Grandma's Sewing Cabinet » Projects

Making It Harder Than It Was Supposed To Be

Dr. Julie-Ann — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:28:43 +0000

In a couple of weeks, my older sister, June, will be heading over to the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of the “Every Stitch A Prayer” Congo Cloth Connection. Read about it here (Part 1) and here (Part 2). She asked me if I could make some pin cushions and notion roll-ups that she can take with her to give to the students of the sewing school. Of course I said yes! She sent fabric from her stash that had circles on them and I was off and running!

Until I wasn’t running any more. And it was my own fault.

Let me explain.

June really liked Keyka Lou’s pin cushion and sent the tutorial to me. I, too, loved the pin cushion and decided I’d use it instead of a flower pin cushion that I had designed. We talked about the need for plastic to keep the pins from going through the cushion and jabbing the wearer. I started on the pin cushions while letting the idea of how to add plastic percolate in my mind.

I discovered that my small Pyrex bowls were 3 1/2″ across, perfect for using as a template for my circles. I could still see the circles on the fabric and get them fairly centered. I used my “lipstick chalk wheel marker” to make the outlines and cut the circles out.

And then my brilliant idea hit me! I would laminate the extra circle that goes on the bottom inside to make it plastic-like. So off I went and bought some iron-on vinyl. The Mister called me a genius. I will admit that I was feeling a bit smug about it. Well, you know it’s not going to end well if you start feeling smug. But I digress…

Applying the vinyl was easy. Following the directions, I applied it to both sides of some muslin. Marked it and then cut out the circles.

Laminated muslin ready to be cut into circles.

As they say on TV, do not try this at home.

The laminated circle made it difficult to sew the circles, stuff the cushion, etc. I wasn’t getting nice round circles. I trimmed the laminated fabric to just 1/8″ past the stitching and then notched it. No go. Still too stiff and bunchy. I spent hours and hours on just three of them (I’m making ten) and am completely dissatisfied with how they turned out.

One of the ideas for adding plastic I had was to add plastic to the cuff instead of the cushion. But I was afraid that would be too uncomfortable. I found Keyka Lou’s blog this morning and, indeed, she had an update where a reader added a square of plastic to the cuff just below the cushion instead of to the entire cuff. Simple solution to the problem!

So…it is back to the cutting table for me!

Sometimes our brilliant ideas make things harder than they are supposed to be

Edited to Add: I consider this a labor of love and am thrilled that I can participate in “Every Stitch a Prayer”–Congo Cloth Connection in this way. I figure the setback just allows me more time to pray for the women receiving the pin cushions!

She Doesn’t Wear Baby Clothes Anymore!

Dr. Julie-Ann — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:44:46 +0000

Alice showing off her new top that her Mommy bought for her and swirly skirt that her Auntie Jan gave to her.

The Bunny isn’t a baby anymore. She is a two-year-old who is asserting her independence. Except for those times when she is frustrated at her mean mother for making her take naps (because she knows the ponies and acrobats will arrive as soon as she is asleep), she is one of the sweetest and curious little girls I have ever known. And I’m not just saying that because she’s my niece. Really I’m not.

Anyway, during our Mears Sisters weekend, Alice’s mom gave me some fabric and a couple of patterns and asked if I would make some dresses for her. For Alice, not my sister. How could I say no? I took Alice’s measurements and she is now officially wearing a little girls’ size 2. That meant she was too big for some of the cute retro-reproduction baby patterns that we bought for her. Alice’s aunts and mother mourned Alice’s move from baby-hood into toddler-hood by passing around some Thin Mints Girl Scout Cookies. Like we needed any justification to pass them around…

The Dresses and Their Fabric

Easy McCalls 5966 "Sew*Crafty"

I will make two dresses out of the McCall’s 5966 pattern using these fabrics:

Bright pink linen blend

Pink and white swirly floral print cotton blend

McCall's 6062 "Chelsea Anderson"

And I will be making the top and ruffles for the pants out of this fabric (I still need to buy a solid fabric for the pants):

Purple, grey, and cream floral print cotton fabric

I’ll confess that I’ve been putting off making my first dress for my “Ladies Who Lunch” wardrobe capsule because I just hate going through the full bust pattern adjustments. I know that the dress can become a “tried and true” dress that I can do all sorts of things to but after receiving our sad news last month, I just haven’t been in the mood for it. I’ll get there. I promise.

But in the meantime, I’m going to sew some toddlers who make their aunts happy outfits for a little girl without any curves.

Sock Monkey Follow-up and Sporadic Posting

Dr. Julie-Ann — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:04:08 +0000

Just a quick note to let you know that my posts will be a bit sporadic for the next couple of weeks.

But in the meantime, here’s how Sock Monkey turned out (he’s hanging out with Rett The Monkey–the Mister gave him to me 30+ years ago to take care of me when he left for art school– and Piglet). This “portrait” is part of her birthday card because she is fond of playing with Rett and Piglet, too.

I decided to go the very simple route because I know Sock Monkey will be “well loved” and this way it will be easier for my sister to give Sock Monkey a bath. I embroidered eyebrows but they looked very funny so I pulled them out. Embroidering on knit is an adventure. I would suggest you do the embroidery first with a hoop and then stuff it.

Sock Monkey and Friends

At Alice’s party today, I’m hoping to get some photos of her with Sock Monkey but I’m not holding my breath since there will be A LOT of people there today competing for her attention. She is such a blessing in our lives, we can’t help but adore her!

Drafting Skirt Pattern Sew-Along Lesson Two: Measuring (w/video)

Dr. Julie-Ann — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:17:33 +0000

Dear Friends,

In today’s lesson, I show you how to take correct measurements so that your pattern will fit you perfectly!

My sister, Jill, agreed to be my model and my mom was there, too, so she was my camera woman. And, as you will soon see/hear, Baby Alice was involved in the filming, too, but being adorably distracting. I’ll have to warn you right now that if you get upset by babies making noise in the background (as they are wont to do at the most inopportune time) and mother’s talking to the teacher while she’s teaching, then you better skip watching the video. I have a feeling, though, that most of you will be able to relate to the “adventure” we had creating this video. Despite it being a bit “zany” at times, we decided to go ahead and run with it. After all, it’s real life!

Click here to download the Measurement Guide Handout (PDF)

The lesson is divided into two parts: Video 1 provides an introduction and Video 2 demonstrates how to take the measurements.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section!

Every Baby, er, Toddler Girl Needs A Dress With Daisies On It! Right?

Dr. Julie-Ann — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:00:56 +0000

Dear Friends,

Aside from helping out in the beginning fashion summer class at the community college, I haven’t done anything related to sewing for the past couple of weeks. But then my sister posted a photo of Toddler Alice and I realized that I better get cracking on her dress before she outgrows the pattern! On Sunday I cut out the dress and I hope to work on it later this week.

The Details:

Pattern: Simplicity 4709, View A (click on picture to enlarge it). It is apparently now out of print…I bought it some time ago for $1 at JoAnn’s.

Simplicity 4709 (now out of print)

Fabric: Quilting fabric from JoAnn’s bought last winter (on sale, of course).

I love the little daisies on it.

Trim: White ric-rac in medium width. The pattern calls for the “baby ric-rac” but it would have been too tiny to compete with the daisies and lighter blue flowers.

When I bought the pattern, Alice was a lot smaller and I had planned on making the cute little matching bloomers or panties. Alas, as babies are wont to do, she grew and I had to use the largest size in the pattern and didn’t have enough left over for the bloomers. Yes, I know I could have just bought a different fabric, but it is the principle of the thing to actually use the fabric I bought for her for this dress.

What projects are you working on this week?

Happy sewing!

Dr. Julie-Ann

PS: I’ll have the first post for the pattern-making sew-along on Wednesday.

Every Couture Technique but the Kitchen Sink

Dr. Julie-Ann — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 03:34:02 +0000

My friend Nicole ~~has been nagging me~~ asked me politely today to post photos of my couture class final project, so here they (finally) are! For the project, we had to research and incorporate a specific couture technique that our professor wasn’t teaching us into our garment. We also had to do a presentation and teach our classmates how to do that technique. I chose smocking for my technique. We also were to incorporate as many techniques that we were learning about into the garment. So I used interlining with a Hong Kong binding in the skirt, horsehair braid in the hem, a double fold hem, binding around the bodice, and, of course, the corselette.

I have my local neighborhood group of the American Sewing Guild to thank for helping me learn how to smock. Nancy and Kathleen taught a smocking workshop and then Nancy graciously gave up several hours to tutor me and pleat my bodice inset on her machine.

Here are the photos from the journey of making this dress…

When I put my corselette on the dress form, I wanted to cry. As you can see, the bodice didn't even come close to fitting! This turned out to be a theme throughout this dress.

I turned it inside out and started pinning the corselette so I could restitch the seams.

The seam allowance needs to be trimmed and clipped but at least it fit.

The muslin for the dress fit a little better but I did need to pin in the princess seam to make it fit better.

Nancy, my heroine, without whom I couldn't have brought my vision to fruition.

The pleated crepe back satin. We had a terrible time getting this through the pleater. I bought it at JoAnn's and I think it was a bit off grain and that is why it was so difficult. But...isn't it bee-you-tea-ful?

Then it was time to sew the bias tape on to create the channels for the spiral steel boning to the inside of the corselette (I lined it later)

I made bias tape out of the coutil (tutorial forthcoming) but I ended up using some blue store-bought tape I had on hand because it would be easier to photograph (and wasn't going to show anyway because of the lining.

A broader view of the inside of the corselette.

Inserting the spiral steel boning. Trust me on this: You want to buy the boning that is precut and has the ends already on them. It was murder cutting the boning and having to use two pliars to put the cap things on. Not fun.

The smocked inset. I used a back smocking technique so that the stitches wouldn't show and it would create that pretty effect on the front. I couldn't get the camera to focus to take a photo of the actual smocking stitching.

The fitting/pattern making problems came back to haunt me when I put it on the dress form for the final evaluation. Also, my smocking started coming undone. In my presentation I noted that I need to study this technique a bit more.

The bodice was too long and I couldn't get it zipped up at first (and we won't discuss the corselette zipper that I discovered I had put in backwards when I was done with the project). Classmates Nancy and Himeko to the rescue! They hiked the skirt up to the waist on the form, zipped it up, and then pulled the bodice down over the waist seam. It looked fabulous...as if it were *supposed* to look that way!

The back view of the dress. I love how beautiful it looked!

All in all, for being my first go at a dress of this caliber, I'm pretty darn tootin' proud of myself! (And I earned an "A" on it, to boot!)

Now: More Inspired By Reality Than Vionnet

Dr. Julie-Ann — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:57:09 +0000

Dear Friends,

Reality has hit: I will not be able to make the Vionnet-inspired cocktail dress the way I had hoped without too much fussing and futzing for a 1-credit class and a garment I will never be able to wear.

What happened: Last Saturday morning, I sat with eight other ladies around Nancy’s dining room table as she taught the very basics of smocking to our American Sewing Guild’s neighborhood group. I am totally hooked on smocking but as Nancy and the other ladies and I brainstormed, it became more and more apparent that my idea to “just rotate the darts up to the neckline and turn those into pleats that I will smock” was really just a fantasy. Rotating the darts was not going to give me enough pleating to smock.

Current vision: Nancy pointed out that a lot of smocking was done on an insert into the garment. As I let that play around in my head, I decided that the problem was the kimono-sleeved sheer overblouse. After I mentally discarded the overblouse, I was able to see how I could add a smocked inset above the corselette. I still haven’t decide if I will use chiffon for the inset or not.

The sketch: I think my Illustrator prof will be happy to see me trying to sketch out a rough estimate of what I’m going for (I’m pretty sure I’ll have the smocking go all the way to the edge of the inset…):

Theatrical Thursday: Basic Introduction to Draping a Pattern

Dr. Julie-Ann — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:24:21 +0000

Dear Friends,

I’ve been talking about “draping” the pattern for my Vionnet-inspired cocktail dress. But what does that exactly mean? I have found these two videos by couture designer Susan Elias that shows the basic process of draping the front bodice and she demonstrates how darts can be rotated to the neckline in the second video, which is what I’m doing for my overdress dress. For a princess bodice front we use two blocks instead of one like she demonstrates. A princess seam is essentially one long dart joining the waist and another other dart (usually either an armhole dart or a shoulder dart).

I hope this gives you a better idea of the process I’m using!

Click here to watch Part One if the player isn’t working for you.

Click here to watch Part Two

Making the Corselette Pattern

Dr. Julie-Ann — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:10:40 +0000

Dear Friends,

In my last post, I mentioned that I am learning how to make a corselette. In high end and couture gowns, the undergarment is built into the piece to ensure that the right look and fit is obtained. It is also prevents the wearer from having to keep tugging at the top of a strapless gown to ensure that it stays in place!

The first step was to mark the dress form above the bustline with some drafting tape to kind of create the curve we wanted for the top of the corselette. We then draped fabric in four sections and marked the center front, center back, side seam, and princess lines. I forgot to take my camera but Justine from Sew Country Chick has photos that show the basic idea (mine doesn’t have shoulders on it).

The next step was to use these fabric sections to create a pattern. After I disassembled the pinned sections (this is always the scary part…if I forgot to mark something while it was still on the dressform, I’m in trouble later), I used my ruler and French ruler to “true” the lines so that they are cohesive rather than lots of dashed lines and wonky corners.

I then get out my dot paper (called dot paper because it has evenly spaced dots or letters or numbers in 1″ increments) and mark a grainline reference point. I lay my pattern piece over it, using the grainline reference to make sure the piece is on grain, and pin it down using push pins. At school, we use cork boards and we are encouraged to have one at home, too, but I found that my cutting mat and/or my cardboard cutting board hold the pushpins in place well enough for my needs. I just have to be careful not to make any quick motions that would pull all of the pins out. If that happens, I have to start over.

After the piece is pinned down, I use the spiked tracing wheel to trace along my trued lines. I have to use the spiked tracing wheel versus the sawtooth or wavy tracing wheel that JoAnn’s carries because I am trying to make visible holes in the paper. This needs to be done carefully. Trust me. I’ve tried to go too fast in the past and have ended up losing control and veering off into weird directions. Haste makes waste! I remove the fabric and, hopefully, I have a nice guideline for making the paper pattern.

There is a line of puncture holes that go from the M to the X to the 6 to the G

If the holes show up as nice an pretty as the lines above, then I can get out my pattern drafting tools and start truing those lines, too. In the next picture, you will see that the drawn lines don’t always match up with the puncture lines. That’s okay. The puncture lines are the guidelines but my tools enable me to draw the actual lines that make sense for the pattern (and that aren’t so wobbly). The “T” mark near the lower left is where a notch will go.

The next step is to write all sorts of information on the piece so that I won’t forget what it is and, if I accidentally drop it at school, others will know it is mine. Things to include are my name (duh), the garment, the name of the piece, the size, how many of that particular piece to cut, the fabric (self=fashion, lining, contrast, etc.), and the date. Anything else I think I need to remember or to use as a reference is also written on it.

The (hopefully) final step is to make a test muslin to find anything that needs to be adjusted. I discovered that my pattern was too big around the waist when I put my test muslin on the dress form. I pinned it again, remarked it and started the process all over. (yippee).

Test Muslin 1.0

After doing all of these steps again, Test Muslin 2.0 fit much better. Yay! (Sorry…no pics…I’ll try to remember to take photos on Friday).

I’ll be able to create most of the other pieces for the Vionnet-inspired dress using the flat pattern method.

Happy sewing!

Dr. Julie-Ann

Knocking Off Madeleine Vionnet

Dr. Julie-Ann — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 01:31:31 +0000

"Madeleine Vionnet: Evening gown (C.I.52.24.2a,b)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/C.I.52.24.2a,b (October 2006) Source: Madeleine Vionnet: Evening gown (C.I.52.24.2a,b) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As I mentioned the other day, I am taking a one-credit/unit couture clothing class. It is the last class I need for the Custom Clothing certificate. Because it only meets for two hours each week, most of the sewing revolves around making samples that we will keep in a resource notebook. However, our big project is to create a cocktail dress or ballgown that is inspired by a designer gown. Oh, yes. We also have to learn at least one couture technique that we will incorporate into the gown and teach our classmates how to do. Since I want to make heirloom dresses for Baby Alice (who is rapidly growing), I chose smocking. We also have to choose a couture fabric to use in our garment and teach our classmates how to use (needles, stitches, how to handle it, etc.). I chose chiffon.

Our textbook is The Art of Couture Sewing by Zoya Nudelman and the moment I saw the Madeleine Vionnet gown in it (pictured above), I knew it was the one I wanted to “knock off.” According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website,

A bias [pink] lamé underdress is visible through the veil of a lace overdress with velvet [applique']. Seeking the unity of the garment and the integrity of the cloth, Vionnet found simplification even in lace, adding only a small panel at the waist to the one-piece bodice. Thus, even in the sheerest and inherently particled garment, Vionnet insisted on the largest possible element. (Source: Madeleine Vionnet: Evening gown (C.I.52.24.2a,b) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

My cocktail length dress won’t be quite so elaborate. My plan is to use satin for a halter underdress and use the chiffon for the overdress. The kimono bodice won’t have any darts in the front–I will “rotate” the darts into pleats above the bust that I will then smock from the backside using a technique called “backsmocking” or “reverse smocking.” Fortunately, the area to be smocked is rather small!

Madeleine Vionnet is basically credited with creating the bias cut gown. She worked out her ideas on small dress forms before moving to life size. Her gowns emphasize the natural body. My version won’t. As part of the course, we are learning how to make a corselette that will provide structure and shaping to the bodice. The corselette will be sandwiched between the bodice and the lining. The skirt will be a full flared skirt cut on grain instead of biased.

I keep forgetting to take photos of my progress but the corselette pattern has been made and the skirt just needs fine tuning. I’m at the draping the halter bodice stage now. It is coming together really well and I keep getting more and more excited as I continue to work on it.

I’m beginning to see how all of my learning and hard work is coming together. And it is really “kewl!”