Patterns, Fabric, and Books...Oh my! And a Giveaway

I figured I should put a moratorium on fabric buying for February after my gluttonous online extravaganza in January, but February is over, baby! I headed to the pattern sale at Joann on Saturday and couldn't resist a quick peek at G Street. I found this gorgeous silk on the remnant rack, and remnants were 25% off, so I got 1 yard of this 45" wide silk print for $7.50. I definitely see it as a Spring blouse/top, but I don't have any immediate ideas considering the limited fabric. Simplicity 2936 might work, but I would need to test out the pattern and it calls for 1 3/4 yard in 45 wide. That seems like a lot for a simple blouse, and I wonder if I might manage to squeeze it out. The other issue is that the motif is huge (12 inch quilting ruler is on there for reference), so it might be better to do a pullover top rather than a button front. I am ok with pullover woven tops for now, but it's not a durable style, in my opinion. I think they'll only work for about 3 years and then be passe again. But I suppose three years out of a $7.50 length of fabric isn't a *total* loss.



I've purchased, ahem, a fair number of patterns lately. This isn't all of them but these are the ones I am currently obsessed with.

Vogue 1170, Rachel Comey Knot Blouse. It has a little of the same feel as 1935 Vintage Vogue 2859; I made that one of a printed silk and LOVE. I may use my floral silk from Vietnam. I'm not wild about the back buttons. I might change that to a back neck slit with single button at the neck and side zip.

Vogue 8633, Shift dress with little built-in collar. I guess this is one of the new patterns, as there are no reviews for it. I totally love it. That little collar is so fancy. I am into straight/pencil skirts and dresses right now and have (relatively) few of either in my closet. I just have to decide on a fabric. There is a fabric in my stash that would work, I think, but I've had it in my head for another pattern for at least three years. But the other pattern is kind of novelty and possibly a little sexy for work. But it will be a psychological journey to give up the idea of that dress.

Butterick 5382, pleat neck dress. To me, this is a better version of Vogue 8593, or better for me, at any rate. I've learned that my pear shape really needs a waist seam so that the skirt can be larger than the bodice. Vertical darts are not enough.

Butterick 5455, Maggy London shift with pleated V neck. I was going to pass this up because it seems similar to several other things I have. But hey, it was only 99 cents. This is how I end up with too many patterns. I'm thinking it will be good for the vintagey floral cotton I got in Hong Kong.

Butterick 5454, Wrap dress for border prints. Little Hunting Creek suggested this pattern for the gorgeous fabric I got from Marji and I am digging the suggestion. I also have a polka dot border print knit to make up, so if it doesn't go for Marji's fabric then maybe the polka dot.

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I picked up You Know You Want It by Eric Daman from the library's new book shelf when I was browsing for non-fiction. Daman is the costume designer for Gossip Girl. I watched a season of the show because a friend's sister's then-now-ex-husband is the producer and the friend had viewing parties for it. I was amused by the teenagers who lead lives more sophisticated than I will ever have, and the clothes are fantastic. Daman knows his stuff when it comes to costuming a cast.

Unfortunately, it does not seem that writing is one of his gifts. The book is not so much a style manual as a current fashion magazine without ads. Now don't get me wrong, the fashion spreads are gorgeous and he shows a lot of cute, current clothes. It's more like a fashion primer--this is a boat neck, this is a V neck, etc. etc.--than a style manual. The spreads below showcase a season and a style. They're gorgeous, but they don't really tell you anything.







Beautiful styling, little content, anchored firmly in current trends. I recommend a flip through the book in the bookstore, but I don't know that it would be worth owning.

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To make room for my new patterns I finally went through my stash and culled out a couple of dozen. In an attempt to make Spring sprung already, I'm giving away a grouping of sundress patterns. To enter the giveaway, please comment, clearly indicate that you are entering the drawing, and tell me what you are most looking forward to about Spring, your favorite Spring colors, your must-have Spring piece, or just how much you hate winter. The winner will be chosen by drawing.



The patterns are all uncut and in the smaller size range; the giveaway is for the whole group (i.e., one person will win all four patterns).

Butterick 6586 (OOP)
Simplicity 4531
McCall 5655
New Look 6146 (OOP)

Newsboy Cap

So I love my pink sweater newsboy cap from last year; the color is cheerful and it is so warm with the angora sweater shell and tie silk lining. However, the style is a bit dated; it is more "marshmallowy" than the lower profile newsboy caps people are wearing today. I did a bunch of experiments with the Vera Wang winter white boucle I got from fabric.com for $1.95/yd (more on that later) to determine what level of felting I wanted. I did a fairly large piece in a hot water wash and a tumble dry. It turned out more felted than I want for a coat (can you believe I'm actually experimenting rather than jumping in willy nilly?), but I didn't just want to throw it away as it was so thick and warm. So I got the idea to make it into a hat.

Because I didn't want to use the Saturday Night Hat marshmallowy pattern again, and couldn't find a decent pattern anywhere else, I decided I'd have to draft one. Keep in mind that (1) I am the Slapdash Sewist, and (2) I have no idea how to draft. I don't necessarily recommend you do this at home.

So first, I put a tape measure on the top of my head measured down to my ear to get the "radius" of my head. It was 6 inches. So I scrounged around my kitchen and found a bowl with a 12 inch diameter and traced it. I cut out the twelve inch circle and folded it into 8ths, and then cut out one of the wedges. Thus endeth the scientific portion of my pattern drafting.

Then I sort of added some width and length and cut out the lining (also a Vera Wang fabric, the silk/rayon satin) based on this pattern. I put it together and found that I needed more width and a little more length and kept adjusting the pattern little by little until it was where I wanted. Here is the evolution.



The Saturday Night Hat pattern piece is on the right for reference; that hat is a 4 panel with darts in each panel to mimic an 8 panel. I folded the SNH pattern in half to better show how the shape compares. My final pattern did not end up so very different from the SNH, but is narrower and starts the peak higher by enough to take out the marshmallow factor.



After making up the lining, I understood why the SNH pattern is a 4 panel rather than 8 panel. Man, that is a lot of triangle points. I sewed them up to the top as close as I could, trimmed off every other point, and then on the outside of the hat did a couple of circular stitches around the meeting point to keep everything in place.


I didn't have enough fabric for the band around the hat, so I added "hand wash in hot with 5 minutes of agitation, hang dry" to my experiment list. It made the fabric a little tighter and less floppy, and I decided I liked the texture contrast with the rest of the hat. Because the hat fabric was SO thick, I couldn't sew the band around the hat right sides together then turn down because the seam allowance would have been ridonkulous. So I stitched the CB seam of the band, folded the band in half wrong sides together, and layered the upper folded edge of the band over the lower edge of the crown (both fashion fabric and lining) and stitched in place.

I used the bill pattern from SNH, shortening it to fit with current styles. I used heavy interfacing on the upper and lower pieces, but did not add any internal structure as I did with the pink hat because the fabric is thick enough to stand on its own. I pinned the bill to the lower edge of the band and stitched in place. I finished the inside by hand-stitching a ribbon to the lower edge of the band, turning up, and hand-stitching the upper edge of the ribbon to the lining. This covered all the ugly mess of seam allowances (and is apparently the traditional way to finish hats, based on the reading I've done).

When it was done it needed something, but I couldn't figure out what. I could kind of see brass or gold studs around the band, but I didn't have any and didn't think that would really be me. Then I remembered about a hand-made flower pin I'd bought at a fair trade store. I never wore it as a pin but thought it might work on the hat. I took it off the pin back and sewed in placeI think it added just the right touch.

The reason I am interested in making hats is that I have a freakishly small head, and ready-to-wear hats do not fit me. Even the SNH is a smidge too big. So I was determined to fix that problem with this hat. I was a wee bit overzealous and did not add quite enough wearing ease, but luckily I was able to stretch it out a bit on my hat block so it is comfortable to wear, though it is snug when I pull it over my ears. I'm not sure I'd make this again; when I was researching current newsboy styles I came across several that are not panelled at all--they have a round or oval tip and then a one piece crown, like this one. I bought McCall 5995 in that style, though I would shorten the high peaked front crown which screams "sexy policewoman."

Cidell took the photos so there are a bunch of good ones here and the pattern review is here.


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It's hard to photograph white fabric to show differences in texture, and of course I forgot to save a piece of untreated fabric, but this is what I've got on how this fabric felts. I did not like the original texture as it was very floppy and loose. I am picturing this as outerwear, so I wanted something more substantial.

Hand wash hot, with about 5 minutes of agitation: 6 inches length to 5 1/2 inches length, about 10% shrinkage; negligible width loss (it's possible I didn't measure very precisely when cutting).

Machine wash cold, hang dry. Original swatch was 6 inches long and 25 inches wide. After treatment was 5 1/2 inches long, but I forgot to record the width before cutting out my band (dumb!). I don't think it lost much.

Machine wash cold, tumble dry. This is the final treatment I decided on and have done the whole piece. I didn't measure the length before putting it in, but I'm sure I lost some. The width is now 47 1/2 inches. Of course, I didn't measure how wide it was to begin with and fabric.com doesn't have the info cached, but I think it was 54".

Machine wash hot, tumble dry: shrank from 15 inches to 10 1/2 inches in length, and from 57 to 40 inches in width, almost identical shrinkage rate of 30% in length and width.

Burda 12-2008-116, Tuxedo Jacket of Doom

All right, it's done. The Tuxedo Jacket of Doom from Burda 12-2008-116 that I wrote about last April, having abandoned it in early March, is no longer wadded up on my sewing table as it has been the past year. I can't say it looks a whole lot better than when it was wadded up on my sewing table, but it will look fine on a lectern from 10 feet. I have a couple of speeches coming up so I will wear it to at least one of them. I made the dress way back at the beginning of last year (will try to review soon) and have the skirt cut out, which should be a nice, normal, easy project!

I had planned this for a conference I was running March 2009. I don't have to wear a suit too often at work (thank goodness), but I really hate wearing personality-less clothes even on an occasional basis. So I wanted a suit-ish outfit that reflected my style. Unfortunately, I just didn't leave myself enough time, nor did I have enough psychic energy, to complete the project while I was also doing the work for the conference. My final stumbling block was the welt pockets with flap. For some reason, I had in my head that you had to sew the flap on at the same time as the welt and I just couldn't figure it out and it seemed like way too much marking with basting thread, millions of times even.

I am not ready to switch to Spring sewing yet, because I have many Spring/Summer clothes but I am still not happy with my Fall/Winter wardrobe (though much happier than in years past). Once I go Spring, I don't go back so I need to capitalize on my Fall/Winter motivation while I can. However, I couldn't think of what project I wanted to do next. I took it as a sign (along with PR's UFO Contest that I should return to this jacket.

I happen to have Claire Shaeffer's Complete Book of Sewing Shortcuts out from the library, so I decided just to check and see what she has to say about welt pockets with flaps. And duh, there it was. You make the welt as per usual, and once it's completed you slip the flap inside and stitch it to the excess welt allowance. Well, I understand welt pockets so that was no big thing. I stitched the flap down when I stitched-in-the-ditch to keep the welt in place. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough fabric to make a practice welt; after managing to squeeze a dress, jacket, and skirt out of 3 yards there were no scraps larger than a few square inches. So I made the welt lips too wide and the ends are all squinched and it looks pretty homemade. But at least the placement matches up and I can keep business cards in the pockets.

I hadn't cut out the lining before abandoning this project. I chose this nice silk from The Carol Collection but was dreading cutting it out as it is a slippery, fiddly silk. Actually, cutting and constructing the lining turned out to be no biggie and a quick part of the project. So that was a small mercy!

Let's talk about the sleeves, shall we? Wow. Easing in sleeves is a common sewing dislike/complaint, but it has never really been a problem for me. I have a fairly high tolerance for tiny tucks and wrinkles so I just don't get exercised over it. But this. This was a whole other level. The back sleevecap is just HUGE. The front sleeve eases in no problem, very smooth and lovely looking. The back sleevecap is about twice as large as the opening it is supposed to go into. Seriously. I attempted it three times, using various methods to reduce the size and the armscye kept getting more and more distorted, with attendant pulling along the back and discomfort, that I finally gave up and just gathered the sleeve. It does not fit with the style and it does not look good. I used a large shoulder pad to give even more emphasis to the shoulder, in the hopes of fitting into the "strong shoulder" trend, but really it is a disaster.

I cut the center back with a seam rather than on the fold to give me better swayback fitting. I should learn to take photos of the backs of projects before I finish them so I know what they look like! This seemed fine in the mirror but is pretty ick. I think eventually I will need to open out the lining (there was a reason I stitched the hem by hand) and take some of that bulk out of there.

And now let's talk about the rest of the sleeve, with the bagging and bunching at the inner elbow and the spiraling of the sleeve down the arm. It is so terrible!!!! Given my shortness of fabric, it is certainly conceivable that I did not cut the sleeve pieces exactly on grain. So perhaps the spiraling is my fault, although the back sleeve seam appears to run straight down the arm. But that bunching is a drafting issue. There is an elbow dart and it doesn't make a dent in that baggy mess. It looks like I've been wearing it for two weeks straight. If there is a quick-and-dirty fix to take out some of that bulk by taking in either the upper or lower sleeve seam, I'm all ears.

I couldn't decide what to do about the closure. I didn't want to make a bound buttonhole because I just wanted it done. I didn't have a good button to match anyway. I finally decided on a covered snap. I used this tutorial from Threads Magazine (thank goodness I saved those tiny scraps). I interfaced the circles for covering the snaps because the fabric is not a tight weave and subject to breaking. I fray-checked around the post of the post side, and inside the hole of the hole side so hopefully they will hold up. I actually like this snap treatment.

(At least the jacket looks cute in this view.) This project was about getting it done, not getting it perfect. It was a total nightmare and I don't think I sewed a single seam of the body jacket only once, and only a few of them a mere two times. It was two steps forward and one step back the whole way. I think even Tim Gunn would have abandoned "Make it work" for "I'm very concerned."

But I kept thinking, I'm never going to learn if I don't do it. It was my first successful notch collar in a jacket. My oldest UFO is a notch-collar jacket I started shortly after graduating college in 1996 in which the collar went horribly wrong; I finally threw that one away this year. Without sewing diagrams, I first sewed--and serged--the wrong edges together (you sew the widest edges together in a collar, right?). So I had to unpick that and use what was left of my seam allowances. Then I accidentally put it in upside down, with the undercollar on top. I had diligently trimmed the seam allowances a fraction to allow for a good turn of cloth, so the undercollar was different from the upper. I left the collar that way until the end, when I acknowledged that it just wasn't going to work. So I ripped it out and fray-checked the heck out of the spot where I had clipped the facings down to the stitching and put it back in. The entire unit is not perfect, but I will give myself that the notch on that collar is sharp.

I am, if I may be immodest, good at the sewing things I do. I'm good at dresses and skirts, my invisible zippers come out perfect 98% of the time, and I have an eye for prints and colors and styles that will flatter me. But I rarely stray from my comfort zone. I don't feel bad about this. Sewing is my hobby, not a test of my character. However, finishing a project like this, that is quite outside my comfort zone, is an accomplishment and I feel that the practice will help me expand my skillset. Whether I ever want to use those (rudimentary) skills again is a whole other matter!

All photos of this project are here and the pattern review is here.

Fabric and Jewelry

I could not think of a clever title for this post. Sorry about that!

Last week Cidell came to visit DC, which was awesome as we hadn't seen each other in aaaaaages. When I made my Quotidian Fail Simplicity 2473 houndstooth dress, she told me that she had some similar houndstooth fabric that was not enough for the project she wanted it for and would give it to me. Yay! Here it is:



It's not identical to the Simplicity dress fabric, and I totally love it. I had intended to make Burda 01-2009-105, the skirt with the outside darts and bias hem band. I loathed this look in the magazine, but then just loved the version Kathigarn did on PatternReview, but the fabric is too thick to work.

So now I'm thinking jacket Burda 08-2007-115 (ignore the fact that Burda's link says it is blouse 117; it has the two items mixed up); I made this as a coat two years ago and wear it every day during this type of weather. So I know I like it! However, I don't know if I have enough fabric and that three piece sleeve would kill me to match. But the pattern is designed for plaids and Burda has those handy check marks so maybe it wouldn't be too awful. Maybe.

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But before I start a new jacket project, I figured I should tackle the last jacket project I started. And abandoned. You may remember this mess that I wrote about last April



Yeah. I didn't touch it after that. So I have picked it back up. I put in the pockets, making the welts too wide and homemade looking. I put in the collar, of course putting the undercollar on top and the overcollar on bottom. This was after sewing the wrong edges of the collar *and* serging off most of the seam allowances, so I had to pick all that out and carefully line up the seam lines. I do not have the intestinal fortitude to pick out the collar. So it's going to be somewhat mediocre, but I told myself I had to either finish it or throw it away and I don't want to throw it away. There are still a good 8 or 9 hours of work left on it, or more. But at least some progress has been made.

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Since I have no sewing to show you, here's what I've been working on of a creative nature.



One of my neighbors asks me to donate to a fundraiser gala for the pediatrics center at a local hospital every year. I've had this cloisonne pendant for a long time and had not really been inspired by it. So I challenged myself to use it. I actually really like the resulting necklace. Hopefully it will raise some money.

The bracelet is made of some of the sew on jewels I bought in Hong Kong. The Washington Post published a photo of some single strand using similar jewels with leather straps for closures for $85 each. Crazy! I assume the jewels were of higher quality, but such an assumption is not always warranted. I liked the look so I made one of my own, triple-strand for extra bling.

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Has anyone else gotten snarky comments on recent pattern reviews from someone whose name suggests a level of expertise but has not actually posted any reviews? Ugh. I really can't stand those people. I just have to remind myself not to feed the trolls and that it is so not personal. It is just about them having a forum in which to feel superior and if that's what it takes for them to get through life I should not begrudge.

**edited to add this thought** It is really far-fetched, but I almost wonder if the troll could be the Vogue pattern drafter as they are both recent Vogue patterns? In which case, it would feel to him/her that my review is snarky because I didn't like the patterns. Who knows. Trying to let it go.

Burda 06-2009-110, Border Print Kimono Dress

I liked the kimono variation in Burda 06-2009-110, although without the front button placket, and made a muslin of it in some terrible, terrible black polyester shortly after the magazine came out in June. I decided I wanted to make the real thing in gray; I ordered some gray fabric online but it turned out to be green. I bought some in NYC in June but got it home and discovered that charcoal gray cotton is too blah.

Then when I was researching border print images, the kimono dress at right really struck my eye. I received this wool challis as part of The Carol Collection and hadn't been sure what to do with it. I feared whatever I made with it would look dated (picture an 80s style ankle length broomstick skirt out of this fabric and you see what I mean) so I had to tread carefully. However, the kimono looked fresh to my eye and in no danger of screaming late 80s/early 90s, an era that, with all due respect to my high school and college self, was a total fashion dead zone. The stash contest going on at PatternReview was a good incentive to take the plunge. I would never be in any danger of winning the contest, but I like the camaraderie of seeing how much of our collective stash we can stitch rather than buying new fabric. It is a challenge and a good discipline to use up older pieces about which enthusiasm has waned.

At first I thought I would cut this as shown in the inspiration photo, which appears to have been cut as a true kimono with a cut-on sleeve, the border at the edge of the sleeve. However, I had only two yards of the wool challis and couldn't get this cutting layout to work. The Burda dress is drafted with a separate sleeve, so I lengthened the sleeve to 15 inches and cut. I cut the body of the dress on grain, and then attached the border print to the bottom of the dress with a seam. With the piecing, I could just squeak the dress out of the fabric. There are only tiny bits of it leftover.

I lined with a polyester, also from The Carol Collection. I knew I would need something drapey and fluid, but also not too lightweight to get this dress to hang correctly and be warm enough for Fall/Winter. I love that the brighter color shows through in the sleeves; in traditional Japanese kimono, giving a glimpse of the contrast fabric of an under-kimono at the sleeve was considered part of the art of wearing it. The only problem is the poly lining is SO staticky. I am not sure how it will wear.

Anyway, I thought I was being all clever by cutting the front along the self-facing foldline. It wasn't until I had it put together that I realized the self facing foldline is NOT center front. Oy. I am smrt. So I had extra fabric in front, which did not look good. I took the concept of the gathered neckline of the inspiration dress, and cut the neckline to a wide boatneck and then took up the extra front neckline fabric in pleats, as neckline pleats are very fashionable right now. I pleated the fashion fabric and lining as one and finished the neckline with bias tape. Messing around with all this sculpturing made this no-closure unfitted dress take waaaaay too long to make!

While planning the cutting, I had a hard time deciding on a length for the sleeves. Luckily, I could put on my muslin and see where the shoulder seam fell and measured from there, but that gave me no sense of how the sleeve would wear. The extra-long sleeves on the inspiration piece are part of what drew me to it, so I didn't want to skimp. However, once it was constructed the sleeves were just a tad too long. I couldn't just hem them because then I'd lose the border print. I could have shortened above the border and it would have looked like the hem, but I put in some crazy pleats at the shoulders just to test out various sleeve lengths and kind of liked the way the crazy pleats looked. I like the sculptural quality of all those pleats at the top. So I made them permanent. I know they are weird. The pleats at neck and shoulder show up best in this shot.

I considered leaving the pockets off as they just seemed like extra trouble. I like the idea of pockets, and I like to put my hands in them occasionally, but I never actually use them. But then I thought about it some more and realized that I *do* use pockets on dresses to clip my work ID onto them and keep inside the pocket. Wearing a work ID with dresses can be challenging. If I am wearing a belt I clip it onto my belt. If it has a waist seam I put a safety pin in the seam (which gives some support to the weight of the ID) and clip it to the safety pin. Dresses with no waist seam are impossible. I used to have a badge holder that had an actual clip on it, like a binder clip, which was awesome because I could just clip it onto a dress, but it broke and now I am stuck with the kind that's a passive clip, like a money clip. I refuse to wear a necklace/lanyard style ID holder because they are hideous and clash with my actual jewelry. Although this dress must be worn with a belt (check out the sexy unbelted nightgown look), my ribbon belt (tutorial is here) doesn't love holding the weight of my work ID. So I kept the pockets. After all that overthinking, I think they are cute.

I haven't had a chance to wear this dress yet and I am concerned about the staticky lining and haven't quite figured out the best boots**/tights combo for cold weather, so I'm not calling this an unqualified success. However, this fabric is now sewn up and no longer sitting on the shelf where it's been the past year and a half so in that sense it is a huge success!

All photos of this project are here and the pattern review is here.


**I love it with the cowboy boots, but after spending way too much money on these boots I don't think I can wear them. This happens every time I buy cowboy boots. I have spent hundreds of dollars on unwearable cowboy boots. The shaft collapses inward to my ankles at the seam where the lower boot and shaft are sewn together. The vertical seam is piped and this creates a very thick seam that protrudes into the inside of the boot, as you can see here. The seam is really harsh and it takes off layers of skin where it has collapsed into my ankle to the point that I am bleeding within minutes. I cannot be the only person in the world with this problem but all my googling has found NOTHING, not only no solutions but nobody else even having the problem. I have considered several ideas, such as buying metal rulers and taping them along the seam on the inside to keep the seams from collapsing but I don't know if that would work because tape won't stick very well. Wearing thick socks is not enough, and bandaids/medical tape are no match for those rubbing piped seams. Does anybody have any solutions????