Sew it would seam...

Italian hobo bag -- complete!

2006-03-21T09:49:00.000-08:00

My italian hobo bag is finally done! I have stuffed it quite full to demonstrate how capacious it is.

In case you are curious, here's some of the notes I took which gives you a flavor of the construction process.

For a bigger version, click the thumbnail.

We can't all be ninjas...

2006-03-21T08:56:00.000-08:00

...but we can make ninja headgear with just a tiny piece of fleece and some velcro.

Apart from fooling people into thinking I have ninja powers, this headgear thingie also keeps my head, neck and (most importantly) ears cosy. I was thinking when I made it that I probably won't need it for another year. Then we got slammed with some of the nastiest weather all winter so I got to test-drive it after all. It works good for walking the dog. Probably won't wanna wear it into town...

Who wears short shorts?

2006-03-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

I sewed these shorts from what's left over of a half yard of plaid shirting I had left over from the tin whistle pouch project. The lack of fabric dictated the shortness of these shorts, and my inadequate drafting skills resulted in the necessity for the additional side panels to make them bigger. However, now that they're done, I really think the shortness is what makes those shorts and I really like the topstitch details that define the two little side panels. Not something I would wear out, of course, but very comfortable and cute nightwear.

To be honest, I made those quite a few days ago (can you tell they've been slept in before I took this picture?) but hesitated to post about them because they don't look right when photographed on their own, but I wondered whether modelling such a scanty item on a publically accessable blog would be tacky. Then I got over it. After all, short as they are, theses shorts are not exactly lingerie.

Here's a close-up picture where you can see what I mean about the side panels. I've basically just topstitched them to the back and front of the pants, leaving a little vent in the front topstitched seam for comfort. I wonder if this side-panel trick is something I can use in other apparel, even when I didn't forget to add ease when making the main pattern. They add a little style and I think they're slimming.

"Mass" production

2006-03-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I am really going through a phase where I really dig sewing the same patterns over and over again...I really feel like this is the way to achieve "vertical" as opposed to "horizontal" growth in your skills. Much like a musician would play a piece over and over again rather than go from piece to piece in order to gain dexterity. I feel like I'm learning a little bit more every time I sew those totes, and now that I've mastered the proportions for what I considered to be an ideal tote for this kind of fabric, I would often make quite a few.

I've put one of them up on etsy, although I'm secretly hoping that it won't sell, so that I'll have more to give away to friends.

Still up and crafting

2006-03-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last posted, hasn't it. I assure you, o my meagre band of readers, it is not because I have not been busy, but because I'm working on a rather involved project that will take a while to come to fruition. Of course, since I have the attention span of a fruit fly, I couldn't resist taking some diversions.

Here are some little tiny cosmetic bags from a Japanese pattern that Small Hands uploaded. I omitted the handles. I love this pattern. The end product look so smart and structured, especially when the fabric is interfaced. It's a basic pattern that I'll be able to alter for all sorts of little bags.

Despite the name of this blog, I'm not just a seamstress, you know. I also knit and crochet. I found this great netting material at my local fabric store for a dollar a yard. It was such a great deal that I bought two yards without knowing what I intended to do with it. The netting would be impossible to sew without manufacturing fabric strips to use as stabilizers first, which would be a pain, but then I realized that they could be croched together by hand much as the edge of a handknit sweater is finished! Adding a drawstring makes for an extremely practical little bag. I might add a tute later on to this post to explain how it's done.

Using this construction technique, I want to make a car organizer that hangs off the back of the front seat as well as perhaps a beach bag. It takes no time at all to put together.

Site to inspire

2006-03-05T18:42:00.000-08:00

Even though I am just a humble home sewer and she is a kickass designer-entrepreneur, I'm loving Kathleen Fasanella's Fashion Incubator site and in awe of the tutorials there. It'll probably be a while before I become skilled enough to take advantage of the tutes. Meanwhile, I'm lurking and listening, and hopefully some of Kathleen's passion and exactitude would rub off on me.

The Macguyver skirt

2006-03-05T18:23:00.000-08:00

I call this my Macguyver skirt because the construction methods were unorthodox, but everything worked. Believe it or not, the material was a odd scrap of herringbone suiting that cost less than two dollars. I bought it thinking that I was going to use a 6 gore skirt pattern I had in my stash, only to find that it came up short.

Thinking that I had very little to lose, I folded the fabric in half, then in half again. I measured my waist and my hips and divided the number which shall remain a secret by four. That number, plus some ease, gave me an idea of how wide the gores needed to be at the waist and hips. I made my marks with chalk, and, cutting through all four layers of fabric at once, I cut the gores. When I basted the panels together I was delighted to find that the curvature was a perfect fit in the rear. I then made the front flat and, reasonably happy with the fit, stitched in the zipper and finished the upper edge by enclosing in a simple waistband and hand hemmed the lower edge. Skirt done. It looks expensive. Or at the very least more expensive than $2.

I'm sure the savvy sewers among you would be thinking to yourself around this point "hmm...a 4 gored skirt? Why is it that I never see a 4 gored skirt..." Well, the reason is that there is no good place to put the zipper if you still want to have a flat panel for the front. I did a reasonably good job lapping the zipper in the side-front, but it still looked kind of funny until I added the waistband, which was more of a feature and helped the funny zipper placement fade into the background.

It is itchy though. I need to put in a lining before I feel like I can wear this out.

Just what I need...another pair of pajamas

2006-03-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

How fickle I am. I was just talking about how much I loved sewing bags and how much more fun they are than clothing items, and here I am abandoning my hobobag project halfway to sew some totally totally superfluous-to-requirement nightwear. The pattern is McCall's 3854, which is supposed to be a junior pattern, but the size 10 fits me just fine (is roomy, in fact).

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Making the sleeves and bloomers out of a contrasting fabric definitely made the design more intersting. My only worry is that the delicate muslin fabric would not hold up properly in the washing machine. We'll see.

I also really like the top design. Made of a sturdier fabric, without a tie, I think it might be a nice peasant-style blouse.

Pouch for a tin whistle

2006-03-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

My husband's dad asked me to make a pouch to hold the tin whistle which he gave to his friend for his birthday. Unfortunately, he did not ask me until the tin whistle is already out of his possession, so I had to guestimate the dimensions based on his descriptions..."about a foot long and as thick as your finger." Well, here's to hoping it fits.

I am always extra meticulous about my sewing when it is a gift and I know exactly who the gift is going to. I think I went a little overboard here, from ordering the kind of rustic plaid that I think would go well with a tin whistle, to choosing a topstitched pouch design that ensured there would be no raw seams inside the pouch to little touches like the hand finished blanket stitching on the top of the loop that hold the flap and the slight angling of the end of the flap to make the flap easier to insert into the loop.

Sometimes, it is very satisfying to make something very simple very well.

2006-02-23T19:52:00.000-08:00

I know I know. How many bags does one girl need, right? This project is a little bit more involved...this is a hobo bag I bought in Italy a few years ago. I love it. It's easy and very versatile. But now the fabric is looking tired and stained on the bottom and I decided to take it apart so I can figure out how to sew a replica out of fresh fabric.

I've already made a couple of tentative copies, but I really want to get the proportions right and I'm also curious about how they did the bottom seam.

There's nothing that makes a seamstress out of you like figuring out how to do something by taking it apart. It's not just getting the pattern pieces flat. A seam reveals the secrets of how it was constructed in reverse when you slowly take it apart thread by thread. Most home sewers I know seem to shy away from the term "seamstress", and I agree it is an old fashioned term. But I like it.

These are the relevant carcass pieces to make the pattern out of. I am going to recycle some old drapes to make those bags.

Organization will set you free

2006-02-23T19:26:00.000-08:00

This is my sewing station. I made a combination pressing surface/organizer by folding up one edge of a towel and sewing vertically into a row of pockets to keep my necessaries in. It's awfully handy. The advantage of keeping the machine on an arrangement like this is that I can press without getting out of my place. I do my pressing much more conscienciously now that I can keep my iron hot by my side to apply as necessary instead of having to schlepp the whole thing over to the ironing board.

Another organization tip for you -- I keep a metal cup inside one of the little pockets in my organizer right near the needle on the machine. Then I take care to snip my threads close to the fabric and dropping the ends into the cup. This extra fraction of a second I spend taking care of this detail on every seam saves me time in the long run as I no longer have finished work full of hanging thread ends to be snipped off and my work area is not liberally peppered with linty bits!

The big tote

2006-02-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

Y'all have seen the cute little totes I made using Super Eggplant's Supertutorial. But after making one cute little tote after another, I felt up to a challenge. Not only did I make this tote huge, I also dressed it up with some detail variations. Note how I made the lining much longer than the outer layer so that the extra fabric forms the top of the bag. I also folded the box bottom up and topstitched onto the right sides instead of hiding them between the two layers of the bag as usual. By making the lining longer than the outside fabric of the bag, I lowered the "hem" where they met, and therefore made inserting the handle inside this "hem" impractical. They were topstitched on, and I took the opportunity to insert a pocket between each set of handles.

Maybe some of what h just written does not make absolute sense if you have not made the totes yet. I am just realizing how limited my vocabulary is when it comes to describing my sewing work.

Here's a view of the inside of the tote. Note the loop I added so that this tote can be hung on a hook when it is not being used. I also added a little...doohickey...just a little strap sewn in vertically at intervals forming little loops for keeping my pens and things in. The ability to add fun little details like this on a whim is part of what makes sewing such an attractive craft to me , as supposed to, say knitting, which I also love in some ways. Now if only I can get better at describing what I'm doing.

Over all, I am pleased with this tote except for one thing -- I ran out of white thread, and used this weird peacock blue I had left over from another project instead to finish this bad boy off. It really wass too dark for the fabric, though, and every mistake in topstitching now shows. Ouch! I would be a much better seamstress if I were not so impatient! And careless! And disorganized! (Because really, there is no excuse for running out of white thread. It's disorganization). All I can say is those are all qualities I strive to improve on in my life in general as well as in my sewing, so perhaps in improving as a seamstress I can also improve my organization-fu in general.

Done! Finally.

2006-02-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

Son of a whore, attaching that last pocket end temporariliy gave me turrett's syndrome. But it got done. Behold...

My travails with the duffel continues...

2006-02-14T14:29:00.000-08:00

Oy Oy Oy. this is turning out to be quite the project. I got the pocket ends made. No trouble with that.

Though as you can see in the picture below, bulk yet again rears its ugly head. This thinkness is going to be the cause of much consternation later one.

I know that applying zippers is supposed to be one of the simpler sewing skills. But I find it strangely intimidating. I think this is because I really messed up a few zipped closures in my earlier projects, and that residual fear carried over to this day. So I took my time with this, pressed whereever necessary and topstitched whereever necessary, and all the zippers in this project came out very nicely indeed.

Here's my big nemesis: Gathering. You know, when you take two lines of basting and draw the bobbin thread to get the fabric to gather evenly without puckering or ugly bunching. For the longest time this technique eluded me. But I think I have it down now. First of all, make sure you have both sets of bobbin threads (from both rows of basting and from both beginning and end) in your hands before you start, or you run the risk of doing what I did the first time, and pulling the bobbin thread completely out of my work! Naturally it the gathering did not work at all. The next time I was more careful. The trick, apart from holding on to both ends of the thread, is to pull the bobbin thread only a little bit, enough to pucker up the inch or two of fabric nearest to where you are pulling the thread. Then use your fingers to smooth this puckering along the length of the basting. Then pucker the nearest inch or two again. Pucker and ease, pucker and ease. Never go too far too fast, or your thread will break and you will be left with the unpleasant job of removing your basting and starting anew.

Now that I have done the gathering step (the instructions said "gather slightly." What does that mean exactly? I gathered until my thread broke and I couldnt' be bothered to do it over again.), another unpleasant task lay ahead of me -- matching up the circular pocket end with the hole in the bag end. The thickness was formidable, and I had terrible trouble with uneven stitching and too much fullness in the pocket end fabric that refused to get eased into the bag end. The two layers of fabric also refused to stay together, shifting over each other as I sewed.

As you can see, I was so off that some of my stitching failed to join the two pieces of fabric altogether, leaving me with a sad gaping hole. I had to take all the stitching out to redo.

This time I was smarter. I pinned all the way around parallel to the seam as opposed to perpendicular to it. I figured this will give me more control with sliding layers of fabrics. What also helped was placing the layer of fabric that seem to have more fullness (the pocket end) underneath -- next to the feed dogs. The rational is that the feed dogs tend to drag the fabric layer next to it into the needle at a faster rate than the layer of fabric on top, thus eating up the extra fullness and doing my easing for me.

That's the theory anyhow. This time the stitching turned out fine. There was still some evidence of puckering, but I figure I did OK. I really should have stopped my sewing session at this point. I was tired, I was losing my concentration, but I pressed on because the project seemed so close from getting done. I grabbed my bias binding and began to apply it to the raw edge inside the bag with a zigzag stitch. What a disaster -- it was such an easy operation, but I botched it through being rushed and now it looks terrible and uneven. "Well", I thought grumpily, "it's going to be on the inside of the bag. Who's going to look there?" Just goes to show...always stop what you're doing and pack up when that "dum...dum...dum...get it done...done...done..." tune starts playing in your head.

This is me with my almost-done bag. I need to apply the other bag end along with some velcro, and that will be it. But I'll be saving it for another session.

This is another reason why I'm such a slow sewer. I get distracted with little side projects like this cute little square-bottomed bucket tote which I now use to hold my threads.

Bulk is the Enemy

2006-02-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

My most current project is the intriguing mini-duffel by Savvy Seams. There are several techniques in this bag that are new to me, so I'm taking things one step at a time. I'm using some precious fabric, a momento of sorts since I bought it in Japan when I visited my boyfriend there several years ago. We didn't take a single picture the entire time I was there, so now I only have a few pieces of fabric and a few other assorted knick-knacks to remind me of the trip.

Here we are near the beginning of the project. The pieces have been cut and the "body" pieces seamed together. You can see I am using a very cute striped corduroy. I am following the pattern pretty precisely, except for adding a few pockets here and there for functionality.

Note the strap, for which I sacrificed a Calvin Klein towel that is just the right color combo to set off the colorful cord. I added additional interest by sewing a thin strip of cord with the raw edges tucked under on the wrong side of the strap, which also covered the raw edges of the strap nicely. I get a first inkling of troubles to come when I notice how my sewing machine struggled to overcome the full thickness of 2 layers of terry and corderoy. It chugged along...but only barely.

She cannae tek it any more, capt'n!
I thought I had it tough making the strap. Sewing it to the bag, and worse, applying the lashing points, were murder. At the thickest point the needle had to pierce, I guess there was two layers of terry and a whopping six layers of cord (two in the strap where it is folded under, two in the lashing point where it is folded under, two in the seam allowance) plus another layer of lining. I guess I didn't think about how I was going to deal with all that bulk while I was merrily scheming away about my awesome terry strap. Somehow, with copious use of the hand wheel, I got through it all.

Oy vey! The nasty lumps of thread tells the sorry tale of where my sewing machine got bogged down. Luckily, the rightside looks fine, and I will bag in an interior lining to hide the lumps after the bag is finished. I've never done that before either, but there's a first time for everything, right?

Bags o' bags

2006-02-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I love making bags. I think this is because I enjoy working with smaller pieces of fabric, so that they are all under my control, and also because I have a short attention span, making many garment projects mindnumbingly boring. Bags are always fun and practical, even the tiny totes in this picture, which I now use to keep my notions organized.

The method for making these totes can be found at the kickass tutorial written by Super Eggplant.

My next bag project, which is moving forward concurrently with a very ambitions boned bodice project, is going to be a duffel handbag, instructions from savvy seams. Stay tuned...

Welcome, my crafty friends...

2006-02-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess you are crafty, imaginary friends as of now, since this blog is only just a twinkle in my eye. However, in case I actually get me some readers later, this is what you need to know about me.

I just love to do things. This means I sew, knit, homebrew, crochet, cook, bake and play the guitar without being particularly good at any of those things. In addition, I have plans to learn how to make basket and candles, to macrame, to do basic woodworking...the list goes on. One day I want to write a book on crafts called "The beginner's guide to everything", and it will be just that -- the bare minimum you need to know to complete a little project in all sorts of crafts.

However, I always have fun and keep busy, and put 100% into my latest projects, and that's the most important thing. This blog is a way of organizing my projects and planning new ones out loud, as well as sharing what I learnt with the world.

My political blogging can be seen at Battlepanda, my nom de guerre in the blogging world.