What About The Scraps? – Part Two

The second set of scraps that were sitting on the cutting table that were not large enough to return to the stash were the pink fleece from the jackets I had recently made. This piece of fabric has already served its purpose in making two jackets, the little girl’s peplum jacket and the adult pocket jacket, but there was still enough scraps left over to make something else.

My first thought with fleece is always a sweatshirt, so that is what I decided to make with these scraps. Loving the white accents on the pink fleece of the adult pocket jacket, I decided to make a raglan sleeve sweatshirt and add white piping and white ribbing as an accent. I traced the pattern for a size 4 raglan sleeve sweatshirt from my Kwik-Sew book and I was ready to get cutting and sewing.

As I cut out the pattern pieces, it became obvious that I did not quite have enough scraps for a size 4 sweatshirt. I was only short by 1 inch or so on the sleeve length. Debating about cutting the pattern down to a size 3, I decided to stay with the size 4 pattern and just make larger cuffs. Maybe like me, the little girl that will wear this sweatshirt will have shorter arms and the sleeves will fit great instead of always being too long.

I used the white scraps from the pockets of the adult jacket and a thin cording for the piping. Using my machine’s zipper foot, I made the piping and then applied it to the sweatshirt sleeves. The sewing of the piping was a little time consuming, since I had to be careful to sew close to the piping but not sew into the piping, but was not too difficult. It was easy to pick another Smirk design to embroider on the sweatshirt and soon enough the sweatshirt was completed. And, it looks great! It is very cute. Plus, I don’t think that the bigger cuffs/shorter sleeves will be a problem.

I was so excited about the end results of the pink fleece sweatshirt, especially the piping portion, my creative mind went nuts and my next sewing project was quickly started. Using the same pattern, the size 4 raglan sleeve sweatshirt, the white fleece, although not a scraps, were quickly cut out. Red ribbing for the neck and black ribbing for the cuffs were cut out next. I grabbed some black denim scraps from my scrap pile for the piping and some larger cording from the closet and got started sewing.

There were no difficulties sewing the piping until it came time to sew the sweatshirt together. Because of the heavier denim fabric and the larger piping, it became a challenge to sew the ribbing to the neck and to sew the side seams together. Once I got these seams sewn, I had to finish the edges. I tried to use the serger but it was just too bulky. I finally used an overcast stitch on my sewing machine to finish the edges. Since the white fleece won’t fray, I think that the overcast stitch that I used will withstand the wear and tear from a 4 year old without any issues.

A Snoopy embroidery design was, of course, the design of choice for this shirt, but which one? Since the sweatshirt was simple basic Snoopy colors, I picked a simple basic Snoopy design, and I love the end results. Despite the bulky piping, the Snoopy sweatshirt is just adorable, and I learned several lessons about making and sewing piping on that I didn’t know before.

With these two sweatshirts completed, the usable scraps had been taken care of and the cutting table is now clear and ready for the next sewing project. Thank goodness! Waste not, want not.

Until then, sew forth and scrap on!

Skipping A Step

Or how not to do, what you think you should do, when you think you should do it.

Late last year around Halloween I started working on digitizing an embroidery design of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, one of mine and the husband’s most favorite Disney attractions. The plan at the time was to embroider the design to the latest shirt I had been making for the husband, but this plan went awry and it just never happened.

I did get the design completed last year and once it was completed I was smart enough to hoop a scrap of fabric from the husband’s shirt instead of the actual shirt to test it out on. This proved to be a very good thing. The embroidery test on the scrap did not turn out well at all. But, was it the design’s fault or user error? Had I not hooped the fabric tight enough? I was leaning towards poor hooping because the fabric was so stretchy but I returned to the computer and did some tweaking of the design anyway just in case.

Returning to the embroidery machine, I hooped another piece of scrap fabric with a top stabilizer this time and started to stitch my revised design. The design stitched much better but still not good enough to put on the shirt. Since I felt that I had hooped this scrap very well, I leaned more to blaming the design for the failure this time. I would have went back to the computer to tinker with the design but a little voice in my head kept saying that maybe this fabric was just too stretchy for this large of a design. Was this the problem?

Flustered, I picked a smaller design for the husband’s shirt and set the HM design aside for another shirt at a later date.

Well, the time had finally come to try again. This time the fabric I picked for the husband’s shirt was far less stretchy than the last one. I hooped a scrap of the fabric carefully and used a top stabilizer again. My revised design was stitching great on this fabric. I was greatly pleased. After stitching the first thread color which was black, I noticed that I actually liked the design with just that color alone stitched on this color of fabric. It looked kind of like how some black & white photographs looks better than their color counterparts.

I showed the husband the result and he said that he really liked it in the mono color as well. But because this was a trial run, I decided to go ahead and stitch the rest of the colors anyway. I was using the same colors that I used the last time I stitched the design but as they stitched on this fabric, I did not like them as much. So half way through the stitching of the other colors, I started switching out colors to see what looked the best. When I was done, I had a pretty funky looking multi color design but a lot of colors for the husband to pick from.

It did not take much debating for the husband to pick the colors he wanted. He said that he liked the black only design the best on this particular color of fabric. This was great for me since it cut the number of stitches in the design by half, but it was a terribly odd feeling to stop the machine after the first color and say that the design was done.

I really like the results of the half stitched single color design on this shirt. It looks very rich and clean to me. How about you? Do you like the full color version or the black and white mono color version better?

I don’t think the black and white effect would work on every design I use, but in the case of this bright fluorescent yellow green glow in the dark color of fabric it turned out wonderfully!

It is a useful and helpful technique I will remember to use for another day.

Camouflaged Lizards

Can you find the lizards on this shirt? This is the second shirt I made my husband from the fabric I pulled from the stash this month. It has waited so patiently for its turn to be sewn up. It is a single knit so will be cool for summer and fun with all the bright colors. It did not sew up as nicely as the last shirt, single knit usually doesn’t, but it did not give me too much hassle.

Unlike the last shirt though, I had to really look for a design to embroider on this shirt. Everything I thought about putting on the shirt was lost in the bright colors. I decided not to embroider anything on the shirt, but then when I found this lizard design after some color changes it would work out fine. I think it turned out very nice and my husband really likes the vibrant colors.