Beach trip (suitcase view)

I think my last post was about what I wanted to sew for my beach trip. Well, the beach trip has now come and gone and this is what actually make it into my suitcase....

Oh and 2 bathing suits which I didn't save a picture of (and luckily my hubby hasn't posted any pictures on facebook). 

There were 9 pieces of clothing which could be used to make a dozen outfits:

The most versatile piece that I brought was the yellow shirtwaist dress that I finally finished from a fashionable stitch's shirt dress sew-along!

The first day I wore the yellow shirtwaist with the sailboat skirt (and forgot to take a picture because we left so early).

I also wore the shirtwaist dress by itself (I took this picture before accessorizing for some reason)

And I wore it with the circle skirt (I made during Casey's sew-along) over top of it (which is my favorite way ).

I also wore the circle skirt with the afternoon tea halter top (that I talked about a couple posts ago).

The halter also matches the sailboat skirt (which I made into an a-line from a vintage gathered skirt and does not have the yellow coloring in it that I thought it did. It is still really cute though), though the colors don't quite look like it in the pictures.

The white sorbetto (that I posted about making earlier) could have been worn with any of the skirts/shorts as well.

I wore the sorbetto and the pink linen pants to hang around in the beach house, it was very comfortable. The pants are vintage, though they are newer that usually my style. I really like them though they have an elastic waist which I do not love. Is there anyway to edit those to not have the elastic (add a zipper and waistband)? 

So, I didn't get all of the sewing done that I had hoped to, but I kind of expected that. I would have really loved to have replaced that jean shorts outfit with a cute 2 piece play suit that could possibly have mixed and matched with the other pieces. And I would have loved to have made two vintage inspired swimsuits (one of mine is vintage inspired, but the fit isn't too good). But, I am pleased with what I did accomplish and wear.

Finished Sorbetto and starting next project of ...

As you know, my sorbetto has some serious issues with the darts. I found online a tutorial on how to move the darts from the muslin (instead of from the pattern like most tutorials I have seen).

So, I started to use my trusty seam ripper and take out the darts and seams. I found this to be very difficult due to the material and because like a dummy I had the threads as tight as they go on the sewing machine. So after fussing with it for a few days and losing my seam ripper, I decided to give up on it. Don't look at me like that, the shirt had tons of very visible holes and things in it from the stitches and it was much too tight anyway.

I decided that I would just cut up this "muslin" and would place it on the cut out pattern to figure out where I would need to move the bust to.

Because the original pattern I printed got ruined (i don't even remember what happened to it). I decided to print a new one. Yeah I love that part of pdf patterns :)

Once I printed, measured the check size square, and pieced it all together, i decided that I should remeasure myself since I had obviously grown since I measured last or the muslin would not have fit like spandex. Curiously I did not measure any different. I then looked at the pattern directions again to make sure which size I needed to cut. It was indeed the same as before (which by the way is kind of scary seeing that number which is way bigger than the number I would buy at the store and to think it was so tight).

Anyway, i cut out the pattern and placed my muslin cut out on it. Now I was expecting it to be smaller, since i did cut off the seams, but it wasn't even close. It was several inches smaller all the way around!

I have come to the conclusion that perhaps I might have printed it wrong the first time. Oops. And I did screw up the french seams width when i checked after Annabelle mentioned it in a comment to a previous post. Together it was way off.

I didn't have anymore of the polyester fabric that I originally used, so i decided that I was going to just go ahead and make the shirt out of a plain white vintage sheet. There was enough fabric that I could use more if I screwed up badly.

So, I pretty much started over. Cut the fabric, followed the directions for the most part. I did not sew up the darts first, I waited until after I had sewn the shoulders that way i could try it on in a way and move the darts where they needed to be. Funny thing though, the darts were in the correct position. I did still think that the darts were a little long according to . “Paternmaking..” by Joseph-Armstrong says to move the point 3/4 in to 1 1/2 in. which I found on this blog.

So i shorted it slightly.

I very carefully measured the seams when doing the french seams and was careful to make all seams straight and it was amazing how easy it was. The fabric just glided over the sewing machine going exactly where I wanted it to. It was like someone else was sewing it all together.

I was having such a pleasant time with it, I decided not to push my luck with the bias tape and did a cheat method of just sandwiching the seam int he middle of the folded over bias tape and sewing it up. Not perfect and it made the join of the bias a little off, but it saved my momentum and I am fine with it. I will save that battle for another day. I also noticed that I might have used the wrong size bias tape. i just bought a pack from Walmart in the right color, when I went they did not have any different sizes in stock. the directions called for a 1/4 inch seam allowance, but i had to sew at 1/8 in order to stay on the bias tape which was just shy of 1/4.

The only other issue I had was with the hem, the french seams did not want to press up, but I got it worked out.

I tried it on and it was easy to slip on. My husband thinks it is a little looser than it should be, but I am fine with it since I figure it will be tucked in most of the time.

i don't have many pictures, but here is what I have. Ignore the wrinkles and purple marker, supposedly it should disappear in 24 hours (it has been over 48 when the photos were taken). I am sure it will come out in the wash though.

Oh, one more thing before the photos, sorry. I stuffed my dress form (which i have named Mandy - which would have been my sister's name had I been a twin) and now she is just the right size :)

So now that I finished the first little project on my list I am moving to the next. I originally thought that I would be doing more blouses and then a playsuit and pants. But, after looking over the patterns that I have most of them are vague (or don't have directions at all). And the patterns that I owned were vintage and I am not sure I am ready to tackle that yet.

That is when I saw that A Fashionable Stitch is doing a shirt waist/ wrap dress duo sew-a-long. Which is great because a shirt waist dress was on my list and I don't have any. It uses a modern pattern, so the directions should be good and if I do it in a reasonable time frame there will be people to help answer some of my questions and problems.

So here it is...

I started a pinterest board (Pinterest Shirt Dress Board ) to come up with all of the ideas I had for the shirt waist dress (I actually started one for the wrap dress too if you are interested).

I found one particular image that I want to be my inspiration......

These girls look lovely. This is the look I want to basically go for, which will require getting the fit correct and adding those cute little pockets and maybe a belt.

I bought the pattern at Walmart which I had them price match to JoAnn's sale (which saved me over $8). I found it amusing that the cashier asked what it was and told me that he had never seen a sewing pattern before. Then I thought about it and wondered if much of today's youth was unaware of these type of things.

I then followed the sew-a-long in figuring out what size I was. Which really surprised me and I am glad that I bought the right size pattern because it was close. I will definitely check that first before buying the pattern in the future!!

That is as far as I have gotten so far, but hopefully i will have an update before too long. i don't want to get too far behind on the sew-a-long so i will be able to ask questions.

wish me luck!!

Fit issues & basically I don't know what I am doing

Okay, so I am finally ready to post some pictures of the sorbetto I made. Mind you was only suppose to be a muslin (out of my high school graduation gown lol). The problem is I never really have sewn a muslin and after reading a bit, I realize I was suppose to only bast in the stitches. Oh well, I really wanted to learn how to do French seams so I am glad I tried it out on a this instead of an actual garment.

Ok, so the first problem was when I washed it (I just washed/dried it as normal, nothing special - it is made out of 100% polyester), it well... I'll just show a picture.

I'm not sure how I should avoid this. I did pink the edge after cutting before sewing the bias on. And when I unpick some of the seams, will they all do this making it hard to reuse this muslin for another go around?

Next issue, I was having slight problems with sewing straight, yes I have the most basic sewing problems.

I was holding the fabric pretty tight on accident because I was concentrating on trying to get the line straight. Here is the resulting mess.

But that is easily solved. Don't pull tight.

The other issue is : fit, or more specifically it doesn't fit LOL. The easiest to spot is that the darts are too high (and too long?)

I guess I will need to unpick the sides and darts and lower them, but should I mark where they should be with a marking pen while it is on, or will that point be wrong once the dart is taken out? If that is the case, how do I know how much it should be lowered? And the side was cut a little different where the dart was, that means it will be even smaller when I see it up again (this time I won't do French seams though until I am happy with it).

Also, it is really really tight. That might be due me gaining weight since taking my measurements. Oops. I have started an exercise program (p90x) and have successfully finished week 1. But it is hard to get on just as a pull over without buttons or anything.

Another issue and this sounds really stupid, but I don't know fit well enough to really judge, anyone have any good articles on how garments are suppose to fit LOL.

Here are my ideas of problem areas.The arm hole too small? How about the neck, do the straps seem too far on my shoulders to you? Wait, I forgot to take a picture of that. Oh well.

Sewing progress (what little has been done)

Okay so when I last left I was going to start sewing on some things. Make an everyday wearable vintage wardrobe. I have however made very little progress. 

(Skip this section if you don't want to hear unrelated rant, actually I would suggest skipping it) 

Things have been a little crazy here. I still never really got the house clean clean from when my husband lost his job and started staying at home with the kids. Actually that is putting too much blame on him, I never got the house clean clean from when we moved into it (I still have some boxes that never got unpacked). The situation did get magnified when he stayed at home though. Well, he has started his own business now, so the kids are not at the house until I get home from work, so that has helped slow the mess in the house; however, now we have a friend who is staying at our house while he "looks for a place to stay" (said in quotes, because I don't know if he has even looked at anything yet, but that might just be me being grouchy, sorry) because he got a job in town near us and lives several hours away. I feel uncomfortable doing the type of cleaning that needs to be done with him here. So ugh... Do you ever feel like you would like Clean Sweep or some other TV show cleaning team to come in and reorganize and clean your house (or at least have someone to watch the kids and several strong people come in and help you clean everything out in one or two days)? It really makes me feel like a failure as a wife and mom and I work on a little at a time and end up not really getting anything done. Way more than you wanted to know.

So, since I already got the feeling bad part of this post out of the way, I am not going to feel bad about the fact that my sewing machine has been covered and turned into a catch all so I have not had the time nor effort to clean it and start sewing.

Sorry about that I just needed to get it off my chest.

(Okay non-vintage or sewing rant done.)  

What I have done...

I started on a blouse. That is one of the main things I need in order to wear most of my vintage stuff. I decided to start with a free blouse (because for some reason I feel like I am not good enough to deserve spending money on a pattern yet, I am weird I know).

The blouse I picked was the Sorbetto top from Colette patterns. I had this blouse in my plan, but I had originally planned on doing the scalloped edge without the center pleat. Like shown here

I still think this is a nice top and it has a tutorial, but for now I decided to just stick with the directions that come with the pattern. Which I have to say are much easier than the directions of many store bought patterns I have attempted. Are all of Colette's patterns like that. i hope so because I want to make many Clovers.

Being as that I am too cheap or self conscious to try this with a bought fabric or even some of the lovely linen I have in my stash (yes I have a stash, I am not sure how). I decided to repupose something. Actually I think the way it went down was that I was cleaning the attic (because of course the place no one goes in is the place to start cleaning my house LOL) and I found my old graduation gown. Now the gown is 100% polyester and something melted (?) the sleeve so it would not be able to be used as a graduation gown again (not that I know anyone who needs one). It is white and pretty sheer which I think is pretty good for a top even if it is polyester.

Please ignore the fact that it needs ironed badly. I could not find my iron at this point and really wanted to get started with the pattern before I lost momentum gained from downloading. printing, and cutting out the paper pattern pieces.

Notice that big zipper in the picture. That came out of the gown and I really don't think that I will have a use for it. It is white plastic, 28 inches long, and the kind of zipper that separates at the bottom (like a coat as opposed to a dress), if anyone is interested in it I will gladly give it to them. It seemed like a waste not to take it out of the fabric and save it.

Now the problem (or one problem) with working from an already constructed garment is that the fabric can not necessarily be used in whole pieces. because of seams (and zippers) that are already in place. In this case there was not enough fabric for both the front and back of the shirt to be cut on the fold.

So, I decided since there was already a pleat in the front of the shirt that I would hide a seam behind the pleat. I found this to be creative on my part (I needed something to fee3l good about LOL).

Anyway, so I cut the front one side with double the pleat length and one side with no pleat that way the seam would be behind the pleat and not in the middle of the pleat.

This is the front pinned together where the seam will be. I tried out using a new marking pen I got for my birthday. The idea is that you mark on your fabric and then it either fades away in 24 hours or that it washes away. I had to move the fabric because I made a mistake cutting and had to reposition. You can see that clearly with the marks and the marks did not fade within 24 hrs, actually it has been over 48hrs and they are still just as bold, hopefully they will wash out (though getting them a little wet makes them even brighter).

I didn't end up sewing up the seam like this, and I didn't bother taking pictures of what I did do, oops. But what I did was I decided that since there was going to be a seam to make the pleat I might as well sew both seams at the same time. I folded on the pleat lines and re-pinned and sewed. This was not the was the pleat was sewn in the directions, but it seems to have worked OK. I didn't have any problems with there being a fold in the middle of the pleat either because the fold of the fabric was not on the pleat and I never folded it really hard on the pleat.

(another random story that you can skip)

That is where I stopped for a few days. But on the way home from work one day I stopped at JoAnns to look at pinking sheers (I didn't have any and Walmart which is close to the house doesn't carry them). Pinking sheers are kind of expensive I mean compared to regular scissors (or at least paper scissors). I saw that there was a Fiskars pair for $21 and then some cheap pair for $13. I decided to go with the cheap pair, though I really was thinking that it would be good to get the others because they wouldn't break, or get dull as fast and I know it is a good brand. That is when I remembered about the JoAnn iphone app which I looked at and it had a coupon for 40% off one non-sale item. I loaded up the coupon and went back and switched scissors. As I checked out I found that the scissors were on sale and I couldn't use the coupon. I asked how much they were on sale for. They were 40% off! Yay! So, Fiskars pinking sheers for the same price as the cheapo brand (they were probably also on sale, but I am ignoring that).

(done)

I had never used pinking sheers before, but it worked out OK.

That is not my carpet BTW, it is a towel that I was using to iron on (yup found my iron, but no ironing board cover). Good thing I found the iron because it is important for all the other steps.

Continuing then I did the darts. Yes I know the darts were the first step in the directions not the pleat. I am terrible at following directions apparently. I was just so excited about figuring out a way to conceal the extra seam. Oh well. I don't follow directions very well in cooking either (substituting all the time) which is probably the main reason I am a terrible cook.

I don't know why my darts always look like that at the end. I ironed it against a curve and it looks "OK". They might be a little long though because after holding it up to myself, my hubby declared that it makes me look like I have bullet boobs. Which I guess is okay, guess I don't need a bullet bra then LOL! I might need to work on this more in the future though.

Oh I forgot to show you the pleat which is a little smaller than expected because I didn't think of adding seam allowance for the extra seam, oops. Again ignore the purple mark.

 Well. pleat and darts done next step side seams. I decided that since this was a pretty sheer fabric that I should do french seams (because I am not doing enough new stuff already in this project). I still pinked the original seam, I am not sure if you are suppose to do that or not, you can still see the pinked part if you hold it up to the light, but I won't be doing that while wearing it, so I think it is good, plus it would ravel away right?

And again not following the directions I sewed up the sides first and not the shoulders, really can I not do anything right?

This is me looking stupid trying it on (over an ugly work shirt) to see if it would fit. My 7yr old took the picture, she is really excited for me to teach her to sew (as soon as I learn myself). Oh, you can also see my new haircut in this picture. It is a long middy (or at least that is what the hairdresser and I thought we were doing). Right now it doesn't look that great, but I haven't had the time curl it and see if it looks as cute as I had imagined.

Okay so that is all of the pictures. I did finish up the shoulders with french seams (pinked in the middle) and I was able to do the bottom hem (also not in the correct order of the directions, because I needed to buy bias tape for the head and arm holes).

I did go and purchase the bias tape. I decided to stick with white to make this the most versatile (so I might actually wear this, woot a wearable muslin). I even tried sewing it on following the directions, but I obviously did it wrong because it didn't fold over correctly. So I used my handy dandy seam ripper (the most used sewing tool in my house) and am back to putting on the bias tape. I pinned it in place but was having sewing machine issues.

The sewing machine will not stay threaded. I noticed that the upper tension was wrong so I fixed that, but it didn't help for long. I don't think the problem is cheap thread because the thread isn't breaking. What happens is that the string comes out of the needle. I tried turning it by hand and it is fine, but when I hit the peddle out comes the thread. I have no idea what I have done wrong, it was just working previously when I did the rest of the project, but then again one of the kids did turn the upper tension knob (because I noticed it was off and my son was trying to sew his rubber snake back together).

Any ideas?

Oh and hopefully I will get my house cleaned and have a place to take pictures of all of the vintage clothes I was given lately (they are mostly winter and too big, so it will be a while before I actually wear them)