moss mini AND dolman tee

so i made a green corduroy skirt eons ago and never really liked it all that much. (i hesitate to link to it, but here you go) i think i wore it once, altered it a bit, then chucked it into the closet never to be seen again. until recently... i unearthed it from the bottom of a pile of sweaters and thought maybe i should do something with it. there was a decent amount of fabric and the moss mini from grainline studio came to mind. i bought the pattern and lo and behold, it just fit! the original skirt had buttons down the front so i decided to keep them and not mess with a zipper.

i didn't bother to muslin this, i figured if it didn't fit i can call this my muslin and still be okay with that. happily it does fit well enough to be worn. yay! i measured a size 8 so that's what i cut. it still seems a little snug in the hips, but it is a mini skirt, so i think it's okay. the waist was a little gaping in the back so i took in the back yoke by a small amount to curve around le boo-tay.

as you all know, this skirt lives up to it's name as a mini skirt. i cut the skirt to the longest length then made a faced hem with bias tape i reclaimed from the original skirt. also—polka dot pocket lining! 

the only other fitting tweak i need to work out is that space below the waist but above my hips. i'm not sure if i have proportionally low hips or what, but that area above the pocket is just kind of floating out there. i've had this problem before, so i guess i need to pay more attention to it. since i was using an existing button down skirt i couldn't sew the pocket lining into the fly as the pattern instructs and i think that would have helped to pull that part in closer to the body. no worries, there will be a next time with this pattern.

i had to piece the waistband because it was a hair too short... we'll just call it a design feature. oh, and i added back pockets and belt loops because i thought it needed them.

fortunately the small fit issues i have don't render the skirt useless. i had some purple cotton lycra knit so i decided to make cation designs dolman tee. i've seen these pop up over the past months and while i liked it, i wasn't sure if it was the right style for my figure. i always feel like my shoulders stick out funny and the lack of shoulder seam can exaggerate it. however, i am happy to say i think this top is not only supremely comfortable, but also flattering! 

when i printed the pattern the scale was off (i got 3.5" for the 4" square) so i took an existing knit tee pattern and picked my size based off that. it all worked out and i think this is my new favorite tee! it was wicked fast to sew and would have been even faster to cut, however i had less than a yard of fabric so i had to do some fancy maneuvering. i cut the hem band in two pieces and had to cut the sleeve bands with the grain. i had plenty of stretch going both directions so it worked out fine. also i did a neck binding instead of band. i like the wide neck slouchy look for this.

so look at that, a whole outfit in one weekend! both projects were super fast and i love how they go together. can't wait to try more grainline patterns, i just bought fabric for an archer blouse. so excited for that one!!!

—lisa g.

some bloggity business

there's been loads of discussion around the blogs about how much the blogger platform stinks. i feel as though i've been fighting with blogger since day one, whether it's about getting my posts formatted correctly, uploading pics, commenting (darn you captcha!), and just generally not working when i need it to. when i started this blog i wavered between blogger and word press and claimed my blog name at both spots. blogger won out because it seemed less confusing to set up and more customizable. basically i've regretted it ever since.

my fist blog-posted renfrew! shameful it's
taken so long, but i figure everyone is sick
of this pattern by now.

so i've decided to switch over to word press at some point when i have time to deal with that and hopefully it won't be too traumatic. i am concerned that, because this is a picture heavy blog, that those might get lost. and that would be soul crushing.

this is a nice drape-y rayon with a subtle sheen.
not great for hiding the lumps and bumps, but
it's super soft, so i'll deal.

regardless, i will switch and the switch will probably happen on a whim late some night after one too many glasses of wine... so if you wake up to some weird feed of mine in your reader, i'm apologizing now!

paired with my thurlows... it was only right.
i left off the sleeve and hem bands and lengthened
the hem to compensate and just cut the sleeves
where i wanted them and twin needled the hems.

also, i'm just wondering what ya'll do with your pictures in general. i take what seems like a bazillion pics just to get one or two where i don't look like a complete doofus. i try to make sure and delete the pics off my computer that i will definitely never use, but sometimes i'm in a hurry and think i'll come back to it later. guess what. i never do. 

the pattern's neck band was too long for this knit and it stuck out
all sorts of awkward. had to rip it out and redo. love that...
but now it's nice and profesh looking.

so now i have thousands of pictures of myself in iphoto, which makes me cringe every time i open the program because i HATE having my picture taken. i'm awkward, i don't photograph well, i'm super self-conscious, i don't know where to put my hands, ahhh!!!!

BAM! hand-made outfit!
pants
blazer

right now i have to upload them to picasa first in order to put them on the blog. but it... takes... forever... and they're really hard to organize. i use flicker occasionally but only have a few pics there. i haven't come up with a good way of storing my pics, but i really have no need to keep them for the long-term if they're on the blog, right? i just don't know! what do you guys do????

—lisa g.

conquering the serger's top stitching function

i actually made this uh... in april? seems i'm a bit behind in the posting since (despite wedding sewing) i've actually been churning out one to two finished projects a week for quite a while. and, much of what i have sewn has been knitwear. i've needed quick projects that don't require much by way of fitting and that are well, practical. there is nothing like warm weather to dial up the need for casual tops and dresses!

this is the first t-shirt i've made and it was not without it's challenges. as much as i prefer a woven stripe (as opposed to a printed one) when i washed this material, the whole thing twisted sideways. had i sewn before washing, the twist would have been a good six to eight inches! so cutting was something of a challenge as this is a very lightweight rayon (?) blend. near tissue weight. if you LOOK at it, it moves.

sewing it up however, proved to be much less difficult than the actual cutting. i did neck and arm bindings similar to the renfrew, only much narrower. i topstitched with a narrow zig zag to keep the bindings from going wonky. then, i hemmed the damn thing.


so this is where things went awry...

this stretchy, lightweight, tissue-thin material did NOT want to be hemmed. i know there's a whole lot-o-people out there who are all like "AND IT'S KNIT SO IT WON'T RAVEL SO I DON'T HAVE TO HEM IT! YAY!" i am just not one of them. i don't judge the non-hemmers (much...) but to me, it isn't finished until it's hemmed. it seemed my only recourse was to figure out how to do a top stitch on the serger. the instruction manual claims that this is possible, though my previous attempts to do so seemed to prove otherwise.

so close! looking okay from the outside, however my looper
was too tight... or maybe my needle wasn't loose enough...
actually, it was probably both.

determined to figure this out, i spent 4 hours with a pile of scrap material until finally... finally! i achieved something that was passable. so if you've never tried this, it is worth fiddling with for the off chance it is needed for a hem or some interesting decorative stitching.

right side—this is one of my tests. i used a different color
for each thread as i figured out the proper tension.

wrong side—see how the raw edge is enclosed? happy me!

basically what you do is throw off the balance of the threads and fold your fabric similar to how you would for a blind hem stitch. the tension for the left needle is loosened, and tension for the loopers is tightened. then once you have sewn, you open up the fold and end up with vertical stitches on the right side, and what looks similar to a coverstitch on the wrong side. for the actual hem on my tee, i used thread that matches and it blends right in. but, you could definitely use a contrasting color for fun!

so take that impossible to hem fabric! you won't see me with a raw edge.


—lisa g.