purchasedt with rose &butterfly

purchasedt with rose &butterfly
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

I haven't embroidered much in a long time. I embroidered a few Christmas items and nothing since. I purchased this T at WalMart with the intent of embroiderying something on it.

I took a rosebud and added a butterfly combining the design with my 4D Embroidery software. I then embroidered two small rosebuds that are designs included on my machine.

I enjoyed doing this. Needed a break from sewing my dress when I did this. Now the dress is complete. I want to add one more embroidered rose perhaps at the bottom area of this T.

My next sewing project is to sew up some knit tops and a few blouses.

V8319 lapped zipper

V8319 lapped zipper
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

I used a lapped zipper method for the back zipper. I really like how it turned out.

V8319 wth Simplicity jacket

V8319 wth Simplicity jacket
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

Here is a shot of the dress with the jacket. The colors in this photo are off. The dress is more of a seafoam green, this is looking more teal.

V8319 Dress Finally Complete

V8319
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

I am so happy to report that this dress is finally complete except for the hem. This has truly been a sewing excursion with this pattern. The dress is a good fit and need to get it pressed after hemmed so I can wear it soon.

From the Chocolate Oracle

What Your Taste in Chocolate Says About You

You are sophisticated, modern, and high class. Your taste is refined, but you are not picky. You are often the first to try something new. You are a whimsical person prone to daydreaming. Artistic and creative, you're always in the middle of a project. While you are an inspiration to others, you can come off as flaky. You love to be the center of attention. You enjoy entertaining your friends. You feel lost when no one is interested in you... You're too interesting to be ignored.

http://www.blogthings.com/thechocolateoracle/">The Chocolate Oracle

Trials and Tribulations-Conclusion

Stopping to work on the project and take a shower, helped to clear my mind. Giving some thought to what could be wrong; I decided I must have cut the front piece using the wrong center fold line. This pattern has several optional center front fold lines. Not seen this before on other patterns. If this was the case I did not have enough lining fabric to cut out another front piece. My thoughts continued along the lines, of how can I save this?

My idea was to measure how much I was off in matching from shoulder seam to center front to other shoulder seam. Once this was determined I decided I would cut the front lining piece on the center front and insert a piece of fabric that would expand the width so seam lines at neckline would match up. I did not act on this on Sunday afternoon as I actually fell sick later from either a stomach virus or food poisoning.

The next morning, feeling somewhat better, I proceeded slowly to get dress. In this process, I decided to baste the back and side seams of the dress fabric to see how this was fitting since I was working off of the fit of the lining unit. When I put on the dress, I was totally surprised that the front neckline on the dress was gaping seriously. It looked like I had a modified cowl neckline. That is not the style of this dress. I again was flummoxed by this fitting issue. The armholes were rather tight, which was not an issue with the lining unit.

I removed the dress and held the neckline up to the neckline of the lining unit. Now, dear reader as Stephen King writes, do you have any idea what the problem could be with this? The light bulb clicked on for me and mystery solved!!! Remember in my previous post, if you read it all that I noted the yoke pattern pieces were not clearly marked as to the shoulder and armholes on the yoke pieces? Once I saw how wide the neckline looked and how tight the fit was at the underarms, I realized I had sewn the yoke pieces to the front piece totally incorrect. The neckline was really the armhole curve and shoulder line was the armholes. That evening I removed the yoke pieces and re-stitched correctly.

Yes, the dress and the lining now match up at the neckline. The armholes now match and I can now proceed with sewing the units together and getting the dress finished.

I feel a little stupid at doing this. I mean I have been sewing since junior high. Sometimes I am what I call a concrete thinker; i.e., don't leave out any steps assuming that you will just "know" what to include between steps. I did not really read through the instructions again with this dress as I had made it before. Have you ever done anything like this? I am still wondering where I lost my brain during this process. I do feel better that I did not waste my fabric and that I will get a new dress to wear with my new jacket.

THE END AND ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER!

Sewing Trials and Tribulations-Part 1

I began working on the Vogue dress two weekends ago. This recent past weekend, I spent over 5 hours on this dress. For a pattern that I made before, I have had a hard time with this one. My difficulty with it is that I have made more sewing mistakes than I probably should admit here. But since this is a sewing diary, I thought I would write about my trials and tribulations with what should be an easy dress to make.

Marking the darts on the dress fabric the previous weekend proved to be a difficult task due to the weight and slippery fabric. I did accomplish it but was time consuming. The lining fabric was easier to do. Since the dress has a lining, I feel like I am making two dresses. As I sewed the darts in the dress unit I did so with the lining unit.

The dress has front and back small yoke pieces; you cut four fronts and four backs using them for the dress and lining. These yoke pieces were the biggest issue for me with this dress. I also did not make notes on how these pieces fit from my previous sewing of this dress and unfortunately I did not look at the instructions/drawings when I began to sew these yokes onto the front and back bodice pieces. The yoke pieces also do not have any notations as to shoulder or arm edges. I sewed the back yokes to the back lining pieces first. To my dismay they did not go all the way from neckline to side seam. I thought I could not have cut them out in the wrong size. I then thought perhaps I am to ease the back bodice to the yoke. This was not so as there was no way that anyone could ease that amount of difference together, though I will admit I did try this. I pulled out the pattern pieces to make sure that I had not cut incorrectly. I didn't. Thus I decided I needed to read the instructions; nothing there to indicate that the yokes fit only between neckline and end just past the dart. However upon closer inspection of the drawings it was apparent that they did just end right past the dart. Upon realizing that, I completed sewing the yokes to front and back bodice pieces for the lining unit as well as the dress unit.

Using a tip from Pattern Review, which is, to make the lining first so you can make fitting adjustments to it before tackling the garment. I found this to be a good tip to use. I sewed the front and back shoulders together for the lining. I then basted the side and back seams for fitting the dress. The bust area was a little snug but to loose in the upper chest part. So I took a deeper seam in the upper dart and reduced the rest of the dart at the full bust area stopping just below the bust and right above waist area. I also used 3/8 seam allowance under the arm through the bust area, increasing to 5/8 from waist to hemline. This worked well. Of note, when I made this dress previously I did a FBA and I also increased the back width. With that dress increasing the back width was a mistake and thus after making that dress, I removed all of the back width adjustment I had added to the back pattern piece. Thus this dress was a little snugger because of that and the fabric is different also, more clingy. Now with all these adjustments, I had a nice fitting lining. I then actually sewed the bust basted adjustments noted above and then removed the side and back seam basting, noting what seam allowances I needed to sew when I was ready to sew the side and back seams.

I then replicated the same bust adjustments to the dress fabric. I then proceeded to attach the dress unit to the lining unit at the neckline and was going to do the same at the armholes as I like this technique for lining a sleeveless dress. When I got ready to pin the necklines together they did not fit. The dress unit's neckline was much bigger than the lining. I was just dumbfounded and flummoxed! I expressed a few explicatives. I decided I needed to walk away from this at that point. I kept thinking how I had spent a considerable amount of time with this dress so far, I had to redo the sewing of the yokes and spent considerable time fitting the darn thing. I decided to take a shower and call it quits for the day. I even vowed to take up quilting and to do more embroidering with my machine than garment sewing. But the final thing I did was take a photo of my dress. Here are two views:

Stay tuned for part two.

Coat Fabric Arrived

I am participating in the GCSA-Great Coat Sew Along. I purchased my coat fabric as I only had plaid coat fabric in my stash and just did not want to tackle matching plaids, etc. for this sew along. My fabric arrived last Thursday and it is gorgeous! But then it should be as I purchased it from Gorgeous Fabrics. It is a royal blue flannel coating and the royal blue was what I had in mind when ordering. As you know sometimes the monitor colors and the real color can be off some or a lot.

We have had a heat wave in our area with temps as high 100 degrees. When I took my coat fabric out of the box, I kept thinking this is like a wool blanket. Not a bad thing when it is cold outside.

Sewing going here-NOT!

Work is once again consuming my time. Today I travel to Richmond with my boss and another co-worker. Meetings begin at 5 PM with a "working dinner buffet". Feels like indigestion to me!
We plan to shut down for the evening around 9:00 PM after having worked at least four hours prior to driving to Richmond. Last night and this AM has been devoted to packing.

I will return home tomorrow evening so will hopefully get some sewing time in to complete the dress I started. I have numerous thoughts on what to sew up next. Trying to find that balance between work, family and sewing.

Later.

PMB Feedback

Thanks to Dana, Towanda and Els for their comments regarding the pattern draft. Towanda, I will send my measurements to Karen at Wild Ginger. I think that the dart uptake and side arm point are options I should try. I read more in the User's Guide. The bra cup size I think is also affecting the draft as I read the guide.

V8319

I made progress now that I decided on the dress to make. I made Vogue 8319 previously. Now that I have the fit issues taken care of this should go together fairly quickly. The fabric I am using for this dress is a little softer and less body than the fabric I used for the previous version.

The lining I am using is not quite the same color as the dress, more blue than green. It does go well with the jacket. I think it will work out okay. This is one of three lining fabrics I purchased from Trendy Fabrics several months ago. Their price was fantastic and the lining is a good quality.

I had some issues marking the dart lines on the front and back piece. The dart shape is unusual and the fabric kept moving on me. I took my time and got them marked on the fabric as well as the lining fabric.

I decided to serge finish the edges of the dress and lining fabric as both tend to ravel very easily.
Darts are sewn in the front dress fabric and lining. If I had not spent so much time on the PMB dress draft, this could be finished. Other house chores needed my attention so stopped sewing for the moment.