Sewing, is this counted!

Yesterday at the Rhodes Fashion Sewers ASG Group we had a workshop by the talented Monica Poole, the creator of  Moonshine Design, where there are patterns for bags, quilts and fashion.

We all stared worked with the one pattern, The Spice of Life pattern and the 12 bags were all very different, traditional quilted cotton, faux fur, and Gail's woven upholstery carpet bag which is very impressive.

The main fabric and lining is a Vera Bradley quilting cotton that I bought off Etsy a while back and the brown is duck cloth that Alison had left over from her daughter's laptop bag, friends are wonderful.

The batting suggested for this bag is Matilda's Own Bag Batting which a lot of the girls found very hard to find.  I ordered mine from Under The Mulberry Tree and it arrived very promptly and well packed.

I also needed some Template plastic which another friend suggested I purchase the very thin cutting boards that are readily available at the $2 shops, I got a pack of 3 for $3 and they are just a bit thicker than the template plastic but much more cost effective.

The zip for the internal pocket was from my stash and Monica had the Ghee's tubular bag frame available on the day for sale.

I made the small bag, the dimensions are 20 x 30 cm (8 x 12").

For the workshop we had to have all the bits cut out ready to start at 10.00am.

By 3.30pm most of us had completed bags.

And here she is:

I divided the pocket in two,for my iPhone and a pen.

 

 

I'm very pleased with my new bag, yes I know there is a tuck of fabric above the pocket from when I topstitched the top down, and that the zippered pocket is not quite as nice as I would like, but this is my first handbag and I'm thrilled with how it looks.

One of the girls did ask me if it would go with anything in my wardrobe!!

Minoru update

I made a muslin of the Minoru a while ago and wasn't happy with the way the sleeves hung.  This is my first raglan sleeve pattern that I have every worked with, so I really didn't know where to start.


Last weekend some of my sewing buddies and I spent some quality time with Angie Zimmerman at her studio in Ingleburn with all of us working on fitting patterns and the first thing I worked on was the Minoru jacket.

It turns out that I need more length over the shoulder, so we:

• Drew a line across the sleeve at the shoulder point and another one down the length of the sleeve.
• Split the sleeve lengthwise from shoulder point to the seam line at the cuff.
• From the centre line cut the shoulder line across to the seam line 
• Added 1cm (5/8") to the width at the shoulder line
• Spread the shoulder line by 2.5cm (1")
• I also shortened the sleeve length by 5cm (2") 
• The extra amount at the top of the sleeve from these adjustments, we left some of it to be included in the gathers, but did fold back 1.5cm (5/8") on each edge of the sleeve, you can see it at the top of the photo below.

Here is the the top half of the sleeve pattern, hopefully you can work out what I have done.

Now the adjusted Minoru.

I am much happier now with the way the sleeves hang and the fabric is now cut out and I'm ready to start sewing.

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My apologies everyone, I forgot to say that my 6th Garment for the SWAP was the 2nd pair of Jalie Jeans.

SWAP Item No. 6

The navy jeans are finished.

I finally found out how to do a buttonhole on my Janome 5200 without using the buttonhole foot, it was so easy.

The next challenge was the rivets, but then Marg from Pattern Review posted about this Prym Tool and luckily one of my very good sewing buddies was in Europe and was able to find me a set, a very happy dance as this little bit of plastic makes putting the rivets in so easy. To make it even better I have found that the 624 rivets and burrs I purchased from M.Recht in Melbourne a few years ago.

The only changes this time to the white jeans I posted here is the two items above.

So here they are:

Front

 

Back view and pocket design

 

Rivets and coin pocket

Now to work on the Minoru jacket.

Vogue 7937 navy linen skirt

is finished.

Even though I have made this skirt a number of times before, although not blogged about, I have been trying to get the skirt to sit at my waist with no luck, it keeps sitting on my hips which isn't what I wanted.

Saran Wrap to my rescue!  Even though I have Isabel (my body double) my hip shape has been elusive when fitting my skirts. So I placed the Right Front lower half of my Saran Wrap on my pattern and look at the difference, no wonder my skirts kept sliding down to my hips.

I pinned this amount out for this skirt to make sure I hadn't gone too far, and it worked, my skirt sat on my waist all day long, so my pattern will be adjusted permanently by this amount.

Here is the finished skirt:

Front view

See the Back Vent

Back view

A few extra details for this skirt:

• Topstitched both sides of the front and back panels with Gutterman 310 Topstitch thread,
• Finished the back vents with Hong Kong finishes.
• Added black lace to the lining.
• Added 15mm bias tape to the hem edge (now the skirt is on my waist I need to add some length to the pattern).
• Fused a 4cm wide strip of Textureweft (pinked along the top edge) along the hem fold line to give the hem some body and a great base for doing Herringbone stitch for the hem.

This is my 5th garment for the SWAP and the 6th is giving me some challenges with the buttonhole, but soon ...

I've got a new cutting table

and it all started with an A0 Self Healing Mat that I requested for Xmas.

Once DH collected the mat, he informed me that he would make me a cutting table to go with it, something that we can dismantle like the rest of the room for when we have guests.

The top of the table is made from  the same timber as my sewing table and we purchased the Vika Kay adjustable legs from Ikea.The table is attached to the slats on the bed with sliding blots that lock in place, and DH has even drilled a couple of more positions just in case I want to lower the table or even have the table top on a slant (not sure if I would, but you never know).

The table has had quite a bit of use since it was installed, a pair of navy jeans and a navy linen skirt have been cut out and both items are very close to being revealed.

See the large blue bag to the right, that is my scrap bag, I really need to find a way to use these bits or just bite the bullet and throw/give them away.  The brown bag is for fabric that has to be washed, it doesn't go in the stash until it is washed.

Now to do some hems!

New Blouses and a change of plan.

The blouses that I referred to in my last post about the SWAP, are now finished. I met up with my sewing buddies yesterday and they levelled the hem on the Navy/Gold/Brown blouse for me and I stitched and pressed it last night.

Burnt Orange Blouse

This is the burnt orange blouse and by the looks of it I need to lower all the darts however that is an easy fix for any future versions. I took off an additional 1.5 cm on the neckline for this version and now need to work out more jewellery to wear with this top.

Navy/Gold/Brown Blouse

This remnant of silk was purchased during our trip to Paris in 2009 and I have been working up the courage to cut into it. I really don't know why it took me so long, it was lovely to sew with, just a nightmare to match the pattern :(

I used a bias strip of the silk to bind the neck edge and I'm very pleased at how this has turned out.

Both blouses have an invisible zip in the left side seam.

SWAP Plans

So much for the Navy Jacket.  When I laid out the material I couldn't fit both the jacket and skirt on the piece I had left. Even though I really wanted the jacket (and I spent hours trying to get it to fit) I realised that a skirt would get a lot more wear as I have another 2 tops in my wardrobe that are orphans at present. So Vogue 7937 Skirt View A has been cut out and I'm now searching my patterns for a vest pattern.

Now back to sewing jeans.

Sewing with a Plan

I am once more attempting the SWAP Contest at Stitcher's Guild and this year the SWAP focuses on fitting, and making tried-and-true patterns: testing and fitting paper patterns, muslins, and fashion garments that will help lower the overall sewing failure rates,  result in fabulous clothing to be proud of, and (hopefully) give every contestant a pattern or two that works every time it is used.

You choose any seven garments from this list:

Button Down Shirt w/Collar         
Blouse or shirt   (collar is optional)               
T-Shirt         
Vest                               
Overshirt               
Dress           
Jeans
Trousers     
Shorts or Capri Pants     
Skirt 
Jacket (jean jacket, windbreaker, hoodie, etc.)                   
Coat  (suit or sport coat)
Overcoat or Raincoat   
Bathing Suit Coverup  

From those seven, you can choose four to make twice for a total of 11 garments that will work together.   Those four may either be repeated garments from the same pattern, or one each from two different patterns.

The contest runs from 26 December 2011 until 30 April 2012 and you can have 2 previously sewn garments amongst the total 11.

Now I'm planning on using my last 2 garments as the pre-sewn items, so it looks like Navy will feature quite strongly in my SWAP.

The garments I have chosen so far are:

2 x Blouse or Shirt - Vogue 8572  (OOP)
- Burnt Orange - completed 
- Navy/Gold/Brown - completed

1 x Dress - Simplicity 2648 
- Navy linen with pickstitching - completed

2 x Jeans - Jalie 2908 
- White Jeans completed
- Navy Jeans completed.

1 x Jacket - Vogue 7975 
- Navy with some seam details added

1 x Skirt - Vogue 7937
- Navy linen, View A - completed

1 x Raincoat - Minoru 1103 
- Navy ripstop - pattern adjustments done and fabric cut out and nearly finished.

1 x Shorts - Sure Fit Pants
- Navy twill - completed

1 x Vest - Jalie 3129
- Navy linen - completed
   
2 x Knit Tops 
- Navy/Green striped using Kwik.Sew 3740 - completed
- Brown/Navy/Cream abstract print from Fabulous Fabrics using BWOF 02-2009-108

The remaining 4 garments are still a question mark:

• Do I make 2 knits tops, but
• I really need shorts, which can be a test for the fit for pants :) 1 pair now in the plan
• I will need a navy skirt to go with the jacket (fingers crossed I have enough fabric) Now in the plan
• I really want to fit the Connie Crawford B5300 shirt, but not sure if I have a shirt fabric that will go with the Navy as I'm tyring to work from my stash.

 Now I need to make some final decisions and that includes a name for my SWAP.

As I don't like having a pictureless post, I thought I would share with you one of Roscoe's favourite things to do:

It takes days to get the sand out of his fur :)

22/1/2012 - Plan edited - Jacket out and Skirt in.
17/4/2012 - Plan edited - Shorts, Vest and 2 knits tops are in.