The Husband Must Really Love Me

You will never believe what the husband did. It just proves that he really loves me. The husband bought me fabric! Yes, you heard correctly and I will repeat it. The husband BOUGHT me FABRIC!

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Remember my blog post about the online fabric sale that Joann’s was having? Remember the piece of Mickey Mouse fabric that sparked me to actually make a purchase? Remember that the next day, I received an email telling me that that fabric was out of stock and would not ship? Well, the husband received an email later stating that that particular piece of Mickey Mouse fabric was back in stock and could be purchased at the sale price. The husband knew that I wanted that piece of fabric very badly and that I was disappointed when it had not shipped with the original order, so he decided to buy me a couple of yards. Isn’t he so sweet?

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It arrived the other day and I am excited to get creative with this piece of fabric and see what I can design and make from the husband’s fabulous purchase for me.

Making Pockets or The Curvy Conundrum

Years ago, I use to watch a PBS sewing program called The Sewing Connection with Shirley Adams. I really enjoyed the program. One week, Shirley was making kid’s clothes and stated that kids love pockets. Since then I have tried to include pockets whenever possible on the kid’s clothes I make, even though it would make the sewing of the clothes much simpler if I left the pockets out of the project. While trying to decide what I wanted to sew after the slit plackets learning experience, I stumbled across a pattern that I purchased many years ago for a simple little girl’s jumper. After seeing it I decided to just sew it up, and of course, the jumper would have pockets.

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The process started with a trip to the stash. For years I have collected small yardage amounts of corduroy to make little girl’s jumpers with, so I knew I already had the fabric to make this pattern. I dug through the stash and found two pieces of corduroy. Since pockets were a must on the jumper and I wanted to embroider on the pockets, I started to dig through the stash again looking for some matching fabric to make the pockets from. After several hours of searching the stash, the husband decided to check on me and make sure that the boxes had not tumbled over on me and crushed me to death. I showed him the two pieces of corduroy that I had found, so he asked why I was still digging through the boxes. I told him that I was looking for fabric for the pockets. He said, “Why not just use the corduroy?” I responded, “Because I want to embroider on the pockets.” To which he responded,”So.” Silly boy, you can’t embroidery on corduroy. Everyone knows that. Its actually printed in books. But, as I stared at the corduroy, I thought why not. The corduroy I had picked was not a deep welled corduroy. In fact it had very light wells. So, I decided to go for it.

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I cut out the dresses first, but more on that later. Then I hooped the scraps and started to embroidery. I did use Solvy stabilizer on top because of the corduroy. The designs stitched out fabulously with no problems on the corduroy. I was very excited. But,  as I learned later, the pocket construction learning process was just beginning.

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The first thing I learned was that even though the scrap was big enough to hoop, it was not big enough to center the embroidery design on the pocket. Oops! The pockets would need to be smaller than the pattern called for. Luckily, I learned this lesson early on with the first two embroidery designs and so I used larger scraps for the second two designs. I thought I was going to have to embroidery the first two designs again but I decided to try and make them work instead.

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Because of the embroidery designs, I decided that I wanted to line the pockets, so I put a piece of fabric over the thread on the back of the design, so that it would not be rough on the child’s hands or the thread would not get caught on something put in the pocket. This should be simple, I thought to myself. I would place the pocket and the lining right sides together, sew around the curve and finish off the top of the pocket. This is were I learned that I can not sew curves worth a darn! I sewed down one side and around the first curve ok, but sewing the second curve and back up the other side was not as simple. I could not get the same curve the second time. It did not match the first curve at all. I unpicked my sewing and tried again. It was a little better, but still not exact and so I tried it again. The third try was ok, but still not great. I decided to try the next pocket and I had the same problem. Was this going to be like the slit plackets and just take tons and tons of practice to get it right I wondered? I finally had a brilliant idea on the third pocket. I sewed down the side and first half of the curve and stopped at the center bottom of the pocket. I then turned the pocket over and did the same thing on on the opposite side. The results were great. I kept the same curve both sides this time. Hurray! Success was mine!

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I then had to launder the pockets first before I could iron them to dissolve the Solvy. This would tell me how the embroidery design really faired being stitched on corduroy. The embroidery design went through the washer and dryer perfectly and it did not seem to make a difference that it had been stitched on corduroy.

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It was now time to attach the pockets to the front of the dress.

Without Further Ado, I Present the Slit Plackets

First the good news! The slit placket on the last green kid’s shirt that I made came out of the washer and dryer with flying colors. It did not fall apart like the first one did. The fabric, the slit placket, and the interfacing did just great. The next step was to complete the shirt. But before I could do that I had to decide what design I wanted to embroidery on the shirt. It wasn’t so much my decision but the husband’s. I needed the husband to decided what design he wanted on his shirt, and then I would know what design to put on the kid’s shirt. If the husband picked a design I needed to try it out first before embroidering in on his shirt, and so the kid’s shirt became the best place to try a sample.

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The husband narrowed his choices down to two designs, a panda bear and a tiger. Since the tiger design was too large for the kids shirt, I decided to just put the panda on it and see how it turned out. When I finished embroidering the panda design, the husband like the design on the green fabric enough to pick the panda design without trying the tiger design first.

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After completing the husband’s shirt and the green kid’s shirt, I decided to go back to the first shirt with the placket that fell apart in the washer and see if it could be salvaged. With a little skill and a lot of luck, I was able to restitch the placket and get something useable from it. Since I had been viewing several panda designs, it was easy to pick a design for this shirt.

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After the husband’s shirt, the kid’s shirt and the trial and error samples with the green fabric, there were only scraps left, but enough to make a size 1 t-shirt with long sleeves. So, rather than putting the scraps back into the stash, I decided to just whip up this little t-shirt instead, and since all the embroidery thread and supplies were out I decided to try a design that was up for consideration on the kid’s green placket shirt. I like the design quite a bit and plan to use it again.

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Now that the my slit placket adventure is over, I am glad I went through it. I learned a lot and improved my skill of sewing slit plackets quite a bit. But, I am ready to move on and sew something else besides green fabric and slit plackets.

What Could Be Worst Than a Fire?

You will not believe what happened to me this last week. We had a small fire in our house and my fabric stash caught on fire. I lost about 1/3 of the stash to the fire and about 1/3 of the stash to smoke damage. I am just devastated. I can’t believe that my precious fabric that took me 25 years to collect is gone. I lost all my Peanut prints, my Disney prints, most of my cottons and rayons, my collection of fabric for sleepers and most of the embroidery blanks I have purchased over the years. They are all destroyed. The only thing really left is the fleece and flannel stored outside of the closet and some larger pieces stored in a separate closet. My yarn stash ended up having the most smoke damage out of everything though. I believe I can wash some of the fabric but the yarn is just a goner. The husband tried to cheer me up by saying that this was good thing, that I could now go shopping for more fabric but right now I just don’t have the heart to shop for fabric or to joke around about fabric shopping.

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The second thing you will not believe is how the fire started. When the fire inspector came and saw my boxes of fabric, he just shook his head. He said he had only seen a fire that started this way once before in his 17 year career. The cause of the fire was the fact that I boxed flannel with its rough surface next to rayon with its smooth surface and then in a cardboard box. Something had forced the two fabrics to rub together. He said probably just the weight settling from the other boxes on top is what caused the movement. When the fabrics rubbed together, they sparked. This set the cardboard box on fire and the rest it history, including my stash.

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As much as I am totally upset, saddened and devastated, please do not send me any fabric. All I can say about all of this is that it is a good thing April 1st only comes once a year!

It Does the Heart Good

I gave the coco-dot jacket to the little neighbor girl and she loved it! It was way too big for her but she looked so cute in it anyway. After the fact of course, I wished I would have asked her mom for her measurements or had her try it on as I was making the jacket so I knew what size to make next, but I did not. I wanted it to be a surprise and a birthday gift and I did not want to spoil the surprise by asking for sizes. The nice thing though is that the jacket seems to be too big all the way around, not just in width or length. Hopefully, this will help as she grows into the jacket’s size. Hopefully, she will get plenty of wear from the jacket as she grows. Her mom was excited about the jacket and said not to worry about the size because she is growing like a weed and it will fit soon enough. I now know better what size to sew for her so I am excited to try some other little girl patterns I have collected over the years.

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I also gave her the mixed up monkey that I crocheted awhile back. When I handed her the monkey, she completely forgot about the jacket. The monkey was a big hit with her! She immediately gave it several big hugs and would not let go of it. A couple of days later, her mom said she insists on sleeping with the monkey and will not go to bed without it.

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It does my heart good to see my sewing and crocheting labors loved and enjoyed so much. It sparks my creative mind and gets me excited to sew and crochet more great things in the future.

Oops, I Did It Again

Bought fabric. Yes, I bought more fabric. I admit it. I said it out loud. Even though the stash has worked its way out of the closet it’s stored in and is headed out the door of the room it lives in, I still felt the need to add more to it. I received an email from Joann’s Fabric stating that all fabric was on sale. Usually I can resist temptation and not even look, but not the other day. All fabric on sale. SALE?!? FABRIC?!? FABRIC SALE?!? Hmm… Let’s just see what I might think I need!

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Because I am not the biggest fan of buying fabric online, when I look on line at fabric, I limit it to licensed cottons, flannel and fleeces. That way I know what I will have when it arrives. So, I start by checking out the Mickey Mouse prints and I found one that I fell in love with. I quickly added it to my cart. I then went looking for a free shipping coupon.

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Yay!

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I found a free shipping coupon but with a minimum purchase.

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Darn!

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So, I returned to shopping to try and meet the minimum purchase. Of course it was no problem to meet and exceed the minimum purchase after checking out the rest of the Disney prints, the Snoopy prints, and the other licensed prints. Another Mickey Mouse print, a Snoopy print and a Marvel Comic print were added to the cart with hardly a second look. When I finally looked in my cart, I decided to click on check out before I found more. Pleased with my selection, I now had to forget about it and wait for it to be shipped.

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All was good until the next day when I received an email informing me that the first piece of Mickey Mouse fabric, the one I fell in love with, the one that prompted the purchase of the other pieces in the first place, was out of stock and would not be shipped with the other pieces. Argh!

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Oh well, the other pieces have arrived and they are awesome. I decided not to just pack them into the stash but to let them set in my line of site and see if they can become something more than just stash. Hopefully you will see some great new posts soon of what I decided to create with these new pieces.

Slit Placket Trial #2 – To Infinity and Beyond

In a sewing room far, far away the slit placket saga continues…

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Applying everything I had learned from the first shirt, I stitched the next shirt placket very carefully. The resulting placket was once again not perfect but far more acceptable. Still not really pleased with the results,  I did some unpicking and stitched it again. It was better, but not quite there. More unpicking and another try. It was better yet again but, after the third try,  the fabric was starting to become unhappy with the unpicking and restitching. Flustered, I grabbed some scraps of fabric and tried the placket again with the scraps. Guess what? Perfect! Argh! Was the type of fabric causing my problems? So, I grabbed more of the green scraps from the shirt and tried again. The results were good but not as good as the previous scraps. One more try out of the green scraps and the result was perfect. Wow did I really master the skill that fast?

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Not believing that I had really mastered the skill on the third try, I decided to use some more scraps and do one more trial run. As I thought, it did not work at all that time. I had not yet mastered this skill. The result was terrible. Having plenty of scraps, I tried again. Nope. Tried again. Nope. Again. Nope. Rather than letting this frustrate me, I tried to learn something from each try. This really surprised me about myself. Usually, I would let this trial and error thing get to me. I would get angry with it, throw it against the wall and shred the pattern. After the fifth try, I finally make a placket out of the green scraps that was not bad. The next was better, and the last almost perfect. I then tried once more, folding it the other way as if you were sewing a girl’s shirt and it came out great. I decided trial time was over and returned to the shirt front.

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Unpicking my work one more time, I tried the placket again. The result was not perfect but it was the best so far on the shirt. Because of the wear on the fabric. I called it good. Before I take another stitch on the shirt though, I have decided to wash the shirt front to make sure I don’t get the same mess as the first shirt. I don’t believe that I have yet fully mastered the skill of slit plackets, but I feel like I am closer than I have ever been before. As with all of life, right now, luck has a lot to do with the success or failure of a slit placket for me, not skill.

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While the child’s shirt front is in the washer, I am going to start construction of the husband’s next shirt. I need a success story here. Hopefully, his shirt will just sew up and not give me any hassles. You know, it will be my third item I will have made using sew in interfacing. Wish me luck.

I put a Curse on You, You evil Fabric Sale you!

Joann’s last sale featured some basic sewing supplies I was running low on, so I decided to take a journey to the sale. Before we left, the husband handed me an emailed coupon for 20% off my purchase including all regular and sales prices. Excited at the thought of saving even more on the supplies I needed, we headed for the store.

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When we got to the store, my list of needed supplies was quickly put in my pocket as the first rack of fabric was all leftover holiday prints 60% off. 60% off was a great price but then add my 20% off on top of that and I was in sale heaven! I quickly filled the cart with bolts and bolts of wonderful fabric which included holiday Snoopy and Mickey Mouse in both cottons and fleeces. After the cart was too heavy to push, I made my way to the cutting tables to have it cut.

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On the way to the cutting tables, I passed the licensed prints, at 40% off for the sale. You can do the math, 40% sale plus 20% coupon. How much more can I fit in the cart? How much more can I fit in the trunk of the car? How much more can I fit in the stash? Without answering these important questions, several more bolts of precious fabric made its way to the cutting table with me.

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After spending a fair amount of time at the cutting table, the husband, who is a real trooper, reminded me of the list of supplies that we really came for. It did not take long to pick those up and then we were off to the registers.

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After ringing up my piles of fabric and needed supplies, the young man behind the register handed me a coupon for 30% my total purchases for next week. The husband about burst into tears and I started to plan my trip to Joann’s next week to shop the sales again.

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And yes I do have to keep reminding the husband that if the apocalypse happens in the near future that I will always be able to trade fabric for food. If it wasn’t for that, I’m unsure he would let me continue to purchase more and more fabric for the stash.

Stealing From Goodwill

I didn’t mean to do it, but the fabric kept calling to me. This piece of grey fabric with black rose buds was found in the mystery boxes I was sorting through earlier and it had made it’s way to the Goodwill box. This fabric was originally purchased and put in the stash to be a shirt for me long ago. When I pulled it from the box it had spent so many years in, I could no longer see me wearing a shirt made from it. Although it is the right color for me, the little flowers just did not appeal to me any longer, so into the Goodwill box it went.

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While the fabric was in the Goodwill box, it kept catching my attention until my creative mind just took off with it. Just because I did not want to wear tiny flowers did not mean that some little girl would not just love to wear them. I began to see a little girl’s dress with an embroidered design on the front made from it in my mind’s eye, so I pulled it out of the box and got to work on it..

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I decided to make a size 5 (small) dress. Since the fabric was originally purchased for me a shirt there was plenty for any size I wanted to make. I went to my pattern box and picked out a basic dress pattern, a bodice with a gathered skirt. Because the fabric was a woven cotton instead of a knit, I knew I had to make some way for the little girl to get it on because it wouldn’t stretch. Since I was not in the mood to play with a zipper, I decided to do a slit in the back with a button. And I wanted to keep the front left open for an embroidery design. Because of the grey fabric, I knew the embroidery design would need to be bright and full. But when I saw the black Mickey and Minnie Mouse red work outline design, I knew that was the design I wanted to use. This design absolutely would not work on the grey fabric so I decided to make the front and back of the bodice in white.

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With the basic design in mind, I cut out the dress and got started. I embroidered the design first with the black bobbin thread which you know worked great. I decided to double the bodice instead of making a facing. The white fabric I picked for the bodice is thin so I figured it would work as a lining as well. For the slit in the back, I drew a line in the center back about 2 & 1/2 inches long. I then sewed down each side of the line, tapering at the end. It worked great. I got the results I wanted and only had to stitch it once. I about fell off my chair at this point, since I figured I would be unpicking and restitching the slit at least 3 times to get it right. I also added some corded elastic to one side for a button hole. As always, sewing is a learning experience and I made the loop too big. So, when it came time to pick a button, I had to pick a larger button and place it to the side to accommodate my large loop.  Next time I will make the loop smaller and I will pick the button first so I know what size to make the loop beforehand.

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I decided to use the bodice fabric to line the skirt too. Since I have never really lined a garment, I was not sure which technique would be best. Should I attach it to the gray fabric? Or should I have it separate like a slip under the skirt? Because of the colors and design, this dress was turning out very tomboyish so I decided to attach the lining to the skirt. This seemed to work out fine. I hemmed the skirt with the lining before I gathered the skirt and attached it to the bodice.

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I used the floss method to gather the skirt. I zigzagged embroidery floss to the skirt and then pulled it to make the gathers. It worked great and was much easier than pulling threads and stitches. I would have liked more gathers in the skirt but I gathered it so that it fit the bodice. I will cut the skirt bigger for more gathers if I make this pattern again.

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Even though the dress did not turn out quite as I had envisioned it, it is very cute none the less. I like the colors and of course the embroidery design. I still have plenty of the grey fabric left, but I can’t decide if it should go back into the Goodwill box or back into the stash now. I am leaning towards the Goodwill box, since I have so much other fabric to work with. I’m sure my creative mind can pick a different piece to play with next.

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!