Year in Review - 2009

Well, it is that time of year to see what I've actually accomplished this year. I tallied up the numbers and it was once again surprising. I ended up making or working on 107 items. That number does not include alterations. Don't forget, I'm not just sewing for me. I sew for every member of the household, cats excluded. Much of what my daughter and I wear, I've made. Some of these items were *really* easy, too!

Here's the breakdown for that number:

21 tops/shirts
11 skirts
12 dresses
2 art ensembles
3 refashions
6 trousers/shorts
8 jackets/vests
23 other items - including hats, totes, under wear, etc.
6 knitted items
15 costumes - Peter Rabbit and Ben Hur

Amongst all of those we have winners and losers. It was harder to pick the winners - I liked a lot of what I made. The losers were much easier, so we'll start with those.

A green knit top from Burda. It didn't work for me at all, neither style or fabric. Maybe a different color would have been better? No matter, it has been cheerfully donated, am I'm sure it will find a good home eventually.

This Burda boucle jacket. I'm not sure why I don't like it more - it is warm, and I like the colors. I just don't wear it very much. It's ready to be donated away, too.

This Knipmode sweater. Originally I made this sweater in aqua blue and liked it, but the red version didn't work out as nicely. The last sweater I made from this fabric I disliked, too, so I just trashed the rest of the fabric that I had. No point in completely striking out with a third try.

With that out of the way, we can look at the winners, I could put a lot of garments in this category, but I'll try to keep the number low!

First, the Barcelona suit. I love this suit and I get many compliments on it whenever I wear it. The matching vest is also a winner, but not pictured.


Second, the large self-drafted tote bags. This one is my favorite, but I like the red winter version and the one I made for my daughter's music books, too.

Third, my son's Patrones jeans. He *loves* these jeans and wears them every week to school!

Fourth, my red scarf. I love red, I love cables and I love being warm. Enough said.

Fifth, another knitted item, the Manos silk/wool sweater. This sweater is so soft and perfect for summer air conditioning.

Last, but not least, the red four piece pajama set. I am so glad I made the whole set including the pajama pants. The flannel back satin is comfortable, warm and machine washable, too!

Now, I haven't shown you the plaid Vogue 1132 suit yet nor my husband's newest shirt, but I could add those to the winning list, too. I'll do a catch up post on Saturday with those two garments. Tomorrow we'll take a look at last year's goals and how well I did accomplishing those and reveal some new ones, too.

Parting Shots: Another Winner. Wellie seems to be another winner of the year. He certainly has added some excitement about the house! Here he is Christmas morning, peeking out of the tree, after he'd crawled back amongst the presents:

Later that morning, he found some eggnog in the bottom of a glass that was rather tasty:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday to all you, dear readers. Please take a moment to reflect upon the wonderful season, the birth of the Saviour and all the other reasons to celebrate.

I will be taking a holiday break to spend time with my family and will back to blogging on Thursday, Dec. 31, with a look back at this year's textile activities (maybe I'll get that jacket done sometime, too!)!

Parting Shot: Christmas Roses. FedEx brought me a box of lovely roses early yesterday morning from my husband. Isn't he great?

Vogue 1132 - Vintage Plaid Jacket

The Body Is Done!

After taking longer than I had originally planned, the body of the jacket is finally done. In my own defense, I wasn't home Monday or Tuesday due to all day play practices and a lot of errands. I also took a little longer because I chose to do all the traditional hand stitching rather than using fusible interfacing for the lapels and collar.

Here's the detail of the matched plaids at the side front seam:


The collar is not yet attached, but waiting, still pinned to the ham after being shaped a little more with some steam:


My plan is to make the lining tomorrow and then to get the jacket finished on Saturday. We'll see - not everything goes according to plan! I should be able to show you the finished suit next week.

Parting Shot: Party Ready. Tonight is the last concert our family is involved in for the season and we're going to an appetizer party at a friend's house after the party. I've volunteered to bring blue cheese deviled eggs. For some reason, people love these things. Strange enough, I don't! I don't like eggs at all, yet I make them for other people. Go figure.

Holiday Outfits!

I made the children's holiday outfits on the 30 Minutes per Day sewing plan, and I never did show you the children actually wearing the outfits. They wore the outfits on Sunday for another program, so I was able to take a few pictures.

Here is my daughter, wearing the Jalie crossover top and modified vintage circle skirt. This outfit really works for her for many reasons: it is easy to wear, it looks more grown up, but doesn't look too mature for an 11 year old.

Next is my son, wearing his vest and new red tie. The vest could be an inch or two longer, but it will last the season and since I didn't pay for anything except the buttons, I'm not going to agonize over it. I can always make him another one.

Here they both are:

Tomorrow, I will have an update on the Vogue 1132 plaid jacket. I think I'll have the fashion fabric body done by then!

Parting Shot: Claimed. Wellie has claimed this box for himself. We were trying to find a box for an unusual present and started going through the extra shoe boxes. Wellie decided this one was good enough for him for a nap.

A Complete Set!

And Some Instant Gratification, Too.

Yesterday, I bought more flannel back satin to make the matching pajama bottoms to the pajama set that I made a while ago. The pattern is Burda 11/09, #131 and is part of the collection from which I made the first three pieces.

These are your basic elastic waist pajama bottoms. Not exciting, and I even made them easier by eliminating the drawstring/elastic combination and just made an elastic waist. Did I mention that they were quick? I turned on the serger and regular machine at 8:00p and by 9:00p the bottoms were done. They were nice and warm last night, too.

It is nice every once in a while, especially during this busy season, to be able to make a project from start to finish in an evening, wear it and enjoy it!

Parting Shot: Gifts. My daughter is making these leather key chain/backpack tags for her friends and one for herself. She saw all these leather samples being sold at Martin's House of Cloth for really cheap, so we bought some to make Christmas gifts. She decided on monograms and little flowers in glue-on rhinestones. Quick and easy!

30 Minutes Per Day - Week Of Dec. 13, 2009

I knew it would take me all week to finish the skirt, but that's how the more detailed projects go. At least I finished something!

Here's what I did this week:

Monday: I had a head start on the skirt at the end of last week, so today I assembled the yokes, including the pockets.

That doesn't sound like a lot, but there is a lot of topstitch detail in the skirt:

Tuesday: I got the zipper installed:

Wednesday: I attached the skirt to the yokes and prepped the waistband.

Thursday: I got the waistband attached and finished - this took a little more than 30 minutes but I wanted to get this gift done so that I can finish wrapping the children's presents. The waistband has the buttonhole elastic in it, for a better fit:

I took another 15 minutes in the evening to put the snaps on the tab.

I ran into a problem with the top tab when I went to make a hole in it for the snap hardware. I made a very large hole that I couldn't cover up, so I cut off the end evenly, serged it, and turned it up and top stitched it. There's only one snap now, but it doesn't look too bad for such a mistake!

Friday: I topstitched around the waistband twice and was done. Trust me, it looks much better on a person than on this dress form!

As a side note, this Patrones skirt goes with the Jalie top from last week. For those of you who are not familiar with either of these pattern companies, Jalie is a pattern company based in Canada. Part of their focus is knit athletic wear for dance, ice skating, gymanstics, etc., but they also have really good patterns for regular apparel including knit tops that get excellent review on Pattern Review. I almost always see a Jalie in PR's top ten pattern lists. Patrones is a Spanish pattern magazine, published in Spanish and a little hard to get in the US. It is much like the Burda magazine with fashion shots of the models and the patterns on large sheets in the middle of the magazine for tracing before using.

This will be the last 30 Minutes Per Day post for a while, at least until I need to go back to this format. Next week is Christmas and I only have one more project to complete. This is a secret project - for someone who reads this blog, so I'll show that after Christmas.

Parting Shot: Event #4. This morning my children were in another Christmas program. They both sang in groups, my son had the jingle bells to accompany one of his group's songs and my daughter rang hand bells in the hand bell choir she's also in. This isn't the best photo, as it was taken from the back of the auditorium, but this was early in the piece and she's watching her music so she can come in at the right time.

You were right when you guessed that Wellie is the cause of our bare Christmas tree branches. We have had cats that have destroyed trees, just like some of you! We had one kitten that climbed all the way to the top and was peeking out at us when we got up one morning. Another pair of cats destroyed the tree so badly that one was tangled in the lights to the point she couldn't even run away when she saw us coming. Oh yeah, cats and trees, what fun!

Vogue 1132 - Vintage Plaid Jacket

We Have a Back!

Amazingly enough, I got everything done that I wanted to today and did not have to attend or perform in a concert! I decided the back was the easiest thing to work on at the moment, since I haven't started any of the hand stitching needed for the fronts.

It took a little while to line up the plaids, and I'm pleased with how it all came out. For the most part they match, except for the very top bars at the shoulders, which wouldn't due to the curve of the pieces and the peplum extensions between side and side backs, due to the slant of the seams. That's the way it is with plaids: you can only match so much and not worry about the rest. You have to pick what is most important, which is usually what is most visible, and match that. Those areas are generally centers and side seams. Anything curved, like princess seams will only match so far and then things go awry due to the curve.

I really had to make sure that these plaids matched well at center back. I have a fellow choir member who sits behind me admit that she looks at my plaids to see how well they are matched! She sews, too, so I totally understand why she'd be looking at them!

Parting Shot: Bare. I'll give you only one guess as to why our tree branches are bare at the bottom. That icicle on the left is in danger.

Vogue 1132 - Vintage Plaid Jacket

Still Creeping Along . . .

But that's ok. Today was concert #3 of the week, with just one more for this week on Friday morning. After today, I think work on this project will pick up quite a bit. I've been cutting and fusing interfacing, which isn't exciting, but is important to the look and feel of the finished jacket.


I've also decided to pad stitch the lapels and collar, since this project is taking me a while anyway, an extra day or two won't hurt! To that end, I've marked and basted the hair canvas to the fronts.


You might have seen the hair canvas in the buttonhole post, but if not, I did apply it before making the buttonhole (which, yes, is now finished!) and then cut out a rectangle to reduce bulk where the buttonhole would be made. You can see that below.


So, I am making progress. Even though this progress isn't putting thread into fabric and never will be seen in the final product, it is very important! It is hard to remember, but all the extra time and care put into the interior work of a garment pays off when the final product hangs and wears as it should.

Tomorrow I plan to actually sew some seams. I'm not sure which ones, but I will be sewing some seams!

Parting Shot: Recital. Today's event was a Christmas recital featuring a mix of light hearted secular tunes and traditional carols. This was my daughter's first public flute performance, and she did really well. She played in a group, and it was nice because there wasn't the pressure of playing solo for the first performance. I'm very pleased as she's only been playing since September. Having 5 years of piano lessons didn't hurt, as she knows notes, tempos, etc. already. My son played a couple of piano duets with a friend his age, but I didn't get any decent pictures of him.

Vogue 1132 - Vintage Plaid Jacket

Front Details

This week is and is going to be one of those weeks. We have four different concerts/recitals this week, in which at least one and sometimes two family members are involved. Tonight and tomorrow will be events #2 and #3 for the week. Over the next couple of days, I really won't have two or three free hours to really work on jacket body construction. Meanwhile, I will have to work on the small things, like the bound buttonhole, the covered button, and cutting/fusing all the interfacing.

Today I decided to work on the bound buttonhole and a covered button. I've decided to make these on the bias, which adds a nice touch to the jacket and relates it to the skirt, which is cut on the bias. The covered button was the easier of the two tasks, with a very, very little bit of glue to keep the fabric exactly where I want it :

Only having to make one bound buttonhole wasn't too bad, either, but I had to stop and get all the interfacing and thread tracing in place first.

I trimmed out a rectangle from the hair canvas where the buttonhole will be located to reduce bulk:

Because I chose to make the lips on the bias, I decided to interface the square of fabric for the lips before making the buttonhole. I chose a very lightweight interfacing from my bag of scraps so as not to make the piece too thick, but still give it some support so that the lips wouldn't stretch out of shape with use.

The buttonhole as it now, not quite finished on the left. I don't have time this evening. I need to eat and leave for a concert!

Q/A: I have a few that I will answer over the next few days, so here's the first regarding the technique used for the sleeves as shown in yesterday's post: Designdreamer asked, " . . . but how do you determing [sic] the correct length before you sew the "hem" of the sleeves?"
Well, I've already made a muslin for this jacket and I've made this jacket once already in red. I was able to measure the sleeve length of the red jacket and make sure that these sleeves were the same length. Alternatively, lacking those two things, a sleeve could be basted into the body of the jacket, checked for length and then removed for finishing and then replaced permanently.

Parting Shot: Poor Turkeys. These two turkeys showed up in the yard today looking for something to eat. I didn't see the rest of the flock, but it must have been hard hunting to find something to eat under the snow.

Vogue 1132 - Plaid Jacket

Sleeves!

Yesterday I started to work on the plaid jacket to match the skirt. Since I knew I would not have a big block of time to work on the jacket, I decided to start with the sleeves rather than the body. I also wanted to try out a technique that Bunny used on the sleeves cute little red coat she made for her granddaughter; the technique originally came from Nancy Zieman. I always like to give something new a try, and I am pleased with the results. I made mine a little differently, by changing the order of the seams, but the result is the same.

I prepared both the fashion fabric and lining sleeves in the usual manner by stitching the darts, the sleeve seams. I then interfaced the hem on the fashion fabric sleeve. This produces a nicer hem, and make the sleeve a little stronger in the hem area which will likely see the most wear and tear of any part of the sleeve. I also pinked the top edge so that there would not be a hard line visible on the outside where the interfacing ends.

The fashion fabric sleeve and lining sleeve were sewn right sides together at the bottom.

When opened out, before pressing up the hem, the two sleeves look like this, joined at the bototm:


Then the hem was pressed into place and catch stitched to the interfacing only.

The lining sleeve was turned into place and the sleeves caps matched. The lining hem formed a pleat at the bottom for wearing ease and was pressed into place.

Once the sleeves are stitched into the jacket body, the lining sleeves will have to be hand sewn in place. That really isn't too hard and doesn't take too much time.

Now I can start working on the body of the jacket!

Parting Shot: Everywhere. This cat is everywhere. Whenever I open up something new, there he is, right into it. That includes the dryer. He makes the girls look boring by comparison.