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Sewing the Robson Trench Coat, part 2

Following up on last week’s Robson progress post, I have a few more bits and pieces I’d like to share before the ~big reveal~. I normally hate dragging these types of projects out over several posts, but I think this coat deserves more than just a single post (plus, I haven’t taken pictures of my newest projects! So consider this filler, ha!).

Last week, I left off with the main body of the coat completed – everything from the collar, to the facing, to the hem. All that was left was the sleeves, the belt and belt loops, and the buttons. Easy enough, yeah?

I WISH. I about killed myself over those dumb ol’ sleeves! Putting them together was easy – even with the added step of trimming/grading the sleeves and adding the bias binding – but setting them in took me close to 2 hours, and there was lots of scream-cussing involved. The hardest part was getting the bias binding on the sleeve seam allowance once everything was set in – mostly because the area was obscenely thick with all those fabric layers, and also because I’m an idiot and I trimmed the seam allowances to super short before putting on the bias binding.

PROTIP: Sew one side of the bias binding on before you trim down those seam allowances. It will give you much more leeway in an area that’s already pretty tight to maneuver around.

I will say that, despite my troubles, those sleeves set in perfectly the first time – and they look beautiful! The drafting on this thing is pretty amazing.

Hemming the sleeves was also kind of tough, because the total circumference of the sleeve was smaller than the circumference by the throat plate. Which means I couldn’t just slide the sleeve over the arm of my sewing machine and go in the round – I had to do some horrible wedging and go VERY VERY slowly. To keep my hem even, I stuck a piece of tape on the arm of my machine (you can barely see it in this picture, if you squint) and used that as a guideline. My hems turned out pretty straight and even – not that you can see it with that busy lace pattern :B

I did come across one problem when sewing the sleeve tabs – the pattern calls for you to sew 3 edges, right sides together, and then turn right side out and press. Well, I tried that…

And, um well, I’m not sure exactly what happened. HAHA. I guess my loop turner just grabbed the lace and not both layers? Anyway, I was able to shove the underlining back inside the lace tube with a knitting needle, but it made me think about how I was going to tackle the belt and belt loops, since they are also sewn the same way.

To make the belt loops, I followed the same procedure as for the Thurlow belt loops. You can see a tutorial on that here (from my Thurlow sew-along!).

For the belt, I folded in 5/8″ along each edge and pressed it.

Then I folded the whole thing in half…

And topstitched along all four sides. This made for a nice, crisp belt – without having to worry about turning a long tube and ending up with that… thing.

Here is my finished belt. As you can see, I made a few changes – I decided to use a buckle instead of tying the belt, as I think it makes the coat look a little more trench-y. It’s just a basic self-covered buckle that I pulled out of my stash, and covered with the navy sateen that I used for underlining (also, the sticky guide in the kit was all dried up, so I used spray-mount on the fabric to get it to stick aaaaand I didn’t go outside to do this, so my sewing room may or may not be covered with spray glue jsyk). I also narrowed the belt by about an inch – I’m not sure exactly how much, I just kept hacking at it until it fit in the buckle. With this in mind, the belt loops were also shortened to accommodate the narrower belt.

With all that done, it was time to add the button holes and buttons! Not much to report on that – I used my button hole cutter to slice through the holes, and I am pleased to report that they are decidedly unhairy. The buttons were sewn on with silk thread, which I first ran through beeswax – I wanted them to stay on that damn coat! I moved the bottom buttons outward slightly, so the coat is more straight than A-line (I just think that suits my figure better!). Oh, and I didn’t bother with the interior buttons – I don’t ever use those things anyway, meh.

As it stands now, the coat is finished! I am so proud of it and I can’t WAIT to show it off 🙂 I even got some super-fancy pictures taken, and damn it looks good.

Here is a sneaky peek because I can’t help myself.

Stay tuned!

Tags: coat, lace, Lace Trench, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, work in progress

Comments 51 Comments
Categories Mood Sewing Network, work in progress

Sewing the Robson Trench Coat

22 Apr

Spoiler: There are no finished projects in this post, sry2say! I’ve been working on this coat for the past week, and I thought it might be beneficial to show some progress photos as well as share some tips 🙂

Anyway, let’s get down to business. Have y’all seen the newest addition to Sewaholic patterns – Robson Coat?! AHHH. I’m on Tasia’s pattern tester email list, and every time she sends out an email for testing, I’m almost always too busy with current projects/too poor to buy fabric (as was this case) so I have to pass… and I always think, “Man, I’m going to regret passing on this.” Sure enough, when the official announcement came out, I considered punching myself in the face out of frustration, because, FUCK. That coat is awesome and I need one, weather be dammed.

What really sealed the deal for me was getting an eyeful of Novita’s lace version. It’s just jaw-droppingly beautiful, and I immediately wanted to be a shameless copycat and make my own version (of course I asked first ;)).

This is the lace I am using for my coat:

It’s from Mood, of course, and I think I bought the last of the bolt in the store so you can’t have it nyah nyah nyah 😉 It’s labeled an outwear fabric, and it’s nice and weighty for a trench coat. At $20 a yard, it was definitely a splurge (and remember – I had to buy underlining, bias binding, buttons, thread, interfacing, all that fun stuff!), but I recalled Novita saying she only used 4m to make hers, so I ordered 4 yards and it was just enough. Yay! The lace is underlined with navy cotton sateen, and the bias binding is made with white/navy polka dot cotton batiste.

I’m not going to sugarcoat – this jacket requires quite a bit of stamina to make, as it takes a loong time. I spent at least 8 hours just prepping the dang thing, before I even got to sewing! Cutting the fabric pieces (twice, since they are underlined), making my own bias binding (because I clearly don’t have enough to do as it is), attaching the interfacing, basting the underlined pieces together, marking the notches, etc etc. I chose to do all this before I started sewing, just to get it out of the way.

My garment press made fusing interfacing fun! I just stuck the pieces in the press, sprayed them with water, and set a timer on my phone for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, I flipped the pieces, sprayed them again, and fused for another 30 seconds. Since the press doesn’t require you to stand over it and hold it down (like an iron), I could get other things done in the meantime…

Such as prepping my thread and winding bobbins. My bobbin winder is amazing and self-motorized (no holding down the pedal!), so I was actually winding bobbins, fusing interfacing, AND dicking around on Instagram at the same time! GLORY.

Since my coat has several different colors going on, I am using three different thread colors. Part of what is making this take so long is that I have to keep changing out the thread with practically every step!

Deciding on how I would handle the underlining took a lot of thought. Since my lace is see-through and the inside of the coat is not lined, I had to take that into consideration when it came to fusing the (BRIGHT WHITE) interfacing to my pieces. Thankfully, all the interfaced pieces do require a facing on the opposite side, so I simply fused my underlining to the wrong side of my cotton sateen.

Then I stacked the lace on the sateen and basted the pieces together – all 30+ of them (yeah, there are a LOT of pieces in this pattern!). THAT PART TOOK FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER. Thankfully, I was able to get them machine-basted, which definitely sped up the process – I think I would have cried if I had to hand-baste all that!

More info on underlining can be found in this blog post, fyi!

I also had to consider how my button holes would look on the lace. Fortunately, my machine makes pretty awesome button holes, so combined with my new button hole cutter, I think they look pretty profesh, yeah?

I was planning to do a whole series of posts on this coat – but honestly, once I started sewing (like, actually sewing, and not prep :B), it’s pretty fast and straight forward! There isn’t a lot to elaborate on as far as the instructions are concerned. I did want to share a how I dealt with the binding, though – the instructions just have you fold the binding in half and wrap around the edges of the seam allowance (as like this), which is fine when you’re working with a lighter weight fabric – but not two thicker fabrics sewn together! I actually tried to bind a seam as per the instructions, and then laughed for about 20 minutes when I saw how ugly and sad it turned out!

So here’s my advice to you~ for those bound seams-

First, pull your seam allowances apart (you will need to remove the basting stitches holding the layers together) and trim down the shell fabric to 1/4″. This will greatly reduce the bulk of your seams, making it easier to wrap the bias binding around the remaining seam allowances.

Here is the seam with the shell fabric (blue lace) trimmed down. You may also want to trim down your underlining at this point – not too much, just enough to get the edges even if they aren’t already. As a sidenote, sorry about all the thread/cat hair. Apparently, cotton sateen is a magnet for EVERYTHING. Who woulda thought?

Open one side of your bias tape and pin it to the seam allowances, right sides together with raw edges matching.

Sew the bias tape to the seam allowances – try to get your stitching line right along the opened fold. I use a long basting stitch for this step; it’s really just to keep things in place while you top stitch.

When you flip the binding to the other side, it should naturally fall into place.

Top stitch with a matching thread. See how nice that looks? It’s an extra step for sure, but totally worth it in my opinion. With a thicker fabric, it can be hard to get that tiny bias tape folded around the edge with an even stitch and both sides caught in the fold. I’d rather take my time and get things done right the first time, rather than try to take short-cuts that result in a personal one-on-one with my seam ripper 🙂

Another tip if you’re sewing the Robson is to be sure to aggressively grade those seam allowances by the collar, because they can get real thick real fast.

I have the body mostly done at this point and it’s become quite a beast to wrangle under the sewing machine. I’ve taken to pulling my top drawer out and using it as a tabletop for the bulk of the coat.

Since all the interior seams are finished with binding, I haven’t needed my serger at all for this project – so I took the opportunity to take it in for it’s yearly cleaning/maintenance. As you can see, Amelia is pissed that she has to share her ~window seat~ with that dumb ol’ machine.

Anyway, it’s look great so far-

I love how nicely that collar rolls! Just beautiful!

I plan to have this finished within the next week or so. Since it’s for the Mood Sewing Network, The Big Reveal won’t be until May – sorry! I’m such a tease.

Tags: bias tape, coat, Lace Trench, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, Robson, tutorial, underlining

Comments 65 Comments
Categories work in progress

Next Knitting Project – Another Sweater!

20 Jul

A few months ago, I mentioned that I was working on a second Agatha sweater – this time in black yarn. After about 2 weeks of knitting, I put it aside to work on something new & fresh, i.e., the Miette. Welp, that’s all done now & I’ve learned that I am unable to chill between knitting projects, so we’re back at the black Agatha. And, wow, is it knitting up WAY faster than the first one!

This is essentially just a dupe of the first Agatha – same yarn, different color. Same gauge, same size, etc etc. I am using Cascade 220 in a heathered black (although it looks super jet black in these pictures, there are subtle streaks of grey irl) with my trusty size 5 needles. I picked it up about 3 weeks ago & I’ve already finished the body. Magical!

This post also explains a little of my absence this past week – I’ve been housesitting since Tuesday, and while I did drag both my machine *and* my serger to the house (!!!), I haven’t gotten much sewing done because the commute is stupid long (I am staying in Hendersonville for those who know Tennessee… and I work in Midtown. Ughh!) and by the time I get back, I really just want to sleep. Ha! At any rate, I’ve been working on a pair of shorts that I’m REALLY excited about, so hopefully those will be finished soon!

My friend Amanda took these pictures of me. The background is where I’m housesitting – isn’t it gorgeous?! I made her crop my face out because I wasn’t feeling well & it totally shows.
Also, I had to lighten the pictures a bit since the black did not want to photograph at all.

Ok, this next picture is a really terrible picture of me, but look at the view!

LOOK AT THE VIEW

I have also just decided that this sweater will be formally named the “blagatha.” That is all.

Tags: Agatha sweater, blagatha, knitting, work in progress

Comments 10 Comments
Categories crafty things that are not sewing, work in progress

Underlining: The Why & How

15 Jun

I’m currently working on the madness that is Simplicity 1803 (seriously thinking about calling this dress The Disaster Dress, if that means anything) and I thought I would share a few of my trials & tribulations with y’all. I’ve had a lot of comments requesting a tutorial for underlining (or even just asking wtf underlining is exactly), and while I haven’t been able to fulfill those requests in the past – but today is your lucky day! Underlining day, yaay!

First up, let’s talk shop. What exactly is underlining? Some people tend to confuse it with lining; this is incorrect. Lining is a duplicate garment that hangs separately inside your dress (or skirt, or pants, or whatever) that covers all seams for a nice clean finish. It is constructed separately and generally only attached by a few seams – perhaps a neckline, or the waistband of your skirt. The hem usually left free-hanging for ease for movement. Consider lining the inception of sewing – a garment within a garment (see what I did there?).

Underlining is when you sew two pieces of fabric together & treat them like a single piece – kind of like some relationships (ahhh I’m on a roll today here). Since the underlining is actually sewn to the back of your fashion fabric, the seams do show & the inside of the garment doesn’t necessarily have that clean finish.

Underlining is wonderful for a variety of reasons – you can use it to stabilize your fashion fabric to give it a bit more body (like with my Bombshell dress), to add a layer of opacity to an otherwise sheer fabric (my Swiss Dot Violet really benefited from a batiste underlining), to add a layer of warmth to a coat (the lining of my Lady Grey is underlined with cotton flannel), or even to brighten up your fashion fabric a notch (look at the difference underlining made on my Gingham Peony!) If you were concerned about the integrity of a delicate fabric – lace, or vintage, or… I dunno, vintage lace – you could underline every piece for additional strength. Underlining has lots of uses, it’s awesome!

For my dress in question, I am using this pretty black eyelet from Mood. The whole thing is quite see-through so I knew ahead of time that it would going to need some kind of backing to keep certain places under cover. I originally planned on just dropping a whole lining in the thing & calling it a day, until I realized that you would see every single seam through the eyelet – and by every single seam, I mean eyelet seams & lining seams. I’m using Bemberg Rayon here (LOVE!!!!!) and that stuff frays like nobodies business. I started imagining little shreds of turquoise popping out all over the place & it gave me the willies.

So I decided to underline instead. An added bonus is that it totally negates the two issues I was having with the individual fabrics – the Bemberg was sliding all over the place, and my sewing machine was throwing a giant fucking fit every time I tried to sew over the textured eyelet. By sewing the two fabrics together, the Bemberg stays put & provides a layer over the eyelet that keeps the needle from freaking out. Yeah!

This process is pretty easy. I’m almost embarrassed to even post this.

Cut each pattern piece from both your fashion fabric & preferred underlining fabric (as I mentioned here, I’m using Bemberg Rayon – which is traditionally a lining fabric, but it’s main job for this dress is opacity). The pieces should be mirror images of each other. I like to go ahead & snip all my notches, it makes things easier to match up. Don’t worry about your pattern markings (the kind you use chalk or tailor tacks or whatever for) just yet.

Place the underlining on the wrong side of the fashion fabric. If your underlining has a right side, make sure it is facing the wrong side of the fashion fabric (so when you flip the whole thing over, both right sides should be facing up). Pin everything together – I used these tiny silk pins because my lining shows pin holes.

Then you just sew the lining to the fabric! Here are some tips:
– Yes, you can sew it by machine. I chose to sew by hand because the rayon is super slippery & I wanted it to shift as little as possible. It also makes ripping the basting stitches out MUCH easier. If you sew by hand, you want to keep things as flat as possible – sit at a table! It’s very mindless work, so feel free to watch a movie (or two!).
– Sew giant basting stitches using one strand of thread. Pick something contrasting so it’s easier to pull out the stitches after you sew the seams. I used orange thread; I thought it was pretty haha.
– Try to stay well within your seam allowance – you can see that mine is less than 1/4″ from the edge. I think this makes it easier to pull out the stitches (it’s not anywhere near the 5/8″ SA, so I’m not actually sewing over the basting with my machine) and it hides any pin-marks that may get left behind on delicate fabrics.
– You may also notice that I did not sew along the bottom edge of the piece. Call me lazy, idgaf. The basting for underlining is really there to hold the pieces together until they are properly sewn. I’ve found that I can usually get away with omitting the bottom hem & any seams that extremely short (such as the point between the princess seam & the armscye). Play around & see what works for you!

BONUS TIP:

(sorry about the crappy Instagram picture!)
For super precise darts, thread trace the dart legs through both layers after you have basted the pieces together. This keeps the fabrics together while you sew the dart, and eliminates any weird bubbling that may otherwise happen.

Here is the other side of my underlined piece. Cute!

Now that you’ve got your pieces all basted together, you can treat them like one piece of fabric. You can transfer your fabric markings to the underlining side of the fabric so it doesn’t show on the front. Sew as you normally would, and make sure to pull out your basting threads as you sew each seam.

Here is how my bodice is looking as of this morning

Since this is an underlining, and not a proper lining, you will still have to finish your seams & deal with facings. My seams are serged; my facing is a simple cotton broadcloth as the eyelet was too bulky.

I love the subtle peek of turquoise 😀

I am including this picture because it looks like a uterus, and that is funny to me.

So that’s it! Hopefully this brings a light to some of the mystique 🙂 As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Tags: Diaster Dress, simplicity, tutorial, underlining, work in progress

Comments 64 Comments
Categories tutorial, work in progress

The Makings of a Bombshell

2 May

Hey-o! I’m not quite finished with my Bombshell yet (only one video left! ::sob::), but I thought we could discuss some of the inner workings that are going on inside this monster of a dress.

I have the zipper & lining inserted & I’m pleased to report that everything still fits exactly as it should! Yay! I don’t know about y’all, but when I’m fiddling with a dress this snug, I end up trying it on a LOT. Lots of pinning & basting & walking around my sewing room in my underwear. I’m sure my neighbors just love me, ha.

Here is my lining – completely boned (lol)

The lining is 100% cotton batiste (and it is quite sheer, as you can see all my little red markings, oh well) and the boning casing is double-sided satin ribbon that I sewed into little tubes.

Putting the boning (lol) in was a BITCH. OH MY GOD I HATE CUTTING SPIRAL STEEL BONING. There are 11 pieces inserted here, all different lengths, all tipped with their little metal tips… it took me an entire episode of LOST to cut & tip those little suckers. Putting on the tip was easy – Karen has a good picture showing exactly what this entails – but the cutting was so so awful. I was using Landon’s wire cutters, and when I complained that they weren’t cutting the boning (lol), he gave me the side-eye until I made him try it himself:

This is how far he got.

Anyway, I got them all cut (obviously). And I’ve heard lots of people say to cut the side spirals & it will just pop apart – well, good luck with that, I basically just manhandled mine until they gave up & fell apart in sheer agony lol.

Everything else has been smooth sailing, though!

The lapped zipper turned out gorgeous.

There is a black petersham zipper guard (1.5″ wide, if yr curious!)

Oh, right, the zipper is hot pink!

As is the petersham waist stay 🙂
I just love fun/colorful surprises in my clothing 🙂

I still need to have this dress finished by Saturday afternoon… all that’s left is the vent, hem, and halter strap. The dress fits fine without the strap, but I really don’t like how I look in strapless stuff. Right now I’m debating how wide to make the strap – WWYD?

As a side note, Me-Made-May is going splendidly (you know, the whole 2 days it’s been May), and I have made an executive decision to not post daily outfit photos on this blog. Instead, I’m going to compile them weekly & dump them all that way. I am posting daily in the Flickr Pool if you feel like lurking everyone’s progress, though!

Also, this has nothing to do with the Bombshell dress, but look at the chicken I painted last night!

I went to a painting class with my friend Carla. So much fun! The chicken’s name is Bud, by the way 😀 This will go nicely with the poppies I painted with my mom. Yessss.

Tags: Bombshell dress, Me Made May '12, painting, work in progress

Comments 30 Comments
Categories work in progress

Me Made May – Count Me In!

23 Apr

So… Me Made May.

I didn’t originally intend on signing up for this endeavor, mostly because it’s not really a huge challenge for me – I wear everything I make, very regularly. I’m not saying this to make anyone feel bad who does find this sort of thing a challenge, but rather to point out that it seemed kind of sneaky to sign up for something that I can coast along on and call it a “challenge,” you know?

At any rate, regardless of how much I do wear my handmade clothing – I wear them the same way, every time. No mixing up! How boring is that? Plus, I love lurking everyone’s handmade creations long after the “big reveal” – seeing how they are worn on a day-to-day basis. So, with that in mind…

‘I, Lauren of LLADYBIRD, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’12. I endeavour to wear at least one (preferably two!) handmade item each day for the duration of May 2012.’

I would love to force myself to wear 2 handmade items every day, but most of my summer (that would be May) clothes are dresses… so the majority of my outfits will consist of one item anyway (other than shoes, but I’m not awesome enough to make my own shoes… yet.). So let’s just put that little “preferably” in there and call it a day, ok?

Yay! I’m so excited! Also, it’s not too late to join in, if you haven’t done so already 🙂

Now let’s talk about the Bombshell.

I have done a LOT of work on this dress over the past week, and I’m feeling pretty good about it! Here are some photogs of my current progress:

I cut out my pattern pieces, and underlined the bodice with muslin. That took FOREVER! I actually watched an entire episode of LOST during this part, heehee

Pieced the entire bodice together – complete with stay stitching, clipping, notching, and lots and lots of pressing. Oh, and twill tape at the top of the cups, for a nice body-hugging curve.

I made molded cups to give the bust some shape – mine are made with cotton batting, but man I wish I had needlepunch, because it just looks so nice & shapely. Anyway, I know this picture doesn’t look too different from the one above, but there is actually a lot of hand stitching here.

So then we have a bodice!

And then I got all excited & started putting the skirt together. I haven’t attached the bodice yet – I have a few more seam finishes I need to complete – so this is just pinned, but doesn’t it look nice?

I just found out that I have a wedding to attend in a little less than 2 weeks, so I’m going to try to bust ass & get this dress done so I can wear it! New deadline, yeah!

In other news, I got my hair did last Thursday!

They re-dyed my hair a lighter brown (which, fuck yeah, now I don’t have to Photoshop my roots anymore) and gave me these sweet highlights around my face. I love it and I feel like a total babe with babe hair.

And here’s my next knitting project – a U-lock Cozy (told you, I can never have enough cozies!). Totally easy & mindless, which is just what I need after frying my brain on that sweater.

Speaking of my sweater, I have worn it every day since finishing last Tuesday – we are going through a bit of a cold snap, which is great for me! 🙂 But now I’m all worried about it getting stinky- so knitters, how frequently do you wash your hand knit wool garments? And do you wash in cold or lukewarm water? Also, do I need to reblock every time I wash? (please say no, I hate blocking haha) Inquiring minds need to know!

Tags: Bombshell dress, i have great hair, knitting, Me Made May '12, U-Lock Cozy, work in progress

Comments 30 Comments
Categories crafty things that are not sewing, work in progress

The Bombshell Dress – At Last, a Muslin that Fits!

16 Apr

I’m putting a temporary hold on the majority of my projects so I can concentrate on sewing up my birthday dress – I have a little over a month, so time should not be an issue here. I don’t even have plans for my birthday yet (it’s on a Monday lol) but I like to have a dress anyway!

I’m sewing up the Bombshell Dress, following the Craftsy course. I have this lovely floral cotton that I plan to make it up in… well, assuming I have enough fabric (don’t worry, I have a back-up plan!) 🙂 I have stressed WAY too much about the fit of this pattern, but after countless muslins, I have the fit down & I’m ready to start constructing the actual dress. Yay!

A little word about working with this pattern – the cups of this bustier top are drafted for a B cup. Not only that, they are made to be a little on the revealing side. They are small. If you are anything larger than a B, you are going to want to redraft the cups – and it is going to be a giant pain in the ass, sry2say. But it’s totally doable and it’s totally worth it, promise.

For my pattern, I initially cut out the second smallest size (I think it’s a 6?), based on the waist measurement. For the record, I wear a 32DD so I have a fairly small ribcage in comparison to a rather prominent bust. I knew I was going to have to make some adjustments but I had no idea there were going to be so many!

Here are the size 6 pattern pieces, thread-traced all lovely:

And here are my pieces after I made a million adjustments:

I also had to adjust the rest of the bodice pieces:

My adjustments are the black marker lines – basically, completely different pattern pieces! ARGH.

I do have some fit tips for those large-bust-with-small-ribcage ladies, however!
First of all… if you have access to a dressform, make use of it! To get those proportions, you need to put on a well-fitting bra & pad it out. Use your favorite bra – you can always take it back when you’re finished fitting.

Style lines are EXTREMELY helpful with fitting – they give you a nice roadmap for where your pieces need to hit & where your seamlines should be. I know they make tape for this purpose, but I didn’t have any on hand… I used some (neon yellow)twill tape I had in my stash, and just pinned it into place. I can’t even tell you how much easier it made fitting that muslin (this was muslin #3 at this point – first one was pinned to my body – a disaster -, second was pinned on the form without the style lines – also a disaster).

The twill tape pulled down a little on the left cup, but you get the idea.

My other major tip for fitting this muslin is to cut GIANT seam allowances. Depending on how much room you need to add to those lil cups, you are going to want a minimum of 2″ SA to play with (preferably closer to 3″ or even 4″ though). This will save you the effort of cutting out a zillion little bodice pieces (and thread tracing all of them, argh) when you realize you don’t have enough seam allowance to cover the bust.

I ended up making several muslins – I think 4 complete (bust & midriff), and 2 more of just the bust cups. And yes… all of them were thread-traced and had the grainlines marked and everything lol. Took forever! In addition to all the size changes, I raised the top of the pieces by about 5/8″ to get all the seam lines to match up. I think this is something that most larger-busted gals are going to have to do, so just a word of warning.

I don’t want to frighten anyone away from trying this pattern, however! I really learned a LOT fitting the bodice, and I feel really confident with the finished muslin. I absolutely recommend this course if this kind of fitting is something you want to explore more in-depth. I think the fitting sections alone are worth the price of the course 🙂

Ok, with all that blab… let’s see the finished muslin, yes?

I don’t plan on wearing this dress with a bra – and it fits great without, but I didn’t want to take bra-less pictures to post on the internet! I don’t think we’re that close, yet 😉

As a side note, my sweater is almost finished – I blocked it over the weekend!

Just need to stabilize the button bands & sew on the buttons 🙂

Tags: Agatha sweater, Bombshell dress, muslin, work in progress

Comments 34 Comments
Categories work in progress

Agatha Sweater: FINAL COUNTDOWN

9 Apr

Ladies (and gentlemen?), we have two sleeves!

I am so pleased with myself, you have no idea.

I had to crop my head out of this one because I was making a total derp face, but check out those neat decreases at the bust!

What do we think? Excited?

Excited.

Now all that’s left is the ribbing around the neckline & the button bands. Also, I need to find some buttons… I want wooden buttons, but that would involve driving to the fabric store. We’ll see.

The second sleeves went in a LOT faster than the first one! I guess I had plenty of practice 🙂 It is still a little tight, so my next sweater will probably need to go up a needle size with those DPNs. In the meantime, I plan to block this thing very aggressively & hopefully that’ll help!

In the meantime, I’ve been working on the muslin for my Bombshell/birthday dress… an experience which totally sucks, by the way.

The cup on the right is the pattern with no modifications… the cup on the left is the size it should be – and that’s still a little skimpy, as it barely covers my bra. I don’t plan on wearing a bra with this dress but I wanted to at least get demi-bra-coverage, you know?
Anyway, the muslin totally sucks and I will need to work on it some more… the coverage is great, but as you can see the center bust line skews up & the top piece is way too high. Also, my grainlines are off. Oh, boobs. Anyone else have full bust modifications they have made to this pattern that they would like to share?

In other news, I seem to have lost my voice over the weekend. I am currently alternating between sounding like a man & just sounding straight-up pathetic. If anyone finds where I may have misplaced it, do let me know.

Tags: Agatha sweater, Bombshell dress, knit-along, knitting, muslin

Comments 24 Comments
Categories crafty things that are not sewing, work in progress

Well I’ll Be Damned – It’s A Sleeve!

28 Mar

Well, what ya look at that?

My sweater has a sleeve!

Sleeves are awesome!

I think it’s safe to say I’ve got a pretty good handle on knitting in the round. I still have some areas I would like to improve – namely, pulling the yarn between the needles (I’m still getting little gaps occasionally), but I feel pretty good about my progress. And hey, a sleeve came out of it! Short rows, knitting in the round, lacework… and all!

It is a little tight, but not uncomfortably tight (I can still easily fit my hand between my arm & the sleeve). I’m not one to wear long sleeves (other than sweaters and hoodies), so I’m not too concerned about layers. And I haven’t blocked it yet, obviously, so I may be able to squeeze a little more room out of it.

I love the lacework & the decreasing at the elbow.

There are some boo-boos, though 😦

But you know what? I think it’s pretty good for a first try! I’m trying not to think about the fact that now I have to knit the OTHER sleeve lol. At least I can get more practice out of it, I guess 😉

SLEEVE.

As a side note, here is my next sewing project:

It doesn’t look like much, but there are actually 10 darts in that thing… and I haven’t even started the skirt yet. Eep.

Tags: Agatha sweater, hot damn this is my jam, knit-along, knitting, work in progress

Comments 31 Comments
Categories crafty things that are not sewing, work in progress

Planning Ahead: Spring/Summer 2012

9 Mar

I actually was not planning on making one of these posts – considering I have a sweet swatch/planning board – but I’ve been admiring all the pretty planning posts across the web (I’m looking at you specifically, Sallieoh!) and what can I say, I got inspired.

I’ve already started pushing out some Spring/Summer pieces – here’s a collage I made for visual demonstration:

(lol like those jeans are gonna be worn at ALL come the heat/humidity. I can pretend!)

I need more, though!

So I scored my fabric and patterns – and may I point out here that it is lovely to have all this stuff uploaded into one place! – and spent an embarrassingly long time putting together pretty little collages. Because Sallieoh can’t have all the pretty, dammit.

Fancy dresses:

I bought the course, I have (most of) the materials – I need a Bombshell dress! I’m thinking birthday dress 🙂 I originally planned on making this with that beautiful silk Shantung you see in the corner, but I am also really inspired at the idea of it in this pretty tropical cotton.
Side question: my local fabric store doesn’t carry spiral steel boning 😦 Where do y’all source yours? Specifically, where can I buy this stuff and NOT pay $6+ shipping? Shipping ripper-offers! BLECH.

Don’t look at her arm; I know it’s creepy but I didn’t know what else to do with it.

Bottoms:

Plaid high-waisted capris – I think I have enough of this plaid (I hope!). Mine will be shorter, more like pedal pushers. I want to put welt pockets in the back as well.

Plaid shorts! Mine will be shorter than this, I just liked the pose of the leg-person-thing.

Tops:

I plan on making quite a few of these! I love this pattern, it uses very little fabric & it’s so flattering on 🙂

Sundresses:

(this one will need to be underlined; it is pretty sheer)

A shirtdress in southwestern cotton (everyone I’ve shown this fabric to thinks it is fug. Too bad!)

I got caught up in the spirit of the post & made a little image for my upcoming Pastille too 🙂
Oh, and speaking of the Pastille – I got the zipper in last night, and the fit is surprisingly awesome. I think it looks pretty flattering (so far – I still need to hem it!) and would translate nicely as a simple black dress. Something to ponder. Hopefully I will have pictures to share soon!

Looking at these pictures really makes me pumped for my next season of sewing! I know this is a lot to take on, and I’m not going to worry if they aren’t all completed by the time the weather turns cool again. This is also going to kill most of my stash – which is awesome, because I need to cull it down a lot 🙂

What do y’all have planned for your upcoming seasonal sewing?

Tags: Pastille, planning, spring/summer 2012