My Sewing Space

This shirt was the last of my summer sewing. Like most summers, there are many things left on my "want-to-make" list, but summer is a short season here and consistently my least productive time of year for sewing. After this shirt, I did make a few back to school things for my kids, so fall sewing has already begun.  I’m really happy with this shirt, but nothing was surprising about it. I knew I liked the fabric and used my tried-and-true shirt pattern. This fabric has been in my stash for a few years. I bought it on deep discount at an end of season sale. I like that it has the tie-dye feel without being overly hippie-ish. It is a lightweight cotton (lawn, perhaps?) with a stable weave and soft feel. It was lovely to work with. Unlike the fabric for this shirt , which felt a little bulky, this  worked wonderfully for the collar, plackets, etc. I continue to tweak my collar making methods. For this one I combined Tasia’s tutorial (bleached muslin, glue ...

I made this shirt back in early spring. My wardrobe needed something fresh and I really just wanted to make a shirt. It's nice to end up with a lovely product, but when it comes to shirtmaking, I really just love the process. The original pattern is Burda 04/2010 #114 , but I've used it multiple times and made several changes. The gingham is not really the ideal weight for a classic shirt. It's more like quilting cotton - not real fine and a little spongy. It is nice quality and was pleasant to work with, but the bulk was a little frustrating at some parts of the process. I added some bright yellow-green accents to the shirt. The color isn't accurate in any of these pictures. I had both yardage and bias tape in the exact same color. That was a surprise to me (I guess I really like that color…) but I made use of both of them. I did consider binding the hem with the tape so that it showed on the outside of the shirt, but decided against it. The ot...

Since moving back to the US, I've done some experimenting with ordering fabric online. I had only dabbled with it while living in Canada because of shipping costs, duty charges and the nuisance of return shipping. As expected, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Some purchases are better than expected and some are disappointing. The corduroy for these pants was the former and the chambray for this shirt was the latter. The chambray is nice fabric, it's just different than what I had envisioned. I went ahead with it anyway. This shirt is for my son and is the partner piece for these pants. I like how the shirt looks with the sleeves rolled up. He will have none of that. The pattern is just a classic collared button-down shirt from Ottobre (6/2012 #37). I like the two-piece collar, the lined yoke, and the properly scaled front pocket. Breast pockets that are "off" (to my eye, anyway) in size, scale, or placement really bug me. I used a plaid shirting for co...

I'm not one to mess with a good thing. Ottobre 1/2010 #14 has worked well for me to give to new nieces (See here . And here . And don't forget here ). The nieces just keep coming and I'm happy to come up with some new looks from this pattern. Truth be told, I'm rather behind. The niece receiving this coat is almost 18 months old already. I did trace off the pattern again, a couple sizes larger than the other versions. Said niece is above average in many ways for an 18 month old, most notably in size. The fabric is a dark red wool that I picked up at a thrift store awhile ago. It is beautiful fabric, but the piece wasn't large. It isn't a coat-weight wool, so I lined it with a quilted lining. I really like how it makes the inside of the coat look, but it was not fun to sew with. The fabric is quilted to a very light batting and then a layer of foam. That foam is super grabby and would not go through the machine. To make it work, I had to put a stri...

My older daughter was in need of some nicer clothes. I found some large-ish leftover pieces of fabric from other projects and thought I would use those to make her a jacket and skirt outfit. I took her measurements and traced off the jacket pattern. She's tall and thin, so I decided I needed to use a smaller size and add length like I always do. Except this time, I only added length to the sleeves and completely forgot about the bodice. DOH! Thankfully, there is another girl around here that could use the jacket after I cut the extra length off the sleeves.  This girl is not in need of any more clothes, but she sure loves this jacket. Please try to over look that bit of lunch spilled on her skirt! The fabric is what remained of this jacket project . The pattern is designed for sweater knits. This twill has a good amount of stretch and it worked just fine. I have liked this pattern since I first saw it and I'm glad I finally got around to making it. The flaps are...

A huge thank you to the very lovely, encouraging, and generous Ann of Ann's Fashion Studio ! After seeing my post about my jacket that was lacking sleeve placket buttons, she sent me a package of matching ones!  I'm so grateful!  This makes the jacket much nicer to wear - no gaping sleeve plackets, and it looks much nicer, too.

I'm not really sure why it took me so long to finish this jacket.  I didn't find it all that inspiring even though I was pretty sure I would like the end result.  Anyway, here it is... My thoughts about the beginning of the jacket and pattern pictures are posted here .  There are a lot of seams with a lot of topstitching on this jacket.  I used regular thread with the triple-straight stitch for the topstitching.  My machine doesn't really like heavy-duty thread so this seems like the best option for me.  Getting nice straight topstitching on the corduroy was difficult.  If I was stitching in the same direction as the wales, the stitching either "fell" into the troughs or looked very crooked and messy if I wasn't stitching exactly parallel to the wales.  If I was stitching across the wales, the presser foot tended to slide one way or the other with the nap. The lining is a poly stretch satin that is pretty wild.  It might even be objecti...

Okay, well maybe I didn’t conquer but I certainly came and saw. If I had conquered, there would be no reason to return, now would there? I traveled to NY with my mom last week. We were there for about three days. The first 1.5 were spent seeing the city with the usual tourist activities (Lady Liberty, WTC, show on Broadway, double-decker bus tour, etc). The second 1.5 were spent in the garment district shopping for fabric, trim, buttons, notions, etc. I thought that was a pretty good balance! We spent most of our time on 37th, 38th, and 39th Streets between 7th and 8th Avenue. We shopped up one side of the street, down the other side and then brought our purchases back to the hotel (fabric is heavy). This took us an entire day. The number of stores and selection of fabric is unbelievable. Until this trip I had sewn up more yards than I had added to the stash for 2009. I think I’ll “forget” about tracking that for the rest of the year. I just added 48.5 yards to the stash. T...