Great, Kid. Don’t Get Cocky.

Remember the part in Star Wars when Luke blows up the tie fighter and yells, “Got ‘im. I got ‘im.” and Han Solo turns and says “Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.” I always hated that line from the movie. Why wasn’t Han Solo happy for Luke that he had blown up the tie fighter? I never understood Han Solo’s words until I sat at my sewing machine, stitching on the husband’s new bathrobe. After the successful sewing from the mystery boxes, a shirt that fits me great, the completion of two shirts that the husband likes to wear, two adorable kid’s sweatshirts from grey fleece, and then the  fit of the plastic bathrobe, I was feeling pretty cocky about my sewing ability. But, as I sewed together this bathrobe, I was knocked down a few pegs and I am now a lot more humble. Mama always said, “Nothing will teach you patience like sewing.”

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Let’s start at the beginning with the fabric. I went to Joann’s to get some buttons, but, of course, had to stop and see what was on sale that week. The husband is always good about going to Joann’s with me and as I looked at the fleece that was 50% off that week, he found a super soft, super fluffy, super stretchy fleece that he wanted his new bathrobe to be made from. Even though I could name you 3 pieces of fabric in the stash that I have purchased over the years to make him bathrobes with, and I am sure there is more than that I have forgotten about, we purchased enough of this fleece plus what remained on the bolt for the husband a new bathrobe. Crazy. Because it was 50% off, it wasn’t a bad price but I am sure that is was more than I paid for the pieces in the stash and that was why the pattern needed to be correct. I was going to cut right into this fabric instead of doing a muslin first and there couldn’t be any mistakes.

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With the new bathrobe pattern complete, I started the cutting process. I was careful not to stretch the fabric as I cut. I have already learned that lesson when working super stretchy fabric. Next, I started to sew. I figured my sewing machine would not be too happy about stitching this fabric and that I might have to use my walking foot, but it did fine. On the other hand, my serger HATED this fabric. I spent a fair amount of good sewing time trying to get this fabric to serge properly. I finally got the tensions and the differential feed set to where the serging was acceptable and so I continued on.

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After stitching and serging the shoulder seams, I attached the facing to the front of the bathrobe before the sleeves and side seams. Because of the serging problems, I was trying to minimize the use of the serger on this bathrobe, so decided to use the overcast stitch on my sewing machine to finish the edges of the facings. I really did not need to finish the edges of the facings because they are tucked under in the construction but I quickly noticed that the edges of this fabric pulled apart easily while working with it so I decided it was best to have all the edges finished. Overcasting took forever and it took two spools of bobbin thread to complete, but it did work and I got the facings sewn on. I then finished up the side seam and attached the sleeves. Wow, except for some detail work the bathrobe was done. Except I had missed one important part, fitting. And that is the reason why you sew the sleeves and side seams before the facings.

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I had the husband try on the bathrobe and let’s just say I had gotten a little too cocky about the plastic pattern fitting correctly because it did not. The back neck line was way too low. I knew what I had to do, unpick the entire back facing and take in the shoulder which would lift the back up. If I had just tried it on him before sewing on the facings, this would not have been a big deal. I hate to unpick, but I knew it was the only correct way to fix this, so I got started. As I sat down to get started, I thought of Han Solo’s words that I previously thought were so cruel to Luke and realized that they were not cruel at all, and that he just wanted Luke to keep his head in the game and stay focused. That was something I needed to remember too. Stay focused.

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Unpicking this fabric is not impossible but darn near. I worked for several hours on it but I only had a couple of inches unpicked. I could not find my stitches in this super fluffy mess. So, since the husband wanted to wear this bathrobe in this life time, a new plan was formed and I decided to put a dart in the back of the neck to bring it up. I only had to unpick a little more to complete that part. It was not the best option, but it was a workable one and now that it is done, it looks fine.

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I then started the hems which required some unpicking of the facings. More grumbling was heard from me at this point. Plus, it took much longer to do the hems with the overcast stitch instead of serging them. Then came the belt and belt loops and finally the pockets which I ended up making three times to get the right size. Oh, brother!

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Finally with the bathrobe completed I look back and see that I learned many things from the construction of this bathrobe. I just hope I with not have to relearn them as I continue my sewing journey, and that I keep my mind focused instead of getting cocky. Thanks for the advice Han Solo!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

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Christmas time around the world and for the different religious beliefs means lots of different things to lots of different people. But in my experience, everyone does similar things around the holiday’s no matter where you live or what you believe.

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It usually involves traveling somewhere to spend time with friends, family and loved ones. Church, School and Work Holiday celebrations and parties. Enjoying all of the yummy foods and treats that seem to be everywhere you look this time of year. Looking at all the pretty lights and decorations. Trying to figure out that perfect gift for that perfect someone.

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I’m normally very busy at work during the holiday season so I don’t have a lot of time for Christmas sewing or crafts but I do what I can, when I can.

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For past Christmas seasons I have made new Holiday Table Runners, Tablecloths, Place mats and Napkins for the big family Christmas dinner at my house. One year I made a bunch of Toll Painted Snowmen as party gifts for one of our Christmas Parties. And other years I have made a new Christmas Shirt or Sweater to wear around the Holidays. One year I even made a festive Holiday Apron, so that I could wear it while I was making the several hundred Frosted Sugar Cookies I make every year to give away.

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This year I enjoyed making a few fun creations from the Christmas Things to Stitch and Sew book and it was also fun to follow along on Nancy Zieman’s 12 days of Christmas Blog Posts.

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What fun Christmas sewing and crafts did you get done this year? Share your thoughts in the comments! I’d love to hear about it!

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Wishing you all a Happy and Joyous Holiday Season and Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Men and Women!

Black Bobbin Thread

It’s always the little things, isn’t it? The simple act of changing the color of bobbin thread used on an embroidery project made all the difference in the world and gave a perfect end result. I am so excited about this little change that made such a huge difference in my last project.

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I wanted to put a simple black outlined design on my latest sewing project. I have used my machine to embroider red work a couple of times in the past. It has usually been a fight to get the tension just right so that the white bobbin thread is not pulled up into the design. I have even gone as far as to dab the white thread with a black sharpie pen to hide the white thread in the design before. For this design, I finally wised up and used black thread in the bobbin instead of white. This time when the bobbin thread pulled up into the design you could not see it. It blended in perfectly. The design came out rich and full and all in sharp black.

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Excited about these results, I had to try it again so I grabbed a bib towel from the closet and stitched another outline design and the results were once again rich and full.

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Now, why I did not think of using black bobbin thread years ago, I will never know. I have known since day one of embroidering that they make colored bobbin thread and that if your stitching a monogram on towels you can even use your top embroidery thread in the bobbin so the design looks stitched on both sides. But, it just never dawned on me until now to give it a try. I am so excited about the results that I plan to use a lot more black bobbin thread in the future. I am planning on using black bobbin thread on more than just outlined designs too. I plan to use it on all my dark designs and to even switch out bobbins on lighter colored projects when it is time to stitch the outline of the design.

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Stay tuned for the results.

Thanks for the Memories

My niece recently posted some pictures on her blog of her kids in clothes I made for them many years ago. It is always great thrill for me to see new pictures of the kids. But to see them in the clothes I made is extra special, and it sent me on a trip down memory lane.

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The first picture was of her two youngest boys. She has 4 now, by the way. The older of the two boys in the picture is wearing a jacket I made for her oldest boy’s 3rd birthday, 7 years ago. Both boys looked so cute wearing the jacket. With a little reminiscing, I remembered the construction of this jacket. It was the first time I had made welt pockets. I did not want just patch pockets on this jacket and I remember reading about welt pockets in one of my sewing reference books.

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I remember sitting at the sewing machine hurrying to complete the pockets because they were coming to see us, and we were going to a local craft show at the high school. I remember hoping that the little guy would like the airplanes on the fabric and that he would be able to zip up the jacket by himself. I remember being concerned about the zipper because it was a smaller tooth zipper than I wanted to use but the color was right.

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The second picture that my niece posted was of her youngest boy in a shirt I made for the oldest boy back when he was just one year old. All 4 of her boys have wore this shirt now. I am amazed it lasted this long. I made this shirt just after I got my very first embroidery machine. I used the scraps from a shirt I had just made for my husband.

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In fact, there ended up being enough scraps for two shirts in size 1. One shirt was embroidered with Mickey Mouse and the other shirt with Donald Duck. Donald Duck is my niece’s favorite Disney character so you can see which one the little guy is wearing in the picture. On these shirts, I put ribbing around the sleeves. Each time I see I picture of one of the boys in these shirts, I regret adding the ribbing. To me, the ribbing gives the shirt a feminine look and I have not added ribbing to the sleeve of a boy’s shirt since.

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I would like to thank my niece for posting the pictures and for taking care of the clothes, I made so that each boy could enjoy them and I could see them wearing them.  Now that she has 4 boys and the oldest is a tween and is becoming very particular about what he wears, I have not done any sewing for them recently. But, with as much as I love sewing for kids, it might be time to get back to the sewing machine and get some new clothes made.

And… ACTION!

I see where patterns are on sale again at Joanns and now that I have worn both of the shirts I made from my new Connie Crawford Butterick patterns, I thought I would report on the wearable muslins I ended up making from the patterns and how the garments/muslins are performing.

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B5503

The golden shirt I made from pattern B5503 is very loose and very comfortable and the fabric is so soft. It is a pleasure to wear but I do feel like I have a pup tent on sometimes. Even with cutting so much off the the length and width, it is still huge. This keeps me from wearing it to work or out to dinner but it has became one of my favorite hang around the house shirts. For some reason I’ve gotten tons of comments from people when wearing it about how much they love it so it must look ok on. As I said before, if and when I make this pattern again, I will use my basic sloper as the start and just use the design ideas from the pattern to spice up the shirt a little.

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B5583

The princess seams of pattern B5583 are wearing well. The first time I wore the shirt I was very self conscious of the princess seams. Would the princess seams show off my rolls that I so carefully try to hide? But, the more compliments I got on the shirt the better I felt about the way it looked. There are a couple of things that I will definitely change on the next shirt from this pattern. First, the front facings will be cut smaller. With such large front facings, I feel like the shirt has a steel breast plate in the front. The large facings make the front heavy and hot when wearing. Sitting becomes an issue too as thebreast plate bulges as you take a seat. Cutting down the facings next time will make this shirt a more comfortable fit. Next, for me the arms eye needs to be deeper. I feel a slight constriction when I reach in this shirt. This is an easy fix for the next shirt and it will make it easier to fit the sleeve in as well.  The final change is to take some of the fullness out of the back princess seams at the hem. I will need to give this some study before I make the cut on the next shirt. I may need that fullness to sit down in it.

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Embroidery

As far as embroidery designs go, check out the monorail design on the husband’s new shirt. Ooo, doesn’t he look sharp? It seems to be wearing very well and everyone including him seems to love it.