Monthly Archives: January 2016
Thurlow Trousers part 2
I cut out and put together my second pair of Thurlow Trousers before Christmas, the reason I haven’t blogged about them it that I made a bit of a hash of the back pockets, and I was sulking. There were a couple of other issues with them as well but that was the main one.
I cut too far on the pocket slit, I’ve done bound buttonholes before so I had no excuse. The welts lie very nicely unfortunately I have a bit of fraying at the corners.
Since I started this post I have actually completed two pairs of Thurlow Trousers and apart from the welt pockets on the first pair I am quite pleased with them. I stitched further in on the welt pocket sides so now instead of the fraying I have a bit of puckering, as I am never going to use the pockets I have also stitched them up.
The first pair I added 1/4 inch to the front rise, as it seemed to slope down from the back and was quite away from my belly button, the second pair I added in total 1/2 inch I was much happier with the result, oddly enough I had more problems following the instructions for the last two pair of trousers than I did with the ‘muslin’ I think I did too much second guessing.
Here are pictures of the first pair
And pictures of the second pair
I think that they could do with being a smige longer but other wise I’m happy.
Butterick 7556
A couple of posts ago I talked about this dress how I did a small bust adjustment and shortened the bodice. I will admit I was a little concerned about taking the full inch out of the length of the bodice I usually only take out 1/2 inch but after looking at the sizes on my ‘fully proportional dress’ I thought it might be a good idea.
I have put the top together and attached it to the skirt, I did have to do something with the pleats on the skirt as it was about an inch wider than the bodice, one other thing that I did to the bodice was to take the under bust darts in an extra 1/4 inch up to 2 inches below the bust point then taper them into the bust point, I am quite happy with the changes.
Hopefully taking the extra material out of the bodice and removing two inches from the bottom of the skirt will make me look less dumpy.
What do you think? Does it look less dumpy than this dress
The bodice definitely looks a lot better, of course it would have helped if I had managed to take a photo face on that I would have been happy to put on the Internet unfortunately there were funny faces and peculiar poses.
So what do you think?
2016……
This is what the first post of the year should have been……a look at what I want to accomplish over this year.
We haven’t started the year off particularly well as we have both been sick, Simon first then he quite gererously handed it over to me. We also bought a puppy, he is a Lhasa Apso, he is 10 weeks old and he is named Charlie, if a breeder ever says to you, your puppy is weaned and ready to go and the puppy is less than 8 weeks old say thanks, but no thanks, we bought Charlie home at 6 1/2 weeks, he might have been weaned but he was too young to leave his litter mates, not only is he not allowed out on the ground until he has had his second lot of jabs so you are going from having your puppy 3-4 weeks before being able to toilet train him outside to 6 weeks, there is his first lot of teeth coming through which we could have done without and also if you read up on the internet there is a whole load of learning experiences he gets from his litter mates that we can’t give him.
so enough about the fact I haven’t been able to get near my sewing machine for three weeks and only managed to read one book these are my sewing goals for this year.
I would like to make a bra, I have a bra making class from craftsy (Sewing Bras: Construction & fit with Beverly Johnson) and have managed to source the kit and the pattern that goes with the class craftsy kit B,wear is in Sweden and I found it by going from Beverly Johnson web site in Canada. The kit came relatively quickly as I ordered it 11th December and it arrived just before Christmas.
Apparently I am also going to be sewing a lot of sewaholic patterns this year, you already know about the four I bought in Sewaholic sale, well I also received two for Christmas, the Belacarra blouse and the Cambie dress.
For Christmas I also received this book Sew Many Dresses, Sew Little Time by Tanya Whelan, I haven’t had a lot of time to go through it yet but I am wondering if it might help reproduce some of the dress patterns that I can only find pictures of, expect an in-depth review later in the year.
I also received a copy of The Great British Sewing Bee Fashion with Fabric which I hope will help with all those pesky fabrics that aren’t cotton. 🙂
To be honest, I don’t have many goals for this year, I would like to improve the fit on my makes and to that end I have most of the classes offered by Suzy Furrer on craftsy, and hope to go through them.
Bye for now…
Craftsy – Sewing with knits: 5 Wardrobe Essentials
Hello, in preparation for the Davie Dress, I decided to take a Craftsy class on knits, I narrowed it down to two and I decided on the Sewing with knits: 5 Wardrobe essentials, the two main reasons I picked this one is on reading the reviews the other class didn’t have any demonstrations and the second reason is that that this class actually came with some patterns.
I will admit Meg McElwee does go on a bit to start off with and does say umm a lot, however once you actually get into the actual course material she is very good, so if you have started the class and feel that you can’t put up with the umming and the things you don’t want to know about, just skip straight to either lessons two or three, I jumped straight to the scoop neck Tee, but did have to go back and listen to Hoodie as a couple of times Meg said that she had covered that construction detail in the Hoodie class.
I had a large piece of T-Shirt fabric that I bought last year waiting for Simon to tell me which of his T-Shirts he wanted me to copy which he never got around to (he says I never mentioned it to him). So after printing off the T-shirt pattern and sticking it together I checked the size copied it off and cut out my fabric. Although Meg does say that you could use an Overlocker(serger) for this she exclusively uses a sewing machine.
We go through the lessons step by step, the first bit is putting the the clear elastic/ shoulder seams using a three stitch zigzag, I wasn’t convinced by this watching the video and in practice my fears were correct, the seam looked loose and not very professional, It could just be that my stitch wasn’t close enough together and I need a pit of practice.
The other seams and the neck were put together using a plain zig zag Megs was set at one wide and two long, my Singer sewing machine wouldn’t let me go any lower than 2 for the width , but it did have a preset for stretch fabrics, which sort of looks like a lighting bolt which worked brilliantly.
Meg showed us how to put on the binding for the neck and put two rows of stitching to hold it down, the sleeves are put in flat and then the side seams and underarms, two rows of stitching are used for the cuff we then use a twin needle for the hem. Full disclosure I put the t-shirt on after sewing the side seams and underarm and decided it was too big, so I haven’t done the finishing off, but I have worn it a lot round the house for slobbing about in and it is very comfortable. When I make the next one it will be in a smaller size.
This is the first time that I have used the walking foot that came with the machine, once I got it fitted it worked really well, I had no puckering on the fabric or unsightly stretching.
I bought this class in the sale so the patterns made this a great bargain, but I would recommend this class even though I skipped most of the first two lessons.
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 