Simplicity 2588 - From the pattern stash

The pattern stash contest started off with sensible separates, but then it quickly devolved into make as many dresses as you possible can.  The first off the machine, Simplicity 2588, which I bought after seeing one made up on the Tessuti blog.  It's a very interesting design in that there are enough options that you could sew up several different looking dresses.  My version consists of the thinner yoke, non gathered sleeves, slim skirt and no belts or other sewn on waist accents.

 I'm so gonna be Roger Sterling 3rd wife.

Also can you say double stash busting? Yes that's right, the fabric is also from a semi-deep strata of the stash. It's an extra wide cotton (60"!) with a very dark brown flora print, purchased from sawyerbrook.com.  Very similar in hand to everyone's favorite pre-baby feather print dress. (I can't fit into that anymore and it makes me weep big salty tears.)

Another great thing about this pattern is that it needed 2, count them 2, fitting adjustments.

The first was sizing the bottom half up one dress size -  Top simplicity 16, bottom simplicity 18 with the skirt waist blended down to the size 16 measurement.

The second was taking in the top of the armhole princess seam about 1/4" and adjusting the front sleeve to reflect that change.

That is it..... which is craaaaaazy.  Though maybe it's some sort of karma for the insane number of adjustments I've made for another contest dress.

I broke out all the turquoise accessories for this little number.  One great thing about sewing so many dresses is now I have an excuse to get out the vintage bug pins.

Vintage pin, shoes and belt from shopruche.com

This is a great little number and I'm glad the pattern stash contest pushed this to the top of the sewing queue.   Here's the Flickr set for a few additional pics.

The parade of dresses will continue next post with a burda style number from my mag stash.

A tee for you and a tee for me

Mom and son sporting their freshly sewn Tee's made from some "seasoned" patterns.

On me Grainline Studio's Scout Tee, on my son Jalie 2918.

Pattern Review is running a pattern stash contest all this month and I've been inspired to sew up a few that have been lurking in the back of my closet.


For my son Jalie 2918 in some ribbed cowboy print cotton.  This is size 2 with the sleeves and hem shortened about an 1".  Either neck or the neck binding needs to be enlarged a bit for the next version.

I'm much too busy to stand still for pictures.

Confession time, I traced this pattern in November to make his cousin some Christmas T-shirts and then never sewed them.  Ooops.  At least this pattern has a huge size range so my nephew might get some correctly size T-shirts at some point.

I ignored the directions and used the coverstitch machine to do the neck binding and hems.  The rest is all straight forward overlocking of seams.  Easy Peasy.

There's a new sheriff in town.

For me Grainline Studio's Scout Woven Tee in Stretch Silk Crepe de Chine. (Still available here)

Pants are Hotpattern's boyfriend jeans, which are awesome.

A muslin showed that there was plenty of ease in the bust but I still really needed a bust dart.  To accomplish this I took out the front pattern piece from the Anthropologie knock off blouse and traced the dart.  Then added the amount of the dart intake to the bottom of the side seam and blended it into the hemline.
Other fitting changes were my standard 1/2" forward shoulder adjustment and 1/4 additional ease added to the hip.  My bustline sucks up a lot of length so 3" were added to the body and 1" to the sleeves.   I should have increased the ease across the upper back for freer arm movement but didn't notice that until wearing the finished shirt.  Thank god for stretch silk!

The only thing that can be a bit tricky in construction is the bias neckline.   But wait, Jen made a detailed tutorial on her website that totally rocks.  I've used it a couple of times now for different garments and highly recommend it.  Love this Tee, it's my new favorite.

Some bust dart action.

Flickr sets are here and here for larger pics.   Next up for the pattern stash contest, a whole lot of dresses.

Thurlow Shorts - a review

When Sewaholic released a pants pattern I jumped on that right away.  Her patterns really are drafted for pear shaped bodies and this means less alterations for me.  The pattern also has everything I like in a pair of dress trousers, slash pockets up front, bound button hole pockets in the back and a little flare to the leg.  The shorts are pretty cute too and since it's summer I made those up first.

Thurlow definitely is men's wear inspired because it has about a million pattern pieces.  I admit sighing heavily a few times while tracing and sewing everything.  But don't be lazy because the end result is a really nice pair of shorts.

My pair of Thurlows are made up in a gray/violet lightweight stretch cotton from Marcy Tilton.   Very nice weight for shorts and the color is an interesting semi-neutral.

Still had to make most of my regular pants fitting alterations, but having just completed Iris it was not too hard to transfer the changes over.  Started with the size 14 and made the following alterations.....
1.  Dropping the crotch 1".
2. Extending the CB seam line 1". 
3. Cutting off all CB extension provided in the pattern.  Actually had to take in an additional 1/2 in this location so it seemed silly to keep all that extra fabric when I don't need it.
4.  Increased the back dart intake to 1 3/8".  This did mean there were some puckering problems when sewing on the bound buttonhole pockets. 
5.  Cut down the waistband at CB probably about 2-2.5".
6.  Added about 1/2" to the front at the top of the side seam.
7.  Added 3" of additional length to the legs since the crotch alterations sucks up a lot of inseam length.  Also wanted the shorts a little longer for my tastes.

Now some close up shots so you can see all the great details on the shorts. 

Zipper with button and hook and eye closure.  It's annoying that you can't get jean zipper in very many colors locally.  If anyone knows of a good Internet zipper supplier drop me a line. 


Slash pockets on the front. I did omit the belt loops since I never tuck my shirts into pants.


Bound buttonhole pockets on the back.  Personal confession..... I HATE sewing bound buttonhole pockets even though I've done plenty of them. They're always fiddly and you've got to cut the fabric, so there's that no turning back point.  UGH!  That being said these turned out pretty well.  The increased dart intake seemed to create a pucker under the bottom of the pockets that couldn't gotten around.  I just accepted it and moved on.   Also the pocket bags are completely different than I've ever sewn before.  It took a few minutes of rereading the directions to understand what to do.
 

Speaking of pocket bags, I used some Liberty of London scraps for mine. Ooooo pretty!



Final thoughts on Thurlow, I think it's a great pattern for intermediate to advanced sewers.  I wouldn't suggest a beginner tackling bound buttonhole pockets on their first foray into pants sewing.  But if bound button hole pockets and fly front zipper insertion is an old hat to you then you'll love this pattern.   The directions are well done, and I really like the option of being able to adjust the fit at the last minute with the CB extension.  Come fall I'll be happily sewing up the pants version.

Post Holiday Supplies Hull

JoAnn's is having a sale on pretty much every pattern company except Simplicity.  Got up early and managed to score everything on my wish list. Victory!   Simplicity goes on sale next week on the 12th so I'llll be baaaaack.

Dresses, shirts, dresses, coats and more dresses.

 Mail man also delivered me some pretties,  roll ends from the hot patterns etsy store.


All knits that will probably turn into Renfrew tops.

Also interfacing and elastic from Pam at Fashion Sewing Supply .  If you aren't buying your interfacing from Pam, then you should be. All her interfacing is excellent but my favorite is her Pro-tricot for knits.

On the actual sewing front it's muslin madness!  Scout tee, Thurlow shorts, Easy Kimono Sleeve dress, vintage Advance 9440, and Burda 109 from issue 5/2010. I blame pattern review and their pattern stash contest for half of this mess.  The rest is just my brain getting distracted by something new and shiny... oooohhhhh what's that!

Make us into real garments already!

Either I'm going to have a lot finished garments in the near future or more muslins to join my muslin grave yard.  Gonna cross my fingers and hope for the best.

Mad Men Inspired Blouse - McCall's M5138

Joan's fabulous even when blurry.

While watching Mad Men I secretly labor under the delusion that I can wear whatever Christina Hendricks does.  She's the only reason I bought Colette's clover pattern, because if Joanie looks good in cigarette pants than maybe I can pull that off too.

This season I was completely taken with this short sleeve button down shirt Joan wears after telling her husband to take a hike. (See sadly blurry photo to right.) My brain said, "wait there's a pattern almost exactly like that just sitting in the stash. All it needs is a little sleeve redraft."
Most of the hard fitting work on this pattern had been done last year then I was trying to make a banded collar blouse with ruffles.  I got bored with that project and moved on, but not before hammering out a pretty decently fitting blouse.

Alterations made included....
1. Full bust adjustment with an additional lowering of the bust dart.
2.  Forward shoulder adjustment of about 1/2".
3.  Lowering the armhole around 3/4".
4. Adding a little extra width to the back armhole.
5. Moving the location, length and width of all the fish-eye darts.
6. Shorted the 3/4 length sleeve and added a sewn on cuff.
7. Adding almost an 1" to the side seams in the hip area.
8. Reducing the sleeve cap ease about an 1".

The worst part of the fitting process was getting the darts right. The back darts seemed too close to the side seams.  I moved them some what closer to center back.  Because of my sway back the dart intake was increased and the leg of the dart lengthened. On the front the dart intake had to be reduced to almost nothing.  Truth is I don't really need a dart in this location but like the look of one.

As great as Joan looks in rosebud gingham that's something I couldn't pull that off, so out came this long stashed cotton blouse weight. 

Blurry cherry blossoms from Emma one sock years and years ago.

It must have been meant to be because there was just enough yardage in the roll end cut to make this blouse.

Ta Daaaa,  the finished product.....

Front and back view worn with Colette Clover Capri length pants.

A few style changes were made, I lengthened the blouse and retained the shirt tail hem from the pattern.  A cuff was added to the sleeves because they needed a little something to keep them from looking dowdy.

A little detail montage. All photos can be seen larger on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/froggiegirl/sets/72157630363323714/

I'm already thinking this pattern needs to be made in a solid color with patch pockets!

Happy 4th of July

I made deviled eggs.

And feta dip

Stood in a wading pool with my son

Colette Iris shorts,  Hot Patterns Riviera Once, Twice, Three times T-shirt

And got a little sewing done on muslins for Grainline Studio's Scout Tee and Sewaholic's Thurlow shorts.

Hope everyone had a great day with plenty of tasty food. :)

Next Up....

On the sewing table, a muslin for Pattern Runway's Easy Kimono Sleeve dress.  Did all the work tracing the pattern and bumping up the sizing to XL months ago but didn't get around to making a muslin. I'm planning on using one of my stashed silks for the actual dress, but isn't this cheap Jo-Ann's polyester fun!

Next to review - McCall's M5138 a finished blouse that looks almost exactly like the technical drawing.  You'd never know I made about 5 muslins. Ughhhhhh.