Visit to the UK and a sneak peek of what I’m working on

Hello my dear readers. The winterblues are over, though according to the weather here in the Netherlands it will never be summer. I’m feeling I should be out in my garden now, instead I’m inside and took a cardigan from the closet to keep warm. Well, we can’t change the weather, but as so many people here I’m longing for some sunshine and warmth.

As you may have read in my previous post I’ve been spending a week in the UK, of which the most important event was Pauline’s wedding of course, but before and after that day we made it a short holiday with a lot of walks and beautiful scenery. We were reasonably lucky: it was mostly rather cold, but we only had heavy rain on our last day of walking and travelling home.

An impression: Constable country near Dedham

Bluebell season

 

The South Downs, beautiful views from the hills:

And another meeting, this time we met Clare and her husband for dinner. I’ve met Clare quite a few times now (PR weekends of Paris and Brussels, several meetings after this with the group of seamstresses I blogged about before) and it was a pleasure as always. Nice to meet with the husbands as well. It’s been a week that I have thought several times about what blogging and the internet sewing world has brought me. So many new friends, sometimes meeting in real life, sometimes only contact by e-mail. I am so glad for all this.

Finally, the main topic of my blog is (and will be) sewing. So here’s a sneak peek of the jacket I’m working on. The full story of it will be in another post and it’s quite an elaborate jacket, so it might take a week or so to have it finished.

Not my work

But wanted to share the beautiful dress of Pauline, who married yesterday and I was proud and honored to be invited. Look at Pauline’s blog for more photos. In the past months she made all the bridesmaids dresses and her own dress. Quite an achievement and didn’t she look gorgeous?

 

This next picture was taken by my husband a little prior to the official photographer taking photos. Next to me is Vivien, another sewing friend of both Pauline and me. It was so nice to see her again as well. Mentioning to a few other guests that we were sewing friends brought the subject on the ‘great british sewing bee’  program which a lot of people had seen though they were not sewing themselves. Ann’s achievements in the program got a lot of praise.

My dress was made by me a few years ago. This time I found shoes in the exact color. The photos show the dress in more blue tones than it really is, it’s an emerald green silk.

My husband and I are enjoying another few days in the UK, doing some sight seeing and walks at the south coast of England. After we’re back I’ll be finishing a jacket I’m making so I will hope to be posting more soon again. The winter blues are over.

Blog vacation

Van Burda 02 2013 106

This is the jacket I’ve sewn last week. It’s from BurdaStyle’s February issue.  A full review of it can be found on Pattern Review.

It’s also the last post on this blog for a (little?) while. After almost 6 year of blogging I find it difficult to write something new. Í don’t think it’s interesting to read about the way I construct a jacket for the third, fourth.. time, see yet another bra or t-shirt. Perhaps it’s winter-blues and am I in need of some sunshine and higher temperatures. We’ll see.

Edited to add: Thank you for all your kind words. I’ll be back. Just need a break.

For now happy Easter everyone and till next time.

Pattern Review contest

O dear, is she again saying she’s entering a contest and not meeting the deadline by weeks (or even months)?

No, this time I’m managing a contest. A first time for me. On April 1 a new contest "2013 Spring Pantone colors" will start. This week the discussion started about ideas and the interpretation of the rules. I’m sure it will be a fun contest. And though I can’t enter the contest for real, I will try to sew an outfit in one or more of these colors (hope to find them, I might have some Monaco blue but the others are not in my stash probably).

If you like the idea be inspired or join the fun!

These are the colors, numbers and names for the colors for women (the palet for men is a bit different).

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Interfacing lycra

Sometimes I work with lycra that is thin and has a lot of stretch. Not a good fabric for my bra’s, as I need support both in the cups and the band. Often the nice lycra’s (and besides beautiful lace I do love a lycra with a beautiful print) are too thin to use as they are. The solution: interfacing. The downside of using an interfacing: risk of shifting layers with pleats as result. This is what happened in the center of this bra that I made a couple of years ago, look at the bottom of the bridge:

This is how I tackle this issue now (and I’m sure I’ve written about this before, can’t find the post however):

Depending on the result I want I use an interfacing which has no stretch at all or that has a little stretch (but less than the lycra). The bridge is always interfaced with an interfacing without stretch. I’ve used the lycra of this example for an all-lycra bra without lace which is not finished yet, and used an interfacing with a bit of stretch for both the cups and the band in a very light skin-tone color.

For demonstration purpose I used a black, non stretch interfacing in this post.

Cut the pattern pieces in both interfacing and lycra, with seam allowances of course.

I’ve pinned the two layers together to show both pieces are the same size.

Stretch and pin the lycra so that all seams are beyond the interfacing pieces. It depends on the amount of stretch how munch you do this. With this thin lycra it was 2 to 3 millimeters on all sides.

When you lay it on a flat surface, the lycra will pull on the interfacing and it will not lay flat.

Zigzag the layers together within the seams allowance!

Cut off the edge of the lycra.

The pattern piece has its original size again but looks a bit weird. It’s no problem at all to work with though.

When sewn together and worn, the lycra will lay smoothly over the interfacing without any pleats.

When I started making bra’s I used a fusible interfacing for the under cups. This was a special interfacing that I can’t find easily any more, so most of the time I use this method for the undercups.

Questions and answers

There were a few questions and comments on my last posts on bra making that I will try to answer here.

DaneMum asked whether the change to accomodate the cup circumference to the band/wire length for the cup is a large change. In this case it was only a matter of overlapping a centimeter of one cup piece. The other pieces were not changed. I always have a bit of extra space in the cup that I work into the band (like a sleeve head) because of the extra volume I need. I’ve always done it like that, and in Beverly Johnson’s book Bra making part two she confirmed that this is the right thing to do for my shape. The shape she calls an omega-shape (narrow chest, full cup).

Diana mentioned that it would be nice to have some of the lace in the back of the bra. I think she’s right and it would have been lovely. I like to do that on another bra, this one will remain as it is, but it’s a nice idea to have something attractive at the back too.

Amanda asked how the width of the band would refer to a longline bra. I must say that I don’t know. I’ve never owned or made a longline bra so can’t advise there.

Stuffandjunkorwhathever questioned the reason for the double topstitching of the wire channelling and observed that she had seen that mainly on lace bra’s, and only one row of topstitching on more functional bra’s. To me it'’s always been two rows of topstitching. The more luxurious bra’s indeed have that double topstitching and I think (but just an idea, not founded on any real information) that with two rows to enclose the wire it is more flat to you body. It’s a bit more difficult to make than one row of topstitching, but I do it all the time. Just love the look of it, but there’s no real reason against only one row of topstitching.

Bonny D remarked: “I wonder if the integrity of the garment would suffer at all if I could do the last under cup band zigzagging "after" I did the channelling top stitching, thereby allowing me to control where the zigzag goes. My purpose of this would be to avoid the zzzzz on the channeling. After all, it's not like that small bit needs to stretch. Previously, I would try just to avoid the channeling area with the zzzz.”
With the method I mentioned you topstitch the channelling last, but if you could do it differently. If the method suits you there is no “law” to say you have to do it otherwise. They way I describe is just one of the ways, and the way I prefer to do it.

Think these were the questions, if I’ve forgotten one let me know.

To finish a few photo’s from the panties I made to complete the set. Though not a very sexy model I do think these are different. I especially like the first one, with the triangular detail in the back.

 

Next post a tip for working with very stretchy lycra. Then I will be sewing a few other garments.

Sewing the elastic to the band

In the lingerie sew-along I orgnized a few years ago I’ve published this post on how I sew the elastic to the band. I’m re-posting it here for general information. I’ll try to gather a bit of those posts as a conclusion to my lingerie sewing month.

One of the most common problems in bra making is the rolling/flipping of the elastic to the inside. This is often caused because the elastic is sewn too low on the band. In one of the classes I took it was told that the maximum height of the band under the cup is 1.25 cm (0,5 inch). It was said that in a lingerie sewing contest  this was one of the things that got extra attention.
This is the way in which I sew the underband. It’s specially made as a tutorial, so only a partial bra is shown and non-matching colors are used for all parts.

	Sew cups in the underband.
	Sew the elastic to the  underband, pluche side up and picots pointing to the cup.
	On the inside, sew the chanelling to the cup, on the very edge, almost onto the seam where you sewed the cup to the underband.
	Turn the elastic and topstitch it with a triple zigzag.
	The elastic attached.
	The inside at this point.
	Now topstitch the chanelling twice. Once close to the seam, once on the outer edge of the chanelling. After many bra's, this is still the most difficult part for me, sometimes I have to take it out because it shifts on the inside, and I won't get the wire through.
	Finished on the inside.