An embarrassment of riches

Now that I've finished the red linen outfit, I am on to new things. I have been thinking about this double-sided (two layered) fabric I bought some years ago after I won a gift certificate to spend at Fabricland.

It's a thin layer of denim embroidered to a thin layer of bright pink cotton. In addition, there are frayed flower shapes on the denim, which actually make it less sturdy. My plan is to make a reversible jacket, even though I will probably wear the denim side out most of the time. But making it reversible will allow me to have a bright pink jacket for the times that I want one. Now that I'm doing a fair bit of breast cancer awareness work, I suppose the pink will come in handy, although I bought it years before I even got diagnosed. I'm planning to use the Butterick 4741 pattern I used for the bright yellow twill jacket I wore to France in 2008, but adapt it with plain sleeves (no cuffs or placket) and a one piece front so the jacket can be truly reversible.

While I was hauling the denim out of the stash, I re-discovered all these other fabrics too! Hence the title of this post.

Speaking of France 2008, here are four of the Provencal cottons I got on that trip. I think I will make either shirts or skirts out of them. They are not heavy weight fabric and will probably wear forever as shirts. Delicious looking!

Then there are these lengths of rayon of the soft, challis variety. I bought the two complementary blue ones on the left side and have made a dress out of the larger print already, with accents in the small, geometric print. So now I have to make something with the geometric print. This fabric is actually stiffer than the other rayons and seems to have more dye in it or something. It has a batik look to it. I am thinking I should make dresses out of this fabric, as it is lightweight and drapes well. My only "issue" is that I don't really have much need for dresses - I can get more wear out of shirts. On the other hand, if you build it, they will come. Maybe if I make dresses, I will find places I can wear them!

Anyway, all this to say that I am still sewing up my stash - no new fabric for me! And I write this to help myself resist going and getting this green polka-dot fabric I saw when I was getting the lining for the red outfit. It reminded me of this cute shirt dress I had when I first went to law school, that I wore with a pink jacket. That was 1981 folks. Good times.

New project with silk?

I came down from sewing to blog about sewing and was sitting here (at the computer at 7pm) when suddenly, I thought I was going blind, it got so dark. We have some dense red cells moving through the area and there have been funnel clouds west of here. I thought I'd better post this before I lose power.

I finally finished the red rayon camp shirt. It is such a pretty colour, I am glad I have a new one of these shirts to wear.

I made the buttonholes vertically for a change. It fits loosely so there won't be any straining at the buttonholes or fear of gaping.

Now I have ironed the other piece of silk I got in California a year ago. It is a sort of Dupioni, in that it is stiff-ish with slubs in it but it is fairly thin too. I had thought I would make a dress out of it but I think it is too thin. Then I thought I would make a camp shirt, as the pattern works so well and I could tuck it into a skirt to make it look less caasual. But then I measured it and found out it is 136 cm wide and 190 cm long - almost 2 yards! I can get the shirt out of it but then I will have quite a bit left over and don't know what to do with that. Any ideas? Shirt and something, or something other than a shirt? Or maybe a long sleeved shirt!

Camp shirt

Steaming right along, it is a "feels like" temperature of 42C (109F) here right now. Thank my dog (even though she has been gone for five years now) that I have air conditioning! I didn't use it last week when all the ACs in the 'hood were grinding away but I am glad I have it today.

In campaign news, I will be on our local talk radio (CFRA 580 AM) this Thursday the 8th, between 3 and 4 pm EDT. You can listen to it here:
http://cfra.com/listen/listen-CFRA-StW.html
Or if you miss it, I will put up a link on my web site after, or you can go here to find the link yourself.

I dressed up to go downtown the other day, to attend an info session at city hall and on the way home, stopped at a local coffee shop to have a coffee with my husband. He has a blog too and he posted a couple of photos of me with my Britex silk shirt in action!

The weekend just past, I decided since it was supposed to not rain all weekend, I would finally get the two big area rugs out and wash them.

I do it the old fashioned way, on my hands and knees, using dishwashing soap and a brush. I now have rug burns on my knees but it was worth it. I hung them on the chain link fence to rinse them and then let them dry. It was an all day job.

I am still resisting the purchase of new fabric and trying to use up my stash. I had a large length of this very soft, drapey rayon left over after I made a dress out of it (which is now too short to wear given my age and has gone into the Sally Ann pile) years ago and I determined that it would make a nice addition to my "camp shirt" collection. I have been using this Simplicity 9210 pattern for years, to make a loose, short sleeved shirt that I wear untucked (although I can tuck it in if I want). I call them "camp shirts" because I got the moniker from old LLBean catalogues.

These are four in my collection - I made the purple flowered one last. Yeesh! I see it was in 2007. I guess I didn't get much done in the last two years. But, we all know why. Never mind!

Since it is old, left over stash fabric, I refuse to buy new thread. I got out all my threads that were remotely reddish and I am going to use them up.

Here is a close-up of the facings and loops that I sewed at the start and if you really look closely, you can see different colours of thread. I agree - who will notice!

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.