Easy Skirt

Another version of Stretch and Sew 445!

Changes from my last try:

- I used the Elastic Waist Facing method I learned in The Ultimate Guide to Sewing Knit Fabrics Craftsy class by Linda Lee with this awesome Waistband Elastic by Dritz.

(If you use my Craftsy affiliate link you'll save 25% off her class. Cannot be combined with any other coupons. Expires January 11, 2018.)

- I altered the fit a little bit to make the hem about 2 inches narrower than patterned. It makes the skirt a little more body-conscious without being super-tight.

- The fabric is a knit I picked up at the Textile Center's garage sale in April. It is very fluid and drapey. I think it might be rayon? It doesn't curl at the cut edge and feels cool and dry to the touch.

- I serged my darts, instead of stitching them on the sewing machine. I love the results!

- I couldn't get a blind hem to work, so I initially used a fusible to bond the hem in place. The fusible came partially unstuck after the first wash. (I wash in cold water and hang to dry.) So, I coverstitched the hem in place, instead. It looks great and I don't mind the look of a coverstitched hem.

Changes for next time:

- PRACTICE that waist facing technique, so that it's a little more even. Other than that, I LOVE it. It's definitely going to be my go-to skirt for when I want to feel put-together and cute.

Practice Makes Okay

What do you do when someone gives you an old t-shirt and you like it, but the neckline is too small? 

Well, you practice slapping on a v-neck made out of rib knit, of course!

I was very careful not to stitch over poor Snoopy's nose. Technique from Stretch & Sew Part 1. I added topstitching to hold the seam allowances in place. 

Turtle Stuffy Toy

I ran into some sweet old ladies at Jo-Ann's when I was picking up remnant fleece to make this little guy and they were like, do you have kids? Are you a teacher?

No.

Um, why are you making a stuffed toy?

Because...I want to? Besides, so cute!

The finished turtle, sitting on the awesome model pincushion/ footstool that my nieces made for me for my birthday last year. She's cuddly and cute and I love her. The bear in the pattern looks cute but also has about 20 pieces to it. I may try it, at some point, and/or the elephant. It's nice to have options!

Gray Shirt

This is Stretch & Sew 760, and I made it as sort of a test.

Would a Stretch & Sew pattern really work with woven fabric? The answer: yup, this one does. 

A lot of side-seam shaping and no darts might make this a good candidate for a plaid shirt. I would reshape the collar, though. 1975, I think? That collar could achieve liftoff!

The shirt-tail hem is fantastic. I'm planning on basically grafting it onto a lot of my other shirt/top patterns in the future.

Peplum Top, Take 2

I made a version of this top back in November. I wanted to try again, with sleeves. 

This print is a bit of a departure for me. I call it "chaos plaid," or "Prince went to Scotland and had a party plaid." I saw it at SR Harris and I just LOVED it. 

I bought a little extra to make sure I would have enough fabric to make the peplum a double layer, as written in the pattern. It's interesting - basically the peplum has what I would consider a full-size facing/lining. This means that you don't have to hem the admittedly weird and very curved peplum shape, and it also gives it a little more weight. I made no attempt to match the pattern anywhere, since it's so chaotic.

The original sleeves were nuts, so I redrew the armhole to match a knit sleeve I already like, and simply slapped in that sleeve. One of these days, I'm going to actually trace off a sloper version of my favorite dartless knit pattern, without seam allowances. As it is, now I spend a fair amount of time monkeying around with different seam allowances and it feels like a bit of a waste. 

I'm super happy with it! I finished the neckline with knit stay tape, turned and topstitched it, and the sleeve hems, with a coverstitch. This is a semi-slinky ITY-style fabric, so I wouldn't normally think of it working really well with darts, but the darts in the back look really good. Maybe that's because they're vertical? 

Stretch & Sew 1550: Fitted Basic Dress

Seriously, how could I resist this beauty? 10 darts - 6 on the bodice and 4 on the skirt. I think it was first released in 1967, but this is the 1974 version. 

I changed the neckline to make it more of a scoop, and finished it with French trim. I also swapped out the sleeves. This dress only went to size 40, and I wanted size 42 sleeves at elbow length. So, I used the sleeves from a different Stretch & Sew pattern. I've noticed that some of the earliest Stretch & Sew patterns max out at size 38 or size 40. Later ones tend to go higher. It's not a problem, but just something to keep in mind as you're browsing around for these patterns if you are in the higher size range.

I did a small FBA on the bust, which moved the front waist darts over a little. So, I moved the front darts on the skirt over, too, so that they would still line up. 

I'm really pleased with how well I put in the zipper. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I love the 1974 instructions - which basically say, "Do whatever it says on the zipper package." I interfaced the edge with 1-inch-wide knit fusible interfacing, then basted the seam shut, used basting tape to connect the zipper to the seam allowance, and topstitched all of the way around the zipper.

Check out my awesome ponte knit! In some light, it looks purple. In some light, it looks royal blue. I love it all of the time!

I wanted to be able to fine-tune the fit, so I put the back together, the front together, and put the sleeves in, flat, before I basted the side seams and tried it on. I ended up leaving the top alone, but changing the side seams on the skirt from 5/8 of an inch to 3/8 of an inch, to get just a little more room in the hips. 

I used fusible web, for the first time, for the all of the lower hems. This is mostly because my fabric/thread match wasn't perfect, so I was afraid that even an "invisible" hem would show. I didn't think that a coverstitched hem would look right with a pattern this non-tee-shirt-ish. We'll see how it holds up, but I like it, so far. 

Looking at it on the dress form, I probably should have raised the waist a little bit. For my next version, I'll try to put it 1/2 an inch higher, and see how that goes. Otherwise, I'm very happy with the fit!

The bottom of the skirt hits me exactly at the middle of my knee. I'm only about 5'4", so a taller person might want to lengthen the skirt. 

Darts in Knits and Stretch & Sew 1505

I had a little of that wonderful bird fabric left over, so I made a Stretch & Sew 1505.

It's a lovely pattern! I did a small FBA and lowered the bust dart a little bit, and ended up with this unholy mess of a pattern piece. I've become a bit stingy with my Swedish Tracing Paper, so I use scraps to fill in when I do pattern adjustments. 

I promised myself that, if this shirt came out well, I would retrace the pattern piece so that I would have a "clean" copy to use later. So, that's what I did before I put everything back in the package. 

I love the scoop neck on this one and the neck treatment is great. It's not just an attached knit band - it's what Ann Person calls a "French Trim." Or, rather, it looks like she had to start calling it a "French" trim after she couldn't call it Chanel Trim, anymore. 

A lot of people who sew seem to be shy about using darts in knit fabric. So far, I've had good results as long as the fabric is 100% cotton or a double knit. I've seen darts in higher-end polyester/spandex blends in ready to wear, though, too. If you snoop shop at White House, Black Market and St. John Knits, you'll see a lot of darts.

The main things that lead to successful darts in knits, it seems to me, are:

1) Use the "right" fabric. It would be asking a lot for a very slippery or thin knit to hold a dart. It's not impossible, I'm sure, but I would test, a lot, before I tried it. Right now I'm saving darted styles for more structured fabrics and dart-free styles for more floppy/stretchy fabrics.

2) Make sure the dart point isn't too close to the apex. This is always important, but looks extra-bad on knits, in my opinion. The dart is sometimes a little more stiff than the fabric around it, so instead of just crawling up the apex, it actually sticks out, away from the body! Not cute.

3) I use a stabilizer under the dart as I sew it, then tear it away after I'm done. This allows me to both  not worry about the dart stretching out as I sew and makes sure I can stitch off the end of the dart without worrying about the machine tangling up. I keep a big pile of 1-inch strips of stabilizer by the machine, to make this easier. 

Stretch & Sew

I have a bunch of these patterns. So, I made a spreadsheet. As you do. 

Leggings

Work Friend: You didn't make your own leggings, did you?

Me: Of course I did!

I used Stretch & Sew 313, which is barely even vintage, in my opinion, since I was 14 in 1993, but I digress. 

Which means that I remember stirrup pants and I still hate them, so I made my leggings/tights stirrup-free but pretty long. 

I found a fabric at JoAnn's that is pretty heavy, has amazing recovery and was marked "workout to weekend." The pattern uses a cut-on elastic waistband, where you stitch the elastic to the inside of the tights, then turn it down and topstitch it in place. 

I used a tip that I read in one of the Stretch & Sew books for this - instead of pinning the elastic in place before you topstitch, just baste it down at the center and back seams (and side seams, if your garment has them). Then, you don't have to try to pull pins out as you're stretching your elastic to fit. 

Ann Person was on record as hating the look of zig-zag stitches on the outside of the garment, but I see this A LOT in activewear, so when my coverstitch refused to cover the super-thick elastic plus two layers of fabric, I just used a fairly wide zig-zag to topstitch. 

I hemmed the legs using the coverstitch, though. The leg and crotch seams were serged, with an extra line of straight-stitching inside the seam allowance of the crotch seam. 

It really is a fast pattern to put together, since it only has the two inside leg seams, the crotch seam and the waistband. 

And, yes, leggings aren't pants. But, they aren't supposed to be. If you really want to complain about this "new" fashion, it's been growing on us, as a society, for about 900 years. They're just more comfortable now that we have spandex.

Plain Black Skirt

Gym selfie, again. I know. 

This is Stretch & Sew 445, shortened quite a bit because I am short and I wanted it to hit around my knee and not mid-calf. It's a real workhorse pattern. There's probably a way to make the encased elastic waistband less bulky, but it doesn't bother me the way it is.

Party Dress As Top

Love it. "Party Dress" from Stretch & Sew. But I made it as a top and without any ruffles. It's fine, but I did notice something strange - the front and back armholes are identical. I've seen this before in a Stretch & Sew Pattern for a tank top. I like the top and it fits fine, so I don't know what I'm complaining about. It just strikes me as a bit odd.

It could be an inch or so longer. I was just using up a scrap bit of fabric, so the top is a little short.

Purple Peasant Top

I picked up some purple jersey at Jo-Anns and knew that I wanted to make a peasant-style top out of it. Paired with Stretch & Sew 1582 - perfection! I love these patterns not just because they are fun, but for the attention to detail. The sleeve isn't just a straight hem gathered into elastic. It's curved, so that it really fits the curve of your arm. I'm not saying that modern sewing patterns don't have this feature, but I really appreciate it, when I see it.

The neckline is kind of cool, too. The little self-fabric ties are there, but they're assisted by wider elastic. So, you get the look of little fabric ties with the gathering capability of a nice, wide elastic. Lovely. 

I like the length and the hem, but if I make it again, I might change it to a shirt-hem style.

Latex-Free Underwear, Sewing, and Me

I'm a responsible adult, so instead of writing here about my Big Election Feelings, I'm going to write about my undergarments.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and apparently I have a lot to say about it, so here goes. 

Most ready-to-wear underwear is kind of horrible. Especially if it's "affordable." 

I grew up not thinking about it a lot. I bought undies by the handful out of the cheapo bin at the department store or at Victoria Secret. The elastic always wore out in about 6 months. I used to get very uncomfortable skin tags from the leg elastic rubbing and binding up on me. I never guessed there were better options and I had more important things to spend money on, like film and photo chemicals. 

Then, around 17 or 18 years ago, my twin sister told me she had a latex allergy and I should be on the lookout for it, too. We both researched a lot in a quest for cute, affordable, latex-free underwear. I mean, lots of clothes can contain latex, but bras and underwear are the worst offenders. Even if the elastic used is latex-free, a lot of companies use latex in the thread. It just doesn't seem worth it to increase my exposure to latex on the wing and a prayer that the 3-pack of undies at the mall for $22.50 hasn't done that.

We hit on Decent Exposures pretty early on, and I can't recommend them, as a company,  highly enough. Their customer service is impeccable. I lost a bit of weight and ordered some undies that were a size smaller than the pairs I had ordered 6 months before and they emailed me to make sure I hadn't made an error when I was ordering. Fantastic.

$15 per pair for latex-free panties isn't unusual, and the Decent Exposures undies that I wore for years cost between $16 and $28 (that's with shipping, the more expensive pairs are organic cotton). They are worth every penny. From their website: 

"We try hard to be a socially responsible business. All our products are made in Seattle where our employees receive good wages and benefits and the flexibility they need for themselves and their families. We use recycled products whenever possible and pass on large scraps to those who can use them (give us a call if you're interested). We neither buy mailing lists nor sell ours, so you need not worry that your name will be given to others."

From another section: 

"If you need customizing of your order (i.e. latex free elastic or other modifications you have had to previous orders), use the 'Special Instructions' box when checking out to make your requests."

They also last for years. I had pairs that I wore for over 4 years. They didn't even wear out, exactly. I lost some weight, so they just didn't work for me, anymore. I still wear an Un-Bra from them and I absolutely love it.

Around the beginning of this year, I decided to try my hand at making undies. I found this article online at the Very Purple Person and was like, ok. This looks pretty easy. I started out by buying t-shirts at Goodwill and using latex-free elastic from Bravo Bella. All of their elastics and trims are latex-free and they have rocking customer service. I'm their customer for life.

Sew Sassy Fabrics also has some latex-free elastics.

Things learned from my first experience: 

- Seriously, mark the centers of things. Pattern pieces for panties are little, but that also means that if you're off by a bit, it matters a lot. I started out using snips to mark, but now I use Clover Wonder Clips.

- If you're printing a PDF pattern, make sure to check the width and height of the printing box. I didn't do this and my first pair of undies fit well in width but was about 20% shorter than it should have been. Not cute. I mean, I like a hipster style, but it really didn't fit well in the legs.

- I pulled too hard when attaching the leg elastic and ended up with undies that made it look like I'd been fighting off a school of tiny piranha all day. Also not cute.

Overall, ok, but not perfect. 

A few weeks later, I bought the Scrundlewear pattern from Stitch Upon a Time. I'd read a lot of rave reviews about the pattern and I thought it would be cool to try an elastic-free kind of undie. 

I made several pairs. They were good. I loved that I could either use elastic or replace it with a fabric band. I liked the "burrito" method I learned from the Very Purple Person, so I actually altered the pattern so that I could use that technique. The original is drafted so that you cut on the crotch as part of the front pattern piece, so I had to change that to get what I wanted and have a completely enclosed front and back crotch seam. I imagine her method is faster to sew, but I don't mind taking a little time on something that I'm planning on wearing about once a week for (hopefully) a few years.

There was something about the Scrundlewear pattern that I didn't like, even with my alterations. The fit was just...not right, in the back. I admit to having a rather bodacious booty, and in the comment boards and Facebook group of Scrundlefans, many suggestions came up for this, including "just use a size larger in the back." But, the width across the main part of the back was fine. It was just right at the bottom of my rear that was a problem. I considered shortening the crotch piece to pull the bottom of the undies forward, but that didn't make sense. When the fit on the leg bands wasn't just a little tight, the undies rode up like they were late for a gunfight at the OK Corral. That's not comfy, but neither are tight leg bands.

Then, I looked again at the Very Purple Person tutorial and had an "aha" moment. Her crotch pattern pieces weren't symmetrical. They're larger in the back. Because, well, so are we.

In May, I paid a little more than I usually do for patterns and scored a Stretch & Sew 2046 (Brief, Hipster and Bikini Panties) from The Sewin' Asylum. Again, awesome customer service. LOVE her. I made about 5 pairs of hipsters. They have a crotch piece that is asymmetrical and curved, which I think is a little harder to sew, but gives a really fantastic fit. 

Ann Person's method for the leg elastic is to measure your body, then reduce the length of the elastic by a set amount (I think it's either 2 or 4 inches), and work the ease of that evenly around the entire leg. It works ok, but I still wasn't getting the results I wanted.

Then, two things happened. 

- I took Beverly Johnson's Craftsy class on Sewing Panties: Construction & Fit. In the class, she has you measure yourself and draft your own pattern, from scratch. I'm sure it's awesome, but I haven't done it, yet. What I have done is use her method for measuring and attaching leg elastic. It's awesome. It's perfect, for me. You can even make a jig so that all of your panties will fit the same way in the leg elastic. GENIUS! She also does all of the construction "in the flat," which is easier and faster than in the round, in my opinion.

- I made a cami a little while back from this 1986 Stretch & Sew pattern (2072), and I didn't show it to you all because it was kind of a disaster, but when I picked up the pattern, again, to try another one, I noticed that it included a French Bikini. My favorite style.

1986, baby!

The crotch piece on these is curved in the back and straight across in the front. The fit is excellent. 

So, very long story short, I'm using a 30-year-old sewing pattern and construction techniques from Beverly Johnson to make the cutest underwear I've worn in almost half my life. I'm very, very happy.

I topstitch all of the elastics using the coverstitch on my serger. This keeps the edges of the elastic from flipping over and rubbing on me. 

It's cheaper, too. Even with shipping, the elastic and stretch lace I buy from Bravo Bella runs about $2.50 per pair. I could make it cheaper if I bought a ton at once, but I'm enjoying trying different styles and patterns. I bought my cotton fabric as a promotion through Purpleseamstress Fabric on Facebook. Back in January, she said she was drowning in little half-yard and one-yard cuts of cotton-blend jersey, so said if you bought a certain amount of other fabric from her, she would put in 10 of these cuts for free. The white lining is from a set of undershirts I bought at Costco, so I think of those as, essentially, free, too.

If I ever run out of these fabrics, I'll probably spring for organic cotton jersey. Let's say that's $8 per yard. I could definitely get at least 2 pairs out of a yard, and maybe more like 3. But, pretend it's just 2 pairs of undies per yard.

I could have organic, cute, latex-free undies for $6.50 a pair and less than 1 hour of work. Cheaper than the three-pack at the mall.

...and now I think this is the longest post I've written on this blog, and it's about underwear. Also, ads for underwear will now follow me around online for weeks. Perfect!

I contacted Dritz, which is the brand I encounter the most often in stores, and they sent me a list of which of their elastics are latex free. Not all of these work for underwear, but I figure that anyone who finds this page looking for latex-free sewing options might want this information, too.

Latex Free Elastic
Dritz 9325W –3/4” plush back  stated on package

Also latex free
Dritz:
9344 – 5/8ʺ  Glitter Elastics, black, gold and silver
9346C – lightweight elastic, clear
9347 – 5/8” buttonhole elastic, black and white
9348 – 3/8” stretch lace elastic, pink and white
9350w – 3/8” Non-Slip elastic, white
9577 -1 ½” soft waistband elastic, berry, green, orange, purple and tile blue
9387  – 1” Fold Over Elastic, black and white
9388 W– 5/8” double ruffle elastics, 20 SKU’s (maybe this means 20 different colors?)
9389 – 5/8” Fold Over Elastic, 17 SKU’s (17 colors?)

Walmart:
11346 – Lightweight Clear Elastic
11166 – 1” Fold Over Elastic

Babyville Boutique:
Fold Over Elastics:
35040
35041
35042
35043
35044
35045
35046
35047
35124
35214
35258
35259
35260
35261
35262
35304
35305

I Wore White for Hillary

I knew I wanted to wear white for election day, yesterday. I don't own a lot of white clothes. But, I wanted to do it for political, historical and feminist reasons.

I also wanted to try this Wrap Peplum Blouse from Stretch & Sew. It's number 325. The pattern also includes a half-circle skirt with a waistband and, even though it doesn't crow about it, a wrap dress.

I cut out the largest size (a bust size of 40), which is a little small for me, but my fabric is closer to 33% stretch, not 25% stretch, so I figured I would be able to get away with it. 

After cutting out the sleeves, two fronts, and a back, I had EXACTLY enough fabric for one layer of the peplum. In the original pattern, the peplum is cut double and stitched and turned to form the bottom edge. I guess this is to give it more weight, but it also saves you from having to hem a shape that I can best describe as a swoopy wing. You see, the peplum is cut out all in one piece, so it wraps around the body and also has that sweet/cute curve on both fronts. It reminds me of ballet class. I ended up just serging that bottom edge, mostly to save time. I tried a rolled edge on the serger, but this fabric just wasn't having it. 

You can see this above, but I abandoned the sleeves. I really wanted to like them, but they were just a little TOO 1974 for me. Poofs, gathers and pleats. All at once. A little too much for me. Also I didn't do a bicep adjustment so they would have been super-tight on top of all of that nonsense. 

I skipped all of the facings and I wanted to use knit stay tape for the edges I needed to turn under and coverstitch. However, when I looked in my bag of tricks, I didn't have any in white! After pondering adding contrast-color bindings (I didn't even have enough scrap fabric for bindings), I decided to just press the edges under and coverstitch without any stay tape. 

I'm very happy with the result. There is a little pulling at the underarm, but I think it's ok and I'd rather not add front darts on top of everything else. If I make it again, I'll substitute in armholes and sleeves from another pattern so that it can have t-shirt style sleeves. I may also straighten out the curved edges on the peplum, but I rather like them. 

The length is perfect and even the waist length is perfect, which really matters for a wrap top. Someone needs to explain to me why I have to shorten the bodice on new patterns and I don't have to do it on vintage patterns. Have people really gotten that much taller in the last 40 years? Was Ann Person really just smarter than everyone else?

Some of the earlier Stretch & Sew patterns top out at a 38-inch or 40-inch bust. I'm thinking that Ann was a skinny Minnie (she mentions having to do a small bust adjustment in at least one of her books), so maybe she just didn't think about the larger sizes, at first. Later patterns have a wider size range.

P.S. - Heartbroken, today. I wrote the rest of this post yesterday. I'm never going to stop making things or teaching other people to make things. It's important to me. 

V-neck Accomplished!

It's a slippery, slinky knit fabric, so it wasn't easy to sew, but it feels WONDERFUL on and I love the drape! It's the perfect background piece for a smashing knit wrap.

Yes, very pro photo - nothing like the lady's room.

I hacked the v-neck from this pattern onto the t-shirt I've made a few times. 

Party Like It's 1984

With Many, Many Apologies to Shakespeare

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury the 1980s, not to praise them.
The evil that shoulderpads do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with the '80s. The noble Brutus
Hath told you that decade was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath hair gel answered it.

--

Ok, all goofiness aside, sewing has spawned, for me, an interest that is...unusual. In the course of the last few months, I've become an enthusiast and collector of patterns from Stretch & Sew, a company that no longer exists!

It was founded by Ann Person, and you can learn a lot more about here here.

I was born in 1979, so I'm not especially wild about 1980s style. It's easier for me to be nostalgic about the 1970s and see the punk-rock side of all of the decades after that as fun. This could be because of my body shape. Those shoulder pads and big hair did very little for my ten-year-old, but already wide-shoulder sporting frame.

However, I pick up Stretch & Sew patterns wherever I find them, no matter the vintage or style. (I've had great luck at Goodwill and, lately, at the Textile Center Garage Sale.) I'm very unlikely to ever want a Dolman Sleeve dress. But, I DO want a good way to sew a v-neck, with awesomely clear instructions. So, this is going to be hacked onto another top pattern that I like, as a test.

I have to admit that those boots are pretty cute, though. That front view uses snap tape, which is pretty much restricted to children's clothes, now. It might look super-cute with a zipper, instead. Hm.