Work in Progress and Monday Miscellany

I got a bunch done on the dress today but I forgot to bring my camera so, alas, no pictures. I do want to say, I'm impressed with this pattern. It's a Palmer Pletsch pattern that has all the fitting information you could need to make it work for you. They use their fitting guidelines from Fit for Real People. I don't have that book, but everyone who does seems to love it. And as I say, I'm impressed by the thoroughness of the fitting instructions. So far, I give this one a big thumbs up. I wish I had gotten it further along, because I'd like to take it to ...

New York with my students tomorrow!

Yes, I'm mother ducking a bunch of my students and a couple of my ASDP colleagues around the garment district tomorrow for some fun and fabric. We're going to meet up with Carolyn and Lindsay T. I can't wait to see them both again! I wish we could spend an overnight, but schedules didn't permit this time.

Back to my dress, I have a confession to make. A friend of mine pointed me to a lively, some might say heated, discussion about sewing over pins. See me raising my hand? Guilty. I don't necessarily recommend it, but when people look all aghast at me, I just shrug. I have been sewing since I was 12. I've sewn over countless pins countless times and I have never once damaged my machine, nor have I put my eye out. I have bent pins and broken needles, which isn't a good thing. But I see more damage caused by folks who neglect to change needles between projects. That one gets me going!

Speaking of going, Gorgeous Fabrics warehouse is going to be closed on Friday, July 3 for the holiday weekend. We'll be processing orders, but any orders that come in over the long weekend will ship on Monday or Tuesday.

FB Peeps, check out the Gorgeous Fabrics Facebook page starting Wednesday. And until I get back from NYC, happy sewing!

The Fabric, the Haul

Here's the fabric I'm using for my McCall's shirtdress:
It is a lightweight cotton with metallic embroidery all over its face. It's pushing the envelope for this pattern just a little, because it's lighter weight than I think is generally recommended, but I really like it and I think it will work up well.

On a sadder note, one of my students sent me a note that Charrette, a local art-supply dealer, is going out of business. Today is their last day, and everything was 60% off their lowest price. I have always recommended their tracing paper to my students, so they will be sorely missed. I stocked up on a couple of things, including cream and yellow tracing paper (they had sold out of the white trace). I also got a french curve, a flexi-curve and a compass. It will be great for making circular ruffles.
I guess I'll have to buy my tracing paper online. Here's a hint for you. Forget the tracing paper they sell at fabric stores. It's way overpriced! You can buy 36 inch wide, 50 yard rolls at most art supply stores (including Blick Art Supply, nayy) for much, much less. And the rolls come in all different sizes.

Parting Shot: Sunflowers
I took advantage of the weather to transplant my poor sunflowers. I had three of them in a pot. They were doing okay, but they were starting to get rootbound. So I planted them next to the garden. They are usually covered with little bees gathering pollen.
Happy sewing!

Next Up, a Summer Shirtdress

I am in the mood for a summer dress. I think I'll make view B, the short sleeved version. I have a metallic accented cotton floral that has been aging in my stash for about 3 or 4 years. I don't have my camera with me, but I'll post a picture of it later.

The sun made an appearance yesterday, but today it's playing hide and seek. We were awakened to Bahamian style thunderboomers this morning, and they are expecting more later today. My tomatoes are, surprisingly, loving this weather. The sunflowers? Mmm, not so much. And of course, the hibiscus is happy as a clam in mud.

Happy sewing!

The Only Thing That's Happy in This Weather

That is one happy hibiscus. They say we will see the sun again tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it.

Happy sewing!

Mesh Tutorial - Jalie Sweetheart Top

June of 2009 is shaping up to be the least sunny in Boston ever. Seriously, we have had 3 days of sun this month and that is it. I decided that I need to make some sunshine, so I settled on Jalie's Sweetheart Top made up with Citrus Paisley Mesh from Gorgeous Fabrics (of course). I made the short sleeved version this time. I'm not going to review it here, since you can see everything I did in This Review.

Because I was working with a mesh fabric, there were some changes I needed to make it wearable in public. Mesh, by its very nature, is sheer. You can counteract that in several ways: wear a camisole underneath, line it with tricot fabric or take the "Sweet Pea approach", which is what I did.

A couple of years ago I bought myself a top by Sweet Pea. The top is mesh, and it had some interesting construction details. To solve the sheerness issue in the body of the shirt, they used a double layer of the mesh, with the wrong sides together:

The sleeves, on the other hand, are just a single layer:

This is quite easy to translate to your sewing projects. Cut duplicates of the pattern pieces that you want to cover up sensitive parts, and just singles of the rest. In the case of the Jalie top I cut the front, the back and the yoke pieces twice. I cut the sleeves and the neckbands (which are folded over anyway) just once.

I basted the fronts and backs together just as you do with an underlined pattern piece. Like the Sweet Pea top, I basted them wrong sides together so the right sides face the world and the body. I then proceeded to sew the top together just as the instructions say. There were no other changes. The result is a top that is sunny, but not see through.

The other thing to know about mesh is that it doesn't run or ravel, so you don't need to finish the hems on it. Here you can see it in the sleeve and at the bottom:


It makes it a snap to finish! Of course, you do want to finish your seams nicely so they don't leave thread tails hanging down. Since I used a serger for this project, the way I finished off my seams was by threading the tails back through the stitches using a large-eye needle:
Trim off the excess and you're ready to go. I've done this lots of times and it works great.

It's supposed to rain again tomorrow. You can be darned sure I'll be wearing my sunny top.
Happy sewing!

Cameras Cameras Everywhere

Yesterday was the Yankee Classic ballroom dance competition. DS the younger was competing for the first time with his partner. In the past, both kids have competed Pro-Am with Tatiana. To add fun to fun, we've had a camera crew tailing him (and to a lesser extent, all of us). I'll have more on that as the airing date gets closer. No pressure, right?

We woke up to a typically beautiful June day in Boston:
You know, we New Englanders are a pretty crusty bunch by nature. But if we seem more crabby than usual? This is what we have woken up to Every. Single. Day in June. WTF? I feel like I'm living in the northwest. But I digress...

We got there at about 9:15, and met up with his partner and her family. We got them ready to go and they were stoked. They took their places on the dance floor for the International Standard division. They were really nervous about this one

Note the big honkin' camera behind them. No pressure, right? The I.S. Foxtrot was pretty new to them. They had never competed with the International Standard. But they did great! Here they are doing the Foxtrot

and the Waltz
Note the big honkin' camera in the background. No pressure, right? The last dance was the Tango. Here you see them with the judging panel
The judge in the center is their idol, and Dancing with the Stars pro, Maksim Chmerkovskiy. No pressure, right?

They did great! They took 4 firsts, 1 second and 1 third. Here they are with Max

We had a 4 hour wait until the Latin division. They danced 5 dances this time: Cha Cha, Samba, Paso Doble, Rumba and Jive. Here are a couple of pictures. Cha cha first
Jive was the last dance.
Then there was a long wait between the dances and the awards ceremony

They scored #1 in Paso Doble, with mostly 3rd to 5th place in the rest. But they weren't disappointed and neither were we. They were up against incredibly stiff competition, and they were in a new, higher division than they had been in before. The good news is that they didn't come in last in any of the dances. So now they have things to work on, but we're going to take some time off this summer to let them take a breather.

Poor DS the Elder was such a trooper. He came with us and spent all day cheering on his little brother, and I think I need to do something nice for him. But he was actually pretty proud of his bro, even though he won't admit it to many people. Here are the kids with Tatiana after all was said and done

Sorry to go on and on like a proud mother, but hey, I am! And what do you think of his pants? Those are the Burdas. I asked him how he liked them once he was done dancing and he said, "They were great!" Now we can kick back and relax a bit.

The next project on my cutting table is Jalie 2794, the Sweetheart Top. I'm making it from this Citrus Paisley Mesh from Gorgeous Fabrics.
I have some tips for working with mesh that I'll post once I finish the top.

Happy sewing!

What a day!

I'll do a recap tomorrow. We arrived at the competition at 9:15 this morning, and just got home an hour ago (10 at night). Yawn! I'm wiped, but here are a few pictures to give you a feel for our day.

Waiting for Standard to start

Scoring Points with the Judges
Yes, that is Maxim from DWTS

One of seven cameras that were trained on them or us during the dance.
We got two, they got four.

It was great. But it's been a long day, I'm going to sleep. G'night!

They're Here!!!

TLC is in the music room filming an interview with DS the Younger right now. My house isn't very big, and my music room is pretty small, but it never felt quite that small until they started putting all the equipment in it!


Poor things, it's about 105% humidity and they can't have a fan running because of sound. They closed the door to the room so I'm sure it's a thousand degrees in there. We're trying to be vewy vewy quiet!

FB Peeps Alert!!!

Check it out!
If you're not a FB Peep for Gorgeous Fabrics, become one! Just search for GorgeousFabrics.com on Facebook and become a fan to get early notification of sales, Peeps-only deals and other great stuff.

Come and Get It, Kittens!

Free (that woke you up) to a good home:

Exhibit A: Athena adjustable dress form. You can see her in many of my projects, but now I have four all together and even I don't need that many. Here's a picture of her in one of my projects: She's adustable from 32 inch bust to 38 inch, with waist from 26 to somthing I can't remember, and hips that go from 28 to something like 38. There is one piece missing, an attachment to allow you to mark a hem. She's well used and well loved, but hey the price is right. Here's a picture of her in action:

Exhibit B: A well used, well loved, but still usable gridded rotary cutting mat. It measures 36 inches by 52 inches, so it's bigger than most JoAnn cutting tables, but it's perfect for most dining room tables. It has seen a lot of use, but it has lots more in it. And again, you can't beat the price

Now, here's the rub. If you want either or both of these, you can have them. The only thing is, you have to come and pick them up before this Saturday, June 20. If you want them, and you can do that, send an email to Ann "at" gorgeousfabrics "dot" com. First come, first served. They are both great tools and lord knows I've used them lots. Now it's time for someone else to get the benefit.

Both are spoken for. Thanks!

Oh, and anyone who wants to come visit from Australia, my design studio is always open to you. It's summer here in New England, and I love to show folks around Boston!
Happy sewing!

Pattern Review - Burda 9812 Boys' Pants

DS the Youngest is taking part in the Yankee Classic dance competition next weekend. He's been growing like a little weed recently, and he is getting too tall for his old pants. He needs to wear black pants for both Standard and Latin. When I was at the dance store a couple of weeks ago, I checked out the pants. First off, they didn't have boys' sizes. And the men's pants started at $160 per pair. After taking a look inside a couple of them, and discovering that there isn't anything unusual about them, I decided to make him a pair.

Pattern Description: "Jacket with lapel/revers collar and flapped pockets.
Waistcoat/vest, with patterned front and plain/single-coloured back.
Trousers/pants with pleats at waist, hip-yoke pockets and ironed/pressed creases"
I made just the pants.

Sizing: 140-170 (US 10-18). I made a 10 (140), but lengthened the legs to the next size up.

Fabric Used: All You Need Is... RPL from Gorgeous Fabrics. I have to gush a bit. I knew from the start that this is a great fabric, but I hadn't sewn anything from it yet. Can I just tell you? This fabric is fabulous to work with! It works up like a dream, it has a great soft feel against the skin, and it has great stretch for movement and comfort. I can see some of this in my future.

Needle/Notions Used: Stretch 75/11 needle, hook/eye closure, black fusible tricot from Sew Exciting Fashion Sewing Supply. This stuff is really great, and it's the perfect weight for my fabric.

Did it look like the photo or drawing when you got through? Yes.

How were the instructions? I didn't use them. The pants are beautifully drafted. They use a mock fly closure, so there was nothing particularly tricky about them.

Construction Notes: I used a straight stitch, length 2.5mm for all seams. I didn't bother to do much fitting on these pants for a few reasons. First, he's going to get one comp's use out of them before he outgrows them. He is a generous size 140, but too small for a 142. Second, the fabric has a lot of stretch to it, so it's quite forgiving. Third, he's going to be moving all over, so it just didn't seem to make much sense to spend a lot of time tweaking the fit.

One of the things that the photo flash brings out that isn't as obvious in the unenhanced daylight is that he has a flat seat. When he finishes growing I'll draft him a pant that solves that problem. Until then, he doesn't notice. He just loves the fact that they are comfortable and not binding.

Any changes? Other than lengthening the legs, no.

Likes/Dislikes: Beautifully drafted pants. I would definitely do it again. I may redraft the front to get rid of the pleats.

Would you do it again? Would you recommend it? Yes and yes.

Here are pictures of the front:
And the back:
Conclusion: A great pair of pants. I'll get more pictures of him, and the TLC film crew, at the competition.

Happy sewing!

A Customer Can Really Make Your Day

It's a maxim in business that the customers you remember are the ones who make your life miserable. But you know what? I remember at least as well the ones who really make my day. Yesterday was a case in point. I was out of the office, but working on my computer (kid's appointment) when my phone rang. On the other end was a gentleman from Great Britain. He had found Gorgeous Fabrics while looking for a fabric to make a duvet and pillow shams. Unfortunately, I only had 3 yards of the fabric he wanted. So I said I would call the vendor who had sold it to me, and I asked him until what time I could call him back. I placed the call to my vendor and sure enough, they had 15 yards of the fabric. Eureka! I called back at the rather late hour of 10PM in England and told him that I would have the fabric early next week and I'd ship it to him on Tuesday. He was so grateful, and so happy that I was able to help him, and we had a lovely chat. I'll tell you, if (no, when) I get to England I'm going to make my way to East Yorkshire and lift a pint with him.

That's one of the wonderful things about my job. Of course I get the odd customer who just wants to call up and rip me a new one for some reason, but more often than not, my interactions are with wonderful people who share a passion for creating wonderful things. And it's people like that who really make my day.

Happy sewing!

Next on the Table - a Pair of Pants

But not for me. I'm making a pair of black pants for DS the Younger using this Burda pattern:
Next week he's taking part in the Yankee Classic ballroom dance competition. That is a whole 'nother story that you'll get to hear all about later. He's been growing like a little weed of late, and his pants are all getting short on him, so I thought I would make him a pair from All You Need Is...RPL in black from Gorgeous Fabrics (of course). I have to say I am quite disappointed, but not surprised, at the dearth of decent boys' patterns. I didn't have the time or patience to go through my old BWOFs. This pattern will work fine for the competition next week, and I should have it ready in the next day or two.

Poor DS the Elder. I feel like he gets short shrift on my blog at times. Let me just be a proud mom for a moment. He's about to graduate from the middle school with a straight A average throughout his three years there. Last night was the school vaudeville, an exercise in excruciating boredom, punctuated by some really good bits. DS the Elder was one of the good bits. He played and sang "Imagine" by John Lennon. He was good! I've heard him practicing the piano, but he wouldn't let me hear him sing. I'll tell you, he did better than I ever could have. And he didn't sound the least bit nervous. I didn't get any pictures because he had his back to the audience while he was playing. Don't ask me why they set the piano up that way. But he did a great job and I'm so proud of him!

The hambone gene runs deep in our family. Stay tuned and happy sewing!

Pattern Review - Simplicity 3503

I was so inspired by Erica B's and Cindy's recent Maxi-dress renditions of this pattern, and I always loved the version that Cidell did last year. I wanted to make one for myself, but I wasn't sure about the longevity of the Maxi dress trend. So I called my BFAM, Emmett. The conversation went something like this.

"Emmett, what do you think? Can I get away with a maxi dress this year? Or will I be hopelessly two seasons ago?"

"No Ann, you're fine for this summer. They are still very in. Go for it. Now how are my fabrics [for Sewing Hope] selling?"

So cool! I got the go-ahead and I had the pattern and fabric ready to go. And away we went!

Pattern Description: Dresses in two lengths with neckline and sleeve variations. I made View A, the long, cap sleeved version.

Sizing: 6-22. This runs big. Go down at least one size from your norm. I made a 14 but cut it down to a 12, and I could still take it in at the waist.

Fabric Used: The fabric I used is the same as the classic (and long gone) Bold Boho Chic from last year, but in a different colorway.
For the lining, I used White Tricot Knit from Gorgeous Fabrics.

Needle/Notions Used: Size 75/11 Stretch needle, fusible tricot interfacing from Fashion Sewing Supply, thread.

Did it look like the photo or drawing when you got through? Yes, but I made some changes to the structure (see below)

How were the instructions? I didn't use them. I have heard they leave out a few steps, so I'll try to check them later and let you know.

Construction Notes: I basted, then serged all the major seams. Also, I stabilized the shoulder seams with fusible tricot.
I was very concerned with the placement of the patterns. It was brought to mind for me recently in a picture of a paisley silk gown where the paisley motifs sit right over the wearer's boobs. Not a good look. Gigi is always inspiring with her motif placement, so I kept chanting, "What would Gigi do?" and tried to be very thoughtful about where the motifs hit on the body.

Any changes? Yeah, a few. I liked the neckline, but Simplicity's original design had the bodice front and back criss-cross at the centers. The original design was lower cut than I wanted for a hang around on the deck dress, so I changed the bodice to have the pieces meet with a CF and CB seam . I raised the neckline so I don't show quite as much decolletage. Here you can see the change to the bodice front:
I then made my usual FBA.

Simplicity has incorporated a weird construction technique in this pattern. They (and the rest of the Big 4 are doing this these days too) have you line the front, but not the back. They then have you turn and stitch the hems on the back neckline and back half of the armhole before attaching the front to the back. IMO, that's a pretty boneheaded way to do it. It's just as easy (easier, actually) to cut lining pieces from the back bodice and line the whole thing. That's what I did.
I understitched the neckline and the sleeves, leaving the side seams and the bodice bottoms open so I could turn the top. I treated those seams like they were underlining and simply serged them. I've seen a lot of RTW constructed this way. Here's the lining at the neckline:
And here it is at the sleeves
It's actually not completely finished. I have to run it through the coverstitch to hem it, but I'll do that this afternoon.

Here it is from the front
And here's the back:

Likes/Dislikes: Love this style. I think it's flattering on a whole lot of body types. Do keep in mind that it runs really big, so go down at least one size.

Would you do it again? Would you recommend it? Yes and yes. I will probably make this in the shorter version for summer. Maybe in a rayon jersey for kicking around.

Conclusion: Great style. I'm pretty pleased with how my print layouts turned out - as always, there are a few things I would change, but nothing drastic. I'll get a picture of me in it, but probably not for a week or so. I'm planning to wear it to a dance comp that DS the younger is participating in. That is a really exciting story that I will tell later!

Happy sewing!

Who's Had Time to Blog?

Not this gal, not this week.

First, though, I would like to thank everyone for your kind wishes on my anniversary! I can't believe I have been married half my life. I am definitely not old enough to be married that long! I should have put this up the other day but my scanner software wasn't working properly. So here we are. God, we were kids then!
Monday was our real anniversary. To celebrate, I worked on the sale and DH went to a rehearsal for a Dixieland gig he's playing at Harvard's graduation tomorrow morning. How romantic, eh? I think we might go out this Friday night for a date without kids.

But back to reality! Right now, inspired by both Erica's and Cindy's recent reviews, I'm working on Simplicity 3503. I'm making a morphed version of the cap-sleeve view. I'll blog about that later. And I'm making it in a fabric that I've been contemplating for about a year:


Look familiar?

It's the best seller Bold Boho Chic in another colorway

No, I don't have any more, sorry. There were only 6 yards when I saw it so I picked some up for Gigi and took the rest home with me. And speaking of Gigi, I'm going to let her wonderful ability with prints inspire me to get creative and careful with motif placement. Stay tuned!

The Marfy is still percolating. I'm debating on using it for a class I'm going to take with Susan Khalje and Kenneth King this summer, so it may percolate longer. But I haven't decided. Like I say, stay tuned...

Happy sewing!