More little bags

Call me crazy but I'm making more bags. I had such fun making the last set that I decided to use up the rest of the upholstery type fabric and I got another two sets of bags out of it.

I ran out of the pale green rayon for the lining so I am using some craft fabric I bought ages ago for the second set.

I also had to make more bias tape for the larger bag. For a complete tutorial on how to make a batch of bias tape, go here, from March 8, 2008.

Now I have just enough bias tape in both fabrics to make a large bag with each kind of lining.

Here are all the pieces, waiting for me to get zippers for them. For the sharp-eyed, there is a bonus fifth bag in there. I just can't throw away even a small piece of fabric if it can possibly be turned into a bag. Tomorrow, I'll be getting the zippers. I was going to walk - it is "only" a 10 km round trip - but I am getting a ride instead by a fortuitous set of circumstances.

Pockets on the raw silk

Pockets! I had forgotten about pockets until I was looking at the photo of the real Chanel jacket and saw them there. So I went and cut out pockets.

I used a template from another pattern and decided to line the pockets and pipe the edges. I'm using the satin for the lining, not the other stuff I'm using for the skirt. I have left a small gap where the lining is sewn to the pocket to facilitate turn it right side out when it's time.

I had to make some piping for around the edges of the pockets. Just sew down the cord wrapped up in the bias tape.

The seam allowances are a tiny bit more than the 5/8 usually used because of the width of the bias tape. I'm not concerned by this little discrepancy. I could always trim it but I think I'll just eyeball it instead.

I have to visualize how the cord will disappear into the pocket (into the seam allowance) once it is turned right side out.

First, I machine basted the piping to the pocket to fix it in place. Then I pulled the lining down to the pocket seam allowance and pinned it together, putting the pins in from the pocket, not the lining side.

Once I had wiggled the ends of the piping out to where they would be sewn into the seam, I sewed the pocket to the lining form the pocket side because I could use the line of basting I had already put on the fabric as a guide. I sewed slightly inside the basting to make sure the piping was not too loose.

I started to turn the pocket before I realized I had to trim the seam allowance. So I started over, trimmed the excess fabric and then turn the pocket through the little gap I had left.

Here's the pocket, turned but unpressed and the gap is still not stitched up. I have been thinking about putting trim on the outside of the pocket, across the top as they do in many of the Chanel suits but I have decided against it, thinking it will be too busy for me. I think the contrast piping is enough. I am still not sure where to place the pockets on the jacket and will have to assemble it enough so I can put it on the dummy and then figure out the best placement.

Making bias tape

I've been thinking ahead to making bias tape for the piping and it's a conceptual thing. You have to imagine how those pieces of fabric have to go together so you can make a tube and then cut out one continuous strip of fabric on the bias. To help me with the imagining, because it has been a long time since I've done this, I went to the internet and Googled "making bias tape". All the hits on the first page dealt with cutting many strips of cloth diagonally and sewing them all together, end to end, one after the other. Ack! What is that? A make-work project? No, no, no. You can make a tube of fabric by sewing two pieces together (only two seams), press those seams open and then start cutting. Here's how to do it.

Start with a square of fabric. You can probably use a rectangle but it's easier with a square. I had bought about a half a yard of the quilting cotton. When I measured it along the selvage edge it was 21 inches. I folded this selvage edge along the cut edge and cut the fabric lengthwise, making a 21 inch square.

Then I carefully cut along the diagonal fold, making two triangular pieces.

Next, I put the two triangular pieces right sides together, pinning them together along the straight or selvage edges and then sewing the first seam.

Once the seam was sewed, I had this parallelogram shaped piece of fabric.

I pressed the first seam open.

The next step is the only difficult part and it's not that bad. You have to bring the bottom edge of the parallelogram up to the top edge and pin the edges together, right sides together. At this point it doesn't really look like a tube.

If you relax the edges and just lay the fabric on the table, you can see that it will become a tube when the other two edges are sewn together.

However, when lining up the edges to make the tube, make sure you off-set the edges by the width of the tape you want to make. I want to make 1 and 3/4 inch wide tape, so I set the one corner back by 1 and 3/4 inches, pinned the edges together and then sewed them.

Once the second seam is sewed, press it open.

And now for the self-healing cutting mat and rotary cutter! I used to cut the bias tape out with regular scissors, eyeballing the width. Now I have this mat.

Once I got the hang of it, I was away to the races. You line up the diagonal (bias) edge with one of the lines on the mat. Then you lay your straight edge along the other line (hidden by the fabric) and carefully push the rotary cutter long the straightedge. This is where I discovered that if you don't pay attention and don't cant the cutter in slightly toward the edge, you can wander off into the bias tape and make it narrower than planned. However, that wasn't a crisis, as I really don't need a full 1 and 3/4 inches of tape.

You can only cut about a foot at a time and then you have to reposition the fabric. I wasn't limited by the size of the mat but by the size of the tube of fabric.

When I got to the end of the tube of fabric, I had a left over piece of bias tape that was about 20 inches long and one inch wide. But from the 21 inch square piece of fabric, I got over 6 yards of 1 and 3/4 inch bias tape. Much easier than cutting eleventy-seven pieces of bias strips and then sewing each one of them to the next one, over and over again. I learned this trick from my sister when we were sewing curtains and pillows back in the 80s. Thanks Norah!

Almost finished the dress

So my dress is nearly complete and I make my husband go to the sewing room to admire it on the dummy. He says, "are you really going to wear that in public?" And I say, "I thought you weren't going to complain any more about my fabric choices?" And he says, "I can't help it. That fabric makes me feel like Kramer when he heard Mary Hart's voice on television."

I tried the dress on again and was surprised to see that it really wasn't as low in the front as I had feared. So I have put aside the blue eyelet lace I bought and am only going to trim the neck and armholes with blue bias tape.

Here, I've pinned the dress back on the dummy to decide how many buttons to put, at least on the bodice. I refuse to have a top that gapes between buttons and so I put pins in every two inches, which is awfully close together but works for me.

I chose some plain, slightly turquoise buttons and am putting them two inches apart on the bodice and 2 and 1/2 inches apart down the front of the skirt. They only had 15 matching buttons so I bought them all and have used 14 on this dress.

After sewing the skirt back to the bodice and trying it on, I realized that it is a bit loose in the waist. However, instead of having that sewed-in look, I think I am going to put a bit of elastic on the seam allowance at the back and that will snug the waistline up without making it difficult to breathe.