Back to posting!

It has been far too long but I am finally blogging again. No real reason - just distraction.

Back on August 3, I was making a black jacket and I just finished it today. Now I am "allowed" to start a new project. But first, the jacket and a few other things.

So cute! Even if it is just plain black. It is the same pattern as some other jackets I have made (Simplicity 4698) and I went with the "no lapels" variation because I didn't have enough fabric. I decided to make it less plain by adding a bit of satin piping around the front edge and a not-too-boring button. The sleeves are 3/4 length so I will wear it with a sleeveless or short sleeved top. That works for me because when I teach, I am always very warm, waving my arms about and standing in front of the class. Plus the jacket is only partly lined so it will be nice for Summer too.

Because of the way the jacket is constructed, with a partial lining, I decided to sew the sleeves into their tube shape and sew the body of the jacket together, and then set in the sleeves and finish the raw armhole edge with a flat fell. It does make it more tricky and fiddly, especially when the fabric frays a bit, but with patience, you can tuck in the raw edge of the sleeve all the way around the armhole edge and then sew it down to the body of the jacket to encase all the raw edges.

Anyway, I am quite pleased with it and think I will get a fair bit of wear out of it.

This is a shot of that blue twill jean jacket I made a while ago, with the complimentary patterned skirt. I find both patterns very comfortable to wear and thought I'd illustrate that I really do wear the clothes I blog about - in this case, at a family gathering this Summer.

I had a student from last year become a friend and when she went home to China for the Summer, she came back with a couple of meters of red linen for me! She says the Chinese characters on the fabric are very old and not in use as "letters" these days, so chances are they don't really spell anything and won't offend anyone. Now I have to decide how to prep this fabric - should I wash it or will the gold come off? She said it was linen and it feels like it, which means it will shrink. But even if I only ever dry clean it, I worry about the gold. We debated about what I might make with it and I thought "jacket" and she thought "dress". I am leaning more toward something that I won't have to clean very often, which rules out dress.

A Dress A Day had a post recently about fabric stashes and deciding what to use next, and I related to it a lot. So I think this red linen will join the stash for a while. In that same vein, I am putting the expensive navy wool aside, while I make my next project.

I plan to make a two piece suit with this green wool. It's only partly wool and has a bunch of other fibers in it, including a thin silver stripe which you will be better able to see in later photos as I make the suit. I pre-washed and dried it in the dryer and it came out perfectly, much to my relief. It was originally $20/metre but I got it on sale for only $5/metre, which is why I dared to wash and dry it. I will use the same patterns that I plan to use for the navy wool, as a sort of practice run. I have used the patterns several times before but not since I got my dress form (whose name I still don't know in spite of what I wrote earlier). There is a troubling tendency of the front facings on the jacket to seem shorter than the outside pieces and therefore, curl the front up slightly. I don't know why this happens and can "cure" it by pressing and pounding the heck out of it. But maybe with the dress form, I can see what is happening. I'll know soon.

Handlebar bag finished

And we're ready to rock and roll. I got a length of soft braid (they had shinier stuff but mine seems to be made of something cottony) to act as the shoulder strap.

I had to figure out how to insert it between the zippered top and the body of the bag so that it would end up on the outside where it belonged but that wasn't too difficult. Here I've pinned the zippered top to the bag and the shoulder strap is inside the bag about 2 inches so I can sew it down for extra strength.

The handlebar itself is packed so I used a lamp to simulate the bar. It doesn't show very well here but my plan is to loop the whole strap over the handlebar and then snap the loops onto the bar as well, creating a redundancy. This bag will contain all the little things we want to keep handy while riding (like the camera and money) so I don't want it to fall off.

I figured that I could use an 8 inch loop over the handlebar on each side so that's where I placed the hammer-on snaps. Here is the bag hanging up, with the loops snapped shut. I'm pretty pleased with it even if I won't get to test it in action until we get to Halifax. I've put a few notes on the photo if you want to go see them at Flickr - nothing exciting.

bike bag redesign

Well I am cleverer than I look because the bike bag worked with the measurements I gave it! It only connected with my knees when I was pedalling into the wind or when we hit a really big bump. We biked about 30 kms with it and I loaded stuff into it and was pleased with it. I think I'll use it again on treks to the market or elsewhere.

As I did on Sunday! Here I am in one of my rayon bike shirts. You can just see part of the bag behind my right hip. More importantly, there are horses in the background!

Here's Peter in one of my shirts, and you can see the bag hanging from the stoker's handlebar. In spite of its success, I had decided to redesign it anyway, especially as the zipper was not easy to operate one-handedly.

So I am basing the bag on the tote bag pattern I have used many times (especially for gifts). I am using the smaller of the sizes and modifying it a fair bit. I wanted an exterior pocket that was easily accessible so I could whip out the camera at a moment's notice while pedalling. I decided to make a gusseted pocket to accommodate the bulk of the camera and prevent the bag itself from being distorted when the camera was in the pocket. Of course, I couldn't make a pocket on only one side so I did a matching one for the other side of the main bag. In this photo, on the right-hand side, I have stuffed a kerchief into the pocket before the bottom has been sewn down. On the left, I have sewn the bottom of the pocket down.

After I tested the pocket, I realized that the camera would not be totally secure and decided to close it with some velcro. I tried closing the pocket top with the velcro attached directly to the inner edge of the pocket but the top of the pocket buckled too much. So I sewed the bit of Velcro to a bit of a tab and then I could secure the open edge of the pocket to keep the camera from falling out (if the bag tipped badly) but still have easy access to it.

Here is a finished pocket, stuffed with the handkerchief. Then I applied two interior flat pockets and sewed the sides of the bag together.

Here is the bag before I put on the zippered top and attach the handle. The handle is going to be the really clever part, although I have only designed it in my head so far.

Bike bag template finished

Wow, that bike bag is HUGE.

First, I got all balled up at the corners because I was fitting half moon pieces into straight pieces. Not my usual "so tidy on the inside" at all. When I turned the bag right-side-out however, it looked fine so I guess I can live with it.

Next, I saw that the straps or loops were too small to put buttons on so I went for some left-over snaps I had. I think I may go for snaps in the finished product also. Then I stuffed the bag FULL of every hand towel I own (it is very capacious) and went to the garage.

As I planned, I slid one fixed loop over one end of the handlebars and then slid it to the middle to get the other loop over the end of the bar. That went well.

Then I centered it and snapped the middle loops shut and there it was - the biggest handlebar bag I've ever seen. I think it will connect with my knees as I pedal but I won't know for sure until we go for a ride or at least until Peter holds the bike for me while I sit on it. It sure didn't seem very big with the dimensions I wrote down, nor while I was making it. So I am glad I made this template and will go back to the drawing board after a test drive.

Brief bike interlude

So there I was, sewing away on the black 3/4 sleeve unlined jacket and thinking that black is sure hard to photograph, when it occurred to me that I needed to make a handlebar bag for the tandem. First, where I have got to on the jacket.

The instructions call for all four front pieces (two fronts, to facings) to be interfaced. All I had in black was sew-in interfacing but I thought it would be best to use that in any event, as the iron-on stuff still seems to bubble and I am not convinced it is the best choice for large pieces like these. Plus, I am going to use it (sew-in) for the navy wool (whenever I get to it) and it's good to practise.

I'm sewing all the vertical seams and flat felling them in the modified fell, mostly because the jacket is only partly lined. Even though it is cotton, this fabric doesn't take a crease very well, and it frays and sheds, so the flat felling has been awkward. Here, you can see two seams, one unfinished at the top and the other is the seam between the interfacing front piece and the front side piece. I had to resort to pinning the curves after I ironed the seam allowances. Anyway, it is coming along but first, the bike bag.

I made a sketch of what I wanted and filled in dimensions after going into the garage to measure distances between handlebar ends, stems and water bottle cages. I figure I can slip the sewn-in loops over the ends of the handlebar (first one side and then the other) and then secure the middle tabs or loops once the bag was hanging from the bar. A zipper the entire width of the bag would allow easy access.

The bag is effectively a muslin because I'm going to have to use it on a ride to determine what changes might have to be made. I'm also going to have internal pockets and an external zipped pocket on the finished model. Here are the top and bottom of the bag. You can see I have split the top and added seam allowances in order to allow a zipper along the front (close to me the rider) edge.

Here are the top and bottom again, without the zipper yet. The bottom (I left the white selvage on it) is folded back on itself.

After I installed the zipper, I cut a piece for the curved back and without thinking, sewed it on to the top. I was so concerned about how I was going to fit a curved piece onto a flat piece that I totally forgot I wanted to sew in the four tabs that are needed to secure the bag to the bar. Stupid. Now I have to pick the seam apart in four places and insert the tabs. Grr.

Skirt and Jacket

I wasn't going to blog about this because it was just "left overs". However, the fabric I had left over was more than I thought and now it has turned into a project for which I have actually bought something new (i.e. piping and a button). So here it is.

A while back I made a jumper using some nice black cotton with a waffle weave finish. I used a pattern that was apparently in my size but when it was finished, the jumper looked more like a tent and as the hem grazed my ankles, I thought, not even taking it up will help. I really needed to be about 6 feet tall to make that pattern work. So I am going to give it away to the Sally Ann when I can bear to part with it - never-been-worn and nicely made. Ah well.

When I got the fabric, I bought yards of it because - that's right! - it was on sale. I decided that I could now use a serviceable black skirt so I hauled out what was left and cut out the skirt in the pattern I love - New Look 6462.

Having cut out the skirt, I realized there was still a lot of the fabric left over and it struck me that I could make a little jacket that would work like a cardigan.

I trotted out the "shrunken jacket" pattern Simplicity 4698 and decided to see if View C in the 3/4 sleeve would fit on what was left. I've made this pattern before and if I'm not too fat, it looks pretty cute on me. Because it is unlined, I thought it would feel more like a cardigan.

Veiw C and D don't have lapels and I didn't have enough fabric for them, so I decided a little piping would liven the jacket up.

Here's the skirt, ready for hemming. The fabric has a dull side and a slightly shiny side and I put the dull side as the right side. In spite of it being cotton, it also doesn't make a narrow fold very well and so I had to use pins to hold the hem down before sewing it.

Here it is, finished and hanging up. I have a boom box parked in front of my sewing room door and am too lazy to move it so the photo looks odd. I have been listening to CBC French radio in the hopes that the language will impart itself to me by osmosis and am using the boom box instead of my usual radio because the old dial on the usual radio is very fiddly and I don't like to change it from the English CBC, otherwise all I get is static.

Finally, when I was in my sewing room yesterday, I heard the sound of toenails on metal and looked out the window to see a local crow picking at something in the rain gutters. Although they are noisy (especially at 6 am) and they pick holes in my garbage bags, I like the bold birds and so I took his picture instead of shooing him away.

PJs finished

I've been finished this for a while but it just takes so long to blog it sometimes. Sorry. Here is the top with the straps pinned to the front to adjust for length.

The instructions say to sew the front end of the strap to the inside of the facing but I left an opening in the seam so I could insert the strap and then sew across it.

After I figured out how long I wanted the straps to be, I stuffed them into the top at the gap in the facing seam. On the left side of this photo, I have turned the other strap/facing inside-out so you can see how the strap looks in the inside.

The shorts are just plain with an elastic/drawstring combo waistline. Unfortunately, I forgot to read the instructions and so did not leave a gap in the front seam for the drawstrings to come through. Since I had already finished all the seams with a flat fell, I wasn't about to pick them apart either. Luckily, I had not started to sew down the casing for the elastic and so...

I made two buttonholes wide enough for the drawstring! Then I sewed the casing and just threaded the drawstring and elastic through the buttonholes and presto - I was finished.

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.