Sewing Vloggers

Saturday, March 21, 2009

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

20 comments:

  1. That is absolutely adorable. Makes me sad that my son is 19!

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  2. My goodness, that is cute! I doubt my 13yo would wear something like that though...ha. I crave grandchildren.

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  3. Bunny, is a beautiful and very interesting explanation (as always). Congratulations also to the clothing of the previous post. My mother and my aunts did this style hem (Madeira) in clothes from home, such as sheets, tablecloths, etc.. Thanks for showing these beautiful works.

    greetings, Paco



    Bunny.- es precioso, y además muy interesante su explicación (como siempre). Enhorabuena también por el vestido del post anterior. Mi madre y mis tías hacían este estilo de dobladillos (Madeira), en la ropa del hogar, como las sábanas, mantelerías, etc. Gracias por mostrar estos bellos trabajos.

    saludos, Paco

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  4. Such beautiful work. Loved the little dress in the last post as well. Thanks for sharing. And your blog is looking nice and fresh too!

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  5. This little outfit is for a one and a half year old.

    Thanks all for the lovely comments.

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  6. Fantastic! This heirloom sewing is not "foo foo" at all, but totally gorgeous! You are so talented. Wow.

    I agree about new sewers. It's easy to become discouraged. Pattern companies don't make it any easier, with so many errors on their patterns.

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  7. What a smart outfit, but how annoying to have to remove a hand embroidered seahorse. Sew Beautiful should be ashamed! I love the dress you showed in the last post too.

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  8. That outfit is so adorable. Great save with the bleach, and those stars are way more classy so maybe this was meant to be.

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  9. So sweet! I agree with your comments about new sewists, the less intimidating and more successful (instructions), the better!

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  10. What an adorable outfit. As usual you did an awesome job!

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  11. absolutely stunning! You are so talented! I completely agree about some pattern companies leaving instructions out or doing a poor job explaining. There is one brand in particular that I always have to compare notes with other patterns to get it right. Drives me crazy. I wish I would have seen your explanation on medeira applique a few weeks ago when I was trying it for the first time, lol.

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  12. You are one of my very favorite blogs to read. Your interests just seem to cover the whole spectrum of sewing, and your skills in every area are magnifique. I keep coming back to your projects and explanations, and you are currently one of my bigtime heros. Thanks for you generosity in sharing your storehouse of knowledge. Mary Mm. Mohr

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  13. I started sewing when I was aproximately 12. Twenty odd years ago when I started doing heirloom sewing, I think I was more intimidated than some newbies, and that's probably because I knew more of what I was in for. I know the few (and I DO mean few, like 2 times probably) times I tried to teach one of my dds to sew, I tried to teach them EVERYTHING, and they would get bored quickly. . . .maybe that was because of their age. I DO know that some sewist could care less, both Heirloom sewists as well as ones that just make everyday garments, but I say, at least include the info, and they have the option to ignore it.
    Love the the Admiral's suit by the way.
    I'm curious how you plan to keep both outfits from running in the future. Dry clean?

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  14. That is just precious, Bunny. Nothing cuter on little ones than sailor suits! I know that you were sick about the little seahorse but I love your "save". You mentioned at one point that the linen was tea dyed. It looks snow white to me -- were you planning on an off-white originallly?

    Cissie

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  15. Sigh. I just love the classic children's clothes you turn out. From birth to age 2 I dressed my son like that for holidays, then he got to be such a bruiser he couldn't carry off something like this. You see children on the Upper East Side of NYC wearing things like this.

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  16. Absolutely wonderful! Too bad they grow so quickly!

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  17. Awe, super sweet! I think you did the right (albeit tough!) thing by removing the seahorse. The stars are a great masculine replacement and fit perfectly. The tutorial is great too, thanks!

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  18. This is so cute! I love your blog.
    I've just started to learn to sew & i've started a blog to record all my disasters and hopefully some triumphs too. It's at http://non-crafty-sewer.blogspot.com/

    Jess

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  19. WOW, I'm overwhelmed! It looks FANTASTIC!!

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