Random Threads # 37: latest sewing, thoughts on perfect insides and is mending a trend?

Well that was a long stretch since my last Random Threads post which was in May. As usual lately I've been sewing up a storm, but also enjoying summer. I've tried to keep the garden from getting away from me, this is actually the slack time, garden-wise around here. As long as the tomatoes get watered there isn't much else to do. Which means more time for swimming, making ice-cream and having relaxing dinners with family and friends.
On the days when it's not a boiling 100+ degrees Fahrenheit I do get some sewing accomplished. The recent Burda issues have had so many pretty things and I need to resist, although I have one in the works and hope to finish this week. I'm sewing some samples for our fall classes at Hello Stitch and just barely starting to think about fall. I did order some fabrics from Mood this week and tossed quite a few wool swatch samples in my cart so perhaps one of those will be just what I didn't know I wanted.

Burda 6329 Envelope pattern: I have a few knits from Girl Charlee and one day decided this coral fabric needed to be sewn up immediately. I really like this pattern and I think in the winter I'll make the long sleeve version.  Worn here with my trusty Vogue 1247 denim skirt.






Ordinarily the neckband needs to be cut on the cross-grain but this fabric was quite stretch so it worked to rotate it lengthwise and then have the contrast stripes which I really like. By the way, I don't use the neckband pattern piece which came with the pattern, it didn't seem right and I just use my own method which is one I learned from the Threads website - it never fails. Also the sleeves are hemmed about 3 inches shorter than the pattern view, it think on me the sleeve length is just dowdy and needed to be shorter like this, or maybe longer. Anyway - stitcher's choice, right?



Sewing Failures: Thankfully I don't have many sewing failures, and if I can tell something is not working out I just stop mid-project. If I can salvage the fabric and turn into something else I will do that, or maybe save the large pieces for other things. But I think this fabric was my nemesis and I have tried to make 2 things from a very large piece, both were utter failures and it was time to move on!



I thought I would try the longer length and turns out it made me feel like I was wearing someone else clothes. I did like the neckline and pleating on the bodice so that's an idea for another day. Combining the length, the ruffle and the gingham just made me feel like I had refashioned something from the Little House on the Prairie collection. If that was a thing :).  Also that lime green shade is just not my favorite. I think I will take this dress over to Hello Stitch and see if anyone wants it.
To sum up my sewing failures, 90% of the time it's when I pick the wrong fabric for the style. How about you?

Pressing matters: I am a pressing fanatic, and it just irks me to see pattern designers showing their examples that are poorly pressed, or not pressed at all. By this I don't mean the inherent wrinkles in fabric such as linen or cotton, but the seams not pressed sufficiently or hems wobbling. Or even extra creases pressed in where they shouldn't be. It makes me question the professionalism and quality of the pattern product. Do you notice this?

Is Mending a Trend? Seriously? My feeling on mending is that it's good for your wardrobe, your wallet and the planet. I guess I grew up in a family that mended, fixed and repaired before buying something new, so mending seems second nature. But I have friends that get rid of clothes with a tiny hole or lost button. It seems like such a shame to do that. My a ha! moment as a teenager was realizing I could replace the zipper in a pair of jeans and have it look exactly the same. I wrote a post on the Craftsy blog a while ago on this, here's the link, it's not hard and so satisfying. Also for that post I actually extracted the perfectly good zipper from those jeans and then re-sewed it in, as I didn't have any jeans with a broken zipper at hand :)

Piecing: another oddly satisfying sewing maneuver. When I made a Simplicity skirt pattern recently I was down to itsy bitsy pieces to make the ruffle part, and the skirt pieces fit on the large chunks with just one corner of the side seam hanging over the edge. Piecing to the rescue.



This little triangle is about 3 inches long. I cut out the skirt front, sewed on a chunk of fabric and then placed the paper pattern piece back on and cut the edge out. I think I recall seeing some vintage patterns that gave instructions for using 36" wide fabric that also included the piecing, or perhaps the design was created with that in mind and no pattern piece was wider than 36". Thank goodness for 60" wide fabric! I think piecing and color blocking or fabric mixing are fun exercises for our sewing brains.

Perfectionism and how you finish the inside of garments: This is such an interesting topic to me as I am so focused on the outside, and I really don't have an interest in doing special finishes on unlined garments. All bets are off on a lined coat or jacket as the lining is likely to be seen when you take it off, so I take quite a lot of care on those items. In fact I typically hand sew the linings in and don't think they come out as well if you bag the lining. Having a lining means that the inside seams are hidden so don't need any special treatment. But on other things, like t-shirts or jeans, I don't focus on the thread color, or if my pocket lining coordinates. I know some people get great enjoyment in doing special seam finishes or bias binding but I find that so tedious. Back in May, Gillian of Crafting a Rainbow wrote a blog post on this topic and I was interested to see her thoughts. We sew very different items but I agree with her on inside thread colors - it's not critical. I wonder if the fact that I started sewing way before I ever had a serger means that using a serger seems extra to me? I think it's nice to use, particularly on denim, but not a deal breaker. I'm constantly amazed in my classes that beginner sewists immediately are planning to go out and buy a serger in addition to a sewing machine. My advice is buy more fabric and practice making garments, but I think I'm a lonely voice in that chorus.

Latest Tunic top for my Mom:  Here's the most recent tunic top I've sewn for my mom, she said she wanted something in green, and I showed here a few fabrics but nothing caught her eye. Then I was in Stone Mountain and found this lovely woven rayon in the sale area, so score! I've made her these tops before and on this one she wanted that higher collar, so I combined this New Look pattern with the body of the self-drafted pattern that I usually use.




The new patterns require So Much Fabric: Ruffles, full sleeves, gathers, longer lengths, all these details call for so much fabric! The fashion pendulum has swung and a lot of the patterns look so similar to those of a previous decade...which I think is 70's?
Case in point, this McCalls new fall release pattern, the Version C in the photo. The fabric requirements for 60" wide are 4.5 yards to 4.875 yards across the size range, and for a 45" wide fabric the fabric requirements are 5 to 6.5 yards. WOW! that is a lot of fabric. For Version A it ranges between 3 to 3.5 yards of 60" wide but that is still a lot! I think it might pay to really figure out what features of these new patterns are appealing to you, perhaps the skirt, or a long poet-style sleeve and choose accordingly, instead of going for every feature in one dress and needing almost 6 yards!




That's it for today, although in my last random threads I did mention there is one dress that bugs me when I see it. And that is the Kielo dress by Named Patterns. Named have lots of fantastic patterns, I like their style so much. But the Kielo dress shape seems wrong to my eye, if the tie part was an overlay instead of continuing from the main body piece I would like it more. Also that dress must use quite a bit of fabric as well. Anyway - it's a wide world of patterns and there are so many to choose from.

Up next at Hello Stitch - some interesting classes for fall. If you are interested sign up when they are listed as a lot of them are quickly sold out. There are a couple of spots open in the Zadie jumpsuit class in September, and then in October I'm doing a Tamarack Jacket class and a Jeans jacket class. Not yet announced will be a Wardrobe Sewing class - we'll be using a new and popular pattern set of pants and top - any guesses? I just made the pants to try them out and I will be making more!

August is flying by, school has started around here just as we are getting out late summer heat wave. Temps around 100F here at my house - so here is how I really look when taking blog pictures.
WILTED!




Stay cool and Happy Summer Sewing;
Beth

Today's garden photo, some pink gladioli taken in July. Like tulips, I plant these bulbs and then promptly forget all about them, so they are such a nice surprise when they bloom. 

Zadie Jumpsuit from Paper Theory Patterns

If you had told me two years ago that I would be making and wearing a jumpsuit I would have said "not in a million years". And yet here I am, wearing this jumpsuit, and teaching a class this weekend on this very pattern. After this pattern came out and I saw so many great versions on IG and blogs I came to the conclusion that it's a pattern that's both simple and stylish, quick to sew, actually easy to get on and off, and it looks great in so many different fabrics. This is the Zadie jumpsuit from Paper Theory Patterns. 



I wanted to take photos and do this blog post this week, so I was outside as the light was fading around 7pm. On the positive side - I had just come home from getting my haircut so I figured bright lipstick, dash out and take my photos. That spot on my patio has a nice blank wall but the light is limited due to the angle and the patio cover. I'm still contemplating painting a section in a nice light color. Oh the things we do for photos these days, right?

This fabric is a polyester crepe ? kind of a textured fabric with a very slight stretch, which I bought around New Years time at Joann's on one of their super sale days. I loved the color but didn't really have any need for some poly, however when I was thinking about this jumpsuit I saw it in my stash. I still have about 1.5 yards remaining so I think that will be a dress. Because now I'm sold on this color :)

Super duper fabric closeup so you can see the texture. Which is a nice feature - it presses perfectly but no wrinkles! And you can see one small change I made which was to add belt loops.




If you've been living under a rock for the past few months and haven't seen this pattern here is the tech drawing.




I did make a couple of fitting adjustments, as I made a sample version which is hanging on the wall at Hello Stitch, in my size 10 and which I thought the overall fit was nice the crotch was very low, to me it felt awkward. I decided to raise it up on this version and then if it turned out too high I could always stitch it lower.  Here's the change I made, raising both the front and back crotch curve by 2 inches. That turned out to be perfect and I left it that way after I basted it to try on.






The slight drawback of raising the crotch curve is that it is now shorter in the body, so slightly more wriggling to get it on since the length of the opening is now shorter, but it is by no means too short and I think the back looks better than on the test version that I made. (In this post if you scroll down you can see the test version that I made).




The other notable change is the length, I added 6 inches to the length, and then ended up hemming up about 2.5-3 inches as I wanted it to be full length, I don't think the crop length looks good on me at all.

This jumpsuit is very cleverly designed in that there are no closures other than the tie belt, but it is really like a wrap dress, so the fronts overlap and provide very good coverage. It's one of the type of garment that probably doesn't look all that great on the hanger if you were to see it in a store but once you put it on then it looks fantastic.






I might have gone a little overboard with the belt loops but that is one criticism of the pattern, or the wearability. Most all of them that I see have the tie belt wrapped but the waist seam tends to slide down below it, and sometimes it looks a bit baggy in the backside. I almost wonder if it would look OK and be comfortable to have a casing with elastic just across the back waist. Might try that sometime in the future.

One other little adjustment was to add to the front edge of the bodice, where the wraps overlap at the center front. This is another of my "I will add a little bit here and if I don't like it when I sew it together and try on then I can always remove it" adjustments. But I left it as it. By adding that small amount on a wrap dress or top you are raising the point where the overlaps intersect. Often this is the difference between a pretty and comfortable neckline and a slightly too revealing wrap neckline.
I wrote an article on the Craftsy blog in the past which is now on the Bluprint site, so it may be helpful when fitting a wrap neckline,



One other place when I decided to go off the instructions was in the binding of the opening. This fabric was a bit spongy and it didn't look great with topstitching as a linen or cotton would, so I hand stitched the bias binding around the neck.
It did take a few minutes but the thread really disappeared into the texture of the fabric and allowed me to get the binding even all the way around. Plus a bit of hand sewing is fine when it's SHARK WEEK on Discovery channel. Any other shark week fans out there? It's silly, it's bombastic and yet I find it so mesmerizing. Also as someone who loves to swim in the ocean, I find it both educational and nightmare inducing. But I love anything ocean related so it's really interesting.





So that's the scoop on my Zadie jumpsuit. This Saturday I have a class on this pattern which is full, however we are offering it again in September and I think there are some spots still open, but I think they will fill up.

What else? I'm sneaking in a few new summer dresses here and there in my sewing time, as I have a vacation coming up. We have a jean jacket class on the calendar at Hello Stitch in October - that will be fun and it's such a great item for our bay area weather. There is one spot that opened up in my Jacket Tailoring class in mid-Sept. I just started on a Jasika blazer this week as I wanted to try out the pattern so I will post some progress on my IG story. Also we're planning a capsule wardrobe class so more details on that soon.


I wasn't going to include this picture but I decided it needed a caption of this type "oh hello, welcome to my garden, where I flounce around in my elegant jumpsuit admiring my flowers, and I ignore the dry patch on the lawn where the sprinklers refuse to cooperate". Or something equally silly but you get the idea.



Happy Summer Sewing,
Beth

Today's garden photo, dahlias and a milkweed, which I happily planted to help the monarch butterflies. And I was thrilled this week to see some in my yard. Long live the monarch butterflies!