Cleaning day in the loft…

Well, cleaning is not my favorite thing…and I’m pretty good at avoiding it 🙂 but this arrived at my door yesterday. It goes in the loft – but where! 

Over the last couple months I’ve managed to cover floor and tables with patterns, projects, and miscellaneous things. Actually, it’s been kind of fun. However, it’s time to clean and organize. This new dress form is for Ashley’s garments. Yes, I’m getting pretty spoiled. No more readjusting Emile between the two of us – I’ll have two dress forms! I did get a great price on this, I’ve been keeping an eye out for one for a while now. It will be super nice, since I usually having sewing in progress for both of us at the same time.

I’ll take of pic of the girls once this is set up and named. Ashley is pondering the latter.

No pics of the mess, but the loft is now nice and clean, even dusted and vacuumed. Wow.

 Looking at these pics, I realize I have a lot of stuff in the loft! But it is the only room in which I craft and sew and work on my stamp collection. I’m really fortunate, because it’s a good-sized room. And that double closet holds a 4-drawer chest full of supplies, more fabric bins, and a tall file cabinet with my life in it!

The loft is also the only place in the house where I have lots of pictures of the family, travel treasures, my dolls, sewing books, and silly things I love. Great little TV and good light.

I have a couple new blouses ready for the camera, but the leaves have kept me out of the yard. They got cleaned up today as well! Meanwhile, I finished my ‘muslin’ of the Rosemont Cardigan a couple days ago and have started blocking it.

It’s meant to be a little funky. I wanted to use up some small balls of yarn left over from mitten and cap projects. It’s 100% acrylic, so the blocking is different from that used with wool. I use a ‘hovering’ steam iron, very carefully, so I don’t ‘kill’ the yarn.

Parting shots…it’s a little fruity around here.

The biggest coconuts I’ve ever had!

All the areca palms have seed spathes for the first time, they are about 8 years old. Very exciting!

This is a mahogany tree seed pod! They’re very heavy and dangerous…

And they’re beautiful. Pure wood, in beautiful deep tones.

Strawberry guavas…the anoles should be here soon! Meanwhile Ms. Squirrel eats hers green. Miss Piggy.

Speaking of Ms. Squirrel…in the front yard, going for dates from the Chinese fan palms (below – and nearly gone!)

These have been a great favorite with the doves, blackbirds, mockingbirds, and blue jays as well.

Bye for now! Coco

Vogue 8883 Tie-Cuff Capri’s

 

First pair of pants for spring! Even though it looks like fall in my back garden. The mahogany trees trade in their foliage and drop their very large fruit in April. When this happened the first time after I moved here, I thought all my trees were sick.

This pattern is from the Vogue spring collection (although their model doesn’t look very springy to me). It’s a nice group of pants and shorts with lots of details and options: A contour waistband, back zipper, and multi-piece fronts and backs. Slashed hems, cuffed hems, plain hems, and just about any length possible.

The capri’s got me…I think they’re so cute – the cuffs and ties are so overstated that they really work.   

Tunic – Vogue 5881

Thank goodness this version was intended to be a muslin – these pants are way too big for me. I don’t know what happened when I was figuring my size. I usually sew a size 14 in Vogue patterns – for the life of me, I do not know why I cut a size 18! I’m blaming it on the blood moon…

Oh well. It gave me a chance to work out some other things I wanted to do with the pattern. Mostly, I needed to get around the zipper. I can’t wear zippers – it’s a skin thing. Shielded zippers, as on jeans and trousers, are usually OK…but that’s about it. Now you know why you rarely see me with a tucked-in blouse! Any pants or skirts I sew have stretch waists. And my tops are all pull-over or button-up 🙂

I redrafted the top of the pants to incorporate the depth of the contoured waistband (it’s 2″ wide) and straightened the side seams so that the pants would slip over my hips. Then I simply added an encased elastic waistband. Works great!

Here’s a pic of the super-cute cuffs. I put them on the pants before I sewed the legs together, much easier to handle separately. And I cut 7.5″ off the ties, they were really long!

Such fun. A couple more pics, this time with the Deer and Doe Plantain T-shirt. Love it! And it’s free to download on their website.

The fabric is the Phoebe stripe cotton blend jersey from Girl Charlee. I call it my Dennis the Menace shirt…

Parting shots. I was one of those people who got up at 3:00 a.m. to go outside with my tripod and camera and gaze at the beautiful blood moon. It really was so amazing to see it hanging in the sky over my house.

Ciao! Coco

Stepping into spring…

First…thank you so much for the many messages of support and prayer during my mom’s illness and passing in March. She was so touched and grateful, as am I.

I’m beginning to feel the stirrings of mojo for spring sewing. Much helped by our Big 4 pattern companies giving us some fresh options this season. And by BMVClub cooperating with timely sales. Added to the stash this week, hurry up, Mr. Postman!

McCalls 6554 Fashion Star Sundress. 

Not new – but how cute! Love the pockets, neckline, and swingy skirt.

McCalls 6958 Fit & Flare dress. 

So on trend this year, and perfect for Ashley’s summertime casual-Friday options.

McCalls 6968 Top, Pants, and Skirts.

Yes, this is for me! Adore the pants and skirt. Tropics to the max…

Vogue 1395 Pullover Dress.

Another fresh look, so many possibilities for fabric choices! I got this for both Ashley and me. 

Vogue 8883 Basic Pants Collection.

Cute, cute, cute. I’m in love with View D, fancy cuffs.

Vogue 8982 Jacket and Vest.

Except I’m thinking blouse in tissue linen and fine cottons. 

Shortened a bit and worn over pants and maxi skirts…

Speaking of maxi skirts…the Gabriola maxi! 

Deer and Doe Plantain T-shirt

Having exhausted my funds, I am so grateful for this free pattern from Deer and Doe.

I’ve already made two, soon to be seen here, a wonderful pattern!

Whew. That’s some mojo. And I’ve even ordered a bit of fabric from Fabric Mart and Fabric.com during their recent sales. Now I need coffee…

Bye for now! Coco

Vogue 8950 Pieced tunic…

First, thank you all for the get well messages – I’m still off my feet, but feeling better. Poco a poco! Meanwhile, I’ve managed a bit of sewing. Otherwise I would lose what little I have left of my mind!

Back story, if you visit my blog from time to time, you know I have a love affair with loose fitting clothes, maxi dresses, tunics, wide-leg pants. Over the last year or so I’ve sewn so many knits that I’ve collected a lot of nice pieces that are not enough for much more than a tank top – what to do? So I’ve been looking for a pattern to use to have some fun.

Enter Vogue 8950! What a cute pattern. Perfect piecing and lots of options.

Having said that, I made my first version from a fabric I found at JoAnns, a poly/rayon jersey that has a vertical stripe – how unusual. But it really works with this pattern. I was able to cut the large pieces – skirt, sleeves – on the grain. And the very wide stripes made it so much easier to match up the pattern 🙂

The black stripes don’t quite match in the front, but do match in the back. I had to make a choice. The front and back of an upper sleeve and armhole are simply not the same! And I have a sloping right shoulder. Add in the two-piece sleeve and bodice – I spent a lot of time working this out, and I’m happy with the result.

Here’s a cute feature – a side vent! I’m not a big fan of side vents, but this one works really well.

Sewing notes:

• The pattern suggests turning under the neckline for a 5/8″ hem. Not! I trimmed 1/4″ from the neckline and attached a self-fabric binding using a 3/8″ seam. I attached the binding on the wrong side and turned it over the seam allowance. Then folded the raw edge and topstitched it on the right side. Note: I cut the binding from the black stripe. Although it was on the vertical of the fabric, it had just enough stretch, about 15%, to work as a binding.

• The pattern has absolutely NO finished garment measurements! Not on the envelope and not on the pattern pieces. Which meant spending some time putting the pieces together and measuring them out. I really didn’t mind, I do it anyway, but I was surprised that Vogue offered no help whatever. I sewed a size 14, my usual size, but drafted the skirt out to size 16, working from the top edge to 12″  below the waistline (the widest part of my hip). 

• As a precaution, I added 1″ to the hemline. I’m 5’7″, but like my tunics to go well past the crotch of my pants… Worked well, I only took up a 5/8″ hem. I also cut the back hemline even with the front. The back of view C is about 1.5″ longer than the front and IMHO just looks like a mistake instead of something intentional 🙂

• The sleeves were almost perfect, with a 1″ hem on my right arm (my ‘long’ side). Which might be a caution for someone else – I have short arms!

Some pics of the inside – you can see the slight curve in the front and back bodice seams.

This was really fun to sew. And I’m looking forward to pulling out my remnants and making a mess in the loft for my next version. Hope everyone enjoys a nice weekend…

Ciao! Coco

My double-toe-loop sit-spin disaster…

On Wednesday, I got up from sitting cross-legged in the garden, planting pretty little sedums – and only my top half got up. My feet stayed crossed and I sat back down on them, hard! hmmm. No broken bones, but my left foot is not pretty and has developed cellulitis. I’m hobbling around, off the crutches now, onto a cane, but no modeling for me. Made it up to the loft to take some photos this morning, Emile is kindly filling in.

My February Vogue 8819 cardigan is ABB – all but buttons! I decided to add them to give this cardi a little jazz, it’s kind of plain in a solid fabric. In the next photo, the white threads mark the area that will have 3 buttons.

The back is so pretty (the colors are a little weird in these photos – my walls really are a goldfinch yellow, so the light gets funky, no matter what I do).

I’ve also been working on a muslin of Kwik Sew 3782, a simple bow tie blouse. It really is a ‘quick sew’ – the bias collar and ties are all one piece and are slipped through a casing at center front. It has a front, a back, and a sleeve or not. The pattern doesn’t have a lot of finish – no facings, plain seams, a fumbly attachment of the casing. Good reasons for a muslin. 

I’m using a very inexpensive percale for the muslin. It’s very soft and drapey, much like a rayon challis, which is my target fabric for the final version.

The biggest change I’m making is to the center front – I want to have buttons (again with the buttons!). This was so easy, because the area behind the casing is about 4″ wide.  I just cut the blouse straight up the center, giving me 2″ on each center front. Then I added interfacing to the front and folded it back  to form the plackets.

I really like this bow. Just about perfect. I cut it a couple inches longer than the pattern, thinking it would be easier to shorten than lengthen if needed. But I like it as it turned out.

Here’s the reason I got off track and started working on this blouse – it looks so pretty under the cardigan!

And since I’m sitting around so much, I’ve been thinking it might be fun to adapt this bow tie and neckline to Katherine Tilton’s layered dress, Butterick 5881, in knit fabrics with long skinny sleeves…

I’m not totally worthless. I’m glued to the Olympics (curling is my very favorite winter sport, followed by snowboarding), I’ve knitted scarves for my niece and nephew, in colors matching their winter coats, and I’m really enjoying reading ‘The Plantagenets’ by Dan Jones.

Bye for now! Coco

Vogue 8810 – A new dress for fall

It’s officially autumn, even here in south Florida, regardless of our very warm weather and leaves that stay green. And even I have the ‘transition’ bug, that little urge to do something different for fall.

I picked up Vogue 8810 last spring, not with any particular fabric in mind, but because I really like the lines of View D. It’s a nice take on a shirtwaist, very feminine – no collar, bit of a bow at the waist, soft gathers at the shoulders, pockets, and a semi-circular skirt. Perfect.

Then along came this wonderful cotton print from Alexander Henry’s Fulham Road collection, plum Sloane. I’ve had to rethink my initial neutral reaction to the Pantone 2013 Fall color palette…

Because they’re all in here!

From Holly Lobby

This looks like a fall dress, right?

It’s a Vogue Easy pattern, fun to sew, with lots of little details to keep me busy and content.

Sewing notes:

– This is my usual size 14, and the fit is spot on. I’m 5’7″, and had plenty of hem, actually took it up 2″.

– I sewed the waist with a 3/8″ seam, rather than 5/8″, just to get a tad more length in the bodice.

– The pattern has dropped shoulders, but I think they must work better with sleeves! The same pattern pieces are used for both sleeved and sleeveless tops, but sort of fly away on the sleeveless version.

From the pattern envelope

After I sewed the shoulder and side seams, I trimmed the armhole: 3/4″ at the top, curing down to 1/4″ between the notches. Then I trimmed off 1/2″ the side seam, starting at the armhole, curing down to the first notches. Seems like I do this a lot now, all the big 4 must think we flair out at our underarms! end of rant…

– To finish the armhole, I used a 1 3/4″  self-fabric bias binding, rather than a facing.

– Because the tie belt is over a waistline seam, I extended the casing to 3/4″ from the bodice edge. This way I won’t have to worry about the seam wandering above or below the belt. It works really well.

– Button, button, who has the button…this dress is buttoned all the way down the front. Except I sewed the skirt buttons through both layers without cutting open the buttonhole. They’ll never open!  And I ended up putting 4 buttons on the bodice rather than 2. This dress ‘wants’ to close higher on me, not something I feel like changing by redrafting the whole bodice! Easier to add buttons 🙂

I didn’t put a button at the waist at all, but sewed a large snap on the inside instead.

Cute dress with a modest twirl factor:

Ciao! Coco

McCalls 6559 – Maxi times two!

This didn’t take long! After I sewed the short version of McCalls 6559, I made not one, but two, maxi versions right away. It is such an easy and comfortable pattern.

This first one is done in a polyester/lycra ITY knit from Fabric.com. What a wonderful fabric! Feels so sleek, kinda sexy…

The second version is a really interesting print from Fabric Mart in a rayon/lycra knit. This is the same kind of fabric that I used on my short version – it’s very light, much lighter than ITY, and perfect for Florida.

I really did not know how this print would look when I ordered it. It’s hard to tell from a couple little thumbnail pics online. I assumed that the pattern going down my left side was the repeating pattern for the full width. Surprise – the pattern going down my right side is actually a border print! It’s not at all obvious, but slowed me down a little when I was laying out the pattern.

I was glad that I had plenty of yardage for both these dresses. I matched the large stripe pattern on the ITY front and back, it would have looked weird otherwise. But I made no attempt to match the circles and lines on the purple rayon! Just keeping the targets in check took extra fabric. Remember Vogue’s goof last year?

No changes for these versions, aside from those I made on my muslin. These two fabrics are both jersey knits and both have lycra in them – but they handle very differently under the needle. To share a few approaches that I find helpful:

• Sewing the long seam –  The ITY is done on the serger with a fairly small stitch length. The rayon jersey is sewn on the sewing machine with an elastic stitch, and the edges are unfinished. The latter is to avoid putting weight in the seams.

• There’s an easy way to keep the feed dogs from eating a knit fabric when you start a seam on the sewing machine: put your needle down about 1/4″ inside the seam. Using a straight stitch, back stitch a couple stitches, and then stitch forward. If you’re going to use an elastic stitch, raise the needle after a couple forward stitches and reset the stitch. 

• Starting ITY fabric on the serger can be tricky – the top layer tends to fold back as it goes under the pressure foot. Slippery stuff. To avoid this, I run a few basting stitches along the side and top of the start point. Works great.

  Speaking of slippery – placing pins parallel to the edge will hold ITY fabric in place much better than placing them at a right angle.

• I also finished the bound edges differently. On both, I sewed the binding RS together on the outside with a 3/8″ seam allowance, then turned it over the seam allowance to the inside.

  On the ITY, I stitched on the binding close to the edge through all layers. It is so slippery that stitching in the ditch is like chasing mercury!

  On the rayon jersey, I stitched in the ditch on the outside next to the binding through all layers.

• Last  – my lycra knit dresses are folded and stored on a shelf in the closet – lycra doesn’t wrinkle but it does strreeeeetch…..!

Now I need to go somewhere! Hope everyone has a nice week…

Ciao! Coco