From disaster to acceptable

As we all know you sometimes want to get a little outside your comfort zone and try something new. For me this now meant sewing a different style t-shirt. The basic picture of this one is just a slight variation: v neckline, dropped shoulder but not too much, little accent line center front. The pattern is from Ottobre issue 5/2016. Let me say there's nothing wrong with the pattern, but it doesn't suit me.

Dropped shoulders are not my favorite, but felt I'd try again and thought they were not too much dropped. Wrong conclusion, the result was horrible.

I do have narrow shoulders and a full bust. Not a good combination for this.

On a positive note: I love the accent line center front. 

When I pinned the sleeve higher up, the look was beter already, even if done only provisionally.

The next thing I did was using a basic Ottobre t-shirt pattern (from a 2007 issue) and compared.

Quite a difference. I cut all the seams from the shirt, kept the hem on the bottom and on the sleeves. 

Better, although I think that the original width of the body was slightly better. For me the fit is a bit too tight in the back now and there's still a little pleat forming above the bust. It's a nice layering piece and I'll wear this version. 

The neckline was finished with a small strip of the same fabric. The construction of the original pattern was quite different and the center line a seam stitched inside out. I've cut it on the fold and stitched a very narrow "pleat".

A little detail on how I did that (I know a lot of you like this kind of detail!):

• I pressed the center front
• Put in a strip of water soluble material (tip: don't press with steam afterwards, it will wrinkle, look bad and give you a fright. When it's all solved it will all be straight again though! How I know.....?)
• Stitched a straight line only a few millimeters away from the center front
• Removed most of the soluble material
• Continued further construction

That's become quite a long post.

Enjoy your day!

A top by my daughter

 It's been so nice to hear some of you just like to read my posts. I do realise I've been here before in the past years, which is probably something that happens occassionally when you have been doing something (in my case blogging) for so long. Sorry to have bothered you with my uncertainty and indecisiveness. 

There are a few things I will change in the near future but I'll come to that when I do it. Let's start with showing you a project that has been made recently. Partly by me, partly by my daughter.

My daughter is one of my "students". Of course she's not a paying student and it's not a weekly thing but she really likes to learn to sew. My son's girlfriend too, lucky me! I like to pass the sewing bug along and we've been sewing together a bit lately. 

She selected this top from an older Patrones magazine.

  

It was labeled "Couture facil", which means it should be an easy sew. Really? With this button placket in the back? This kind of button placket even makes me a little nervous. It's about very precise sewing and cutting and if you do it wrong, you really can see it or worse, even be so bad you want to throw the pattern piece in the bin. There was no fabric left, it had to be right first time round.

Perhaps needless to say that I did sew the placket. My daughter watched the process clearly and said she could not (yet) have done it. But the rest, from tracing to cutting the fabric pieces and finishing the neckline was done by my daughter (with a bit of guidance). She's ever so pleased with the result and has worn it with pleasure. Receiving compliments for it too!

The placket before finishing the neckline and completely sewing with buttons

.   

The sleeve with pleats

My daughter wearing the top

  

The fabric is from Atelier Brunette and bought in a shop in The Hague. What's nice about this brand is that they have notions matching their fabric. In this case the buttons!

Hi

 Hi, it’s been a very long time since I posted anything here. Hope you are doing well in this strange year with the pandemic all over the globe. I’m fine, have been sewing but not blogging. I have also started a new adventure and started giving sewing lessons in the small town I live and will soon start at another location too. Exciting and love to do that. It’s great to share the love of sewing in real life too (as long as lockdown does not prevent classes, as at the moment, hopefully we can start again next week). 

I’ve been doing a bit of housekeeping and have removed quite a few of the tutorials I had here because I think they need better photos, better instructions and/or a better layout. 

In fact I’m thinking about what to do with the blog: keeping it or not? Start afresh with a bit of different content (still sewing!)? Start another blog that I can more easily adjust visually? Re-do the tutorials and have an English and a Dutch version? Make them in video format? PDF format? Talk more about the different pattern magazines I use? Make a pattern from a magazine each month from one of them and share the experience?

At the same time I feel there’s already so much information to be found online, what would I add that’s not already there in many variations?  

I invite you to share your thoughts. If you look for a tutorial online, what are you looking for? Can you find it? What would you like to see on this blog? Any other ideas? 

Looking forward to read your input. Even if it’s just a hello it’s great to hear from you.

Finishing a sleeveless dress (facing or lining)

During the long time I've been sewing I've used several ways for finishing a sleeveless dress. There are methods where you don't sew the center back or the side seams until the facing/lining is done. Which not always works as I'd like to, as it doesn't give you much opportunity for fitting while sewing. Which is what I (and a lot of you too I think) often do. At least for finetuning in the final fabric. The method I describe here requires the shoulderseams to be left open. And as it's a method for a sleeveless dress (or top), that's only a small seam to baste for fitting purposes. I like the fact that you can sew in the zipper too, if required, before sewing the facing/lining to the dress. Or use a pattern without a center back seam. 

I'm sharing this method with the regular disclaimer that this is what works for me. I'm not claiming this is the perfect method. In the steps below I refer to the facing, because that is what you see in my photos. It would be no problem if the lining was attached to the facing or if you use lining only. It's a lot of steps in the way I describe it here, but it's not overly complicated. Give it a try and let me know how it worked!

Step 1 

Sew the dress without sewing the shoulder seams

Step 2

Sew the facing without sewing the shoulder seams. Usually this will mean sewing the side seams of the front and back facing. My dress has a center back zipper, which was installed first and there are 2 back facing parts. If the dress has no center back seam, the facing for the back can be one part.

Step 3

Baste/pin the facing to the dress.

Step 4

Sew the facing to the dress, do not stitch to the end of the seam, leave about 3cm/1.5 inch open.

Trim and clip the seams where necessary. Again not to the end of the seam.

Step 5

Turn, press and edgestitch on the facing. How far you can do the edgestitching depends on the width of the shoulder, but do not stitch till the point where you stopped the seamstitch. Stop a little before that point.

Step 6

Fold away the facing and pin and sew the shoulder seams of the garment. 

Step 7

Pull the shoulder seam inside out.

Step 8

This is the most fiddly step, pin and sew the shoulder seams of the facing.

Step 9

Pull on the seams and match the shoulder seams from the garment and the facing. 

Pin the neckline and armhole side. Sew and make sure you start and end at the previous stitching lines. This is easier to sew when the seam is still wider, therefor it was not trimmed in the earlier step.

Step 10

Trim the seam, I trim the corners too to remove as much bulk as possible.

Step 11

Turn back the facing by pulling on it. Press the shoulder seam and you're done!

Jacket modeled on me

I have a few catch-up posts to do. Let me start with a post with only a few words. This is the jacket I finished a month ago but didn't yet show wearing it.
I'm very pleased with it and have worn it a few times already. The sewing details are in the previous post.

Jacket from Burda February 2020

Though the muslin of the Knip Mode jacket was a huge disappointment I was still in a jacket sewing mood. I spent an evening trying to draft that jacket myself but it was too complicated. I do have some pattern drafting skills, but this was out of my league.
Then February Burda came along with this pattern. Not as complicated but still lovely lines. Add to this my confidence in their consistent pattern drafting and I was on my way tracing this pattern.

I compared the traced pattern to my sloper and added a little bit to the hip area and made it up in the fashion fabric immediately. My fabric was 1.50 meter wide, a little wider than the fabric used in the magazine and I managed to cut this from only 1.55 meter of fabric. You can see that some pieces are rather close to each other, I defnitely did not use 5/8 inch seam allowances! The only change I had to do was cutting the center back facing with a seam instead of on the fold. Minor issue in my opinion.


 
This is the fabric I used, bought at Croft Mill Fabric.


Construction was pretty straightforward. As most of you know I construct my jackets with a bit more internal structure than instructions in general tell you. This jacket has a shoulder shield (see picture), sleeveheads and a thin shoulder pad. The last two I forgot to take a photo of.



This "belt" is a nice detail and waist accent. Found this lining that suited the jacket very well. Any plain lining would have been fine of course.




Partly unzipped. The zipper was taken from a skirt I made a couple of years ago. It was still in mint condition while the fabric of the skirt was turning from black to grey. It even has a bit more of a story, because I bought this Riri zipper when I was in New York and met Nancy K again. Quite a few years ago now, wish I could do it again. Wish I could find this more special zippers locally too but never found a source for them.



Now I'm working on an easy project, here's a sneak peek. A dress from Burda January 2019. I was just too tired to put the sleeves in tonight.



.