Sew Distracted

Wrapped and Tied

 The Skirt is done.

Blue eyelet cotton skirt, originally made from Simplicity 4186, original version here.  As I took this apart I realized that although I have made this skirt several times, I only actually like the version made from a beefier cotton, which emphasizes the volume of the skirt more. 

The skirt is still pleated and still full, but the shape is different, more of a tulip shape and I am very happy with this version of the skirt.   I worried somewhat about the fullness at the hip, but in the end I like it, and the fact that the contrast tie waist emphasizes the waist, making my middle aged waist appear a bit smaller than it actually is.  Or perhaps the skirt just makes my hips look bigger; if so, I can live with that too, because I feel fabulously pretty in this skirt, and in the end, I think it is how our clothes make us feel that plays the biggest role in how we actually look in them.

 The details:

Pattern:  Burda Style Magazine, April 2010, style #111, tulip skirt with box pleats and a large tie waistband-sash.

Materials:  Blue cotton eyelet recycled from a previous skirt and olive cotton batiste purchased many years ago from www.fabric.com.

 Details: 

This pattern is a "tall" pattern from Burda.  I use the word tall with parenthesis because supposedly this pattern is designed for someone who is 5'9".  I am 5'9" and I added 4 inches to the length of this skirt.  As it was, I shortened the original skirt by 4 inches from the waist to cut the new skirt, and I could not have made the new skirt longer because the top of the old skirt was in rather fragile condition after several alterations.

Because the pattern is cut with a curve at the hem, to accommodate the shaping provided by the pleats, and I wanted the hem to be my eyelet border, I straightened the hem and transfered the shaping to the waistline.

I also underlined the eyelet with the olive batiste before proceeding with the skirt.  Since the pleats were made through the two layers of fabric, my skirt probably has more body than was intended in the pattern, but I rather like the volume of the finished skirt.

I used the waistband from my original skirt rather than the contoured waistband provided by the pattern.  The pattern waistband might have been better, but I had fabric issues.

I also made the tie sash wider than called for.  The original pattern called for a piece of fabric , 8" by 84" (I decided to make a long sash as I am no longer slender-waisted), which was to be folded in half, seamed, and attached to the back waist of the skirt.   Two layers of 8" wide batiste was too much to make a bow as shown in the photos unless I made the sash much longer.  But I like the modified bow effect shown in the picture much better as I'm not convinced that big floofy bows are appropriate on middle aged women.  The sash is also long enough to wrap around my waist twice, creating a cummerbund effect, when I want to be a little more serious.

A Little Change in Plans

Funny how plans change if you allow yourself time to dream and play.

 I had intended to dismantle the blue skirt, and remake it in the exact same style, just shorter and smaller in total girth, but somehow, the more I looked at it, the more evident it became that I didn't want to make the same skirt over again.  

So I found a pattern, traced it off, dithered over alterations and decided to just go for it.    

A shorter skirt, with eyelet over the entire length of the leg, required a different lining than the original skin-tone silk/cotton.  The demands of the new design dictated underlining rather than a separate lining.   As I fretted over lining choices, an olive batiste practically threw itself off the shelf at me.  Olive and Navy is one of my favorite combinations.   It seems this skirt remodel is taking on a life of its own.

A Day in the Sewing Room

 I had a really good day, or partial day actually, in the sewing room yesterday and I am amazed at how much it helped my state of mind.  

First of all, I finished a sweater that I started in April and abandoned.  At the time I was looking for some mindless knitting and since I was working without a pattern, and didn't know if I would have enough yarn for sleeves, I put the whole aside rather than do the math. 

The yarn is a cotton/acrylic/rayon boucle from On-line, now discontinued.  The stripes on the sleeves are in Dolcino, a nylon ribbon by Trendsetter.  I added the stripes to the sleeves when I realized that there was not going to be enough of the original yarn to have much more than cap sleeves.  I really like the way the sweater turned out and it is a good basic sweater that will see a lot of wear.

(if you also read my knitting blog, purlsandmurmurs, sorry for the double posting)

I also got the blue eyelet skirt completely disassembled and had an accompanying "aha" moment.  You see the skirt, as it is now, is too long by a couple of inches.  It ends at mid calf which is not a flattering length.  But I didn't remember it always being that unflattering.   So when I looked back at the original post, in September 2007, I saw that the skirt was slightly below my knee, but not as long as it is now.  It didn't grow so what happened? And no, the skirt is not sitting below my waist now, nor was it sitting above my waist then.

Hips.  The problem is in the hips, and perhaps in the backside as well.  When I first started loosing weight I lost it mostly through the middle, through the tummy and waist, and that pesky full hip measurement did not budge one iota.  Now I'm not complaining about losing the middle,  but I got in the habit of altering my skirts by taking in the waist and upper hips, but leaving the fullness at the hip.  Well as fabric goes out to accommodate bulk, it draws the length up.  Apparently somewhere along the line, my hips started getting smaller too, and I didn't really notice this.   The extra fabric that used to go out over the hips now hangs straight down, making the skirt longer.  Hence the need for complete disassembly.   The final skirt is going to look much like the original, but I need to recut it, removing three inches of length from the waistline.  I'm sure there will be some other reworking to be done as well. 

I also spent some time cataloging and sorting patterns, both knitting and sewing, and finally working through the stacks of patterns and magazines, and piles of clothing and sweaters that I want to refashion.  Now that  I feel I am taking control again, I feel the pressure lifting and a bit of that ability to just play coming back.

Disappointment and a Plan

I had a bit of a panic weekend before last and attacked my sewing room in a frenzy, pulling projects out of knitting bags, and tossing the various stacks of things to be refashioned, ripped or just finished in a mad flurry of cloth and yarn.  I hadn't done that in quite a while and it is amazing what havoc a few moments of frenzy can wreak on a space that took considerable time to sort and organize.

 I never found what I was looking for, but I did eventually realize that it never existed.  I did however find a skirt I had put aside to take in and subsequently forgotten.  It was one of the very few summer items in a stack that is mostly appropriate for fall and winter and has therefore been mostly off the mental radar.

I tried it on and took it apart weekend before last, before life got a little hectic, and only managed to take it in and put it back together this weekend past.  I wore it yesterday and it was a bit of a disappointment.  I can't say that there is anything wrong with the skirt but that it just wasn't "right" for me, and although the issues were minor, they added a grating edge to a day that had its own share of frustrations.

1.  It was still too large, although not that much, 2 to 3 inches in the waist.  I could wear it but it kept spinning around.  For this, at least I don't blame myself.  I did loose a couple of pounds and have been working out, but the effect of this has been somewhat hidden as I had a couple of gluten encounters over the past couple of weeks and those, combined with a couple of courses of prednisone which they required have led to much fluctuation in size, the kind of which I had not seen for a long long time.

2.  I had forgotten that I didn't really like the skirt.  Oh it is pretty, and I loved it once.  But the tops and shoes I once wore with it are gone now, the tops too large and the shoes too small, and I had trouble finding just the right thing.  I wore it with a striped tee and espadrilles and it was fine but not quite great, and I was discouraged by not finding anything in my closet that seemed to work correctly with the feel and the proportions of the skirt.

I was disheartened at having spent my precious sewing time altering something which only needed altering again immediately.  I was also annoyed at myself for not thinking about the actual garment and how I would wear it.  For once I just grabbed something and did it without over-thinking the whole thing and it ended up that I should have thought about it a great deal more than I did.

I spent the evening watching a movie that made me cry (For Love of the Game) and knitting the sleeves to the project that prompted that tossing frenzy mentioned earlier.   Somehow, when the evening was over the solution came to me, and I will still have this skirt and a way that I can wear it.  After a quick check in the closet, I am sure that the new skirt will work, at least with shoes I currently own, and possibly with a couple of tops, but I really need to make some new tops and blouses anyway.

Although I started the day disappointed that I was just going to rip the skirt apart again immediately, or just toss it aside and call it a casualty of war, it ended on a positive note, and now I am actually looking forward to ripping and refashioning.  

More to come.

52 going on 25

When I was in my 20s and learning to sew, I did a lot of last-minute sewing.  I would decide to make something for a particular event, not allow enough time, and end up barely pulling myself together in time.  I remember hemming a huge chiffon circle skirt by hand in the car,  while G drove to Baltimore for a wedding. This kind of thing happened more times than I can recall but I eventually learned how to plan my projects, and for the most part, finish them in advance of the event.

Yesterday however, I once again finished a project at the last moment.  

I hadn't counted on finishing anything. I intended to sew but questioned how much time I would have and how far I would progress.  As I finished up the lining for my skirt however, I realized that I had a very good chance of being able to wear it to my birthday dinner.  So I determined to work as efficiently as possible without cutting corners.  I'm really not into speed sewing for the most part and I did not change my plans just to finish the skirt early.

I did however make a compromise or two, and I wore it unfinished, although only on the inside.  I realized as it got close to the time of our reservation that I had time to baste in the hem by hand or to put on makeup.  When I was 25 I might have opted for the basting.  At 52 I opted for grooming and sewed the hem by machine.  I don't think I can rip the stitches out and re-hem it by hand, the needle holes remain quite evident in the fabric and they would bother me more than the machine stitching does.  I'll just call it a design detail and it is one that makes the skirt far more casual, which certainly works in my life.

I also did not do any of the finishing work on the inside.  The lining still has to be stitched down around the zipper and the vent, a hook and eye needs to be applied, but it worked for one dinner.  I can finish it up at home this week while watching television with G, or relaxing in the company of my grandson, who arrives tomorrow for a week with his parents.  Posting will be light; sewing and blogging pale next to 3 1/2-year-old wonder.

I will have more details upon completion.  (top is purchased and is getting too big.  I intend to copy it and create my own version).

Another day, another opportunity to make a mistake

Well, let's see, there was sewing yesterday. In the end, there was not as much as I would have liked, but there was enough.  And I probably frittered away time as well, time going over stuff I'd been over before, time learning and relearning things I used to know, time making stupid mistakes and then fixing them.

All in all, I'd say it was quite fun.

Even though I had already cut out all the pieces to the skirt, my lack of confidence was running the show and I went back and laid out the fabric and fiddled with potential layouts again, trying to match the pattern as much as possible.  I'm still worried about what matches, what doesn't, how much it doesn't, and if I've made some major miscalculation and will have a giant flower right where I don't want it.   

I the front is easy as it is one piece.   The back was relatively easy for matching the pieces at the center seam.  But at the side seams all hell broke loose.  I couldn't get anything to match, or if I got one side seam to be somewhat matched, the other one was terrible.  

 I thought perhaps I went about it wrong, that I should have the center back be along the same line as the center front, but that did not work as I would have double flowers at the side seams, and not in a nice way, right at the hip, where I didn't want it, and no matching anywhere else.

The skirt is pegged.  No two pieces are the same size.  The seams are not cut on quite the same angles.  Perhaps a simple solid would have been easier.  But it would not have been as much fun.

 So I opted for not so great matches at the sides.  Hopefully they are not so bad either.  I won't really know until I put it together.  I actually have lots of fabric left over so I can always cut the back again, or the whole skirt again for that matter.  I bought this fabric in the 90's and I was thinking of something grander than a skirt.  What can I say?

So today, after all that fiddling with potential new pattern layouts, I set all this hypothetical stuff aside and started assembling the skirt.  I got that the back piece sewed up.  That's it.

First I hand-basted the seam, because I wanted to be sure I got the pattern lined up correctly.  Then I sewed it up.  It worked really well and everything looked perfect.  Or so I thought.

That was before I put in the invisible zipper.  Somehow, the first time I got the zipper in, I got the pattern misaligned by about 1/4 of an inch.  It was quite obvious.  So I had to rip the zipper and do it again.  The second time was better; not perfect, but better. If you look at this picture, you can see that it is off still.  You'll have to trust me that it was worse before.  This I may be able to live with.  I'll do the side seams next and see how the whole thing looks before I make my final decision.

 I can't redo the seam again.  I discovered that the fabric is permanently scarred where the previous seam was located.  If you look at this photo you can see the little holes and tears in the fabric on the right hand side of the zipper tape where I pulled the stitching out.  I am in the process of convincing myself it is not so bad, that most people won't notice, and it is on the backside and will probably be hidden by a jacket or sweater. At any rate, I certainly won't notice it, and so I think I might bee able to live with it as long as I like the side seams.

I must be more careful.

I learned one other lesson today.  It is not wise to fuse interfacing over your basting stitches, not if you want to take them out that is.  In retrospect it is so obvious it is funny....