More Stash Busting Contest Makes

I promised/threatened to do another post of all my PR contest makes, so let me show you what else the frog powered sweatshop cranked out.  We had to close the sweatshop up a little early thanks to a freak storm that blew out our power for a few days.  Now that power is back on, we find ourselves only interested in laying in front of the air conditioning and surfing the internet. Oh internet, never leave again.

We still cranked out a lot of clothing during the middle of the month, including another Advance 9441 that will get it's own post. Mainly because I took so many pictures and can't whittle them down to one. So you have that pic heavy post to look forward to.  For now feast your eyes on a plethora of tops and a few bottoms that are no longer stashed fabrics.

1. Comino Cap
Finally decided I was keeping this yard of mermaid jersey for me. Sorry/Not sorry kids in my life. No changes to this baby, just hot pink mermaid goodness.

2. Maison Fleur 1301 Top View 2
This was supposed to be another version of View one, but the cotton sateen seemed a bit too thick for shoulder ties.  No worries, it's easy to convert the top to view 2 mid project.  All you need to do is cut off the ties on the back an put some buttonholes in the front ties.  A few self covered buttons were added to the front for a decorative element.

3. Nettie with cap sleeves and gathers.
Somehow I didn't make a short sleeve black Nettie last year. What! Well that oversight must be fixed immediately.  To spice the pattern up I added a few minor tweaks. First the normal Nettie short sleeve was swapped out with a cap sleeve that I'd drafted way, way back for the Fauxneta.  Second I gathered up the CF with a 1/4" x 1.5" piece of black elastic.  Easy, Peasy.

4. Edith and Self Drafted circle skirt
Yep, I really like the Edith pattern and keep adding them to my closet. More prints! More Colors!  And what could be better for summer than a sea themed vintage cotton version? Nothing! After that was finished, I decided to sew another self drafted circle skirt for a snazzy new outfit.

 

5. Several pairs of Barrie Briefs.
At long last a use for those Lillestoff remnants that are too big to throw away! I've been sewing the mid rise version because I'm turning onto an old lady who likes her underwear bigger and bigger.  They have excellent "check coverage" for those of us with plenty of junk in the trunk. I'll be sewing up a least a week's worth and while chackling with delight.

The stash busting contest was a fun challenge and did make me sew up more yardage than I normally do.  Nothing like a good dose of competition to get one cranking out all those things on the sewing list.  Still I'm looking forward to July, using new fabrics and not feeling guilty about picking up my knitting.

Stashbusting Power Boost

It's been a little quiet on the blog this month because I've been cranking the sweatshop into high gear. Frog and I have been pumping out garments for the PR Fabric Stash contest. Since this contest is won based on yardage sewn, it seemed like we might have a shot at one of those sweet Mood gift certificates.

Froggie and I played the Rocky 4 soundtrack over and over again, and got our "Eye of the Tiger" on. However real life conspired against us and cut our sewing time in half.  Then I decided to sew a dress that needed plaid matching and bound buttonholes.  Oh yes Heather, planning a giant time suck project is greaaat strategy for this contest......not.  Froggie also might have binged on birthday cake and not held up his end of the hemming bargain.  Long story short, Team knitnbee is way behind in the numbers and won't be taking any prizes home

On the good side, the contest has been a great motivator to use up some of that dreaded orange stash layer. All those rementants and tricky fabrics that have been lurking in my stash for years. When the shiny new fabric is off limits, amazingly I come up with pattern ideas for the old stuff.  Or at least recycle patterns that seem to fit with the yardage available.

Most of the garments team knitnbee has made are ones you've already seen on the blog.  Instead of doing my normal review format, I thought a quick overview would make more sense. The pictures aren't going to be quite as good either. It's basically just me lurking on the sidewalk in front of my house, trying not to squint into the camera. So let me show you what I've been up to.
 
Outfit #1 - Maria Denmark Day to Night Drape Top and Colette Mabel

A couple of one yard knit remnants have been the bane of my stash for some time.  Too much to throw away, not enough for most pattern ideas....unless it's these two patterns. Score! The Day to Night Drape Top is new to me, but I'd seen numerous versions on other sewing blogs.  Figured it wouldn't be too hard to fit and whipped out a size medium with no changes.  On the whole I'm pleased with it other than the armhole depth. It's a little too close to flashing my bra band for comfort. I'd raise the armholes about a half inch for any future versions.

One sewing note - Instead of using either of the suggested bindings, I went a different route. The neckline was bound with self fabric the same say you'd use fold over elastic.  The armholes were finished with self strips of fabric and then coverstitch in the manner shown here.  Both of these methods worked out to my liking and I'd use them again. The Day to Night Drape top is a great way to use up rayon jersey scraps and it also got the husband seal of approval.  Not sure why I waited so long to make one.

Some of you may remember that I was less than enthused with the ponte Mabel made last summer. Surprisingly I actually found myself wearing that skirt around the house on a regular basis.  It's great for "fat" days and crawling around on the floor cutting fabric. When the deep stash yielded a yard of black rayon ponte it seemed like a good idea to modify the pattern and give it another try.

The pattern was lengthened 5" to make it a length similar to my woven pencil skirts.  I also put 1 1/4" elastic into the waistband to get rid of the feeling that the skirt was going to fall off. Both of these changes did improve the pattern for me, but I'm still not 100% comfortable with knit pencil skirts.  Stretch wovens just give you more lumps and bumps coverage.

Outfit #2 - Kitschy Coo Comino Cap/Lady Skater mash-up

Past Heather might have gone on a mesh buying kick two years ago under the assumption she was going to sew a bunch of underwear.  Guess what she never did....yep, sew underwear.  That's OK because present Heather needed some contrast fabric to squeeze out a dress in this swanky black jersey.  The swanky black jersey fiber content has been pushed out of my brain, but I did remember two things.  The fiber blend had milk fibers in it and the price per yard was on the high side.  That's why I hoared this fabric for years instead of sewing it right up.

Pattern details - The two Kitschy Coo patterns are drafted from the same block so you can sub in the lady skater skirt with no changes.  I did add 3" of additional length since I'm an old lady that like her knees covered.  The Comino Cap bodice is sewn as instructed other than reversing the direction all the seam allowances were stitched down. It seems smarter not to have the SA's peeking through the see through mesh.  I LOVE this dress and am happy to have put the swanky black jersey and feather mesh to good use.

That's all the sewing accomplished and photographed for now. I'll be back later in the month with another quicky post of TNT's. :)

My Quick and Dirty Hollow Chest Adjustment for Comino Cap

As I sat writing the meat of this post I kept thinking of a twitter conversation I had with Jo_Sews. She mentioned that he mother sewed for years, but had no idea about fitting.  She assumed that if a pattern didn't fit her out of the envelope it was because there was something wrong with the pattern. This stuck in my brain because it made me think, "How many people out there right now think the problem is with the pattern? When actually the problem is that they aren't aware of their own fitting issues?"

I distinctly remember in high school making a red brocade dress. (Tone on tone floral from JoAnn's. Probably polyester.... uggh) It was Asian inspired with a neru collar, frogs along the neckline (the decorative kind you know, not the fluffy kind that sits on my table) and a long slit up the leg. Even though the pattern measurements clearly showed I should have been blending two sizes, it never occurred to me to do so. I made the size that fit my hips and which made the bust area was way too big. The fit on the final dress was horrible and I never finished it, but didn't really put two and two together about why the project was a disaster. It was college that made me realize that garments need to be fit to particular bodies, even if they didn't really show us how. It took a lot of book reading, experimentation and muslining for me to figure out how to solve most of my problems, and I'm still learning new things.

Guess this is the long way of saying, "This is why I talk about my fitting changes all the time." I don't want someone to think there's a problem with the pattern, when the real problem is that we're all differently shaped. Showing my fitting fixes is something I like to do because I've been helped by other people doing the same thing. Sew smarter, not harder. :)  So let's actually get to the sew smarter part and talk about my hollow chest adjustment for the Comino Cap. Sorry for the unplanned long winded detour.

I think it's safe to say that we all have indie favorites based on style, but also based on how close our figure is to the designer. After all the designer is the "fit model" used for the drafting of the pattern. If our figure is close to theirs, then the amount of alterations needed to get the pattern to fit us are minimal.  I'll freely admit that this is one of the reasons I'm a big Kitschy Coo fan girl.  I need to make very few adjustments to Amanda's patterns because our body type is fairly similar.  But there is one area were we are completely different and that is where our bust fullness is. Amanda's bust fullness is fairly high on her torso, where as mine is working it's way down to my waistline. (Thanks for the genes great grandma.) On a one piece top I don't really notice this. However with the added visual interest of the sweet heart princess line the excess ease bothered me.  Cue the visual examples.....

Comino Cap without any changes - I get some pooling of fabric at the mid point of the bust and over towards the arm.

To figure out how much ease to remove for the seam line, I pinched out the amount of fabric naturally folding up on the seam. On me that was 1.5" of extra ease.  Then I went back to the pattern and removed that amount from the sweet heart seam.

Comino Cap with sweet heart seam line ease reduced - Smooth baby, smooth.

So now I'll show you the "quick and dirty" method used to reduce the ease on this seam line.  It's quick and dirty because instead of slashing and closing the pattern, I'm darting out the excess ease.  You can do this kind of half assed alteration to knits because the stretch gives you a larger margin of error. But It's not the "correct way" and my pattern drafting teacher would dock my grade.

This fix will work on bodies with large busts with lower fullness like mine.  I'm not so sure it would work well as a SBA type of adjustment. Amanda is going to write up a tutorial on adjusting the pattern for small busts on her blog. If a SBA adjustment is one of your standard alterations then you might want to wait for that.

It might also be helpful for everyone to know that I did not make any kind of hollow chest adjustment to the one piece version. Without the seam line to attract the eye to that area the extra ease didn't bother me.

How to Modify the Comino Cap for Hollow Chests
I'll be demoing the fitting changes on the dress bodice pattern piece. The process is the same for the shirt version.

1. Trace off a copy of the front contrast piece and the front dress/shirt piece.

2. We'll be marking out the amount of ease to be removed on the lower piece first.  The amount of ease I'm removing is 1.5".  Because this is a rather large amount for on "dart", I decided to break it up into two 3/4" segments.   The first is 1" away from the side seam.  The second is measured from the bust matching point. I used the notch as one side of the 3/4" marking.

3. Fold the first marked out area like a dart and tape it shut.

4. Repeat step 3 with the second marked out area.

5. Now we need to remove the same amount of ease from the top contrast piece. Mark out the two 3/4" (or your measurement) in the same areas of the pattern.

6. When folding the first marked out area like a dart be sure not to take very much length out of the armhole. You might want to angle the fold like this.

7. Fold the second marked out area like a dart, letting it go up into the shoulder like so.

8. The fitting adjustments are done but the patterns "as is" would be a real pain in the butt to cut. You'll want to trace new copies.

9. For the lower piece I suggest first tracing the vertical fold line, then trace the modified sweet heart line off of the adjusted piece. "True" the seam line so that it is nice and smooth and remember to transfer the center bust matching point

10. Now take the lower piece and place it on the original pattern. Trace the waist/hem seam and then blend the original side seam from the bottom up to the new edge of sweet heart neckline.

11. The upper contrast piece is relatively flat compared to the bottom, but you might still want to retrace it to smooth out the sweet heart seam line and the armhole curve.

12. Cut your new traced copies out and you're ready to make a spiffy new Comino Cap.

Ahhhhh, doesn't fixing fitting problems make you feel good? Like dancing? Then get down with your bad self. "She's a fitting freak, fitting freak, she's super freaky now...Yooewww."