Sleeveless Tops

It's very hot here in Nova Scotia, we rarely get such hot weather. Perhaps a few days per summer, but the heat wave on the east coast is reaching us here. And my usual knit tees feel too clammy to wear. Now, if I were better organized, I would have something sewn up in advance to pull out on such warm days, but I am probably like many other women and wait until the heat is here to panic and try to sew something.

I pulled this pattern out from the stash, I had made it a couple of years ago and recall a problem with the armholes.

Too big, but I forgot how much too big. I noticed that I had raised them, so figured that I had worked out an alteration and cut into a nice piece of rayon batik that I had in the stash. Too bad, the armhole problem was not fixed and the top is unwearable. I tried several things, but it is not fixable and I will finish it off and put it in the donation bag for Goodwill. It is a pity because the fabric has a lovely feel and the collar and shirt fit so nicely except for those humongous armholes.

Since I really like the hang of this shirt, I pulled out another pattern that is sleeveless, and that I know fits. It is the top from Twice as Nice, a pattern from Saf-T-Pockets. I know this one fits because I actually taught a class on this once, making a reversible sleeveless top using industrial methods. I can't remember them now, but I am sure they would come back if I made it again. I guess I wasn't charmed enough by the style then because I only ever made one. But the pattern is useful to compare with this Kwik Sew, and that is what I did. It was surprising to see just how much the armhole was off when compared with one that fit. It was clear that I could raise the underarm quite a bit without affecting anything else and that is what I did, in this photo.

This is the shirt that didn't work.

And this is the fabric for the next try. I will let you know if it works. While searching the stash for suitable fabric, I came across another piece of rayon batik (I got several pieces while I was selling batiks from Batik Butik in my online store). If you have never sewn with their fabrics, do check them out. The batiks are 100% rayon, so very cool to wear, with lovely colours that don't wash out. And the rayon is good quality, it withstands machine washing and doesn't hang all limp as some rayons do.

What's been happening

I have been absent for quite a few weeks. Here is the main reason.

Grandchild #9 arrived on June 7, one day before her parents' tenth wedding anniversary. Sarah Elena weighed in at 8 pounds, 3 ounces, and is a very welcome sister to Hannah (9), Jacob (9), Ben (6), Joe (4) and Isaac (almost 2). Her mom is still getting used to having a second girl after four boys.

I was with them for three weeks, helping out with cooking and entertaining the kids, and drove back home over the weekend. The car's air conditioning was malfunctioning, so Friday was an extremely hot day. Thank goodness, the weather became overcast and rainy for the remainder of the drive, otherwise Teddy (my dog) and I would have been prostrate from heat exhaustion.

I have been sewing, just not posting any photos. I made another summer shirt in navy linen, and a pair of cream pants using Katherine Cheetham's pattern for Pull On Pants. Smart patterns, those Petite Plus Patterns. No alterations needed. I should sew up more of them.

Also knitting. I finished the red sweater and it is blocked, now lying in pieces waiting to be sewn up. And I started another sweater, this time knitting in the round from the bottom up. Plus I knit baby blankets for Sarah Elena. Not that she needs them; everyone got blankets for this new baby. I will post some pictures later.

Plaid Blouse

After we had a couple of warm days in March, I thought I should sew some blouses for spring/summer. I am always caught unprepared and go through my closet looking for cool clothes, only to be disappointed with what I find there.

I noticed this plaid cotton on a shelf in my sewing room (it was intended for a dress for my daughter, but she declined the plaid, preferring a solid navy instead). Which meant this fabric was mine. Just the right weight for a summer blouse and bright and cheerful too. I had a couple of patterns in mind for this, one with interesting princess seams and a square front yoke which could be cut on the bias for interest, but instead I opted for this McCalls pattern, view B with the three-quarter sleeves. It is out of print, not surprising since the date on the pattern is 2006. It only takes me 6 years to get around to using patterns!

I added tabs to the sleeves so that they can be rolled up and buttoned in place. Found that pattern piece in a pattern that I made up more than 20 years ago. Aside from that, I followed the pattern directions, using a French seam on the sleeves so that they would look nice when rolled up. I did the buttonholes and sewed on the buttons before adding the sleeves, and that meant today when I put in the sleeves and serged the seam, I was done!

Next I plan on making two pairs of capris from this pattern, another out-of-print pattern, no date on this one though. The pattern says it is low-rise pants in 3 lengths, which means that the crotch depth should be perfect for me without alteration, and I will end up with pants that come to my actual waist, which is now non-existent. Oh for a different body type!

I have a cream cotton fabric for this and I am going to go through my navy stash to see if there is a cotton or linen blend in there that will work for this. So far, I haven't been to the fabric store in weeks, and I am very proud to be sewing from the stash. I am feeling guilty about the amount of fabric that I have here, and can't justify purchasing any more until I sew some of this down. So I am keeping to my resolution of one purchase for every two stash fabrics sewn; actually I am doing better than that, because the last three garments have been sewn from the stash. And that includes thread and buttons. Feels good!

Jean Jacket Complete - Next?

I finished the corduroy jean jacket yesterday. This is a nice pattern, just one puzzle with it - why are the cuffs so big?  I cut off at least one inch from these cuffs, and then put a pleat in the back of the sleeve to make it fit. They are still huge and I overlapped them by about 3" when putting on the buttons. These sleeves are meant to be 3/4 length; on me, they hit just at the wrist, but even so the cuffs are still too big.  Check that if you use this pattern and adjust them shorter, then taper the sleeve or put in two pleats to make it fit the cuff. 

So what's next? Seeing as how I am not the fastest sew-er in the west, I plan on fitting a summer dress pattern. I have kept to my New Year's resolution of only buying fabric when I have sewn two items from the stash. Since I actually sewed three items, I felt perfectly fine picking up this cotton at the store the other day.

100% cotton, very fine, perfect for hot weather. I have always had a weakness for this type of plaid and black and white just couldn't be better. It was on sale too and I got this piece (3.5 metres) for just under $20.  I plan on using it with this pattern, Simplicity 2215.

I will add sleeves to this; at 62, my upper arms should not be bared. This should be fairly easy to do; the armhole is quite deep-cut, as the photo shows the model wearing a blouse under the dress. I made this pattern last summer for my daughter Elena, and it is a lovely pattern. In fact, almost all of Cynthia Rowley's designs appeal to me.

The plaid will be a trial dress; if it works, all well and good; if it only serves as a muslin, I am fine with that too. Because what I really want to make this dress out of is this:

A cross-dyed cotton, one thread is bright turquoise, the other is midnight blue, almost purple and it gives the most wonderful toned-down turquoise, one of my favourite colours. I had forgotten about this fabric until I cleared off a shelf and found it hiding under something else. I bought it in May 2011 from Fabrics in Vogue. I had no idea what I would make with it then, but bought 4 yards just in case it was meant to be a dress. I would rather have some left over than not enough.

Now, knitting, I've been doing that too. The green sweater I was knitting was all done and ready to be sewn together. But I was not that keen on it. And when I found that the sleeves were not long enough in the cap to match to the body, that was a perfect excuse to unravel it and start something new. I used to be retentive about that sort of thing and feel I had to finish it. But life is too short, to spend on things that you don't really like.

So, from the stash comes this red wool. Even my husband said, that colour will look good on you. I don't think he liked the granny smith green of the other one.  It took me four tries to figure out this lace ribbing and I was going to switch patterns, but I gave it one more try and figured it out. Since it is the most distinguishing feature of the sweater, it is kind of important to have it right.  This will be this sweater by Jeannie Chin.

If you haven't discovered www.ravelry.com, and you are a knitter or crocheter or embroiderer, you have to go there and sign up. Amazing things for you to make. And the photos of some of the members will blow you away. Gorgeous gorgeous sweaters. I hope to be able to knit like some of them one day. Till then, I will go with fairly simple designs like this one; I think it will be a perfect topper for summer dresses. 

I have several ideas in mind for dresses; I never wear skirts or dresses in the cold weather, because I hate stockings and tights. But when you can wear bare legs, then dresses have to come out.

Ease in Sleeves

I am currently working on this pattern, Butterick 5616.

I am using a very fine pinwale corduroy. And to beef up the fabric, I have lined the jacket using a quilting cotton. Everything is from my stash, and I didn't want to buy anything for this project. However, I will have to go and buy 14 buttons as I don't have 14 buttons that will work for this.

One thing I have noticed in the last couple of jackets that I have made and I am wondering if anyone else has found this too. Since it has happened on at least four jackets, I am thinking this is not just me, but must be something in the pattern draft.

In the past, I have always found the back of a sleeve to have more ease than the front of the sleeve. This makes sense, since it is the back that needs the extra fabric as you move your arms forward. But in the past several jackets that I have made, all of the sleeves had no ease in the back but they have ease in the front. This means that you are trying to ease in fullness on the front of the garment, not a place that I would expect to do this.

My solution was to ease stitch the sleeve twice in order to shrink it up, then I set in the sleeve matching notches, underarm seam. I eased as much sleeve to the front as I could, but then let the notch at the top of the sleeve fall where it would. This ended up with the top of the sleeve falling slightly (about 3/4") towards the back of the garment. This didn't affect the fit at all, and allowed me to set in the sleeve without puckers. I would surely have had puckers in the front sleeve if I hadn't moved that point.

If you have found this, I would be interested to know. It seems definitely wrong to me. Why do we need ease in the front of a sleeve, between the single notch and the shoulder?  Surely that ease should be placed in the back. Is this a new styling (I doubt) or is it poor drafting (I suspect). Let me know if you have found this too. Surely I can't be the only one.

Second Knit Top

This is the second top from the Marcy Tilton pattern, this time in a rayon/lycra knit. This knit almost feels like slinky knit, it has that kind of drape and feel to it.

This is a close up of the neckline to show the little darts over each raglan seam, but they are hard to see on this print. I might sew some buttons on the front seams of the neckline as shown in the pattern, but none of my enormous button collection seemed suitable.

There will be a trip to the fabric store in the near future.

So I have kept to my resolution and made up two items from stash fabrics, which means that I can purchase one fabric length. We shall see, I have another project planned with another fabric that I bought with this knit, intending for the two to go together. It's good to whittle down that stash.

Aaahhh, sewing again!

A blissful three hours of cutting and sewing have restored my mental health!  I can't believe how good I feel for having spent the afternoon sewing.

Last night, I went to our monthly guild meeting and we were treated to a mini fashion show. Two months ago, members were invited to pick up a package of two fabrics, donated by guild members, and they were to make one garment (or more), using both fabrics. The entries were great. And I was obviously inspired to get sewing today.

First, a picture of the coat that I finished prior to the surgery that has kept me relatively inactive for a month or more.  I still don't have the buttons or snaps sewn on, but I needed the dress form and the coat had to come off. So the picture is sans closures.

This is Vogue 8548, an out-of-print pattern. I saw this pattern made up by Tany of http://tanysewsandknits.blogspot.com/2011/12/merry-christmas-feliz-natal-feliz.html

and also by Erica of http://www.ericabunker.com/

So I ordered the pattern from Vogue and it was well worth the wait. I really really like this pattern. And hopefully I will get to wear the coat a couple of times this year before spring comes for sure.

Actually today we have freezing rain, so there are still a few weeks of real winter left in store for us.

Prior to my surgery, I had washed some lengths of knit fabrics and put them with patterns I wanted to sew, thinking that these would be easy to do. So today, I took one of these fabrics downstairs to cut out and used Vogue 8636 by Marcy Tilton.

I confess I cut this out on the wrong grain (I wasn't looking carefully) but as Marcy says, with knits that have two-way stretch, it really doesn't matter which way the stretch goes. This fabric has enough lycra in it to recover and keep its shape.

There is no one here to take photos of this on me, so the dress form will have to do. I followed Marcy's instructions to the letter, since she knows knit tops so well. I had read her book on Sewing Knit Tops several years ago.

The neckline is interesting, it is a wider neckband that is brought into the neck by four little darts sewn just above the raglan seams. This gives an opportunity for using other fabrics and one of Marcy's versions shows that neckband in sheer lace, which is a pretty option.

I was just so happy to have sewn and actually finished something in one afternoon, that I have another length of knit in the wash right now. And hope to make a second version of this top tomorrow. I will pay more attention as I cut out, as the second fabric is a nice rayon knit that I bought from Fabrics in Vogue last fall and I want to do it right.

Boy, there is just nothing like sewing and finishing something up that you are pleased with to get your creative urges flowing once again.