Decisions, Decisions

I recently moved all my sewing stuff into one place in my house, so I am anxious to see how it works out.  I can't decide what to do next.  I have all the supplies for these two dresses or the coat and I don't know what to do next.

B8556
In a brown copper taffeta?
This photo is from the Butterick website.  I don't
have a crinolin yet.

B5685
I have a tweedish plaid brown, blue and tan fabric.  I loved
this coat as soon as I saw it on Princess Catherine.

V8409
I have a chocolate,royal blue, cream and black
chunky plaid I fell in love with for this dress.

I got some other great choices, just can't decide what I want to sew next.  This is a tough place to be!

Quick Review of the Ott Lite 3-in1 Craft Lamp

I received the Ott Lite 3-in-1 Craft Lamp as a gift and purchased at JoAnn Fabrics at an incredibly irrestistable price with a coupon and a great sale.

This is the stock photo from the website.

I was in love with this lamp from the beginning.  It can be configured to sit on a table or on the floor.  I was surprised to discover the magnifying glass was plastic!  I was not happy about that at first, but since then have appreciated the durability.  I have not "knocked" this one over yet, so I don't know how tough it would be there.  I was especially curious to see how the nut would hold the light up.  It did GREAT.  However, after only four months the plastice housing has stripped beyond repair.

In the light's defense.  I am blind as a bat and was constantly raising and lowering the light.  If someone wanted to use the light like a normal person, I guess they would position the ligth and use it.  However, since my machine is older than God, I found myself positioning it and repositioning it so I could see.  Now that the plastic nut is stripped, I am using the clip to hold the light up.  I have not sewed since it broke and my friends are telling me to take it back.  I don't know if I will or if I will let my husband try his hand at making it more durable.

At the price I got it, I would buy this lamp again, at the price they want for it retail and a regular sale, I might skip it and buy just a nice floor lamp with a snake-type neck I can adjust.  The best feature I found on this was the light itself.  It really does give off a different kind off light that seems to be easier to see under which is probably why I used it enough to strip it out in four months.

Vogue 8416: Super Easy! Material Makes It

I'll add more pictures to this when I figure out how to get them off my phone.  I wanted to get something posted in this blog before the end of the week.

I sewed this for a company party with my husband.  I purposefully picked some very lightweight wool knowing we were going to be outside in December.  The evenings had already started to get cool.  So I found some tweedy wool with a little sparkle.  Something I thought was going to be awesome when I found some fabric that had pink circles that looked a little like candy, a black back ground and sparkles just like the wool.

I would use the wool for the jumper and the pink for the top.  Then as is usual, my husband go into the mix.  I wanted him to look nice to receive his award and the whole thing when south.  I bought all new material for a shirt that didn't match the wool at all but would match the material for the vest I was going to make for him wear under his suit coat.  I was not amused, but at the same time, as usual, it was a night for someone else and not me.

The jumper went together with the wool perfectly.  I used tape on the edges of the wool and it really had a nice finish.  For some reason it was a little big.  This is the second vintage Vogue pattern I have sewn that came out big.  The disasterous mumu project being the other one.  I am beginning to question my meausurements or the pattern measurements and I'm leaning toward my measurements.

As  I stated before the material we picked to match the vest did not in anyway match the jumper, but we were home and I was on a deadline to get the clothes sewed.  My husband offered for me to buy different material for the jumper portion, but that didn't happen.  It was too late.

The whole outfit went together very easy and had simple lines.  Other than being a hair too big and not matching, it fit like it was supposed to fit and looked very nice.  I didn't buy the right size buttons for the front, so I had to make do with some leftovers from another outfit.

What I cannot wait to do is make the shirt out of the material I bought to go with the jumper and see how they look together.  I actally bought two kinds of fabric that night in hopes of creating a few outfits.  We shall see how that goes.  I think we all know how that will go.



A New Home For Sewing Retro

This is the new home for Sewing Retro!  I am in the process of breaking up a larger blog.  When I moved the posts I kept the old dates in case there was anyone following my posts from the old site:

http://andsawmyself.blogspot.com/

  I hope to be posting here at least once a week or more depending on how my schedule goes.  I have several projects that I have not taken pictures of yet, so as soon as things slow down for me I will be posting quite a bit.

Sewing Retro! 1994 Vogue 8696 Dress a.k.a. My Grandmother's Mumu

Very Easy Very Vogue 8696. The dress I loved, ruined, but will probably be able to fix.

However, I did a little sewing. I put together this ugly little number from a vintage 1994 pattern. I was supposed to look like the cute little maxi my friend wore to our dinner party at the beginning of the month. Turns out it looks like a mu mu. I hate mumus. The even worst part about it is I hate slips, so I lined this dress and now it is noisy. You know, this dress was a big mistake, but I'll post it here with some comments.

The front of my "mumu". Not very Vogue.

The back of my "mumu". Even less Vogue.

This dress isn't the end of the world, it's just a little embarassing. I'll fix it someday. Probably not today. This dress uses A LOT of fabric. I can't emphasize it enough. The skirt is a full circle or more at the bottom and is fairly fitted at the waist (although my version doesn't reflect this). I only paid a dollar a yard for this fabric. It was supposed to be for a junker prom dress version for my niece. I ended up liking the material after she changed her mind and made this dress with it.

The pattern goes together very easy. I strongly recommend a sample before you spend a lot of money on expensive material. I ended up using something like 7 yards of 60" fabric. This dress could easily creep beyond $50 of material. I wanted to match the pattern, so it was a pain laying it out on the floor in the living room because the pieces are so big,, and then keeping the cats off it.

I will make this dress again with a high priced/higher quality solid color that is quiet. I can't emphasize the importance of quiet material enough. I know this sounds strange, but this is the noisiest dress I own and it was supposed to be a casual dress.

I give the pattern a thumbs up, my sewing skills, fabric choice and overall judgement on this pattern a definite thumbs down.

Sewing Retro: B4790 Epilogue

I decided somewhere along the way to sew a few more of these dresses. This way I could use one a week to teach in. I only see each student once a week, but have an entire week of new students. So, technically, I can wear the same thing all week long and no one is the wiser. It's not like I'm wearing it all day long. Just the hours I am teaching. Well, here they are unfinished as a sneak peek:

This black check one is much cuter in real life than this wrinkly picture. I haven't completed all the tape and still need to put on the buttons. As much as I like it, I think the black check is going to be fattening. Another thing I didn't think about when layering this particular fabric is the grabbiness of the gingham. The overskirt wants to ride up when I walk in it.

This one became the one I
anticipated the most. I
really like the black and
white gingham with the
contrasting brick red tape.

It's because of this new found knowledge I am going to make a custom slip out of static free lining fabric. I remember when I wore the green one, it did the same thing. I will be sure to post the making of the slip. I think it will solve the riding up problem.

I thought this one was going
to be the favorite fo the three
because of the tropical print
The fabric ended up much
more stretchy than I care for.

As I said in the caption, the pink one really started out as my personal favorite until I got ot working with five yards of the fabric. It's very stretchy. Of course the green was a little stretchy and I didn't think I was going to like it, but I ended up accepting its virtues so I will wait until it's together.

The good news is that these dresses aren't really being made for me to go "out on the town" in. They are simple dresses I can throw on when I have students. I have four to rotate through as the weeks go by.

This is a very light breezy gray
and white stripe. The front
and bias tape will be a light
yellow in contrast to the
gray.

The awesomeness in this is all four dresses only came to about $20 a piece. I spent a lot of time waiting for sales at online fabric.com and used a coupon at JoAnn Fabrics

Sewing Retro: A Quickie - McCall's 2100 - Sleeve Alterations

McCall's 2100 OOP
HINT: Maxi can only be done on 60" fabric!!
Don't buy 44/45" to do the maxi unless you want
to be doing a lot of math!

Over the weekend I decided to throw together this dress. In a really cute "juvenile" print. The stripes ran lengthwise down the fabric, so I thought it would be awesome to do this on the bias with this pattern from 1999.

I made a rookie mistake here. Always check the suggested fabric widths! I got caught up in the romance of my husband picking the fabric and really liking it. The long version needed 60". I ended up doing it at about a 35 degree angle instead of the 45. I think I liked it more! However, it was a bit more work that made me use my trigonometry knowledge. The 11 inch grain lines that were suppose to represent a 45 degree turn had to be set to a 35 degree turn to fit the long dress on the 45" fabric. What a stupid mistake! I used the size 18 back with size 16 shoulders and the size 22 front with size 16 shoulders. This was a little tricky to think through, but if you all know me by now I will succeed in what I set out to do!

The fabric was a "juvenile" print. I liked
it anyway.

I got the whole dress together and discovered the sleeves were size 16. Again, caught up in the moment of sewing this new dress, I ended up forgetting the alterations to the sleeve size for my "fat" arms. You can see the sleeves don't look proportionate in this picture:

Look at the disproportionately small sleeves.
They're size 16. How did I manage that nonsense?

I tried the dress on and the sleeves were so tight it was like a blood pressure cuff. I thought about different ways I could get around having to take them off. I had pretty much decided in some squared off cap sleeves when I remembered the simple process of making sleeves larger without going up a size! Here is a crash course:

Step 1
Can you see where I cut a center line up the sleeve?

For step one, cut a center line up the sleeve from the bottom. Leave just a small amount of paper together at the ease mark. With this cut, you will be able to make the sleeve bigger around without change the sleeve hole. Remember: The size of the sleeve hole is not the problem, the size of the sleeve around is the problem.

Now for Step two, measure your arm, or better yet, while you're at it, measure how roomy you'd like the sleeve to be. I wanted 17". The bottom of the sleeve is curved, so use half of the sleeve to see get a straighter line then multiply by two. I had 14", so I needed to add 3". Most alterations don't recommend adding more than 2". I wanted it a little roomier, so I went with the 3".

Step 3
Spread the sleeve the amount you want to add. Don't forget
the 1 1/4" for seam allowances.

Now spread the sleeve open the amount you want to add to the circumference of the sleeve. Don't forget the 1 1/4" for both seam allowances! I had a total length of 18 1/4" or 9 1/8" for half.

My picture shows the alteration to a size 16 for the shoulders. We're not going to address that here. It's pretty complicated to explain, but very easy to do.

Hopefully now you can see that we've made the sleeve bigger without making the armhole bigger. Do you realize if I made the whole sleeve bigger what I mess that would be?

Step 4 adding the paper and taping it in place.

For step 4, I'm putting a scrap of the paper under the pattern and taping it in place.

We need to also take into consideration that the sleeve for the size I want--too big to figure. Is going to be longer. No way would a size 28 or bigger sleeve only be an inch long. To me, it would just look stupid.

Some math reveals I need to add about an inch and a half to 2 inches to the length of the sleeve. You can do what you want here. I just think it would be silly to leave the sleeve so short with such a wide circumference. Here's my picture of the added inches and the finished product:

Added inches to sleeve and circumference.

I did remove the sleeves and added the new ones. It looks much better and what I think is much more proportionate:

See the much more proportionate sleeves?

I am happy with the angle. I think it is much more flattering than the 45 degree and different too! I'm happy with this dress and the ease of the pattern.

This is the original dress so you can compare.
To me, the sleeves were just too small and
besides that, they didn't fit me and that's the
whole point!