Sad day

we lost our big cat, he died within an hour of us even knowing something was wrong. We had to take him to an emergency vet 20 minutes away and by the time she was looking him over he just passed away on the table.(the vet tried to give him air and massage his heart but he was gone)




anyway my finace and I are 'those' people who just have pets and no kids...so this has really upset us so much....especially my finace he was instantly hit with a bag of bricks.He was such a dude. miss him so much  :-(

On the sewing front I've gotten stuck into sewing my jacket after some umming and ahhing about the shoulder width adjusment I made at the sleeve cap.(this created a really strange looking armscye. Does anyone know why there is so much space at the back of the sleeve?????here's a photo.

 

 BEFORE no interfacing at front

 AFTER shoulder pads and horse hair front shoulder

I'm still deciding on how to stabilize the hem/neckline and if I will add a decorative row of stitching by hand down the front..

1970's dress with bells + whistles

ooops just bought another pattern... I love Butterick 6214 (1970's)

 

I would call this an intermidiate pattern I think...I have lots of simple shift patterns and a line skirts, but I think this one is going to be just a little bit more challenging....just a smidge.

I will definately make the contrasting bands as it is really hard to find a pattern that looks flattering with the contrasting colours.

I'll probably go for a navy base colour and a checked pattern for the contrasting bands etc.

casual jacket sleeve fitting

Having had most excellent advice on the gathering problem on my skirt and resolving that problem, I'm onto my next problem...getting the muslin for my matching casual jacket to fit right. (I've already graded the pattern up to my size)

The problem I have is the sleeve I think...anyway a picture is worth a thousand words so here is the problem:

 blergh yuk what a horrible fit

here's a quick shot of the finished skirt...i want to try to get better photos soon :-)

Thrifted outfit

 argh hard to believe two  1/2 years ago I had a platinum blonde pixie crop.


This is a skirt I got for $2 and a jumper I got for $4, my budget for clothing and sewing supplies is really low so i am trying to stick with the basics.

I'm really happy with the skirt because it is a beautiful full skirt with lots of details from Sussan and it has a shaped yoke? and actually falls like an a line skirt as it is really heavy.

Donna Karan Draped Skirt

and then there's this Donna Karan draped skirt that i have always loved...

 Here's a look at some of the blue/aqua/nvy fabrics that I have for spring/summer sewing this year....I'd say it's 70/30 in favour of vintage fabric. 

epic gathering failure!

 

epic fail. i THINK where I went wrong was when i using my machine to do the 2 rows of gathering stitches...i just did them too close to the edge of the fabric edge and not close enough to the 5/8" seam line for the band

perhaps my stitches were too close together??

....i'm going to have to rip this all out and start again with gathering this skirt.(the colour is a lot more camel in real life about 4 shades darker) gathering...aside from though this is actually a flattering skirt

casual jacket progress

 here's the wip muslin for the vogue 8796 jacket I'm working on and also the skirt I am making...just need to hem the skirt + lining sew around the invisible zip, gather the rows of threads around the front and put a waist band on. but the jacket is amazing...i love the way it fits around the back of the neck and the cut is just lovely, when i have the sleeves set in on the muslin i will show how it looks(i'm most worried about how I've graded the sleeve...)

Best Ever Casual Jacket Pattern!!!

I'v been grading vogue pattern 8796 (1970's) up two sizes for a jacket(blazer?). The jacket has no buttons, facings, collars, cuffs or pockets! I love it so much. I have found so many expensive versions of this pattern in outrageously expensive fabrics on www.shopstyle.com(my favourite sewing inspiration) the jacket only requires about 1.65m of 45" fabric or 1.25m of 54" or 60" fabric, which means i could really go to town with the fabric(silk jacquard? silk brocade? some crazy modern fabric? and the other idea I had was to make a suit from it...a sort of modern take on it hopefully :-! I love the collarless sleek open lines.

I already have a camel pique suit(1960's) on the go at the moment, so I am nearly finished the skirt and the left over fabric might just be enough for the jacket (not bad for a $4 piece of fabric!)

This is the sort of suit i'd like, but with the jacket show above..this image is from www.secondcitystyle.com and it is Ralph Lauren 2007 RTW. (I'm ready to wear it 6 years later...)

1910's blouse update

I have decided to do elbow length sleeves so i will have to just cut ff the extra and i think i will gather into a little bias band of self fabric. The all that's left is making that hem particularly nice and adding some button holes(mess around with getting the exact placement right as there was nothing on the pattern to show where they go. I will probably use little burgundy buttons to blend as much as possible.

Pattern Cutting Tutorial: Basic Manual Grading

incredibly useful

Vogue 6343- fitting using a muslin

I have been fitting this dress today. The adjustments I have made so far are:
pinched out 5/8" sway back adjustment(need to move up a bit)
pinched a little wedge shape out of each of the front straps to stop them falling off and giving a nicer angle.
took in the back darts by 3/8" (will need to pinch out 5/8" after looking at these photos)
added 5/8" to underarm seams as the dress was pulling above my bust.
i need to lower the bust dart
took 6" off the hem. (hopefully will be 1" above knee
anyone know of anything else that stand out to them???? ergh i had no idea my shoulders were so big :-(

1920's Chic Fashions

fitting woes- working through it.

Experimenting with Cording Foot

this is a faux linen fabric with 2 strands of confetti coloured yarn and a maroon top stitching. I have found some beige poly knit from the 1960's, so i was thinking about making a top and creating some sort of embellishment just to lift the colour a bit...next thing i might try is a loopy beige fuzzy yarn held in place with zig zag and a gold thread mixed in.

Bound Buttonholes- The First One

Well I thought I'd give bound buttholes ago finally...they are actually not too hard to make, but I wasn't happy with the uneven look of my first one so I am going to research and find some other methods incase I like them better.
I have also been working on the 1910's blouse, and it's been a real eye opener and I'm enjoying it, so far the fusible interfacing has worked well but it was really hard getting the collar stitched up. I have been using a pressing cloth and the iron on polyester setting (that seems to work well)

1910's blouse-the final fabric.

I picked this polyester burnout fabric for this blouse, I have been looking at my wardrobe and looking for key colours and this is one I already have and my base colour is brick red-burgundy and navy, with a champagne colour (oh and a few gold/metallic pieces)
I have tried my hand at french seams for the first time(they aren't actually that hard) but the fabric probably wasn't the right one for french seams.
I'm undecided about if I will use fusible interfacing or not...hopefully if i get a black or navy interfacing it wont look terrible. The other thing I figured out is the markings on the pattern that look like button placement markings are actually just the straight grain markings so I'm going to have to work out the button placement on my own. I will not be making this in long sleeves i will just have elbow length sleeves that gather into a little strip.

The perfect winter dress!

I've found the pattern. yes! mcalls 8077

Chloe- Label Love- Creating the perfect pussy-bow blouse

I have a thing for shirts in silky fabrics,I found this photo of an outfit I obviously likes when I was 17, I remember I had quite a few like this, mostly 70's synthetics(ewww) but that was all I could find at the time as I hadn't learnt to sew by 17.
So lately I have been loving Chloe's blouses and their oversized pastel jackets...but first I noticed most of their lovely pussy-bow blouses in many shades of cream to peach are silk crepe de shine...well I can say I have never worked with anything like silk crepe de chine(still working on old cotton sheet fabrics!) but hopefully I can move up in the world and challenge myself to some silk....


my pick for places to buy fabric online is probably going to be www.gorgeousfabrics.com most of the patterns I have come across mainly use between 2 1/4 yards 3 yards at the most note to self: don't wear too tight pencil skirts p.e.a.r s.h.a.p.e.d

1913 blouse with added fabric layer

using Gimp for sewing projects!

I have just found an awesome tool for getting a better idea of how patterns will look....
I used a program called gimp(you can get a FREE download from the link provided on this blog)
but best of all the blog entry also has a nicely made tutorial how to use your own fabric photos and the pattern to visualise how your sewing projects will look.... the example photo is this pattern from Eva Dress and is a blouse from 1928. p.s i only had 15 mins to learn how to use the gimp program so i still have to go in and get rid of those white bits.

collar WIP- 1950's blouse- Simplicity 3661

attaching the collar is being a pain...i attached it wrong, but I can make it work...also cup some bias binding that seems like a pretty close colour match(that'll look better if I overdye the finished blouse)... next I have to cut out the sleeves and the cuffs...will need to hem the gathered parts before I sew the seams...not sure how to finish the seams there now.

1950's blouse- update-Simplicity 3661

pattern bought here!(lovely service:-)) I bought this blouse pattern, with the hope it would sharpen my skills and give me a nice blouse to wear for autumn/winter. I decided to use an old bed sheet(yes I am that confident in my sewing abilities) just in case I stuffed it up, with the hope that I can overdye it using a much darker colour. I'm pretty pleased so far...it's been a really nice solid pattern to sew apart from marking out all the pleats and gathers and tucks. The thing I would do better next time is my gathering skills...i just did the one row of gathering stitches instead of two...also because the sheet is an old one the pattern was really hard to get straight so i just gave up...next time hopefully I can get that spt on. This pattern really needs to be made up in something sexy like a crepe, the cotton is just too stiff looking, I would love to try dyeing silk and making a blouse from this pattern, but alas..soooo expensive.

Free 1912 Embroidery Design

I was after a long skinny design that would work on decorative area of blouses I'm sewing, I thought this one was cute so here it is.