me-made clothing – Page 2 – Juanita Collins

October 12, 2014October 12, 2014

Vogue 8379: It’s a Wrap!

Have you heard of the Curvy Sewing Collective? If you haven’t, and you are a curvy gal, plus-sized or not, you’ve got to check them out! Anyway, right now they are having a wrap-a-long, which is being hosted by Jenny. Since learning to sew my own dresses is on my retirement play list, I decided to play along.

This was my first real foray into sewing with stretchy fabric and I was quite nervous! I didn’t want to screw it up and end up wasting the money I’d spent on the fabric and the pattern. I really hate waste (which is probably why I love scrap quilts so much). Anyway…I’m not going to learn how to sew if I don’t jump into the deep end, and this sew-a-long was the perfect opportunity to have a support system. If I needed to call for help, I knew help would be there.

Jenny was making an entirely different pattern, so her instructions didn’t match exactly up with the Vogue instructions. Because I don’t have the confidence to step off the path yet, I elected to follow the Vogue instructions, but at the same time pay close attention to the differences as I went along. My thinking was that this would be a good way to learn, and I could then make a second dress and follow Jenny’s directions where it made sense to do so. That way I’d understand the whys and how comes instead of just blindly doing it. (If you know me, you’ll recognize this trait! I always want to know how come things work the way they do!)

Some of the differences in instructions were:

Vogue had me assemble the bodice and the skirt separately, before attaching them together while Jenny suggested sewing the back bodice to the back skirt, the front bodice pieces to the two front skirt pieces, and then sewing together at the shoulder seams, leaving the side seams open (for now).
Vogue had me sew the sleeve seam and then insert it into the arm hole scythe. Jenny walked everyone through how to sew the sleeve in flat and then sew up the sides and sleeve all in one.
Vogue had me make an interfaced neck facing. Jenny taught everyone how to replace the facing with a t-shirt edging.
Jenny also had us using products such as wonder tape and knit stay tape. Which I didn’t use, but probably will next time.

I plan on sewing this dress again, using Jenny’s directions this time as everything she said made perfect sense and I could follow along with her reasoning for the changes. Also, I’d like to try the different way to finish the neck line.

I didn’t have enough fabric for the ties, so I had to piece them. Since I was piecing them anyway, I also made them longer. Surprisingly, I can wrap them around so they cross in the back twice! I love this because it feels much more secure. Next time, though, I’ll use a diagonal seam on the piecing because the straight across seam has left a bulge that annoys me (even though I’m sure I’m the only one who can see it).

It was a challenge! I can’t tell you how many times I balled it up and threw it in the corner! Seriously!

I had some trouble with the neck gaping. It really bothered me.

…then this morning I woke up with the idea that if I moved the side opening (where the tie comes through from the inside) down onto the skirt instead of having it on the bodice, it would snug the left bodice piece up a bit.

And it worked!

…but if any of you are sewers, I’d appreciate some tips on how to prevent neck gaping in general. What can I do next time to make the neck edge snug down instead of curling back? Does it do this because the interfaced facing prevents stretch?

Next time I’ll also lengthen the bodice about 1 inch. I’ve been giving the dress a test run around the house today, and I find I have to keep tugging the bodice down. It wants to sit just above my waist. Again, a bit annoying. I don’t like to be constantly tugging at my clothing. Other than that it is very comfortable!

Vogue 8379 is a keeper. I think it is surprisingly flattering (I didn’t expect it to be!) and so I will definitely make it again. Next time I’ll make view A with the long sleeves.

September 7, 2014September 7, 2014

Vintage Adjust-O-Matic Dress Form and a Healthy Body Image

Have you ever seen one of these?

Made in the mid-1960s and costing only $6.95: “with your Adjust-o-Matic dress form you see in advance just how attractive and becoming your dress, skirt, coat or blouse will look!”

Inside the box was a bewildering assortment of pieces. I have to admit, as a person who kind of sucks at puzzles, this put a bit of fear into my heart.

Thank goodness there was also an instruction booklet! And let me say right now, that all instruction writers in the world should read this instruction booklet and take notes. Seriously! This was so easy to put together! I was amazed!

I spread the pieces out on the kitchen floor and proceeded to fit tab A into slot A and on and on until I was finished about an hour later.

The Incredible Adjust-o-Matic is a miracle of modern engineering. Honestly.

The form was built in three sections: first the hips, then the torso, then attach the neck piece and close the shoulders. When I built the hips section, I held it in my two hands and thought that surely there must be some mistake. These hips are too small. My hips are much larger than this. So I double checked the measurements. And yes…these are my hips.

I suddenly felt a little teary-eyed! So here’s something about me that you may or may not know. Several years ago I lost a great deal of weight. Yes. Yes, I did. You can read all about it here. At some point after that I suffered an illness. My brain chemicals and hormones went out of balance, brought on by a combination of stressful life events and menopause, and I was diagnosed with acute depression. It took me a couple of years, but thanks to a lot of very hard work and the love and support of my husband and a couple of close friends, I recovered. Unfortunately, however, I am left with a 20 pound weight gain. I can’t begin to tell you how I have beat myself up over re-gaining those pounds! The vicious, terrible things I say to myself! Horrible, just horrible.

So holding those hips in my hands made me cry. Because I saw that they aren’t gigantic ugly hips at all! Yes, they are 3 inches wider than they were 3 years ago. That is a fact.My body-image is so out of whack, it’s scarey!

I will get back to a healthier weight again. It’s just taking longer this time. My body is different than it was when I lost the weight before. I’m post-menopausal now. I’m not teaching 5 dance classes every week. But I go for long walks every day with Samson, and I’m making an effort to get back into my yoga practice. I still go through phases of being very mindful of what I eat and then binging on ice cream (hard not to do on these hot summer days!). Over all I feel like I live a very balanced life. So the weight will probably be much slower in coming off this time around. And you know what? That’s okay. Besides, the incredible Adjust-o-Matic will reduce right along with me as I re-loose those inches. She’ll help keep things real.

She doesn’t actually belong to me. She is on loan from a friend. It belongs to my friend Jean’s mother.

Jean’s mother is in a nursing home now, and the dress form was taken apart and packed away into Jean’s basement some time ago.

I still think she looks smaller than me. But every time I check the measurements again, hers and mine remain the same.

049

She sits in my sewing room and I look at her every day. She reminds me to be kind to myself.

July 23, 2014

Overdoing it

The creative quilting bug hit hard on Monday and didn’t let go until yesterday afternoon. I worked almost non-stop on an idea for a lap quilt, and as a result I have completely wrecked myself! I don’t believe it! Both hands, wrists, forearms and my shoulders are weak as babies today and man oh man, do they ever ache! I’m afraid I’m going to be on the sewing sidelines for a while!

So….what in the world was so important? Two design roll of Free Spirit’s Wrenly by Valori Wells!

I had a great idea to make wonky log cabin blocks:

And then I had the idea to make a couple of wonky houses and wonky hearts:

And then I thought: how about sewing all the strips in a design roll together end to end…then find the center & cut in half and sew those two long strips together…then find the center & repeat & repeat & repeat?

Oh, argh! Now I have two little tiny quilts and some miscellaneous blocks when what I really want is one comfy size lap quilt for snuggling under with a good book!

Hummm…..how about I cut up the strip quilt and use it as a border around the wonky log cabin blocks with some grey sashing in between?

Since I’m showing what I’ve been up to, I’ll just go ahead and empty out my on-going projects baskets and show you what else is on the go, eh? (these two baskets live in the living room where they valiantly try to contain everything I am currently working on. The rest of my WIPs live in the closet, away from prying eyes.)

This is a garden-themed bow-tie quilt that I’ve been working on for more than a year.

I decided that it wasn’t busy enough, so I’m sewing hexie flowers into the blank spaces. What was I thinking???

And then Moda Bakeshop hosted a trifle dish-themed quilt sew along, and I just had to join in because I adore trifle – it’s my favourite dessert next to strawberry shortcake. Just calling the quilt a “trifle dish quilt” guaranteed my participation, lol!

This is as far as I have gotten. There are 4 more rows to go. I’m using up my little collection of 1930s reproduction prints.

Also in the on-going projects basket is my Grandmother’s Flower Garden, which hasn’t progressed one inch since I posted this update here:

And last but not least, today I am wearing another skirt that I sewed. I didn’t use a pattern…I just bought some stretchy material and measured around my waist, subtracted a couple of inches and sewed it into a tube. I hemmed the bottom with a zigzag stitch (and it made this really pretty lettuce leaf edge for some reason but I love it). I turned the waist over twice and then sewed a narrow seam around the top edge to hold it down. Voila! A skirt!

Congratulations, you made it to the end of the post!

I am tired of talking about sewing. I think the next few posts will be non-sewing related, eh? Good.

Now I am going to go and have a cup of tea and piece of home-made sourdough toast (from bread that I made yesterday) because my wrists ache just from typing all this. Come over and join me if you can spare a minute!

July 20, 2014July 20, 2014

Ta da! The Vintage New Look 6510 Shift Dress Part 2

This is a follow-up post on my second vintage New Look 6510 shift dress.

You can read all about part 1 HERE . And the original shift dress which I sewed out of a sheet and which turned out very nice is posted HERE.

Remember this problem?

After much un-sewing and re-sewing and internet researching and head scratching…
may I have a Drum Roll Please! ……

Ta Da!

Yay! I made another shift dress!

It still didn’t turn out as nice as the first one I made, though. Why? I think that has to do with the fabric I used. This particular fabric is very flimsy and on the verge of unraveling at every step – in fact, I might have to go back in and re-do the seams after a couple of washings. I think this pattern is better suited to fabric with more body, like the bed sheet I used for the last one. But that’s okay. I only paid $3.00 for this piece of fabric from the thrift store, so it made good practice material.

Remember this problem from the last post?

To fix it, I unpicked & removed the bias tape, raised the shoulders about 2 inches and then re-attached the tape. Then I unpicked the side seams and the bust darts and moved them down.

Thank goodness the print is so busy because I did not get the bust darts even. One is much lower than the other. More unpicking may ensue…depends on whether or not it affects my comfort wearing it. Because I don’t think it’s noticeable unless you’re really hunting for it. And if anyone is going to be staring that hard at my chest, than they deserve the reward of finding the bad job!

I also unpicked and removed the bias tape on the neckline, and added a facing. The fabric is so flimsy that I feared it would go all wonky after a few wearings. I then sewed the bias tape pack on again (for decoration.) I also added a funky retro button from my button jar.

Remember this problem from the last post?

To fix it, I sewed darts over the shoulder blades to help take in some of the gaping in the neck. It still gapes, but I’m okay with that.

Well…no, I’m not, actually. But I don’t know what else I can do about it at this point. And besides, when my hair is down you won’t be able to see it. Right?

Remember the bunching at the back? Well, I fixed that by sewing fish-eye darts down either side of the back seam. YES! FISH EYE DARTS!!! I consulted the Google-gods about what to do about the excess fabric pooling at my lower back and fish-eye darts was the answer I was given. (Fish eye darts are vertical tear-drop shaped darts. So why don’t they call them tear-drop darts?) Amazing!

Lalala! I am feeling so clever!

So there you go. It isn’t perfect. But it’s light and airy and I think I am presentable enough to run into town or to the grocery store in it.

And it is a very thrifty dress, costing me a total of $3.25 to make.

What did I learn?

Sitting with the seam ripper and unpicking seam after seam can actually be a kind of peaceful zen experience.
Darts are marvelous things if you put them in right.
I need to learn how to adjust the tissue pattern before I cut out my fabric.
I really like shift dresses, but I need to find a better designed pattern.
I am ready to move on to something a little more complicated than just sewing a front piece and a back piece together (though you wouldn’t know it judging by the trouble I’ve had!)
I can learn to do anything!

I think I’m finished with the New Look 6510, though. Too much fiddling and in two attempts it still has major problems. Time to move on to something else!

Or….maybe I will be stubborn and MAKE THIS PATTERN WORK on one more, last attempt!

What would you do?

July 17, 2014

another stab at the shift dress: WTF?

Welcome to my adventures in sewing-a-dress-land!

Riding high on my success with the last dress, I decided to make the vintage New Look 6510 again, but hopefully without all the mistakes I made the first time. Remember I had cut it too big and then had to take in all my seams? This time I cut the size 16 instead of the size 18 to save myself the trouble of sewing all the seams twice. (’cause I’m such a smart cookie!)

Riding high on an excess of self-confidence, I decided to not only finish the seams, but to also try a new technique: edging with bias binding (because I had so obviously successfully mastered neck and armhole facings, sigh.) I went ahead and bound all the edges with double-fold bias tape before trying the dress on!!!! Eee gads, here I am actually admitting that to you!

Of course, I then discovered a few things…

Discovery #1:
The dress obviously does not fit me at all! I feel like I am wearing my grandmother’s oldest apron!

Discovery #2:
The pattern does not match my body! My shoulders are too sloped. My back is too narrow. (no wait! Actually, my shoulders and my back are perfect. The pattern is wrong. There! That’s said better!). The pattern does work better width-wise (a bit loose so I could probably cut the 14 instead of the 16 next time, but it’s very hot outside and I want this dress to be light and airy and non-constricting.) And I am a sort of an apple shape…so extra fabric in the tummy area is a good thing.

Discovery #3
The pattern appears to be designed for someone with a much longer torso than I have. I need to cut the shoulder height down by at least 2 inches! (Hummmm…..maybe this is where that lengthen/shorten marking on the tissue pattern comes in…I will have to investigate that for try #3)

Discovery #4:
The bust darts are still too high! So that means they are too high on the pattern itself, and the problem I had last time wasn’t my fault after all! Yay!

Look at the gaping in the back neck!

These arm holes are waaaay to big!

I graded and sewed in the side seams to bring in the arm holes, but then discovered that that made the bust too tight. Argh. Much unpicking ensued.

I am going to unpick the side seams around the bust darts and the darts themselves and then reposition them. Then I am going to draw the correct position onto the tissue pattern so I don’t have to go through this again. Because I actually like this dress. Or I will, anyway.

I am going to unpick and completely remove the bias binding around the armholes, raise the shoulders, and then replace the bias binding. Because I like the look of it with the contrast edging.

I am going to make back darts to take up some of the extra fabric around the shoulder blade area if raising the shoulders alone isn’t adequate.

I don’t know what to do about the bunching around the lower back. I’ll see what the dress looks like after I’ve done all the above. And then, when I am all done, I will hem. At least I did something right (in that I didn’t hem it first, lol! Because I considered it!)

All I can say is WTF? This dress does not look anything like my last effort…

Not yet, anyway. Stay tuned!

July 16, 2014July 16, 2014

Vintage New Look 6510 Shift Dress

I made a shift dress!

This is the first dress that I have sewn in over 20 years and I am VERY pleased with myself! I used this pattern that I bought at the Thrift Store for 25 cents (don’t ya just love it?)

It looks so cool and summery, don’t you agree?

I wasn’t sure about the sizing. Different pattern companies add differing amounts of ease into the patterns and you never know how much there is going to be until you start sewing. According to the measurements on the back, I decided to cut out a size 18.

And then because I was scared it would still be too small, I only used a 1/4 inch seam allowance. So of course, it was too big. I swam in it! I started sewing in the seams until it fit. That was a really backwards way to sew a dress, eh?

I forgot about raising the darts, though! I sewed in all the seams, but forgot that the bust darts would need to be moved, too. I didn’t notice until I saw this picture:

Do you see those darts way up there above my boobs? So I unpicked the side seams and the bust darts and moved them down. Much better, don’t you agree?

I also didn’t adjust the neckline. When I raised the shoulder seams, not only did I raise those pesky bust darts, I also raised the neckline. Next time I make the dress, it will have a deeper scoop.

I raided my button jar (read about the button jar here) to find just the right closure for the back.

The VERY best thing about this dress is that I sewed it out of a bed sheet. Yup. A sheet that I bought at the thrift store for 1 dollar. (Oh, I am so clever!) Cost of entire outfit: $1.25!

What I learned sewing this dress:

1. Try it on as you go along
2. Use lots of pins. LOTS.
3. Sewing is boring for dogs.
4. If you are matching a border print hem, start your seam at the bottom!!!
5. Think about what you are doing the whole entire time you are doing it.
6. Did I mention that sewing is boring for dogs?