New fuzzy jammies! Pajama top.

Regardless of what the calendar or the thermometer says, or how far ahead I “should” be planning in my sewing, there’s still lots of use for fuzzy jammies in my world.  Even in the summer, I get “cold in my bones” and find that wearing warm items helps keep me mobile – particularly when I’m asleep.

The fabric for this set was a Christmas present from my Mom and Dad.  To explain, every year, they send me money to pick something up for The Ogre and myself.  The rule is that there MUST be something from them under the tree.  (This is NOT a cop-out on my parents’ part.  Purchasing something local and shipping it is far, far too expensive.  And, with the undependability of Canada Post, there’s the realistic expectation of late delivery or, even worse, lost items!  Some years Mom has told me EXACTLY what she wants me to have… other years, she leaves it to my discretion!)  This year, The Ogre got a wonderful pair of suede slippers, and I got do-it-yourself jammies.  The Ogre joked that his slippers were ready made because no-one trusts him to make anything himself!

Shortly before Christmas, I found these fabrics at Fabricland – on sale for $4 and $5 per metre.  They’re a lovely polar fleece, and I picked up enough of the lime with periwinkle and royal snowflakes to make a pair of bottoms as well as a top (I hope!).  The beautiful blue that matches PERFECTLY was obviously destined to go home with me to make a robe (as I have a large wardrobe void in that area as well!).

Isn’t this a warm and cheeful combination? I can’t wait to finish it so I can wear it!  The yellow in the shot should be much more green, btw…

Originally, I had planned to get this set sewn up during my Christmas sewcation and wear them on New Year’s Day.  Other projects pushed them to the back burner, and it’s only now that I’m getting to them!

I used my tweaked Simplicity 7034 (here and here) to make the top of this pattern.  In fact, this was the first piece I did after doing all of the patterning for forward shoulders, fba and swayback.  In other words, this is a test run of my tweaks, but in a slightly “less pressure” garment.  As long as this fits halfway well, I’m good with it.  It’s a jammie top, not career wear!  With pajamas, the dart placement will be all wrong anyway – since I have no intention of ever wearing it with the bra I used for fitting the original top.

After I had the front cut out and marked, I hand-sewed the darts.  I really like hand sewing in the first place and, in the second place, I started this piece when I was sick enough with the flu that I didn’t trust myself with any power tools!  Hand stitching was enough to take my attention away from my achey head and other symptoms, but not so much that I had to really pay attention.  I got to feel a bit productive, and that’s a terrific thing when you’re not feeling well.

Rather than press the dart in one direction or another, I chose to slice it right up the middle.  This gives a cleaner feel to the inside – particularly as I don’t need to do anything to finish the fabric edges.

After the darts, I sewed the shoulder seams.  So far, so good.  The seams were the same length!

On to the sleeves.  I lengthened the short sleeves and made them extra long.  This way, I can actually pull them down to cover most of my hand while wearing them.  That helps my hand mobility when I get up in the morning!

I gathered between the markings, and eased the sleeves into position.  Then, I placed many, many pins in the gathered portion, and much fewer on the ungathered.

Sleeves set in flat.

The sides and sleeves were now stiched in one seam!  All that’s left is the bottom hem, the sleeve hems and a treatment for the neckline.

I just folded the sleeve and bottom hems up an inch and stitched, but I chose to do a slightly different treatment for the neckline.  I measured the edge, then cut a strip that length X 5″.  With right sides together, I sewed the short (5″) sides together.  This gave me a very nice little tube.  At this point, I folded the tube WRONG sides together and pinned to the inside neckline.

Once I had the seam stitched, I then tacked the three layers of fabric down into the body of the neckline.

Done!

Now, how did the changes I had done to the pattern change the fit?  Let’s see, shall we?

Well, the truest answer is obviously “For the better AND for the worse!”.

A new list of issues… horizontal wrinkles accross the fullest part of and diagonal wrinkles running from the side to lower center.  Angled wrinkles from the side up to the bust – virtually following the angle of the bust dart on the side.  But the bust point is in the right place, the sleeves look much better and it doesn’t turn into a sausage casing the instant it’s on my body!

We’ll call this one “Muslin 2″.  It’s wearable as a pajama top, but still needs a LOT of work before it becomes a TNT for daywear.  Back to the drawing board for this Sewasaurus!

There are still the bottoms to make.  Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount I needed when I purchased the snowflake fleece.  So, I’ll have to be creative on getting a pair of sleep leggings and a robe out of the periwinkle blue!

’til next time!

Liz

Simplicity 7034 – Tweaked

When you last saw this pattern in my hands, it was a fail.  Not an epic fail – but certainly not enough of a success for me to brag about it.  And no where near enough of a success for me to even finish the darned thing.  For a refresher, check here.

I made a complete list of problems with this simple little top.

1. Neckline too wide
2. Shoulders a smidgeon too large
3. Bust too snug
4. Darts too high and long.  Not to mention, uneven.
5. Wrinkled sleeve cap
6. Shoulder seam migrating backwards!
7. Baggy at back waist
8. Dart pointing to sky!

The issues started at the neckline and just kept going all the way down to my middle back.  Some things, like a too wide neckline, I knew how to fix.  Other things?  Not so much.   Thank goodness for research tools!  The books Santa (AKA The Ogre) brought me for Christmas REALLY came in handy.

From what the photos showed, I needed to make the neckline and shoulders a smidgeon narrower, but increase width at the bust.  I also needed to adapt for my dowager’s hump (forward shoulders?), and large arms.  Then, there’s the re-positioning of the darts, a swayback adjustment and, perhaps, a tad more width at the hip.

Quite a list, no?  Almost daunting.  But I do like the simplicity of this top.  And I can see how very useful the finished and well-fit top would be in my wardrobe.  So, here I go!

NOTE:  Pattern tracing in orange, adjustments in blue.

First, I retraced the pattern.  This time, I traced the size 18 at the neck and shoulder, grading out to a size 20 at the bust.

Because I found the neckline a bit too wide, I added 1/4″ on the inside shoulder seam and rounded out that extension to meet nicely with the scoop of the neckline.

I really didn’t want the dart to point to the sky again. To prevent this, I measured down from the shoulder seam to my bust apex and moved the point of the original dart down to reflect that.  I kept the exterior of the dart in the same place so that the angle from side to apex wasn’t quite as severe!

You can see the difference between where the pattern dart begins and ends, and where mine does.  No wonder “the muslin” didn’t work for me!  There’s a full inch in the difference!

Now, to figure out my first ever FBA!  From the fit of the failure piece, henceforth known as “the muslin”, I knew I needed at least 3 more inches – of which 2 are obtained from the grading to a size 20.  That means I need an FBA totalling 1.5″ (3/4″ inch on the pattern piece, which is cut on the fold).

From my sewing books and the blogs I follow, I decided to go with the one that made the most logical sense to me.  It appears to be simple and, as this is the first time I’ve done any FBA, it might be a good place to start.  Instructions are here.

That should take care of the uber snug chest.  I hope.

The pattern is a bit of a mess now, so I retraced it before cutting.

On paper, this pretty much addresses the issues on the front of the top.  Now, for the back!

Again, I traced an 18 at shoulder and graded to a 20.  I repeated the addition of the 1/4″ at the neckline, and graded down to the curve.  This matches what I did on the front, so the two seams will match.

No FBA here.  Instead, I’m trying to do a “forward shoulder” adjustment.  To do this, I would have to increase the height at the shoulder by 3/4″.  Of course, I’d now have to jump back to the front pattern piece and remove that 3/4″ there!

However, there is, apparently, more than one way to do a swayback adjustment!  And one of them decreases the height at the neckline, which changes the angle at the shoulder.  Since this might be a way to kill two birds with one stone, it’s the one I’m going to go with.  Instructions for it are found here.

As the diagram shows on the linked page shows, moving the center portion of the pattern causes the angle to the shoulder edge to creep upwards – exactly what I want!

However, I now have a conundrum!  I’m not sure if the bagging at the center back is caused by a tightness at the hip, or a true swayback. Looking at the photo, there seems to be a set of diagonal wrinkles from my tailbone upward in a “V” as well as the excess fabric at the back waist.  This being the case, I’m going to do a small swayback adjustment and hope that the extra width from grading up a size will do the rest.

On to the swayback.  Another new adjustment for me!

I chose to remove a full inch at the center back.  This lowered the center neckline by an inch, and changed the angle to the shoulder by approximately 3/4″ – just what I wanted.

Before I forgot about it, I went back to the bodice front, and added that same 3/4″ to the shoulder seam there.

Again, I’m not sure if that will be enough of a change on it’s own, but the grading of size should take care of the rest.  I’m not looking for perfect on this one… not yet.  I’m just looking for a “whole heck of a lot better” than “the muslin”.

With the front and back mostly taken care of, I moved on to the sleeves.  I traced size 20 here.  Then, I graded to a size 22 from the underarm.

Because of the forward shoulder adjustment, I also moved the sleeve cap a titch toward the front of the sleeve.

It’s really just a guess, but I’ve made so many other changes to the body of the piece that I don’t want to go nuts with the sleeves.  If this doesn’t work, I’ll just have to try again.

Of course, I also redid the facings… using the pattern pieces I finished up with as templates.

Now, it’s time to cut and baste all of this.  Because I’ve made so many changes, and I’m not 100% sure of the success of them, I’ve decided to use some polar fleece and make a pair of jammies out of it!  There’s a bit of give in the fleece, but not so much that it will change too much of what I’m hoping to accomplish.

’til next time,

Liz

A fresh slate

I’ve noticed that recovery from physical illness usually ends with a desire to clean.  I’m not exactly sure why, but it seems that as my body decides it’s done with whatever bug (in this case, the dreaded 2013 Flu-of-Doom), my mind believes it a PERFECT chance to clean my environment.

I’ve been either busy or sick since the New Year, so my whole home needs de-Christmasifying (real word, honest) as well as a good scrub.  Of course, I chose to start in my sewing room.

This is why…

    

As things go, I suppose it’s not that bad.  Unruly, but there are areas of the floor that aren’t covered – so I actually can walk into the room.

I started off by organizing the fabrics on the top of my dance armoire.  That’s where I keep my sewing queue. On the left, I have the fabrics I’m going to use for my next set of pajamas/lounge wear.   In the center, the fabric destined to complete the black, white and red capsule I’m currently working on.  On the right is the fabric for my taupe, beige and blue capsule.  Just on the edge of that sits the pieces of a cardi/jacket I’m also in the middle of.

With the queue tidied up, it was time to work on the rest of the room.  I don’t have a large stash, really, but I also don’t have a large amount of storage space, so it occasionally gets disarrayed.  The fact that I’m not the neatest person in the universe doesn’t help.

I cleaned up my sewing desk and gave both of my machines a good dusting.

The top of the hutch is my secondary queue storage.  In this case, it’s a black and white capsule that I’m hoping to work my way through… unless I get sidetracked!

The little bookcase sits under a bulletin board that I pin self-drafted patterns to.  It houses my knits and stretch wovens.  The bottom shelf holds the two bag that I use to hold the scraps from projects I’ve cut and am working on.  Some of these scraps may be large enough to become other garments, but most are just bits and pieces.  When I can’t stuff more fabric into these bags, I just might sort them – or just bundle them up and donate them somewhere.

My iron and ironing board live here, in front of the bookcase.  It’s just an inexpensive board, but I’ve padded it out with quilt batting and a heavy cotton towel.  I don’t use the iron holder on the end of the board to actually hold an iron.  Instead, my homemade tailor’s ham and sleeve roll sit here, waiting to be used.

That’s half the room done.  Now it’s time for the real work.

I have a set of wall mounted shelves I cobbled together that sit over a large desk.  The shelves don’t get disturbed too often, but the desk ends up being a catch all area.  So does the area underneath the desk.

Once it’s been cleaned up, the area underneath the desk is where I store projects I’ve temporarily abandoned, or RTW I intend, eventually, to rehabillitate or copy.  I also store downloaded patterns here – even though I tend to forget what I have there.

The desktop itself, once it’s cleaned, holds my laptop.  It would be nice to keep this area clean enough that I can use it to draft and trace on.  I’m not holding out hope, though.  After all, I’ve a cutting table in the basement that is currently holding no less than three projects!

The organization on the shelves is simple… patterned fabric on the top shelf and solids on the bottom.  This is my total collection of wovens.

And there you have it.  Several hours worth of work, but my room feels much fresher and, finally, clean.  Now, I have to address the rest of the house!  (I hate putting Christmas away.)

’til next time,

Liz

Simplicity 2404 – tweaked bodice

Part one of this process saw me basting and fitting the bodice here.  The Ogre took photos on demand, and I learned a few things..

1. My posture is not as horrid as I thought, but my dowager’s hump really is!
2. The princess seams were far too near the side of the bodice than I like.
3. Although it’s a PITA to keep basting and fitting, I’m really liking how much of a difference a few tweaks make on a piece.

After seeing the photos and really thinking things through, I removed almost a half inch from each side of the bodice front … but only on the front.  This brought the princess seams to where I wanted them to be – straight down the center breast.  It also eliminated the majority of the neckline gapage!

This would look much better if I had adjusted the bodice on my body to center it!

The center back received different treatment.  Here, I decreased the outside back bodice seam by a half inch as well.  This didn’t make enough of a difference, though, so I decided to remove about the same amount at the center back seam itself.  The pattern calls for a zipper, but this double knit has enough give that I can wiggle into it without a zip closure.

Blurry photo – sorry. The Ogre is new at this and I don’t want to keep hounding him!

Even with this much removed, the lower edge of the bodice still needs work.  I’ll be taking the side seams in a smidge – which is a highly technical term, as you well know!

I haven’t yet made any change on the length on the center back.  That will wait until I have the rest of the bodice fitted. including the fabric at the arm edge itself.  I may end up trimming the armholes in for better shaping, but I’ll hold off on that as well.  Even without those changes, the side view is looking much, much better.Before on the left, after on the right.It seems that the only wrinkling now is caused by the height of the armhole.  Since there’s still a facing to be set in place, I think this will be ok.Now it’s time to sew the bodice on the machine.  All of the changes have already been made on the traced paper pattern.

As an aside, now that I have The Ogre taking photos of me during the process, I find I’m spending more time in our entertainment/computer room than ever before!  My cutting table lives down there, I’ve moved my spare iron and a small ironing board to join it, and my pin cushion gets carried from floor to floor when I move from 2nd floor sewing room to basement cutting/hand stitching/photo taking/kvetching with husband area.  I’m actually starting to toy with the idea of moving one of my two machines down here, but then I’d need a SECOND sewing table… and that just seems a tad excessive.

’til next time,

Liz

Unfinished no longer!

I purchased and cut this fabric in July or August, 2012.  I got three steps into the process of turning it into a top before putting it to one side and ignoring it for 5 months.  The three steps were cutting the fabric, ironing on lightweight fusible interfacing and sewing the bust darts.

The pattern is Simplicity 7034, which I’m really hoping will turn out to be a TNT for woven tops.  Sometimes, I think my desire to have something turn out perfectly hinders my ability to progress with the pattern.  That’s the only possible reason I can see for me to have left these pieces of fabric languishing.

The time had come for me to finish it up.  Of course, the fact that my favorite white tee had been washed with some unstable pink clothing and is now a candidate for the rag bin really pushed the timeline of completion up a fair amount.  I needed a new white top and had absolutely no reason not to finish the one I already had started.

I suppose I should read instructions more often, but I frequently don’t bother.  This is one of those didn’t bother times.  I’m not sure what the proper sequence of construction should be, but my version mostly works for me.

I started by sewing and finishing the shoulder seams then adding the neckline facing.  I understitched the facing, topstitched the neckline in place and “stitched in the ditch” at the shoulders to keep the facing in place.

The flat install of sleeves followed.

With that completed. I sewed sleeve and side seams in a fell swoop.  Then I tried the top on.  I obviously need to tweak this pattern!

This is a really basic pattern.  Front with darts, back and sleeves.  Nothing fancy at all.  It’s a good starting piece to work on my fitting, since there’s not a lot of design distraction.

I got the Ogre in on the fitting act, and had him take photos of me from the front, side and back.  The photos show lots of areas I need to work on.  So many things that I’m not sure if I’ll actually finish it… although it fits just about as well as low end RTW does.

(Note to self – do not have the Ogre take photos if I’m feeling even the tiniest bit uncomfortable with my body image.  He points and shoots.  The end.  No prettifying.  Argh.)

Besides the dowager hump, which is more prevelant than I would like and which I am going to have to learn how to tailor for, there’s lots wrong with this almost finished top.  Here are the shots with the issues pointed out.

From the front.

1. Neckline too wide
2. Shoulders a smidgeon too large
3. Bust too snug
4. Darts too high and long.  Not to mention, uneven.

From the side.

1. Wrinkled sleeve cap
2. Shoulder seam migrating backwards!
3. Snug at bustline
4. Baggy at waist
5. Dart pointing to sky!  Eeeek!

And, from the back.

Nothing that isn’t noted in the side or front views.  However, I didn’t realize just how much fabric is puddling at my middle back!

Before this can become a TNT pattern, I obviously have some work to do.  Some things, like the swayback and full-bust adjustments are new to me, so I’ll have to put my thinking cap on.

So, back to the paper and pen.  I’ve lots of this fabric left, so I’m determined to get a nice white top out of all of this – even if I do have to stretch my brain and skills to get there!

‘Til next time.

Simplicity 2404 – under construction

AKA, “a little from column a, a little from column b, and something from column c”!

After due consideration, I decided that Simplicity 2404 was a good choice for a sleeveless jumper with a scoop neck.  From there, the tracing began.  (I try to trace all of my patterns, and keep the originals intact, just in case I {heaven forfend} need to make a larger size at some point).

I started by tracing the the View B bodice in both size 22 and size 24, nested exactly as they were on the original pattern.  With this done, I graded from a size 22 at the shoulder to a 24 at the bust.  I also added a full inch to the length of each bodice piece.  I’m hoping that the extra length and width of the pieces will allow for a nice empire seam to fall below my bustline and not on it!  I also chose to use the center front and facings from View A in order to keep that nice scooped neckline.  I didn’t modify the skirt pieces in any way – just traced a size 22.

As an aside to this, I just want to mention that my new cutting table, located in the basement, is a wonderful place to trace and cut!  I put on a bad movie, and forced The Ogre to watch it while I puttered.  It’s the best of both worlds  – at least it is, for me!

Back to the previously scheduled sewing…

I have to admit that I’m a “seat of the pants” kind of girl.  Part of my “new” approach is to learn the proper procedures and sequences that go into sewing clothing.  I’m actually going to follow the instructions – at least until I get a handle on the order things are supposed to go together!  Once I’m secure in that, I’ll probably revert to my “seat-of-the-pants-ness”, but I’ll do so from a position of knowledge and not ignorance.

I broke my resolve before I even hit the first step!  Because the fabric is a stable double knit, I did not stay stitch the neckline as instructed…. bad sewasaurous, no cookie.

Following instructions after step 1, I did, however, baste the bodice front to side seam front and (very lightly) pressed the seams toward the bodice front.  Always the rebel, I hand-basted instead of using my machine.  Living on the edge!

Does anyone know why it’s pressed to bodice front instead of bodice side?  Is there a difference?  I would think that pressing toward the side and away from the body core would give a cleaner line… but what do I know?

I cheated on the instructions again, and basted together the back bodice instead of the skirt.  I NEED a good fit in the chest area (if only to set my mind at ease) and I know I’m capable of fudging the skirt if I need to!

I hand basted front to back, then tried on over a tee shirt.  Wearing something underneath will let me see what the fit will be like over a blouse or turtleneck  Instead of basting in the zipper, I got the Ogre to pin me in.  It saved a bit of time, and got him involved… which may or may not be a good thing.

Here are the photos the Ogre took so that I could see how it needs changing.  The photos of the back are too blurry to post, but they did point out the trend of excess width.

You know, my posture isn’t as horrible as I imagined. That’s a good thing!

It’s time to work on getting the better fit now.  I’ll end up cutting some of the length from the back, but that will be after I have a better fit on the rest.

Rather than try to pin the changes while I was wearing it, I slipped the bodice off and pinned it where I thought I needed changes.  I did the pinning only on my right side, then took some blurry photos by myself.

That one pinned seam makes a lot of difference!  I only pinned from the center front, leaving the side front bodice the same size.  It’s enough that I feel comfortable removing the basting and cutting down the center front and back pieces.  Once that’s done, I’ll take more photos and I’ll let you know how it goes!

’til next time,

Liz

My new cutting table

On a recent trip to my local Salvation Army, I found the most amazing find!  There, in a thick plastic wrap, stood a dismantled carboard cutting table.  I checked the price tag…

$4.99!

For a SewFit carboard cutting table.  That particular table is no longer made, but a reasonable replacement currently retails at $129 USD.  That’s an impressive savings of $124.01!

Of course I scurried the piece to the cash, paid and skipped gleefully away.

The glee lasted until I got home and realized that my sewing room has no room for a dedicated cutting table.

I really love spending time with The Ogre in the basement.  He works and plays on his computer, while I sit at mine, and it’s the only space in the house that has a television.  But the room just wasn’t configured to include any more furniture.

The fix to it all was to dedicate Saturday to rearranging the basement computer/entertainment/”family” room.  I reconfigured our computer area, found a beautiful, used Expedit on Kijiji to store the boxes of books that hadn’t ever been unpacked, and moved my craft table to it’s own little corner.  With all of this accomplished, it was simple to slide the tabletop out of it’s plastic wrap and place it on the craft table.  I was very, very pleasantly surprised to find that the tabletop and the craft table are virtually the same dimensions!  The top sticks out less than a half inch.

The end result is a sturdy and stationary cutting surface.  It’s a bit too short for cutting for hours on end, but I’m hoping to come up with a method of raising the table by approximately 4″.  That will make it absolutely PERFECT!

But the absolute best thing about this “new” cutting table is it’s location.  Now, I’ll be able to spend time with Rob while still getting sewing related tasks accomplished.

For $4.99, it’s a real win.

‘Til next time.