analog me

Hey, that's me!

. . . in the new Interweave Stitch. This is a girl's dress I designed to be made from a men's shirt. The pattern has a great technique to make a perfect little bib by using a quilting applique technique (and I did tweak the design a bit so the bib is a tiny bit smaller). You can download the pattern here, but directions are in the magazine.

And there is a hat I designed too.

I have made several of these hats for myself and others, and love the way they fit, although I ususally wear mine pushed back on my head a bit for a slouchier look. Sorry about the crappy quality: I had to take a photo of the magazine, since this image isn't on their website.

There are some other nice patterns in this issues, including a couple dresses including a dress designed by Gretchin Hirsch of Gertie fame. The dress doesn't seem to fit the model perfectly, I think the bodice is a bit too long for the model and thus, the waist is too tight, but I'm sure you'all would fix that when you made a muslin right?

And then there is this dress by the editor Amber Eden, which is a nice basic style with french darts that seems like it could be a lot of fun to make in different styles. I think I would change the neckline to more of a bateau style, make the skirt long and add a contrasting belt, or add a peter pan collar?

All in all, this issue has a lot of great projects.

How Not to Get Anything Done: Part 2 In an Ongoing Series

Step One: Promise your darling that you will mend his favorite bicycle commuting shorts.

Step Two: Decide to procrastinate the mending and other jobs by going along on a shoe shopping trip with your 12 year old son and your sweetie.

Step Three: Get bored trying to understand the seemingly minute, but hugely significant differences between apparently identical skateboard shoes. Leave the guys to analyze footwear.

Step Four: Stop in a little clothing store nearby and browse. Innocently admire decorators' samples of fabrics being sorted by shop owner.

Step Five: Accept shop owner's offer to give you all her rejects, thus saving her the hassle of dispensing with them. (Yes, these are all too small for clothing.)

Step Six: Take bags home and sort into piles of fabric to keep and fabric to give to East African sewing group. Touch stuff like silk canvas, embroidered silk,

handprinted Chintz,

silk and linen brocade.

Step 7: Repeat Step Six as desired at least four more times. Exclaim to your husband, "Look at this stuff. I can't even get in a store that would let me touch this!" or "This cotton brocade is 250.00 a yard !" Gloat over the hoard.

Step 8: Pack up bags. Then unpack favorite pieces to admire. Repeat as needed. 

Step 9: Create fantasy projects involving small pieces of gorgeous fabrics. 

Step 10: Don't get any sewing done at all. 

Step 11: Finally check that mending job off your to-do list, possibly staring a new trend in bike wear.

 

paying attention

I find that as I repeat a project I have to start adding innovations. Otherwise, I don't concentrate my mind moves off to other jobs, my hands go on autopilot, and mistakes are made.

Adding pockets and gathers were the innovations that helped me keep me mindfull of my sewing through the first half of making my newest Gingery skirt.

But when I started assembling the skirt (which I had done 3 times before) I started daydreaming, put the zipper in wrong, which led to waistband problems, and then ripping, sewing, swearing, ripping, and, finally, I opened a beer. This made concentration difficult enough that I had to slow down and pay attention. Then, I finished it up. Hmm maybe this is Oona's trick?

I have one more Ginger planned.

I'm going to add piping, pockets and something else guaranteed to keep me on task:

Hippos!

 

How to fix Topstitching

No matter how much work I put into the planning, cutting and seaming of sewing, it's the top stitching that can make a project look either carefully finished or sloppy. And though I have gotten much better, there are still those moments when my focus wanders off the stitching line and I advertise my sewing ADD to the world. Just in case you have top stitching phobia, I am here today to explain how I fix my obvious mistakes.

In addition, this method the best way to begin and end top stitching without messy back stitching and to securely fix buttons that you sew on by machine.

In the last pair of jeans I made, I was trying to replicate the Roy's Jeans look, of curved within striaght lines, which accentuated any deviation from symmetry. I got a bit off track in the section between the arrows below (it looked worse in real life than this photo).

First, find the section you want to fix and snip the bobbin thread in the middle. This works best if the section is at least 2" (4cm) in length. Now unpick the stitches without cutting the threads shorter than 2" to right before and after the problem area. Also,  try to begin end on a straight away section.

Turn to the back side and pull hard on the bottom, bobbin thread and a little loop of the top thread will come through.

Use a needle or seam ripper to pull the top stitching thread all the way to the back side on both ends of the picked out section.

Now, you can restitch the section. First, make sure that your machine settings, especially the stitch length, are the same and make sure you have at least a 4" tail on the needle. Next lower your needle into the hole made at the end of the last remaining stitch. You will not stitch over any previous stitches or backstitch. Now, carefully re-stitch the (previously offending) section ending in the hole right before the last stitch. It is permissible to adjust your stitch length for the last 1-2 stitches to make this match as closely as possible. Again, do not backstitch or trim your tails.

Now turn the work over and pull on the bobbin thread to pull the top thread to the bottom side on either end as you did before. Securely square knot the top threads and the bottom threads to each other. (Not top to top like I did here, I think it is less secure.)

 


. Now turn it back to the right side and admire. You can see the big difference between this section and the beginning and ends where I backtacked. On jeans that looks fine, but on less casual clothes the backstitching looks bulky.

Do you other topstitchers out there have any favorite techniques? Also, do you think it should be one or two words "top stitch" or "topstitch"?

Here are some things I have tried to that improved my top stitching. 

• Slightly loosen top tension so that the thread sits on top of the fabric.
• Don't watch the needle.
• Press seam first.
• Increase stitch length from 2.5 to 3 or 3.5 mm. (from 12 to 9)
• Take advantage of needle left or right position so that the distance between the needle and reference line (edge or other other line) is closer.
• Use a foot that makes it easier to see stitching lines. Zig-zag feet are hardest for me. 
• Mark the stitching lines with a marking pencil.  
• No coffee ; )

 

Don't Hate Alley—make your jeans fit your hips

Well, I seem not to have evoked too much wrath or envy in my new fancy pants. There were a few fit questions. How about we start with hips?

If you look closely, my jeans do make what I have learned are called "whiskers." Yes, that's what those lovely little wrinkles that point at the crotch of us full-hipped women are called. And my extensive archival research (i.e. I saw this book in with hubby's stuff) shows that while this term is recent, the phenomenon reaches back to the early history of dames wearing jeans.

Yes, even female juvenile delinquents in the 1950's were prone to "whiskers." (BTW, isn't this outfit rather, err, sweet, for a delinquent?) 

Comprehensive research (i.e. I read somewhere that horizontal wrinkles point to areas without enough width) determined the cause: my pants are a bit too tight at that particular latitude.

Okay, I knew I could make the pants bigger there, but I didn't quite know how to add some width in exactly the right contour. Also, I was feeling lazy and, to be honest, those books on making pants fit make me feel tired. I thought, what would a person with a tool belt do to figure out how to match a complex curve?  Take a ton of measurements and fiddle around with a pattern? Oh no, s/he would grab a contour duplication gauge and just copy it. Of course that might not work so well on my larger, squishier curves. Then I had a great idea, maybe a flexible ruler would do the trick.

I pressed my flexible ruler on my hips, laid it on the pattern, saw the problem, and took a crappy photo. No measuring, slashing spreading or french curves needed; it was almost disappointingly easy.

And, the flexible ruler is the gift that keeps giving because it provided the solution too. I just added some tracing paper there and redrew the curve. Guess what? Anyone can do this in the privacy of their own home! 

It seems too easy so I when I make these up, I am going to baste that seam and then adjust the fit. Because we are in the hypothesis testing phase here, and need extensive experimentation. 

Reader's what do you think, will you help me test my technique?

P.S. Stayed tuned for the next installment: adjust for a gaping back waist.