Its Been a Busy Month

I have to apologize for not posting anything in the last few weeks. June has been a very busy month for me. My job workload has picked up. I am nearing the end of my pregnancy (5 weeks left, hopefully less) and it has made it difficult to sit at my sewing machine for longer periods of time. It also makes it hard to scoot up close to the desk because my belly sticks WAY out the front.

BUT...

I am totally excited that I have some new projects on my table.

I will be starting on a purse project tonight. I am super scared to do it though. I have very limited material and the emotional value is immense. What is it made out of you ask?

Wait for it...

SEAL!

Yes thats right. Real seal hide. From Alaska. My grandmother got it like 50 years ago and kept it preserved. She recently sent it down here to Phoenix and asked that either my mom or I make something out of it. Since we don't want to cut or waste any of it, it looks like it will be a purse. I will definitely post pics. I am so scared but so excited to do it.

My best friend just announced recently that she is getting married also. Probably in the spring. So I will be working with her on the bridesmaid/wedding dresses. Makes me proud/happy that she might be wearing a dress that I make to her wedding. (And i'll be ok with it if she decides on a different dress, but this will be fun anyway). I have scraps of lots of different formal material so I am looking forward to learning how to deal with material I have not had the chance to work with yet.

And finally I also have a few things I am tinkering with, but nothing particularly excited about. I do promise to have pics up soon about the purse. I am hoping to finish that this weekend since it will be a long 3 day weekend! Hope to be very productive.

A Repair and an Addition

My daughter goes to day care because both my husband and I work full time. I love my babysitter she is so fantastic with all the kids and makes day care/babysitting every day more like preparing for school. I love it!

Ok, back on point...

My babysitter asked if I could fix this shirt for her (it took me like 6 weeks or more to get to it because I kept forgetting.) She asked if I could fix the straps and add bra cups into it. So I told her I would try.

The straps were being held on to the shirt by the lace around the top. The lace on one side had begun to fray and was going to tear off completely at any moment. Repairing the straps was easy. I just cut the straps off and reattached them to the shirt in the same place. We lost about half an inch of lace on the very end, but overall.. NOT a big deal.

Secondly, she asked me to add bra cups to the shirt. I was not sure on how this was going to work. But it went smoother than expected. I went to Joann's and bought a bikini bra insert. I sewed a lightweight cotton fabric to the side of the cup that would be against the skin. The texture of the bra cup its self would not have been comfortable. Once I did that, I sewed the cups to the inner lining of the shirt. This was great because there was already a lining. I didn't have to make one so the seams would not show on the front of the shirt. If there had not been a lining, I would have made one and attached it. The only thing I would have done differently really is the serging. I did not think to serge the liner on the cup to the cup until after I had already attached it to the shirt. I serged it, but it was not as neat as it could have been. But I'm still glad I did it. The edge of the cup looks a lot neater now even if its not perfect.

I am interested in how to perfect the built in bra. It was a bit difficult to figure out how I was going to approach it, but I am looking forward to working with that element some more.

Faux Fur Collar

I'll be honest with you... I have NO idea what this is for.

The only thing I can think of is its kinda like a scarf that you tie on instead of wrap around. But then again, it sits on your shoulders and not around your neck to keep you warm. *confused face* Anywho, I made it because it was simple and fast and it gave me a reason to play with this super soft faux fur that I had just laying around.

Working with the faux fur was messy! The fuzzies kept falling off everywhere. Maybe I was doing something wrong, maybe the material was just not that great of a quality. I just don't know. The bottom part is black crushed velvet (which by the way made the fur fuzzies stick to it like a super magnet). Other than the fur flying, this was a very easy little project. Stick ribbon between top and bottom. Sew top to bottom. Turn inside out. Slipstitch open end to finish. Done.

Super Fast. Super Easy. Still don't know what its for :)

Yabba Dabba Doo!!

My best friend of several years asked if I could help her make halloween costumes for her, her boyfriend, and their son. They wanted to do Flinstones with the fake fur type of material. We didn't use a pattern because of how simple it was going to be. A shirt for her. A skirt for the little one. And a tunic kind of thing for the boyfriend. Overall, this project was very simple. I did the sewing and she attached the black triangle pieces for the decoration.

However... i did run into one snag. While sewing this material together it kept slipping against itself and causing the sides to be uneven. VERY frustrating. I asked my mom if she had any thoughts on how to remedy the slipping. She suggested I put something in between the right sides of the material so they wouldn't slip against each other anymore. I got tissue paper (you know the kind you put in gift bags) and sewed that into the seam. It worked out really well. It stopped the slipping and then when I was done it ripped right out like it was never there. Fantastic idea. Thanks mom!

For My Daughter

My 3 year old daughter LOVES when I sew at home. Her favorite part is sitting on my lap and pulling the "binks" (pins) out as we sew and putting them on my magnetic pin cushion. She likes to help by putting her hands on the back of my hands as we feed the fabric through the machine. She asks me on a regular basis "are we gonna sew today mom?". I love it. Having her help me with the pins and the sewing is nice because her attention span can only handle a few minutes at a time. She helps me sew, then goes to play while I pin the next section we are gonna work on. Then she is ready to sit still again for a few minutes. The MOST exciting part is when we are all done and she puts on the clothes that we've made and runs to tell her dad that SHE made her own clothes all by herself. Oh, and mom helped a little. The pride and excitement that is on her face is totally priceless. I was thinking when she gets older that if she is still interested I may buy her her own little kids sewing machine. That would be fun for us to do together.

These pajama pants probably would have taken me less than an hour to do had I been working on the myself. But my daughter was helping and that about doubled the time it took. I'm ok with that though because we did it together and it was fun. My mom gave me the fabric I used for the pants to use as curtains. I liked the little ducks on the bottom and thought it would be super cute as a pair of pants. And so it was. They are a little bit big for her right now but she loves to wear them because she made them.

In all honesty I really do NOT like this shirt. It came out too short for as wide as it is (even though I followed the pattern), and trying to make the straps was impossible. Make thin straps then turn them inside right. Yeah, right. I finally gave up on the straps and used bias tape. I had never used bias tape before and didn't realize that one side is longer than the other AND that you are supposed to open it up, sew it, fold it over, and sew it again. At least I think thats the way it was explained. I was annoyed and confused with this shirt. It went in the "never gonna wear it but learned something anyway" pile.

School Project: Denim Skirt

This project has got to be my absolute favorite so far. We were allowed to pick any pattern we wanted as long as it had a waistband and a zipper. As soon as I saw the pattern for this skirt I loved it. Again it was either McCalls or Butterick. I can never seem to remember which one. They are both so similar that I don't really register the difference in my head.

Working with denim was different than working with regular cotton. As I'm sure you all know, denim is much heavier. So just simply working with the fabric was a new experience for me. Then you add in pockets, zipper, waistband, and the godets (the triangle pieces that make the flair at the bottom of the skirt) and it was a lot of new stuff for one project.

The zipper was easy. Open it up, attach one side. Close it, attach the other. Done. Took a little playing with, but over all relatively simple.

The pockets were a little confusing. Firstly because the pattern didn't say I needed a lining (yeah duh I should have known) so I had to hunt down some material to use for a lining. Thankfully my mom (who took the class with me) had some extra cotton i could use. Then I had to serge the pockets to the denim so they would stay in place. That wasn't too bad. Just a little odd, but it makes it look a lot cleaner than letting them just hang free.

The waistband was easy. The only really time consuming part with that was slipstitching (hand sewing) the entire thing together to finish it.

Now, the godets. My favorite part. Some of the sewing machines at school also do embroidery. The teacher's assistant was a fantastic help with these. There were a total of eight of pieces that we wanted to embroider. Normally, she would not have been able to help me. But because putting the embroidery on the fabric was not actually part of the construction of the skirt she was able to do that for me while I worked on construction. We used a vibrant, shiny purple thread for the embroidery that I also used for the top stitching within the whole skirt to keep the common color theme going. It took some trial and error to find the neatest way to attach the godets to the other pieces. So as long as you don't look at the underside of this skirt it looks pretty awesome :)

The only thing I am really bummed about is the fact that my machine at home did not like that embroidery thread and kept knotting it up. So the only place that I did not use the purple as a top stitch was the bottom hem of the skirt. I would love to make more of these skirts for people to wear. The only problem is I don't have an embroidery machine. Unless someone wants to buy me one for a few thousand dollars...

The zipper was easy. Open it up, attach one side. Close it, attach the other. Done. Took a little playing with, but over all relatively simple.

The pockets were a little confusing. Firstly because the pattern didn't say I needed a lining (yeah duh I should have known) so I had to hunt down some material to use for a lining. Thankfully my mom (who took the class with me) had some extra cotton i could use. Then I had to serge the pockets to the denim so they would stay in place. That wasn't too bad. Just a little odd, but it makes it look a lot cleaner than letting them just hang free.

The waistband was easy. The only really time consuming part with that was slipstitching (hand sewing) the entire thing together to finish it.

Now, the godets. My favorite part. Some of the sewing machines at school also do embroidery. The teacher's assistant was a fantastic help with these. There were a total of eight of pieces that we wanted to embroider. Normally, she would not have been able to help me. But because putting the embroidery on the fabric was not actually part of the construction of the skirt she was able to do that for me while I worked on construction. We used a vibrant, shiny purple thread for the embroidery that I also used for the top stitching within the whole skirt to keep the common color theme going. It took some trial and error to find the neatest way to attach the godets to the other pieces. So as long as you don't look at the underside of this skirt it looks pretty awesome :)

The only thing I am really bummed about is the fact that my machine at home did not like that embroidery thread and kept knotting it up. So the only place that I did not use the purple as a top stitch was the bottom hem of the skirt. I would love to make more of these skirts for people to wear. The only problem is I don't have an embroidery machine. Unless someone wants to buy me one for a few thousand dollars...

School Project - Collared Button Down Shirt

This was a tough one. I honestly never thought I was going to finish this shirt. Class is 16 weeks long and this shirt I think took me 10 or 11 class periods to do. I am glad this shirt is done, but not very happy with some of the details on it. I'm glad I had guidance with this one. Otherwise, it would have gone in the trash long before it got finished.

The collar. *sigh* I had to redo this one. Good thing I had extra fabric. I think the best advise I can offer to anyone is ALWAYS have extra fabric. You never know when you might need it. I was plugging along following the instructions (apparently that was my first mistake) when my teacher announced that she has a better, easier, nicer looking way to make a collar. Crap. I already made the collar according to the instructions. Ok, scrap that. Start over. I am not going to provide step by step instructions for most things, but for the things that I find make a real difference I will because I know it made my life more simple, or made the overall garment look a lot nicer. I am happy to share the good tidbits.

For the collar, she had us choose which side was going to be the under side of the collar and cut those pieces 1/4" shorter on the sides that were NOT going to connect with the shirt. And cut the interfacing a total of 1/2" shorter on the sides that were NOT going to connect with the shirt. Melt the fusible interfacing (great stuff by the way) to the under collar. Then sew the top collar pieces to the bottom pieces like normal. By shortening the sides of the back then sewing them together, it pulls the seam under. When you iron and attach the collar to the shirt you do not see the seams, AND you don't have to bother with top stitching to hold anything in place. This all makes the collar crisper and neater looking. Very cool.

Ok, back to non specifics. Button holes are easy when you have the little foot attachment for your sewing machine. I love it. Still trying to figure out machine attached buttons. Never seems to turn out quite right for me, BUT I'm working on it. I also did darts for the first time on this shirt. Start from the outside and work to the point. Easy.

Now that I have done a shirt like this I could do it again a lot quicker, but it is definitely more involved than other things I've made. And I know I have to refine some things still. But I am happy with this overall despite the amount of time it took to make.

School Project - T-Shirt

This shirt was my second school project. The pattern was for a basic t-shirt (just the black part) but I wanted to change it up a little bit. I asked my teacher if she could show me how to add the long sleeves and the bottom in pink. For the record... it was WAY easier than i ever expected it to be. Faux layers are easy.

I bought the same kind of straight up non stretch cotton as I did for the pj pants. Again, don't like the texture, but good for learning with, and another simple McCalls or Butterick pattern. All of the patterns I have used so far are McCalls or Butterick. But for the sake of consistency, I will continue to post that little bit of info :)

Adding the faux sleeves was very easy. Instead of cutting the pattern piece for the short sleeve version, I kept it long for the long sleeve version. Then, when I pinned it to cut the fabric I just folded it on the line where I would have cut it short. I cut the top sleeve section in black and the bottom section of the sleeve piece. Then I sewed the pink section to the black section. Easy peasy. After getting my two tone sleeve in one piece I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next. The simplicity blew me away. Fold the black part down and over the pink part and top stitch to hold it all in place. Done! Faux layered sleeves! The bottom was exactly the same except I didn't use a pattern piece. It was just rectangle shaped pieces of material the length and width that I needed.

The contrast of the black and bright pink was a lot of fun to work with and I really like the overall outcome. I know you can not see it in this picture, but all the stitching (hemming and top stitching) that is on the black shirt is a bright pink thread for contrast and black thread on the pink material. I think it gives it another interesting but subtle think to keep your eyes interested.

School Project - Pajama Pants

I am currently taking sewing classes at a local community college to get my A.A. in Fashion Design. I am super stoked about being in school for this. I tried college right after high school and it didn't work out. Then I tried college again about 4 years ago. Again... didn't work out. Now, I have finally found something that motivates and actually excites me to be in school. If you would have asked me two and a half years ago if I even wanted to own a sewing machine, I would have laughed and told you "That is what the store is for, and thats why my mom has a sewing machine. So I don't have to."

These pajama pants are the first thing that I made when I started school. I knew a little bit about sewing and could have probably opted to skip the uber basic sewing class. But, I wanted to start at the ground and work my way up. And in all honesty I am very glad I have that foundation now.

For these pants I bought straight up no stretch simple cotton fabric. I'm not a big fan of it because it is not as soft as I usually like, but for the purposes of learning it makes everything a lot easier. You do not have to worry about the fabric slipping against itself because of the texture, and it doesn't stretch, so there is no worry about the stitches getting weird. The pattern that I bought was a basic McCalls or Butterick pajama pants pattern. No zippers. No elastic. Just a drawstring. Looking back now I realize pajama pants are probably the most simple piece of clothing you can make. This being my first try at making something though it was a very slow process. I think I took about 24 hours total work time to get these done. Now, I could whip out a pair of these from zero to done in an hour to an hour and a half.

With these pants I learned a lot of basic sewing techniques. How to use a serger. How to fit a pattern to make sure its going to fit right BEFORE cutting material. What the different markings on the patterns mean. How to make sure your material is straight. And about a million other very simple very basic things. I never knew that tearing material (such as cotton) across the top will actually give you a straighter edge than if you cut it. Weird huh?

Pattern Making Take 2 - The Asymmetrical Skirt

After the Triangle Dress I made this skirt. I had purchased the material for a shirt that apparently needed more material than I had. So this nice soft (forgot what kind of material it is because its been so long AND I don't know enough about textiles to know a fabric by feel) poly/cotton blend-ish material just sat in my pile unused.

Making this pattern was way more simple than the Triangle Dress. This was basically cut rectangles of fabric and angle them off. The back is the same as the front angled higher on the left front and right back. The black part is straight and even. The flowered bottom part is gathered at the top to give it a more flowy kind of feel.

This too is an unfinished work :( I just barely put an elastic in it, but I think its too small. I haven't perfected that yet. And the bottom hem is not done either. I think I hemmed this skirt about 5 times before I gave up. My sewing machine at the time was not great and did not work well with the material. There were several times I got the *CHUNK*CHUNK*CHUNK* noise and my bobbin (underneath thread for those of you that aren't in the know) was all knotted and destroyed. So, after unpicking several times I finally gave up.

I really like this skirt (I've wondered several times if it really is a skirt, or a strapless mini dress). I like the feel of the fabric and the way it flows and moves so smoothly. I really like the pattern of the black and white flower fabric too. And just like the Triangle Dress, making this pattern was also a fun and fulfilling experience. Hmm... maybe I can make patterns for a living. I hear they make great money. :D

The Triangle Dress

This dress was the first thing that I designed myself. I made the pattern and sewed it. It is unfinished (not hemmed at the bottom and no zipper in the back). This was fun for me because I learned a lot from it.

At this point I had not taken any sewing classes and I had no clue how to make a pattern. I just kind of went with what I thought was supposed to happen. There are definitely things that I know now that would help me go back and refine this, but for being try number one at pattern making, designing, and really sewing something (not just attaching 2 pieces of material together) I am very pleased with the outcome.

The thing that made me happiest with this dress is seeing that yes, I could make patterns and have it come out looking mostly like what I wanted, and I also learned that I actually had a lot of fun making the pattern. This dress, as crude as it may be, really kick started my motivation to keep moving forward with learning to sew.

Starting Out

This is totally new to me. I have never had a blog before. I know a lot of people that do, but never have myself. My mom recently started a blog for her sewing and quilting so I finally thought "Why not?". I am actually kind of excited about this because it will help me track my progression over time. I am also looking for feedback from other people as far as my designs, execution (i know its hard to tell in a picture), and anything else that you all might think of.

This blog is going to be about my progression as I go through the process of learning to sew and design clothing. Not everything that I make will be an original design by me. I am taking classes and making stuff at home that I buy and follow patterns for. But as I get more comfortable and take more classes you will see more altered patterns and original stuff by me. The plan is that if I have a sketch of something before I sew it that I will post both the original sketch and the finished product. I think it will be interesting to see how it translates from idea to application

I am always looking for new ideas, so if any of you out there in internet land have ideas for a design you would like to see sketched out/made let me know. I will do what I can to do either of those things and get them posted.

I am also completely open to making clothes for people. My only disclaimer at this point is that I am still learning. If you want me to make something for you drop me a note and we can talk about it and if I am comfortable enough to do it for you.

Here is to new experiences and having fun doing it!

*CHEERS!*