Weekend Update

For all I was pretty useless for the first 4 days of the week, I managed a fair bit since Thursday. It was my birthday weekend after all - it was all about the entertainment :-)

Thursday started with our department breakfast at work - ah we stuffed ourselves with bagels, cream cheese, bacon, bruschetta & crusty bread and mini cupcakes - 3 contributors makes for a pretty filling amount of food even if it all 'doesn't' go together !
This link is not exactly the recipe used but the pic is spot on - ours tasted as good as this one looks ! bruschetta

Friday afternoon, a friend and I went to see Breaking Dawn, pt 1 - lunch, movie, popcorn, all good. We both enjoyed the movie. Can't wait for pt 2 now.

I signed up for the Friday Night Sew In and did spend the evening in my sewing room. I decided to take a look at my coat. You know, the coat I started for the Coat Sewalong in 2008 ! So, I'd left it with one front and lapel padstitched, but hadn't done the other side. For quite some time I tried to figure out exactly HOW the padstitching was done. For the life of me, I couldn't see what I'd done on the first side. Checked out all the sites, blogs and links I'd used before and found a few new youtube videos that helped some. There was no sewing Friday night (it was all reading) but I did learn a lot. For one thing, the lapel was not padstitched well on the side I already did - it didn't curl hardly at all - I need to take it out and redo it, I think. This is the second side which I did this weekend - the main body front but not the lapel yet.


Next up - another batch of Christmas cookies are chilling in the fridge - they will become Candy Cane cookies in the next couple of evenings.


And my finished UFO for this weekend - I finished my Hermione's Everyday Socks on Aug 6 (yikes !) and they've been waiting for me to weave in the ends since then - jeez, it only took me 15 minutes - what the heck was I waiting for ?!


Oh and there was a break Saturday night for hubby to take me out for a birthday dinner. All in all a really good few days.

Hope you've all had a good weekend.

A few more baby steps on my Coat

At the end of November, this is where I stood with my coat. The back was underlined, pieced together and the back stay was attached.



Today I did the preparation for pad stitching the front. Each front is sewn to its side front, the seams are catch-stitched down, the hair canvas is cut to size, basted on and the grid to follow for the pad stitching is drawn.


I used the information found in both Paco's Tutorial on the Great Coat Sewalong blog as well as Ann's blog. It was a great help to have this detailed info available. Thanks to both of you, Ann & Paco !

Next up - the actual pad stitching ...

Buttons, buttons .... and more buttons

Otherwise known as 'avoiding deciding about bound buttonholes'

As I was catching up with some blog reading yesterday, I came across Cidell's post about her FabricMart buttons. I ordered a bag of these as well (way back in March). $5 for 4 lbs of buttons is great bang for your buck !

I also purchased (way back in April) a few plastic storage containers that can be subdivided to smaller sections as required. Both the containers and the buttons have since been sitting on my table ... waiting.

While avoiding the 'dreaded buttonholes' I decided this was the perfect time to sort the buttons. Good lord, the amount of buttons in a 4lb bag !!! It took a couple hours, but it's done now.

As usual, I was not thinking about the camera so don't have a 'before' picture. I do have a halfway done picture though. The bag is still almost 1/2 full.



All that's left to do is shave a few more dividers to fit for the last few buttons.



This does have some bearing on said 'avoidance of buttonholes'.

I have been looking for buttons & haven't seen anything yet I want. I don't want to wait too much longer as I actually want to finish the coat sometime in my lifetime !

So, today I decided to go with the snaps, my excuse being...(look at the left hand pic, top right hand side), I like these blue anchor buttons but don't know if I like them well enough that I won't want to change them out later. And they're HUGE, so if I make buttonholes I'm stuck with that size later.

Hmmmm, I just checked, these buttons are 1-1/4" - 'exactly' what the pattern calls for - my excuse just went down the toilet...tomorrow I'm going to make that 1st practice buttonhole (the one I was going to do Friday, LOL)

The continuing saga

First - Gry, Diana, Trena, Marjie & Ann, thanks all of you for the Birthday wishes - it WAS a good day ! :-)

SEWING - So, exactly how many ways can I say 'moving along' or 'making progress' - I'm going to have to dig out a Thesaurus - LOL

I have to remember exactly how slow I am at this. Attaching the hair canvas to the back shoulder area took 2 full evenings ! Looking at it now, I think I 'may' have overdone the catchstitching along the edges - all the pictures I've looked at show many less stitches MUCH further apart. Oh well, it won't fall apart (I hope!)

So here for your viewing pleasure are the next couple of pictures.

I'm glad this handstitching is all going to be covered up with a lining. I definitely need more practice to get my stitches even.

Now the delay tactics are all used up, I have to decide.....snaps (easy) or the dreaded bound buttonholes (NOT so easy)...I think I'll sleep on it and take a wild stab a a practice buttonhole tomorrow afternoon and see what happens.

Weekend update

Only sewing on Sunday this weekend. Yesterday I started my Christmas baking. I've got to make enough cookies for 8 tins for gifts, plus the required batch for work (a large batch - once they know you can bake, there's no escape ! :-) ) plus cookies for the house - 11 dozen shortbread cookies now in the freezer - 5 more kinds to go ........ (yes, I forgot to take a picture, once I remembered, they were packed for the freezer & the filled plastic container is nowhere near as impressive as my kitchen table full of cookies).

SEWING - I'm waffling between the snaps that my coat calls for and learning yet another new thing - bound buttonholes. Since I can't put the interfacing on the front until I decide, I started on the back pieces today. The hair canvas piece is cut out and ready to be attached. The back and the side back pieces are sewn together.

I thought the seam allowances needed to be finished. Although I don't think the wool will fray, the flannel underlining needed something. I checked around the sewalong blog and found someone who'd catch-stitched her S.A's down. That sounded like a good plan, so here I am - Almost done but not quite ! LOL. I'm starting to understand some of the ladies who start a simple project and end up with hours of changes, adjustments, tweaks, etc.

You'd think I'd be happy just to get this thing done, but noooo, already I'm making choices that add lots of time to this project. I suspect that probably means by the time I'm done, there will be buttonholes and not snaps on this coat !

I'll post a pic of the completed back once I've got the last seam catch-stitched and the interfacing added.
Probably only Tuesday. Tomorrow's my birthday and DH is taking me out to supper...so no sewing tomorrow.

Movin' Right Along...

I just want to start by saying Thank You to Summerset of Pins and Needles ! She was giving away some of her old patterns recently and on Friday this arrived for me :-). All I have to do is decide which one I want to make. I like 'em all, LOL.



And the underlining of my coat is done...doing a bit here and there, it took all week. I just finished. These are all the pieces, each showing the underlining side and the wool.



On to the interfacing................

The proof is in the pictures

I absolutely could not figure out how come the first pic is so blurry - but it is definitely a photographer error - I couldn't take a decent pic to save my life...LOL

Anyway, blurry or not, these are the 2 under sleeve pieces with the underlining tacked to the wool fabric. The pin cushion held 10 or so pre-threaded needles before I started (THAT was a good plan !) The top of the pic shows the stack of coat pieces waiting their turn...it's actually not that bad, if I do a couple each night, I could be done by the weekend.



Couldn't you just kick yourself after you see a potential problem AFTER the fact ?

1) Seam lines are basted in white - just lovely against the wool...not so much against the white flannel background which is what will be showing when I sew these RS together - DUH - I will manage with it though. This exercise is going to take a LOT of thread, I have a large spool of the white cotton and that rayon thread was NOT cheap !

2) I just ran the the black inner basting threads from top to bottom. No knots at either end, VERY slippery rayon thread. Hello ? What did I think would stop this from just slipping out ? DUH No. 2

So, before I move on to the next piece, I'll knot each end of the black thread - better to figure it out now rather than later.

I'm working on it

No company, no migraine, no flu, energy is coming back ('tho slowly) and I'm working on my coat. Life is good !

I'd already cut out the wool and the flannel underlining and have just started tacking them all together per Ann's (I think) instructions on the coat sewalong blog.

I've started one sleeve and have figured out that by the time I'm done all the pieces it will be 2010 ! LOL really though, it's going to take quite a bit longer than I thought - so I will just plug away til it's done. Multiple threaded needles, ready to go, will be a great timesaver, I think.

And once I do have a few pieces done, I'll post a picture - at this stage I figure I probably need to show some proof that I'm actually working on this...I checked...my last real coat post was Sep 21 when I cut the muslin apart. Last actual pic was on Sep 14 -- time to get a move on.

Coat fabric all cut out

On Monday, Lisa of Sew Random made mention of how much you can get done when you're not spending time (lots of it !) on the internet. Sooooo true !

Monday I cut the wool for my coat and had plans to cut the flannel underlining last night. BUT, I got online and started my usual blog reading, surfing, etc. I must learn to pass by the computer and go right to the sewing table.

The night was going to get away from me...until, my mouse died :-(

DH was out bowling last night and I had 3 hours to myself. I had planned to cut fabric, so I didn't worry about the mouse, just got on with the cutting. Once he came home, I mentioned the mouse (he was surprised to see me 'not' online LOL). His verdict------------new batteries - well, duh. Of course, overall it was a very good thing, I made progress...next up, sewing the underlining to the wool.

Soon there should be something worth taking a picture of.

I CUT THE WOOL !!!!...

except the collar pieces and the facing, but everything else is cut out. Tomorrow night will set up the flannel underlining for cutting out.

A Busy Weekend - but no sewing

Well, as suspected, life had different plans than I did.

The migraine was NOT manageable so I didn't get anything done on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday - you get the picture.

We had a funeral on Wednesday and DBIL is in town for the week so we had a few people for supper on Wednesday and the big family dinner yesterday. Both at our place...we don't get to do this very often so I really enjoy it.

Now, my Dad's coming this Saturday and so I needed to make some bread for him; that was yesterday too since the planned supper was spaghetti and I was either going to make bread or buy it, sooooo, the results of the baking



Turned out really well, 7 loaves - 5 are now in the freezer waiting for Dad.

My coat -

Today I checked my wool flannel and just as I thought - it's not straight. Before I did the London Shrink on it, I did pull threads on either end, but forgot to check if it was square.

I roped DH into helping me pull it to square it up, but it didn't work - at all.

So now I'm going to try dampening it a bit to see if I can straighten it while wet then press it. I have no idea if this will work or not, but it's worth a try - I've checked thru the blogs and searched the 'Net and have seen this as an option a couple times.

Update - wool wet, 1 spin in the washer and pressed with a damp press cloth all the while straightening it out. Hopefully it will stay square. Time to lay it out for cutting. Tomorrow ... ???

V8346 - Time to start the coat

After fighting a migraine for 2 weeks (yes, weeks :-( ) and losing, I think it's finally on the way out. It's there, but less, maybe just a few more days.

So, on to the next batch of new things to learn ....

My muslin was done last week and I hadn't done a thing on it all week. Never mind the headache, it was pretty stressful to think of cutting apart all that work !

I took the scissors to it today and pressed each piece, now it's ready and waiting. The wool and the cotton flannel are ready to go (I think I need to check the wool, I don't remember straightening it ).

I was trying to decide if the flannel is to be underlining or interlining. Since I am using it more for warmth, I was leaning towards interlining, but I've read a comment on the sewalong blog where it was suggested that cotton flannel could be underlining since it's not so thick or bulky. I like the idea of basting the flannel to the wool and treating them as one piece. Guess that 's the next step, I'd like to work on it through the week and have both the wool and the flannel cut out by next weekend...that's the plan, anyway.

I do Believe the Muslin's Done !

That is, of course, unless someone looks at these pics and cringes because something is REALLY wrong.

Today's adjustment was the left armhole, had to take in the back at the bottom of the armhole - same adjustment I did last week on the right side. Both adjusted shoulders/armholes...

Front & Back

I started to fiddle with the waist line again, but on this pic, the waisline and the hemline are 'almost' straight.

The waist is comfortable as it is, so I'm going to hope that the weight of the wool flannel, the cotton flannel and the lining will all help this hang evenly. I think now feels like the right time to just 'go for it' and move on to the next step.

V8346 - Am I Close ?

I redrew the seam line on the back armhole to take up some of the bunching on the back. Then I reset the right sleeve with the shoulder dot back in the original spot.

The new pic is on the left, the mess from the last post is on the right.




The armhole now looks like a smoother line. There is still a bit of bunching just at the bottom but do I try to get rid if it ? At what point am I overfitting ?

Coat - V8346 - What am I doing wrong ?

Here we go again - Sleeves had diagonal wrinkles - after checking instructions on the coat sewalong blog, I unpicked the sleeves and moved the shoulder dot forward about 1/2"

The pics show tonight's change first - compared against the same view(s) from my last post.

Back...

Right side...

Left Side...

Ideas, anyone ?

More on the Coat - Sleeves...Again.

I've made it through another attempt at sleeves.

The McCalls sleeve was giving me trouble and I was still fighting with it (it was winning...) when I saw the instructions for converting 1-pc sleeves. I psyched myself up and spent 2 evenings tracing and redrafting the 1-pc Vogue sleeve into a 2-pc sleeve and here are the results...

Front & Back :

There are 2 right sides here, the one taken in the shade looked pretty good till I saw how the sun really showed up the wrinkles.

I've just seen the post on the diagonal wrinkle problem and I guess I'm going to have to move the notch forward a bit on the right sleeve. I don't think I have to do anything to the left sleeve, do I ?

The last time I asked about resetting a sleeve I was told to take the whole thing out and set it in from scratch...is it the same now ? Would I be able to unpick the basting on the back of the armhole seam and just ease it all forward a bit ? I didn't gather the ease between the notches, I pretty much eased most of the armhole - just left the underarm with no easing, about 4-5" or so.

Looking at the whole body shot again from the side, I see the waistline is not actually level yet...CF is still higher than CB. I think I'll adjust this yet again, CB needs to come up at least another 1/2".

So, any thoughts, re: the sleeves or anything else you may see ?

Thinking, Again - Is that a good thing ?

I tell you, I'm spending more time thinking and reading than I am sewing...EVERYTHING I want to do must be learned ! LOL

Today's quandary ? How to Line an unlined skirt.

So, I've never made a lined skirt, I've yet to make a BWOF either, but this, of course, doesn't stop me.

I really like the skirt in BWOF 08-2008, the one with the pleat in the front - sorry don't remember the number #106A. I've read the instructions and it 'seems' easy enough...BUT..It's not lined and I don't know how to go about making a lining pattern for it (I want to use the wools I bought in Toronto, and they'll definitely need lining)

The questions are,
1. do I cut the skirt pieces exactly and make the lining w/the pleat and the darts, or
2. do I fold up the darts & pleat on the pattern to make a lining piece without that extra bulk, or
3. do I make the lining with darts but without the pleat?

Advice anyone ?


Re: the Coat - well, last night I read (again) the instructions for redrafting a 1-piece sleeve to make a 2-piece sleeve and started to rework the V8346 1-pc sleeve. I'm almost done, just a few more lines to adjust and I'll hopefully have sleeves set into the muslin by (or on) the weekend).

I was worried to be so far behind with the sewalong but it seems as though I'm not the only one still working on and finalizing the muslin - I really want to finish this coat, so the longer I can post the muslin to the blog the better !

The Neck Fits !

Everything done on the last post had to be undone, except moving the right shoulder seam forward - I've also done a narrow shoulder adjustment - the shoulders were too far over mine and the neck was 'really' wide !

Then I just didn't quite understand the 'how to' instruction to make my neckline fit, BUT, I read (and re-read) all my books, searched the Net, and re-read the books again for making a neckline smaller. I'm not sure I followed 'proper' sewing tecniques but the neckline now fits alot better.

Those 1" seam allowances came in handy. I had already done a round back adj. and the CB was sitting ok on my neck. The long seams where the lapels will go had the 1" seam allowance. What I did was mark 3/4" on each shoulder seam seam allowance closer to the neck and just drew a line from CB to that mark, decreasing the neck width, and tapering back down the lapel to the original marking at the bottom. The S.A. on the back neckline was a tad short but it was just enough to get this basting stitch in .

How did I do ? and am I now ready to try the sleeves again ?

I've also noticed that although the line I drew from my ear to shoulder on each side matches up with its seam and looks ok, I only moved the shoulder seam forward on the RIGHT side. The seam on the left side is the original one which seems to have moved into place after adjusting for the high round neck and adding shoulder pads - is it possible to only have to move 'one' shoulder ?

Not Much Progress on the Coat

Well, I'm really stuck on the sleeves for this coat. I really want to follow along with the group and use the same techniques, but I'm a little out of my depth.

I've only worked on the right sleeve of the coat, will ignore the left one til the right one is good.

I moved the shoulder seam forward 1/4" at the neck, and 1/2" at the armhole seam.

I raised the armhole up 1/2" and reset the sleeve by putting on the body of the muslin and slipping on the sleeve and fiddling with it til it hung straight. Then I basted it in to find the front is ok - the back is full of wrinkles.

Still don't know what to do - I think I may need a narrow shoulder adjustment. Some of the wrinkles match the pics for narrow shoulder in Fast Fit and Fitting Finesse. What I don't know how to do now is a narrow shoulder adj on a muslin already sewn up. I think I might have to start all over.

Here are the pics of the new right sleeve.

V8346 - Muslin Adjustments

It's hard to believe but I've managed to to all the adjustments suggested on the coat sewalong :

1) High Round Back - I raised the neckline 1-1/4" (sliced the back just under the seam line at CB, lifted the CB up and basted muslin fabric into the wedges)

2) Bust Point too high - Low Bust Adjustment - I lowered the bust point 1-1/4" (too chicken to cut the pattern tissue, from the side back piece I traced the pattern of the bust onto tracing paper, used the grainline of the side back as placement, shifted the template down and traced the new lines onto the muslin, merging with the original seam lines just before the top of the side back piece and the waistline.

3) Waist too Tight - let out 1/4" at each side seam - total 1" gained ('may' need a bit more - once I try it on with a winter weight sweater). Edit - Yup, needed a little more room - let out 1/4" on all 4 princess seams as well - another 2" gained.

4) Waist too Low - raised the waist line 1" (traced a line 1" up and folded original waistline up to meet the new line, basted the seam). Edit - front waist still too high. Raised back 1-1/2" to the side seams. Raised front 1" at CF tapering up to 1-1/2" at side seams.

5) Since the waist was raised, the hem needs to be lowered by 1" (front) to 1-1/2" (back) as well.

6) Still have to set in the sleeves. Edit - V8346 is a 1-piece sleeve, will try to fit M5247 instead.

7) Marji suggested changing the angle of the shoulder seams to make room for the shoulder pads - I'll try it on first. Edit - I think they're ok, will confirm when I post the next pics.

We have company coming tomorrow - will only be able to continue on Saturday.