I find their patterns to be quite hit & miss – sometimes really stylish and great, but other times quite dowdy and horrible. Anyway, this month’s is a cute shift dress pattern with a back gathered yoke and an interesting drapey neckline. I was tempted to just write down the phone number in store, but I felt kinda bad doing that, so I’ll probably go pick it up later in the week.
The only sewing I got up to this weekend was attaching two shower curtains together (and this time not as a dress!), and doing general prep work on James’s shirt. I now know I’ll need to delay that a little bit, but more on that later…
Tags: la-mia-boutique, magazine, shoppingComment [4]