The Great Vintage Shirt Project - November

Butterick 7886

I had first thought that I would make last month's pattern again for this month, but in a different fabric.  That idea was a good one, until I couldn't find the pattern.  I have no idea what I did with it, as I usually put the patterns in the same place when I'm done with them.  I really liked the shawl collar of the pattern and wanted a red one for the holiday season.  So, I decided that I should make a different pattern, one that I haven't made yet.  I chose to make Butterick 7886:

I got this pattern from Myra's Etsy store, LadyBugDuds and I really like the tabs and pointed ends on the cuffs of the view shown below.  I also have a nice red linen in my collection that will work nicely for this pattern.

So far, I've got most of the construction done.  I still have a cuff to attach and finish, all the topstitching, and the buttons and buttonholes.

Here's a close up of one of the tabs;  it still needs to have the buttonhole made:

As far as construction, it is pretty straight forward and simple, there's nothing too complex with this pattern.  There is no back yoke, and no collar stand.  The collar is an interesting one, cut in one piece on the fold, then folded in half lengthwise, with seams only at the ends. 

I hope to finish this up either this evening or tomorrow, we'll see.  I suppose I ought to, since tomorrow is December 1st!  All that's left is one more for December.  I'm thinking it will be a white one, not sure what pattern yet.

Parting Shot:  For Kiwi's Fans.  Yes, Kiwi is still around.  She and Pix are not featured as often as you-know-who.  Kiwi doesn't really like anyone in the house except me, and runs and hides.  She was a ferral kitten when we got her, and she's somehow attached herself to me. 

Here she is, rubbing on me, happy to see me.

The Twelfth Annual Christmas Dress

I was able to finish the dress this weekend, which was my main goal.  The dress was easy to construct, and went together quickly.  Because of the knit, I did not use a back zipper and used the coverstitch to finish the hems:

I added a lining to the dress by making a second body of tricot and then treating the dress and lining as one when attaching the sleeves and finishing the neckline.  This leaves the sleeves unlined, which is just fine. The lining is not pink as the picture suggests, but actually a beige.

Due to the knit, the gathers at the neckline didn't stay as I wanted with the normal procedure of making gathers, and then attaching the facing to stitch the gathers permanently in place.  I found it better to make the gathers, stitch them to a stay of a strip of silk organza selvedge and then attach the facing.  Of course, I didn't think to take pictures until the facing was all stitched down!

The facing is tacked down at the seamlines by stitching in the ditch from the outside.   This is not visible from the outside and keeps everything in place.  I did find that I had to hand stitch the center front of the facing in place, but that was quick and easy to do.

She's tried it on and is happy with it all, including the very wide gold sash.  I'm not so sure about the sash, but it is her outfit.  I think a wide, interesting brown leather belt might have been better, but that's only one way to style it!

Tomorrow:  the vintage shirt of the month, and the fun of a missing pattern.

Parting Shot:  Santa's Helper?  Not so sure about that.  He did have to investigate when we brought out the decorations this year.  So far, he's not been terribly interested in chewing anything up.  So far.

A Holiday Head Start - The Twelfth Annual Christmas Dress

Introduction

Thanks for all the compliments on the purple plaid skirt and Burda turtle!  I really like the skirt and if it were a different color, I'd fight her for it!  

As some of you know, I make my daughter special dresses or outfits for Christmas, Easter and her birthday.  I don't know how long we'll continue this tradition, but she still likes it, so this year will be the twelfth Christmas that I've made her something special. 

Now that she's older, she gets to help pick out the color, fabric and style.  This year, I suggested a wool  knit dress.   We bought some beautiful wool jersey at MetroTextiles this summer, and at the time, I was thinking luxe hoodie, but a couple months ago, I thought it might make a nice winter dress.  My daughter is always cold in church, so the wool knit would be a bonus.  BTW, you can get this same wool knit from Gorgeous Fabrics (and it is 20% off because of the holiday sale!), the color we have is the Heathered Seamist.

She agreed, and then I set about looking for a suitable pattern.  Something not too old, but not Daisy Kingdom frilly, either.  We settled on this Cynthia Rowley, #2406 from Simplicity, with modifications for a completely stitched back seam or zipper; not sure, I'm working with a knit, probably no zip and the pattern does have a zipper option.  She also wants full-length, straight sleeves:

I also plan to line the body.  I've got some beige nylon tricot, which is the same stuff slips are made from, and it was just enough for the lining.  I cut everything out yesterday and should be able to get it made up over the long weekend.

We went accessory shopping last weekend and picked up a pretty headband and earrings.  I just need to go back and pick up a belt that she wanted.  Maybe I can convince her that a gold sash would be pretty, instead and pick up 1/4 yard of fabric and just hem it up.

Q/A:  Regarding the skirt on the Burda turtle dress, from Digs, "Good lesson and very lovely result, but - explain to us how you "recut the skirt properly". Did you simply cut it with a larger waistline and ease the excess into pleasing folds over front & back?"  Since the skirt is a circle skirt, by design, it will fall into pleasing folds without any easing at all.  The reason this happens is that the waist is also cut out as a circle, but when pulled into a straight line (as to attach a waistband of some kind or to attach it to a bodice), the fabric will ripple in a nice way.  See the illustration below, taken from The Art of Manipulating Fabric, by Colette Wolf, p. 69.

The problem with the original design was that part of the skirt waistline was already straight, thus providing no nice ripples.  What I did was to cut the skirt as a circle skirt should be cut, with a very large circle at the hem and a smaller one in the center for the waistline (using the magic of simple geometry to figure out the right waist size).  I then attached the skirt to the bodice, thus, making a true circle skirt. 

Since my children will be off from school for the rest of week, I will be taking a blogging break until next Monday.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and take a little time to think about the things your are truly thankful for, whether great or small!

Parting Shot:  Progress.  I've made a little progress on the beading.  It is not as much as I'd like, but I think over the long weekend I'll have more time to work on it.

A Quick Skirt - Purple, Plaid and Satin

My daughter and I cleaned out my fabric on Saturday, weeding out fabrics that neither of us liked and fabric that there wasn't enough to do anything with (but will be great BTW, for costumes!).  While going through the fabrics, we also made note of fabrics we could use in coming seasons.   As soon as my daughter saw the plaid, she wanted it and knew exactly what she wanted:  a circle skirt.

The fabric came from a friendly blog read, xtspenguin, from Scotland.  I've been saving the fabric and my daughter loved it so much that I felt this was the right project.  I pulled out my trusty circle skirt pattern (vintage Vogue 5106), and was able to cut out a circle skirt, but was a little short on fabric to get the length I wanted.  No problem.  I had an idea.

Another friend of mine had given me a lot of satin (which I do use for various embellishment techniques) and I happen to have had a nice piece of purple that exactly matched the purple in the plaid.  I cut 9" wide bias strips, folded them in half, seamed them together and steamed them into shape.  After that, I seamed them to the skirt with the serger.  The beauty of this treatment was that I also finished the hem at the same time. 

I added a waistband with elastic (her waist size is still variable, so elastic is a good thing), and that was it!  She loves it, and is happy to have something new that fits, now that she's growing out of her nicer church clothes.  A big thank you from both of us to you, xtspenguin!

Parting Shot:  Turtle Action.  I wore the Burda turtle dress to coach Fine Arts this morning.  Very comfortable and warm, and with tights and flats, perfect for school.

Fun With the Burda Turtle

A Dress

I've been wanting an easy to wear, quick to make knit winter dress for a while.  I have several knit dresses for summer and they make dressing a lot easier on busy days.  I decided to take the Burda turtle and see if I could come up with a quick dress.  I wanted a full circle skirt, too and decided to merge two patterns.  The original concept looked something like the drawing below, just extending the side seams into full circle skirt at the waist.

This works for me cut a fold in a 58" wide knit, because I am short.  If I needed a longer skirt, this wouldn't work.   I can't cut this cross grain due to the type of knit and retain the stretch in the right direction around the body.  Yes, I cut the sleeve on the bias.  I've done this many times with the more stable knits (interlocks and pontes) and it works just fine.

Unfortunately, when sewn up, it didn't quite work the way I wanted it to.  I suspected during the cutting that there might be a problem, but had some ideas on how to fix it if it didn't work.  What happened is that most of fullness is concentrated at the side seams and not distributed all along the skirt.  The center front section of the dress is too flat to give the nice fullness of a circle skirt.  

One solution was to make a separate skirt and use a waist seam; the other was to cut a skirt with less flare.  Because I wanted a true circle skirt, I cut off the skirt, recut it properly and then reattached it.  I reattached the skirt front and backs to the bodice sections first, then sewed the very long side seams from sleeve hem to skirt hem.  In the end, this only adds two more seams to the already easy turtleneck and is exactly what I wanted.  As you can see, this has a much better drape.

It is pretty rare that I'd wear it without a belt or sweater or something, so here's a peek at what it would look like with a belt.  I should have some photos of the dress actually being worn next week - I have to wait for the hem to drop before finally hemming it.

As a side note, in the first photo, you can see two other silhouettes in green and red pen.  I believe these would work for making the Burda turtle into a dress more successfully than the circle skirt.  It's something to think about.  Maybe I'll pick up some knits during the Thanksgiving day sales and try it again! 

Speaking of fabric, this is a Ponte di Roma knit (rayon/poly/spandex, NOT the plain 100% poly  scratchy Ponte knit) from Jo-ann's, as I didn't want to put too much money into a possible garment fail.  It actually isn't that bad of a knit, and has the perfect amount of drape and weight for the circle skirt.  I wouldn't have been able to use a light or mid-weight jersey and get the same results.  The color is a dark charcoal grey, a color I normally would not chose, but thought I'd give it a try.  I can't wear too many grey or taupe tones very well, but since this is almost a black, it will work.

Q/A:  We have two questions today, one from a while ago regarding where to purchase nicer knits online, from WendyBee (who I've noticed is that not far away over in ME; we used to go through your town on our way to the coast to visit relatives.):  "Any suggestions for sourcing it? My nearest fabric store is 35 minutes away and it's just a JoAnn's. VERY little knits selection. Online fabric purchases are challenging enough, knits more so, I think."   Our JA's has a decent selection of knits, but limited, too.  If I am going to purchase online, I'd purchase from either FabricMart or Gorgeous Fabrics.  Both already have their Thanksgiving Day sales going, at 20% almost, but not exactly everything on their websites.  I have heard good things about Fabric.com, but I have not purchased knits from them.  Something that is nice is being able to purchase swatches online - many online stores offer this service.

Then we have, from Sewingelle regarding the houndstooth skirt:  "Just a quick question about the facing: did you do anything else to the top of the skirt except add the bias facing? Any interfacing?  I seem to have issues with waistband-less skirts stretching out if I don't interface or secure in any way, and a bias strip wouldn't work for this , at least not for me."  I did not do anything else to the top of the skirt for this reason:  the waistline is not very curved, and because of the eight darts in the skirt, there isn't very much open space between darts and side seams.  At the most there is 4 or 5 inches between the pairs of darts on the skirt front.  Due to that, my waistbandless skirts, regardless of pattern (I  have to have darts due to body shape) have not stretched out.  If I were using a stretch woven, I would use some stay tape, narrow twill tape, silk organza selvedge or some other stabilizer basted first along the wrong side of the skirt at the seam line.  Once the bias is applied and turned to the inside, it will not be seen, but the support will be there. 

Parting Shot: Looming.  I was trying to take a picture of a diagram for this post and Kiwi hopped onto the table and walked right in front of the camera.  What was caught in the photo was this shadow of Kiwi looming over the diagram.

The Giant Houndstooth Skirt - Done!

Wouldn't you know it?  In less than 30 minutes this morning I was able to finish the skirt.  I just needed to finish the hem and tack down the facing.

For this skirt, I did a waistbandless finish with a wide strip of black cut on the bias.  I cut my strips 3 1/4" wide, fold them in half and then stitch them right sides together with the top of the skirt.  After trimming, clipping, and turning and pressing to the wrong side, all that's left is to tack down the facing.  Sometimes I hand stitch the entire length down, sometimes I hand tack at the side seams and darts.  This time, because this is a quick and trendy skirt, I stitched in the ditch from the right side at the side seams and at two darts on the front and at two darts on the back.  With the thick fabric, this is not noticeable on the right side and keeps the facing in place. 

I think I'll be wearing this with a black turtleneck and black tights.  Although, I'm sure there are some print mixing opportunities here.  It takes a careful eye to do that, though.  What do you think?

Parting Shot:  STILL Raking.  Oh yeah, we're still raking.  Sigh.  What has happened is that it has rained the first three days of the last couple of weeks, only leaving a few evenings and Saturdays to rake.  With the trees we have, that means raking season has been extended quite a bit.

A New Beaded Piece

I'm still working on the houndstooth skirt.  Between being at the bank for several hours, running errands and driving the carpool, I've been out of house today too much to actually finish it.  Tomorrow I'll finish it.  Today I'll show you my latest beading project.  I liked my cuff so much that I'm doing some more beading.  This time, it is a headband. 

As you can see, it has a similar theme of all white and beige, but this time, I'm adding seashells to the beadwork.  The large grouping off the right of photo is actually the center, and I plan to work down each side from there.

So far, this is working up nicely, I just need a little time to sit and work on it!

Parting Shot:  Fabric Love.  For some reason the cats absolutely love the giant houndstooth fabric.  I don't know why!  It is a cheap acrylic, so I can't figure out the attraction.  I can't keep Wellie or Kiwi away from it and have to make sure it is put away before I leave the studio.

A New Skirt - Part One

I haven't made anything houndstooth in the past couple of seasons, and when I saw some at Jo-ann's, I decided to get it and make a skirt.  Seeing Reethi's skirt also sealed the deal.

This morning I was playing around with it, thinking I might do a fuller skirt with deep box pleats or even a straight skirt with a bias panel down the center.  I then decided not to do either of those things.  Giant houndstooth is a bit different as it is, and because I'm not tall and model thin, those other cool things might not look so cool on me.  I'm already taking a risk just by wearing it.

I decided to make another Vogue - S4812.  The skirt is easy to make, is a good simple style for the fabric and I know it fits.  It looks like I might have a TNT pattern, as I've already traced it onto nicer tracing paper.  Besides, I don't want to ruin my vintage pattern.

So far, I've got all eight darts sewn and the side seam done.  All it needs is a zipper, waistband and hem.  I might get that done tomorrow, not sure, as I've got a lot of errands to do!

Parting Shot: Socks.  I finished my socks on Sunday.  They turned out pretty nice.   I like the v-shaped pattern on the top of the foot, but if I knit this pattern again, I might not extend the pattern down the foot. 

Starting Something New

This weekend, I had time to work on sorting out, cleaning up, and pulling out new stuff in the studio.  I first pulled out a pattern to work with the old stuff from Groceries to Dinner Date.  The new plan will work very well with the materials from that project.  I'll show you that once it is underway.

I also finished up the socks I've been knitting, and will show you those tomorrow.  That meant that I could start a new small project.  I want to do some more heavily beaded projects, so I happily started to pull out some beads and other things that would work for three more little projects.  I've had some very small sea shells for quite a while and have been thinking about using them in some sort of beaded project and I think it will be this one. 

Of course, that wasn't enough stuff, so I pulled out even more: 

I've got it narrowed down to what I want to do and the base for the beading is ready, so maybe tonight I'll get the bigger elements glued in place. Then I'll be able to start beading tomorrow evening. 

Meanwhile, tomorrow, I think I'll make a skirt.  I've got some giant black and royal blue houndstooth that will make a nice skirt. 

Parting Shot:  The Red Jacket, Again.  I wore the red jacket with jeans and a t-shirt on Saturday and it looks just as good as anything else and a bit nicer than a hoodie.

Christmas Angels and Few Neat Tips

Thank you for the lovely compliments on my red jacket!  It is nice to know from others that something I've made is working for me.
 
Our church's Sunday School presents a Christmas program every year, usually with a Nativity scene.  This year, there were plenty of costumes for Mary, Josephs and the shepherds but not enough angels.  The director asked for three more angel costumes, so I was happy to make them.  I used Simplicity 4797 to make the angels, as the director wanted white costumes with the very long decorative sleeves.

This pattern is pretty easy, with only two pattern pieces, one for front and back, and one for the sleeves.  When cutting out the fabric, I discovered a few tricks that made the cutting and sewing a bit quicker.

One, when cutting out the body, I discovered that for a size medium (and size medium only!), the body pattern piece fit perfectly across fabric that is 44" wide.  This places the hem and neck at the selvedge, which means hemming and finishing is easy.  Of course, this only works for solid fabrics and those without a directional print or stripes.

When cutting the sleeve pieces, there is a neat trick, too.  Originally, the sleeve is cut in two halves with a seam along the top of the sleeve.  In order to eliminate the top sleeve seam and the hemming of the sleeve, I've folded the fabric so that the sleeve can be cut in one piece with the hem on the selvedge and as a bonus cut both sleeves at once.  Here's how:

1.  Lay out one piece of fabric 1 1/2 yards in length for children's sizes completely flat.

2.  Fold the fabric in half, from right to left, aligning the selvedge edges.

3.  Now fold the fabric from top to bottom.

4.  The pattern piece can now be placed with the hem on the selvedges, and what was the seam on a fold, subtracting out the seam and hem allowances.

So here they are, all done.  The director wanted very simple costumes with no wings, and just a gold cord at the waist.

These were actually fun and easy to make.  Tomorrow I will be working on FGTDD.

Parting Shot:  One Chance.  This was Wellie's one chance to play with an extra ribbon from wrapping Christmas presents.  Afterward, it was placed in a trash can where he could not get it out.

The Red Corduroy Jacket

Part Three

Since my husband had a night class last night, I had a few extras in which I could finish the red jacket!  After attaching the lining and the jacket, I finished the sleeve hems and the buttonholes.  Two of the buttonholes are in-seam buttonholes and the other two were made by machine.  For the two in-seam buttonholes, I had to slipstitch the openings of the jacket and lining together for each buttonhole:

After adding the buttons, it was complete!  Front:

Back: 

Close-up of the back neck and the pattern created with the wales of the corduroy:

Today, I wore the jacket to work, as I've been subbing for a high school teacher for the past three days.  It was very warm and comfortable in the classroom, and looked nice, too.  I could also wear this jacket with jeans or black trousers and it would look good, too.  I think I might try that out tomorrow.

What's next?  Angel costumes, more quilting and finally, the screen printing!

Parting Shot:  Intent.  Wellie is very intent on my son curling ribbon for a another Christmas gift.  Not that he's going to get any, as it could be a choking hazard.