Just A Basic

I've been needing a new black longer length skirt for a while. I had to retire my old one, as it was starting to shred at the seams. I made this one for three reasons: one, I really like circle skirts; two, I already had the pattern out from making my daughter's Christmas skirt last week; and three, I had everything I needed to make the skirt in the collection. The pattern is the vintage Vogue, shown in the 30 Minutes Per Day post below.

These skirts are fairly easy to make, with only two seams, a zipper, waistband and hem. I cut the seams so that they would be on the selvedge of the fabric, so I didn't have to finish the seam allowances. Once cut, I quickly stitched up one side seams and hung the skirt on Saturday evening. Because this is a circle skirt, part of the skirt is on the bias and will stretch. The amount depends on the fiber, but it will stretch and the hem will be uneven.

Sunday afternoon, I added the zipper, other side seam and waistband and rehung the skirt for a little longer.

This morning I finished the hem, with the method I've used for many circle skirts and other skirts with seemingly endless hems.

This skirt will be worn quite a bit and fills a hole in my wardrobe - for me it is an essential basic. I think we all have basics in colors and styles that suit us, that we tend to wear over and over. What are some of your basics - either sewn or RTW?

Parting Shot: First Snow. It's not much, but it certainly is looking more like Christmas should in my part of the world. Maybe we'll get some more before the holidays! Thanks for your response to the alpacas! I didn't think they'd end up being considered "cute"!


Rachelle - Please email me! I don't have your email and would like to converse with you! Thanks.

30 Minutes Per Day - Week of Nov. 30, 2009

It is a busy time of year, so I need to put the 30 minutes per day plan back in action is I'm going to finish all the sewing I need to for Christmas. This week was one of THOSE weeks, so it was nice to some project finished this week.

This week I focused on my daughter's annual Christmas outfit. Here's what I did this week:

Monday: I cut out all the fabric.


The skirt is an embellished faux suede circle skirt made from a vintage pattern, Vogue 5106, with modifications.

The top is the Jalie cross-over top in blue stretch velvet that I got from Gorgeous Fabrics.

Tuesday: I made the circle skirt. Yes, I made it in one session! The fabric does not ravel, so the seams do not need to be finished, and I didn't even hem the skirt due to the non-raveling factor and the thickness of the fabric. This circle skirt only has two seams, and I eliminated the zipper, cut the waist larger and made an elastic waist. I applied the waistband after the first side seam was sewn, and then sewed the other side seam, including the waistband, as seen below.



Wednesday: I got the front of the top and the neckline finishes done.

Thursday: I spent a little more time this day, more like 45 minutes because I wanted to finish the top. All it needed was the sleeves, side seams and hems. Here's the completed outfit. I will have pictures of both children when all the holiday clothes are completed.

Friday: Very busy day, but I was able to get to Jo-ann's and buy a pattern for my son's Christmas vest since McCall's was on sale. The original plan was to use the pattern from the December issue of Burda, but it is not graded in his size range. I didn't want to grade down about four sizes, so M4290 was a good substitute. Out of all my wool plaids, he picked the remnants from my houndstooth trousers. I also was able to sit down and cut the pattern out of the tissue.

Today I'll measure my son and get that vest cut out and ready to start sewing on Monday.

Parting Shot: Alpacas! I have a friend who owns alpacas and her daughter spent the night last night with my daughter. This morning we made alpaca Christmas tree ornaments for their family. Each alpaca has a necklace or neck bow and some have little hair bows.

What I Did Last Night . . .

A Gift Wrap Seminar

Last night our church had a ladies fellowship entitled, "Home For The Holidays". Part of the program was devoted to seminars each featuring one aspect of holiday entertaining or decorating. I was asked to do a seminar and chose to do one on gift wrapping utilizing paper grocery sacks and recycled Christmas cards. This is most people's idea of gift wrapping with a grocery sack:

Now, here are some of the samples that I showed. First, you can cut open the grocery bag and use it, plain brown side out, combined with ribbons, greenery and doilies if you like the country/old-fashioned look. The one with the lace trimmed fabric also has a recycled greeting card tag, which was another theme presented in the seminar.

Those were the simpler presents. We then moved on to painted surfaces; these were painted with a foam brush and craft paints. Again, each box was decorated with laces, ribbons, recycled greeting cards and gel pens.

This particular present was a combination of techniques. The horse portrait was drawn and colored with colored pencils by my daughter. After masking off the portrait, I used regular spray paint to paint the paper bag. Once dry, I embellished the present with glue on rhinestones and a red bow.

Other ideas for surfaces included using shapes to create motifs by spray painting the motif color first, laying down solid objects and then spray painting the background color. When the objects are removed, you have a pretty pattern.

Basically, anything you can do with paper crafting you can do with a paper bag - they're much more durable for painting (especially with children!), and can be decorated by even the smallest child with stickers or crayons. I've even cut strips of paper and made a bow:

Last but, not least, I showed how to make paper poinsettias from a spray painted grocery sack.

These flowers are easily assembled using two layers of petals (well, actually "bracts" is the correct term rather than "petals" as these are unusual flowers), florist's wire with beads, and floral tape. The wire flower centers are sent down through a hole in the center of each layer, and then all the wires are wrapped together with floral tape to create a stem.

It was a fun seminar, and each participant got to take home a flower and a set of templates. By the way, I did not spend any money to put together any of the samples for the seminar - everything was free or I already had it at home.

Tomorrow - 30 Minutes Per Day is back!

Parting Shot: Santa Kitty. Stealing the spotlight again is Wellie. He actually did not care too much for the hat, but my son thought it was cute.

One Size Smaller - Burda 7767

It Fits!

It's not too bad. With a few little refinements - moving the buttons over on the cuffs a little, maybe a slightly shorter sleeve and probably a couple of other small things (he's doing a wear test today), this pattern will work. At least until he loses more weight!

Yeah, I know there's some bagging on the one side - in real life it isn't that bad!

My husband likes button down collars. That style isn't too hard to make, except for that little buttonhole right at the tip of the collar. That is not exactly the easiest place to make a little buttonhole, because there is no place to put your hands to gently guide the fabric through while the machine does its thing.

My solution to this problem was to use a piece of wash away, tear away stabilizer under the collar point. The buttonhole stitched nicely and when it was done, I pulled away the stabilizer. Any remaining stabilizer bits will disappear in the laundry.

Now that this one is done, I suppose I'll make a few more. I'm thinking that will happen over Christmas vacation. I have a really nice piece of shirting from Kashi at Metro Textiles that would make a great shirt.

Parting Shot. Santa's Helper. My son is a great help when it comes to wrapping presents. He found this Santa hat in the storage bin while looking for boxes for his cousin's gifts and decided to wear it just for fun.

20 Pounds Less is a Smaller Size

My husband has been working on losing some weight recently and is doing very well in his goal to lose 50 pounds. (If you scroll down in the link, you'll see three of the four of us on a hiking adventure.) Of course, now that some of the weight is gone, the old clothes don't fit anymore! That means someone gets new clothes. My husband, even at goal weight, will never be a bean pole. Genetics has handed him an American football player type body, and he'll always be wide through the shoulders and chest and narrow through the waist. In RTW, this means that dress shirts that fit at the neck and shoulders, are too big through the torso. If you sew, you know what the answer to this problem is: custom shirts!

I pulled out Burda 7767, which I have used in the past to make him shirts. After a muslin and several shirts, we had a fit worked out. With new measurements from him and one of the shirts that fits him the best, I've figured that he could go down one size in the neck/shoulders, but two sizes in the torso. I put together just the body of the shirt and basted the side seams. It seemed pretty good, so now I'm working on finishing up the shirt.

I've got everything done except for cuffs and buttons/buttonholes. I think he's going to be happy with the fit.

Working on another shirt also gives me the opportunity to try out some new techniques from David Coffin's shirtmaking book. I made the sleeve placket with his method and was very pleased with how it turned out, even with chosing to make the placket on the bias. No stripes to match that way, and it looks cool!

Maybe I'll get it done tomorrow, along with some client things!

Parting Shot: Potato Chip. This is one of those crocheted potato chips scarves that I made for my daughter this weekend. They're quick to make with chunky yarn, only one main stitch and a big size K hook. The directions can be found for free easily on many websites. I got the directions for this one from Lion Brand's website.

Tackyfabulous!

My Niece's Christmas Present

My niece is 5 years old, and really likes Fancy Nancy. Fancy Nancy is extremely popular with this younger age group (as are princesses, fairies, etc.) because she is very extravagant and over the top. Since my niece already has several of the FN books, I bought the one she didn't have: the new Christmas book. To go with the book, my daughter and I made some very fancy Christmas themed dress up clothes. I think I've used a sufficient amount of embellishments: rhinestones, gold ric-rac, gold ribbon, two kinds of pom-poms, fluffy boa, gold lace, plastic mint candies, and beaded trim. This of course, is in addition to already sparkly fabrics.

I made a little vest:

Here's the skirt to match, complete with extra rhinestones:


My daughter helped to make the hair clips and the necklace. We had extra candies and pom-poms and I knew I had absolutely no use for these things, so rather than throw out the extras, we made a necklace:


I think this is the tackiest stuff I've made in recent memory. Which, of course, means that she should love it!

Parting Shot: Gift? I'm not sure if this present would be acceptable to put under the tree.

Burda 110/09 #130 - Pajama Top

Done!

Amazingly, today I was able to finish the top! Not without some slight drama. The sleeves for model #130 are not full length sleeves. I did not realize this until I had already attached one and tried it on. The sleeves are more like 3/4 or 7/8 sleeves. If you have the magazine, check out the model photo, the sleeves do not come to her wrists. If you want full length sleeves, either add to this sleeve or check out the sleeve for the robe - it might be full length.

I made the sleeve cuffs slightly different from the Burda directions, and I think this is a little bit easier. I did all of this construction *before* stitching the sleeve seams. Here's how I did it:

First, I stitched the piping to the cuff facing.


Second, I stitched the cuff facing to the sleeve, *right* side of facing to *wrong* side of sleeve.

Third, I pressed the sleeve cuff facing to the front, and the piping seam allowance under.

Last, I top stitched the sleeve cuff in place right along the piping. This hold the sleeve cuff to the sleeve and adds a nice finishing touch. This accomplishes the same thing the Burda instructions intended to and you're finished in three easy seams.


The pockets are easily made, too, and a little different than what I'm used to. The outside of the pocket has piping, which is stitched in between the upper and lower pieces.


Then, that pocket is stitched to a pocket lining (of the same shape and size) leaving and opening for turning. The pocket now is fully lined and ready to top stitch to the garment. All the edges are neatly finished and you don't have to turn under those rounded corners before apply the pocket.

I am pleased with the top and it matches the other two pieces in the set from the same issue of Burda. Here are the previous two pieces together:

Up next, a new shirt for my husband. Next week it looks like I'll need to go back to 30 Minutes Per Day - I've got too many things to make before Christmas. They are easy things, so they'll be perfect for this approach.

I will be taking a break until Monday as my family is home for the holiday and we will be having some family fun. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'll see you on Monday!

Parting Shot: Helping. My son is helping to prepare his pumpkin for mini pies for Thanksgiving. He has been saving this last pumpkin from his garden since sometime in October in the refrigerator hoping that it would not spoil before we could use it. Today we roasted and pureed the pumpkin and made the pies.