Remodeling - Frugal Pattern and Sewing from Store Bought Blouse

I have a blouse I like. I like it a lot. It's nothing special, just a short sleeved blouse with no collar. I wore it recently and decided I liked it enough to copy it. So, here's what I did:
I got out a roll of Christmas wrapping paper. It's the only paper I had around and I'm too cheap to go out and buy any.
I analyzed the blouse to see its components - back (cut on fold), sleeves, and front. To make the facing, I'd just duplicate the neckline to the shouder and the front and make a facing just like I'd make for a storebought pattern. Easy.
I laid the blouse on the paper, starting with the back which I would eventually cut on the fold. I didn't take the blouse apart, but I was very generous with my use of pins while putting it on the paper. I spread out the blouse to avoid sizing problems with hidden folds, the neck, the shoulder, and the armhole. Then, I drew a line around the pattern piece, carefully duplicating the curve of the neckline and the curve of the armhole. After I unpinned the blouse from the paper, I marked the pattern as Back and noted the Cut on Fold section. I planned on adding seam allowances when I actually cut the fabric.
Next came the front. This was a little tricker. I repeated the steps above, taking care to respect the lines of the collar, armhole, and shoulder. Those needed more attention than the body of the blouse as they were sewn to other parts and needed to be gently hand pressed as I went along. Again, I used plenty of pins and drew the lines, cutting and then marking the pattern piece.
The sleeve was pretty easy. Lots of pins along the curve of the armhole. This sleeve happens to be symmetric, so I made the pattern piece such that I could cut it on the fold (the top seamline - there's no seam there - made a great fold). Pins, pencil, cut.
I waited to cut facings until I cut the fabric itself.
I pinned the pattern pieces on the fabric. For the back, I put an extra folded piece of fabric under the folded fabric that would be later used as a facing. I pinned the pattern on and cut the back and facing at the same time. I decided to trim that facing down later.
For the front, I placed a couple of fabric pieces under the body of the blouse where the front closures would go and cut that as facing along with the cutting of the blouse. Again, I decided to trim the facing later.
I stitched the shoudlers of front facing and back facing, right sides together, and serged the seams. At this point, I have an exact duplicate of the blouse cutting with the exception that the edge that doesn't match the front edge and neck edge of the blouse are sort of not cut perfectly. I used my serger on what would be the finished edge of the facing to finish and give me a seam allowance to turn under and stitch. This is when I trimmed the facing .
I stitched the shoudlers of the blouse front and back and then stay stitched from center front around the blouse and back to the center front on the other side.
I pinned the facing to the blouse, right sides together and then stitched the bottom to the bottom, all the way around. Then I turned this right sides out and pressed the facing down, stitching the shoulder facing to the shoudler seam inside to hold it in place.
From here, I added the sleeves as I would any other sleeve, hemmed the blouse and sleeves, added buttonholes and buttons, and voila. A blouse that fits well, looks good, and cost just about nothing to make!

What not to do with Wonder Under

I've been working on baby bibs lately. I'm using recycled denim and bandannas, and going nuts. They're so much fun and stitch up in a few hours from start to finish. Last night, I was trying something new. I made prairie points to go on the edge of the bib. Made these out of a green bandanna. My master plan included cactus appliqué cut out of the same bandanna, as well as a cowboy hat and a star. Cute, huh? Well, yeah. Until my blunders!
First I pressed the Wonder Under on the RIGHT SIDE of the appliqué fabric. Uh, no. It goes on the wrong side dernit!
Second, I pressed the WRONG SIDE of the Wonder Under. Lawdamercy, was that a mess! My iron was not covered, but certain spots were because I didn't catch my mistake until the deed was done. If you ever do this, you'll see that you can't use your iron until every smidgen of that glue is off the iron, or it won't move on the fabric.
Now what? Toss the small piece that I pressed on the right side of the fabric. That's simple enough.
But that iron. Oh that iron. I put it on the highest heat and pressed some muslin scraps to try to get the WU glue off of the iron. Nope. I turned it off and let it cool and tried a plastic type dish scrubbie thing. Nope. I looked for steel wool, but nowhere in my house was there any. Last resort, I found an SOS pad. It was dry, so that wouldn't be quite as messy if it was wet, right? Well, after 10 good minutes of scrubbing with a dry SOS pad, the glue came off, but I had blue soapy stuff all over the ironing board, the iron, and myself. Took a while to get it all cleaned, but I did it.
Lesson to be learned - Check the placement of your Wonder Under on the fabric and to make sure you use it glue side down. It's an amazing product that I use frequently for appliqué, especially on something that will be used and washed more than once or twice.
The good news is that I finally did get the three appliqués on the denim and basted the prairie points to the outside edge of the bib. When I'm done with my Jamestown 400th sewing over the next few days, I'll finish the bib and put pictures on FrugalSewing.com, but golly, this thing is taking forever!

Jamestown 400th Anniversary

I was asked to help with the costuming for a show that is being presented at Jamestown in May. I'm the assistant, definitely not the designer. All the designs have to be approved by this committee and that committee and authenticity is a huge part of it all. I am starting by making a dozen Tudor sailor shirts. Basically, this is what the sailors and some of the people in hulls of the ships wore on the way over to the US. They're not difficult - basically 40" square with rectangular sleeves, simple cuffs and a standup type collar, and two GUSSETS! - one under the sleeve and one at the collar end of each shoulder. Oh my, did that scare me. I've never made those before, but now I'm a semi-pro after doing four of them. I'll post a picture or two as I get them made. They'll be living in my house until the show.

This is a big, big project. I think I'll be working on it every day for sure. How much fun is this!

Things I ' m working on.

Using Cathedral Window instructions which I wrote while doing content work for Sewing.com, and which I used to make the wall hanging below, I've been making a recycled denim and black/white fabric Cathedral Window quilt for myself. On the left are squares with the denim pinned on, the middle is one that has some windows completed and the four in the middle to go, and the one on the right is completed. I'll make several groups of nine squares like this and stitch them together, making rows of five groups of nine. I'll continue until it's large enough to fit our queen sized bed.
Here's one I made a while back as a wall hanging:

The other thing I'm working on, in fact have almost finished, is a denim jacket with a sweatshirt lining. The jacket itself is totally recycled. It's a formerly gaudy Christmas sweatshirt (the tacky design is between the layers, never to be seen again), denim strips from junk jeans, and ribbon that was given to me. The only thing I bought was the thread to match the ribbon. I made lots and lots of Log Cabin blocks with the denim which I had added the ribbon to. Unfortunately, I ran out of ribbon, so I improvised and used plain strips along the sides and did a bit of a yoke without ribbon or Log Cabin on the back. My plan for the front is to make tabs with ribbon embellished denim and put them on the front after making buttonholes in them. Then, I'll put buttons on the other side in an area that will allow one side to overlap the other when closed. The self-facing is to be sewn in and I have two Log Cabin blocks left to make a diagonally placed pocket on either side. I put the cuffs on already, but not the collar or ribbing at the bottom, all of which were removed from and are being reused from the ugly Christmas sweatshirt.
I usually do have two or three projects going at once, but hey, that's sewing! Till next time.

Where has the time gone?

Christmas is a few days away and what sewing have I done? EEEEK! None. It's been a busy season, and though I did do costuming for a show, I made zero gifts, zero stockings, zero placemats this year. Unbelievable. This will never do.

In the past, I've made ornaments every year, making a mini quilt and stuffing it or piecing pretty fabrics together and hanging them on the tree. I'd say this is the first year in eons that I've not made anything for the tree. And why is this?

Time management. I am still working on Alyson's quilt made of her grandparents clothes and am planning all the time to work on projects that I want to start. I'm hand sewing a cathedral window quilt (the black and white with denim one). Both were hoped to be done by Christmas, but they're not.

I want to sew every day. I tend to sew once a week or so. For 2007, I think I'll work on that goal. The only way to get sewing done is to do it. It's got to be a priority or it won't be touched. I tend to set it aside for other tasks and make it a secondary item, but it's not. It should be closer to the top of the list of things to do.
Sewing plans for 2007:
Finish Alyson's quilt(commissioned).
Finish the Cathedral Window.
Make a few scrubs for sale.
Make some clothes for myself.
Work on doll clothes and doll quilts for DonationDolls.com.
Make a few Christmas items for sale and to keep.
Try to sew every day.
I don't have "I love sewing" for my license plate for nothing :)


02/27/11 update: Donation Dolls is no longer with us, but I have finished the Alyson quilt, finished the Cathedral Window and started others, never made the scrubs, and the other items are ongoing. It's fun to look back and see what I was doing at an earlier time!

Jack, the hearty laughing sailor (Sleuth costuming)

Jack's done!  I put shoes on him last night, stapling them onto his legs. Hey, you do what you can do, right? They're my daughter's old Busch Gardens work tennies. They look like something a sailor might have worn. I also cut his neck off about 1-1/2 inches, so he doesn't look so giraffe-like, and during the run of rehearsal last night, his head didn't fall off, so that's also a good thing. I stapled the rest of his clothing in place to the column, the wall, and pressed his legs a little closer to the column. I think he's ready for prime time now.

I took the hem out of Sgt. Doppler's pants, but they still are way too short, so it's back to the drawing room on them. Under the lights, the "tweed" looked awful. Too polyester looking. Jim is going to try to pick up a pair of darker gray slacks and we'll reimburse him. I've provided two pair and they both sucked :)
The clown suit is primary colors. It needed some pockets, so I cut some pockets out of primary color striped fabric and stitched them on. They look like they were made just for that suit. Got that done yesterday. Also, the clown's tophat is now fixed. It has elastic to hold it on, thank goodness. That was a chore!

For the Sleuth to-do list, I have the monk's robe to make out of a bathrobe. I stole rope from the theater last night to serve as the belt for the monk's robe. The fat suit for Doppler has to be made, but I have it fleshed out in my head now, so know what I'm doing. We played with makeup last night for Doppler. I think I have a good feel for what we're doing. I picked up some gray eye shadow last night to do some creases and eye sinking with. And then there's the smoke machine. Argh. Tonight I'll play with that a bit and see if I can get it to work right. Oh, and the smoking jacket - David/Andrew Wyke found a great scarf that is like the spectral opposite of the brocade in the jacket and he's using that for his ascot. It matches like a dream.

And next - Alyson's log cabin quilt. I need to get back to that as soon as I can and finish it. I'm really into it, but had to set it aside to finish costumes for Sleuth.

Onward! Stitch, stitch, stitch.

Updated 05/19/11

Black and White

I didn't do any theater stuff yesterday, but I did work on my Black and White Cathedral Quilt. I should take a few pictures to show, but haven't done that yet. It's a project I've wanted to do for years and it's finally coming together. I have two of about six rows done. I'll be working on it for months on end.

Today, I won't have much time to sew. Work, post office, theater are going to take my time. I'll work on Alyson's quilt a bit tomorrow. I'll take in progress pictures of that to post. This is the second of who knows how many I'm making for her. It's the Log Cabin Oops I spoke of below. It's gorgeous, though, in an ugly fabric kind of way. You have to be creative with the colors of fabrics she gave me - all her grandparents' old clothes.

The photo is a quilt that I made for her. Closeup pictures of that one can be seen on TeeShirtMemories.com in the photo section. I did that one with quilt-as-you-go technique. The Log Cabin will be pieced and then tied. I'm not sure where I'll go with the third one I make for her. I might do simple triangles, or something else altogether. Most of the fabrics are super stretchy, so they do better on the muslin backing.

(Note: TeeShirtMemories is no longer with us and the photo mentioned has "disappeared" for now. 05/19/11.)

Theater-wise, I have a monk robe to make out of an old brown bathrobe and need to put the elastic on a top hat for the clown to wear. It's happening, though :)