New Year, New Challenges, New Sewing Tips 

Its hard to believe a new year has begun. With its debut comes a big list of things I want to accomplish, with this blog, my teaching and sewing in general. 

At the top of the list is my desire to focus on perfecting my skills in garment sewing. I would like to incorporate more couture techniques - quite trendy these days - into the construction of all my garments.  

Mastering fit is my ultimate goal. Now older and more curvy it seems every pattern I buy requires multiple fitting alterations. Many more than I care to do with every project. Though I typically begin each project with a musling draft, I find I have to prepare several before I achieve the right fit adding considerably more time to the entire garment construction process than should be necessary. 

To further complicate matters, I seldom find a commercial pattern I like completely. Either the silhouette is too fitting for my thicker in the middle figure or the sleeves are not right, or the neckline is not to my liking, etc. etc. etc. As a result 2013 will be the year I prepare a full set of slopers so that I can create my own patterns with all the design features I want. No easy task I suspect, but hopefully it will be well worth the effort in the end.

Other goals this year will be to put more time into this blog.  Last year was a particularly good year for teaching others to sew. I learned a lot about how people grasp sewing techniques, how the details matters and how significant learning the fundamentals is to the mastering the craft. Since sewing blogs are a good way for new sewers to learn techniques and build skills, I want this blog to be a place for new sewers to help in those regards. 

 

To start, here are a few very simple sewing tips that all new as well as experienced sewers can use. 

Sewing Tip #1:  Threading Helpers

With age the task of threading needles either on my sewing machine or for hand sewing has become increasingly more difficult.  When teaching new sewers this is one of the biggest time wasters and has become one of my biggest pet peeves. I have found that a small piece  of very white plastic or cardboard placed behind the needle makes the task lightning fast. 

A 1/2 inch by 2 inch piece is all you need. Its almost as if the white backing amplifies the size of the needle hole. While clearly it does not, the hole is amazingly more visible and so much easier, and faster to thread. Now I keep several pieces of these threading helpers in my pockets when I teach, at my sewing machine and in my sewing cache at my worktable. 

Sewing Tip #2:  Pin Stablizer

I make a practice of removing my pins as I sew on my machine to prevent needle/pin breakage and seam distortion. I keep a dish of pins next to my machine but find having to stop and then move the pins to the dish disrupts of the speed and rhythm of my sewing. I prefer to just slide them off without having to stop the machine. The problem is that the bed of my machine, like most sewing machines, has a slippery surface and a slight curve,  that when I slide the pins onto the bed, they tend to slide off the machine. 

To remedy this I secured a piece of shelf liner to the bed of my machine using double stick tape. I cut a piece to fit the space exactly. I used the kind of shelf liner designed to keep glasses from chipping, nothing too thick or lofty. This provides just enough cushion and holding power to prevent the pins from sliding all over the place. So now when I sew I can easily slide the pins off onto the bed of my machine where they stay until I am ready to move them to the waiting dish. 

Sewing doesn't have to be hard. Whenever you can make a task faster and easier, do it. 

 

'Tis the Season'

Can you believe it? It's already 'that time of year'.  With Thanksgiving falling so early this month, the minute Halloween was over, retailers and advertisements debuted their holiday fare. The Christmas season has indeed begun with a vengeance. 

I, too, am getting a head start on the season. I will be teaching a class to make a Christmas tree skirt in a few weeks and this is the sample I made for the store to display promoting it. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. My goal was to construct something that was elegant, yet festive and would stand the test of time. I believe it accomplished those goals and am excited at the prospect of teaching others to make it. 

 The skirt measures 58" in diameter. I made it using home decorator fabrics and trim. I used a beautiful stretch satin for the gold ruffle and bows. While I love the elegant look and heft of the red & gold brocade fabric I used for the top, the gold upholstery fabric used for the underside was much too heavy. It made sewing together the top + bottom fabric + ruffle + braid trim nearly impossible with a traditional sewing machine. I had to resort to hand sewing the many layers together with a strong nylon thread. That took me way too much time than necessary! Though the finished product looks fine, I will surely recommend something lighter and easier to assemble to my students. 

The pictures, unfortunately, don't do justice to the colors of the actual skirt. The closeup shot of the bow captures the true color of the top brocade fabric, which is more burgundy than red. The photo above best illustrates the rich gold color of the ruffle, braiding and bows.

Embellished Pillows

I continue to decorate my lake house. I have two sepia colored sofas in a modern style that are begging to be dressed up with some color. A mass of pillows of varying prints and textures should do the trick. To begin the collection I made two pillows in this bright, transitionally styled print. Its a home decorator fabric in a good medium weight, so the pillows should hold up well and present a nice, crisp appearance.

 
To give the print a bit of a punch, I embellished it with some cording that was simply zigzagged onto the fabric following the lines of the pattern. So easy to do!  To add a bit of 3-D I tacked on a small bow made of the same cording. I used a simple 2cm cording I found at Jo-Ann's, but it could have easily been a very narrow ribbon or fine rick rack. 

I backed the pillows with a coordinating solid colored woven and inserted an  invisible zipper along one of the sides for easy removal and cleaning. 

 














I love the way the pillows turned out, but more pillows are needed, so phase two is in the works. 

Fabric of the Day Knit Shirt

Every day the employees at the fabric store where I teach select a bolt of fabric to display as their "fabric of the day".  Their selections are usually quite lovely and too often I can't resist buying a piece. One such purchase was this lovely medium weight cotton blend knit in a charcoal and off white zebra-ish print. 

I will admit my experience sewing with knits is limited. I don't have a serger machine and until I am convinced knits are for me, I won't spend the money to buy a good one. But, its hard to resist some of the beautiful knit fabrics that are on the market. The few projects I have made have turned out well and given their popularity I am determined to master sewing with knits.

When making any garment for myself, fit is a huge issue. I always have to make numerous adjustments to any pattern to get the fit just right. When sewing with knits this becomes my first priority. I will not put a machine stitch into a knit garment until I get the fit right. The last thing I want to do is to have to remove or undo a seam that has been zigzagged or overcast. Those types of seams are a pain to remove, not to mention you risk puncturing a hole in the knit with the seam ripper. So, I hand baste my knit garments together first and adjust until the fit is right. Once that's done, stitching the knits garments together are indeed a breeze.

This was a fairly easy garment to make once I got the fit right. For this garment I needed a size smaller than what I cut, so I needed to take all the seams in quite a bit. I also repositioned the seam at the bustline so it was below rather than on top of the bustline. I also added 2 very small darts right under the bust to give the garment some form and a slightly tighter shape. Without the darts it looked too much like a maternity top. 

As I said, I don't have a serger, so all of the seams were sewn with a small zigzag stitch. To finish the seam edges, I used a lock cutter that attaches to my machine. It both trims and finishes the seam edges with zigzag stitching. 

The pattern I used is Vogue 8634. The finished top is quite casual, but very comfortable and it looks good with both jeans and casual dress pants. 

Cowl neckline and raglan sleeve detail

Sleeve and hem detail - I used a double needle for a mock cover stitch

Inside seams

Samples Week

As an instructor at Jo-Ann Fabrics I am responsible for making samples for the classes I teach. Heavens no! Not the ugly ones you see in their brochures. Mine look more like something you would want to make. 

I am making samples for the November & December teaching schedule. They include a new clutch style handbag, a cute little girl's party dress and a cropped, raglan sleeve jacket with trim. 

The clutch bag was simple to make. The trick is to use an interfacing that will provide the body the bag requires but not so stiff it makes the bag very difficult to construct. Can you tell, I made that mistake and had to start over.   I used a zebra print synthetic with a simple velvet ribbon trim. The pattern is good for making a casual bag. While it shows a dressy look, at 12" x 9" for me it would be a little too large for evening use. Inside there are 2 pockets on each side, all large enough to hold a cellphone.

The second project is this darling party dress for toddler girls.  A great item to make for the holidays. As you can see the skirt features 2 layers with a slip lining and netting ruffle to give it flare and flourish. The pattern called for using bias tape to face much of the neckline which I didn't like, so I fashioned a full facing around the entire neckline which produced a much nicer finish. This was made in a toddler size 2. 

The third project is this cropped, unlined jacket with raglan style sleeves and a simple braid trim. Since it is unlined I covered the exposed seams with cotton bias tape I made from black colored muslin to give it a very clean finished look inside the jacket.  The project called for plaid patterned material so I used this Pendelton wool I happened to have on hand. Matching the plaid throughout was a bit time consuming but cutting each piece as a single layer first made matching the plaids easy. The real trick was attaching the braid trim which called for precision placement and straight, even stitching to look good. The jacket is in size 6. 

Fleece Swing Coat

As an instructor at a local Joann's store, I frequently have to make samples of the garments and items I teach. Most are of average styling and relatively easy to make, as they must be able to be made in a handful of hours.  Most are not worth noting, but, this fleece swing coat was one of the more interesting projects offered, so I thought I would share it with you. 

The garment is a simple one to make. No real fitting issues, no complicated construction, no seams that needed to be finished, no zippers or fancy closures to deal with. It has set in sleeves, which for new sewers seemed a bit intimidating, but with the forgiving nature of fleece they were a cinch to insert and are a great way to teach newcomers how to insert sleeves.

The most difficult part was the contrast trim. The pattern called for blanket trim, which in other samples I saw looked horrible, giving it that 'homemade' look I simply hate. The fleece leopard trim I chose gave the coat the much needed style and flair it deserved. Its a darling coat. I just wish I had made it in my  much larger size!

The coat is a 3/4 length, unlined swing style with 3/4 length sleeves.  Great over a pretty dress but equally suitable over pants or jeans for a weekend out. 

Topstitching all the seams finished the seams and helped to reduce bulk.

I love the way the back neckline turned out. Great lines.
 









The trim was easy to install. Since both interior and exterior portions of the coat would be exposed and the trim had a busy pattern, I didn't want any topstitching to show, so the inside trim was hand stitched in place.

This is a view of an inside seam. To reduce bulk, mock flat felled seams were used which produced a nice topstitching on the exterior and a relatively clean and flat finish inside the coat.


 

Lights, Camera, Studio!

My sewing studio is finally done! For the first time in all the years I have been sewing - and they are many - I have a dedicated space for sewing. 

Like so many home sewers, I used to set up shop in my dining room when I wanted to sew. But at 5’ 8” tall, the dining room table was neither large enough nor tall enough to prevent an aching back every time I needed to cut fabric. Not to mention, since it was my 'dining room', I would have to pack up all my stuff until the next time I wanted to sew. I'm sure many home sewists can relate to this.

Now retired and both a sewing instructor and blogger, I have a comfortable space that is always ready whenever the passion moves me. I can simply pick up where I left off on whatever project or projects I am working on. Though nothing more than a carved out area in my basement, it has everything I need to sew and I love every inch of it. 

It’s not a finished basement, so the space is a bit rough around the edges – exposed ceiling beams, cement walls, exposed furnace & freezer. But, when coupled with the space’s modern appointments, to me it functions like a studio. A custom made cutting table at a comfortable height and with a grid style cutting mat is the highlight of my space. Made of a melamine covered 1" thick board and adjustable table legs from IKEA, my back no longer suffers every time I sew. Two counter height stools make working at this table a dream and a rolling cart with all my basic sewing supplies provides ready access.

For a fresh, modern backdrop, I made a curtain from material purchased at IKEA in a bright colorful print. It separates my studio space from the rest of the basement area, a.k.a. my laundry room. I have a station set up for my ironing board. And, a wall of storage containers filled with fabric, notions, books and assorted other sewing supplies finishes the space.

It’s both a comfortable and convenient area for me to sew.  And, it works incredibly well for conducting private sewing lessons with clients. Everything I need it there.

I simply love this new space, my sanctuary, really. It now functions as headquarters for my sewing blog, Simply Sewing, and is where I create my projects and plan to film tutorials for the blog.  I just can’t believe I waited this long to create this space