Seasonal Sewing Plan

Eucalyptus tree bark

Am I the only one feeling "Seasonal Transition Disorder"?
 ( Don't google that I just made it up)  Maybe it's just my ADD working overtime but I can't settle down to my sewing.  July went so well...and then August just fell apart, and here we are its Sept. 1st....National Sewing Month and I simply must pull it together.

I suppose it is in part due to all of the fall trends being released and a bit of Pinterest overload.  Last week though I decided I had to take control of the situation so I spent a day deciding on my fall & winter sewing line up.  Once I had a plan I was able to settle down and I am now looking forward to my sewing once again.

My fall plan is inspired by this Eucalyptus bark.  I have fond memories of eucalyptus..I can smell it in the air and hear the distinctive rustle of its leaves every time I say the word.  It reminds me of dry September days, dusty toes, playground fun and ponies....it's all good:)

I thought about joining the Fall Wardrobe Challenge at PR but I don't really need a wardrobe, mine got a fine start last year....Remember.......


My needs are:
          Ministry clothes -  Skirts, Dresses and Blouses, dressy
                                       layers - vests, sweaters,blazers
   
           Studio clothes - Jeans, cords, Henleys, T's and sweaters

I made this skirt last fall along with several other items and I simply need to add a few items to the mix.  I have enough of the skirt fabric left over to make a vest from.....

This is a Folk Wear vest made last year and I will probably use the same pattern for my vest for this year or the double breasted version is another option.

These are some stash fabrics I pulled and I found a use for the burnt orange (2nd from left) which will mix in nicely with my other dressy separates.

This is a tried and true pattern which I will make up in the burnt orange silk adding a flutter sleeve to it.

I also have some brass sequins which I will add to the hem of the sleeve and possible the hem of the blouse, or possibly scattered over the silk....


The brass sequins came from a jacket I made for my mom.  The silk dupion yardage she chose had a fairly dense covering of these lovely sequins on it.  They had to be removed from the seam allowance which produced a fine stash of them for future projects:)

This piece of linen on the far left was planned for the blouse on the right as part of last years fall sewing plan....Ah well the best laid plains will be just as suitable a year later.....right?

 



My Jalie jeans have worked out well and I think I will modify the pattern to create some straight leg corduroys.  I have some green medium wale corduroy in my stash that will be suitable for studio days.

In the evenings I can knit on this vest, which will be suitable for both the studio and the ministry:)






This is a knitting class being offered thru Craftsy which I signed up for because.... I like to knit, have not done any Fair Isle and have found knitted vests to be very useful here in WI.

I have had a love affair with this pattern for a few years, could this be the year it gets made up?........

I don't have fabric in my stash for this one and I have been trying to use all the glorious fabrics I already have but.....could I break my "no fabric buying" streak with.....
   


....this plaid from fabric.com?  



So this is the Fall plan and we will talk about winter once I have a few of these babies made up.  I do not expect to accomplish them all but if I don't have a lot to do I procrastinate and then nothing gets done...Anyone else have this issue?  

I will stop sewing fall items on Nov 30th  and sew winter items from Dec. 1st thru Feb 30th.

Do you like to plan your sewing seasonally? or just as you're inspired?

1912 Project Blouse #1000 Muslin Complete

I took a half day off of work, which is to say cape sewing, to finish the muslin for blouse #1000.

The last time we looked at the muslin it still needed its sleeves, front waistband and collar.

Now it has all of its appropriate parts.....attached even - lol

You can just see a bit of the front waistband.  I cut 2 pieces 1-3/4" x 12-3/4" to create the waistband and waistband facing.  This creates a finished waist measurement of 24".

Take one of your waistband strips and press to the wrong side along one long edge and both short edges 3/8".  This will become your waistband facing.

Sew the waistband onto the shirt front gathering between dots. 

Repeat with the facing piece, sandwiching the blouse between the two and being careful to leave the facing free from the seam allowance edge on both short ends.

Press your seam allowance towards the waistband.

You can now sew your side seams.

Once you have attached the peplum you can finish the waistband by hand stitching the facing in place to cover the seam allowance.

I love how in this angle you can really see the appropriate silhouette for the time period. A little more bust and you would have less drooping at the front waist. Remember my dress form is 2" smaller at the bust than the pattern measures.

  Notice though how this right(seen on the left) sleeve drags a bit to the back of the blouse?

This sleeve hangs correctly because the peak of the shoulder is siting in the correct place and the gathering is distributed correctly.  

You can replicate this by:

 Placing a notch on the front bodice 3/4" forward of the shoulder seam, that will mark the actual shoulder.  Remember how the shoulder seam favors the back of the blouse?

Now place a corresponding notch on the sleeve cap in the center of the tuck lines.  Doing this will make setting in the sleeve much easier and prettier.

The cuff does not quite meet at the center to expose the tuck detail, but some gathering is required to make the sleeve fit the cuff.  

The total amount of gathering is 1-1/2"  I placed dots (to gather between) on my sleeve pattern 1-1/2" on either side of center for a total of 3".  Stitch a gathering line between these dots and adjust to fit your cuff.

The pattern allows for a 1/2" finished placket and you might want to add a little more to this depending on the size of your buttons. 

The peplum allows for a little more fullness over the seat than my dress form has, but should accommodate a "real" seat quite nicely, maybe even a bit of a bustle.

I finished the collar by using a narrow piece of self bias as a facing strip.  

From the looks of my collar though it appears as if I may have one side on back to front.....I thought I double checked that, but that extra bit of lift there on the left side lets me know something is not quite right.

Boy you can really see it in this shot.  

The collar fits in beautifully though if you leave a 1/2" space at the center front.

Now its time to adapt a muslin for contemporary wear....But before I can do that I  need to rig a roman shade, alter a bridesmaids dress and cut out another Bat Cape.

What will you be sewing today?

1912 Project - Blouse #1000 - Muslin

I have made some small progress on my first 1912 project blouse..

This is the illustration that accompanied my pdf pattern.  There were no instructions but the templates for the embroidery work on the peplum cuffs and collar are included.

The pattern is labeled for a 36" bust

The measurments on the blouse are:
Bust: 37-1/2"        
Waist: 23"            
   Hip/peplum width at hem: 43"
Sleeve length: 15-5/8"    
   Bicep: 14-5/8"

My size 6 dress form measures:  Bust 35-1/2", Waist 24", Hip  34".

While taping my pattern together I noticed a few grain lines that did not match up....which makes me question my taping, but if  you follow the stitch lines you can't be to crazy off, right?....

  

Once the pattern was taped I began trueing it up.  The first thing you notice is that the back side seam measures 1" longer than the front.

The collar pattern has one of those mismatched grain lines and is not the same size as the template.  The center back seam is not indicated on the back pattern piece so at this point I am unsure which pattern is correct. 

There is no pattern piece for the waistband...hmmm

Additionally the tucks indicated on the pattern are in three different sizes:

5/8" on the fold, on the center front pattern piece

3/8" on the fold, on the back pattern piece

&

1-1/2" on the fold, on the sleeve

This is confusing to me and I am not sure if its a digitizing over sight or what.....

I chose to make them all the same size (5/8") because they look to be all the same in the illustration.  But the reality of the situation is it doesn't really matter what size you make because you need to stitch them up on your fabric prior to cutting the pattern pieces out.  

If you are unfamiliar with this process, no worries I will show you more about this when I make up the actual blouse.

For the muslin the tucks are not required, so you could skip this step for your muslin process if you like.

Here is my muslin without its sleeves or collar.  Fortunately I have a size 6 dress form, very helpful for this process, as it takes some of the guesswork out of it. 

The 3/4 view shows you how cleverly the fullness is kept to the front, while the rest of the garment hugs the body...and I mean hugs.

In this shot you can see how the side seam favors the back as it approaches the armseye.

You might be asking yourself at this point what happened to that 1" difference along the side seam..

  

I decided at this stage to baste the peplum on 1' higher across the back of the bodice. 

Once it was all together it occurred to me the difference in the side seam length might explain the missing waistband piece...Could the waistband sew to the front only making up the 1' difference needed to match up to the back?  Will try that next so stay tuned.

..

The shoulder seam favors the back as well, not at all unusual in garments from this period. 

And finally we have the back, which will fit better once that peplum gets moved down an 1"

I am looking forward to sewing the sleeves, collar and adding that waistband so don't forget to check back to see how that effects things.

This is my kind of mystery I tell you what:)

Eva Dress Contest - Blouse 7482 Complete

 So happy with the way this blouse turned out. Very flattering style and so comfortable to wear. 

 I tried to make it authentic to the period (1938), which is to say no serging/ overlocking inside.  Instead I zig-zagged the seams with the fine thread at the bottom of the picture and used an all purpose for the seaming.  I thought about hand casting the seams.....but having just completed the Indygo jacket, got over it:)

 I looked on line for suitable buttons but in the end decided to cover some 7/16" half domes.  

The pattern shows you how to create button loops from thread, but I decided to make self fabric loops. 

This shows a close up shot of the buttons and spaghetti which makes up the loops.  The 2 buttons on the left are face up and the 2 button on the right show the back.  The buttons required 2 layers of fabric so the metal would not shine through.  This meant that there was to much bulk to snap the metal backs on...they just kept popping off..which meant I needed to do a proper job and cover the back of the button as well.  I am so glad that I did.  Don't they look pretty?

I interfaced the facing, front and back with 1" strips of silk organza.  I did not follow the directions for assembly of the shoulder seams but reinforced the seam first with stay stitching, clipped into it and sewed it with right sides together, just as you would for a shawl collar. 

The pattern has you tie a bow at the front, but I felt the single loop was a little less bulky and contemporary looking.  The bow is very cute though and when I make it again in a chiffon I will more then likely do so.  In the wool it just felt a tad bulky to me.

Look at this awesome picture I found while looking for garments of the period.  This is the cover of Du Barry Fashions in 1938.  A very similar style in the same color.  Mine photographs much brighter but really reads this color in natural light.  Now I just need those fabulous gloves!

After filling out my project worksheet I found this garment cost me $24.10

The blouse requires 1-5/8 yard and I used a wool I had in my stash that was gifted to me by a client so there is no fabric price reflected in my total.  I probably would have included it if I could remember what she paid for it...but alas that paperwork was filed eons ago..in a galaxy far far away.  One of the benefits of sewing for others is you are sometimes left with usable "scraps"....Oh Joy!

For more information about this project see post list below:

How it all began

Blouse Muslin and pattern post

Sleeve hem correction - minor

Sleeve pattern correction

Remember my annoyance with this sleeve hem ?  Your hems in general should be level with your wrist or if its a skirt parallel to the floor. This is always the case unless you have an obvious design feature as seen with the new swallowtail hems or those elegant sleeve points which fall down over the hand and attach to your ring finger.

But I am looking for a standard and correct sleeve hem and so I will need to make some adjustments to my Eva Dress 7482 pattern.  So lets begin.....

This is what my sleeve hem looked like after making up the muslin.  The dotted line is my hem line.  The seam running up the center is my underarm seam which forms the placket at the hem.  In modern patterns the placket is sewn as a extra piece.  On this vintage pattern the buttons are purely decorative and this little placket closes up with a few snaps. 

I begin by pinning my sleeve seam together along the stitch line.  I can/need only do this for a few inches. Its a little awkward as it does not want to lay flat if I continue pinning to far up the seam.  

Once I do this I can see that where the seam lays, it needs to be about 3/8" longer to be even with the front hemline.

Because my pattern tracing is done on household wax paper I can simply take a strip of wax paper and add it to the sleeve hem by pressing with an iron.

If you use paper of course you can tape your strip on.

Now I re-pin my sleeve seam....

 

Turn it over and cut through all layers along the front hem cutting line.

In this picture you can see where the buttons are supposed to go.

 I open my sleeve once again and I can see my new curved hem line.

Now  I trim the excess wax paper off the sleeve seam.

This is my new correctly shaped hem and my sleeve is ready to be cut out:)

By the way that is my blouse fabric that the pattern is laying on, my favorite shade of red

Do you have pattern alterations that you commonly make that are not related to fitting?

Eva Dress Contest - 1937 blouse #7482 Muslin

Here is the muslin for my Eva Dress Contest entry.

I love this blouse.  I was a little surprised by the amount of fullness in the sleeve cap and initially thought I would reduce it a touch.  But that would not be holding to the rules of the contest....and when I tried it on, it just looked great!  I love the way the neckline curves up onto the neck, don't you?

Chuck says "Wow! That is perfect for you...very nice"

I am pleased and looking forward to making it up in my wool challis.

Now about the pattern....

The instructions for sewing the neckline facing and attaching the lower bodice to the upper bodice are .....out of date, although possibly easier then how I chose to do it.  There is not a separate neck facing, just extensions along the front and back neck edge that get turned back and blind hemmed in place.

The instructions want you to overlap the shoulder seam - meaning fold back the seam allowance along the back shoulder, gather the front shoulder, Lay the folded back shoulder onto the front shoulder and edge stitch.

Here you can see the Blouse back, at least one shoulder and half  of the neck.

I stay stitched the edge, clipped into it and placed the front shoulder to the back shoulder with right sides together and stitched.  It is a bit tricky getting around that turn, similar to a shawl collar. Once both shoulder lines are sewn you can turn your facing back and blind stitch as suggested.
This technique is repeated to attach the lower blouse front to the upper, but again I placed right sides together and stitched.  You could certainly add the edge stitching after, if you like the look.

From here I will play with the gathering distribution on that sleeve cap, this might have been a misunderstanding of the patterns marks on my part.
Can you see the difference between the illustration and my muslin?  Yikes!

I also need to adjust the sleeve hem and placket which is simplicity itself as it has no placket piece, but has you create a placket from the under arm sleeve allowance and using hem tape to finish.  For authenticity's sake I will finish it that way.  The hem line though is uneven forming a peak at that underarm seam, which needs to be leveled out.  This might have occurred when I adjusted the length of the sleeve....I will be sure to post a tutorial on how to fix that simple and commonly found error.

The Eva Dress Contest - The 1937 Blouse begins

Last week I mentioned the Eva Dress contest and showed you the 1940's Playsuit pattern I am planning on making into Gardening Overalls.  

Today I thought I would share my other possible entry this 1937  Blouse which I plan on entering in the 3rd Category, which is described as: The Best use of pattern in its original form.  The garment must follow the pattern devoutly (meaning no changes to the design, although grading or alteration for proper fit are appropriate.

The pattern number is 7482 and it is available in a size 16 (34" bust)

This of course is my project worksheet for said blouse.

I am making it from a lovely burnt red wool challis.

Needless to say though before I can cut into my fabulous fabric I must trace the pattern and sew up a muslin,   This is strongly recommended on the pattern as these are original period patterns.  This means that the markings are minimal and unfamiliar to the contemporary seamstress, and the sizing my be different as well. 

I traced my pattern out onto wax paper, a method I often use as its very transparent , inexpensive. It's easy to make as wide as needed by simply overlapping the sheets by a few inches and ironing. 

I found it helpful to refer to the sewing directions as I was tracing to insure I was understanding the marks.  The pattern included a nice diagram of each pattern piece with additional information written on it.  For instance where the gathering happens between dots the diagram will say "gather", the grain lines and hems are marked with dots, but the diagram helps you to understand which is which.

The pattern only has 5 pieces and the construction looks very straight forward although again a little different then contemporary methods, but I will talk more about that as I move into the construction.

Upon measuring the pattern I found the actual pattern measurements to be:

Bust - 37"

Waist - 33"

Hem Circumference - 37"

Center Back to waist length - 17"

Sleeve length - 25"

The only pattern alteration I made at this stage was to shorten the sleeve 2".  1" above the elbow and 1" below.  The bust may prove a little small for me and the waist a little large but I will sew up the muslin before I make those changes.

Hope to see you soon with the muslin...wouldn't it be nice if I could get that sewn up this weekend:)

What will you be sewing this weekend?

Have you ever made any of the Eva Dress patterns?

Will you be entering this years contest?

Jasmine Blouse Review

The Jasmine blouse felt like a long journey, but I am pleased with the changes I made and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the project.
 It is my final Fall Palette Challenge piece, outside of a sweater I am still knitting.
 It's a good thing I am bringing my fall sewing to a close seeing as how we received our first snowfall this week....6" or more!  Most Alarming!

Jasmine blouse by Lynne Williams with revisions

 The fabric had a border pattern running across the grain about every 30" which required some planning. 

 I drew up a few sketches placing the border at various locations and ended up with this plan. 

 Placing it along the top of the pattern framed the neckline in front, and reminded me of a midi blouse.

Jasmine blouse by Lynne Williams with revisions

On the back you can see I placed the border just over the hem which I think accentuates the curves in my figure.

As mentioned in a prior post, the pattern is accurately made and the instructions are very easy to follow.  I can certainly recommend this pattern especially if you want to learn how to sew a bias cut garment.  

You will  learn  about working on the bias while keeping the project simple and not get yourself  overwhelmed.

I changed the length of the sleeve to fall below my elbow.  

A simple change - lengthen the sleeve pattern by the desired amount. 

Then I ran a gathering stitch around the hem edge and created a narrow 1/2" band to finish it.  

I used a strip from the border print to set it off.

My hem band was cut 2" x 9" and of course I cut 2.

I also brought the neckline in 1-1/2" towards my neck on each side.  I love the width of the original pattern, but it just was not flattering for my narrow little skull-lol, or maybe it is my lack of jaw....probably the combination.  If you can wear it wide by all means do so...its so lovely like that.

I also changed how the collar was made and assembled.  

The collar pattern has 2 parts a collar back and the collar front which lengthens into the tie. 

 You are instructed to cut 4 front collars and 2 back collars, like a standard collar.  Additionally it has a interfaced facing...front and back. 

 I am not a huge fan of facings, they tend to be difficult to control, additionally I did not think the collar laid particularly well, it wants to ripple along the outside edge.

Instead I chose to make the collar a sash cut on the bias and folded in half lengthwise. 

This causes the gentle roll, which lifts it upwards from the neckline and the outer edge lays nice with no rippling.

I then replaced the facing with a strip of self bias like you see on many knit necklines.

I plan on making another one of these blouses from one of my silks.  I just hope I have enough of this lovely periwinkle charmeuse I have had in my stash for about 20 years!!  It is one of those fabrics you love so much, you are afraid of doing the wrong thing with it. 

Do you have fabrics in your stash like that?.

My apologies for not having pictures of me wearing the blouse, its so much easier to slip it on my form and snap a picture and get blogging then setting up for a photo shoot.  I understand this is breaking a cardinal rule of good blogging...but it's so time consuming....plus it leaves me room for improvement-lol

Maybe one day I will have my act together enough to take wonderful fashion /location pictures like some of my favorite blogs....girls I think you know who you are.  I do so appreciate their efforts....one day.....one day.