First Make of 2015 - Meh


I sewed up this skirt and top 2-piece dress last weekend and while it's OK, it's not fabulous. Part of the "meh" is because the fabric is just not a nice ITY. I swear, Fabric.com labels everything ITY now and I'm starting to think they're on crack. It's an OK knit, but it's certainly not one of their better ones. It's a bit on the sueded/clingy side. Not *too* clingy, but more like collapsing on me, if you can understanding what I mean. Hard to explain. Still, it's better than the uber-clingy, pill-y, icky rayon crap I'm still trying to get out of the stash. ;-) I like the print, though, which is why I went ahead and used it, ignoring that little voice in my head.

The other part of the "meh" is because apparently *I* was on crack when I was sewing up the Jalie top. A top, mind you, that I have made 6 squillion times. Let me tell you, it makes a HUGE difference if you sew RS together where the gathers flip over instead of WS together. Heh. It took me nearly a whole day to figure out why the flip-over wasn't working and where I had gone wrong. (Note: When all else fails, READ the feckin' instructions!) Once I got out the seam ripper and re-sewed correctly, things worked out fine. But what an idiot moment I had.


Plus, the neckband, sewed on with my coverstitcher and a binder, isn't snug against my back neck, which never happens with my binders. Until now apparently. I'll fix that with some elastic thread threaded through the backside stitching, once I pick it up from Hancock's. I just covered it up with a cardi in the meantime. I won't tell if you won't.


Love the skirt though. I used the Simplicity KA pattern above, which is a semi-circle skirt for wovens and calls for a zipper. I omitted the zipper because knit. And I also took off 2" from each side seam of the smallest size in the envelope, 20 (for a total of 8", if you're counting), because, again, knit. I didn't just do this willy-nilly ... I have a couple of semi-circle RTW knit skirts I was copying inspired by and so I could use them as eyeballing/measurement guides. I used the contoured waistband pattern pieces (also cut down 2" per side seam to match the skirt waist) and sewed all the units together, leaving an opening in the facing for inserting elastic, and serged 1:1 onto the skirt waist. Once it was attached, I inserted the 1-1/4" wide elastic, which was cut to about 4" less than my actual waist measurement. The result is an elastic-waist pull-on skirt with a waistband that sits flat both on and off me. I didn't even stitch the opening closed on the inside because I had the seam allowances from the opening folded/flipped in such a way that the opening and elastic is invisible from the inside. I know that's hard to visualize from my words, so you'll just have to trust me on that.


I know the skirt will get lots of wear since I love the shape and black/white is almost a neutral. I think I'll make it again in another knit too because it's fun to wear flippy, girly skirts. I also think I'll like the top better after a few small adjustments ... namely, the back neckband, and maybe shortening it another inch and also sewing the sideseams a little tighter.

I've also sewed up a "muslin" of the Burda WOF casual pants I showed a couple of posts back, and am now trying to decide what fabric to get for a final pair, plus matching jacket. I thought a nice ponte would work, but now I'm second-guessing. My "muslin" was a NOT-nice ponte (also from crack-tastic Fabric.com in the same shipment) which was not supposed to be muslin fabric but it was way too polyestery/shiny to be taken seriously. I could have sent it back but I decided I did need to muslin since I haven't sewn pants in years (yikes) and it's probably a good thing I did because I do need to make a few adjustments. All of that was just a long-winded way to say that while the project is definitely still in the queue, it's stalled at the moment.

I'll get into the sewing room this weekend around football playoffs, but I may encounter analysis paralysis since I have a lot of things I want to make and no idea where to start. Hopefully, I'll come out with something. I just don't know what that something is yet.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Itch to Stitch Nottingham - My thoughts

Image
How does so much time go by between posts?? I really always intend to post more often but then either my sewjo disappears or my blogjo (is that a thing?) does, or both. And then I make excuses to myself or figure no one wants to just read about my day-to-day, especially with no pics! But anyway ... here I am. And I sewed! (I thought this pic was both creepy and hilarious, in a 'The Shining' sort of way.) This past Memorial Day Weekend was the most productive I've been in a short time in months! I made two tops and three skirts. Yay! Today, I'm going to talk about the Nottingham top from Itch to Stitch. Link to pattern  here   ( not an affiliate link) . This is the first Itch to Stitch pattern I've actually sewn. I've bought a few and downloaded the freebies and they are in my queue but see comment about sewjo above. Plus Magpie Syndrome. I know ... preaching to the choir! :-) But I love me a twisty top and so this one jumped into first position. Overall, the ...
Read more

HP Nexus T-Shirt Dress

Image
Happy End of November! And, yep, it's been a while. Again. I've sewn a number of things over the last few months and have at least one more blog post in the wings with photos loaded and waiting, so hopefully I'll get that published soon too. Today, however, I'm going backwards and starting with what I made most recently. As in, last weekend. The photos are kind of meh and as usual include some from the work bathroom but … hey … that's me. So, let's get started. Spoiler alert — I'm not thrilled with this pattern. The pattern is the HotPatterns Nexus T-Shirt Dress, pattern shown below. I bought the downloadable PDF version. Pros for HP PDFs — no trimming. You just butt the edges and tape. Cons - No layers, so in places you end up with a million indiscernible lines overlapping in place. And the pieces are not laid out with printer limitations in mind, so near the edges there is usually something missing. Mostly,  you can work around this. Sometimes, it's hi...
Read more

Cashmerettte Rivermont Review

Image
I know, it's crazy. Two blog posts from me within days ;-) Here I am in my Cashmerette Rivermont dress. In the bathroom at work. So classy. My face says it all, no? Obligatory pattern cover. And line drawings. And size chart. Since I don't fit into any one size on the size chart, I do the morph-o-roo between a few sizes. Following the Cashmerette instructions to choose by my bust size doesn't work for me. I end up with a too-wide neckline and a bodice that falls off my shoulders. So, I pick for my bust size but ALSO for my upper chest/shoulder size by blending smaller for those areas. For Rivermont, that meant between 14-16 (C/D cup) at neck/upper chest and underarm, outward to the 20 at waist/hip. Kind of like my "cheater FBA" but in this instance it's my "cheater NSA" ( narrow shoulder adjustment). (And OMG, now that I've typed NSA twice, should I be worried? Hah .) You can see what I did looking at the yellow highlighting below. This gives m...
Read more