A little catch-up

On my sewing table

I've been making a new summer dress out of some spotty blue and white cotton I bought on my honeymoon (so it's only been in my stash 7 years).  I was holding off on making clothes for me for ages because I'm breastfeeding, but then I read Gertie Sews Vintage Casual and I thought: centre-front zipper!  Hel-looooo baby!

I'm using my own self-drafted pattern and it would have gone together really quickly were it not for a hiccup with the overlocker which ceased to proceed.  More of which later.

Since it's not done yet and there are no photos, I'll save more waffle on this for later.  Hold on to your horses, I bet you can't wait.  ;-)

On my needles

Lots of lovely people I know are having babies soon!  There's a bunch in June/July, and another bunch in Nov/Dec.  I must knit faster!  Some items have been completed already, and some are still planned in my head, but of course I can't post anything until the babies have their gifts.  So there will be a bunch of knitting posts through the rest of the year about projects I'd finished 6 months previously.

I treated myself to a set of ChiaoGoo Red Lace interchangeables with my birthday/Christmas money plus some proceeds from the sale of 20m of my mum's pink upholstery velvet (thanks, Ebay and Mum).  It's very decadent to spend that much on needles, but as my entire family say: "You never regret a quality tool purchase."  I think that might be a family motto.

Out of my toolbox

So, half-way through the summer dress my overlocker (US translation: serger) started to make noises even more alarming than usual.  If I put my foot down, it said CLUNK CLUNK BANG and then the threads snapped.  It was already pretty noisy, as toddler pointed out: "Mummy, use that 'chine: Uh-uh uh-uh UH-UH!"  It finally got to the point where no tension settings worked to make a nice finish.  I couldn't pretend any longer that it didn't need a service.

It's surprisingly easy to take a Baby Lock Prestige 750DS to pieces.  Much easier than my sewing machine.  Instead of stupid plastic lugs everywhere that must be carefully eased apart, the Baby Lock is just screwed together neatly.  The main carcass is metal and all components are easily accessible when the plastic casing is removed.  As usual, the cure-all was just a thorough dust, clean and oil.  The quantity of fluff was amazing, but probably unsurprising after the amount of fluffy nappy-related fabric that has been put through it.  Here I must thank my unendingly patient husband who volunteered to do the cleaning and oiling of the actual joints on the basis that he's more patient and methodical than I am.  I cleaned the tensioners by removing each one in turn and flossing it with a cotton fabric scrap.  For most bits, we used the standard light sewing machine oil, but I did splash out on a can of Lithium grease to use for one metal-to-metal sliding joint which looked like it had been greased with this before.

The whole machine hums happily now.  Splendid!  Another £70 saved.  Ker-ching.

For my next trick

Tomorrow the second ever outfit-along starts!

I'm taking part again this year.  Last year I missed the deadline by sewing in yarn ends and buttons.  Boo!  This year I'm almost ready to go.  I'm making Hetty and Simplicity K1653 (which is a v-neck mock-wrap dress) in this fabric/yarn combination:

I already washed my practice fabric which is black jersey and swatched the lace pattern for the cardigan.  The real dress will be made in the floral jersey in the picture.  £5 for 3m: score!

Wish me luck!

Notes on designing curtains with rings

This is a post where I point out things to future Alice which should have been obvious to past Alice when she bought curtain fabric for her spare room.

For context, I am making curtains with 40mm metal eyelets at the top.  I need metal eyelets because I am interlining with blackout fabric, and making a polycotton lining too, plus buckram.  This is quite a thickness to expect shonky plastic rings to withstand.  Therefore, I purchased some badass tools to insert metal eyelets from Hanolex.  It involves the biggest hammer I may ever own.  The break even point in tool investment seems to be when you are making more than one set of eyelet curtains, especially when you take into account the recorded delivery postage in sending your beautifully handmade curtains off to someone else to butcher in the eyelets for you.

I like to use the blackout as an interlining rather than a lining fabric.  When making curtains, one tends not to take the lining all the way to the curtain edge.  I find the blackout fabric to be quite stiff compared to some fashion fabrics used for the front of the curtain, so when using it as a simple lining, you end up with floppy leading edges.  I've even seen this done on sample curtains in a well-to-do posh national chain of stores.  Eugh!  Therefore, I like to use the blackout as an interlining, cut to the finished curtain size and tacked inside, making all the curtain the same stiffness.  I then use a thin cotton or polycotton to line the curtain.

Designing your curtain

Here follow some complicated trade-offs and calculations that I won't repeat here, but consider the following constraints:

1. For a pair of curtains, each curtain needs to be at least twice the width of the window area it has to cover.  E.g. for a 2m wide window with a pair of curtains, each curtain needs to be 2m wide or more.
2. You need an even number of rings, and Mr Google suggests typical spacings for 40mm rings are 16-18cm.  The spacing you choose is to some extent determined by how far your curtain pole stands off the wall, which should be just a little more than half your ring spacing.  Clearly if you have M rings, your total curtain width will need to be M x ring spacing.  This allows you a bit of leeway to play around with the number of rings, the ring spacing and the total curtain width, subject to the next constraint.
3. Typical fabric widths might be 140mm, so you may need several drops of fabric in order to get your total curtain width.  Consider where the join should be between two drops: it ought to fall in a furrow between two rings, i.e. with an even number of rings each side of it.  Make sure your ring spacing and number of rings allows you to get this seam positioned correctly, bearing in mind the width of your fabric (which is fixed).  It's not as easy as you'd think.
4. With all of the above, make sure you're allowing for turnings at the edges on the front fabric!  On top of the finished curtain size, I allow 5" at the top, 3.5" at the bottom, and 2.5" at each side.  I allow a 1/2" seam to join drops.

Having solved that headache, you might want to consider where you place the seams between drops of blackout interlining and polycotton lining.  I didn't want a stiff section in my curtain, so I plan to stagger the seams.  Since it's the next stiffest fabric, I'll place the join in the blackout lining in a different furrow from the front fabric (with an even number of rings each side).  The polycotton lining is relatively thin and floppy, and in any case is on the reverse, so I'll place the join mid-way between that of the front fabric and blackout, even though this is on a projecting fold.

The narrowest drop of front fabric probably looks best toward the outer edge of your window on each curtain.

For lining, I plan for it to appear on the reverse of the curtain as a neat rectangle coming 4.5" down from the top, 2" in on each side, and 2" up from the bottom.  I allow 1/2" for turning on the top and sides, but 2.5" for creating a deep 2" machined hem along the bottom.

I will use 5" buckram along the top edge for stiffening, and I expect to place my eyelets with their midpoints 2.25" from the top of the curtain.  The outer two eyelets are spaced by half the eyelet spacing from the curtain edges.

Matching obvious patterns

I should have unrolled several meters of the fabric from the roll and stood well back before buying.  What I thought was a lovely swirly pattern turns out to have VERY obvious repeats which really ought to be matched.  What is more, my guestimate of yardage in the shop was pretty good at first sight: I bought 6.5m, and my later calculations show I need four drops of 62" each, which is 6.3m with no pattern matching.  Clearly this is very frugal of me, but I am now cursing myself for not allowing enough for pattern matching.

When you are standing in the shop with a winging toddler, how much extra fabric should you buy for pattern matching?  Turns out to be quite simple.  Firstly, measure the vertical pattern repeat.  Then buy enough for the number of drops (N), plus N times the pattern repeat.  So for my fabric, I should have bought 4 x 62", plus 4 x 24" (because 24" is the enormous pattern repeat distance).  So I ought to have purchased just over 8.8m to be safe.  That's quite a difference from the 6.3m!  I now need to attempt to buy another 2.2m+ of the same fabric, six months after my original purchase, if they still have it.  ARGH.

My ruffle hell

It's been slow progress on my exciting knock-off ruffle dress.  It's been compounded by not being able to use my noisy machine during TButton's nap times, but being either out of the house or doing paid work at all other times.  I'm only snatching 5 minutes here and there.

I've managed to cut the dress out.  I've been worried about visible-entire-panties (never mind VPL), but I've managed to make the dress 4 layers thick.  I got 3 copies of every pattern piece out of the under-6m of light grey stuff, plus a single layer of the stripes.  Of the 4m of stripes I bought, I probably have over 1m left.

The fabric turns out to be 50p/m of pure hell to sew.  The light grey stuff I'm using as lining turns out to be quite stretchy and probably a knit, while the stripy stuff stretches like crazy on the bias.  Both fabrics are super drapey and slide all over the place.  Their only saving grace (apart from the price) is that neither fabric frays too much.

I've sewn all the bodice darts and the centre back and shoulder seams.  I then used the magic of inkscape to trace around the edge of the ruffles in a photo of the dress I'm copying, and compared the length of the ruffle-y edge to the length of the neckline.  It turns out the ruffles are probably 1:5 or 1:6 (wowzers), so I've gone for the 1:5 option.  I should probably do a tutorial on how to make these ruffles.

After much ruffle assembly, I've attached them to the neckline and sewn in the lining around the neckline.  My next plan is to top-stitch the lining down around the neck, but hiding the top-stitching under the ruffle.  I hope this will stop the neck gaping open, but who knows if it will work as the ruffles are so heavy.  I added a fusible interfacing strip around the neck too, but I'm not sure if it's enough to stop this dratted fabric stretching out of shape here too.

Ruffles!

Next I'm planning to install the cap sleeves and attach the armhole lining as per this timely tutorial posted on Elegance & Elephants yesterday, just as I was considering how to do it!  Then it's french-seam time on 4 layers of skirts *yawn* and the hell of an invisible zipper into 2 layers of this &^"£* fabric.  At least the edge finishes are quick with the overlocker rolled hem feature.

ARGHHHH I don't even know if this dress is going to be wearable and it's taking forever!  Give me some nice non-stretchy cotton any day...

For my next trick, I'm going to (attempt to) make this dress...

I'm going to regret posting this when you see the effort I manage to serve up next week (ha ha).

For my next trick, I'm going to attempt to make a knock-off of this knock-off.  I can't find a picture of the original dress, but Kathleen at Grosgrain Fabulous made her own copy of a maternity dress which looked like this (her version):

I really love the combination of cascading ruffles around a v-neck with the blue pinstripe fabric, and I used to have a top from H&M that had a similar look.  (Yes, I wore it with a mustard cardigan.)

I'm not actually expecting a baby (before you ask) - so I'll be making a non-maternity version of this dress.  Nevertheless, I'm keeping the front box pleat to hide my saggy post-baby tummy...!

I'm pretty sure my dress is not going to turn out nearly so nicely, but here goes.

Pattern

I'm making my own from scratch, using a copy of "Dress Pattern Designing" by Natalie Bray.  I've never drafted a pattern for myself before (only for the toddler), so it's an adventure.  I've made two muslins so far: one of my basic sloper, and one of the dress bodice (minus ruffle explosion).  I've no idea how Kathleen has done her skirt (other than her comment that it is bias cut), so I've opted for a half-circle skirt with a 6cm box pleat, divided into 4 panels to align with the four waist darts.  Unlike the dress I'm copying, I'll be adding cap sleeves and a side zipper.

I draft my patterns on the computer in Inkscape, because it has several features that take the tedium out of drafting by hand on paper:

• Ability to make lots of copies quickly to test changes and keep old versions
• Easy to measure curve lengths (a few mouse clicks) rather than faffing with a tape-measure held on it's edge
• Super quick to add seam allowances before printing

The disadvantage is that like most CAD systems, you get a really skewed idea of the size of the object from working on the screen.  It's hard to have an intuitive feel of the feature sizes.

My bodice pattern... uh oh!

Fabric

I picked up some navy and white stripy chiffon-y stuff for 50p/m in Walthamstow, and some pale grey chiffon-y lining.  Who knows if I'll have enough, but at least it was cheap!  I've never made an entire garment from such light fabric either, to I'm setting myself both a pattern drafting and a sewing challenge.  You can see why I'm not confident in the results.  ARGH!

I'm planning a overlocker-based rolled hem on the raw edges of the fabric, and I'll probably have to french-seam it up in most places.  I'll go for a single layer of chiffon for the sleeves, but I think I'll need three layers of fabric in most other places to stop the dress being transparent.  (Nice!)

I wanted to do some shearing in the back bodice to allow more freedom for heaving the toddler around, but I think that's a challenge too far at this stage: both for the pattern drafting and the chiffon-sewing.

Now I've posted this, I'll clearly be forced into actually cutting the thing out now.  This may be a record for impulse-fabric-purchase-into-dress time, but I'll hold onto that thought for now just in case it's a "straight-to-bin" project.  It'll certainly be a challenge.