DC PR Anniversary Weekend: Tour of Arena Stage Costume Shop

For Pattern Review's anniversary weekend, SewDC arranged for Joe Salasovich, Arena Stage's Costume Director, to give us a tour.  What a treat!  Joe was incredibly generous with his time and vast store of knowledge.  We toured not only the costume shop but the entire backstage area, including the craft shop (where dyeing, millinery, and other non-sewing costume work is done), wardrobe storage, hat storage(!!!), the wardrobing room, the hair salon (who knew?), and the scene shop. 




We started in the costume shop, which is full of beautiful dress forms.  This padded out form was incredible!  Seeing that it is possible to make the form fit any size was inspiring to work with what I have (though my problem is the shoulders are too wide on all commercial dress forms and the bust too large).












 Joe shared their process for making costumes.  They often start with vintage garments as inspiration, many of which come from his personal collection.  They study the garment and carefully examine the design lines as well as the construction techniques.





When a design has been decided upon, everything is muslined and sometimes more than once.  If you look carefully at the muslin on the left you can see the safety pins that were used for fitting.  The final coat is on the right.  (Also notice the gorgeous roll of silk on the lower right!)













Once perfect, patterns are traced onto brown paper and hung on hooks for future use and reference.














Here's a panoramic view of the costume shop.  They have a mix of industrial and home machines.  Obscured by the table in the right is the Merrow industrial serger.  Gorgeous!  The boxes are for storage of notions, trims, decorations, and other miscellany like handkerchiefs.

The irons are industrial steam presses, and they use ironing tables rather than ironing boards, with hams and sleeve boards for shaping.  I was quite jealous of the ironing table.



I was amused by the "Hey Girl" memes on one of the cutting tables.  They love Ryan Gosling at Arena Stage...













One of the questions we had for Joe was whether the clothes were made to look good from the stage or up close.  He told us that all the clothes were movie ready.  When we passed this jacket hanging in the hallway, I knew he was telling the truth.  That level of plaid matching blows my mind.






















The shop encourages creative solutions.  When they wanted to create sort of rough and worn looking garments with a print, they used rusty nails to imprint a pattern onto the hem of a dress.  Genius!




I would have loved to have spent a couple hours in the hat storage room with a mirror!  There were shelves and shelves of hats arranged by color.  They do some of their millinery in-house; I was drooling at their hat blocks and head forms.






Arena is celebrating Italian Culture this year and when we visited was in the process of setting up an exhibit of Italian couture (these enticing shipping crates were in the freight elevator).










It was a wonderful tour.  Inevitably for someone who sews, I worked in the costume shop at my college.  It was actually a great shop and the theater program at my tiny college is surprisingly professional, but this was definitely a whole new level.  Thanks so much to SewDC for organizing and Joe for the tour and the group photo!

All photos are here.

Outfit of the Week: A Simple Knit Skirt

Does it drive anyone else crazy when a sub-one-hour, super simple project gets more compliments than a complicated slog?  I finally got around to drafting a skirt unit for my TNT tee for making knit dresses (I have one in the queue to show you).  It took me a while but it finally dawned on me that I could also use it for just a skirt with no tee attached, and knocked off a quick one out of this floral sculpted knit fabric I found two years ago on the G Street $2.97/yd table





The seams are serged, it has an elastic waist, and I used a machine blind hem to sew the hem and the elastic waist casing.  It took 45 minutes and cost a couple of bucks.

I had a meeting with outside people, for which I generally tone down my usual "dressing like a parrot" style, so I paired the skirt with a black tee (which also didn't take much more than an hour to make using my TNT tee pattern) and black tights, and a cheap "statement necklace."  Easy.

And yet, I think just about every one of my (female) colleagues complimented this outfit, and particularly loved the skirt.  Maybe I should stop making anything that takes longer than an hour!  More photos here.

The Resurgence of US Textile Manufacturing, Oh and Stashoholism Confessional

Note:  Blogger ate the originally published version of this post--changes were not made to the original text with any malicious intention!


The New York Times has done a couple of interesting articles recently on the return of some textile and garment manufacturing to the States.

First, they wrote about textile manufacturing, which is returning to US shores where the need for nimble responses to demand is a bonus.  The bad news is that the process has become much more automated in the past, and creates many fewer jobs than the textile mills did when they closed down and manufacturing moved overseas.  However, to my mind, a few good jobs is better than no good jobs.  And the reduced labor costs helps in the competitive pricing area so it's a bit of a catch-22.

Then there was an article on the search for skilled sewing labor to keep up with demand for US-made products.  When the jobs went overseas all the skills and knowledge evaporated.  The few people still around who worked in industrial sewing are generally past retirement age and not looking to return to the factory floor.  The article profiles a course for factory sewing that can't turn out graduates fast enough to meet demand for U.S.-made products.

I am 100% guilty of loving my huge wardrobe and deep closet, but this sort of clothes collecting only became available to the masses when jobs went overseas where labor is such a small part of the cost of clothing as to be negligible.  However, labor prices in the third world are rising as money flows into those economies, the cost of living increases, and expectations for standard of living rise.  I hope that we are reaching a new equilibrium that allows for liveable wages and good jobs on both sides of the ocean.

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I have been remiss in confessing some recent purchases.  Fabric Mart got me when they put silk at 40% off.  I'd been eyeing the peacock fabric on the left for a couple of months and finally pulled the trigger.  The side border print is challenging and will require a simple dress without a waist seam.  Would you believe that I have zero envelope patterns without waist seams?  They are essential for fitting with my swayback.  I'm going to try Burda 11-2007-110, a simple dress that will show off the print.

The rayon/mohair suiting was the impetus for the order, as it was the "crazy price" item.  It is much better quality than I had expected at that price and I like the subtle metallic windowpaning.  It will be a work dress.  The striped silk will be a shirtdress, and the mesh polka dot knit is because when do you *not* need mesh polka dot knit?  It will be a fabulous accent to any number of items.




Well then a month later Fabric Mart had 40% off everything on the site.  Diabolical!  They know I can't resist that kind of deal.

The cotton twill is a heavy denim weight with a lot of stretch.  It will be a dress from Burda 08-2013-116.  I'd had my eye on the blue sweaterknit for a while; I love the butterfly wing abstract print and the colors.  It will be a long-sleeve tee and I might also be able to eke a dress out of it as it's very wide.  We'll see how it performs in sewing; it is rather thin and may be prone to rolling and/or disintegration.  The red circles knit is for a dress.  I ordered the gray to make a long sleeve Vogue 1282 Donna Karan cowl variation.  I don't know why I thought it would have a sweatery texture.  It was described as poly knit and it feels like poly knit.  I don't think it's a luxe enough fabric for that project, though I do like the color and print.

The J Crew silk was my "splurge" item.  The olive/antique gold floral print is even more gorgeous and lustrous in person than on screen.  It will be a long sleeve work top.  My first thought was a tie neck blouse, but I'm afraid we're on the tail end of that trend and I want this to be a top I can wear for years.  I'm not crazy about button front blouses--I feel like they're harder to wear with a skirt than pants, and I am in a skirt 98% of the time--which limits me a bit in the classic department.  Any ideas?




I also paid a visit to G Street (incident to a necessary trip to Home Depot, I swear!).  They had these two sweaterknits on the bargain table.  The pink is very sheer and will be a cardigan.  The red is a bit thicker and will be a long sleeve tee.  I'll either line it or double the fabric, depending on how it behaves in cutting.  I am obsessed with never having the perfect red for t-shirts.  I don't know why it's such a compulsion for me, especially since red isn't even in my top 5 favorite colors!  My top five are turquoise, olive, hot pink/fuchsia, blue purple, orange, though my wardrobe doesn't much reflect my love of orange.  What are your top 5 colors?

Simplicity 1796, Crossover Dress with Elastic Waist

Why does Simplicity choose such heinous fabrics for their envelope pictures?  Case in point, Simplicity 1796.  They made two dresses for the envelope, and they are both out of some sort of horrible undrapeable poly blend broadcloth.  You can practically smell the artificial fiber fumes coming off the photo.  I paid no attention to this pattern whatsoever until I saw it reviewed, and suddenly noticed the nice details:  the shoulder yokes, the pleated bodice, the cinched waist.  I appreciate that solids are the best choice for an envelope, but how about some high quality fabrics?  Yuck.  On the plus side, this pattern comes in a huge range of sizes:  10-28W.  I graded down to an 8 at the shoulders and bust.

I used the silk/wool I got at Paron last November for the absolute steal of $6/yd using a Groupon and shopping in the 50% off section.  In the end, I'm glad I got a bargain because the pink ran in pre-treatment.  :(  The fabric is still useable, but it is slightly less awesome with pink patches in the white areas.  Fancy fabric is generally meant to be dry cleaned, but I'm just not going to do it and I'd rather sacrifice some fabric at the pre-treat stage than lose a garment after sewing it.



It's a lightweight fabric so I lined it to give it body and opacity, using an Ikea Knoppa sheet for the bodice and a rayon satin for the skirt (but somehow got confused when sewing the whole thing together and put the satin face toward the fashion fabric and the matte face toward the body).






To keep the neckline from stretching out during sewing, I fused strips of interfacing in place along the stitch line of both the fashion fabric and lining.  Since the yoke supports a lot of fabric, particularly as the bodice is pleated into it, I interfaced the entire yoke.









To get good turn of cloth, I trimmed 1/4" from the neckline edge of the lining before sewing it in place.








I also reinforced the pocket opening edges with interfacing.  I sewed the fashion fabric using French seams as it is somewhat delicate, and followed my tutorial for sewing the pockets in (even though I'm the one who made the tutorial, I still have to look at it every time!).  The fabric presses so beautifully, I think these are the most attractive French seam pockets I've made.





To line the dress, I constructed and lined the bodice and then constructed the skirt and its lining.  Then i matched up the bodice center front and stitched the fashion fabric skirt to the right side of the fabric and the lining skirt to the wrong side.  When you flip everything right side down, the skirt's seam allowance is enclosed between the fashion fabric and the lining.

I pressed this down and then stitched the waist casing through both the fashion fabric and lining of the skirt.  This turned out to be somewhat of a mistake as the casing was SO INCREDIBLY THICK that pulling the elastic through it was absolute torture on the hands.  I think it took me 3 days to do because I could only handle doing it for a small mount of time.   Anyway, to get the width of the casing (with which I should have been much more generous!), I lined up the elastic with my waistline seam and then stitched a little below it. This would work on a casing that does not have so many thick layers, I promise.



As drafted, this dress has a serious drop shoulder.  It's a great width for the sleeveless version, but would have looked terrible had I set in the sleeves there.  I trimmed it back to my normal shoulder width.




I think it was at Pennsylvania Fabric Outlet that I bought a large Guterman spool that I knew would match some wool I had at home.  Somehow I didn't notice until I got it home that it was topstitching thread, not sewing thread.  So now I have this giant spool of magenta topstitching thread.  I decided to use some of it on this project.  I topstitched the yoke, neckline, waist casing, and did two rows of stitching on the hem.







I liked the tab detail on the sleeves, though I didn't use the instructions.  I just made some tabs, placed them in an aesthetically pleasing place on the sleeves, and stitched them in place using a decorative button.  I got a whole tube of these at a vintage store a couple years ago--I was glad to finally use a couple.





I was a bit skeptical of the elastic waist on this, thinking it might look cheap and lowbrow, but I think it works with the style.  It certainly made fit easy!  The belt in the thumbnail photo was misguided (or at least I should have tightened it a notch), but outdoor photos are so much nicer!  That is at the National Gallery of Art in DC, which has glass pyramids like those of the Louvre, though not quite as majestic.  It's much better without the belt.

The only thing I don't like about the pattern is the pleats in the bodice at the shoulder yoke.  They look terrible on the pattern envelope, and even in my drapier fabric--it is about voile weight--still don't look awesome.  I'd like to make this again converting the pleats to gathers (folding out some of the width), maybe for summer to take advantage of that wide shoulder.  It's a pattern that requires a careful fabric choice.  I'll have to be on the lookout for a lightweight cotton or cotton/rayon.  Rayon challis would be ideal but I just hate how non-durable rayon challis generally is.  I had a RTW rayon skirt that was a workhorse in my wardrobe for a good 7 years until I got sick of it--and it still looked great.  But I've never found that quality rayon in yard goods.  My lightweight woven rayons generally shred at the seams after a couple of years.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

How to Make Basket Liner Grocery Bags for Your Wald Bike Baskets

Given my focus on the bikeability of my skirts and dresses, it probably won't surprise you that I sew for my bike as well.  I am a commuter-, shopper-, and pleasure-biker, so weight is not an issue for me.  I'm not fast anyway, what's a couple extra pounds?  So for cargo, I looooooove my Wald baskets.*  They collapse when not in use and are easy to fold out when I'm doing a big grocery shop.

*Please note that I have no financial or other connection with any of the products or sources listed in this post.  I really do like the baskets that much as a plain ol' satisfied customer.

Baskets are more stable than panniers and a bajillion times easier to use.  I found detaching and reattaching panniers a real pain, they are enormous to carry into the grocery store (or heaven forbid a restaurant or bar where you don't want to leave your stuff sitting outside), and I had a pannier pop off my bike in Logan Circle once.  With the baskets, there's no detaching and reattaching, and carrying a custom tote bag into the grocery store is much more civilized.  Also, believe it or not, I think my grocery bags hold more than a pannier because they are tall.  A tall pannier hangs down too low, but the bags' added height is above rack level.

Pro tip:  on the advice of my bike shop, I skipped the included hardware and attached my baskets to my rack with hose clamps, which are available at Home Depot or any hardware store.  They are a real pain to put on (you have the squeeze the tongue thingy into place with one hand and turn the screwdriver with the other until the tongue thingy is caught and you can tighten it), but that basket is not coming off.  After about a year I had one hose clamp fail--the metal broke.  Each basket is attached with 3 hose clamps so it did not fall off.  When I noticed some rattling, I replaced the hose clamp without incident.  So I do recommend an occasional inspection to make sure your hose clamps have not failed.

Of course, a naked basket is no good.  I just had to make custom-fit liners for my baskets!

You will need:
Sturdy Fabric
Fusible fleece or other stiffener for the bottom
A drawstring (I used rattail braid; you need a little less than 1 1/2 yards)
A cord stop (Joann sells these in the notions aisle; mine are from Quest Outfitters)
Velcro (mine is 1 inch wide)

The liners are made from four pattern pieces (if rectangles rise to the level of pattern pieces): a front/back, sides, bottom, and straps.  The measurements given below include a 1/2" seam allowance.

For each basket liner, cut 2 of each of the following pieces:

Front/Back:  17.5" tall x 13.5" wide
Side:  17.5" tall x 8.5" wide
Bottom:  13.5" x 8.5"
Handle:  4.5"wide x 26"* long

*The length of the handles is based on the perfect comfort carrying height for me.  I'm 5'1", so in the highly likely event you're taller than me you might want slightly longer handles; I would recommend adding 1/2" for every inch you are over 5'1", on the theory that half your height is in your torso (where handle length matters) and half is in your legs (where it doesn't).





I made two liners--one for each basket (I think most people only have one basket, but since my bike is my car I have two)--from a 45" wide wax print a friend brought me back from Liberia, so I took the trouble to figure out the most fabric-efficient pattern layout, shown below.   Most quilting fabric is 45" wide, so if you want to use one of those cute prints this may come in handy.

Most cottons can be ripped on both grain and crossgrain.  Make a snip with the scissors and rip away.  I ripped all my pieces rather than cutting them.  So much faster, easier, and more precise.

A word of warning, though, that when the bags are full they are easy to catch and rip on the baskets.  You want a fabric with some body and sturdiness so don't use a lightweight quilting cotton, or if you do you'll need to double it up.


The first thing to do is sturdy up the bottom.  This isn't totally necessary, but I find it extremely helpful when loading groceries because it shows you the exact footprint of your basket.  This is particularly important when the checker is loading your bags because they instinctively cram them as full as possible and then the bags are too wide to fit in the baskets and you have to mush your groceries around to get them into the right shape.


Cut your fusible fleece 12" x 7" (taking the 1/2" seam allowance off all four sides of the bottom piece measurements plus a little more so it's easier to sew).  You can draw right on your fusible fleece with a pencil, so just mark your rectangle and then cut along the lines.

Lay one bottom piece, wrong side up, on a flat surface.  Center the fusible fleece on top of it.  Lay the other bottom piece on top of the fusible fleece, right side up.  You've now sandwiched your fleece and the right side of your fabric is showing on either side.  Pin through the sandwich a few inches in from each corner and in the center.  Now take it to the machine and anchor it with a big X from corner to corner through all three layers (bottom, fleece, bottom).  Take out the pins.


The next step is the sew the front/back and sides together.  Take one front/back piece and lay it right side up on a flat surface.  Place one side piece right sides together along the long (17.5") side, matching this to the front/back's long side.  Pin.  Now pin the other side piece in place the same way, right sides together.  Pin the other front/back to one of the sides, and complete your tube by pinning the remaining front/back side to the remaining free side.  Sew all these seams.  I finished mine with my serger, but you can use a zigzag stitch if you don't have a serger.  Press the seam allowances toward the sides.  You now have sort of a box with no top or bottom, as seen at left.

Now comes the only even remotely tricky part, I promise.  You're going to pin the bottom in place.  Match the corners of the bottom with the seams of your front/back/sides box, right sides together.  The seam allowances of your "box" will be on the outside.  The bottom has two right sides so it doesn't matter which one you put inside and which outside.



Pin the long edges together with the box on top and the bottom on bottom and pin diagonally into the corners.  Make sure you have caught both layers of the bottom!  The back/front/sides box won't match the square corners of the bottom exactly and will pull in toward the center a little.  Just make sure you have the long edges lined up other than in the corners and it will work out.



Start sewing in the middle of one of the edges, rather than at a corner to make it easier.  When you get to the corner don't sew all the way to the end--stop at your 1/2" seam allowance.  Make sure the needle is down into the fabric, then lift the foot and rotate your bag 90 degrees.  Scooch your fabric (particularly the seam allowances of the front/back/sides), which will want to fold up, behind the needle.  Put the foot back down and sew the next side.

When sewing the corner make sure you are catching the front/back/sides fabric box fabric with enough seam allowance to do a zigzag to finish the edges (remember, the front/back/sides box will cut in a little diagonally across the corners).

The bottom is stiff from the fusible fleece, so for one of the sides you'll have to cram it into the free arm.  Your corners may not be beautiful, but they will probably look ok on the outside.  Finish the seam allowances and turn your bag right side out.



Now we'll sew the casing for the drawstring.  Finish the top edge of your bag.  Again, I used the serger but you can use a zigzag.  Measure 1" from the upper edge and fold this down and press.  To make it look nicer, I next folded under about 1/4" from the top edge, so that when I sew down the drawstring casing I will have a folded edge rather than raw edge showing.

Before we sew down the casing we need to make buttonholes for the drawstring.








Keeping your fabric folded down 1" the way you pressed it, find the center of one of your front/back pieces.  Here it is marked by the pin.  Measure and mark 1/4" on both sides of the center, and then again 3/4" from your first marking.   You want these markings to be 3/8" from the upper folded edge.  Unfold the raw edge back up.



Cut small rectangles of interfacing and place them on the wrong side (I cut one fairly long strip and pinned it in place, far enough from my buttonhole markings not to interfere with my sewing.  Because I used a Frixion pen, fusing the interfacing in place would have erased my markings).  Make the buttonholes only on one layer of fabric, the layer below the fold, between your markings and cut them open.



Now we're ready to stitch down that casing.  Fold down your 1 inch again, and sew close to the raw edge or fold all the way around the top of your bag.  Make sure that your buttonholes are above your casing stitch line.










Cut your drawstring to about 50 inches.  You want it to be as long as your opening plus another 14 inches or so.  I used rattail braid (available from Joann).  To keep it from fraying, I dip the cut end in nail polish and let it dry.







Once it's dry stick in a safety pin near one of the ends and thread it through your casing, in one buttonhole and out the other.









After you've threaded your drawstring through the casing, put your cord stop on and knot the ends to keep from accidentally pulling off the cord stop.














Next are the handles.  I interfaced the handles for sturdiness, but it's not strictly necessary.

Fold your strips in half lengthwise (so they will be 2.75" wide and 26" long) and sew the long edge.  Turn them right side out using a large safety pin (as shown in this video).  Roll them so that the seam allowance is in the middle, rather than on one of the sides (this is purely aesthetic, you can put the seam allowance wherever you want) and press flat.



Now you're going to turn those raw edges to the inside.  Just fold 1/2" to the inside all the way around and press.  If you find this too hard, zigzag the raw edges together and just fold them toward the side with the seam allowance.  Topstitch all the way around the handles, catching those turned under ends.








Now it's time to sew your handles in place.  One handle will be sewn to each front/back piece.   Measure down 3" from the top of the bag (the top being the fold for your drawstring casing) and 1 1/2 inches in from the side seam and mark this spot.  That is where the lower outside corner of your handle will go.  Mark this spot on the right and left sides of both the front and back.








Pin your handles in place, aligning the lower outside corner to your marking, having the seam allowance of the handle toward the bag.  Pin the other end of your handle in place on the same front/back piece (the handles do not go over the top of the bag's opening).  Pay attention to make sure you haven't twisted the handle when pinning it before sewing!  Sew in place using an X with a box around it for maximum sturdiness.







The final step is velcro strips on the side to attach to the baskets.  On each side piece and measure down 8" from the top.  Measuring from a seam, make marks at 3 1/4" and 3 3/4".  Mark this spot.  Cut two sets of velcro strips 2 inches long each.




Spacing them a bit apart from the center, sew with one side up and one side down (otherwise they won't be correctly oriented to attach).  Use a small stitch length and sew at least two rows of straight stitching.  I did the rough side up and the smooth side down because when they are joined together the rough side is to the inside.  However, it's probably better to do smooth side up and rough side down so that when they're open (i.e., when you're carrying them through the grocery store) the rough side is against the bag.

I really don't know if the velcro is necessary or just superstition on my part.  However, my bags have never fallen out of my baskets no matter how full they've been--and if you ride DC's streets, you know that is NOT from lack of jouncing from pothole to pothole--and I always velcro them in place (and never use bungee cord) so I'll stick with my superstition.

Done!  Making two of these took me about 2 1/2 hours--although that included documentation time.  They are not a hard project and a beginner should be able to make them in 3 or 4 sewing sessions of a couple hours each.


To use your bag, place it into the basket.  Pull the drawstring tight to close the top of the bag and snug the cord stop, then tuck the long loose ends of the drawstring into the little opening of the bag.  Tuck the handles into the little opening left at the top of the bag as well.  This is to keep the drawstring and handles from spilling over the side of the basket and getting caught in your spokes, which would be Very Bad.  Loop the velcro through the mesh of the basket and fasten it.  Ride off into the sunset (or off to the Potomac, where the shot of my bike "in the wild" was taken).



My bags are plain fabric.  If I need something in them protected from rain, I wrap it in a plastic bag.  I like the fabric bags because they are light, fold down quite small, and most importantly can easily be washed and dried when groceries go awry.

However, you could use waterproof fabric for a more precipitation-friendly bag.  This blog is all about oilcloth.  Rose City Textiles/Fabricline has reasonably priced waterproof fabric for bags.

I made these forever ago and kept waiting to post this until I got more glamorous photos of me and my bike but I think we'll just go with what we have!

All photos are here.