What's the Expiration date on that TNT?

Last week I decided to whip up a quick pencil skirt and reached for an old TNT. It was Burda 127 (Issue 1/2008) a pencil skirt with princess line seams in the front and back. Suddenly a giant robot came out of the wall screaming, "Danger, Heather B, Danger, this TNT has expired!"  Alright that didn't happen, but it would have saved me a lot of seam ripping.  Upside is that I don't have to clean oil stains out of the carpet. 

Despite not getting a robot red flag, the warning signs of TNT expiration where there. Like the fact that the I last made this Burda pattern was in 2009. Shortly after that I gained about 60 lb while gestating the hungriest fetus ever. (Code name - Sir Snacks a lot)  Losing that weight doesn't mean it comes off on all the same places. Looking at you post baby fat shelf. Also past Heather wasn't quite the sticker about fitting like the current version is. It's OK, she didn't know any better at the time....lazy snitch.

Confession - I'm kind of making a mountain out of a mole hill. After finishing the skirt and trying it on, the only major fitting problem was that the back of the waistband was gaping horribly.  I could have slid Froggie in there for trips around town, except I don't need to draw more attention to my rear end.  

The gaping shouldn't have been a surprise considering the pattern is finished with a narrow, straight waistband. Straight waistbands and my tilted waist/sway back don't mix well.  Back in the aughts I didn't know why my waistbands never fit and solved the problem by covering them up with shirts.  However with my current bodysuit craze, Hail Hydra Nettie, a better fitting waistband was needed.  I decided to draft a new one wider waistband to suit my current tastes.

Using the same method outlined here I drafted a curved waistband with the finished width of 1 3/4".  To give it a little more visual interest, the lips waistband shape was traced off BlueGingerDoll's Peggy skirt pattern. Even skirts need sexy red lips.

Having already done the sewing penitence of ripping out a prettily stitched waistband and zipper, I went whole hog and top-stitched all the princess line seams.  The new waistband was attached and also top-stitched.  What can I say, that new to me blind stitch hem foot doubles as a really nice top-stitching foot. Bonus, a machine stitched hem fit right in with all that top-stitching. Froggie says, "Top-stitch all the things, then bring me a cookie!"

So yes I was irked about having to "un-finish" a finished project.  The sewing list is long and I don't want to earn demerits from my frog overlord.  Buuuuuttt sometimes you've got to put the seam ripper time in to get something you'll actually wear.  That's why we're sewing things in the first place, isn't it?  Well I'm sewing for that reason and to accumulate all the fabric I can get my hands on.

*Bonus bodysuit notes for fellow addicts.* I'm modeling version 3 of my Nettie bodysuit changes here feel like it's the perfect version for me.  In v3 the front neckline back to it's original drafted position, having been raised in v2. The Lady skater armhole I'd subbed in seemed a bit large so I took out 1/2" of ease.  To make the original Nettie sleeve fit the new armhole, I split the entire pattern down the center and added 1/2" of additional width. Think I needed the extra width for my upper arm as well. The sleeve now fits snuggly but does not ride up. Hooray.  

Even with my waistband changes I still finished this skirt in time to wear it to the dentist. Because in your late 30's getting good news about your gum health is a reason for celebration.  Don't tell them about the cake I had afterwards. That's our little secret.

Nettie bodysuit in Bamboo
Burda 127 from Issue 1/2008 in stretch cotton sateen
Luxulite mini cherry brooch
Miss L fire Cherry Pop sandals
Besame Lipstick colors Red Velvet over Besame Red

Sundress Hacks - The Nora

Oh No, some hooligans have been graffiting the blog again. Well they must have tapped into my brain because I have a special sew-a-long installment planned today, a sundress pattern hack. "A hack you say? I would have never in a million years thought Heather would hack another pattern." is what no one said ever. You come for the hacks and stay for the crazy. Yes? yes.  So let me take off my lab coat and present you with my latest Pattern McFrankenstein creation, the Nettie/Flora knit dress - Nora for short. Frogore, throw the lights.

This particular hack did not jump fully formed from my head and thank god cause ouch!  Instead I was inspired by Sown in Brooklyn's instagram feed. Nettie posted a picture of a great dress that immediately called two patterns to mind. Nettie on top and Flora on the bottom. It's comfy, it's sexy, it's Nora. And apparently if you start binge watching "Mr. Selfridge" then you think of everything in terms of marketing.  Do you think Mr. LeClaire will design me a window? What if I tempt him with the back view?

The bodice of this dress is the front scoop neck and the medium back view of Nettie with the straps narrowed. Instead of finishing the neck and armholes with bands, I cut two front and back pieces and made a self lining.  To get a clean finish on those areas I used the handy technique posted by Colette for the Moneta dress.  The Flora skirt was attached with a few "on the fly" changes to pleat depth to get the two pieces to match in diameter.  On my size the back skirt fit perfectly, but the front knife pleats needed to be deepened by about an 1".

Ooo look at that lovely hem sweep while I'm checking out an open trash can of hornets just out of frame. The things we do for sewing/blogging/decent backgrounds without too much sun. At least I wasn't wounded in action. I do appreciate hornets that respect fashion.

Nora is my favorite kind of knit dress.  One that is comfortable to wear, but still makes you look put together. Even better the pattern hack for making it is super simple.  I've outlined the steps so you can start making your Nora today. Yes, TODAY. You won't regret it.

*Note - I went one size up on the recommended Nettie size for this dress.  Mostly because of my wider back issues with the higher back neckline. You may not need the extra ease so muslin, muslin, muslin.

How to Adjust Nettie
1. To start, trace the front scoop neck and the medium back view on the Nettie pattern.

2. Use one of the lengthen/shorten lines as your waist seam for the patterns. I used the upper line.

3. On the front shoulders mark 1/2" in on either side of the strap. Then repeat this step on the back pattern piece.

4. On the CF raise the neckline at least 3/4". You need to fill in the neckline a bit because you won't have the added coverage of the neckband . Also the weight of the skirt will pull the bodice down giving you a deeper plunge then you might expect.  You may want to raise the neckline further depending on the vertical stretch of your fabric.

5. Raise the CB of the back scoop 3/4" for bra coverage.

6. Using a french curve redraw the neckline.

7. Then redraw the armhole.

8. Repeat the last two steps on the back pattern piece. Cut off the excess paper on the armhole and necklines to get finished pattern pieces that look like these.

Optional Bodice Step - You may also want to shorten the strap length to counter act the weight of the skirt pulling it down. The more vertical stretch the fabric has, the shorter the strap length should be.

Optional Skirt Step - If we are being good little pattern drafters, then the final step would be to compare the length of the waist seams between the Nettie and Flora patterns.  Then adjust the Flora skirt to fit by either making the pleats deeper for shaving some of the side seam off.  
If you want to be lazy like me and do it on the fly, then do the following.  Notch both the CF and CB on the bodice and skirt.  Pin the skirt to the bodice at these notches and both side seams.  Now you can see how much fabric needs to be folded at the pleat to make the two pieces fit.  You can fold the correct sized pleat and sew the skirt to the bodice.

Quick note about fabric - Because of weight of the skirt I'd recommend using a jersey that doesn't have too much stretch in the vertical direction. However it should be light enough to have some drape for the skirt. Something like an ITY would work great for this sort of design.  The fabric I used has been stashed long enough that the fiber content is a little hazy in my mind.  I believe it's a cotton/lycra blend, due to the hand. It's a lot more stable than a rayon jersey, but I still needed to shorten the straps to keep the neckline from getting too low.

Now that it's back to the sewing machine to work on my Cambie hack. Can't stop, won't stop. :) There's still plenty of time to join the sew-a-long if you get the itch. Just pop on over to the flickr group and join. I'll have Froggie mix up a fresh batch of daiquiris when you arrive.

Bronte in Blue - with Bonus Fitting Info

First a quick thank you about the Martini/Bellini post. I was afraid that my normal practice of answering in the comment section might mess up the rafflecopter counts for the give away. I appreciate your feedback and big internet hugs to you all.

Now on to the real meat of this post, Jennifer Lauren's Bronte pattern.

My socks were knocked off when upon seeing this pattern. The vintage 40's shoulder detail really rocked my world and doing it in a knit fabric was a stroke of genius.  I bought, downloaded and traced this baby the day it was released.  The pattern was muslined and it seemed to fit great.  So off I went to make a real version out of some striped Lillestoff and that's when the shit hit the fan.

Yes it was the dreaded, "real knit fabric behaves differently than the muslin fabric."  Sewing Goddess, why have you forsaken me? Sewing Goddess said, "Snitch please, you know what you did wrong." Oh yeah, was it muslining in a different weight knit? Or was it using a wild print that made the fitting problems hard to see? Was it both things? It was both things.  My gut then yelled, "I told you not to do that, but did you listen? NOOOOOO. Think you're smarter than me? Nobody's smarter than me!"

Ok, Ok, you two. I get it, I screwed up this time. Excuse me while I don the ribbons of shame to figure out what my fitting problems are. My gut yelled again, "It's your forward shoulder, like I told you the first time. What are you deaf?" God, why is my gut a surly old man? Dude needs to mellow out. Anyway my gut was correct that my forward shoulder was a good place to start. Long story short, I had to flex my brain muscles and knock out a few more muslins before figuring out the entire fitting problem.  More on that in the fitting section. Let's look at pretty pictures first.

My final version is in a lovely royal blue bamboo knit, a little darker in real life.  The white polka dots are 3 dimensional ink that's been painted on. Kind of like 80's puffy paint, but a little classier. (Please tell me that some of you also had a puffy pant stash.)

Bronte/pencil skirt combo is my favorite. Better put a black denim pencil skirt on the top of the sewing list.

The shoulder detail and I are still having a torrid love affair.  Ahhhh look at the cute flower buttons that were in the stash.  Not knitting baby sweaters in a timely manner finally paid off. There were only 5 on the card so I put 4 buttons on the top instead of the suggested 6.

The buttons also anchor the top overlap so that it doesn't slide backwards on the shoulder. Or at least they do on me.

Pattern
Bronte from Jennifer Lauren Vintage  I made a combo 12/14.

Fabrics used
Polka dot bamboo jersey from Marcy Tilton, but you can get it a few bucks cheaper for Harts. Harts also has this fabric in a number of other colorways.

Pattern changes/alterations
Here's a breakdown of my fitting problems with a little photo assistance.

The biggest problem was the very noticeable drag lines from the bust up to the shoulder overlap.  I also had drag lines coming over the shoulder on the back piece and excess fabric wadding above the bust.

So what's causing all of this?  It's combo of a forward shoulder and a hollow chest.  The shoulder juts forward causing the back length to be too small, which in turn pulls the front up. Meanwhile on the front, the bust fullness is low, which causes pooling of the fabric near the underarm.

To counteract these fitting problems, the back pattern piece needs to be lengthened at the neck and armscye. The front pattern piece needs to be shortened only at the armscye. On my frame the armhole felt like it was the correct diameter. That told me that the same amount needed to be added/subtracted to the back/front to retain the diameter. To determine that amount I did the following...
-Unpick the basting on shoulder area so that the top and back were unattached.
-Tried the shirt on and moved the back overlap backwards until the drag lines on the front disappeared. Then pinned it in place.
- Took off the shirt and measured the distance between the back shoulder notch and the tip of the front neck binding.  On my muslin that measured 1.5"  With that information it was time to move on to the pattern adjustments.

How to Adjust Bronte for a Forward Shoulder and Hollow Chest.
Start with a forward shoulder adjustment to the back.
1. Draw a line across the shoulder overlap. I used the shoulder notch as a guide for my placement.

2. Cut the pattern apart on the line

3. Insert paper to make the overlap portion longer.  I added 1.5" to my pattern.   Tape the other part of the pattern on and use a french curve to true up the neckline.

4. Trim off the extra paper and the back piece is finished.

5. The back neckband needs to be lengthened to match the change made to the shoulder.  Cut it in half on the center fold line.

6. Add double the amount added to the back. So for my band I added 3".  Draw in a new center line and the back neckband is done.

Finish with the hollow chest adjustment.
7.  Draw a line perpendicular to your grain line across the upper part of the pattern.  Because the excess seemed to be pooling near the underarm I placed mine near the bottom of the armscye.

8. Draw another line parallel to the first at the distance that being removed. For my sample it's 1.5".

9. Fold the pattern so that the two lines touch.

10. Add some paper to your armscye and use a french curve to true up the seam.

11. Cut off the paper and all the pattern edits are done.

Note - You can also do a forward adjustment to the sleeve. Tutorial for that here. I was lazy and skipped this step, figuring the knit fabric would disguise the problem.

Confessions/Advice
- I neglected my sway back adjustment again.  Wow, denial on that fitting problem runs deep.

- This jersey is lighter weight than than recommended by the pattern. That does lead to some "draping" in the front.

- I used my normal 1/4" seam allowance rather than the suggested 3/8".

Husband Comment
"Is that a fancy onesie?"

My Final Thoughts
Had to work for this one, but it was worth it in the end.  Besides if everything goes well you don't get to bask in the "successfully triumphed over fitting problems" warm, fuzzy feeling. Ahhhh feels like velvet.
I found the Bronte pattern to be well formatted and the directions well written. It's a nice beginner pattern construction wise and not having to do a circular neckband insertion was a welcome change of pace. I'd recommend it to anyone who like vintage influenced looks.

Now don't you guys worry about that abandoned Lillestoff Bronte, I got plans of it. Muhhhhaaaa *Rubs hands together evilly*

Say Hello to Capital Chic Patterns

I'm always excited to find out about a new pattern company, because it means there are even more pretties to add to my collection. So it was no surprise that I yelled "Yes, Yes" when Sally of Charity Shop Chic contacted me about a new line of patterns she was starting. MOAR Patterns!

Sally's new line of patterns is called Capital Chic and focuses on work wear, cocktail wear and day-to-night looks.  The first collection features 6 patterns with clean lines and a modern style aesthetic.  The patterns are available as print-at-home and print-at-copyshop PDF files. You can check out the whole collection over at captialchicpatterns.com.

Disclaimer time - Sally gave me the option of testing what ever patterns caught my fancy for free, in exchange for my feedback. The two patterns I chose to test were the cocktail dress Martini and the button up blouse Bellini.   I also used it as an excuse to buy a bunch of fabric. Sorry stash busting pledge.  I tested the beta versions of the patterns, however no major changes were made for the final version. So what you see in my sample garments is what you'll get in the purchased version. OK, now on to the fun stuff.

Martini -  Have I ever told you that I'm secretly a cocktail dress junkie?  It must stem from some past life hobnobbing with Don Draper at ritzy bars.  Oh Don, you're such a cad, now bring me another cocktail. Being a fictional character, Don never did bring me that drink. That's OK, I sewed myself a martini instead.

Martini can be sewn as a one-piece dress or a two piece pencil skirt and crop top combo.  I chose the one piece dress version because "my girls" would be working overtime trying to exit the bottom of the crop top. They're sneaky like that. The one piece dress still gives you the illusion of wearing a separate top without having to worry about the effects of gravity. Seems like a win win to me.

One thing that really impressed me about Sally's patterns is that they are designed to be as pretty on the inside as on the outside.  On Martini both the bodice and skirt are lined and then attached together with a french seam at the waist. The dress also has the detail of a zipper shield for the invisible zipper. I'll fully admit that I'm not a big sticker for finishing beyond overlocking. (*cough* lazy *cough*) But these kind of touches were appreciated by me as an experienced dressmaker.

Details you might like to know
Fitting - As someone with a bottom heavy hour glass figure, very little fitting was needed on this pattern. The skirt portion fit perfectly with no changes.  Due to my low set bust I had to lengthen the bodice by 1" to keep the bottom of the crop top below the girls.  I also made my standard fitting adjustments of 1/2" forward shoulder and dropping the bodice darts an 1".

Sewing confessions - I only skimmed the directions before choosing fabrics and didn't realize that the CB of the bodice self fabric is not attached to the zipper.  Probably would have chosen a black lining instead of cobalt if I'd known that. Oops (I did read the directions later, cause that's good testing and froggie was holding a ruler in a threatening manner.)

I love the textured ginkgo print suiting used for this sample, but it does not hold a press at all. That makes all the edges of the garment fluffy instead of my preferred crisp look.


Bellini - I also wanted to sew up one of the more causal patterns. You know, something a stay at home mom actually needs in her wardrobe. It also let me buy this cherry print broadcloth from Fabricmart. Cherries girls, Cherries!

Bellini is described as a loose fitting blouse with cap sleeves. While it has no darts, it still skims the body in a flattering manner. Bellini comes with two collar options, a straight collar and a scalloped one.  The scalloped one sold me on the pattern, but sadly it just didn't look right on me.  No matter, straight collars and I always get on.

Just like a Martini the insides are pretty, pretty.  Both the shoulder seams and side seams are sewn as french seams.  The armholes are finished with bias binding and the collar completely encloses the seam in a clean finish.

Details you might like to know
Fitting - Due to the looser fitting style, I didn't need to make many fitting adjustments on this pattern either.  I made the standard for me adjustments of  1/2" forward shoulder and 1/2" sway back. Looking at the finished garment I could have used a larger sway back adjustment  The shirt was also lengthened 5/8" for personal preferences.

Sewing confessions - Had this not been a pattern testing garment, then I would have added a side seam bust dart.. I think a little dart shaping on the front helps garments hang better on my body.

This garment was the first time I played with the buttonhole attachment on my snazzy Bernina 350.  In my excitement I made them a little too far away from the edge. Whoops.  It's good to know I'm human, right? ;)

To celebrate the launch of Capital Chic Patterns I'll be giving away a digital copy of the Martini pattern. To enter leave a blog comment and your information in Raffelcopter, so I have information to contact you if you win.  The drawing will run from 6/26/2014 till 7/3/2014.  Till then enjoy a candid of the Martini dress in action. The boy says we must DANCE!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Sundress Sew-a-long plans

Confession time - I've had a really hard time deciding what pattern to choose for my own sew-a-long.  Doesn't that count as an internet party foul or something? Confession to the confession, I did know what I wanted to sew, but had neither the pattern or the fabric.  It was a Colette Hazel out of this fabric from Miss Matatabi. Warning: this fabric store is extremely dangerous. Don't click if you have weakness for Japanese fabric, least you spend all your grocery money on double gauze. I don't want any emails from husbands complaining about having to eat cold beans out of a can for a week.

OMG those bears. Look at him hug that fish right before he rips it's head off.

But we're supposed to be stash busting around these parts, so I had to give myself a stern talking too.  "Listen here Heather, there are plenty of fabric and patterns in this house. Pick one of them and deal."  Ok then "wet blanket but ultimately wise Heather", guess I'll pull out the Cambie pattern.

Oh hello there. A little late to the party aren't we?

Ahh yes the Cambie pattern which I erroneously left off the pattern inspiration posts. Bad blogger, no cookie. However I did put it on my summer sewing post, paired with this fabric.

I'm a little concerned about what that guy is doing to a sheep over on the top left.

A straight up Cambie with no design changes still sounds good buuuuuut...... I might have fallen in love with the bodice of this modcloth dress.

Don't you want me baby? Don't you want me Whoaaaa ooo?

Mmmmm sweet heart neckline/princess line bodice with straps, you complete me.  I wouldn't mind knocking off the whole dress actually.  There's just that pesky measurement imbalance between my front and back waist circumference that makes even pleats + properly fitting bodice impossible. A circle skirt might work just as well for my purposes.

Well, I'd better make my style decisions and get going because there are already finished sundresses in the sew-a-long group. You guys have been busy little bees. :)

MMI Blogs used the Pendrell blouse pattern as a base to draft a sundress. Here she is keeping cool while watching the world cup. More info on it on her Kollabora page.

Cher Sews whipped up a sleeveless Lady Skater in the most summery stripe combo possible. She might be convincing me that orange is a neutral. More info over on her blog.

Great dresses ladies! Thanks for sewing along with me. :)