What I have been up to......

 

When I decided to put garment sewing aside for a bit, this is what I wanted to work on. It is a portrait of my daughter. I have two daughters and hope to make a portrait of each and then hopefully follow up with our grandchildren. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time. It merges my love of oil painting with my love of textiles. There is no oil painting here but there is tug back to a dear mentor, now deceased, who was an amazing portrait painter among the many artistic abilities he had. I was his assistant for three years and learned so much from him. He was also my dad's best friend and best fishing buddy. 

Please don't judge as this is only half way done. Details in the face and elsewhere will be filled in with free motion stitching on the machine and a bit of painting as well. This is one of the reasons I built my expansion table for my machine. I will keep you posted as to how it is going. It has been quite a journey and I really look forward to my other daughter's portrait as I have learned so much making this one. I feel her's will be a much smoother journey. This week I will set out to buy threads for the free motion quilting. I think they may all be variegated. There is much more detail to come. She looks heavier in my version. I will have to do something about that. I think just slim down the scarf. 

It has been a winter of sewing and searching  more casual sewing. I have enough right now. I do have a need for pajamas and a robe but it has to be natural fabrics or rayon. I am searching for those fabrics right now. Finishing this portrait will come first before I get back to garment sewing. Be patient with me....Bunny

Zero Waste, do you? Sure you do!

 

Visible mending by Collingwood=Norris, pretty awesome

When I see versions online of Zero Waste garments, sorry, they look like either wrapped bath towels or large pieces of yardage pushed into a smaller rectangle made to look like a wrapped bath towel. I have yet to see anything I or anyone I know would wear. I am not talking garments like sheath dresses  where the maker has used the leftover pieces of fabric to make a bag or a stuffed animal or such. I am talking one piece of yardage made into an entire garment. 

I love Studio Faro and their amazing designs. Here is one of their takes on a zero waste design: http://www.studiofaro.com/well-suited/pattern-puzzle-squares-zero-waste  I won't publish any pics as I  have found fashion pics have a way of disappearing from the web over time so please click to get my drift. This is a very creative design but I would never be caught dead in it. Is it brilliant? Total use of the yardage for sure. Would it work in the hills and lakes of New Hampshire Mmmmm......maybe in a local coven. Definitely not for me but could work in a more sophisticated environment like NYC or Milan. 

Now before you think I am anti Zero Waste, let's go back to the very beginning----of time. You've all seen those memes circulating with "old fogies" telling millennials about how recycling and green living were invented  back in the day. They  list things like glass milk bottles being returned and reused each week; paper bags covering books at school; yada, yada, yada. I even remember the ice boats we made from old hockey ice skates, old sheets and some discarded 2x4s. Wow, they flew across the lake and what fun! I am from the pre all plastic generation and it is true. We actually mended clothes and that's coming back now too as if it is the new big thing! I do  think some of  the work of Celia Pym and her peers is positively artful.

Visible mending by Celia Pym 

But let me get to the bottom line here. Who sews and wastes? "Not I" says any passionate needle artist. Who doesn't save, organize or even donate or use for other higher causes their leftover bits and bobs from sewing? "Not I"  screams the driven needle worker. What lover of fabric and fiber does not occasionally scour rummage sales, thrift shops and yard sales for that rare gem of fabric at a bargain price to recycle into their own precious interpretation of great style? All of us sewists, that's who, newbies, experienced sewists and all in between. The thought of forcing yardage into a garment that I don't like and that has been designed without regard to what might flatter a body of whatever shape just to have no pieces of fabric left over is something I find so disdainful and even ridiculous.  I would suggest that those driven but such green ideals, which I do share, look elsewhere in the textile chain to rid this planet of over consumption and manufacturing with disregard to Mother Earth. Sewists are doing just fine with saving the planet. 

Today they are condos.  This is one of  five that we used to make all those suits.

Back when I was fresh out of college and wanted a real job I got one in a garment factory.  At the time it was the largest manufacturer of men's clothing in the world. We had 5000 employees and turned out 150,000 men's suits on an average week back when men wore a lot of suits. I worked my way up from receptionist to admin assistant to the treasurer of the company. It was fascinating. I loved it and was surrounded by fabric. I LEARNED A LOT. All that to say that the mill next door got all our scraps, much of which were 100 % wool. They got all the scraps from all the textile mills in a city of more textile mills than you could count. There was NO waste. They did not bale them up and send them to India or Bangladesh. They "reprocessed" them. The were shredded and chopped and made into tiny litle fibers that went to other clever manufacturers in our city of textile manufacturers. They were  remade into other items from new fabrics to carpet pad and more. I mean, 2021, Duh..... can we not do this??? 

I love that a generation brought up on juice boxes and nylon backpacks destined for landfills is disgusted by what they see happening with the results of Fast Fashion. It needs to change so badly. Sewists are in the front line changing that. Read and have your friends read Elizabeth Cline's book "Overdressed" to see what you can do about this. While we will never go back to the milk man picking up our glass bottles each week and brown paper bag book covers, I do think those in the Fashion business need to use their efforts more responsibly.  Designing patterns for sewists is a waste of time. Get back to a twice seasonal fashion cycle  where quality clothing is the norm, where you buy far less and wear it longer. This would be a world where the skills of dressmaking and tailoring would be just as highly regarded as those of the electrician or plumber and paid accordingly. Those two fields would be so respected by all for their ability to extend the life of clothing  and even change it's look as fashion changes, therefor eliminating feeding the monster in those Bangladeshi mountains of used fast fashion. 

My final thoughts

* Designing Zero Waste patterns for sewists is preaching to the choir. 

* The Fashion Industry needs to wean itself from On Demand inventories, aka, Fast Fashion by becoming more seasonal in its offerings. This demands higher quality garments that use more natural fabrics and better construction techniques. 

* The Fashion Industry can expend it's efforts on cleaning up the environment by utilizing natural fibers and mindful dyeing processes. Anyone who ever lived in a textile manufacturing center can drive through with you blindfolded and tell exactly where the rayon is manufactured, where the big dye works are, etc. They STINK specifically with their unique odors   and pollute their surroundings. Let's use our science and brains in the textile industry to cleanup our act here, not waste time on zero waste garments.

* Lets go back to processes that will reuse the fibers that are left over from manufacture as they were years ago. Where there is opportunity there is money to be made. 

Sewists are so ahead of the game on these fronts. Reading Cline's book will let you know how special you are and how you can influence the future. Just don't get sucked into the myth and waste of time of zero waste garments. Fads can change moments. They don't change the world.....Bunny

Another Inspired shirt !

 

When I find a design I really love, I tend to make two or three of them in pretty short order. I went to my local quilt shop and back in the area where they have garment fabrics, which are mighty fine by the way, I found this Japanese fabric that up close looks and acts more like a linen. It is all cotton. It's a bit funky and the grey is rather muddy which the computer doesn't pick up that well.  I decided it needed to be the same design as the lovely white tablecloth shirt I just posted previous to this one. 

It took me 1 3/8 yard of 45 inch fabric to make this little top which started out as McCalls 8144 for knits. All I kept was the neckline and it's center front seam and moved on to a woven.  You can see all the construction on the previous post but I will point out a few highlights I did differently on this one

On this version you can better see the shape of the front hem. It is one inch shorter at center front than it is where it meets the side seam. It looks very cropped on my dummy but it totally covers my waistband and a bit of my tummy below. If  you look at the pics in the last post you will see  no skin at all shows when I wear it. 

You will also notice in the second iteration that the cowl is much more pronounced . This is because this is a lighter weight fabric than the cotton damask used in the white version.  I really like this effect. 

This time I cut a bias facing and it was understitched and then turned and catch stitched to the top.  I was careful to pull just a couple of threads so they wouldn't show on the public side. 

It's a bit confusing but what you see above is the invisible zipper opened up to show you the neckline facing. On the original it was handstitched to the zipper. Here you can see that the invisible zipper was installed on serged seam allowances and the big facing piece was machine stitched to the zipper and turned, a nice clean finish that I often forget to do.  It really is so easy with inviz zips too. 

Once again, on the back, I have the yoke going across and the inviz zip in the middle going up the neck so I could easily get this over and on for dressing. It was easy.  This print was very random and I did not bother to match at all.  I tried and tried but could not pull it off at any point that would let it match on the opposite side.

I just want to comment that I think this is a cute top but would be really great for those of us of a certain age. There is wonderful flattering neck camouflage, and the sleeves show some skin for ventilation yet are still pretty flattering. I am really also into shorter tops the past couple years as I find they flatter my petite height better. It's a good proportion for me. So version #2 of my inspiration top has been put together until warmer times. I think it will look great with jeans. 

I am going to put sewing garments aside for a bit and work on a couple of other creative projects I have going on. I feel like I am just making clothes to fill up my closet at this point. I have my vax scheduled and am looking forward to life going on. I am going to try some other creative endeavors in the meantime, some bead weaving and some pictorial quilting. I will blog about them as they get interesting. 

Happy Sewing!

A Cobbled White Shirt

 

I so enjoyed making this deceptively simple top.  It brought together a lot of creative ideas of mine and I am pleased with the results. I apologize for the pictures. Many are highly corrected to show the details. White is so hard to work with photographically. I'll describe what you see above. It is a top inspired by a pattern specifically for knits. I was determined to used it but had none of the knits needed and shoved it aside for another day. I decided to move on to other possible projects. I have been longing  for some time to make my annual white shirt and I was overdue.  I made one, a total total failure, and I will tell you about it in a later post. Right now let me glory in the results of this one. I love this top, LOVE IT. I think it is elegant and I like elegant. I'm in lockdown and elegant gives me some fantasy and right about now that feels good. I am preparing for that elegant life once my vaccinations are all injected. A girl can dream, can't she? There is another side to this misery, right? Anyway, about now, elegant is what I need even if it sits in the closet for a few more months. I also have had on my mind some creative use of some lovely textiles needing upcycling and this seemed like a good opportunity for that.  Let me give you all the really interesting details on this one. 

Pattern:

I have been searching out and collecting patterns for more casual sweatshirt type garments. This one caught my eye. I've yet to find the right fabric for it but it is in the top of the queue and just nagging the heck out of me.  It is a knit only pattern with center front and center back seams. Even though I didn't have fabric yet, I took the pattern pieces out the see how the neckline was done. The center front seam has this "hump" in it that when stitched and added to the funnel shaped neckline it becomes this lovely slight cowl collar. It looks very natural and unstructured. There are sleeve options. I did not like them. I did not have a knit but I loved the  cowl effect. Sigh...I thought that would work on another day............... It is McCalls 10736, aka, 8144 

Leftovers

Fabric:

This is where it starts to get interesting. I love to cruise rummage sales at churches and places like thrift shops and Good will. I have scored some gorgeous textiles in them. What you see above are the scraps leftover from my top. This top was made from an exquisite HEAVY cotton damask tablecloth, very vintage. I wonder if it was actually an alter cloth in the church where I bought it for one dollar. It was beautifully pressed, folded and cared for. I've been wanting to utilize it for a long time but until McCalls 10736, nothing hit me. I did try various painting techniques and none excited me so it had  to be something white. It was a delight to work with. There was a very wide border of  an almost  fleur de lis design and a negative center space with sweeping branches and little berry cluster things. You'll see more as we go along and get closer. It was great to sew on. Alas, it did not stretch and surely was not a knit.

Construction:

Hubs has been taking my pics from too high. Gotta talk to him about that!

First there was the challenge of the pattern. It was for knits. I measured it all and went up  a few sizes  to a 12. Then I  crossed my fingers and it worked. So I cut my garment in a size 12 with my woven fabric, flat patttern measured all to make sure it fit and moved on. 

To accommodate the fact that this was not a knit and it had to get over my head and the fact that I had to use the designs in the tablecloth with a bit of respect I decided to split the back of the pattern and make a large yoke.  This allowed me to do a lovely match of the small motifs in the negative space of the tablecloth and to add an invisible zip at CB. The zip really is invisible. Shadow and the high contrast I had to use are making it look open. 

About an inch up from the yoke seam is where the Inviz Zip actually ends. I marked it with the red line for you. I used Kenneth King's method which I highly recommend.

Here you can see the inside of the back and the invisible zip. All the seams are serged. There is a one inch seam at CB before you hit the yoke. The long zipper is then stitched with a stationary zigzag and cut off below that. That is not done yet in this pic. 

What is really lovely about this pattern is the neckline. There is an interesting bump in the center front seam. Once on the body it makes a lovely cowl effect as you can see above. It is even better on a real body. It is what sold me on this pattern, so very simple and so very elegant. If you look closely you will see that the entire front is all the tiny leaf motif in the damask. I was able to arrange it so the sleeve received some lovely border treatment on each side. When we think about using panels and border prints it is so universal  to stick a big medallion of sorts on center back or center front. Most sewists take that option and think no further. Nothing is written in stone and you can use your panels and tablecloths and borders any way that feels right. It was a challenge  to figure out a way to get the small leaves all over the entire front and still have a bit of  border on the sleeve edges. I love this sort of fabric play and it feeds my creative soul well. There is no interfacing in this garment anywhere. 

The funnel neckline had a deep facing that went into the shoulders. I ditch stitched this in the well of the shoulder seam to keep it in place and also in the center front seam but just for an inch or so there. 

I did do topstitching, mostly on my machine hems. The hems were changed radically from the pattern as well. The original pattern was a bit flared and even all around and a second option offered a band. I did my own thing. For the  petite I am, I really like the hi lo hem in tops,  but in a  more subdued way. It allows for a longer looking leg length in front and covers a bit of bum in the back. I decided to do a shaped front hem and the back hem would be even all across and about an inch and a half longer. 

To do this I used my aged french curve and placed the 19 at the center front seam and moved the other end of the curve to the side seam to where it looked pleasing and was an inch and a half above what I decided the back hemline would be, which frankly, I forget. I drew two  lines with my frixion pen. One was at the hem edge to cut and the other at the hem fold. I found this fabric, being all natural and not a tight weave, easy to shape with some steam and heat from the iron. The shape is pretty subtle and more noticeable from the sides. The back hem had the same depth and markings but was straight across the back and longer. 

The edges were all serged and  then topstitched into place.  

The side seam meeting of the hem left the bulk of the hem seam allowance. I pushed it to the back in a wedge shape and secured it down with topstitching that then ran down the edge to meet the back hem and continue, a fun little feature. 

This pattern had sleeves. When I tried on the top early for fit testing, I decided right then and there, no sleeves. This would be an evening sort of top or a summer wear piece. All in all, I think with the fabric I used, a woven, and the design changes I made, I feel it is an original other than the gorgeous McCall's funnel cowl neckline. Let's see...what did I do?

   * Used a woven when a knit was designated.

   * Used short sleeves instead of the long sleeve options offered.

   * Used a Hi-Lo shaped hem instead of the flat or band hem offered

   * Separated the back into a yoke to utilize my vintage textile to best advantage. 
      The pattern is a solid back with a center back seam all the way. My design has a
      solid piece with no CB seam in the "skirt" below the yoke. This way I could show 
      a solid flow of beautiful fabric. 

   * Added an invisible zipper in the back yoke to accommodate dressing. The pattern        is a pull over the head design. 

I emphasize all of this with the bullet points to make the point that patterns are just a beginning. It took me years to learn that I could break the rules and move a seamline or actually change a design. I was so afraid those reknown Pattern Police were watching and I was not a beginner. I was just one of the good girls who really didn't break rules. But as I began to look at sewing and fiber work as Art and began practicing other forms of creativity, I  realized you really can do what you want, You can create and when you do it is the most wonderful feeling. I am thankful for those years of sewing that I did follow the rules because it laid a great foundation. I often see newer sewists going full tilt into the mash up hack up mode and then throwing the garment out because it didn't come out so well or asking online what is wrong and why is it so awful. We all have to start somewhere. We need to build that foundation by sewing, sewing and sewing some more. We need to learn how to use patterns before we can mash and hack to our best advantage. We also need to remember we are not in a race. The biggest joy of creativity is being "in the zone". Once you've found that, you will never feel like rushing again and will learn that's where the good part is, not in completing the mostest and the fastest. Hope you enjoy my Vintage tablecloth top as much as I did figuring it out and getting it together. .........Bunny