Things I've Sewn Lately: Butterick B5649

As a preview of my New York post -- in which I'll link to the other bloggers I met and show off the lovely fabrics I bought -- I thought I'd post about a skirt I wore on the trip.

I made Butterick B5649 a couple of weeks ago and hadn't worn it out until we went to New York (does anyone else try to save a garment's first trip out for a special day? Am I alone here?)

I can't remember where I saw a button-front skirt like this for sale, but I wanted it instantly. I adore buttons. I mean, the expression "cute as a button" exists for a reason, right?

The fabric is a slightly textured navy cotton blend from G Street Fabrics. Navy is one of my favorite colors to wear, so I was instantly drawn to this particular fabric for a skirt. I don't know why, but I find it really easy to buy blouse fabrics, but bottom-weight fabrics intimidate me a bit. I suppose I'm more familiar with sewing dresses and blouses than skirts. The only downside to this fabric was that it did have a bit of a fraying problem. It really wanted to shed everywhere when I was cutting! I wish I'd thought ahead and bought seam binding, but alas. Next time.

The pattern, interestingly enough, called for "waistband interfacing," which I'd never seen before. They didn't have any a G Street and the ladies at my local JoAnn had never heard of it (hilariously, the saleslady tried to sell me horsehair braid instead -- I had to explain to her that so far as I knew, horsehair braid was for hems, not waistbands!)

My mom was shocked that no one sold it. She, apparently, used to use it all the time. Amazon, luckily, had some for $6 and it was Prime eligible. Score! I ended up LOVING the stuff. So easy to use! It's two long strips of interfacing connected by thin bits of interfacing so that you can put it in the correct size of waistband and easily fold it over. I thought the finished look was really nice. I also cut it in half to do the plackets.

Here's a closer look:

I used cover buttons for the first time. So fun! I think they look so polished. I love things that match.

The fit on this skirt was great. I used the finished garment measurements and it was perfect. I made a teeny tiny short muslin, just because I don't trust those tricky Butterick patterns. Greg thought the micro-miniskirt muslin was hysterical -- I think my dummy is still wearing it as a cape.

In addition to the skirt, I've got on an ancient Old Navy top that I'm about 10 seconds away from ripping apart to remake (it has a very pretty low scoop back) and an equally ancient (nearly dead) J Crew cotton sweater. And, my favorite part, an old necklace of my mom's. I think my dad bought it in Florida on a business trip in the '80s?

I used the very bitter end of some blouse fabric for the pocket lining. I was so in love with that fabric, but G Street only had a yard. I managed to squeeze a simple blouse out of it and two pocket linings. Not bad, right? I had to make the pockets slightly smaller to accommodate the fact that I had so little fabric.

All of these photos, as you probably can tell, were taken in New York in the Fashion District information area. An older couple walked by while Greg took pictures of me (freezing my patootie off with no coat on) with my pockets out. Pretty sure they thought I was crazy. There was hardcore judgement face happening. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right?

Bonus picture of my favorite fashion photographer. <3

Click here for my Pattern Review post!

Things I've Sewn Lately: Washi Dress

When I went to Seattle, the ladies in one of the fabric stores I visited highly recommended the Washi Dress. It looked like a cute dress, and I was intrigued by the fact that one of the recommended fabrics was quilting cotton, so I snagged a copy.

I also snagged two super cute high-quality quilting cottons. I do think high-quality matters in using quilting cotton for apparel because the nicer fabrics have higher thread count (which means they drape a little more nicely.) The pattern itself is printed on really nice thick paper. It says you should trace, but I am so not a tracer, so I cut. 

Also, it has pockets. Any dress with pockets gets automatic points in my book. I love pockets. 

The instructions are super clear and all on one big page, single-sided, which I appreciated, but they do NOT adequately explain the fact that the back should be all one piece. It's two pattern pieces, which is the way I cut it the first time, but BEWARE. You should cut it all in one piece. Live and learn, right? I did it correctly on my shirt version.

The dress came out cute, but I have to say, the cut is not super flattering on me. (I apologize for the poor photos. Unless I can get pictures on a sunny weekend day outside, I have to use a LOT of flash.) I feel like it's a little.... maternity on me. However, I do think that would be fairly easy to solve. Also, I think this dress would be PERFECT for working in the garden/hanging out on a summer weekend day. It's so loose and easy to wear -- and light because it's quilting cotton -- that I feel like super flattering or not, it would be a dream on a super hot summer day. 

I did learn a couple of new techniques on this dress. I'd never done shirring before and I'd never used bias tape before (which is really hard to believe, because it seems like the sewing blogger community is crazy for the stuff -- but my mom always told me that bias tape is for people who don't know how to finish their seams nicely. Woops.)

One thing about quilting cotton that kind of sucks is that the edges fray LIKE CRAZY. So there's a lot of seam binding to do.

I also messed up the neckline on the dress a bit. I had to unpick it and that stretched the fabric pretty badly. Hence the wrinkle at the neckline. Lame.

I also made a shirt version out of a super cute (also grey and white -- yikes) quilting cotton with little anchors on it.

The above picture clearly illustrates what I think is unflattering on me about this shirt. It's just... too wide. It made me little a little pregnant, I think. 

Here's that shirring detail I mentioned. Shirring is super fun! You get to sew with elastic thread in the bobbin and regular thread in the needle. And then when you're done, you steam it and VOILA! it shrinks up into shirring.

Ultimately, I think I'll take a bunch out of that front panel. Don't you think this is much more flattering with a smaller silhouette?

I also made an awful mistake of cutting the actual shirt when I was trimming the hem. Ugh. It needed to be slightly shorter anyway, right??

All in all, it's a really cute pattern and the instructions and printing are wonderful, so I highly recommend it.

Planning a Spring/Summer Wardrobe

Source

This year, instead of buying new clothing for spring and summer, I'm going to try to make my new wardrobe.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not independently wealthy and I don't buy a whole new wardrobe every season or anything. But I do usually spend a couple hundred dollars about twice a year. I don't know if I'm hard on my clothes or what, but I tend to wear them out/stain them -- especially t-shirts and blouses.(Flat shoes, too, but I don't intend to make any of those. I'm a slacker.)

To this end, I bought several new patterns from Sewaholic and Collette and I already have some "Big Four" patterns in my stash. And I bought several lovely patterns in Seattle. Unlike the majority of sewists I know, my fabric stash is nearly nonexistent, but I have patterns galore (OK, I have like 20).

Protip: Joining Pattern Review gets you a month trial membership to their Friends of Pattern Review program. I saved a ton! You get like a 10 percent discount -- so I bought all my new patterns from there. I probably should be ashamed for not buying them directly from the lovely ladies who made them, but girlfriend loves a sale. 

Anyway, this weekend (!!) I'm headed to New York City for a sewing blogger meetup at Mood organized by Lauren and I am SO EXCITED.

I told Greg at least six times yesterday how excited I was.

I'm kind of a pain in the ass when I'm looking forward to something, I can't lie. 

I got us a hotel room for the night using a hotels.com 10 percent discount. Apparently I'm loving the 10 percent discounts lately, huh? Our hotel is right in the garment district near Mood. I've got a couple other places I want to visit, too. House of Spandex maybe? The name alone intrigues me.

We also want to get some good food and maybe hang out with some friends if they're available.

But mainly, I'm really excited to meet some sewing bloggers and go fabric shopping.

My goal -- and it's a fairly lofty one -- is to participate in Me-Made May. For the uninitiated, Me-Made May involves an entire month of wearing at least one self-made item of clothing every day.

I've got two months to make enough clothing to wear for the month of May. I think I can totally do it! I have more clothing than I've posted on the blog (gotta get on that, sorry...)

Now the most important thing on my mind: What should I wear for the meetup? 

Fabrics From Seattle

Finally, the post you've been waiting for -- pictures of the fabrics and patterns I bought in Seattle. I didn't buy a ton of stuff or anything... mostly some novelty prints and a few indie patterns.

I got two Colette patterns, Jasmine and Crepe, as well as the Made by Rae Washi dress and the Green Bee Scoop Tote.

The Made by Rae and Green Bee patterns were impulse purchases -- they had the tote made up in the store and I thought it was really cute. And the saleslady recommended the Washi Dress -- one of the recommended fabrics for which is, get this, quilting cotton. I have never seen that recommended before and I've frequently seen people deride those who sew clothes with quilting cotton. So you can color me intrigued. If I ever start feeling less sick, I'll probably make that up next with the grey-and-white pitcher pattern shown in the bottom center of that picture.

 I was really bummed that no one had a Collete Ginger. The second store even had a Ginger made up from a recent class they had, but they were sold out. What a tease! I suppose I'll have to order it. I don't know why I haven't ordered it... oh well. I'll get around to it soon.

In addition to the patterns, I got some super super cute fabrics.

Um, hello, mice on bikes! Mice sitting on spools! I swoon. The second I saw this fabric I knew I had to have some. I bought a yard and I plan to make a cute little pillow or two.

Yes! Nancy Drew fabric! This is a small selection of the swatch pack I bought. Maybe a small throw blanket? I've got 42 4-inch squares. Isn't it precious? I love Nancy Drew when I was a kid (you could buy six Nancy Drew books for like $10 at Costco, so I had a million of them.)  I especially love the book spine pattern. Any ideas for what I could do with book spine quilting cotton? Something cute?

This is a canvas-y fabric and was in the remnant pile. I love coral, so I thought maybe I'd make the scoop tote with this on the outside? Yes/yes?

I also got a yard of grey with small white anchors, the aforementioned grey with white pitchers and a set of fat quarters with nautical-themed fabric (center right of the first picture).

Overall, the fact that I got to spend a day of my vacation shopping for fabric and indie patterns made the trip even sweeter. I had the best time that day and I love the souvenirs I came home with.

Things I've Sewn Lately: Amerson Undie

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to try my hand at making underwear.

I won't lie, it feels kind of weird to be talking about my underwear on the Internet, but I wanted to share these.

The pattern requires a quarter yard of fabric, a truly tiny amount of cotton jersey and some elastic. For this first pair, I picked up some cute black and white gingham and black elastic.

I will say, that just because of the nature of these underwear, they do not photograph well flat. Or at least mine didn't.

Luckily, they're very cute on and I highly recommend this pattern! I can definitely see myself wearing these under a nice flowy sundress or maybe under jeans. I will say, though, that they're more like bloomers than traditional underpants. And they're a little... cheeky. But they don't ride up, so in general, I think I'm a fan.

Don't be scared off by the fact that the largest measurement on the pattern is tiny. The measurement is for what it will be before the elastic is stretched out by your waist. So to find which size would be right for me, I took my normal underwear size, medium, which called for a 25-inch elastic waistband. My waist is not 25 inches, but 25 inches of elastic stretches perfectly to fit me. Easy!

I did French seams on all the seams instead of using the serger or using the suggested method. I will say that the pattern is not super well marked. It took my sickeness-addled brain a while to figure out how to put the PDF pieces together and then, since the center front (CF) and center back (CB) are not marked, I, of course, sewed the wrong thing together the first time. Luckily, I was able to unpick and solve the problem, but that was kind of a pain.

And I think I'm over my fear of PDF patterns, so maybe a Mathilde blouse will be happening sometime soon.

Altogether, these took me two episodes of "Lost" to complete, so not bad. The included cutting out the pattern, sewing the wrong seams and lots of head-scratching.

I do think I will add a little bow to the front (I need to go buy some ribbon before I can do that) because it's difficult to tell the front from the back -- a problem I have with several of my home-sewn garments.

But I will definitely make these again. The pattern suggests eyelet. I do love me some eyelet, so I will probably do an eyelet version next.

You can download the free pattern here. Have fun!

A Few Tidbits From the Land of the Sick

Several short things to share today:

1. I've decided to make a pair of panties and attempt to banish my fear of sewing from PDF patterns (i.e. ones you print online instead of ones you buy.) The Amerson Undie, shown below, is a new free pattern from Madalynne, a blog I enjoy very much.

I fully realize I've probably crossed further into crazy territory by attempting to sew my own underwear, but there you go. I like to live dangerously.

www.madalynne.com

2. I'm sick again for the second time this winter and I wish my immune system would get its act together. Greg's getting over being sick and I'm getting worse by the hour. We went out to get takeout pho and bubble tea today, which had me feeling better for all of thirty minutes -- hey, I'll take what I can get! Pho is the absolute best food when you're sick. And, as a bonus, you don't have to make it yourself. Don't tell, but I may have it for dinner again tomorrow if I still feel crappy. It's just that good.

3. Greg and I are in the process of applying to a rescue organization for a dog of our very own -- yay! I'd been lobbying for a dog for months. I'm trying really hard not to fall in love with this dog just in case we don't get her. We dragged our sick selves out to the adoption fair for an interview today. I'm sure we were absolutely charming. We both grew up with dogs, but my experience is mostly limited to picking a puppy from a litter and we want to adopt a grown dog. It's so difficult to choose just one. They're all so different! I want to take them all home, but Greg says I can only have one. Killjoy.

4. I've just had a panicked realization that I should have bought seeds for my garden already. It's almost time to start the seeds! I've got a huge list of things I want to grow. I better get on that.

5. I'm going to a sewing blogger meetup in two weeks! Yay! Lauren from Lladybird posted a few weeks ago that she was headed out there. I've been just dying to get to Mood and I can't wait! I just need to get healthy before then -- and then make sure I don't get sick again.

That's all for now. Off for tea and ibuprofen and sleep. If I can figure out why my camera refuses to focus, I'll be back soon with pictures of my fabric and pattern haul from Seattle.

Things I've Sewn Lately: Butterick B5781

Butterick Patterns are a cruel mistress. This is my second Butterick with major fit issues. You'd think I would have learned from the first dress, but that would be asking too much, I think.

I have now learned that I absolutely MUST look at the finished measurements on the pattern for Butterick patterns. Holy ease. 

Like the grey dress, I had to take this one in a ton.

I think I got too comfortable making all of those New Look tops with their perfect fit right out of the envelope and outsmarted myself.

And of course I didn't make a muslin.

Basically I made every mistake ever and the neckline is still a bit wonky. 

But I find myself not caring overmuch. 

Originally, I intended this dress to wear as a jumper over a button-down blouse. But it looked horrific like that. Really bad. I looked like some sort of schoolmarm from yesteryear. 

Happily, I like it a LOT with my RTW wrap sweater. I think I bought it four years ago at Target -- it was definitely when I was in grad school, anyway. 

Here's a sweater-less version, front and back: 

Instead of darts, the dress has, I think, princess seams? I'm not sure if there are enough of them to be defined as princess seams (my princess-seam leotard back in the day had a seam down the center front as well). The curved seams were a bit of a challenge to sew, but using my mom's new fancy machine, it went fairly well. I started this project on my old machine and it was NOT a fan of my attempts to slowly sew around the curved seam. (It wasn't really a fan of doing anything slowly, let's be honest here.)

I made this out of corduroy with no wales. So basically it's like cotton velvet. The lining is silver-grey bemberg rayon. It's so nice and warm, but it's not super heavy, either. 

The major bonus of this dress, besides the flattering cut for those pear-shaped among us, is pockets! These were my first pockets and I was super excited about them. I adore pockets. My hands are cold 98 percent of the time and I like to carry pens around with me at work. 

Don't you just love my earrings? They're from Etsy. I fell in love with a similar pair on Modcloth, and then found the Etsy ones for half the price. Pretty sweet when that works out, right? They're little molded pink roses. 

Up close of the wonky neckline that I had to unpick several times. This, I think, is as good as it's going to get without me cutting new lining. Um, no. I'm too lazy to make a muslin. You think I'm going to redo the lining? 

Now that I'm a little better versed in sergerland, I think I might remake this wrap top. Do a similar wrap but make it a mock wrap so I don't have that annoying knot in the back.

Overall, I feel pretty smug. I got a compliment from a coworker who doesn't even know I sew. This is my smug look:

If you're interested, you can check out my thoughts on this pattern on Pattern Review.