30 minutes Per Day - Week of May 25, 2009

This week, I really did keep it to 30 minutes, Monday through Saturday. Sundays don't count, but I usually do the prep work of tracing and cutting that day. I really wanted to see what I could do in 30 minutes. Ready, set, here we go:

This week's project was a pair of capri length trousers for my daughter. She needed one more pair of shorts or trousers for the summer and liked this pair from Patrones:


The only problem was that the pattern is sized up to a size 10 and she needs a 12. Upon closer inspection of the line drawing, I realized that the trousers had an elastic waist and remembered I had a pattern in larger sizes that I could modify:


I've made Simplicity 4162 before, and these are your typical pull on elastic waist trousers. Sunday I cut everything out, including pieces for the cargo pockets and ties.

Monday: Side seams and pockets. I finished and stitched the side seams, leaving 3" unstitched at the bottom and pressing the seam open. I then started work on the pockets, including holding up a side to my daughter to figure out where the pockets should be stitched.

Tuesday: Finished the pockets. This part takes the longest because of all the topstitching, but the result is worth the two days spend working on it. There are no spots on the garment - I need to remove the water soluble pen marks for pocket placement.

Wednesday: Major construction and elastic. This part of course went quickly, as all I needed to stitch were the inside leg seams, the crotch seam and the elastic casing.

Thursday: Attached the tie bands. The bands were cut 2" wide by how ever long looked good. I know that's not very accurate, but I sort of eye balled about how much to go around the leg and how much I need to tie for both ends. The hem edge was gathered and stitched to the band, folded in place and topstitched all along the long edge.



Done!
Friday: Tracing day. I traced off BWOF 4/09 #102 to wear as a summer nightgown and I also traced off another bra pattern. That's all I had time to do, but that is progress!

Saturday: Cutting day. I was able to cut out the BWOF top. This took a little longer than 30 minutes, but it is Saturday and I wasn't cutting it out of fabric from the bolt. This is a wardrobe refashion, cut from one of my husband's old dress shirts. This will be the 30 minute project next week and I'll give the details then.

Parting Shot: New Fabric. My son wants to make his own quilt this summer and enter it into a show. He's already designed it himself on the computer in EQ5, so we went fabric shopping today. We have a plan so that he'll be finished by vacation.

The Betty Dress - Part One

Introduction

The other day, Bunny posted about a friend, mentor and teacher named Betty and the cutest children's dress she designed. Go take a look, it is super cute - and you'll need to so that you can understand what I'm doing for the rest of this post. You do have to take a look! Believe it or not, this dress was designed 50 years ago! Well, you know that's right up my alley, and I thought, why can't a big person have this dress, too? Of course, once I saw the design, a whole of ideas came to my head, but for now I'll stick to the classic version.

Betty has posted directions for the dress, and Bunny is giving details of her version for her granddaughter post by post, so I'll give you my version, too. The first thing to do is find a pattern for a sleeveless, scoopneck dress. The skirt portion really doesn't matter, but the bodice is what is important. A quick look through my vintage pattern collection turned up this pattern, McCall's 3357 from 1955:


It is not perfect, as it is a jumper, but that neckline can be redrafted a bit higher before doing some swirling and slicing. I traced off a full front pattern, and redrafted the neckline to be higher, the red lines are the new neckline/stitching line. Following the instructions, I then traced off the swirl part, shown in blue:


I then had to slice, well I haven't actually sliced yet, but I have drawn the line. This is the part I wasn't really sure about for an adult version. You see, children's patterns normally do not have darts - they don't need that sort of bodice shaping. Adult patterns do, so the question was how far from center front could I draw the line without having problems with the dart. For the children's version, you are to draw the line 2" from center front (or back). I found out that I could draw mine 2 1/2" without slicing into the dart. I was hoping for 3", to be more proportional for the adult size, but I'll settle for 2 1/2".


A full back was traced and the curve on the front was used to draw a matching curve on the back.


Not hard at all. Now, on to the fabric selections. From the collection, I have a few possibilities. I'm thinking I might have to buy fabric for this, but I'll let you take a look. My children have already expressed their oh-so honest opinions, but I'll see what you think.

For the larger side, my ginormous vintage paisley fabric, with black for the other half and lime green piping. I've always wanted to make something out of this fabric, and this might work as there won't be so much of this fabric in the project. A whole dress of this would be too much, but then again a half of a dress might be too much, too.


The other in house choice would be this blue fabric with white for the other half and blue piping. I think the print is a bit small and sort of like the original.


Not really in *love* with either choice, so I dug a little deeper into the collection and surfaced with these two pieces. That is a denim which has a deep beaded border and a piece of golden tan silk with swirls made of french knots. I know it sounds weird, but in real life these fabric look really good together - it is all about the contrast of denim/silk/beads/embroidery. I'd do the piping in a coppery brown suede for yet another texture contrast and because there are coppery beads that would pick up on that color. This one is the one that I really like as weird as it is, and is more more "adult".



What do you think?

Parting Shot. Deer. Yes, that deer is in our yard. He wandered around a bit nibbling on small plants at the edge of the woods and then disappeared into the woods.

Garden Path - Jacket - Part X

Further Rose Development

I'm still working on rose samples, but I think I'm ready to start the real work sometime this weekend.

These roses are hand appliqued silk dupioni - not all the flowers for this project are cut with the wood burning tool like the hollyhock. Some of the flower shapes do not translate well into the other medium, so I've decided to do a mixture of both techniques for this project.

As you can see from the photo below, this second rose isn't terribly well finished either. It doesn't need to be. It is only a sample and not on the real project yet. These samples are mainly a test for color and size contrast and for embellishment technique - beads, pencils or pens. Yes, I played with a lot of things here, and I think a combination of pens will give a nicely shaded rose. The thread painting is a no - too much thread in too small of a space.

I'm very happy with the second rose. I think I might go for a slightly larger size one, as I have many sizes of the original drawing. The pieces will be a little easier to work with since it takes 14 pieces to make a large rose, and 6 for a smaller but, not counting leaves or anything green. I also have a new barely opened bud drawn just for this project (remember these are cousins to the AB roses) which is mostly green with a just a sliver of pink.

As you can see from my drawing below, there must be a system to keep track of pieces and now, how much elevation each piece gets.

Here's how it works: each ring of petals has a designation, the outer row is X, the next inner row is A and the next is B. The numbers indicate what order the petals are appliqued - these overlap the next petal so this isn't as critical with this flower. The red letters indicate how much relief each piece will have or how much stuffing each gets. F is for flat, LR is for low relief, MR for medium, etc. This elevations might change a bit as I'm working with it, but I kind of have an idea of what I want to see. Like everything, this system is a little strange, but it works.

*Maybe* tonight I'll get some stems and leaves cut, but I doubt it. I have to get a craft project ready for my daughter's last day of school party tomorrow.

Last, I got a comment regarding the Prismacolor pencils from Valerie. In case you didn't see it, I'm going to post it, because it has some excellent information in it.

"Summerset, the binder in Prismacolor pencils is wax, which is why it can be "heat set" for your fabrics, or so I assume. There are also several other brands out there, primarily by Derwent. One is called "Artists" and the other is called "Studio". Both may give you what Prismacolor can't. Or not; neither is as soft as Prismacolors. I've never tried either for fabric but have a mighty collection of colored pencils. I found this info from the "Colored Pencil Soulution Book". Some other brands such as Polychromos use oil as a binder and may work too, since heat may help it sink in too."

Parting Shot: Still Knitting. I'm still working on the sweater and have started the sleeves. Maybe I'll get some time to work on this tonight, too. Yeah right.

Garden Path - Jacket - Part IX

Hollyhock Update and Rose Development

Here is what the hollyhocks look like at the moment:

Notice there is no shading in the centers. I've decided to not do that for the moment. I can not seem to heat set the pencils to my satisfaction at the moment, so I'd rather wait on that embellishment for a while. Meanwhile, the dye pens are looking more attractive due to their colorfastness, and due to the fact that I've found a better pink. It is hard to see, but it is just to the right of my thumb in the photo below. It is a more subtle shade than the darker pink, but I'm not sure that either color will make it into the final version.

Now that the hollyhocks are mostly done, it is time for the next flower in the garden, the roses. I've done a little test rosebud below. I was playing with the dye pens again, but they won't be in the final product. I've made the center fuchsia and the rest of the petals a darker pink, as you can see in contrast to the hollyhocks.

To make the roses a little more interesting, I'm using a technique called stuffed applique. This is a trapunto like technique to raise certain areas. I've cut certain sections purposely larger to allow for stuffing and then mostly stitched the piece in place. You might be able to see the relief better in the following photo:

To stuff the piece, I've used strips of batting trimmed from other project and then shredded into small bits.

The piece gets stuffed and then the stitching is finished.

I like the look of the roses, I might throw in one more pink color for the larger ones - I'll try to get a larger test one done tomorrow. I did try some sequins in the center, but didn't like the result, as it looked like I was trying to hard to embellish them.

Meanwhile, I can get started on the stems and leaves!

Parting Shot: Silk! More silk for GP - both of these are crossweaves, and you can barely see the subtle secondary colors in each photo, but to really see the beauty, you'd have to see them in real life. The orange is for the lilies, and the purple might be part of the trim.

Inside the Envelope

Vogue Paris Original #1897, Yves Saint Laurent

I promised a peek inside the envelope of this one, so here it is. This one was published in the late 60's, and after some research, I'm going to strongly guess 1968. The reason for this is because pattern #1896 was also a YSL and was featured in the Vogue Pattern Book Feb./Mar. 1968. In addition to that, the hair styles and shoes also indicate to me the late 1960's.

While the design is not a fussy or unusually draped 40's or 50's cocktail gown, this design is still full of couture details. You can see from the pattern pieces below the simple shapes of the ensemble.

The first thing I found inside the envelope was the sew in label and a card to mail away for a subscription to the "fashion-packed issues of Vogue Pattern Book International". As a "BONUS! I earn 1 extra free issue by sending payment with my order." A mere $3.50 order, might I add. This one also has the sew in Vogue Paris Original label. Once you were done sewing your creation in grand couture style, you could sew a label in it.

Couture details start with the fabrics and notions and this outfit is no exception. In addition to fashion fabric and lining, the dress calls for two different types of underlining, one soft and one crisp; also note the notions needed:

The underlinings are basted to the wrong side of the fashion fabric, and the instructions are concise and clear about what needs to be basted and how to do it:

Did you note the two 4" zippers in the notions list? These two little zippers are used in the sleeves. The sleeves are cut so narrow that the hand would not fit through, so a zipper is used to make it wide enough to put on.

The skirt hem is not only interfaced, but it also has horsehair to make it stand out a bit and keep the a-line shape. The fabrics suggested for the ensemble include moire, velvet, ottoman and brocade, so this makes sense, as these are heavier fabrics. Note too, that the ends of the horsehair braid where they meet are finished with bias binding - that stuff can be stiff and scratchy if not covered. The hem is then turned up and stitched in place, covering up the interfacing and horsehair.

The cape, too, has interesting details. The front interfacing neck darts are not stitched, but rather trimmed, abutted and reinforced with seam binding. It is less bulky and more balanced to stitch the dart this way.

The hem for the cape has details and specific instructions, too. Notice the instructions after stitching the hem to the underlining only. It says: To press, hold iron over hem. Steam, never resting iron on fabric. Pat lightly with pounder or ruler. This makes for a softer edge rather than the hard crease that is produced when a hem is flattened by steam and the weight of the iron.

The main feature of the cape is of course, the optional fur trim. Suggested furs include: sable mink, fox or rabbit. Do note, that if you don't prefer to make the optional yourself, you can always have the furrier do it.

The first thing that is done is that a taffeta stay is made in the shape of the trim. You can see that in the bottom of the photo above. The edges are turned in and basted in placed. The fur pelts are then shaped. Note that fur has a nap and in order for the fur to lie in the correct direction down each side of the cape, it will need to be cut and reassembled at the center back neck.

The fur is then eased into the proper shape, note that where it turns the corner at the neck edge, a wedge has been removed and the edges sewn together. The taffeta stay is then stitched to the pelt side of the fur. Once that is done, the trim is hand sewn around all the cape edges.

Interesting pattern, with details you don't always see today, especially the fur.

Tomorrow - Garden Path update!

Parting Shot: Fire Pit, V 2.0. My husband rebuilt the fire pit over the weekend. It really is composed of cinder blocks, but looks more natural in the ring shape and with the other natural rocks around it. It is a better design for fires, too since there is better airflow around and through the pit. We tested it Sunday night and it works much better than the old one.

Attitude of Gratitude

I've been nominated for the Attitude of Gratitude award by Lory and here are the rules:

The Rules of Accepting and Sharing this Award
1. Put the logo on your blog or post
2. Nominate a few blogger's that show an attitude of gratitude
3. Link to your nominees within your post
4. Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received this award
5. Share the love and link to this post and the person who nominated you for the award.
6. Tell us how you've come to have an attitude of gratitude

Here are my thoughts on an attitude of gratitude. Of course, this nomination came at a time when in my country we celebrate Memorial Day, so I can't help but think of all of those who have sacrificed for my country and my freedoms and be grateful for the work of those in the past and present. I come from a military family and was very aware from a young age of the sacrifice not only of the soldier, but also of his family to provide our country with security and freedoms.

Today, we heard a crash and after some investigation, found a hawk had flown into one of our windows and was stuck in one our hosta plants. I think he was too stunned at first to try to fly away. We went outside and with a little coaxing got him away from the plant and onto
a stick. Once he was free and felt the open air, he took off and flew away over the housetops.

I realized today I have been like that hawk so many times, crashing, getting stunned and then being freed from my own traps to soar once again. I am grateful for those who pick me up and help me out - my parents, my husband, and my Savior, Jesus Christ. All of these have sacrificed in some ways - both great and small to make me the person I am today and will be in the future.

I'd like to nominate the following people for this award:

Lisa
Bunny
Isabelle
Allison

Parting Shot: As Promised. Here are a couple of photos of the dress, with the jacket and without. I do apologize for the wrinkles and not looking so great - this was after the evening service, which is pretty long for us because of ensemble practice, then choir practice, then the actual service. Sundays are pretty busy for us!

30 minutes or so Per Day - Week of May 18

Patrones #278, Model #3, Selvatgi Dress


This week's project was the matching dress for last week's blue jacket. As a reminder of what dress this actually is, there are photos below. My time available through the week varied, so I got more done on days I could actually work 60 minutes rather than just the 30 minutes.

I was able to get the dress fitted on Sunday and a head start on the bodice. Since I've mentioned fitting, if you're considering making this dress, do a muslin or baste your pieces together to check the fit. I already knew where the fit issues would be - shoulders and waist, so it wasn't a surprise, but I knew there would have to be changes.

Speaking of changes brings me to a couple of other points. (Might as well get this done before I type the rest of post and forget!) One, I did not use the instructions. They are in Spanish, and while I can read most of the sewing instructions, I tend not to use foreign language instructions and just look at the fashion photos, line drawings and pattern pieces to figure it out. I'll add extra details in this post so that you know how I've made this dress. Second, I changed the zipper and center back. The zipper was originally in the side and the center back had a long opening, almost to the band (see photo above). Neither was going to work for me, I was not comfortable with the center back opening and I knew that there would be a very curvy side seam when I was done with the fitting. I moved the zipper to the center back, creating a seam there. The zipper extends all the way from the bottom of the neck band to however long the zipper is - the red portion of the bodice, through the blue band at the waist and into the skirt, not in the neck band itself. I also omitted the bottom band as I'm a bit short and I was short on fabric.

Monday: Finished bodice. To make the bodice, I stitched the darts in the front and the bands to the armhole sides of the pieces. I then attached the waist band pieces

Tuesday: Cut out lining, finished and attached skirt. The skirt darts were stitched and the skirt pieces were attached to the bodice. The side seams were then sewn, carefully matching up the side bands. At the end of my time on Tuesday, I had this, but no zipper or center back seam.

Wednesday: Installed the zipper.

Thursday: Made the lining in the same way as the dress.

Friday: Attached lining to dress, attached neck bands. I attached the lining to the dress at the armholes, placing the pieces right sides together and stitching around each armhole, clipping and turning the lining to the inside (see photo below). After stitching the neck bands together at the shoulders, I stitched the neckbands to the front and backs.

Saturday: Added the neck facing, hooks and eyes, and finished both hems.

Done! I'll post a photo of the whole outfit next week as I plan to wear this to church tomorrow.

Parting Shot: First Iris! Here is my first iris of the season. It is one of the early bloomers, and there are many more to come.