Little Admiral Completed!

(The past two days I have had difficulty cutting and pasting on blogger so excuse the two pics. I will remove as I am able.)

This is done and it has been a long strange ride as Jerry Garcia said. When the garment was completed I gave it a wash, 10 minutes in a barely warm soak with a tiny bit of Dawn. Not good. Some, just some, of the blue ran. I got out a toothbrush and Dawn and scrubbed away, Nope. Then I tried peroxide, Nope again. Then I put it out in the sun, nuther Nope. Then I got out a small paintbrush, a diluted cup of bleach, and prayed. Hooray! That did it. Now it took away that tea dyed look, but it is still creamy and DH and I have decided we like this color better. DH absolutely loves this. You have to be careful with heirloom sewing for boys, at least in the Great Northeast. DD told me when I visited not to make him anything to foo foo. I think this will be fine and so does DH. Now it is on to Carly's little sailor dress to match. That is all cut out and I will start stitching when I am done posting here.

What is wrong with this picture? I'll tell you. This outfit is featured in Sew Beautiful magazine's most recent issue. Inside the pullout are a patterns for the collar. I chose size two to use with my size two Simp 2907 shirt. I redrafted the neckline and it fit just fine so no probs there. After the Madeira hem treatment was done it was time to mark for the notch and cut that out. I followed the placement on the collar pattern form the mag. Once done, it looked to me like the notch and the placement of the embroidery were not graded down for the sizes properly. So what really infuriates me is that I embroidered, as in the magazine, a seahorse above the notch. You can see how it sits on the shoulder seam and gets lost on the back of the collar. It's just a tiny thing, too. So if you make this collar move your strips and your notch down. It killed me to rip out that hand done embroidery. It was far nicer than what was shown in the magazine, machine emb. I believe. So I ripped it out and put the little stars on instead.

I did follow the instructions in the magazine or I should say read them over and over. First, no grain line is used on these collars. OK, its obvious for me, but for a new sewist, there needs to be a grainline. Many heirloom sewists only sew heirloom clothing for their children without other garment experience and this is unfair to them. Be watchful of the sequencing on the neckline. Again, I had no problem but could be difficult for a newbie. I misplaced my mag so apologize for not being more specific. Clean finishing the edges of the cut on facing is never mentioned. Is it to be left raw? There were other details that I didn't care for in the instructions and made the notes in my mag but suffice it to say be careful if you make this from the SB mag, go slowly, and follow your gut for a logical sequencing.

I have a thing about our craft of sewing-----we need all the newbies we can get and they need to succeed at this craft. I have read many back stories that mention the horrid skirt they made in Home Ec never to touch sewing again until many years later. Patterns, magazines, websites, etc. all need to be conscious of the new sewist and make sure they get the right information in the right sequence and that basic info is not left out. Off my soap box.............

So next is Miss Carly's Sailor Dress. I am using the same fabrics and therefore will have to slightly bleach the tea dyed linen back to the color of Mr. Z's outfit. Mr. Z's out fit primarily used french seams. Carly's will be serged and/or possibly HK seams, not quite sure yet. I really think her getup will go together much more quickly. Then the twins will be ready for Easter and it will be on to Sophie's dress. Lots of children's sewing coming up for me......................Bunny