Month: March 2020

#thegreatmodulesewalong reveal

Monday March 23, 2020

Here is my entry for the #thegreatmodulesewalong challenge — 6 garments (3 tops, 2 bottoms and a topper) that all coordinate.

What I made

  1. Black wool jersey turtleneck (True Bias Nikko)
  2. Olive green wool jersey turtleneck (True Bias Nikko)
  3. Silk chiffon button-up (vogue 8772) [blog post here ]
  4. Ultra suede skirt (hack of new look 6106) [blog post here ]
  5. Black wool flannel cropped pants (Deer & Doe Narcisse)
  6. Olive boiled wool cropped jacket (Decades of Style 3’s a Charm)

THE OUTFITS



left: Olive turtleneck, Boiled wool jacket, Black pants. center: Black turtleneck, suede skirt. right: Silk chiffon blouse, black pants


left: Black turtleneck, suede skirt. center: Silk chiffon blouse, suede skirt. right: Olive turtleneck, suede skirt, boiled wool jacket

A few comments

My biggest conundrum making this capsule was that not all olive greens go together. Actually mostly they don’t. My original plan for 2 of the tops was to use a plaid button-up I already had in my closet and some striped flannel for a second button-up. But they looked really mismatched with the jacket. I decided to substitute in a black turtleneck from a wool jersey I already had in my stash. But I had to scramble to find an appropriate fabric for my third top, as I really wanted a print. I finally found something at Mood Fabric.

I’ve worn the jacket quite a bit. It’s got a dart at the elbow, which makes the sleeves really comfortable. It’s almost like a knit cardigan. It’s such a success I’ve bought fabric to make another one.

The challenge was really fun. I didn’t get side-tracked, as I have with my Fall-Winter sewing plans, because there was a dead-line as well as lots of inspiration on Instagram.

Thanks to the hosts, Whitney (TomKatStitchery on youtube and @tomkatstitcherycarmel on instagram) and Carla (Stay Stitching on youtube and @carlamayfield5 on instagram).

Vogue 8322 review

Friday March 20, 2020

One of the garments in my Fall/Winter sewing plans is a navy blouse. I was going to use a pattern I’ve made several times before, Vogue 8772, a fitted button-up with collar & collar stand. But when I was cleaning up my sewing space, I discovered a forgotten half-done toile for a button-up with a v-neck and one-piece (camp) collar. I tried to remember why I had abandoned it — and tried it on to see how it fit.

The pattern is described on the package as a long sleeve, princess seam shirt with straight or stylized front hem. View A: snap front closure, topstitched along front opening and neck edges. View B: pointed collar variation, buttoned cuff. View C: front button closure. View C: standing collar, flared sleeve. Here’s the pattern, and my toile was for view B. ( Here are the reviews on pattern review.)

I tried on the toile and saw that although I’d cut my usual Vogue pattern size (12), the chest was much too big across the front and the shoulders were too wide. I fiddled with the princess seams until I got that sorted out, took the blouse apart and made the pattern changes.

Then I cut out the pattern in my fashion fabric — a blue silk noil. It’s a pretty straight-forward sew. The collar is one piece, which is much easier than one with a collar stand, so the tricky bits were setting the sleeves and the button holes. On the front there’s a facing from center front to the princess seam which is hand-sewn to the seam allowance. That might have been the hardest part, getting the sewing smooth in that area. I clipped the seam allowance and cut it down to about 1/4″, but it still has a bit of wiggle in the seam just above my bust.

My big mistake was putting the button holes on the wrong side, but I doubt anyone but me will notice.

The V is a bit low, and if I was to make the blouse again I would figure out how to raise it up and inch or so.

My husband took several pictures, but this was the only one in focus, as I tried to get my hair to stay out of my face.

Vogue 8772 in silk chiffon

Friday March 13, 2020

This is my third and final top for the Great Module Sewalong.

This is my sixth time making Vogue 8772 but the first using silk. Here’s the pattern. I’ve made view D with both long sleeves and no sleeves.

Vogue 8772

And here’s the fabric — a silk chiffon from Mood Fabrics.

The silk is quite thin, but soft and flow-y. In a recent Threads Magazine, there’s an article on using liquid stabilizers to treat unstable fabrics before you cut them out. One suggested stabilizer is PerfectSew. So I bought a bottle to test it out.

The Threads article says:

  1. wash & dry the fabric
  2. dip the fabric into the stabilizer and get it all wet (more on this below)
  3. roll the wet fabric in a towel to remove excess
  4. dry the fabric flat, arranging it so the grainline is straight and the fabric lies as smooth as possible.
  5. when it’s dry, iron the fabric and it’s ready to cut & sew up.
  6. after sewing, wash the finished garment by machine to get all the stabilizer out

I laid out several plastic garbage bags on the floor, and dried the wet fabric on top, as I didn’t have a surface large enough to lay the fabric flat.

But how much stabilizer to use? And the instructions on the bottle suggest diluting it if using it on garment fabric (rather than to do embroidery). But how much to dilute?

The only thing I could find on-line was a blog post by the Confident Stitch, which suggested 2 parts stabilizer to 1 part water. I tried this on a small piece of my fabric and the result was really stiff. I tried again with 1 part stabilizer to 3 parts water, and liked the results much better. The fabric was stiff but still had some drape, like a light-weight cotton.

As a happy coincidence, as I was preparing my fabric the Love To Sew Podcast had an episode on sewing with delicate fabrics. They suggested using a new micro-tex needle as well as cleaning my machine before I began sewing, so I did both those things.

Sewing the blouse wasn’t any different than the other versions I’ve made with less shifty fabric, yeah! And, bonus, I had the perfect shade of green buttons. They blend in really well so you don’t really see them.

Here’s the blouse, worn with one of the bottoms for my module.

New Look 6106 skirt with pocket hack

Tuesday March 3, 2020

The New Look 6106 skirt is one of the bottoms I’ve made for the Great Module Sewalong.

I’ve made this skirt several times, but decided quickly I didn’t like the pockets. I couldn’t get them to lie flat but the real problem was they didn’t accommodate my iphone. Here’s the pattern.

I made the skirt without the pockets, but missed them. Then I saw a Vogue sewing pattern of a Rachel Comey skirt with pockets in a horizontal seam in the front of the skirt.


Vogue 1247

It’s Vogue 1247, unfortunately out of print, but lots and lots of sewists have made it and blogged about it. There are many photos of how the pockets are attached — for instance this post by Diary of a Chainstitcher.

Here’s what I did to modify the pattern:

Here’s the first one I made, as a test, using a decor corduroy fabric remnant I got at Joann. As I look at the picture, I probably should have moved the pockets down a bit, but in reality I only use them for my phone, not my hands!

And here’s the one I made for the module sewing challenge. The fabric is an olive ultra suede from Gorgeous Fabrics. I underlined it with silk organza, so the hem wouldn’t show (I hand stitched the hem to the organza rather than the ultra suede). The suede is a bit sponge-y and the side seems didn’t lie very flat, so I also catch-stitched the seam allowance to the organza, which made them behave much better. It’s also lined, so it won’t stick to my tights.