The Most Expensive Fabric

This piece contains the most expensive fabric I have ever sewn. Even though the sewing involves few details and mostly straight sewing, I have found myself procrastinating and even doing housework instead of finishing this.

I've bought and sewn expensive fabric before, but it was always my fabric, my project, my set of mistakes to turn into design opportunities. No so, here. It is part of a group project to create new vestments for my church.

face fabric, lining sandwich on denim

Also I have discovered that my particular part of the team project, the alter fall, is more like a home dec project than it is like garment sewing. It is large and heavy. The tapestry (the expensive stuff - maybe $200 per yard?) ravels like crazy. It is built on a base of heavy denim and get more and more unwieldy as I progress.

It has reminded me how much I enjoy making garments. Even little tiny garments for grandchildren. And I don't like sewing to spec either. I like total freedom.

Gallooning

It's a good thing I never had to support myself and family with sewing. We would have all starved to death.

I am on my way to church for a *fitting.*

I will finish this within the next 24 hours. I swear promise.

Shirt for DGS4

Finished Shirt

Nearly a year ago, I found this shirt-weight cotton football fabric at a quilt shop (Sew 'N' Sew, I think) in Summerville SC. DGS4's parents are Clemson fans.  DGS4 is playing football this fall. He's about to have a birthday. And I just had a lesson on collars and collar stands at City-wide Couture. The stars aligned and I made this shirt.

Thought I had found a good pattern in my stack of Ottobre magazines. I wanted to practice Lorraine's techniques. I was only a little disappointed when I realized the collar and collar stand were a single shaped piece. This was a good-news-bad-news situation. On the one hand, I really wanted to try the cool techniques; on the other hand, maybe my first-run would be better on a larger garment. A larger garment for me.

Clean finish on yoke

Hot-dog method for yoke

Ottobre instructions are terse but, in this case, they had a fairly good description of how to make sure the yoke has a clean finish on the inside and outside. It's just like the method described for making pillow cases for ConKerr Cancer, I think. I just love little details like this.

Neckline before attaching buttons

Gotta clip the neck before attaching collar

The rest of the instructions were more typical of Ottobre. Fine, if you know what you are doing.

DGS4 lives in a warm climate so I made the sleeves short. That took a bit of guess work, trying to figure correct proportions from DH's shirt. In fact, it was fun to keep DH's shirt in the sewing room with me to try to duplicate as many of the details as possible.

I'm pleased with the resulting shirt. Hope DGS4 is too, but I'm going to a big box store to buy a Lego set just in case ;)

So now I'm dreaming of the Hibiscus shirt from Sewing Workshop for me. Maybe it has a real collar with separate collar stand. And a real placket, and...

A Little Nightie

Elastic added to sleeve hems

Lace added to hem

Nightgown B5357

This is another version of Butterick 5357, which is a very simple pattern for a peasant blouse. I made myself a PJ top out of this pattern and have enjoyed it, so thought it might make a good present for DD.

The fabric is a soft cotton plaid from Gail K in Atlanta. It may be cotton lawn. The plaid is woven into the fabric and it seems not to have a front or back side to it. Because it is a good quality fabric, it was very easy to match the plaid at the side seams. It was a dream to sew. I think it will wash and dry nicely.

This time, I lengthened the pattern and added some elastic to the sleeve hems. My PJ top seems to have wings which is fine but not all that pretty. So I thought the elastic would tame the wild wings. I like the way it looks on the hanger.

It's very hard to sew for DD but I am hopeful with this little birthday gift. She is a sweet and thoughtful appreciator of my sewing activities, especially when her children are the beneficiaries, but I've not had good luck with clothes for her. She goes for simplicity in style, fit and pattern. And she's very happy with things from the Big Box stores.

She and I have very different bodies - I am a pear; she is an inverted triangle. I don't mind weird stuff if I perceive it to be funky. She is a busy mom of four and doesn't have time for much funkiness. I have a hard time reshaping my choices.

Maybe she'll will like (and wear) this. I hope so!

Sashiko - crisis companion

front

back

inside front by hem

 Having passed from the dark side to the light side of a family crisis, I think it's OK to post about this. Stepson was critically ill (stroke plus heart surgery), but now he is home and recovering. His recovery is amazing and a delight to all who know and love him. He and his lovely wife are managing it all so beautifully.

We all spent a lot of time in the hospital waiting room this past week. And I was out of state with no sewing machine to complete my days. As luck would have it, I was still working on a sashiko project which I grabbed as we ran out of the house.

What a wonderful way to expend my excess nervous energy. No only were we all worried about my stepson, but such a crisis brings together an odd grouping of family. So I had excess emotional energy too.

Sashiko is truly zen.

what everyone else was doing

PJ tops

Though the styles definitely are worlds apart, I made a peasant style top to go with my zero-waste monpei pants. These are PJs so the goal is comfort, not style. I've already worn these PJs twice and they are definitely comfy. I look a little like an aging flying nun, but I am comfy. That's a good thing.

This top gave me a chance to try something I learned from blogger Off The Cuff: how to sew a "designer" casing for elastic. That little edge-stitching before inserting the elastic just makes all the difference at a neckline. It doesn't roll and makes nice even gathers. That idea is a keeper.

Aspiring to Zero Waste

Final waist from front

The Zero Waste movement in fashion continues to be interesting to me. I made my first waste-free garment last summer (as an aside, it was also waist-free). It was just an experiment but I find that it is my go-to summer top. So waist-free or waste-free, I think I rate that one a success.

The monpei pants pattern found in the Folkwear Japanese Field Clothing pattern can be waste-free. I've wanted to try it out to see what is sacrificed when simple pull-on pants are constructed waste-free. Unlike the super-clever and well-schooled designers who manage attractive, fashion-forward approaches in their waste-free design, these pants are composed of  simple rectangles. This of course makes it fairly easy to be waste-free, especially if you have traditional Japanese fabric which is 14-17 inches wide.

I thought this pattern might work well as PJ pants, and I definitely wouldn't want to experiment with an unusual pants design using costly Japanese fabric, even if I had some. I did happen to have some semi-sheer, soft cotton with an interesting texture. I wondered if I could squeeze PJ pants out of the fabric left over from cutting a PJ top.

It barely fit - so I guess these really are zero-waste.

So how do you construct pants out of rectangles? Basically you cut 4 rectangles that are long enough for your pants, and wide enough for your hips or waist, whichever is larger. Then you cut a wedge out of the two back rectangles right at the hem. This wedge is flipped up and sewn back back onto the pants to form the crotch. A gusset. So cool.

Gusset in progress

Finished gusset

Then each back leg is sewn to each front leg. Of course, given the removed and reattached wedge, the grain of the back legs is off at the bottom. But this actually gives it an interesting shape there too. There is a small patch pocket on the front and pleats are formed in the waist of both the front and back.

Once the front and back legs are attached at the inner seam, then the crotch seam is sewn. So now only the side seams remain. They are sewn from the hem to within about 6 inches of the waist. This is left open. A combination waistband-plus-ties is sewn to the top of the fronts, and another is sewn to the top of the backs. The back ties are supposed to wrap around to the front and tie; the front ties are the opposite.

The ties did not work for me. Just too uncomfortable. I could barely stand to look at them on me.

And the crotch depth was too shallow for me.

pants from back

So I took the waistband off, sewed up the side seams, attached another waistband one-to-one to the top of the pants, then used the old waistband to make a tie to thread through the waistband.

Much better now. I can pull up the drawstrings to have it sit on my hips, not at the waist where the shallow crotch depth becomes a problem.

Maybe I'll make another pair and try to adjust the crotch seam so that it is longer. The only thing needed is a longer rectangle. Still not a perfectly fitted pair of pants, but certainly interesting and fun!

Little Projects

Corduroy skirt for DGD1

Hem ruffle

Inspired by sewing buddy Rena in my ASG neighborhood group, I made this simple pull-on skirt from my grandgirl. It is the same light-weight corduroy as her younger cousins dress. It's always a bit challenging to make something for DGD1 as she lives so far away. I hope it fits!

waist

Odd quilted bag

Back

Then there is this odd little quilted bag. I needed to practice some free-motion quilting in preparation to quilt a huge quilt of mine. I had fun messing around with little quilt sandwiches and even sort-of like the quilting that results. BUT then I could not just throw away all these little practice sandwiches. I bound the lower top edge, stitched the sides together, added more binding, loops and a corded strap. Quick and fun.

Inside

BTW, I decided against free-motion quilting on a huge quilt. I can just imagine my shoulders up around my ears, my mouth pinched, my eyebrows knitted together. Not really too fun. I just strapped on my walking foot and did the huge quilt that way.