Peasant Shirt Disaster Mostly Averted

Last year I had the idea that I wanted to make some new clothes for all the events leading up to Christmas. In addition to some wardrobe additions to me, I had several Christmas presents to sew for family, a pile of home-made presents to make, a bunch of shopping to do, some work to accomplish... and some adoption paperwork to fill out. SO- I got NO new clothes which was a bummer, but now that the new year is at least slowing down to a managable speed, I have been able to complete some bits and pieces.

First up is a peasant shirt from the July 09 Burda, it is style number 128 and isn't actually shown on a model in the magazine and is a take 1 make 4, so there's no line drawing either. I did read about Selfish Seamstress's version of this top and I should have been warned from that, but I wasn't. And I can't seem to find it on Patternreview.com or on the Selfish Seamstress's blog itself.

So to start with this shirt, here's the line drawing:

From Grillo Originals

So let's get on to the problems with the pattern, shall we? First, the sleeves are drafted WAY TOO FREAKIN' BIG! I made them, then tried shirring the fabric with elastic thread in the bobbin. Then I tried zig zagging over the elastic thread and gathering, then I tried maxing out the stretch of the elastic while I attached it. No dice. The sleeves were still enormous around my wrists. Somewhere the Selfish Seamstress mentioned that she had the same problem, but since I'm built a little more *ahem* sturdily (or chunky) I thought I'd give it a shot as is. Nope, bad decision. I wound up taking about 8 inches out of the ends of the sleeves and I STILL had trouble getting it to gather up enough. My fabric flat out wouldn't gather into as small a circle as would have been necessary and I used light weight drapey fabric! WTF BWOF! Anyway, eventually I got it to a point that was good enough. Here's what that ended up looking like.

From Grillo Originals

Now onto the shoulders. Generally I'm not very critical of the shoulder fit in any pattern because my shoulders are all sorts of wonky so I can't really expect anything to fit well in the shoulders without some major alterations. I do draw the line at sneaking a drop shouldered garment on me though- grrr. If only a model had been wearing this instead of a mannequin. I suppose with the photography I wouldn't have been able to tell much of a difference anyway, but there it is anyway. Drop shoulders annoy me because they constrict movement too much for my taste. Maybe in a sweatshirt or something really stretchy I could handle them, but not in a woven! This shirt is a real trick to get out of for me since I can't just grab the bottom and pull it up over my head because the drop shoulders tie me up about midway up. What a sight! Crazy seamstress trapped in her own project.

And here's a terrible picture of the shirt. Sorry for the phone photo, it was all I had at the moment. My mom thought it looked cute enough, but I don't think this will ever be a real favorite. That's a real shame though because the fabric is nice and the shirring on the bottom of the shirt is nice, but that's about all I can say about it.

From Grillo Originals

Notice that you can't really tell the cuffs are jacked up. They were more comfortable pushed up a little and I liked that look a little better, so that's how they stayed all night.

So I guess the final verdict is that I will probably wear this shirt again. I didn't feel too Becky Home-Ecky when I was out in it and I really do love the fabric. If I were to make it again, I would not start with this pattern. In fact, I would probably just re-draft it myself from some other top or shirt that fits. We'll see how that goes if it ever comes about. Maybe in the spring.

Back from the dead... mostly

I've been waffling back and forth on whether or not to resume blogging and I've decided to just go ahead and do it. There has been a fair amount of sewing going on in my extended absence, but a little too much life to manage to post anything of value. So I'm going to try to be better at posting frequently but I am making no promises of perpetually interesting content. I have found that I really love seeing what people are up to both when they do have the time and dedication to make really thorough posts and when they are only able to throw a quick photo and brief description of a project out there.

Here's a project that was amazingly completed roughly a year after the fabric was purchased. This skirt caught my eye from my first ever BWOF purchase and I bought this fabric shortly after thinking it would be a great fit. It just took me a year to actually get to it! The skirt is BWOF 09-2008-124 and the fabric is some fairly cheap faux suede from Joann's. The skirt had mixed reviews on Pattern Review, but I found it to be easy and I love the finished product. I think it is important to use a fabric that can be left raw at the hem.

From Grillo Originals

Please pardon the lousy phone picture. Laziness took over last year and I was unable to muster the motivation to find and actually use the real camera for sewing endeavors, ha! But you can see that the skirt looks cute with a black top and black boots and tights. I've worn it several times. The only issue I have with it is the Marilyn Monroe moments that seem to be a little too frequent. All those big pleats make any gust of wind flip the skirt up. So matching undies are a must! Ha!

Procrastinator!

I finished these last week, but my little brother came into town to surprise my parents with a visit over Memorial Day weekend so the weekend was instead stuffed with spending as much time with our soldier man as possible. I thought that was the perfect way to celebrate Memorial Day and HOO BOY was it fun to see the surprise on Mom and Dad's faces when they came over!

So here's what I've finished lately. I decided to turn my beloved Jalie 2562 into a T-shirt as well. Being clever, I call it my TNT-Shirt. I've made two so far, here's one out of the same fabric my polo is out of.

From 2009-05-24 Jason's Here!

I love it! The knit is super comfy and the fit is of course perfect. I think it takes me under an hour start to finish on one of these. I did a pink one Saturday morning before Hubby or Brother woke up, start to finish!

Last week I had gotten started on the vest BWOF 05-2009-109. For some reason the May issue isn't in the archives yet on the website, so you'll just have to go off of my finished one. The instructions were of course fabulous because it is the sewing course for May. I left out the piping and side thingies (tabs?) and made some shoulder and waist adjustments for fit- the neckline was gaping really badly. I LOOOOVE it now though! I probably over fit it just a tad on the waist, it fits absolutely perfectly standing, but sitting it's a little bit tight. I think I'd rather just lose a few pounds though than rip apart all that hand stitching holding the lining in place!

From 2009-05-24 Jason's Here!

From 2009-05-24 Jason's Here!

Speaking of lining, there it is! Isn't that cool? This vest/top combo is probably my favorite outfit right now with my white jeans and black loafers (not in the picture because Brudda helped me and isn't well schooled in blog photography...). I think I should put some edge stitching around the armholes to keep the lining from popping out because it doesn't really match anything. We'll see if I get that patient any time soon.

Last night I traced Jacket 107B from this same issue which will be my next project. I'm using black corduroy so I'm keeping the grain lines they recommend. This jacket was from the Madras section and has the two front panels cut on the bias to show off the contrast, I like that. Hopefully it will still look cool in baby wale corduroy!

BWOF 05-2009-114 Summer Dress

I completely forgot to take photos of my Mom's Mother's Day shirt- it turned out great and really looks good on her, but I didn't think to get photos.

In other news though, I did finish BWOF 05-2009-114 which is a great little summer dress! I didn't think twice about it when I flipped past the photo of it because the dress is completely obscured by all sorts of accessories and artsy camera angling. I did like the line drawing though. Ultimately I decided based on yardage though. I had some fabric that I recently found in a box that hasn't been opened since I packed up my college apartment (so it has moved three times with me unopened) and I decided it was about time to make something out of it. This dress fit the yardage bill and voila! Here we are!

From Grillo Originals

The fabric is some kind of cotton batik with a bit of stretch. I'm actually surprised I bought so much of it since I bought it in college, I think I wound up with almost 2 1/2 yards.

Yesterday the weather here was really nice, it was 80 degrees, but today was a bit cooler and I hadn't finished the dress in time to wear it yesterday so today I'm wearing it with a jacket that was given to me and that has never matched anything in my closet- until today! Speak up if you think it still doesn't match anything in my closet. Also- look at my shoes from the above photo- do they really go? Hubby says yes, but I'm not sure how I feel about the cream plus white deal.

From Grillo Originals

The sleeves are rolled up until I can find some matching topstitching thread to move the cuffs up. The sleeves are about 4 inches too long (my arms aren't THAT short). I think I can probably take at least 2 1/2 inches off without the sleeves looking too crazy. Then maybe they'll be sort of fashionably long instead of "Ok little girl, where's your mommy," long.

I'm about to go post a real review on pattern review. So if you want to see it it will be on the widget to the right momentarily. Have a great weekend!

May BWOF

I picked up the May BWOF over the weekend- I couldn't wait for it to come out! I've been jonesing for some good dress patterns, and this was just the ticket. This week I need to finish my Mother's Day sewing in addition to my Mother's Day baking, but once all that is done, I barely even know where to start! Here are my immediate plans:

(I apologize for no photos- the Burda website and I are having a little tiff over file types)

Vest 109- this is a plain vest that I've already made a muslin for. I'll be making the real one out of some black twill cotton I have left over from a previous project.

Dress 114- I have some purple cotton with a flowery island feel design in white that's been in super deep stash, I think this is what it wants to be.

Dress 122- I think the photo they have in the magazine is lame. I didn't like this dress at all until I saw the line drawing! I have some blue linen-look cotton that will be the body of the dress, then some white crinkle cotton with little blue roses on it for the sleeves. Since the dress has belt loops I think I'll also do a sash kind of belt with a serged lettuce edge on the ends to go around the waist and tie it all together.

Dress 126- I love this one just how it is! I'm going to go the really imaginative route and make it up exactly how it is shown. I just love it. It will probably be a bit further down on the to-do list though because I'm not sure I have the patience required for all those details at the moment.

Jacket 107- Last but not least, I love this one too. I think I may wind up making it out of some black pinwale corduroy I have hanging around. I'm not sure if I have enough for it and I'm also not sure how much I'll be wearing black pinwale corduroy in the summer, but I tend to get chilly in the evenings since even in the summer the nighttime temps drop quite a bit here in lovely Colorado so I may wear it more than I think. If all else fails, I'll have it for fall.

One more detail. I've planned out my summer wardrobe (there's a first time for everything!) and it centers around having nice white, khaki and black pants. I have the fabric for the black ones and was getting ready to make the white and khaki pants, but I decided to go thrift hunting this weekend. I found two perfect pairs of pants! They were Ann Taylor pants (which fit me like they were made with me in mind), I got both khaki and white. Both pairs are fully lined and were a whopping $3.50 each. I love making my own clothes, but there's no way I could even touch that efficiency! They do need to be hemmed so it's a good thing I'm handy with a sewing machine- but what a find!

Progress?

I'm making progress on my MIL's polos, good thing since I really need to get them shipped by Monday or so to make the Mother's Day deadline. What a slacker I am! Here are the photos- the collar is now pinned in place and ready to be put on for the solid pink one. I've yet to cut out the other one, but I plan on locking myself in my sewing room all day Saturday to get this done.

From Grillo Originals

I'm really happy with how well the placket came out. It's still not 100% lined up on the inside, but the outside is perfect (in my opinion anyway). I suppose eventually I'll have to resign myself to fact that I should likely be hand basting in place before really stitching this down to get it to look just how I want it.

From Grillo Originals

In other news- I've started teaching very beginning sewing classes as another side hobby. I have a student ("Sewing Protege") in particular that I'm really enjoying working with. T had never been near a sewing machine and was interested in learning a bit about sewing to see if she liked it enough to invest in a machine. For the first lesson she came over and we made a simple dog bed for her pups. She was THRILLED with the outcome and for her second project we made BWOF 04-2009-121. It's the short tunic- which has two dots- and we made it completely underlined. I've got to tell you, T the sewing protege is one smart cookie! We finished the tunic last night in time for her beach vacation and it looked awesome. She is picking things up with lightning speed. She's planning on buying a machine now- I'll go ahead and take that as a testament to my amazing ability to spread the love of sewing (don't burst my bubble here). Anyway, I'm happy that I've been able to introduce her to something that is obviously bringing her a lot of joy and pride and I'm looking forward to showing her everything I know.

Happy Easter! And a shirt

Here's the finished shirt- it was BWOF 04-2009-105. I have to say, I'm not impressed. Not that I expected this to be perfect, I'm not sure what my fitting issue is with shirts, but it is certainly not better with the alterations I made.

This shirt didn't have much of a chance from the beginning anyway, seeing how it had no darts. What's with that anyway? No darts? I see that it fit the super slender boyish bodied model in the magazine, but anyone with curves or a chest shouldn't go with this style I don't think. I also don't like the sleeve cap height they've got on this pattern. I was thinking it was pretty extreme when I was tracing it but didn't fix it. I should have.

I made some unsuccessful alterations- I added the darts from my last Vogue dress... which worked in the front, not in the back. I also made a forward shoulder adjustment and an arm flab adjustment and a full bust adjustment.... none of which fixed the fact that I can't reach forward in this shirt without popping seams. Please pipe up if you have any idea what causes this tightness- Hubby says I look like I'm doing a dance in this photo so you have to click through to it. It's super tight across my back about where my bra strap goes. I have my arms up as high as I can reach in the shirt.

I did get compliments on this at Easter dinner, so I guess it's not too terrible. Here are the photos (I did iron it before I left, what a pain it was!)

From Grillo Originals

From Grillo Originals

Overall I think this will be a wadder. I wore it, it was okay, but it was a BEAR to iron and I don't really like it. I do like the color, luckily I have more of the sheet I made it out of. I think I'll try something else with it next.

One funny thing is that the shirt was almost six inches longer than this to begin with, so I went to trim it and.... oops, too short! So I had to finish it with bias binding and it was still too short. I got so mad when I realized what I had done that Hubby made me go for a run to cool off! Ha! It worked, but it didn't fix the shirt.