carrotflowers

Made: toddler jacket (Ottobre “Veikko” pattern)

Project Notes: I procrastinated starting this project because it looked like it might be hard. I was intimidated by the hood and separating zipper (a first). However once I figured out how to attach the hood, all went swimmingly.
It was easy and fun and a really nice pattern. It calls for a woven bias binding to hide the neckline SAs on the inside, which is a nice touch and a great place to stick a sweet piece of contrast fabric - I used aqua with white polka dots, mostly because I had some. The pockets are left with raw edges and call for double rows of topstitching. As my main fabric was a darker grey, I opted for a bright red for the topstitching, also to match the little sushi fish I appliqued to the front left.
Mistakes/Complications: I struggled with attaching the hood - it was the right length to pin exactly to the body of the jacket. But then how would the zipper attach? With help from a member of the Ottobre sewing group on yahoo, I learned that I needed to match up the ends of the hood with the CF seamline. It took me awhile to understand that meant the seamline , right before the allowance which the zipper attaches to - in my case right before the 1cm allowance on my CF pieces. I only pinned with barely noticeable ease and I was all set.

My zipper was too long, and there is not much info online for shortening a separating zipper. I cut the zipper so that it would fold over the top edges by about 1/2″. I did have to stitch, rip, and stitch a few times to get the stitching distance even on both sides of the zipper. I do a little too much adjusting the needle position as I go without noting what I do so that I can be consistent. I also forgot to line the pockets, I just spaced out. But I think it’s fine that way.

Notes for Next Time: Make sure the markings for the hood’s outer fabric extend a couple of inches. By the time I needed those marks they were sewn away into the SA!

Made: ladybug from Little Stitches for Little Ones

Project Notes:My son was into ladybugs around the time I got this book so I gravitated towards this project, although I prefer garments, really. The instructions were clear and all in all everything went smoothly. This was the first time I’d used Wonder Under for applique - I haven’t appliqued much - and I loved it. The last time I just pinned my applique on and sewed. The Wonder Under is fused on by iron to the applique piece, and then you fuse the applique in place to the project, and then it sticks there…no need for pinning. Totally awesome and easy. I was happy with it when I was done but it’s  bit more of a struggle to sew something like this, bulky with the fusible fleece, and matching a stuffed curved piece to a round flat piece…not really my thing.

Made: Slim T from Ottobre

Project Notes: I was so excited by the success of my knit fabric onesie, I moved onto a T shirt. I decided to try binding with some foldover elastic (often called FOE) that I had just received from a co-op. The color went well with some knit fabric I’ve had sitting around for awhile, waiting for me to figure out how to sew with the infamously hard stuff. I thought the color of the FOE would look nice at the hem so I used it there too.

The pattern was simple and came together easily, although the sleeve was just a bit longer than the armhole so I had about 0.5 cm sleeve extension each time. I should have pinned it with ease, it never occurred to me. I assume that directions will tell you when ease is needed.

Mistakes/Complications: The FOE was hard to work with. Unlike using knit for binding, it’s stiff and hard, even though it has stretch, and gets bulky and misshapen when pinned, like any stiff or bulky material. It was very hard and I tried sewing one side then flipping it over and doing the other, and I tried sewing it on with one go…I don’t remember what worked best. I did discover, when the hem was ruined by my adding it, that you don’t need to stretch FOE very much at all.

Notes for Next Time: I didn’t use FOE the next time I made this pattern.

Made: reading pillow

Project Notes: The Montessori By Hand pattern, now rebranded as Sew Liberated, is a totally cool design! I used my beloved Modern Flora home dec fabric and my equally beloved Denyse Schmidt fabric for the accents. The project has a lot of steps and I always find it tiresome to make long strips of bias tape. Nevertheless this came together fairly easily. I spent a lot of time cutting my pieces out with care so that the fabric design was never interrupted.

Mistakes/Complications: I didn’t use enough stuffing.

Notes for Next Time: err on the side of too much stuffing! if you have trouble closing it you can always remove stuffing! If there’s not enough than - take it from me - the pillow won’t be strong enough to support your book well. My book sinks into the pillow as though the pillow were part beanbag.

Made: elastic waist skirts from Sew What! Skirts

During my maternity time, I embraced the elastic waist skirt. It seemed like a good excuse to tackle this easy skirt project. Normally I don’t like elastic waist anything, but practicality won out.

Project Notes:I made 2 skirts, both using Sew What! Skirts for source material.

Mistakes/Complications: For skirt one, I took a pattern I’d made based on an Ann Taylor skirt I already own. It’s not an elastic waist, so I winged it by adding an extra inch or two to the waist and a little bit - maybe 2″ total to the width. This was a mistake because the skirt was too tight. It’s a struggle to get on and off and uncomfortable. So, for skirt two, I used the book’s direction for an elastic waist. Now I had the opposite problem - it was just too big for my taste, too gathered looking. Nevertheless I wore it all pregnancy long!

Notes for Next Time: Were I to make another elastic waist skirt, I’d take the second pattern I’d made and lop off about 4″ total from the width.

Made: another onesie by Ottobre

Project Notes: This project turned out less than a success and was made even sadder by the fact that I was intending it to be the take-home outfit for my soon to arrive son. In the end I think it will be wearable, and I think I learned some good lessons, so the final result isn’t all negative. Also, it’s probably a size too big for a newborn (well based on my last one, and ‘average’ size) so I’m going to try one size down and go for some redemption!

I was using some super soft and lovely mint colored single knit fabric for the main fabric. I loved, loved, loved this stuff the second I saw it in the remnants pile and took all they had. All they had was not enough, sadly, to try a second time. For more about the fabric choices and how it definitely impacted my project, read on!

Mistakes/Complications: Single knit was not a fabric type recommended for this pattern, which actually only suggests interlock. But I reasoned that interlock also varies in weight, an that this would probably still be ok for me. What is tricky, they say, about single knit, is that the edges like to curl up. This of course would make it hard to line up edges or even once pinned, to gauge the seam allowance for sewing. I did 2 things to counter this: 1) I cut the pattern pieces as needed, so that they were often sewn shortly after being cut. I think this helped. 2) I used lots of pins. No brainer, there. I also started the pins very, very near the cut edges trying to help battle the curl. Naturally when sewing I did a lot of leaving the needle down, lifting the presser foot up and smoothing down the curl.

The real mistake was my binding technique. It’s been a few months since my knits class and my successful onesie made in that class. Since then, I’ve made 2 knit projects but bound them with FOE. And I also had my failure when I did go back to knit binding. Once again, with this project, I had trouble with the neckline. I dug up the first onesie I had made this time, and compared it with my newer project, and realized that it was the back piece that was the real issue. I had done the binding too tightly, and it was curling up a little, so that it was not laying flat enough to create a large enough neck opening. (Again, I should have taken a picture but I since remedied the issue, mostly.) By this time I had already finished adding the sleeves and sewing the sides, so I couldn’t redo it and frankly, I didn’t want to.

I took my iron with the steam on to the binding, and this actually mostly fixed it. So yay! I learned the power of the steam iron, and the power of binding it poorly Note that initially I pinned the binding on the first edge I found (a sleeve), and removing the pins as I went, I would pull on the pinned piece slightly so that it all was flat for the machine sewing. On the next edge I decided to pull all the pins out once I had the first few stitches sewn, so I was freer to pull just the binding as I went. I’m not sure if this latter technique was a mistake. A couple times when I did this I had excess binding after sewing and trimmed even more away, so clearly I was pulling pretty hard.

Now the amount you need to pull must vary with the property of the binding you are using. I was using something new to my stash - a fairly heavy and elastic rib knit. In fact when you pull it you can see the shiny elastic in the fabric. So now I’ve learned to look a little harder at the stretch and recovery of the knit I use as binding. Not that I necessarily know enough to know what I’m looking for! But hopefully time and experience will help. I also think that once you first attache the binding, right sides together, if you look at the seam allowance from the wrong side, if it’s gathered so tightly that the seam allowance is starting to stick out - making it hard for you to keep it lying flat when you fold the binding up and over it for the next stitchline - then it is probably too tight. also - if the piece you just attached the binding too curls up, and won’t really lay flat even after some ironing, then it is probably too tight. In fact if it is curled up so much it is hard for you to successfully press the newly attached binding up with the iron, it’s too tight!

One other mistake I made - I had appliqued a sweet bunny from a kokka print onto the front of the onesie, using wonder under. I had not fused it so that it was completely dry (with wonder under you use a damp cloth between the project and the iron when fusing) so when I was stitching the whole thing was slightly damp and kind of stuck to the machine a bit and was hard to turn. I should have started over once I realized but I’m a ‘fight through it’ mix of stubborn and lazy.

I also sewed in a few pleats here and there. I think I did a careless job checking that the fabric I was attaching the binding too was laying flat beneath it as I went. This is a simple but critical habit to get into for general machine sewing.

As a crowning touch, when trimming the binding around the bottom, I cut not one, but two holes into the main fabric! Amazing! >.< I mended them by hand, but I'm not sure how wearable the whole thing is anymore. Definitely not a very successful project!

Notes for Next Time: Re-sew the binding if it appears too tight after the first stitchline (by looking at the back SA for one thing, but also if the piece just bound is curling up and not laying very flat). Pay attention to the stretchiness/recovery of the knit used for the binding. Remember to keep checking if the main fabric is laying flat underneath the binding as sewn.

Fabric: The main fabric was a single knit, very soft and certainly lightweight. The binding was made from a fairly heavy rib knit. It was stretchy but also rather stiff - I guess it had a lot of recovery. I think this, combined with joining it to something much, much lighter, contributed to my binding woes. Fabric choices and how they’ll impact my sewing is something I’ll try to give more thought to next time, at least when it’s going to involve any binding.

Stitches: I mostly used a 2.5 length/1.5 width zigzag to join, a 3.5/2.5 to topstitch and also to reinforce seams. I used my new (used) machine’s blanket stitch for the applique. My old machine did not have this. I love this stitch!

Made: summer blouse from Weekend Sewing

Project Notes: I only recently noticed people talking about this book, Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross, and most people had started with this project, the ‘Summer Blouse’ (which I still find odd as it’s long sleeved! Wherever I’ve lived in my life, summer is pretty hot, night and day!) I loved this blouse the moment I saw it. I went around blogs and flickr, and Heather’s own site for the book, trying to see what else the book had so I could justify getting it. If I’m being honest, there’s nothing in it that comes close to this top for me, personally, but there are still quite a few other fun projects in it. Some are for the home, some are for children, and there are also pajama pants for adults and kids, handbags and totebags.

I deemed it to be my Mother’s Day gift, and soon after I got it, I started working on a muslin for this top.

The muslin went smoothly, but right away I felt it was wide and a wee short (the length is a common issue other people took with the pattern.) It also was a bit wide in the shoulders for me, and it was the smallest size. The sleeves were also a bit wide overall on me. So, I set about making the most alterations to pattern pieces I’d ever done before, and felt very adventurous!

I narrowed the sleeves, shortened them by almost 10″ (!!), narrowed the shoulders by a few eighths, sewed the side seams at 4/8″ instead of 3/8″ and I lengthened the pattern by almost 2 inches. I cut the pattern just below the darts and added the length there - I didn’t want to add too much flare, and I remembered that with a lot of patterns the ‘lengthen or shorten here’ mark is usually not at the very bottom.

Mistakes/Complications: The top went off pretty much without a hitch except for one step which for some reason gave me a lot of trouble. That was sewing the bias trim around the neck edge.

Notes for Next Time: The neckline could be lowered, then length is a bit too short still, and the side seams might be taken in a bit. Also now that I’ve washed it a few times, I see the kokka linen/cotton mix frays like crazy. Trimming with the pinkng shears was def. not enough. Next time, overlock the SAs!

Made: onesie from Ottobre (knits class)

Project Notes: I took my first class at my local fabric store. It was called Sewing With Knits II. I’d taken one knit class before in the last city I lived in, a t shirt class. That was less than successful, although I don’t know that it was as much the class. At any rate, this time, things went very well. I think because I did some reading and had more general sewing experience, this time I had many questions for the instructor. I also busted out my snap setter for the first time (a snapsource tool) - that didn’t go so well in class, but when I got home, I went out on the porch and really hammered those snaps in. Success!

My main goal was to really get a handle on doing the binding so I brought a pattern with a lot. I cleverly, but by accident, bound the little sleeve ends first, and by the time I did the longer and more visible neckline binding, I was really getting the hang of it.

I’m so glad I took the class, and feel much more comfortable with knit sewing now.

Mistakes/Complications: I put the snaps on the wrong side, so the bottom snaps over the front, rather than vice versa. No biggie.

Notes for Next Time: None.

Made: top from Spring Top tute

Project Notes: I found this tutorial on SewMamaSew. It was love at first sight! I started with a muslin, with which I had much trouble! I also had some troubles getting the fit right on the final piece, but in the end it worked out just fine, and I’m very happy with the final product! The tutorial can also be found on the designer’s personal blog, made by rae, which I discovered through this tute, and think is great! I shortened the straps and didn’t do the optional curving of the side seams.

Mistakes/Complications: This is one of those patterns that you draft yourself based on your measurements. Making the muslin, I got into the type of trouble that is typical for me - despite having pattern pieces cut out to specific measurements, I cut a slightly different width on the bottom part, because I wanted to use a scrap that wasn’t quite wide enough. Not smart, since I’m not lacking in any muslin! I had to fiddle with corresponding pieces SAs and do a lot of tearing out and re-sewing as a consequence. I also had a little trouble understanding the directions for creating the pleats.

I know that when I made the final top, I had some trouble too. But sadly, I don’t remember exactly what it was. I think it was just that when I went to attach the straps, the back billowed out to much and fit poorly. I did a lot of raising and lowering where it attached in the front, and the back, and in the end, I attached the back pieces at an angle as well, and that did the trick. I have narrow and sloping shoulders, so this sort of thing was bound to be a problem for me. The funny thing is, there really is a front and back now! If I put it on backwards, the straps keep falling down and it feels less comfy!

Notes for Next Time: I will shorten the straps even more, because I ended up trimming quite a bit. Also will try moving the straps in maybe a half inch each, to see if it fits better. I think it would be interesting to try pleating the fabric first, then cutting and making the top band, and measuring its final width (adding in the SA) and using that number to cut out the pleated bottoms.

Actually it might be interesting (and easier :P) to leave the front pleated as it is, but for the back just do one wide inverted box pleat, sewn down fairly low so that it lies fitted for ~ the first third of my back.

Made: one piece blouse from ISBN 9784579111497

Project Notes: I actually made this muslin a long time before sewing with the final fabric. Another top ended up being my first from this book. But, this top did end up turning out pretty well. I added width to it because I was going to use it as maternity wear, but then felt there was too much fabric and restored it to its original width. In fact I now think it might be too much fabric still! I also narrowed the shoulder by roughly half an inch. Finally, I thought it was too long, so I did not add the 3.5 cm of SA, and dropped 2 more cm to boot.

Mistakes/Complications: It was a little tricky attaching the top to the bottom. Namely because once I tried the top on and settled it with pins to where it fit well, the bottom edge was none too straight. I had to wing it when attaching it to the bottom piece in terms of lining it up. It’s amazing it ended up ok. I did re-sew it at least once. The way that I bound the sleeve opening was a new one for me, so it took me a couple tries. The main issue was that I didn’t realize initially, the bias binding is mean to be turned entirely to the inside and sewn down. I’m used to binding being secured from the right side, and visible when worn.

Notes for Next Time: The sleeves are puffier than I’d like. If I make another I’ll probably try altering them to reduce the amount of fabric so there is less that gets gathered (the cap is less full.) In addition I think I should try to topstitch the sleeve so that it lies down a little flatter. I also made it a wee too short so I think I’d put back those extra 2 cm I removed. This pattern would also work totally fine sleeveless. It’s really comfy and nice in the summer.