I just have a quick post for you all today…  This is technically my first little foray into embroidery.  I took an intro to embroidery class last year (a 3 hr class) and it was “just okay”.  At the time I remember wishing that I had something to show for my 3 hrs except my sampler.  But looking back, I did have a pleasant time.

You all may recall me working on this 40′s McCalls 6677 pattern from last fall, which was part of my fall wardrobe planning and I blogged about here and here.

Sadly, it’s been hibernating on a chair for a while now, which was due to the fact that the skirt portion of the dress was too small for me.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it until I found some more fabric a month ago from the same bolt!  I was very quick on my toes and bought a bunch more to ensure I had enough to cover any more hang-up’s.

I’m making it just in time now for next week’s Sew Weekly theme of 1940′s.  YAY!  And I just started hacking into the fabric to recut the back portion of the skirt adding in a bit more ease (3″ or so, just in case).

Anyhow… I got to thinking that this dress would be even greater with some embroidery on it.  Not having much experience with embroidery Lladybird (aka Lauren) came to my rescue when she responded to my twitter post asking for a resource for embroidery.  She sent me to the flickr group: Hoop Love that has tons of scans of vintage transfers.

It was hard to pick just one, but given my neckline I wanted something long and fluid that I could wrap around the neckline.  I picked out this beauty since it looked feminine with the flowers and the running stitches on it remind me of the 40′s for some reason.

I started working on a sample piece over my lunch break today and while I was on the train during my commute.  I didn’t transfer the image yet, I was just free-handing it to practice.

My first daisy-stitch flower is the larger one on the left, and I used three strings of thread.  And my second daisy-stitch flower is with a slightly darker yellow using 2 strands of thread which I think looks much nicer, don’t you think?

I’m embroidering on a navy blue wool crepe although in the image it looks black.  I’m going to try to keep it simple for this first go, with using varying shades of yellow and a cream for the running stitches.  Instead of feeling like I got nothing accomplished like I did during my class, it was very nice and soothing to just stitch and stitch a picture.  I’m actually looking forward to sitting down to a movie and stitching this on my bodice.

What do you think aka how do you guys think I did?  Any good tips for a newbie like me?  (Thread tension, knotting tips, color choice, or stabilization ideas?)

Oh and if you know any other FREE embroidery resources be sure to leave me a comment.  :)  Thanks!

Sometime last summer my mom gave me a garbage bag that contained a few old dresses; she thought I could hack them up to make something new.  She’d cleaned out her closet several times since the 80′s and I’m not certain how the dresses survived besides having to be some of her favorites.  The ones she gave me were very 80′s.  :)

To tie the theme together we were to post a picture of our family (aka mothers).  Hunting around in old family photos this is the only image I could find of my mom in this dress.

I always recall her wearing it to church and other events and here she is wearing it to a wedding shower in 1986 or 87 paired with light blue eyeshadow.

This is an image taken last year of yours truly wearing the dress, with shoulder pads and all.

I was playing around and thought it fitting that I wear sun glasses in my kitchen with the dress.

You can see how huge the shoulders and the upper half is on me, but the waist and hips seem to be a-okay.

This is my first refashioning project and as a result, I kept my modifications on the simple side.  I also wanted to keep the dress as intact and original as possible, yet also turn it into a classic piece that could be worn today as well as back in the 50′s.

I spent more time unpicking all of the neckline stitching than I think it took to make the alterations; there was 4 lines of stitching to remove along with the serger threads.  I ended up ripping out the entire neckline, armscye, shoulders, and a bit down the center back.

My Mods:  I ended up taking in the shoulder seams by 1.25 inches, and sadly it still wasn’t high enough to enable me to add the sleeves back in, so I had to make the final dress sleeveless.  Additionally, the chest of the dress was still too baggy on me.  The easiest solution I found was to extend the front waistline darts up into a princess seam dart that ended at the middle armscye.  This helped to reduce the gaping at the chest and some of the excess fabric at the arm opening.

I altered the neckline by making it a gentle scoop neck and in the back I lowered the V-neck by 2″ this included removing one of the back button fastenings.  In retrospect I should have lowered it a bit more, by 3″ perhaps but it’s fine as is.  I also reused the original piping and added it back to the neckline.

There still is a bit of weirdness happening at the neckline from excess fabric, but it’s not too bad as long as it’s sitting correctly.

Lastly I had to rehem the dress by a few inches since I’m even shorter than my mom is.  heh

Being my first refashion, I think the simple mods was a decent introduction for refitting and modifying a garment and I hope to get a bit better (& daring) over time.  I have two other dresses that I have to refit (no mods needed) that I got at the flea last year and I have 1 other 80′s dress that my mom gave me that needs an overhaul.

As a followup to this, have you guys read A Fashionable Stitch’s post on Refashioning?  After doing this polka dot dress, I can see where she’s coming from.  But I’ve also seen some amazing refashions lately, Cat Got Dressed Refashion for example.  In short, Cat’s dress is amazing… and takes some serious vision and creativity.  While I love remakes, I also really like starting on projects from scratch… I find them more fulfilling for some odd reason.  So far I’m 70/30 with refashioning vs. working from patterns.

Do you guys have any thoughts to share on Refashioning?  Or do you have a preference which you prefer to work with Pattern vs. Refashioning?

So far so good with Me Made May outfits… well kinda.  I ended up not wearing anything Me-Made on Saturday.  :(  I was cleaning my apartment from morning till 4pm, and then I changed into some running gear which was very un-made by me and I had no time or place to wear anything I had made.

Saturday was a loss and I barely scrapped by on Sunday also.  I woke up super early (5:45am after going to bed at midnight) to head out to the Flea to celebrate mother’s day.  I met my mom at her local flea and we shopped around and had fun.  As usual I wear crummy clothes which was non-me made and I ended up relaxing for the first half of the day in my *blah* clothes.  Came home around 5pm and took a power till 7pm.  Afterwards I was able to wear something I made as I went foraging for coffee & dinner and came home just in time for Sherlock.  And now here I am at 10:30 pm blogging before bed at the end of the weekend, wishing I had an extra day to do sewing stuff.  But I had fun, to say the least.

Like last week, if I previously blogged about an item, you can click on any of the images for more details (ie jump to the blog post when I first featured the item).  I also have all of my MMM items on my flickr page which also includes some details.

Day 8

Unblogged Dress: New Look 6968 Pattern in a Burgundy Double Knit

I made this dress right before I started blogging a year & so ago.  This is my favorite t-shirt dress, it’s so comfortable I can wear it anywhere and I’ve made many different outfit combinations with it.

You may be wondering what I’m standing in front of also… This is a pop-up art installation that is hosted by Logan Square’s Comfort Station.  Click here if you’d like get more info.

Day 9:

Mad Men Dress: McCalls 6802

I felt like I have been wearing lots of dark colors of late so I wanted to switch it up and wear something a bit more fresh.  I paired my sleeveless dress with a lighter blue cropped cardigan.  I hope you all approve.  :)

Day 10:

BurdaStyle High-Waisted Trousers with Caledonia hand-knit top.

This top is tricky to wear since it’s on the shorter side.  I had blocked it a bit longer but it has since shrunk up again.  It works nearly perfectly with my high-waisted trousers with only pulling it down a few times…

Day 11:

Me Made: First Springtime Blouse with New Look 6808 Pattern

We had a casual day at work and wanted to take advantage by wearing some trousers (that look like jeans).  I also had a meeting in the am and didn’t want to be too casual so I paired my floral blouse with a basic black cardigan.

Day 12:

This is the day I fell off the wagon.  In the morning I did some cleaning and in the evening I took part in a really fun event called Journey to the End of the Night (Chicago Link & Facebook Link).  Long story short, it’s basically a huge game of tag with over 300 people playing this year.  The object is to get from the beginning check-in area through 6 different checkpoints throughout the city (covering many miles) without being tagged by a chaser (the “it” people).  If you get tagged you then become one of the chasers helping to tag others.

I went for the first time this year with Felix and my friend Jake and his dog Tus, who had played last year.  I had a close call with being tagged at the very first checkpoint and then we all got tagged out right before the second check point.  What’s funny is that as soon as you start getting chased the game becomes “every man for himself”.  I took off solo running away as did Felix and Jake.  Due to the rain, Felix ended up slipping on a manhole cover and did a face-plant.  He sustained some injury and his glasses were destroyed in the process.  He’s all good, but has some scrapes and bruises on his poor face.  Check out his more in-depth post about the event here if you’d like to read more.  :)

Day 13:

Unblogged Dress: Amy Buttler’s Liverpool Blouse/Tunic/Dress Pattern.  This is the very first dress I ever made and is perhaps either the second or third project I made with a pattern, all by myself.

I made a poor fabric choice did I not?!  It’s sooo loud.  It’s a basic shirt dress that has a tie at the waist, which I tied in the back.  The armscyes are a bit too low, but besides that it fits pretty decently still.  It’s just so loud.  heh

Doesn’t it just *pop*?!

My *pop* pose.

As I said earlier, I barely made it for Sunday’s outfit since I had been napping the better part of the afternoon.  I always need a power nap after hitting up the flea so early.  And I needed the nap for sure today since I had been running all evening the night before in Journey to the End of the Night.  (Yes… my legs are sore.  I don’t think I sprinted so hard before.)

I can’t wait to go to bed tonight and get a full night of sleep.  Hope you all had a nice weekend.

You all probably recall my 1st blogger meetup with the fab Tilly last month.  When I arrived home from work yesterday I found a surprise package in my mailbox from the lady.  :)

She knows me too well!  A cute pattern, polka dot piping!!!!, and some 40′s looking buttons.  YAY!  I think I would probably love anything with polka dots on it, so this piping is a big hit. 

 Thanks Tilly!  :)

 This is the one super kind gift that is really overdue!  Vicki was on the hunt for a pattern back in January/February

Back in February, Vicki of Vicki Kate Makes was on the hunt for the Secretary Pattern, which I had in my stash.  I sent it to her since I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get to it in the near future and I was also happily paying another favor forward. 

Right as I got back from my Florida vacation, I found this happy knitting package at my door. 

Being so busy unpacking from vacation and trying to catch up at work & home, it got lost in the shuffle and I never properly thanked her with a blog mention.  So to Vicki of Vicki Kate Makes… THANK YOU!  I love the yarn and the cute belt buckle.  :)

Last but not least is Andrea of Stitch Parade…  Technically this wasn’t a surprise package since I had won this lot of yarn in a giveaway but I had never posted it up online and I thought it high time I do.

Back in January I threw my hat into the ring to win some extra yarn that Andrea was giving away.  Loving yarn, alpacas, and pink I was so excited when I won.  I had no idea how much she was sending me, I photographed 7 skeins here but there’s at least another 4-5 in my stash from what she sent.  SO MUCH!  I think I can make a jumper and even have enough for a great color-work project.  Thanks so much Andrea, I love it.  Soo soft and squishy. 

Be sure to click on the “alpaca” link above.  Felix and I attended an Alpaca event in 2009… so many alpacas and silky yarn!  You won’t be sorry….  heh

*Sigh*  I feel better now.  Thank you so much you generous ladies you!  You rock!

In the post I’m sharing lots of general tips to shop a flea.  Sounds fun right?!  Stephanie let me write about “whatever” and this was the first thing to come to my mind that needed to be shared.  I always show my flea market finds but I’ve never talked about the actual shopping aspect of things.    

Be sure to swing by and have a read, it’s a good one if you’ve been on the fence about going to the flea but don’t know what to expect.

So far so good…  I feel like I lucked out of trying to figure out what to wear over the weekend.  Saturday I dressed up a bit for Meg’s Sewing Social and then Sunday it was a bit chilly here so I pulled out one of my thicker short-sleeved hand knits and wore it with some jean-like trousers.  Hopefully I can eek out a Renfrew top before too long.

Staying true to my own photo concept of taking photos along my path to work, these images are all taken on Logan Blvd (with the exception of the weekend where I was out and about).

If I previously blogged about an item, you can click on any of these images for more details (ie jump to the blog post when I first featured the item).  I also have all of my MMM items on my flickr page which also includes some details.

Day 1:

Un-blogged Judy Skirt via BurdaStyle.

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Un-blogged basic skirt & my very 1st sewing garment ever!

Day 4 is a multi-purpose picture.  I’m standing outside a shop at the corner of my street, but most importantly it satisfies the photo-challenge posted on the MMM flickr site of ‘favorite food’.  I’m eating macarons….french macarons.  Sooo delicious!!!

I could eat these all day, and actually did when I was on my honeymoon in Paris.  My husband consented to go macaron shop-hopping all over town with me and got quite sick of them by the time we left Paris.  But longed for them when we got to Italy.  heh

Day 5:

Day 6:

Un-blogged hand-knit top, the pattern is on my ravelry page here.

Day 7:

I’ve remained very true to what I normally wear, day in and day out, to work.  The only day I didn’t feel quite like myself was Sunday (Day 6).  While I loved this knit when I made it, I feel like the outfit isn’t really “me” anymore.  It’s too modern and doesn’t match my current style.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of wearing “frosting” vs. “cake” like Tasia blogged about 2 weeks ago… and I’m not sure I 100% agree with what she said.  I see that there may be items that are deemed more practical and staples than others, but some of my most-worn items could kinda be construed as frosting and yet they get more wear than my “cake” items.  I know she’s talking about a piece than can be worn many different ways, but I can’t help but feel that something like my floral pencil skirt is frosting when I wear it like it’s a piece of cake.

Who’s to say what one person’s frosting is another person’s cake, ya know?!  I feel like we (Americans) continue to dress more and more casual wearing basics like jeans and T’s to work and even when we go out  dinner.  Yet we all lament not being able to dress to the 9′s with all of our fab hats and gloves.  It all feels a bit catch-22 to me.

That being said, I know I just complained at wanting a casual me-made T-shirt for the weekends.  heh  But inside-lounge clothes to me are different from work-wear; or at least they are to me until I find some cute vintage patterns that are as comfy as my yoga pants.

I do need some more casual & comfy, weekend-wear pieces that speak to my vintage-loving self.  I think my nautical-inspired jumper would be a hit….  Are there some other patterns you guys have seen and could recommend for a casual & vintage, weekend look?

And what do you guys thing about frosting vs. cake?  Agree-Disagree or are you somewhere in the grey like I seem to be?

Over the weekend, I had the chance to meet up with Ms. Meg the Grand and take her sewing-social-class on ‘How to make a Sachet’.

Meg opened up her wonderful apartment on the 55th floor (that overlooks Lake Michigan as well as the city skyline) to teach myself and 6 other ladies how to hand sew a sachet.

The project was easy, but it afforded me time to practice my hand stitching and sewing straight lines along with time to visit with the other gals.

Supplies:

The first question I asked was… where did Meg get all of these scissors?!

Upon entering her lovely abode, I was tackled like a line backer with a hug from Meg and welcomed inside.  She and her lovely boyfriend Rob certainly know how to make guests feel welcome.   I was given a mimosa and a spot at the counter, which was an excellent spot to watch Meg poach some pears for yummy salad.  I also watched as Rob put the finishing touches on his Banana Tiramisu and bake up some mini cinnamon rolls.

The food and drinks never stopped coming until I left their place.  I had bites of cinnamon rolls, popcorn, tasty onion dip, poached pear salad, banana tiramisu, candied bacon bites, a baked ham-egg cup concoction, and mimosas.  (I fully know I may be missing something too!)

Sorry for the poor image quality on this one…. But it was too good not to share.  Meg being her usual, fun self taking a helping of her poached pear salad.

Time flew and before you knew it people were starting to leave and celebrate Cinco de Mayo (we lost 2 by the time we took a group picture):

This is how much Meg has to bend down to reach the zilredloh-height.  heh

All in all, I had a great time sewing with the group.  I had a few slight moments of shyness, but with so many people and lots of food & alcohol the fun outweighed any relapses of introversion that I had.

I forgot to mention… Once I was done with my sachet, Meg came over with a GIANT box of all of her vintage sewing patterns.  She kept telling me to take what I wanted… which I couldn’t.  Instead I had to borrow a few so I can trace and give back to her.  Holding some of her patterns hostage is a wonderful excuse to visit with her again, don’t you think?!  *Insert evil-happy laughter here.*

Update:

These are the patterns that Meg let me borrow.  Aren’t they awesome?!  The skirt is my favorite!!!

Sooo my dear readers…. Who do I get to be meet up with next?  heh  :)

I also feel like it’s been even longer since I’ve actively worked on my knitting. But I am happy to report I’ve once again picked up my needles and have been making a bit of headway on my navy Sun-Ray top; it’s only been 20 rows or so, but I figure it’s better than nothing. I’ll share a progress shot when I make a bit more progress. :)

Getting back in the swing of things brings me to this cheery spring top that I’ve had in my favorites pile, waiting to be shared.

Click on the following link to download this pattern as a pdf: Turret Blouse Pattern.

This pattern comes from the May 1951 edition of Stitchcraft.  This jumper is made with a fingering weight yarn with a gauge of 7.5 sts and 9.5 rows to an inch.  This jumper is written for a 35-36 inch bust, but could be easily increased to a larger bust size by casting on more stitches along with making more increases at the side seams.

Every since I got this edition of Stitchcraft, I’ve been longing to make this jumper.  I even went out and bought the yarn so that I could make it as soon as my size 2 knitting needles were freed-up, but that has yet to happen.  I’m trying to be good and finish one knitting project before starting others up.  (I wish I could be as strict with my sewing as I am with my knitting.)  Ahh well…

I love knitting, but I always wish I could knit soo many more projects that I can feasibly do.  I wish my little fingers could work double speed.  :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Monday, April 30th I decided it was high time to organize my closet and make way for MMM.  I went through and folded all of my stray tops, put back the shoes, and I moved all of the me-made items towards the front of my closet.  I was buried in my closet for at least 1.5 hours. 

It’s now been three days since I organized my closet and I’m still breathing a sigh of relief when I have to go in and get dressed in the morning; it’s so clean and tidy I can find everything I need within a few seconds.

On a whim, I decided to count how many pieces I had made that were in my closet.  I found I had made 5 sewn blouses (with 6 knitted tops), 18 skirts, and some 5-8 dresses.  I knew I was lacking in blouses but the ratio of blouses to skirts is crazy!!!  I have to get on that major wardrobe gap!  I’ve never participated in Zoe’s challenges since I didn’t think I had enough garments to wear.  Truthfully I had no idea I would have enough for May.  Now that I’ve counted, I’m debating trying to push myself to never wear the same thing twice all month, while still wearing 1 me-made piece a day. 

When I resurfaced from my bedroom closet I had intended on starting up the next SW sewing challenge, but I was feeling *mehh*.  What did I do instead you may ask…. I did some more organizing.

My fabric closet has been sadly needing an overhaul and I got down to it.

This closet is technically my our coat closet.  There are coats in there, but the majority of the space is fabric.  I had fabric oozing out of my our closet and I know it’s because things are disorganized. 

Do you guys see those two knit fabrics at the front (the red and the navy blue)?!  I’m slowly gearing up to use these. 

I don’t have handy bins to store things, I have everything on hangers.  I find it keeps the wrinkles at bay and I can even put multiple fabrics of similar types on the same hangar to be more efficient with my space.

Another hour or so later I emerged from this closet, happy as a clam.

This is my fabric stash, in its entirety.

On the far left I have some coats, unfinished items along with my special vintage fabrics that I’ve had professionally cleaned and staying dust free in their garment bags.

There is no rhyme or reason to the fabrics on the top vs the bottom racks.  There’s a small shelf in between the clothing racks that I have some fabrics folded (my 2 knits) along with all of my interfacing and organza.

Besides the fact that my closet was disorganized and needed some attention, I find that I’m unable to work on anything (sewing, blogging, knitting, etc.) if my space gets too overwhelmed with stuff and clutter.  I can work for a little while but eventually there’s an invisible tipping point where I have to stop and take charge to put things back in their proper place.

Do you guys have this to or is it just me?  I know the topic has been talked about before, but how do you all organize your fabrics?  Hangers, bins, grocery bag?

She did a great job and covered lots of fitting issues but I could never get that little pool of fabric at my derriere to go away.  For any of you who has ever tried making trousers I bet you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You can kinda see a hint of the break at the fullest part in my bum in the shot above, but I didn’t take any photos of the back since it wasn’t attractive. 

Here’s an image of Sunni demonstrating the baggy bit of fabric on her test muslin:

From my research there could be several reasons why this baggy bit happens and you should explore them all, as needed.  One reason could be the back crotch curve (not enough fabric-pulls at this point or too much fabric-baggs at this point), you need to let-in/take-out the inseam for more/less ease, or there’s simply just too much fabric.

When I made my first pair of trousers I tried several of the fixes (adjusting the curve of the crotch seam and letting out fabric in the inseam) but nothing helped.  It was very frustrating…  I could never tell if the fabric was pulling vs. pooling.  Crazy right!!!

Anyhow…  after searching on the web for nearly 2 hrs I think I finally have the (magical) fix for this issue!

The technique is called a Fish-Eye Dart.  I found out about this particular type of dart buried in this thread, where a girl was looking to fit her jeans.  Ann Rowley came to the rescue and described the process in the forum (which she calls a flat seat adjustment) but also added step-by-step images on flickr. 

I have read the fitting book for pants/trousers and I never recall coming across this technique.  I imagine I would have used it last year had I known about it….  

The procedure reminds me of a SBA.  The fish-eye dart is a horizontal dart taken underneath the bum; its fuller in the middle and tapers out on both sides to close to nothing.

(Image is from Ann Rowley’s flickr set)

After finally finding a fix for the pooling fabric derriere issue, I’m actually excited to go and try to refit my trousers.  How crazy is that?!  I’m hoping it will end up being a magic bullet for my trouser-butt issue, but we’ll see… 

Since it took me so long to try to find a good solution, I wanted to write-up a quick post and send the word out to any of you who may be working on pants/trousers in the future.

One additional resource I found helpful was this video from a Silhouette Patterns’s webcast that  goes about fitting a pair of jeans, live.  It’s a long video and I’ve watched the first 25 minutes already and found it really informative.

As a final technical note, trousers technically shouldn’t be as fitted as pants/jeans are.   With classic trousers, fabric falling off of the derriere should fall straight down to the floor without creasing while with pants/jeans the fabric curves around the bum.  I have the same pooling issue on both pants and trousers so for the above topic I’ve used trousers/pants/jeans synonymously.

Have any of you heard or seen of this technique with fitting trousers/pants before?