[in stitches] A Casual Shirt for My Fella

New shirt!

A few weeks ago it was so uncomfortably warm that the idea of cooking dinner brought on fears of combusting from the heat.  Our solution was to dine out at an air conditioned restaurant.  The second time that went out, I noticed my husband was wearing the same shirt as before.

"It's the only nice, comfortably shirt that I have," he explained.

He does have a few nicer-looking button-up shirts, but they're mostly polyester.  The shirt he was wearing was 100% linen, the perfect choice for a hot day.

In-progress

When we returned home after dinner, I began to look up possible shirt patterns for him.  I wanted a short-sleeve, button-front shirt with a collar, preferably with a yoke, too.  Vogue had exactly what I needed!

The next day, I headed to my local fabric store.  My husband wanted linen (which I can get inexpensively at LA's fabric district), but I thought I'd see what was available nearby.  I found two good 100% cotton options; a tiki print in blues and browns, and a red plaid.  I bought both.

The pattern recommended no obvious diagonals, so I purchased more of the tiki print than recommended.  Really the only issues were the yoke and collar, but the extra fabric allowed me to cut them on the cross grain to keep the pattern upright.

His "catalog" pose

The pattern and instructions were pretty straight-forward.  The project worked up quickly and easily. I was able to do everything by machine, too; including the buttons.

My husband loves the new shirt and claims it to be very comfortable.



While I've started the red plaid shirt, I haven't found time yet to finish it.  

[in stitches] A New Dress for Daughter

Years ago I picked up a vintage reproduction pattern of a tabard-style dress.  The pattern, no longer in print, featured a quick-to-sew "Walk-Away-Dress" that had no sewn sides.  Instead it wrapped from front to back, and back to front to create the closures at the sides.  I made one for myself and liked the dress well enough, but there were a few issues.  Minor ones, that kept me from making any more dresses from the pattern.

While browsing through one of my favorite sewing blogs, I saw an older post about the Walk-Away-Dress.  In the post, an updated version of the dress pattern is featured.  Alas, THAT gorgeous pattern has not been reissued.  But a similar pattern from Vogue was reissued (and is, of this writing, still available).

But there was still something that kept me from making the dress.


Flash forward to a week or so ago.  I had finished a very sewing-intensive costume and wanted something fun to make. Plus, I was hoping to work on something that could try out some new skills.

I decided to make the Vogue dress, but not for me, for my daughter.  I also decided that I wanted to try my hand at pattern drafting by adding a peter-pan collar to the dress.  My daughter chose a darling cotton lawn fabric of blue with dots of white and green.  For the collar, we settled on a true red fabric.

As the pattern that I picked up ages ago was the wrong size for my girl, I did have to due some alterations.  I was excited to try out Nancy Zieman's Pivot and Slide technique.  The adjustments were so easy to make using the pivot methods and quickly produced a new, well-sized pattern.

I used my toile to underline the bodice, but decided against underlining the skirt.

The dress worked up quickly, though I did pause at one point to see if my local sewing machine shop had a specialty foot for attaching bias tape.  (They didn't, alas.)





















In putting together this dress, I did feel pretty good about my collar pattern and how that all came together.  It also proved to be another lesson on bias binding, but I've only concluded that I'd really rather just get a specialty foot and technology to the fiddly work for me.  And I think I may become a devotee of the pivot and slide technique.

I would like to make this pattern again--again with the collar, too.  I think that the collar really sets this dress apart.  Linen may be a nice choice, or another cotton lawn.  But if I did it for myself in the cotton, I would probably underline the skirt, too.

Do you like to try out new skills when you sew?  What sort of projects do you enjoy?

Gertie's LA Party for Better Sewing

I often feel that I'm the last to know about many of the ultra-fun, swanky offerings that the LA area has to offer to a vintage-loving, crafty mama like myself.  But by some miracle (Facebook), I was actually able to learn about a book signing and indoor "picnic" for Gretchen "Gertie" Hirsch in time to make plans to attend!

If you're currently scratching your head thinking, "who?" it's probably best that you just skip this post.  Well, or take a little time to enjoy the sartorial stylings of darling Gertie via her blog, New Blog for Better Sewing.  The title is a riff on the trusted old Vogue book of a similar name: New Book for Better Sewing.  Yours truly managed to score a copy (minus the dust cover) on eBay ages ago.  Alas, most of the patterns noted within the book are long out of print and hard to come by.  Gertie took the time and effort to track down all the patterns and construct each one, documenting the ordeal (and FUN) on her blog.

She's been something of a darling in the crafty community as of late, and why the heck not?!  She's a cute as a 1950's button!  But she's also smart as a whip, and a talented author and pattern-maker, too.  Her new book, aptly titled Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing, is filled with information on sewing your own vintage-inspired garments.  Plus, it includes numerous patterns in a variety of sizes.  It's like a build-your-own-wardrobe book, just add notions, fabric, and time!

But as I was saying: book signing and picnic!

Independent fabric store, Sew LA, hosted the shindig a few weeks ago.  I wrangled my daughter, my copy of the Vogue book, and Gertie's text and made my way to LA for an afternoon with Gertie.  But first, I thought I'd go ahead and make and wear a little something from the book.  Time being short, I settled on making up a blouse.

Bow-tie blouse

The back

Driving from Long Beach to anywhere in LA will either take twice the amount of time suspected, or half.  In our case, we were there early.  I got a couple of shots of the space before it was packed with eager sewists.

Gertie brought along several pieces highlighted in the book

The studio set up with adorable photo space

A blurry shot of my girl

The obligatory "proof I was there" shot

As it was picnic themed, there was a terrific spread of appropriate foods, including veggie "piggies in blankets," deviled eggs, skewers, and potato salad!

The spread

Getting ready to stuff my gob

Gertie plays hostess

Another dress from the book in the background

A make-up artist was there doing vintage-styled make-overs

Gertie's book was available for purchase, natch, and part of a give-away

Gertie draws a winner--alas, it wasn't me

Taylor and I

 All told, we had a lovely time.  I was too shy to ask Gertie to do much more than sign my book.  Oh, I did show her my copy of Vogue's NBBS, taking pains to point out the sweet inscription from 1956: "For Linda Sue, Happy Birthday, July 21, 1956"

At any rate, now my copy of Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing has its own inscription.

Tarted Up: Darcy & Shawn's Wedding

My handsome fellas

After hustling to finish the border-print cherry dress last week so as to be able to wear it to a wedding, I almost didn't wear it.  Typical.  I started to have second thoughts about whether or not a cotton frock would be appropriate to wear to a late afternoon wedding.  Yes, I am ever critical of dressing appropriately.  But I do know that I have, and do, miss the mark from time to time.  I wanted to make sure that I didn't on Saturday.

Enroute

A quick review of clothing etiquette suggested that I allow the wedding invitation to be my guide.  Sometimes the invite will specify the level of dress, of course.  This one did not, but it was certainly non-traditional, so I ultimately decided to wear the dress, but to dress it up a bit.

In his suit

To emphasize the Dior-esque New Look silhouette, I wore my Morticia corset underneath.  It whittled away my waist to a gorgeous hourglass while slimming the curve of my hip.  I added seamed stockings, a touch of jewelry and wore my beloved Remix shoes in green.

I pin curled my hair in a wet-set Saturday morning and it turned out lovely.  Very 1950's Elizabeth Taylor, I thought.  Make-up was also retro, but I was most disappointed by how much my liner transferred to my upper lid.  Both the church and the reception hall were on the warmer side and I must've looked like I was melting by the halfway point of the evening.  As such, not many photos of me were taken.

ALL DONE: Cherry, border-print dress

Well, as of last night my new cotton dress is finished!

Yesterday, I added the fuller skirt (definitely the way to go), put in a lapped zipper, hand sewed on buttons, hemmed the skirt, and made a matching cummerbund.

This morning, I decided to give it a wash (I did chose cotton partly for easy care, after all).  In the wash, the cummerbund lost a bit of gathering stitches (easily mended), and the dress bodice lost some stitches tacking down the facings (another easy fix).

Post-mortem:

• I MUCH prefer using my toile/muslin as my pattern (versus using the tissue paper).  Using the waxy paper, I transferred the pattern information from the tissues to the muslin, which I later used as not only my pattern, but my underlining.
• I'm in love with underlining.  It's given the bodice great body, and since I've used cotton I've not compromised the dress' comfort.  I did not underline the skirt, which is fine, but I think that next time I will.
• Horsehair hem tape is divine, but I think that I'll try to find the better (thicker than a half-inch) tape for a full skirt.
• Fitting by my lonesome is a less-than-ideal, but necessary evil at this point.  While I have a helpful husband and daughter, I am awful at getting the information for fitting from my head to my mouth thus negating their usefulness in such an endeavor.  My dress form is a close, but not an exact match thus leading to a few inconsistencies.
• It's a mixed blessing when a dress started a week ago ends up being a touch too big by the time I'm finished thanks to more weight loss.  Yay for being closer to my pre-pregnancy size, boo for now having a slightly large dress.
• Printed border cotton will lead to some frustration when the weave shifts a touch to reveal whiter areas of the thread.  Alas, it's only a cute cotton frock.

Step Two: Prepare Pattern--check!

I bought several yards of muslin a while back.  While I didn't think that I had used it all, I must have.  I have searched high and low and it's not turned up.  Today I decided that enough was enough--if I was going to get sewing, I'd damn well better do so.

And, ta-da--PROGRESS has been made!

I decided that I wanted to employ more couture techniques in my garment construction.  Even though I am working up some very easy patterns, why not add some luxurious touches, right?  I decided that I am going to underline my border dress.  I found some lovely white cotton to use as both my toile and my eventual underlining.  I pressed the fabric and readied my supplies for cutting.

Because I am adding a couture touch to this dress, I took time to mark the sewing line on all my pattern pieces.  Additionally, I used the recently acquired waxy tracing paper to transfer my pattern information from the pieces to the underlining cotton.  The large paper is a DREAM to work with!  Yes, I did have to be careful about accidentally transferring some of the wax, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it could be.  I envisioned red fingers and smears of red on my work surface, but nope.  Only got a touch of red onto my fabric where the weight of my magnetic pin cushion touched my fabric to the paper.  Not bad at all!

Had I started earlier, I probably could have made good progress on stitching my thread tracing, but I'll leave that for tomorrow.  (Or maybe tonight after my jog/walk.)