knits

McCall 6501 Girls Dress A+E

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Last but not least in the why-the-hell-am-I-Sewing for Kids Trilogy is the pile on the left.

The Pattern

My niece picked the black mesh fabric and had wanted a jacket out of it. But I was worried that a see-through jacket might be a bit too sexy / grown-up so I tried to J-Crewfy it. I thought the fabric would work well with a drapy design like this – the flounce especially. As added insurance against parental objection I also added the sleeves. The Franken-drawing looked alright to me. But of the 3 makes, I’m most meh about the result of this one…

Catalogue Shots

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Is it just me or does this dress look dowdy? I’m wondering now if I shouldn’t have just made another gathered tier skirt with black lining.

Fabric & Notions Used

I was needlessly apprehensive about sewing the mesh knit and unduly confident about sewing the Lycra underlining. The mesh in fact sewed easily on the overlocker. The Lycra lettuced like crazy on both the overlocker (with differential feed turned right up) and sewing machine…until I spray starch the hell out of it. I even resorted to homemade starch when I ran out of the commercial one. Once it’s stiff like paper it behaved itself.

Size Used

Like with the Burda jacket I made a 12 – supposedly a size larger than my niece’s current measurements. But unlike the Burda jacket this one is L-A-R-G-E. Even I could fit into it. Not sure if it’s the typical over-generous ease problem that many have reported on the Big 4 patterns, or if the fault is with me for choosing stretchy fabrics.

I would have said “that’s OK as she can grow into it”. But of the 3 garments I think this is the most kiddy design. The other two could easily be teenage or even grown up fashion. This one looks too sickly sweet to be worn by anyone other than little girls & tweenies.

Changes Made

Frankenpatterned view A sleeves onto view E dress. And underlined the whole thing.

Verdict on the Instruction

I read the instruction but did my own thing because of the changes I made. Otherwise the instruction is pretty straight-forward (and easier to follow than Burda in my opinion).

Like with the cut-lace tier skirt, I treated the underlining as a separate layer for the main bodice. Only in the armscyes, sleeve hems, and back neck opening did I treat the layers as one.

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As much as possible I kept the seams and hem stitching as light-weight as possible. So the mesh shell had narrow overlocked seam and roll hems – first time I did this and it came out without a hitch thanks to the easy-to-handle mesh fabric. The underlining had slightly wider seams with a machine-stitched single-fold narrow hem.

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I was debating whether to finish the sleeve hems the same way, but decided to make it look more like the other upper edges – neck hem, back opening. This is to avoid distracting from the design line of the fluid flounce which flows into the fluid bottom hem. (There’s a bit of design thoughts going into this after all, even if the result isn’t quite as fashionable as I had hoped! }:-)

Would I sew it again / Would I recommend it to others

It is a sweet looking dress. And if you get the sizing right and picked the right fabric I think it would look good on young girls & younger Tweenies.

Somehow I don’t think I’ll be sewing this again though.  Unless this Tweeny Trilogy turn out to be unexpected mega-blockbusters I’m done sewing for kiddies. Back to regularly scheduled adult sewing next.

Ever the Wearable Muslin: aka Burdastyle 2013-02-113

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OK, last one in my current batch of 3 to write up.

This one started out as Muslin no. 2 for my Burda 2012-09-123, aka T-Shirt Block. It was a wearable muslin, but with a not very flattering over-stuffed sausage look. So as planned, I cut a new front with more drape, and reused the back and sleeves. Plus old front became the facings.

The Pattern

Cool photo. I was seduced. And the back & sleeve again look basic enough to re-purpose my wearable muslin. The front drape I thought would work much better for this thin and drapy fabric.

Style Shots & Mug Shots

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Fabric & Notions Used

Size Used

Another one graded down to a size 34, ignoring standard instruction for a 38.

Changes Made

Fitting changes

I’m still experimenting with pattern-to-Block comparison as a quicker way to make fitting changes. So don’t quote me on what I’m doing – I’m fumbling. So far it hasn’t worked out too badly for me yet. But it’s early days. And there are probably better, more logical ways to do this that I have yet to discover.

OK, let’s start with the back since it’s much more straight forward. Sort of.

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  1. I took the easiest way out, the least change option by aligning the pattern & Block at the underarm level. The above waist side seam then almost match exactly. So all I had to do was to trace the new shoulder seam and lower part of the armscye.
  2. I then moved the pattern up until the below waist side seam almost match exactly & make a note of how much I had to move up.
  3. That amount is then overlapped at the waist line.

Next the front. Not so easy. In fact it’s all a blur. I’d call it Black Magic, except the result wasn’t exactly magical. This is what I can piece together afterward.

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  1. I start with the easy part – the front facing. Again aligning at underarm level and CF. In this case size 36 came closer in width. So I use that as guide & marked out new shoulder seam & side seam.
  2. I think for the actual front I just overlapped the same length at the waist level as on the back.Smoothed the side seam at the waist. Then matched the front & back side seam from the hem up & marked the waist level on the front.
  3. Next compared the front side seam from waist level up against the Block, grading out to size 36 at the underarm level so the CF would align & the front wide enough at bust.
  4. Finally, pivot & slide on the underarm point so the armscye align again with the original pattern & CF is still aligned (wide enough). Marked the new shoulder seam and called it done!
Design changes
  • 2-alt-13I extended the CF drape’s cut on facing a bit because the short stub I see on other people’s versions looks a bit untidy to me.
  • I extended the facing length as well, originally intending to try adding a built-in shelf-bra that I see in a few of my Victoria’s Secret t-shirts / dresses.
    3-sew-exp2-6The shelf-bra didn’t work out because my fabric was too thin, so every bump shows. In retrospect I should have extended the facing all the way down to the waist where the extra drape in the front means a looser fit, so bumps less likely to show through.

Verdict on the Instruction

Appalling. I did read the instruction because of the more complicated design details. And I did eventually made sense of it. But I’d highly recommend you check out these blogs for photo-illustrated instruction: netcheria.over-blog.com (in French), The Couture Academic, SMF Designs & Friends.

Again, I deviated in places to suit my experiments. So here’s what I did:

  1. Front details prepared per instruction.
  2. I chose not to interface the entire facing. In stead, I stabilized only the shoulder & neckline with Vilene Bias Tape. Sewed shoulder seam. Overlocked hems.
  3. Sewed facing to bodice at neckline per instruction. Almost. See Oops & Improvement A below…
  4. Finish off the front drape per instruction. Almost. See Oops & Improvement B & C below.
  5. Sewed sleeves to bodice with facing handled like underlining.
  6. Sewed sleeves & side seams with facing handled like underlining. See Oops & Improvement D below.
  7. Finished sleeve & bodice hem with stretch seam.
Oops & Improvements
  1. 3-sew-exp2-5I made a boo-boo during cutting and end up with a gash right by the neckline in the shoulder area. As the front takes up a bit of fabric, and I’m still not 100% sold on this color, I decided not to recut a new front. Instead I tried patching the gash with a bit of iron-on interfacing on the wrong side, and top-stitching along the neckline for reinforcement. It’s good enough for yet another “Wearable Muslin”!
  2. 3-sew-exp1 Some of the Pattern Reviewers mentioned that the heavy drape has a tendency to pull the facing to the outside. So I  top-stitch the front bust seam to the facing to prevent the facing from shifting – see photo showing the stitching from the facing side. I think the extended facing and drape fold-over bit also help. I don’t have the same facing flopping out problem in my finished top.
  3. What didn’t work out so well is my attempt to control the hang of the drape.  I wanted the drape to be more dramatic. So I tried stitched down pleats instead of gathering at the fold-line.
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    But the stitching was too visible in the finished result. Plus the way I overlocked the end and folded over the neckline meant the drape wasn’t hanging smoothly. So I had to unpick the pleat stitching. But I did learn from the process that irregular pleats – just bunching things up – gives me a nicer, more natural looking drape than regular pleating or gathering. In fact, I wish I had done the same with the bust gathering. Standard gathering just produce an unflattering big puffy mono-boob look.
  4. 3-sew-exp2-4The shelf-bra Oops. Well, this might not have been an Oops if I had used a more substantial fabric. The shelf bra idea is basically facing that goes down to your underbust with elastic sewn to the bottom edge so it forms a nice extra support for your girls. I had to take the elastic out. But the longer facing that’s sewn into the armscye and side seam does help support or counter-act the weight of the front drape nicely.

Would I sew it again / Would I recommend it to others

After all that I have to say I’m a bit Meh with the result. It’s partly the color. That one styling shown above was about the only combination that I could come up with. Nothing else in my wardrobe want to play nicely with this color and shape.

The mono-boob look also is a bit disturbing. Fine on younger, flatter busts. No so fine on my short-waisted torso with “maturing” girls. Maybe irregular pleats instead of gathering would help. Maybe a lower, deeper V-neckline might also deflate the melons a bit.

So learn from my mistakes. And if you are a perennial jean wearer by all means go for this. There are definitely other makes of this pattern out there that look really flattering on their owners.

In the meanwhile I’ll be wearing this around the house as one of my growing pile of slob-out wearable muslins!

Now back into the rabbit hole for my next batch. I think I should give myself a break from complicated pattern fitting puzzles and whip up a batch of easy T-shirts now that I have a TNT T-shirt Block. What do you think?

Franken-patterned Burda 013-02-121

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inspiration-jigsaw-sweaterNext on my write up list is this attempt to recreate a beloved but shrunken sweater with a 60ish vibe. It  always reminded me of this scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And who can resist anything from that film right?

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Knitting would have taken too long and require skills that I don’t have. So sewing with a sweater knit fabric it is then.

The Pattern

I went through my growing collection of patterns and of course nothing match exactly. So I had to resort to Franken-patterning. This one from Burda comes closest to what I want…

 Style Shots & Mug Shots

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Fabric & Notions Used

Size Used

I graded down to a size 34, ignoring standard instruction for a 38.

Changes Made

Fitting changes

You’d thought a loose-fitting garment would be easy to fit. But I actually find it harder. All my reference points – the darts, the bust point, etc – all gone. Where do you begin? (And anyone who thinks a sack is a good idea should read fit for a queen‘s recent “Let’s Be Honest” blog post.)

So I tried a variety of things. And of course the project end up taking longer than it should.

First was comparing it to my WIP woven sloper. No idea how to align the sloper against the pattern. It doesn’t help that Burda never has bust point indicated on the pattern. In the end I tried aligning the underarm levels and roughly check the widths to ensure they’re at least as wide as my almost easeless sloper.

As insurance, I tried tissue fitting too and ended up with this:

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…which seemed alright. It has some ease, but it wasn’t like a tent or anything.

2-fit3So I started sewing it up. But when I tried it on after basting the sleeve & side seam, I decided it was a bit too loose for the design I wanted, and the shoulder point was neither here nor there, so over all a bit frumpy.

I decided to take it in from shoulder point through the armscye and down the side seam. And also shorten it a bit in both bodice and sleeves.

But oops, I forgot that with the shoulder seam shortened, the sleeves will be shorter too. So in the end I had to sew back in a fake cuff to make up for my over-zealous shortening.

Here’s the final pattern with the final seam lines in light blue.

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I won’t go into the usual tedious details of all my changes. The only one really worth pointing out is how massively wide the original sleeve was. I must have taken in at least 2″ with the vertical tucks.

Design changes

Apart from shortening and making it slightly more fitted at the bust, the key design changes are obviously…

  • Changed sleeves to standard narrowed sleeves.
  • Adding the cowl / giant turtle-neck collar. This is simply a rectangle the width of my head circumference and about 9″ in height + seam allowances. The finished height is 4-1/2″ double-layered.

Verdict on the Instruction

Again instruction ignored because of my design changes. If I didn’t have to make fitting changes half-way through this would have been sewn up in no time. I was terrified of the fabric because I’ve never sewn a sweater knit. But it was in fact a dream to sew with. For this one I used only Bernie the serger and finished the hemming by hand.

Here’s how I constructed this one:

  1. Overlocked shoulder seams with clear elastic stabilizer, collar CB seam, sleeves and bodice hem edges. Shoulder SA finger-press towards the back.
  2. Overlocked collar to neckline in the round, collar CB seam matching bodice CB. SA finger-pressed downward & hand back-stitched in place. (Could have machine top-stitched in place instead.)
  3. Overlocked sleeves to bodice armscye. Finger-pressed SA towards bodice.
  4. Overlocked sleeve and side seams. Finger-pressed SA towards back.
  5. Catch-stitch sleeve & bodice hems.

And there you go!

Except for my cuff extension of course. As it was a fix for a boo-boo, there’s no point going into how I did it. The result isn’t bad, but given the choice I’d left it as regular hem.

Would I sew it again / Would I recommend it to others

Hell Yeah. Especially if I find another lovely sweater knit in that weird shade of grayish white like the original sweater I shrunken. This one is a keeper.

And I think I will also try the pattern as originally designed – a tunic with front slit and hem slits and border and all!

Heavenly Burda 2012-09-123 wrap up!

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Finally! The write up about my Dolce & Gabbana inspired embellished Burdastyle 2012-09-123 T-shirt. I was debating whether to hold off until I make a matching gold A-line skirt to do style shots with. But that’ll take too long and I’ll have forgotten all my construction details. So here goes…

The Pattern

I chose this because I wanted a T-Shirt sloper from Burda to gauge the fit of Burda knit tops. This one is perfect because if you join the front yoke to the front bodice, it’s a very basic T-shirt. The neckline is high enough to be jewel neckline that you’d expect of a sloper. The style is fitted enough. The fitted long sleeve again makes it a good baseline to gauge design variation.

The only thing I’m not sure about is the ease in the sleeve cap. Is that really necessary in a T-shirt made from stretchy material?

The Embellishment Inspiration

Style Shots & Mug Shots

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Worn here with my Bird & Blossom Taffeta Skirt.
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This last one is with fabric for the matching gold A-line skirt
that I hope to make some day soon!

Fabric & Notions Used

Size Used

Size 34. Going by sizing chart instruction I would be a 38. Going by FFRP‘s instruction (chest/high-bust used as bust & choosing smaller size when in between) I’d be a 34.

Changes Made

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Fitting changes = T-Shirt Block
  • Removed 3/4″ from front & back shoulder seam. (1/4″ of the front amount was done at the front yoke seam to preserve neckline curve. The armscye curve no longer match the original, but matches the curve adjustment below quite well.)
  • Sloping Shoulder Adjustment: removed additional 3/8″ from front & 3/4″ from back shoulders at armscye end. Lowered armscye 1/2″.
  • Wide Shoulder Adjustment: extended shoulder by 1/8″
  • Protruding Shoulder Blade /Rounded Upper Back Adjustments: extended back shoulder additional 1/4″. But in retrospect I think I’ve overdone these. The difference between front & back was a whopping 3/4″. Even with the stretchiness of the fabric, I got a little bit of puckering in the back shoulder. Oops.
  • Narrow Back Adjustment: removed 3/8″-1/2″ from back side seam.
  • Wide Arm Joint Adjustment: scooped out a bit from lower part of armscyes – 3/8″ front, 1/2″ back. Extended side seams at underarm out by 1/4″. (So back underarm end up with a net change of -1/8″.)
  • Adjusted side seam curve for shorter torso – curve back out to hip higher up than in original pattern. (This was basically copied from my previous Cowl-Neck T-Shirt Block based on McCall 6078.)
  • Lowered neckline at center back 3/8″.
  • Thin Arm Adjustment: removing 5/8″ from both sides, but tapered to 3/8″ at underarm to match Wide Arm Joint Adjustment on bodice.
  • Reduced the cap height by 1/2″ & adjusted the armscye curve. This pretty much removed all of the extra ease in the sleeve cap that I was complaining about further up.
  • Shortened the sleeve by 1″.
Design changes
  • Redrew the front yoke seam line so that it’s more slanted. I’ve removed quite a bit from the front shoulder, so I was a bit worried that a short almost horizontal yoke might emphasize my relatively broad shoulder.
  • Lowered the neckline 1/2″ all around.
  • Shorten hem 2-1/8″ in the back &  2-5/8 in the front for a more flattering & versatile length between high hip and full hip.
  • Replaced original facing & back neck opening with stretchy self-fabric tape facing – I want to say bias tape, but for most knit the stretchiest grain would be crossgrain rather than bias.
  • I used the two sides of the same fabric for the contrasting pieces, and matched the sleeves to the front yokes for a pseudo-raglan look on the front.

Verdict on the Instruction

I didn’t really follow the instruction as I’ve made a few changes. Plus I wanted to work out a more efficient way to sew up a T-shirt and try out some of the techniques mentioned in my Singer Sewing with Knits book.

Here’s how I constructed this one:

  • Before I start, I spray starched and ironed the fabric edges because this one LOOOOOOOOVEs to curl. I also spray starched the edges of the pieces after tracing out the patterns.
  • Next I embellished with fabric paint on the uncut pieces. Embellishment details in my earlier post.
  1. Sewing-wise, I started with the front yoke like in the pattern instruction, but pressed the seam allowance down (to de-emphasize a broad shoulder). I also sewed one shoulder seam at the same time (stablized with clear elastic & pressed towards the back), and overlocked the bodice and sleeves hem edges.
  2. Next is attaching neck tape facing to the neckline. Because the neckline hasn’t been sewn closed at the other shoulder seam, this is essentially a straight line rather than a circle.  So the short ends of the facing are lined up with either ends of the straight line – ie at front and back neck edges of the other shoulder seam. Facing is then understitched – seam allowance pressed towards facing, edge stitching on the facing close to neckline seam.
  3. The other shoulder seam is then stitched along with the short edges of the facing – effectively an extension of the shoulder seam on the neck side. The facing is then turned under twice – like typical hems – and stitched in place from the right side of the bodice.
  4. Sleeves are attached to the bodice next.
  5. Then sleeve and side seams as one continuous seam line.
  6. Finally sleeve and bodice hemming.

The usual Walking Foot and stretch stitch on sewing machine advice applies. This time I tried to do as much on Bernie the serger as possible as Saffy the sewing machine was still unwell at the time.

My serger skill is still a bit dodgy. I tried step 1 without pins or basting and the ends didn’t line up. Urgh. Thankfully I discovered how easy it is to unpick the 3-thread overlock seam. Hmmm, should I be worried about the strength of these seams? Anyway, I ended up hand-basting most seams. It was still quicker than unpicking seams multiple times. Hopefully with more practice my serging skill will pass Great British Sewing Bee judging standards! LOL

Would I sew it again / Would I recommend it to others

You bet! Or at least the T-Shirt block I derived from it. Every girl needs a TNT  T-Shirt pattern. This will be mine.

And I’m just drooling over the possible design variations this opens up!

I love how this T-shirt turned out. The neutral color goes well with so many other garments. And the shinier pseudo raglan sleeves reminds me of a suit of armor. Together with the Byzantine icon on the front and wings on the back it makes me feel like a foot soldier angel in God’s Army!

If you missed the previous posts, here’s the full thread of on my Burda 2012-09-123 adventure.

Close but no cigar (aka Heavenly Burda 2012-09-123 part 4)

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I could have shown you my finished Burda 2012-09-123 T-shirt. Except I couldn’t finish it. Because I had to send Saffy the sewing machine back to the hospital.

She came back last Saturday. Her unbalanced tension seemed to have been fixed. But oh no, what’s this, Needle Down setting no longer works! And I can’t live without the Needle Down setting. I don’t know about you, but whatever I sew, the feed doesn’t stay straight. I constantly have to readjust the seam allowance to keep the sewing on the stitching line. Stopping with the needle down and presser foot slightly up has saved many a sewing project here. Plus there are all those corner turning where it comes in handy too. So back to the sewing machine repair shop Saffy went today.

I’ve actually sewn up most of the T-shirt already. I just need to finish the stretch hemming on Saffy’s return. In the meanwhile I can show you the embellishment step.

You may recall from Part 1 that my take on this T-shirt is inspired by Dolce & Gabbana’s Fall / Winter 2013 Byzantine Princess collection


Photo credit: Style.com

2-embellish-f-1smallSo for the front, I went back to my art history lesson and pulled up this mosaic image of Byzantine Empress Theodora (who turned out to be pretty cool, an early feminist you might say).

  • First I turned the image into grayscale and fiddled with the contrast in a photo editing software.
  • Then I printed it out, scaling to the size I need, and traced the key outlines onto tracing paper.
  • Next using dressmaking carbon and a blunt plastic needle (used for sewing up hand knitting) I transferred the design onto the fabric which had the pattern pieces already marked out.
  • Finally I used 3 different metallic paints to fill in the outlines: Jacquard Lumiere 561 Metallic Gold for white areas, Jacquard Lumiere 552 Bright Gold for mid-tone areas, and Jacquard Lumiere 565 Metallic Bronze for dark areas. Then heat set with iron set at temperature for my fabric.
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For the back I used the Urban Threads wings embroidery design as planned. I was good though. Rather than ripping the artist off, I paid for easily affordable $1 hand embroidery design.

  • I printed this out directly on tracing paper with the design scaled down to 90%.
  • Then this was again transferred to the back fabric piece with dressmaking carbon and an old dried out ball-point pen.
  • The lines were then traced with the Jacquard Lumiere 561 Metallic Gold and Jacquard Lumiere 552 Bright Gold fabric paint, and again heat set with iron.
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Those of you with eagle eyes (and mind) would have noticed I committed a big sin in the process: Marking the fabric with carbon paper like there’s no tomorrow. And worse, pressing over the said markings without washing them out first. Yeah, I’m a rebel. So sue me! 😉 Bred in NYC I like my Edginess. So I don’t mind if the carbon marking won’t wash out. If you’re of posher or more conservative taste, then do find some other way of transferring your markings and designs.

Anyway, I’m off to find some other project I can work on with just Bernie the overlocker and handsewing.

Stayed tune for the conclusion to this Heavenly T-shirt project coming in a week or two!