Pyjamas

Apparently, that is the British spelling. Dictionary dot com seems to prefer "pajamas".
I have decided to put off the wool suit for a while and make some cotton PJs in anticipation of our bike trip Down East. We will be staying with friends on several nights and I wanted something I could wear as pyjamas that wouldn't weigh much (you have to travel light on a bike) and yet would be modest. (There's an old-fashioned word for you.) But a t-shirt as pyjamas can be too revealing and I wanted something opaque, in case I had to wander about the house in search of a bathroom in the middle of the night.

Luckily, I found such a fabric and as a bonus, it was totally on sale! $2 per metre.
I think it belongs to the craft fabric section but it was very light weight and I liked the colours. Plus, it has an all-over bubble finish to it, like seersucker only not in rows. The right side is on the left in this photo and the wrong side is a bit faded looking.

I had bought a pattern for pyjamas some time ago and have decided to go with it, even though it is untried. I am a little nervous that it will end up being too small, as the size I bought only went up to "medium". But I have pinned the pattern pieces on Rose and they seem to be okay.

I am making the top with the spaghetti straps but I have lengthened it by adding three inches to the bottom. And I am making shorts with a 10 inch inseam, by cutting the legs off at the appropriate spot. I like the way the top is cut on the bias for stretch. There are no buttons or zippers and only a bit of interfacing on the top facings so I ought to be done fairly quickly.

Camp Shirt

And we're done my rayon camp/bike shirt. Before we conclude the shirt however, a brief tutorial on buttonholes. I make most of mine with the automatic buttonholer that came with my Singer. As you'll see, it can be uneven but if I'm not that fussy, I don't mind and you can hardly notice when the shirt is being worn.

First, I have to choose buttons from my stash. Since this was fabric on sale and I'm not being fussy, I decided to use up 6 of the regular shirt buttons that I got that were slightly different from the other shirt buttons I often use. That left me one short for the loop at the neck, so I looked at the leftovers in my button box. I ended up choosing the red one with a shank, because there IS red in the shirt and the shank suits the loop best.

Then I marked where I wanted the buttonholes to go with pins and snapped the automatic buttonholer on the presser foot thingy.

Here's a close-up of one of the buttonholes. You can see that the right-hand side is much less tightly stitched than the left. There IS an adjustment lever on the machine that is supposed to correct that but I have never been able to make it work. Well -- maybe I haven't tried very hard. Okay, okay, I'll work on it.

Here's where the tools I referred to earlier come in. I use this tiny utility knife to cut open the fabric, inside the encircling buttonhole stitching. I forget what I used to use before Peter gave me this - I think I just stuck scissors in through the fabric fibres and hoped for the best.

"Now that's a knife!" This is a pro-quality utility knife and not only is it too big for sewing, it is total overkill. But it's great for renovations!

Using a bit of softwood (like pine) to cut into, I stick the point of the knife between the rows of stitching and make a small cut. Sometimes, I let the rows of stitching get too close to each other and then I end up cutting the stitching which is very annoying and then I have to fix it.

You can cut the whole hole with the knife but I prefer the control I have using small and very sharp scissors. Cut up to the ends of the hole so the button will fit through.

I then poke my finger into the hole to bend it open and expose loose threads that will get caught on the button or pulled. I trim those off. (This photo is the wrong side of the buttonhole, on the facing.)

And the button fits!

Next, place the shirt on the ironing board and put the buttonhole side over where the buttons will go and mark the button placement with pins.

After I cut thread to sew the buttons on, I measured it and realized that I use a whole metre of thread, doubled, so it is 18 inches long with a knot in it. Put the needle in where the pin marks the spot for the button.

Put the needle-pulling-thread (sing with me now!) through the holes in the button and then back through the fabric where the first stitch was made.

Now the button is snug on the fabric. Stick the needle through the first hole and by bending the fabric and tilting the button, you can get the needle through the fabric under the button and out where the second hole is.

Now you can put the needle up through that second hole in the button and then down through the first hole, again tilting the fabric as before. In this way, you get consistent stitches on the wrong side (the facing side). I used to stab up and down blindly through the holes in the buttons and my stitches on the wrong side were all over the place. This way is neater.

After about 4 or 5 of these stitches, pull the thread out on the facing side and take a stitch through the stitches you already made, making a loop. Thread the needle through that loop twice and pull tight, making a good knot. I also then take a small stitch in the fabric to bury the tail of the thread before cutting it off flat against the fabric.

Finished neck detail.

Finished shirt on Rose.

Shirt in action! I rode out to meet my husband coming home from work yesterday and wore the shirt for the first time. It was hot and humid and the reason the hem is all crooked is because the back of the shirt is wet with sweat and hanging lower than the front, plus I have pulled the collar away from the back of my neck for air.

Peter is saying, "shh. There are ducklings down here!"
He is also wearing one of my shirts. :)

And there are the ducks! Mom and three medium sized babies. Sweet.

the camp shirt

Yeowzah! Poke my eye out with the colour!

If anything, it is brighter in real life. But the fabric is lovely and soft and drapes wonderfully. And if I wear in on my bike, they will surely see me coming. And most importantly, the whole piece (therefore the shirt) only cost me $3.

Today's tutorial is on the tiny loop at the neck of the shirt. Of course, when would you ever do up a short sleeved shirt right to the neck but I like it as a detail in the design so sometimes I add the loop. The pattern instructions call for making a tiny tube and turning it right-side out. Are they nuts?

The tiny piece of fabric is cut on the bias and so it stretches. Instead of making a tube, I first iron the piece in half lengthwise.

Since it is so small and maneuvering the piece under the iron would cause third degree burns to my fingers, I use pins to help me out. I fold up the one half into half and pin it down. Then I fold over the other half. As this fabric is rayon and creases easily, it won't take but a touch with the iron to set it in place.

Then I fold both halves onto each other, folding in the raw edges, and press, removing the pins as I go.

Once I get it under the needle, it slithers around worse than Alan Rickman in Harry Potter. In retrospect, I probably would have been better off with a straight foot instead of the zipper foot.

As you can see, the stitching line is a little crooked but since it is a tiny piece anyway and will be folded in half when done, I don't really mind.

that skirt and some other things

Where does the time go? When my husband is at home taking some holiday daze, then it goes out the window, that's where.

I finished my flippy skirt not long after I decided to make it. I didn't keep track of time but it was only a couple of hours from start (laying the fabric on the table) to finish.

It has all sorts of nice colours in it, from white to yellow to peach and red. I chose a plain peach t-shirt and voila! Dressed for the day.

I just finished ironing the beautiful blue wool - on both sides. That's careful dedication. I found a fluffy flaw near the end on one side, and marked it with some contrasting thread. I thought I "should" use the smoother side as the right side but I noticed that on the smooth side, you could see a vertical repeat every five inches. When I turned it over to iron the rougher side, I saw that the repeat didn't show up there. And so, because the flaw was on the smoother side, it makes me think that the manufacturer (designer) may have intended the rougher side to be the right side. In any event, I am going to lay it out only one layer thick and cut each piece out individually, just to make sure I get the correct straight of grain on each piece. You can go a little "off" when you fold the fabric in two lengthwise, even if you fold it very carefully. Since it was so expensive to begin with and since I know I'll be wearing this suit for at least 20 years, I will make a really good job of it.

In the meantime, I decided to postpone the cutting-of-the-wool by making a quick camp shirt out of some cheap rayon. On this way, I can do a short spot on buttonholes. I have discovered another fellow sewer in the Ottawa area and she posted about sewing tools, including something with which to make buttonholes. I decided to post about the carpentry tools I use, just for fun.

Shirt, Skirt, Suit and Wool

There it is - the finished shirt. It's very casual - he'll likely only wear it cycling. But that's what it was made for - cycling. It's very lightweight cotton seersucker and will billow in the breeze created while riding. If it ever gets hot again here, he'll enjoy wearing it, even if he does think it's a little too bright (it does look a lot more Yellow and Green in real life!).

Ever since the last Darrell Thomas newsletter, I have been thinking about the beautiful designer wool I bought and had stashed in the original DT paper bag, complete with lining and zipper and buttons. I know I bought it while I was still working downtown so that means it was before 2004. I hauled it out (I think there is about 3 metres of it) and decided to WASH it. I hate having to dry clean clothes so I washed it. I know! But I am brave. I put it on the gentle cycle with cold water and only for about 10 minutes. THEN -- I put it in the dryer. I KNOW! But it survived, even if it is a tiny bit fluffy now. I think a good steam pressing will take care of fluffy. See? It still looks lovely. It is a very dark navy. I was having fears about cutting into it but now that I've washed and dried it, that fear is subsiding. Instead, I am excited about making a suit with a jacket and skirt and maybe a third piece, depending on how much fabric I end up with.

I am going to use McCall's pattern 3796 view C or D without any pockets. I have made both views and this jacket fits me very nicely without any altering.

Here it is in raw silk, which I also bought at Darrell Thomas. I made the tiny piping that runs along the lapels and around the pockets.

This raw silk fabric I didn't dare wash so when it gets dirty (which isn't yet) I will dry clean it. I figured however, that wool, which grows on sturdy sheep, ought to be able to stand washing.

In the meantime however, in anticipation of it getting HOT again, I am going to whip up yet another of my flippy summer skirts. I got this fabric recently on sale and it is nicely polished cotton with a tiny bit of Lycra in it. I didn't need the Lycra but got it for the colours. Doesn't it look like something you'd see in Japanese animation on the Internet? Because the skirt panels are cut on the bias, the pattern lines of white daisies will run diagonally across each panel, instead of up and down. I think that will be okay. It's only going to be for casual wear anyway. But it will give me time to work up my courage to cut up the wool.

Seersucker shirt

I've gone from this:

... to this today:

I used to have such a mental block about collars and even though I've been sewing the band facings on by machine for a long time, I still get that "I don't want to do the next step" feeling when it comes to collars. Never mind - they are easy now.

First I sew the collar band to the WRONG side of the body of the shirt. Then I fold up the edge of the facing and pin it carefully over the stitching line I just made on the RIGHT side of the shirt.

Here's a close-up of one end of the collar band as pinned. It's a little loose looking but once I get it under the sewing machine needle and the needle stuck through all layers to hold it down, I can tweak it a tiny bit here and there and then sew it down.

Here is the finished collar band. In the front is the INSIDE of the band and the collar band end behind the other one shows what the band looks like on the outside. You might have to go to Flickr and see them large to get the detail. What I like about this method is that the band never comes apart as it sometimes did with hand stitching. Plus it's nice and tight and flat and if you want, you can put on more rows of topstitching.

It's so easy to match pocket stripes. Just make marks where the pocket is supposed to go on the shirt (I am pointing to a small pink chalk mark in this photo). Then get a piece of fabric where the stripes line up with the shirt (making sure it is slightly larger than the pocket area). Pin the pocket piece on to the piece of matching fabric, making sure the stitching lines match up and then cut it out. As it turns out, I didn't put a flap on this pocket but the pocket itself was done the same way.

Here's another look at a sleeve flat fell. You can also sort of tell here that this seersucker is quite thin and soft compared to that other one I made that was stiff - and still is after several washings. Anyway, I sewed the sleeve on and then trimmed the part of the seam allowance that belonged to the body of the shirt, allowing me to fold over the seam allowance that belongs to the sleeve. Of course, you have to iron the seam allowances toward the body of the shirt first.

Then I just run along the fold with the zipper foot, taking the pins out as I go.

From the right side of the shirt, you can see it makes a nice finish. And you can see the topstitching where I finished the yoke. Almost done.

Musings

I like browsing through The Sartorialist, a blog of sorts about fashion, mostly on the streets. I don't agree with all his picks but I do like the fact that he chooses all sorts of folks to use as examples of fashion. And I get ideas from looking at other peoples' choices, like the one I noticed yesterday. It's the first entry at the June 27, 2007 spot and shows a woman in a high-waisted skirt. If I can get it to fit (and not ride up or dig in), I will be making one of these sorts of skirts soon. I like the way the skirt makes her seems taller too.

In the meanwhile, I have also decided to finally make a suit from the beautiful navy wool I got from Darrell Thomas a couple of years ago now. I have been having a discouraging run of job hunting lately and maybe if I have the most beautiful and conservative suit to wear to interviews, I will feel better about the whole thing. I was also inspired to think about my DT fabric because of the newsletter which I still get even though I haven't shopped there in too long and an entry in it which referred me to another Ottawa blog where the entry was about sewing a dress with DT fabric.

For right now, it's back to the seersucker shirt which is about 1/3 made and hanging on my dummy, who I am still not convinced is named "Rose".

Blue jacket finished

So much to do, so little time.

The blue jacket is complete and has been worn twice! I love it and the green one and now I want to make five more the same way. Too bad - there are other things that need doing more.

I wore the jacket to a BBQ on the weekend, where it was actually cool enough to do so. Here, I am heading to teach my second last class and I'm taking the jacket because the college is air-conditioned and thank goodness because in the photo, it is 33C (91F) out there. I found the little turquoise top with all my other sleeveless tops and discovered it went with the skirt so I put it on, on top of a plain white t-shirt.

I wanted the full effect of the jacket with the skirt so I put it on in spite of the 40C humidex. "Quick! Take the picture!"

Next - Peter needs a cool cotton seersucker cycling shirt. It may be hot, but we're still "out there" (maybe in more ways than one).