Stitch Frenzy: a journey into garment making

The LARP Sewing Patterns List that No One Asked For! 1: Femme Stuff! 1 I sew clothes for my own general use, my kids, and often for wearing to Empire Larp. It's very fun! I play a female character in The League (Based on C113-14th Italian and hanseatic city states, but fantasy) who wears a doublet and hose sometimes, and big frock for fancy occasions.  The League's keywords are urban, urbane, and luxurious. The city my character is from, Sarvos, is the most southernly city and a beacon of art, culture, and fashion. Empire's League Costume Brief Empire's League Look and Feel Femme League Kit My favourite Femme doublet pattern is McCalls M7855. It's now discontinued so if you see one, grab it.  Coscraft still has both size ranges available  but the larger size is low stock there and in most places (booo hissss!).   I won't be coy here: I did some fitting changes to make this fit me. I took a princess seam bodice that fits me well ( Cashmerette Upton Dress , ex...

Ugh. I got better! I had a week of being better. Then I got some upper-respiratory infection (probably viral) and I've had three days off work, in bed, feverish and sweaty and coughing like a hardcore smoker. Add to that; my machine (the Singer 7258) cannot handle buttonholes on 2 layers of thick flannel plus interfacing and I have STILL not got the Harrison finished. All I need to do is buttonholes and hem, but so far, no dice.  But January goal: sew a button-up shirt. Almost done? I'm going to give myself an 8/10 for that one. I'd hoped to sew two shirts and honestly, if I hadn't lost 25% of January to illness, I might have managed it! I'm in my bed as I type this, with honey and prescribed cough suppressants and a box of hand-embroidery supplies by my side. But I've got to be honest, I've been watching the 2016 War and Peace on amazon prime instead. I've really enjoyed it. I read W&P in 1998, my upper sixth year, and I remember nothing about it,...

Oh, it's been so miserable being too ill to sew! I'm fortunate that I'm generally pretty healthy, despite having two primary-age children AND being a teacher myself, but this virus has knocked me for six. I haven't sewn in 4 days - the first 4 days this year I haven't sewn anything - and I miss it, but in the evenings I've just crawled into bed. I'm so close to finishing my Harrison now; just need to topstitch the collar stand, add cuffs, buttonholes, and hem. My initial thoughts are: I don't need this much bust space after all. I've got the space hitting the right point, but there's extra at the side (where the second line of the princess seam panel hits the side) that I just don't need. My bust is more.. forward than wide?  Sort of? I think it's part of how narrow my back and shoulders are. There's not a lot of ...me around. Not a lot of side. . . I will get pictures soon. Given that I want this to be wearable; I think I can sort ...

Well, I've muslined (made a test garment in cheap fabric similar to my fashion fabric) the Cashmerette Harrison's front, back yoke, and back pieces, and it's looking promising. With the double princess seams I'm concerned about getting the bust fit right where I need the space, especially as I generally have to shorten and narrow all patterns, but Cashmerette in particular. My sewing space is a tiny laundry room next to the garage. I don't get freezing in there, as it's next to the boiler/main heater, and I have a little plug-in-space-heater, but MY GOODNESS it's not tempting to 'quickly slip' in and out of 4 layers of clothing (thermal underwear up to the down vest) to check the fit! I finished binding a quilt for my son instead. Snuggly wins over my sewing goals for today. Now I'm going to get under a blanket and wish it was even 10C warmer...

It's happening! Shirt making! It's completely Baltic tonight in my garage-adjacent sewing area, but it's -12c outside. BUT I have hot tea, and I've taped and cut the Harrison shirt pattern. Tomorrow night I'll adjust it (narrow shoulders, shorten torso, maybe a small high round back adjustment) and cut it out in muslin. Thursday is a social night so I won't get any sewing time, but I'm hoping to have a muslin I've fit to my bodice by Friday night. I want to be cutting fashion-fabric (even though it won't be precious stuff) by the weekend! Incidentally, I can't get my phone to upload pictures to blogger, but my instagram is mkgstitch and it's where all the pictures of today's fun quilt crafternoon AND pattern taping are. I love wearing buttondowns in the winter because I love wearing wool (I get cold!), but I want proper sleeves and a proper collar between me and the wool; preferably in a snug flannel. In fact, I like wearing woven shir...

Well, I find the term 'me-made' for a garment you've sewn for yourself kind of ... not me. It's a bit twee, which doesn't really suit me. But!  'Me-Made-May' is an event where people who sew their own clothes WEAR them, and document wearing them on their blogs/instagrams accounts. I love seeing what everyone is making to wear in their actual lives (i.e. not party dresses) and I swore I'd be ready to take part this year. Well! Here we go. Me-Made-By-May 2018 Jan: Shirtmaking: (I have Pam Howard's Craftsy class, which I'm finding helpful though I do watch it at 1.5 speed. Is she a slow talker or am I super impatient? Both!) Skills I need to master: slowing down and reading all the stuff through. Sewing every day. Patterns: Cashmerette Harrison, Itch to Stich Bonn. I've muslined the Bonn and it's gorgeous but I need to shorten it above and below the bust, and pull in the neck (high round back? hollow chest? Bot...

Well, in the nearly 2 years since I last posted I've been sewing clothes and making quilts, and wishing I kept a blog. Not sure why I therefore haven't blogged except that it's hard to get into the habit of doing something that you don't do. But! here we are. I've got the Love Notions Rhapsody blouse on my sewing table, waiting for a hem and cuffs, but I haven't got back into that room for 3 days because it's the end of Summer School and I'm grading, marking, and commenting all the final things. I've had nice kids this year and I'm enjoying the gradual calming down of my days. On Friday I'd disappear into my sewing room and potter about for a few hours of celebration; but actually my mum flies in for a visit so that's not going to happen. I can't wait to see her, but I'm also longing to sew. I think I'll put a comfy chair into the sewing room and invite her down, so I can at least finish some of the less demanding stuff (bor...

I know that Burda supposedly drafts for broad back and shoulders, so I should have known that Burda 6680 , a nice, simple, building-block princess-seam A-line dress would need more than a basic Narrow Shoulder Alteration. Before cutting a muslin of the bodice I measured the distance between shoulder-seams on the pattern and compared them to my own shoulder-to-shoulder measurement and gulped at the thought of taking out 3 inches. I think I ended up taking out 2 1/2, and stopped because I was worrying about distorting the armscye.  I didn't do a FBA, because I've not done one before with a princess-seamed bodice,  and so I thought I'd try out the Burda D-cup fit first. I'm around an E cup and so sometimes I need all an FBA, and sometimes I don't. First of all: the bust-fit is great when I grab the shoulder seams and lift them about 2 inches. Of course, I can't actually do this for reals as a fitting solution, because the armscye disappears into my armpit. Do ...

I'm not someone who spends a fortune on fabric no - wait. I suspect my budget of leisure spending is heavily sewing-related. Let me re-phrase that. I've never bought any fabric that cost more than about $8 a yard. And $8 is pricey. This makes me feel okay about sewing up muslins (tester garments from fabric as similar to the desired end product as possible), and general less trepidatious about the risk of a complete disaster/wadder. I've only had one "Nope, I will never wear this" wadder, and that was a muslin I made of McCalls 6802. I sewed it up in French terry that I'd tried-and failed- to dye from white to purple. I'd bought the lovely fabric in white dirt cheap, thinking "I'll dye it!" - for some reason, possibly related to how much I mixed, the destined-for-purple yardage was a blotchy mess, but the destined-for-pale blue came out beautifully. The pattern didn't work for me because the cut-on (are they dolman or Kimono?) slee...

I'm still figuring out what to actually DO with all the excess fabric an FBA generates. I lost my nerve on the HP Chameleon muslin (and got annoyed, and got a ton of marking) because while I figured out the Y-Dart FBA and how to tweak the great big dart and manage some added shoulder fabric, the waist was suddenly inches and inches too big for the skirt portion of the dress, and the pattern wasn't supposed to support gathering at the waist, and I couldn't see how/where to add a dart... Now I'm at the adjustment stage of cutting out the blank slate marigold and the instructions cheerfully suggest I won't need an FBA (in my dreams) and then suggests putting the whole lot of added fabric in the shoulder gathers. If it were an inch or two, maybe, but I need to add 3.5 and that's just not going to work, is it? Is it? Stay tuned! I guess I have nothing to lose but the muslin fabric - and precious sewing time.

Well, summer was not at time for sewing. I think fall might be - specially since I need some additions to my work wardrobe, and pronto! Tonight I'm cutting up the free Lekala 3 seam skirt and making a muslin of that, tomorrow night I want to make a muslin of the HotPatterns Chameleon dress (bodice part). After those two things, my next challenge is the bodice muslin for the Marigold dress. I hope the 3 seam skirt works - it looks pretty straightforward (only 3 seams!) and as my biggest fitting hurdle is my pot belly I'm hoping that the lekala fitting algorithms have worked their magic to account for my 'high hip' measurement. Bloggers I think make beautiful things, such as Thornberry, have demonstrated a great fit with this pattern. I'm making mostly dresses and second layers (a Hotpatterns Chimera jacket and a burda soft knit jacket, I think) as work is overly airconditioned and chilly, while summer lingers far into September here in NJ.

I haven't forgotten this blog, I promise! Summer school is reaching the end of its first week and it has been quite exhausting getting things into gear, but I'm cutting out Hot Patterns' La Strada tee tomorrow night, all being well, and I will take some pics. This pattern looks GREAT! :)

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I made a muslin! I cut up a $2 IKEA bedsheet and made up the the Hot Patterns Plain & Simple Woven T . I cut a size 22 and the armholes and bustline fit brilliantly. Hilarious Newbie Mistakes so far: (1) Not marking the bust darts accurately enough. I mis-alligned them and it looks like I have comedy wonky boobs. (2) Forgetting how to add a sleeve to an armhole. Let's just say I mixed up right side and wrong side, and I love my seam ripper. and this isn't a sewing mistake, it's a style mistake: (3) Forgetting that boatnecks show everyone my bra straps. Next time I'm cutting out the V neck or adjusting the neckline so it's more like a scoop than a boatneck. It's probably the least flattering neckline on me, but I keep wanting it to look great on me, then forgetting that I can't influence the world by just my wanting. Hah! Pattern's first muslin verdict: The fabric is awful and I'm glad I don't sleep on it! The shape is GOOD, the...

I started! I cut something out! My sewing table is the kitchen table, so the cut out fabric pieces and these two little drawers full of my notions and gear are now in a box in the IKEA expedit behind me.  I'm making the  Cake 2224 Tee because it's free, was easy to find, and goes up to my size.  Tiling and cutting out the pattern didn't take very long, it was only 18 page. It was very straightforward.  Cutting out the fabric was harder because it stretched as I cut it. This is my first bash at knits, and I should have figured out that would happen. I was all nervous and blah blah but it worked out alright. I have cut the crew neck in a size 45 at the bust, grading out  to a 50 at the hips,(i.e. I drew a straight diagonal line on the pattern between the 45 bust and the 50 hips, and felt pretty darn accomplished) so this second pic is me cutting out the 50 waistband. In her craftsy class "Pattern Fitting for Plus Sizes"  Barbara Deckhart is always...

Aaand with the ceremonial un-boxing of the machine, my Summer of Sewing has begun! Only, tonight I'm just running scraps through the machine, winding bobbins, trying out different stitches and generally playing with my new toy and being delighted. Tomorrow night I'm thinking of cutting out the McCall's woven tee  M6927 .  Here it is: In her woven tee review, Happily Caffeinated blogged that she'd bought this but not cut it out due to some fit issues around the sleeves/ armscye. Now I look at the pictures, there are lines. Bugger. Musing Alert: I've noticed that since I started shopping for patterns I am becoming more discerning about fit. I barely know a thing about it but I noticed that a knit top I wore for work yesterday had lines pointing towards the armscye AND drag lines across the bust. If I made that, I'd be annoyed about it, yet I wear it to work! I hope learning to sew is going to make me less tolerant of badly fitting RTW clothing, and I...

I just unpacked my new sewing machine. She is beautiful . Here is a photo from the Singer website. You're not seeing a picture of her in all her glory, because she is on my kitchen table, and it's messy. Gosh, it's so messy. Hoping the Chap will do some mad housekeeping soon, otherwise I'll have to do it. And I'm still so ill. Coff Coff. Are you ready? The exciting new addition. Now, I will always love our IKEA Sy for teaching me what can be achieved with a straight and zigzag stitch, but I can sooo excited about my Singer 7258 Stylist. Not least because, after the Chap sewed himself a very complicated self-drafted Hallowee'n costume last year, the Sy is starting to groan. Too many layers of fleece! Brave little machine.... I salute you!You were great for the last 2 years, until we mistreated you! You're not forgotten, old friend. The Singer is so exciting because it is my 'real beginner' machine. If I get good at this and I...

I've just found some links to things i think are going to be very, very helpful indeed. A Canadian blog called The Finished Garment has a Big List of Independent Pattern Companies who cater to plus sizes. This is going to be extremely helpful! I wish I hadn't spent the money on patterns that I just dn't think will grade up to my bust size but are soo cute (I'm looking at you, Sewaholic Alma) but at least I can make sure I don't spend more money on patterns that I'll never make fit me! I've also found personal sewing blogs that are going to be hugely valuable resources - happily caffeinated and Diary of a Sewing Fanatic are my new lunchtime reads! 

We are not very well. I haven't so much as opened a pattern. Alas!

I browsed StyleArc for a couple of days, looking for some things I'm likely to wear this summer while teaching summer school and puttering around my 2-small-kids-and-the-park kind of life. I'd initially dismissed StyleArc because (1) I want paper patterns and I was worried about paying for them to be shipped from Australia (2) On first glance I saw a lot of knit patterns and - while I WEAR a lot of knits, I'm nervous about sewing them as a beginner,  and I wear more wovens in the summer as I find them cooler. (3) People have commented that StyleArc have minimal instructions, and as a beginner I want plenty of hand-holding (apparently I will find tutorials on their website to help me as I go). Nonetheless, when I looked carefully at the site I saw real potential in the designs - not twee (I like bright colours, but I'm not especially into twee/retro) and very wearable, like things I already actually own and wear.  Also, although they have pretty dresses, whoever de...