My first evah Wearable Muslin, New Look 6866

And it's even a hand painted wearable muslin!

If you've followed me through the ages, you know I don't believe in wearable muslins. The reason I caved on this pattern is because I wanted to find out how deep the back neckline was, did it show a bra band, and could I play with the design and get some "bump outs" to work. The original pattern is great on it's own. It is New Look 6866. Make sure you don't read that upside down!

It's a summery classic with neckline choices  and deep-ish looking back neckline. My original inspiration was this beauty I found on Pinterest:

I love the look, the "bump outs", the painting and particularly that deep, shaped hem band. Thank my sister for naming them "bump outs". Sounds appropriate to me!  I had some beautiful periwinkle cross dyed linen but I needed to work out the design before cutting into it. I did and will tell you what I figured out from my first wearable muslin. It was a worthwhile experience but a new one for me. I just don't do wearable muslins! 

Fabric:

I wanted something with some body as my linen would be underlined. Dig and dig. Well, if I am going to wear it, and surely just in the garden digging, I might as well use some off white denim I've owned for years.  I  bought yards and yards years ago with intentions of slipcovering the moon, I think, and it has been the gift that keeps on giving. But, oh, my, is it blah. The more I worked with it, the more blah it got. Hmmm,,,,,,,As I was experimenting with the pattern, placing, tucking, etc, I kept looking up and around to see all my painting supplies for another project I was working on. Paint, that's it! If it looks awful, well, who cares? I had a cute stencil for a dandelion puff and I layed some paints down on the dress front pieces  with dry brush techniques to give some color and depth to the dandelions. Then I decided to stencil in the dandelions on top of the colors with royal blue paint. The stencil had no stems so I had to paint them in as well. I was pleased and this was headed in a good direction. 

The denim was prewashed three times and the paint got my usual "make it stick" technique and that worked great. I have washed this dress three times, once in hot water, and the painting hasn't budged. Yay!

Signed my artwork, too!

Construction:

I tried to keep this simple, muslin being and all, but it was denim, and I was going to wear it. I went jeans style, stitching, serging and topstitching all the seams. This dress is rugged. It actually comes out of the wash, like a pair of jeans, with a shake and it totally wearable! 

Above you can see the hem band and I will do a post on how I managed that deep, shaped hem and the bumpouts in a few days. 

The arms and neckline were simply bound with a muslin quilting print turned and topstitched. 

This dress has no zipper and easily slips over my head. I did not use the facings included and simply pressed open the serged seams and catchstitched them down. 

Edited to add that I just did a blogpost on how to alter an A line shape for bumpouts. Here:

Bumpout alteration

In conclusion:

Lots of good take aways from my first ever wearable muslin making. 

   *It IS wearable, not perfectly fitting, but wearable. 

   *I need to raise the armscye to prevent bra show. 

   * I like the bumpouts but will make them a bit more shallow in the "good" version.

   *I LOVE the wide hem band. It is not from the pattern. I added that change. 

   * I will remove some volume from the back only. My SIL and I did some playing around and that    was much better.

   *I will make the next one shorter. I really thought this would be mid calf but it's not. Up it goes! 

   * I love the back neckline. I used to think my back was my best feature and still decent enough to bare on a hot day.  But not anymore..........My arms are my best feature. They have held more babies, comforted many fevers, hugged in wild passion, wrapped around the dying, and stitched probably a million stitches. You judge for yourself but I think they are my best feature. 

Sharing a Tip

Sometimes you reach the end of a project and just want to get it over with. Let's say just the buttonholes or closures are left. I've used this technique numerous times and I think it is pretty satisfactory.

Imagine you have to put in the buttonholes in the above fabric but you still have in your machine the white thread from attaching the white lining. You are at the end of the project and just want to A: be done  with it; B: are tired of changing thread colors; or C: you are just a fussy little pill like me.  Enter Inktense Pencils, (NAYY).

These are pencils you can draw with, dab a bit of water on and they become paints. You can then heat set them for permanency. 

You'll need the pencils, which come in metallic as well as regular colors. They are a bit pricey  but have really earned their keep in my studio. For this technique you will need a fine little paintbrush and some clean water.

You simply draw on the white threads, dab with a tiny bit of water on the paint brush, then iron. You can see how bright the original white is on the stitching I ignored, but the other lines of stitching blend in rather well and from a galloping horse, who'd know? That upper right yellow flower had that black spot on it so I did it with a black pencil to be true to the fabric. I used the gold metallic on the line in the upper left corner and while not perfect, it hides the white thread well enough.

The downside to these pencils is the colors they come in. I got the middle size box and the metallics but there was no turquoise blue, so I used instead a greenish color from the metallic box and it was not half bad.  If you are going to use this technique, definitely play a bit with a scrap to get the right pencil colors for your print. The tips of the pencils are not always representative and the goal with these originally is watercolor painting so keep that in mind. Colors are not saturated so a healthy application of the pencil is needed. When all done coloring and painting, iron the piece dry with a press cloth on as high a heat as the fabric will take for about ten seconds. Should be good to go!

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Got all my lines marked on this one shouldered top and realized I don't need bust points marked on the back! Wrong piece! Happens to all, right?..................Bunny

A bit of fabric painting

Let's start with a salute to the incredible colors of fall in the Northeast. We are in peak color right now. Early in the morning the surrounding "earth" is just golden with the morning glow and the changing colors of fall. It is spectacular.

Maybe that's why I was inspired to paint this weekend. I didn't do much painting because this is only a small project, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Several months back I found this unique fabric at Joanns. It was in with the "faux leathers". It is made from 100% rayon for the top fabric and definitely has a leather look to it.  Who knew rayon could look like leather?  In reality it is a quilted leather look, even better. I knew when I bought it I wanted to paint it and I knew I wanted it to be some sort of bag. You can see here where I traced out the outline of a flap for an NCW wallet. Another gift? Maybe mine? Not sure but it will be fun to make.

I started by building my paint palette. I took the lid from an old candy can and covered it with low tack tape. Masking tape would be fine as well. Why? Well, it gives the paints a bit of texture to be rubbed off on. ( There's something grammatically wrong about that last sentence.) I am going to use Shiva Paint Sticks.

Shiva paint sticks are oil paints in stick form. They are unique in that they have a skin that forms, preventing them from drying up into little blobs of pigment. You remove the skin with a vegetable peeler. This exposes the moist paint which you then rub on the textured tape on your palette. They have a rather lovely glow and allow the base to show through the paint. They are usually put down with stencil brushes and that is what I did. They can be blended in the palette like any other oil paint. Downside? They take a long time to fully dry. A heavy application can take a week to dry. Once dry you heat set them to make the paints permanent and they are permanent.

 Once I was done with the Shiva paint sticks I moved on to Lumiere fabric paints. I needed the finesse of a thinner brush and thinner paint and the both are made permanent by heat seting so they are both used on this project.

I took the tape out of the lid and used it for the palette for the Lumiere dyes. The white you see in the lid is textile medium.

Here's the completed flap. It will dry for a week before being heat set with an iron. It has that Jorge Guttierez  look which pleases me. I love his work and he has really been inspiring me lately. We will see how the final project looks.

ETA: Here is a link from Dharma Trading with more info on the paint sticks.

Right now I am waiting for the frames to insert into the Boy Bags which are complete otherwise. The diaper bag is off to its recipient and I thank all of you for the lovely comments. I will leave you with a few pics around the yard of our lovely Fall colors:

It is really a gorgeous time of year.........

. Most of the furniture has been put away till next year but I am still holding on to my underdeck porch, my favorite place for a quiet moment.............Bunny

Foiling 101

I've completed the foiling on my Marcy T. jacket and I'm pleased with the results. There was a lot of experimentation in the studio and out on my picnic table over the past week, too nice to be in! I will pass on what I have learned about the process, knowledge gained through a LOT of samples. Last night I asked myself, "why would I do this technique instead of a Lumiere metallic paint or Shiva sticks?" I'll tell you the back story.

A little over a year ago I was in a Chico's, you know, the store with awesome fashion for us post menos. There was a fabulous sweater I fell in love with and tried on. It was small cable knit and had this layering of silver on the top that was not paint or inherent in the knit. It was clearly applied on top. It was a low shine silver on a grey angora type sweater. It was gorgeous and since I refused to part with the hundred thirty bucks it cost I made mental notes and decided it was "foiled" and I would figure it out. I had seen this foil thing way back when and it didn't turn me on. It was shown as a technique to get a lion's head or such on your new most favorite sweatshirt, very Michaels and so not my style

. But this treatment on the sweater was exquisite. I sighed, took the expensive little sweater off and later kicked myself for not buying it.  Above you can see a pair of foiled Levis. Trust me, the sweater was gorgeous and looked very refined with its matte silver overlay and the areas between the cables showing the original knit hue. I was smitten and on a quest to figure out how to do this

I went back to DD's and my excitement must have been so obvious. I no sooner got home and there was a box with a sweater she found at the thrift store for me to "practice" on and info on how to get the foiling goodies. The thrift sweater never worked out and I never did find the right sweater but I did buy the foil and glue and did my research. I was anxious to try this technique. Life, like it does, butt in, and this project was replaced by the next manic endeavor. I know  you know how that is.

Enter my latest attempt at conquering Marcy Tilton designs but the fabric I chose could have been appropo for a prison in the gulag. Embarrasingly, I liked it. It was a cross dyed linen cotton blend I had used before Surely I could jazz it up somehow. Enter the foiling technique, lots of samples  and eventual execution. So this is what I did.

First there is the foil. Here you can see my two rolls of silver foil. One is slightly matte and the other is chrome bumper shiny. I went with the shiny for my top. The Chico's sweater was like the matte foil. I ordered this from a place called Jones Tones. You can now get it from Dharma Trading.  Next is the glue.

There are two techniques. One uses Steam a Seam 2, the Light version and the other uses "foil" glue, again from Jones Tones. I have read that you can also use Mod Podge, but the Foil Glue makes a washable garment, as opposed to the Modge Podge,  and my samples prove that. It needs to be washed on cold, and more important, line dried. Heat is not the friend of this technique.

Before we go any further I want to say that the effect of "foiling" is a very artsy, irregular result, sort of flaky looking when you use the Steam a Seam. You MAY get perfect outlines or solid areas using the glue but really, you get what you get and don't get upset.  But, you can do solid areas like my fantasy sweater with the Steam a Seam technique.

The glue technique:

The glue bottle has a really fine tip but it does take a bit of practice not to get all bloppy. Basically, you squeeze and squiggle, as simple as that. There is not a whole lot of control here, however. This technique also gives a three dimensional look to your efforts, sort of like puffy paint. But if you don't like that, like me, I'll show you what to do. So first you squeeze out your glue in the design you want. Above you see some squiggles. Then you leave the glue to dry until it is CLEAR. It can take from an hour to overnight if the glue is applied heavily. It will probably still be tacky but that's OK. You want it clear. Here you can see the glue applied to my jacket back.

First I drew the area using a ruler and a Frixion pen. Then I taped off the rectangle with masking tape. Now it was time to squeeze the glue. This is fairly heavy and took at least four hours to get clear. I let it sit overnight and it was fine. Remember, it needs to be clear, not dry, so it will be a bit tacky when it its prime for you to put the foil on.  The tape comes off right after you put on your glue. You DO NOT want to leave the tape on until the glue dries, big mistake, The Frixion pen will come off after with the heat of the iron.

Once the glue is clear, not necessarily dry,  you take your piece of foil and place it, shiny right side UP and press it on the glue. I tried a few things but the best thing is to just rub it all with your fingers. Rub and press. Be aware that if you press hard you are flattening any globs you may have had. Your fingers work better than a credit card or other object. Rub horizontally then vertically to get the foil on every side of the three dimensional glue.  Before you start rubbing make sure you have the right shiny side up. I can't tell you how many times I didn't do that (eye roll). I used the "chrome" silver on my jacket. Once the area was foiled and left to dry a few more hours, I added my own extra step. I tried different things, but trust me, the best pressing cloth is parchment paper from your kitchen. I placed it on the really dry foiled area and ironed, no steam, quickly. This flattens out the blobs and makes the foil/glue mix grab into the fabric a bit more. It also makes it a bit more matte. It takes away that puffy paint effect for sure and that's the big reason why I do it.  Let it COOL COMPLETELY. Walk away and come back. Then carefully lift a corner. If it's foiled, quickly rip off the parchment. It should slide off easily. The foil will now be flatter and more matte and it seems to me to have a better grab on the fabric as well.

The foil comes in many colors and effects including lots of holographics. I will stick with the simple silver, thank you.

Now for the Steam a Seam 2/Lite method. You can see below a piece of wool boucle waiting to become a Chanel jacket one day. In the meantime I cut a hunk to play with as it was not too different from my sweater fantasy. This was basic SAS methodology. The sheet has one layer of paper peeled off. It is place, glue side down on the fabric. The paper side is then ironed holding the iron for about ten seconds wherever the SAS sheet is applied. LET COOL.  Once the piece is cool, gently take off the remaining paper. You now have the adhesive web bonded to your fabric and it should be somewhat visible.

Place your foil, again, shiny side up, over the web. Press. This is not interfacing and it does not take more than a few seconds, maybe three or four, to transfer the foil to the fabric. If you hold the iron too long the foil dulls and becomes sort of wrinkly looking. I don't know if it is the fibrous texture but it took to this boucle really well.

By comparison, here is the same SAS application and you can see it did not take to the linen as well but I still like the look . This can be unpredictable so be prepared for what you get. This is well washed linen which prompts me to tell you that your fabric must be washed. Any finishes , and there are plenty on new fabs, will prevent the foil from sticking. The above sample was made from just cutting shards of SAS and letting them fall as they may.

At this point my top  has most of its foil applied. I am going to complete the  hem and then decide if more foil is warranted. I am trying to keep it a bit low key. As of this morning the jacket is totally finished other than buttons, which I am still searching for.

A few points I want to stress:

* Do your gluing in a FLAT state. It killed me to not continue sewing but I spent the time cutting strips of bias for the Hong Kong seams.

* The foil/glue combo cures over the next two- three days and will be much more hardened and secure then.

* That final press with the iron and parchment paper - it literally is for 2-5 seconds, very quick. More heat than that will change the effect a lot. Don't lift that paper, LET IT COOL. Make some samples when you are gluing just for practice.

*Don't lift the foil or parchment paper until it is TOTALLY cool. Just in case you didn't hear me the first time!

*Don't throw away your foil scraps. They still have foil and can be used over and over until totally clear.

*You can buy this in sheets or by the roll.

*Supposedly it also works with Heat and Bond and other fusible webbing. The SAS2 Lite is the most drapeable of the bunch so that's why it is recommended. I found the glue technique did not alter the fabric much if at all. The SAS method does, the same as any heat/webbing fusible would. .

* The glue method can also be used on faux vinyl and leather as you see above. They are done with the matte. The foil is very hard to photograph and impossible to capture the sheen. These are matte but still with a very silvery glow the camera does not pick up. This could be fun on a faux or real leather bag.

One of the things I like about this is the lack of mess. Other than maybe a stray glob of glue on your fingers, its pretty mess free as opposed to washing brushes, etc with dyes and paints. There is a lot of bang for your effort so my advice is to stay low key with your design ideas. I hope you give it a try.

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The Marcy Foiled jacket is done. I just need to find the right three big buttons. Hopefully that will be happening soon and I can get this on and wear it. It's different and all that volume is new to me but overall I think it looks pretty good. More to come.

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Every year the hibiscus are the last blooms of summer to grace our yard before frost. That will happen soon as we were in the high thirties last night. I know winter is right around the corner when the hibiscus blooms..............Bunny

Vogue 9035, a Marcy Tilton top

My affair with designs by the Tilton sisters continues. It's one of those love hate relationships. I love the designs but they can sometimes hate me.  To make them work for me takes just that, work. I am now up to the challenge and hope this one's a winner. I need tops for the upcoming season and this looks comfy and perfect for work. I can see it with some slim black pants, which currently don't exist in my wardrobe. I have to do something about that!

I will do view A. The difference is simply button placement and the cuffs. I plan to wear these at 3/4 length folded up. The fabric is identical on both side so that should work nicely. Now for the fun part!

The fabric is this yarn dyed black linen blend from Kaufmann/Fabric.com. It's identical on both sides which is suggested for this pattern. It is casual and has a nice hand, a bit heavier than chambray but not as heavy as denims.  I do fear it could look a bit prison matron though. It needs some interest added. For now that will be heavy black topstitching and a bit of sparkle. I am thinking of doing some "foiling" on the collar facing, pocket edges and button areas. I will post more on the actual foiling process later but here are a few samples"

I have two rolls of silver foil. One is matte and the other VERY shiny, like chrome. My accents on this top will be VERY light handed. I live in mortal fear of anything on my body having that decorated sweatshirt look and this is no different. I am favoring something on the idea of the thin squiggly lines that the red arrow is pointing to. It is shinier IRL and really a light touch. But these things evolve with me as you know. 

In the meantime, the pattern  is cut, measured and ready to go. I may be the ultimate  "don't follow the pattern" chick, but here it is absolutely necessary. This pattern has such odd shapes and twists that I am now on my third reading and think I'm ready. Marcy Tilton and Issey Miyake went to the same design class for this one. Lots of attention will be necessary. But there are no big techniques involved otherwise so it should go pretty fast. And I do have to give myself over to the more casual "non fit" of her garments.  Not sure about the buttons yet, though. I always save that decision to the end as I never know how much of an accent, or not, I want them to be. I rarely buy buttons when I buy everything else for a project. 

And I am breaking my iron clad rule of making only one thing at a time. I am also working on DD#2's cushions for her window seat. Her patience with me is immeasurable! While I wait for zips, it will be The Foiled Top.

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Thanks, everyone, for the lovely, encouraging comments on my jean jacket. I do love to recycle! There will be more to come along those lines as I have found a wonderful new source for projects locally. For 25 cents, yesterday, I bought a very new looking real silk charmeuse top with the most amazing trim and a good amount of fabric. It definitely has potential and if not, what they hey. I had a half hour of awesome entertainment for twenty five cents. Doesn't get much better than that.....................Bunny

Simp 2153, the No Grain, No Pain jean jacket upcycle!

This has been a fun, no rules  project every step of the way. I am pleased with the outcome and as soon as the weather cools a bit I'll have a great throw on  jacket for going to the town dump or a run for groceries. I really didn't follow the pattern or a lot of rules you would normally follow when sewing but that was the whole point. Girls just wanna have fun! Let me share all the fun deets with you.

Pattern:
This is Simplicity 2153 and my third iteration. The first was my winner for the Threads Fall Jacket Challenge. Then I couldn't resist using it for the Ikat Jacket you can see here.  Have you figured out  I love this pattern yet? I wear these two jackets A LOT. I think every sewist needs a good anorak pattern in her stash of TNTs (Tried and True patterns). It is such a versatile style and I think you would agree that the three variations are each quite different. And, I've yet to make it in rain gear or a woolen winter version! I will let the two links tell you about the pattern. I wanna get on to the fun!;)

For this design I did not follow the pattern at all. The collar is my own design and the rest, well, it is whatever landed where I put it!

Fabric:
For this garment I went to our local St. Vinnie's, a weekly Friday habit I have before I go to work, and for one dollar got a XXL sized man's acid washed jean jacket that looked like it had never been worn. Score! It had to have enough fabric for a jacket for five foot tall me, or so I hoped. I pulled out my trusty box cutter and started to take apart every seam. I've seen a lot of jean upcycles and the tutorials usually have you just hacking out the pieces with your scissors. In the case of this jacket I wanted to preserve the very dark seam allowances hiding under all those acid washed flat felled seams. So, I ran the edge of the box cutter blade along the felled seam while the garment was flat on the table. One evening to do that and a bit of TV and every section was apart and preserved. I did not take apart the smaller details, like tabs, waistbands, pockets, etc. I did take those and re-place them in non traditional spots on the bodice and sleeves, very unlike the "normal" jean jacket. I used them to bring balance around the jacket. As a matter of fact, all the pieces of the original jacket were reused but in different ways from the original.

The jacket is not lined. What jean jackets are? But I  did do a Hong Kong finish on the side and sleeve seams. I also faced the hem as well as bound the neck seam and for those tasks I used some quilting cotton in the stash. This was all part of my effort to deal with the bulk and keep it down.

Construction:
The first decision for making this jacket is I broke all the rules, really. After all the pieces were cut out from the original I decided on a three prong plan of attack, first piecing it back together, then painting what I had pieced, and then final embellishment from additional stitching.

The closure is a center front heavy aluminum jacket zipper from Zipper Shipper.  One one side of the zip is the original button band. On the other is the waistband from the original jacket.  One bodice front was used for a sleeve, Tabs were placed wherever I needed a bit of balance. No rules, remember! All of this had to fill each piece of the Simplicity pattern and it took a bit of ingenuity to make that work. Pieces were added from scraps here and there and for the collar I used a bit of old denim from some of hubby's discarded jeans. I like the contrast it gives on the collar.
Speaking of that collar:

  I love it. This was the one area I didn't have a clue how to make work. In the end I pieced what I had left in scraps to make a collar about 175% the size of the original pattern collar. It was at least 12 inches longer and 2-3 inches wider. I then connected it to the jacket with lots of lapped zigzagging. Tucks were made at the neckline sides to make the big long collar fit into the much shorter neck. I left one side longer to get that asymmetrical thing happening and closed it all with a rivet button and thread loop. I love how it turned out, the contrast from hubby's jeans and how the point falls right between the two buttons. A bias strip covers the zigzagging.

Sleeves were sewn on using a mock flat fell. First I serged the edge of the sleeve. Then I stitched it into the armscye. I trimmed back the non serged layer and pressed the serged layer over it. I then double topstitched from the outside. The sleeve seams were bound HK style. I did all this topstitching and edge stitching without the aid of my edge stitching foot. Talk about withdrawal, but my Pfaff was in the spa and my Kenmore, a bit of a monster, was better at dealing with heavy bulk anyway. So all top and edge stitching are eyeballed. 

With piecing done it was time to switch gears to painting. I used Lumiere paints and just brushed them on in the direction of the twill. It filled in better that way.  I used a hard stencil brush to get the paint down into the fabric.  I also used a smaller stiff brush to paint into a lot of the flat felled seams to give them a bit more dimension.This was totally hit and miss and really took no time other than drying and getting heat set with the iron. Easy peasy!

 Finally it was time for Phase Three, the stitching embellishment. This was simply back and forth straight stitching.  and some odd zigzags here and there like you can see above. This also went rather quickly . In areas where a lot of bulk happened I literally cut out some of the layers and pieced in a single layer of denim. On these areas I topstitched with big zigzags to cover up the cut away areas. You really can't see them at all. This was very necessary where the above pocket and its flap went into the armscye seam allowance. I also banged a lot of the bulk out with a hammer and the cement basement floor. If you give yourself permission to sew rough and ready, it all works out in the end, at least if it is a conscious decision. Accidentally, not so much. 

When I installed the zip I really didn't have room for a second line of topstitching. So I decided to do some more of the embellishment zigzagging in the zip seam allowance to further secure it. This is a heavy jacket and it definitely needed more than one line of  stitching to keep the zip from being pulled out. In this pic you can see where I did that in the SA left and right of the zip with the red arrows.  That band left of the zip is the bottom band of the original jean jacket. 

Conclusion:

I REALLY enjoyed throwing out the rules, getting all asymmetrical and painterly, and just having fun making this version of anorak pattern Simp 2153. Just for the creative joy of it all, I would suggest this type of project, with any pattern. First, find your garment and a simple pattern. Then do the piecing, painting and stitching in that order. Don't get all couture-y and just enjoy the creative flow of it all. 

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 It did take forever to get this jacket done, didn't it? We are now done with all construction and landscaping and are really happy with those results. We have had loads of guests as well as travelled out twice this month  to New Hampshire and Mass. for long weekends with family. Hubby has been having extended health issues that hopefully will be relieved soon. Then there was dealing with the whole excaped prisoner debacle right in our neighborhood and at work and everywhere else we travel in the area.  IT'S BEEN A BUSY SUMMER! But I am now ready to get back to sewing and our usual quiet lifestyle. I am looking forward to all sorts of projects and can't wait to share them with you. Next up is a Marcy Tilton top. It's flat pattern measured, cut out and ready for interfacing. More to come. It feels good to be back and I hope you all had a wonderful summer. Happy Labor Day!...Bunny