Weekend Project: His and Hers Sewing

People would have more leisure time if it weren't for all the leisure-time activities that use it up.

Peg Bracken

First, I'm sorry I didn't manage my usual posts last week - I was very busy at work and the time just slipped through my fingers. I'll try to do better this week, but my posting may be a bit irregular during the next month. :(

Second, this weekend I finally managed to squeeze in some sewing of my own. (Yay!) I made this outfit for my youngest (7-year-old) niece:

Next, Ana and Juana DID finish their dresses by themselves during the week! (Thank you for sending them good sewing vibes!) When I went to their restaurant on Friday night, they had actually brought their dresses into work to show me! In general, they did very well. Ana only folded her hem up once, so the raw edge shows on the inside. I told her that doubling is better and a good seamstress wants her clothes to look good on the outside AND on the inside. She'll do that in the future and is currently debating whether or not to re-do this hem.

I was interested to see that they both chose to attach the facing to the dress by stitching along the bottom of the facing (all the way around the dress). That was definitely not in the instructions, but it seems to me that, if that is what they wanted, then it is fine. (Right?) It just suprised me a bit.

Juana thinks her dress is a bit too roomy in the hips, and we will take the side seams in a bit the next time I see her. (She wasn't able to make it to our lesson today - I didn't quite understand the reason why, but it had something to do with her family.)

I was able to take a picture of Ana in her dress this afternoon. Despite the temperature being over 90 degrees F, she wanted to dress the same way as the model on the pattern envelope, with jeans and a shirt on underneath the dress. Here she is:

She thinks that her stomach looks fat in this picture. (I guess some things transcend culture...) Unfortunately, I didn't know the words for "I'll trade you!" in Spanish off the top of my head, but I plan to be ready for just this situation next time! ;)

We went to Joann's today, originally to get a t-shirt pattern for the boyfriends. But Ana was attracted to this pattern, and given that I want to introduce them to collars and buttonholes anyway, I let her get it. (It is Burda #7411.)

It's going to be a bit of a challenge, but it will be a good learning experience and I think we can end up with shirts that the young men will wear. :)

In the Queue Wednesday

Upcoming project - write an entry for my weekly "In the Queue Wednesday" post. I don't know when I'm going to have time, but don't worry, I'll get to it. It's in the queue! :)

Weekend Project: The Loosening of Apron Strings

Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.

Maria Montessori

Now we're really cooking! (And not just from the lack of air conditioning...) Their sewing machines, (Kenmore, non-computerized), arrived on Wednesday, and today was our first day sewing with them. There are so many reasons to be happy about this that I don't even know where to start!

Of course, I don't mind not having to lug my machine to Ana's house every week. ;)

Even more than that, the fact that they don't have to share - no more waiting around for one to finish a seam before the other can sew, no more changing the thread 50 times in 2 hours - it was wonderful!

The best thing of all - they are no longer dependent on me, nor restricted to sewing for 2 hours once a week... :)

In fact, we did the facings together today - and I was happy to be there for that, as I don't think that facings are completely intuitive the first time you do them - but I encouraged them to try to finish the dresses on their own this week! The remaining steps are mainly to add the skirt to the top part of the dress, along with 4 belt loops, and then hem it.

We read through the instructions together, looked at the illustrations, "talked" about the remaining steps - they expressed hesitation and doubt, but I think they will be able to do it. And this is so important - I think it is time for them to ease away from relying on me and begin to sew independently.

I still plan to do 2 or 3 more projects with them - t-shirts for their boyfriends (and experience with knits), blouses for themselves (collars, buttons & buttonholes) and maybe an unfitted pair of pants (like pajamas). (As you may know, fitting pants is not something I know how to do. Yet.)

But I'm planning to let them do more and more on their own for each project, so that by the time we are done with these plans, they will be ready to "cut the apron strings" completely. :)

Hopefully, next week I'll have pictures of their dresses to show you! Please take a moment to send some good sewing vibes their way this week... Thanks!

Friday Confession

Hand Stitching

I used to hate hand stitching and avoid it like the plague, but after all the hand stitching that I did on the wedding dress, I have discovered that I actually kind of enjoy it... Now I am much more likely to hand stitch something. Hems, of course, often call for hand stitching - but I've even started hand stitching (instead of pining or machine basting) tricky bits - like when I was trying to get that zipper into the make-believe "wedding dress" I recently made for my 7-year-old niece.

How about you? When do you hand stitch? Do you enjoy or hate it?

Talk Back Thursday

Thanks to Shannon, Claudine, Claire and Kathy for "talking back" to last week's Friday Confession! I confessed to an accidental oversized purchase of fiberfill.

It turns out that I am not the only person who periodically buys in mass quantities - Shannon has a funny shoe story, Claudine has had similar experiences when ordering groceries online and Claire made a similar miscalculation with an entertainment center!

Their stories are definitely worth reading, so I encourage you to check them out here.

In other news, Ana and I picked up their new sewing machines last night! (Juana had to work.) It was really exciting! One funny thing happened after we got back to her house. While I was attaching the cords and plugging it in, Ana was threading the machine. She easily threaded the needle by hand, as we do (multiple times!) each Sunday on my machine.

However, these machines have an "automatic needle threader" feature - a feature that I have never used before. I pointed this out in the instruction manual and we unthreaded the needle and tried to use the automatic needle threader according to the directions.

And tried...

And tried...

Finally, after several frustrating minutes, Ana looked up and said, "No es automatica."

What could I say? She had a point... ;)

We did finally get it worked out, although I suspect that she'll continue to thread the needle by hand. I probably would...

And boy, did that machine purr! It drove home the fact that I really need to take my machine in for a tune-up. I'm not saying that I need to wear ear protection when I use it, but let's just say that I'm lucky OSHA doesn't monitor my sewing room... ;)

Our lessons are going to be so much easier with two machines, plus they can begin to work independently (of me). In fact, the rest of the dress project can be summarized in two main bits - inserting the facings and attaching the skirts. We'll do the facings together on Sunday, and then I think they should be able to attach the skirts and hem them by themselves during the week. :)

Edited to add: They bought Kenmore machines. Thanks, Claire!

In the Queue Wednesday

Every summer my mother-in-law spends a week with us, and we swing by Joann's to pick out some fabric and patterns for me to make for her two great-granddaughters. This year, the older great-granddaughter accompanied her, and so she and I sewed her outfit together. It was a lot of fun!

Here is the outfit that I'll be making for the younger great-granddaughter (7 years old) after our company leaves. It's actually the same pattern that I used last year - it still fits her and she likes it.

I'll be making views C and D, as you can see.

And this is the fabric that my mother-in-law picked out - isn't it adorable?

I can't wait to get to this one! I'm not sure when, but, don't worry, I'll get to it. It's in the queue... ;)

Weekend Projects: Sews Well With Others

The first myth of management is that it exists.

Project Management Proverb

I don't say this very often, but thank goodness it's Monday! I had way too many sewing balls up in the air this holiday weekend! Instead of herding cattle, it felt like I was trying to keep up with a stampede! Amazingly enough, almost all of the cows ended up in the barn somehow...

First, my mother-in-law and her 11-year-old great-granddaughter (Tiffany) were visiting us, and Tiffany wanted to do lots of sewing with me. We started by making this cute sock creature, which Tiffany named Star:

Next, was shopping at Joann's for fabric and a pattern for an outfit. It was quite a mad scramble to get this whole outfit finished by bedtime on Sunday, but somehow we managed. As you'll probably be able to guess, I let her pick the fabric and trim... ;)

The shirt pattern was one of Simplicity's "Project Runway" series. Truthfully, I was not impressed, although it's hard to separate out the details of the pattern from the fact that the fabric was stiff and a bit difficult to work with (maybe it was all that glitter?) and the fact that I was working with a newbie seamstress...

The shorts were also a learning experience for me - learning about junior fashion, that is! The pattern produced elastic waist shorts that sit at your natural waist. Apparently 11-year-olds don't wear shorts at their waists these days. They wear them at their hips - below the belly button!

Tiffany just pushed them down to the place she wanted and said that they were fine, but I felt that having the crotch fall somewhere around her knees did now show off our collective sewing talents to their best advantage. So, I trimmed several inches from the waist and redid the casing around hip level, to produce something that we could both live with.

Finally, a quick catch-up on Ana and Juana. It was supposed to be a super exciting weekend as we went to Sears to purchase sewing machines. Unfortunately, Sears was out of stock of the machine that they wanted. They ordered them and the machines are supposed to be in on Wednesday, but it was disappointing to leave the store empty-handed.

Our sewing, however, went well. We started on their dresses and made the darts (front and back) and installed the zippers! Here is a shot of Juana showing off her first zipper and the flattering fit of the back:

We had a brief discussion of how my Spanish has improved over the last couple of months and I made a joke about how, if I ever went to Mexico, I could talk to people - about sewing! I imagined a conversation going something like this:

Me: Hi, my name is Gwen.

Person on the Street (POTS): Hi, my name is ...

Me: How are you?

POTS: Fine, thank you.

Me: You have lovely darts and I like your hem.

POTS: ?!?!? La gringa es loco!!!

Friday Confession

My Most Embarrassing Purchase Mistake

I got this delightful book with instructions to make "stupid sock creatures" and wanted to make some myself. Here's an example of one that I wanted to make:

In order to make these, I needed to buy some polyester fiberfill. I decided to order it online. The site I went to offered two sizes - for now, let's just call them "small" and "large". They were described in terms of pounds.

I had never worked with fiberfill before and couldn't exactly imagine how pounds translated into volume. I didn't want to run out of fiberfill, so, just to be safe, I ordered the large size.

It was 20 pounds. It came in 4 "pillows". Here is my sock creature in front of one of those pillows:

Yeah, that's A LOT of sock creatures... ;)

You should have seen the look on my husband's face over dinner that night when I casually mentioned that I had ordered 20 pounds of stuffing...

So, how about you? Have you ever made a really dumb purchase? If so, I'd love to hear about it... :)

Talk Back Thursday

Thanks to Lindsay, Vicki, Summerset and Claire for "talking back" to my confession last Friday! I confessed that I don't really iron clothes before wearing them, although I do iron religiously as I sew a garment.

Not surprisingly, everyone reported ironing as they sew. It really makes a difference in the quality of the final garment. Brand names mentioned were Rowenta, Conair and Laurastar (a new name to me).

As for ironing before dressing, the reports were a little more varied... Lindsay and Claire iron pretty regularly, Summerset has been ironing dress shirts for her husband every week for almost 15 years (I don't think that my husband really needs to know this, do you?), and Vicki (cleverly!) wears a lot of knits...

Thanks again everyone for chiming in! :)

So, each time I think that I'm running low on topics for my Friday Confessions, I make a doozy of a mistake - just wait until tomorrow, when I tell you about my most embarrassing purchase!

In the Queue Wednesday

Meet Genevieve.

She comes to us straight from the fertile imagination of John Murphy, author of the book "Stupid Sock Creatures." My 11-year-old niece, Tiffany, is visiting us this week, and we are going to make our own version of Genevieve.

Stay tuned to see how she turns out! :)

Weekend Activities: Convergence 2008

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.

Proverb

It was a weekend for friends - old and new. My best friend from college, Kathy, flew down to Florida from Maryland and we attended Convergence 2008 - the convention for weavers and other fiber artists - that was held in Tampa.

Kathy and I generally are only able to spend a couple of hours together once a year - when we each return to Ohio to visit family for Christmas. We decided last year to try to find a way to get together during the year.

Kathy does beautiful needlework of all types and has recently started beading. I learned about Convergence 2008 from PatternReview and it was perfect for us! There were beading classes for her and sewing classes for me... And a vendor exhibit hall with plenty of shopping opportunities for both of us!!! ;)

First, some pictures of my shopping swag. ;)

I got fabric for assorted friends who like dragonflies and all things Asian, and stencils for a friend who loves Halloween:

(I may have felt a touch foolish after buying the Asian "pez dispenser" fabric in an Asian booth, when I discovered that it is Alexander Henry fabric!)

Finally, I got these small pouches for two friends who really love this kind of thing and the super soft, hand-dyed sock yarn for a friend who knits socks.

Next, my classes. Because this conference is not geared specifically towards sewers, I had the opportunity to take some classes that aren't offered at conferences like the Sewing and Quilt Expo each year. For example, I took a class on sketching for fashion and design, taught by Diane Ericson. I was really excited about this one, as I have always thought of drawing and sketching as a skill that I don't have.

I really enjoyed the class. Diane pointed out some obvious things that most people tend to overlook, such as the fact that we get good at the things that we do a lot! So if we want to be good at sketching...

She gave us some fun exercises to practice using our eyes and trusting our hands.

She explained how to use light and dark shading to give the illusion of depth (see my ruffle below).

And we spent much of our time with tracing paper, tracing designs and design elements on existing illustrations that we liked, and then trying to recreate those images superimposed over a line drawing of a female figure.

Basically, she encouraged us to keep a portfolio of images that we like, trace and sketch them, combine them, manipulate them, etc. She made it all very do-able for me. :)

As for my second class - I have read in so many sewing blogs about the importance of keeping inspirational journals - plus, I want to make a kind of scrap book for the wedding dress - that I took a class called "Journals for the Fiber Artist" by Mary Fisher.

This one turned out to not be what I was expecting. It was more about experimenting with scraps of fabric, bits of ribbons and beads, tissue paper, water colors, etc. to create interesting, creative, textured and abstract visuals. Mary showed samples of her work and she is an incredibly creative and powerful visual artist.

However, truth be told, I'm more of a coloring-within-the-lines kind of person, and I'm okay with that. I did manage to put this cover on the small book that came in our materials kit:

But you can see my mistakes right away - I used symmetrical shapes, colors that match, recognizable images... This garnered the dreaded comment from the teacher, "Oh, that's pretty." Instant death in her world... ;)

Seriously, most of the women in the class had a lot of fun, and I don't suppose that a little bit of loosening up would kill me, but I was much more drawn to... the looms! The woven fabrics are visually gorgeous, have incredible textures, and the kind of systematic, mathematical relationships that appeal to me.

There were many loom vendors in attendance and I spent probably more than 30 minutes learning about and weaving on a small Harrisville loom. This was their 22 inch model (that's the largest width of fabric that it can produce) with four harnesses. I fell in love. I learned how to do a standard weave (your weft thread goes over and under each successive warp thread - like those potholders we used to make when we were kids) and a twill weave. Pressing the treadles in the right sequence, passing the shuttle back and forth, watching your fabric emerge in front of your eyes... It was all so cool!

My fate is sealed. I don't know when - certainly not too soon! - but someday I will weave. :)

Okay, my last two classes - more traditional sewing classes - were with Cynthia Guffey. One was on seam treatments and the other was on drafting lining patterns for your garments.

I really enjoy Cynthia's classes. She is incredibly skilled, interesting and entertaining. She showed multiple exterior seam treatments, described lots of tips for modifying a garment pattern to produce a corresponding lining pattern, and demonstrated her hemming approach (3 hems!) to help support bulkier fabrics (such as hand wovens).

Of all of the things that I learned, perhaps the most interesting was this simple yet significant idea that I have somehow missed during my years (okay, just 5 of them, but still...) of sewing - apparently you are supposed to sew with the grain of the fabric.

In other words, every time I pin in a zipper and carefully line up the edges along the top of the fabric, and then sew down one edge of the zipper, pivot at the bottom, and finish by sewing up the other edge, guess why the top edges of the fabric don't line up anymore? It's because on one of those two long rows of stitches (either the down pass or the up pass), I was sewing against the grain of the fabric and that side stretched!

And that's why one side of my collar lines up so nicely, but not the other. And ditto for hems. According to Cynthia, instead of stitching in long continuous seams, I should break up single continuous seams into sections and stitch them separately, changing direction as needed so that that I am always stitching with the grain. Her rule of thumb for stitching with the grain is "high to low and wide to narrow".

So, have you guys heard of this? Do you do it? What do you think?

In summary, it was a great three days and I'm exhausted and can't believe I have to get up early and go to work tomorrow! Yikes!

Friday Confessions

Ironing

Before sewing, I never ironed.

You think I'm exaggerating? Well, when my husband got me a sewing machine and I started ironing with the iron that we had received as a wedding gift 20 years earlier, it was basically brand new!

I still rarely iron clothes before putting them on, but I am constantly ironing as I sew. About a year ago I got this Consew gravity feed iron, based on positive reviews on Pattern Review. I absolutely love it! I admit, the cords (electric & water) do get in my way a bit. But for some reason, it just doesn't bother me. I still love this iron.

How about you? Is ironing a big part of your sewing? What kind of iron do you have? How do you like it?

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you to Lindsay, Summerset and Claire for "talking back" to my Friday Confession last week!

I confessed that my sewing room is "decorated" with cat knick-knacks, and asked if other people decorated their sewing rooms.

The general answer seems to be - drum roll, please - No.

Lindsay doesn't have a dedicated sewing room at the moment. Summerset and Claire let their fabrics and projects bring color and beauty into their rooms.

Thanks again, everyone - I love learning about these small details of your sewing worlds and lives each week! :)

In the Queue Wednesday

Pants.

I'm afraid of pants.

Well, actually, I'm afraid of fitting pants. So, when I saw this article in the January 2008 issue of Threads magazine, I said to myself, "Gwen, this is it. This is the approach you are going to try to make a pair of pants that fit."

This seems to be an approach that will work best when done with a friend to help in taking all the measurements, etc. Luckily, my friend Susan is interested in trying this too! :)

I have had this grey, bottom weight fabric, with just a touch of lycra, in my stash for ages - it should be perfect for a pair of comfortable, casual, yet dressier-than-jeans pair of pants.

So, I have the fabric, I have the instructions to make a pattern and I have a friend to tackle this project with me! Now all I need is the nerve...

Don't worry, I'll get to it. It's in the queue... ;)

Weekend Project: First Dress, First Real Pattern

Measure twice, cut once.

Traditional Saying

Today we started on our second project, a dress using a commercial pattern. You can see the pattern here.

Ana and Juana chose these bottom weight plaids (respectively):

We spent about two hours together and got all of the pieces cut out and the interfacing applied for both dresses. The pattern specified that it is designed for people who are 5 feet 6 inches tall. Ana is about 5' 3" and Juana is about 4' 11", so we shortened the main front and back pieces accordingly.

They are happy and excited about this project and already mentally anticipating their next project - t-shirts for their boyfriends! Unfortunately, I cannot go next Sunday, so that will be a delay to our progress. On the other hand, there is a chance that they might buy machines during the upcoming holiday weekend, if Sears has a nice sale. Our lessons would go a lot faster if we had two machines.

This time, I did not prepare any sentences in Spanish ahead of time. It was a bit of a risk, but I was hoping that our limited communication skills would suffice, given the obviousness of our task, and the Burda instructions in Spanish. And it all worked out fine. I think these dresses are going to come out really cute! :)

Friday Confessions

Home (Sewing Room) Decor

You know how some people have an innate flair for design?

Well, I am not one of them.

You may have noticed this when looking at my blog layout.

I generally acknowledge this state of affairs by NOT trying to actually decorate our house. Other than the black and white prints hanging on our walls (leftovers from the days when we were into photography) I restrict my decorating attempts to trying to keep the clutter to a minimum. (PS - it is a losing battle.)

The one exception is my sewing room - here I let sentiment and corniness rule and have an actual theme. Cats. My husband and I have had cats for about 20 years - Poly and Jackson, Sammy and Milly... They've been a big part of our lives and - what can I say? - I love them. So, in the sewing room, I let cat knick knacks run amock.

How about you? How is your sewing room decorated?

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you SO much to Meghan, Lindsay, Emily, Claire, Becky, Summerset, Vicki and Audrey for "talking back" to my Friday Confession last week!

I confessed that my dressform no longer matches my measurements - one of us has changed with age (and not for the better), but I'm not telling which one... ;)

Just within this small group of commenters there are duct tape dressforms, a packing tape dressform, a discarded store mannequin, a cage-like form, a "pad-it-yourself" form and more...

In fact, this post generated a lot of interesting and fun dressform stories! Rather than try to summarize it, I'll just encourage you to read for yourself! It's worth the click: Friday Confession: Dressform.

Thanks again, everyone! :)

In the Queue Wednesday

Another one for me. PLUS, I'll actually be USING some of those fabric scraps I have trouble throwing away... ;)

I made a circle skirt for a friend in this fabric, and I think I have enough left over to make myself a short (~knee-length), A-line skirt. I don't have an actual pattern at the moment - I may try to wing it. We'll see...

I don't know when, but I'll get to it. It's in the queue...

Monday Morning Quarterback

Another fun Sunday afternoon with Ana & Juana! We stopped by Sears to look at the Kenmore sewing machines - I'm hoping Sears will have a big sale for the Fourth of July and bring those prices within their reach... (I talked to them about buying a quality used machine, but they were pretty certain that they wanted a new one.)

Then it was on to Joann's to pick a pattern and fabric for their next project: a dress with a zipper! They actually had a bit of a difficult time settling on a single easy pattern that they both liked. In the end, they selected this Burda (#8123):

They want to make the version worn by the model who is standing on the right of the picture. According to Burda's rating system, this is a "one dot" or "very easy" pattern. For fabric, they picked plaids in a bottom-weight cotton.

Afterwards, we stopped at Steak and Shake for milkshakes, and - for the first time - just did some "getting to know you" talking. I learned a bit about them; how long they have been in the United States, how long they have known each other, etc.

One funny thing happened. Ana wanted to order a milkshake to take home for her boyfriend, and she wanted to order it herself, in English. We worked out the words and jotted them down, so that she could read them and place her order. But when Ana tried, the waitress took the paper out of Ana's hands to read it herself! Ana was a bit put out by that, but I had to laugh because that is exactly what they do to me each week! I carefully write all my Spanish sentences down ahead of time and then, when I try to say them outloud, Ana and Juana just come behind me and read my paper over my shoulders! When I explained how the tables were turned, they saw the humor too. :)

Next week I'm hoping that we can get all the pieces cut out. Unfortunately, there was only 1 copy of the pattern left, so they are going to have to share. Luckily, they can use the same size. Sorry, no pictures from today's shopping expedition - I forgot my camera! :(

Weekend Project: Sewing for Me!

Put even the plainest woman into a beautiful dress and unconsciously she will try to live up to it.

Lucie Duff-Gordon

First things first: I love this dress! There are several things wrong with it (which I will get to in a minute), but I still love it. It makes me feel pretty. It makes me want to sashay and swirl and pivot and twirl everywhere I go! :)

Okay, now for the dissection... My first mistake was selecting a print that has a distinct and obvious appropriate orientation. After this experience, it seems to me that full circle skirts in general are not well suited to this type of print - the print is oriented correctly at the front and back centers, but flipped 90 degrees at the side seams.

More significantly, the fabric was supposed to be cut on the bias for the bodice (in view B). I chose to ignore those directions and cut the bodice pieces along the grain line, so that the print would be oriented correctly. There is a small ripple effect along the neckline, and I think this is the price that I am paying for that decision.

Other issues arose. For one thing, I actually ran out of fabric! This has NEVER happened to me before (I usually buy more fabric than I need). I think that part of the problem was that I changed my mind about what view to make quite recently (and view B needed more fabric than view A).

Also contributing to the not enough fabric problem: the width of this particular piece of fabric was a couple inches shy of the number cited on the pattern envelope - one of those 42 inches versus 45 inches things. Normally this doesn't cause me any problems, but with a full circle skirt pattern... I needed those extra inches of width! My solution: I opened the fabric out completely and cut the front in two pieces and added a center seam. Not ideal...

Unfortunately, because the project had been sitting in my queue for so long, the store was out of that fabric. Thus, I made the sash out of a different fabric (solid pink). In the end, I like it just as much, if not better, that way.

Another issue - the size I cut turned out to be too big and I had to do some pretty significant modifications to get the bodice to fit. While I am getting better at this, the straps are still sitting a bit too far out on my shoulders and the v-neck takes QUITE a plunge! I should have done a quick muslin.

Two things worth noting about the pattern. First, it was the typical cheap-looking (in my opinion) sash pattern that only had you cut one layer of fabric for each side. I doubled it and stitched the 2 layers together so that no seams show on my sash. I also interfaced it, because I wanted my sash to have a bit of body. I wanted the bow to stand up and hold its shape, not just flop down. I think I was successful!

Second, for some odd reason, the instructions for view B did NOT have you use the bodice lining to hide the waist seam and two zipper side seams. Instead, the instructions had you stitch the bodice and bodice lining together along all open edges and then treat the two layers of fabric as one when attaching the skirt and zipper... But the instructions for view A were the standard instructions that have you hold the lining separate while attaching the skirt and inserting the zipper, and then fold the lining back inside to cover those raw edges. This really surprised me. Does anyone know - is there a good reason for the difference?

So, as you can see, there are any numbers of issues with this dress.

"But I still love it!", she declares, pivoting on one heel and sashaying out of the room, with her beautiful, full skirt flowing and swirling around her in graceful pink waves.

Friday Confessions

Dressform

Okay, this one is a doozy! It is by far the most difficult confession I've made and, if you are faint of heart, I advise you not to read any further...

Well, at least make sure you are sitting down...

My dressform isn't set to my measurements. (Or to anyone's measurements that I know of.)

To be fair, I DID set it to my measurements when I first got it - but then it lost a bunch of weight and it doesn't match me anymore. When inanimate objects start working against you, what's a woman to do?

I know, I NEED to change this situation and start working more diligently on fit.

So, I suspect that I'm pretty much alone on this, but I'll ask anyways. How about you? Tell me about your dressform(s) - what type do you have and how much does it help you with fitting? (Oh, and have you named it/them?)

Talk Back Thursday

Thank you to Claire, Summerset, Vicki and Becky for "talking back" to my Friday Confession last week!

I confessed that I save my fabric scraps. Claire and Summerset generally save pieces of fabric that are 1/2 yard or larger - although they both said that it does depend a bit on the quality (and expense) of the fabric. Becky will save 1/4 yard or more - she is seriously committed to minimizing her contributions to our landfills. (Check out this cool project where she re-purposed a mens shirt from Goodwill!) And Vicki saves quite a few of her scraps too - she says that she is able to use them for small coordinating items and trim on other projects.

The lesson that I took away from all this is that saving your fabric scraps is good IF you actually use them later, but kind of a waste of space if you are just hoarding them because you can't bear to throw them away.

Thanks again, everyone! :)

In the Queue Wednesday

Oh, I'm really excited about this one! I was at Joann's, browsing through the pattern books, looking for potential dress patterns for my 2 sewing students (among the companies that include Spanish instructions on their patterns), and I stumbled across this:

I LOVE pintucks and have successfully made them on my serger before (using the rolled hem stitch, as explained in an older issue of Threads). I think I'll do the sleeveless version. I found this cotton print - I think it's perfect for a light, breezy and just a touch romantic summer top!

You can be sure that I'll get to this one quickly! It's now at the top of my queue! ;)

Sew Much Comfort

My "Sew Much Comfort" package came in the mail last week. Sew Much Comfort is a registered public charitable organization that provides "adaptive clothing" to wounded service men and women. I first learned about this organization from Stacy. The basic idea is to provide clothes that fit over medical devices like casts and braces and are easy to put on and take off.

This is a large volunteer organization that, since its inception in 2004, had provided over 40,000 articles of adaptive clothing. As you might imagine, organizing hundreds or even thousands of sewers is a bit of a task, and reading over the material I see that they have some pretty strict rules. First, they have a set of patterns to be used, and those patterns may not be shared or altered in any way. Your design choices include (and are limited to) whether or not to add a pocket. Second, you must submit a sample for each pattern that you would like to use, and your samples are checked for quality control. If you pass, then you are authorized to use that pattern. Finally, all items must be sent through their distribution chain - no dropping by your local VA to deliver things by hand.

Oh, and they are also quite precise about things like pre-washing, sizing, acceptable seam finishes, and fabric types and colors, etc.

It would be possible to take these rules in a negative way, but I remind myself that this isn't about me and my wonderful creativity and incredible sewing skills (ha!), it's about doing something for people who put their lives on the line (and paid dearly) so that I can enjoy living in this wonderful country. And, as I said earlier, organizing that many unknown volunteers undoubtedly does require setting some rules on their end. After all, they can't all be as good as we are, can they? ;)

The kit comes with instructions for two types of outfits:

1. Modifying an existing article of clothing - the modifications generally involve opening up one or more seams and replacing them with hook and loop tape.
2. Making something from scratch

The things you can buy and adapt include:

• Boxer shorts, swim trunks, athletic shorts and t-shirts

The things that you can make from scratch:

• Pants and shorts

There are 2 types of pants & shorts:

1. Full-Length Access Pants (FLAPS) - hook and loop tape runs the length of one (or both) exterior side seams, with a snap at the waist, to accomodate casts, braces and bandages
2. Fixator Pants - an enlarged leg with hook and loop tape along the length of that leg (and waist snap) to accomodate external metal fixator devices

The packet includes detailed instructions for all of the above and pattern pieces for the two types of pants. It also includes some hook and loop tape, elastic for a waistband, tag and size labels and a heavy-duty snap.

They even provide ratios for how they would like the items distributed across different sizes and access on different sides of the body!

So, I think I am going to start by making shorts from one of their patterns. They should be relatively quick and easy to make. I'll show you my efforts and let you know if I pass the quality control check!

Monday Morning Quarterback

Happiness is like perfume: You can't give it away without getting a little on yourself.

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The skirts are finished! It took 3 hours, but we were able to finish the waistband on Juana's skirt and all of the hems on both skirts. I think you can see for yourself that everyone was very happy with and justifiably proud of the results! :)

After they finished their skirts, I gave each of them a "congratulations gift" of some of the basic sewing tools: a pair of scissors, pins and a magnetic pin cushion, hand needles, seam ripper, tape measure, seam gauge and tailor's chalk. I announced that they were now officially seamstresses; but they disagreed and said that they would be seamstresses after our next two planned projects.

Our plans, by the way, are to make a dress with a zipper and then a blouse with a collar, buttons and buttonholes - using commercial patterns that include instructions in Spanish as well as in English (Simplicity, New Look and/or Burda). After that, I am hoping that they will have enough of the basic skills that I can set them loose on the sewing world! ;)

Every week there is more chatter during our sewing time. They are more and more willing to try to use some English words and our ability to communicate is steadily growing. I made 2 jokes today - one planned and one off-the-cuff - both of which got a laugh.

The off-the-cuff one happened when Ana asked me where my husband was that afternoon. I replied (all in broken Spanish) "at home" and then followed up with "I hope!". That brought about the knowing exchange of womanly grins that often arise during discussions of men... ;)

The planned one is a bit more complicated. I made a disparaging comment about my Spanish and then said that "I know three words." (This is all in Spanish.) I then repeated the sentence, while counting on my fingers and pretended to discover that the sentence had FOUR words in it, so I modified the sentence to say "I know four words." Then I pretended to count again and realize that I had just added another known word (the word for "four") and so I modified it again to say "I know five words." Of course, more exaggerated pretend counting to determine that that made six words I knew... I let it trail off and they both realized that I was stuck in an infinite loop and burst out laughing. :)

Next Sunday - shopping for a dress pattern and fabric! This time I AM going to request, before we even leave for the store, that they try to find a nice cotton print to make the dresses in. No more fraying polyestor for this "teacher"!