The Madison Cardigan 

or how I dusted off my Sewing for Grownups skills

 

 

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because in the interim I've not sewn anything for myself, preferring to make baby/toddler/preschool clothes for our two little grandgirls. While that's sewing, it's not particularly blog-worthy sewing (for me, at least). The gratification comes from seeing those two little cuties dash around in their grandmama-made duds.

But lately I had been sort of hankering to sew something with a dart in it. 😉 Grownup sewing.

Serendipitously, as I was lurking through Patternreview one day, I saw an ad for  Style Sew Me's Madison Cardigan pattern and was hooked. I loved the drama of the long cardigan look.

Sewing from this new-to-me pattern line was a nice break from the kids pattern lines Brindille and Twig, Simple Life, and Violette Fields Threads that I've been using for the past few years.

Pattern Company Photos:

 
 

So I dusted off my rusty Grownup Sewing Skills and altered the pattern, chose the fabric, and made the cardigan.

 The Alterations:

Oh where do I start. You know how you always want to just cut a pattern and sew it up and have it fit perfectly? Well, this wasn't one of those for me.

I cut out a size Small in the shoulders tapering out to a Medium in the bust.

Whenever working with a new pattern, the first thing I do is the line up the front and back pattern pieces, overlap the center front and center back lines, and slide the pattern up to see if the shoulder angles are the same. They weren't.  So I fixed that.

Then I cut out a muslin out of Pattern Ease and tried it on. Ugh. Terrible fit for me through the shoulders and bust. With scrutiny, patience, and my trusty copy of Fitting and Pattern Alterations: A Multi-Method Approach to the Art of Style Selection, Fitting, and Alteration by Elizabeth Liechty, Judith Rasband, and Della Pottberg-Steineckert, I altered the pattern to fit perfectly and happily moved on to choose the fabric.

My biggest alteration changes were in the sleeve and upper bodice:

• Changed the sleeve to a one-piece sleeve because it was easier to work with from an alteration standpoint.
  
• Narrowed the upper bodice width on both the front and back in the area of the armholes so that the sleeve set squarely where it should and the shoulder seams aligned with my shoulders
• Adjusted the lower armhole/bust area for a smooth fit with no wrinkles or pulls. 

It was more work than I thought I had signed up for with such a simple pattern, but the end result made it worth the effort.

The Fabric:

 Oh how I love pawing through the shelves in my Fabric Emporium, (as my Stitcher's Guild sewing friend Kim (sewsy) calls hers). So many fabrics, so many memories of where I purchased them and whom I was with, the excitement of creating a garment in my head as the salesclerk rang up the purchases--or the thrill of the online chase of the flash sale or hoping to get the same fabric that my monitor was showing!

The fabric for this pattern had to be flowy, the same on both sides since the inside shows, and, according to the pattern recommendations, a knit. Well, I settled for two out of three. I made it from a woven.

It was a black and white tweed see-through mesh fabric, light, flowy, and perfect.

This particular fabric has been in my Emporium so for so long that I can't remember where it came from or what the fiber content is. All I know is that it was just the thing for this pattern.  And I had yards and yards of it!  I think I originally purchased it for an Issey Miyake pattern that took something like 12 yards.

Bye-bye Issey, hello Madison Cardigan.

The Sewing:

The sewing instructions that come with the pattern are pretty minimal. Fortunately, there is Patternreview, where I could study how other people made the garment and whether their techniques and results fit my needs. 

Folding those findings into the making of test samples, I came up with the following changes to the pattern sewing instructions:

1. Serge and topstitch all the long seams. French seams were too stiff for this flowy fabric. Hong Kong-finished seams were too visible. 
2. Serge all of the open edges from neckline to and through the hem, fold to make a 3/8 inch wide hem, then fold again to hide the serging and slip stitch the entire open edge by hand. Hand-finishing on garments can be so relaxing. 

The Results: 

 

Saying that I love this long cardigan is an understatement. I pair it with a fitted black sweater and leggings with high heeled black boots. Now that warmer weather is here, I'll change that out for a sleeveless top and either a pencil skirt or leggings and high heeled or wedge sandals.

 

Since I'm 5'2", the heels are necessary to pull off the nice hem-swish that the designers surely intended. I mean, look at those pattern photos. It's no mistake that they highlighted the one with the model in a confident mid-stride. Very cool. 😊 

 

Here are more photos, closing with one of a partial view of my sewing lair.

 

Repeat of the one at the beginning of the post.

Front and back views. (Back view in the mirror.) 

The princess seams in the back make the fit so flattering.

  

 

 Upper Front Closeup.

 

 

 Lower Front Closeup.

 

Partial view of my sewing lair. Not shown are my 4-shaft loom, standard gauge knitting machine, computer desk and printer/file storage cabinet, other sewing, embroidery, and coverstitch machines, sergers, and vacuum ironing board with gravity-feed iron. There's a lot of stuff crammed into my lair, and I love every inch of it.

It's been a lot of fun sewing for myself again. I need no new clothes, truth be told, but sometimes it's a good thing just to sew a lovely garment for the pure pleasure of it.

 

 

Belle Play Dress (Beauty and the Beast) and Updating a 30 year old Snow White Costume

How time flies. I have sewed for my sweet daughter since before her toddler days (I still have her christening dress that I made), and now I'm enjoying reliving those days, sewing for toddler granddaughter, who is also sweet, but has her toddler moments too. :)

First, I updated a 30-year-old Snow White costume that I made for her Mama back in the day. It needed to be cleaned (daughter had obviously scored heavily on chocolates that Halloween). I was surprised at how good a job our not-so-local dry cleaners did with it. I was going to OxyClean the heck out of it, but was afraid of the colors running in the broadcloth colorblocked pieces. Turns out entrusting it to the dry cleaners was a good move.

I had to take it in a bit at the waist and shorten it about 4.5 inches, since her Mom was a year or two older when she wore it. Anyway, I got a kick out of working on the dress once again, after all these years. 

I just put the deep hem in since I'm sure I'll be letting it out as the little one continues to grow.

The next project was to make a Belle character toddler play dress. For those not subjected to watching Disney movies over and over again as a grandchild works her way through all the Disney Princesses, Belle is the main character in Beauty and the Beast.

I drafted my own pattern for this after my daughter sent me a picture from the internet and asked if I could duplicate it. The one that she wanted duplicated was made in China from cotton for $18. The material and notions  for this dress totaled about $40. Since I had to draft the pattern, fiddling with details that are of no importance to a toddler, but essential to a sewist, I could have made a dress for myself in half the time! 

Here's the dress:

 

Dress Fabric: Polyester crepe
Rosette fabric (with bead center): Polyester charmeuse
Lining fabric: Ambiance 

Pattern: self-drafted, based loosely on Butterick 4320

I didn't use the Butterick pattern except for inspiration because for one thing, the fit is HUGE. I tried to use the smallest size, and it was still disproportionate, and my granddaughter is well within normal range for height and weight. So apparently the cluelessness of the large commercial pattern companies regarding the shape of real people's bodies extends down to the toddler sizes as well. Oh well.

To hide the raw edges of the rosette so I could stitch it to the center front, I made a small enclosed charmeuse square and slip-stitched it to the back of the rosette. Next I stitched the bead into place. Then I slip-stitched the rosette into place. 

While normally I would be nervous to secure a red item on a golden dress (as opposed to making the rosette removable), I feel that when washed, the colors will not run, because I prewashed all the fabrics and also because all the fabrics are polyester which should wear well for a messy toddler. So as long as the rosette withstands the wash, all should be well. If it doesn't I can always make another and make it detachable.

Next up is some requested Hallowe'en wear for Mom and Toddler.

I may catch up on some posts for other toddler sewing I've done over the past few months. Stay tuned, if interested in that sort of thing.

Mama and Toddler Octopus Print Kimono Jackets

Back in January I sewed a Sew-4-Home Fantail Kimono jacket for myself. In hunting and gathering the fabrics, I found an octopus-themed fabric that my daughter would like, as would her little toddler. 

So now we all have something cute to wear while watching The Little Mermaid (again--#eyeroll)  and drinking milk or wine. You can figure out who drinks what in that scenario. (wink)

So here are the kimono jackets all together.

Here is a closeup of the Octopus Fantail Kimono

I made the octopus jacket exactly as described in the post I linked to in the first paragraph, lining it with the same Ambiance deep pink fabric.

When I started the jacket, I made a visual error. On the cutting table, I thought it looked fine to match the levels of the octopusses on each side of the jacket front, but when I put it on the dressform, I didn't like it one bit! Offsetting the levels was much more visually pleasing:

So I cut out another left front and went on my merry way.

The octopus fabric is called Neptune's Neverland and is from the Neptune and the Mermaid collection by Tokyo Milk (Margot Elena). I purchased it from Moona Fabrics on Etsy.

The toddler kimono jacket is a frankenpattern of  the Blossom Kimono and the Toddler Jinbei pattern, both of which I purchased on Etsy. I wanted it to look as close as possible to Mom's.

I've left the ties on the toddler obi long until I can try it on my granddaughter. The next time we visit, I'll have to drag the sewing machine I gave my daughter out of their storage room to fix the final length for those ties. With her round little tummy, I'm not sure if she'll even wear the obi, but it looks cute next to Mom's kimono.

Next up will be a dress for me.

Valentine's Day Ensemble for Toddler

It is so much fun to sew for a toddler.

For Valentine's Day I chose an extra cute fabric from www.spoonflower.com in their modern jersey:

The fabric is called Raccoon's Valentine by run_quiltgirl_run. 

When it comes to using Spoonflower fabrics for toddler clothes, my go-to is their modern jersey. I have made a couple of garments for grandtoddler in their cotton spandex jersey, but the dark colors fade a lot, so I now steer away from it. I've had better success with their organic cotton knit ultra, but it still fades. The Modern Jersey, however, stays beautifully colorfast and stands up well to hard wear.

So here's the outfit I made

Patterns Used:

Brindille and Twig Leggings #2 (sizes preemie through 6T in the same pattern)

Brindille and Twig #31 Raglan Pocket Dress 

Fabrics:
Modern jersey knit from Spoonflower; print: Raccoon's Valentine
Taupe and white stripe knit from marcytilton.com
Coral Pique knit from JoAnn Fabrics

Method:
 This was a pretty quick sew with a 4 thread serger stitch. I used Sarah Veblen's method for attaching the neckline binding; however, I used the exact pattern piece for the neck binding instead of measuring it out like I usually do with Veblen's method. It worked perfectly. I had tried her measuring method but it made the neck opening too small, I felt. So I went with the length recommended by the pattern and it fits little Miss Grandtoddler just right.


I've made other outfits for my grandbaby but have not posted many of them. This one turned out darn cute that I just had to post it.

The Fantail Kimono

The Fantail Kimono

Inspired Completely by the Sew4Home website

When sergerqueen first posted the link to this kimono over on the Stitcher's Guild website, I was hooked. I liked everything about it. Here's the inspiration photo:

 Image from Fantail Kimono, Sew4Home website

Well gosh, I thought, what's not to like about that? So I went to the website, found out about the fabrics used, ordered the fabrics from Etsy and Ebay, and set about making my very own:

 

Ohmigosh, I love this kimono. If I was a more generous person, I'd give it to my daughter, but actually I'm keeping it for myself and will make an octopus-themed one for my daugher. She's big into octopusses anyway.  

There were several pluses about this pattern, copied/downloaded from the tutorial found on that Sew4Home website linked to above. For one thing, it used the concept of negative space, so there were only a few pattern pieces to download in the PDF; the rest were rectangles.

Secondly, the directions were some of the finest I've seen anywhere. Not to sound uppity, but those folks on Sew4Home sew like I do--that is to say, from an anal-retentive perspective. They were careful, for example, to seam the sleeve at the top (not usually done on a kimono pattern) so that the fish in the print swam rightside up on the front and back.

They were careful about fussycutting so that the pattern matching was perfect. They quilted the obi to deter it from rolling. What can I say: they are smart.

Plus I love the fantail shape of the kimono hem. It gave a larger space to show off the print and it's a bit different.

I only found one error in the tutorial and that was in the photo for showing how to attach the lower hem's border. They had the border placed wrong end up. But I knew what they meant.

I only made three changes. First, I cut the lower hem border with the pink edges to match that of the sleeves  where the border was printed on. In the original, the pink lines of the border print were cut off for the lower hem. This is probably because the widths of the pink of the lower border were not the same on each side of the border print fabric, so it would have taken a lot of explaining and a more complicated bit of instruction.

Secondly, I added a lining of Ambiance rayon. I really don't like cotton kimonos much; for one thing they have to be ironed after washing and for another they're pretty grabby, especially with my fuzzy winter nightwear. So no grabby cotton for me in that kimono--the lining headed that problem off at the pass. Now if I could just find someone to do the ironing.

And finally, I didn't add the tassel in the derriere area. I didn't want a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey look for me. It looks great on the young model, but for a woman of a certain age, well, you get the picture.

I am absolutely delighted with the way that the whole project turned out.  

I'm on to the next kimono in this production line: one for my daughter in a different print. And then, hopefully, there will be enough of that octopus-themed fabric left over to make one for the grandbaby so she and her mama can swan around in matching kimonos. 

2018 Dress a Month Sewalong #9 Self-Drafted Skimmer

This may be the simple summer dress pattern that I was looking for--a skimmer with no horizontal seamlines so that interesting fabrics could be showcased. I gave the Lodo Dress a try last month with this purpose in mind but, on me, I like this one even better.

I self-drafted the pattern, using a favorite Kaari Blue dress from last summer as a base. I like the fit and the swingy skirt a lot.

Digging into my knit fabrics stash I came up with an ancient piece, a lightweight knit from mystery fabric land. It worked out great.

Front views:

Back view

The neckline is bound with solid black knit using Sarah Veblen's never-fail technique for applying knit neckline bindings.

The hem is finished with a coverstitch machine and the armholes are serged, turned, and topstitched.

It is a close to a badda-bing type of dress I have ever made: Cut, sew the shoulder seams (reinforced with clear elastic), side and center back seams; add a binding to the neckline; serge, turn and topstitch the armholes; and coverhem-stitch the hem. It doesn't get much faster or easier.

I think I've found the pattern for a fabric that I've been holding on to for a while now. Maybe that will be my next sew, but maybe not, since I'm sidling up to kimono-jacket-making for myself and my daughter, what with so many versions out there now. More on that next time.

2018 Dress a Month Sewalong #7 and #8: Lodo Dress

I'm looking for a future TNT dress pattern to serve as a plain palette for an interesting fabric that I have. That means no horizontal seams. So when I saw the Lodo Dress on www.patternreview.com, I thought it might work. I ended up making two wearable muslins from the pattern.

Wearable Muslin #1: stripe cotton knit (pretty thin)

 Wearable Muslin #2: deep carnation pink slinky knit:

The Details:
1.  Lodo Dress pattern from True Bias. 

2.  Fabric from the depths of my stash:
Stripe cotton knit--pretty thin--from Mood Fabrics
Deep Carnation Pink slinky from who-knows-where 
3. Cut a straight Size 8 throughout.

Things I Did Differently:
1. Reinforced the shoulder seams with clear elastic
2. Reinforced the neckline seam with bias fusible stay tape
3. Eliminated the back seam. Not necessary for the shorter version
4. Added back darts
5. Serged the facing edges (to eliminate bulk) instead of turning them under. This was important for the striped cotton knit because it was so thin and for the slinky knit because it would show every edge and seam allowance. For that reason, I never touched the iron to the slinky but only hovered it above and heavily steamed every seam and edge so as not to create an impression from the underlying edges and seams.
6. Sewed all seams with a walking foot before 4-thread serging them. This was especially necessary for matching the stripe at the side seams.

Things I Learned:

1. For my taste, and especially for the fashion fabric I have in mind, this pattern is a bit too plain even for a plain palette dress, if that is possible. The silhouette is rectangular. I think I want something with more of a curvy silhouette to it (but not body con), especially for the other "interesting print" fabric that I want to showcase with a simple design.

2. It's perfectly serviceable and even quite nice for a loose, cool summer dress, but the fabric choice makes all the difference. You can see in the striped dress long drag lines under the bust toward the side seams. No amount of fiddling would make them go away without inserting french darts, which I didn't want to do, especially in a horizontal stripe.

When I looked at the Lodo Dress made up on the website gallery, various 'blogs, and on patternreview.com, several of the finished Lodos had the selfsame drag lines. 

For that reason, I almost chucked the project, stopping with the stripe. For sure I wasn't going to make it in my "interesting print" fabric. 

Instead, I chose a solid slinky fabric from my stash to see what it would look like in a beefier knit. Well, with a beefier, more drapey knit, the drag lines disappeared. (See pink dress photos above). 

So what was intended as wearable muslin #2 actually became a dress that I wouldn't mind wearing out in public. The stripe knit will be an around-the-house dress.

3. I have never used woven fabric facings for a knit dress, AND I have never topstitched from the wrong side of the fabric. Both of those recomendations are in the instructions for the Lodo Dress.

I was highly skeptical but you know what? It worked! No ripples in the wide topstitched neckline and armholes. And it worked great both for the thin cotton knit and the thicker slinky knit. Who knew?

Topstitching closeup:

Woven fabric facings:

 Two more dresses are now in my closet, ready for summertime wear. They're very comfortable and flattering for easy wear. I recommend this pattern, but not for the "interesting" fashion fabric that I have in mind for a plain palette design. If I make it again, I may go down a size or two.