Tag: projects

The good thing about making three of the same shirt is that there is time to improve on one’s task at hand.  So it went with attaching tiny ruffles to the sleeves.  I learned that I should trim all the tiny ruffles down a bit before sewing, so the millions of bits of thread don’t have to be removed later. I learned that it’s best to smoosh the ruffles so there is maximum ruffle, because that will still be enough to go around.  I learned that one should attach tiny ruffles to the sleeves and then trim a lot of the bulk from the seam line, which will make it easier to attach the bias tape.
 

Here’s some bias binding happening.  I’m noticing I still haven’t learned the trick for making sure the bias tape endings aren’t raw.  But I learned that trick too.
 

I’ve set in sleeves in my day and I like the process, if not always the result.  I like putting in three rows of gathering thread, which will be exuberantly ripped out once the sleeve is securely in place.  I went with bright orange because I’ve been ripping through the blue thread on this project, but also because contrast is easier to pull out after the fact.  Those are six sleeves, ready to be inserted and three shirts, ready to receive those sleeves.
 

Here they are, three sets of sleeve ruffles, nearly ready to ruffle.
 

And here I am ruffling them.  My fingers ached from all the pulling of bobbin threads.  I do a lot with my hands and they are pretty strong and don’t usually bother me, but something about the pinching and pulling really took its toll.  But there’s no crying in sewing.  (That’s a completely untrue statement.  There is often a fair amount of crying in sewing, especially when you finish a dress and decide the collar is horrid.  Just to take one random example.)
 

Attempt #3 at continuous bias tape was more successful with this tutorial.  The part that helped me the most is in the picture on the screen.  No Big Dill suggests actually numbering your lines so you can match things up and that worked wonders for me.
 

Cutting the continuous bias tape. Very satisfying.
 

French seams are awesome.  They neatly encase the raw edge of your fabric in a tube that is part of the fabric and would otherwise just be hanging out, needing finishing.  To make them you sew the seam with the wrong sides together (it feels so wrong, but it’s right), trim said seam, press open (and then over, if you are anal like me) and then pin the right sides together and sew the same seam again, then press again.  Here is a tutorial if you are interested.

If you followed all that, you have just realized that each seam of my three shirts needs to be stitched twice, trimmed once, and pressed twice.  There are seven seams per shirt (two neck, one back, two sides, and two sleeves) and three shirts so that makes 21 seams total which means 42 seams, 21 trims, and 42 pressing sessions.  All that is to say that all I did today was sew french seams until my eyes crossed.  Holy cow.

Here’s an example of the back.
 

The shoulder.
 

And the sleeve.  Still, they look pretty, don’t they?  And they are strong too, which is good for a work shirt.
 

To give myself a break, I started to make bias tape.  Here’s my fabric.
 

And here’s my joined triangle.
 

And here is me realizing that I have the angles wrong.  Blast!
This image comes from Colette Pattern’s book on the Laurel Variations, which is free to download and where I learned about the tiny ruffle variation of the Laurel.
 

To cheer myself, I cut out the fabric for the tiny ruffles.
 

All the fitting that is going to be done has been done.  So now it’s time to cut.  As you can see, my helper arrived right on schedule.  Unfortunately, he decided the best way to “help” would be to race around on top of the fabric.  This resulted in the helper being shut in the bedroom for a while.
 

Shirt pieces were cut.  And cut again.  And again.  It’s at this point that I think to myself, “If I was only making one of these shirts, I would be done by now.”  I’m sure that will not be the last time I have that thought.
 

Prepping the neckline for facings.
 

I used the tutorial from Gertie.
 

Shirts with neck facings.

Important note from the future:  For those of us making the tiny ruffle variation of the Laurel, I think the organza is overkill for the stay stitching.  There’s going to be a ruffle and bias tape there, no need to add the organza too.  Skip this step if you haven’t already done it.  Just do the stay stitching.  I’m guessing that’s all you need.

Here’s the new fit with the new FBA.  There is still that line of extra fabric from the bust, but I’m done fiddling.  We will just go from here.
 

I splurged and bought the Dritz magnetic pin cushion.  I did not like it.  The magnet isn’t very strong and the pins fly off.  Do not buy one.
 

Pressing 10.5 yards of fabric is a very daunting task.
 

Happily, my drying racks came in handy for storing the pressed material.
 

My apron patterns needed to be enlarged.  I took care of two of the pieces on the copy machine at work.
 

But two pieces needed to be enlarged more than 400% so I went to (what I still think of as) Kinkos.  (Now known as Fed/Ex.)  A wonderful employee Heatherann helped me and look!  For $3.75 I didn’t have to tape a million sheets of paper together.  That was so worth it!
 

I’m giving myself a bit more room in the sleeves.
 

And I’m doing one more full bust adjustment.

Notice that this time I angled the pattern back together at the waistline.  Now we shall see if I get more room in the bust area with less fabric in the waist area.

Straight from the dryer.  The blue in the back is the color of the shirts/dresses. The striped material in the middle is to make bias binding for the shirts/dresses. The green seersucker (this is how I can get more seersucker in my wardrobe) and awesome print are for aprons.  Note:  It is very difficult to dry 10.5 yards of fabric.  Very, very difficult.
 

To review: Full Bust Adjustment gave more room in the bust, but then, due to lack of dart, gave too much room in the abdomen area.  I have not been able to find any solutions for this on the Internet and so…
 

…here is where I remove some from the sides to attempt to fix this problem.  It’s all I can think to do.
 

Eh.  I’m not sure that did much good.
 

Plus, now I’m wrinkly in the back.
 

I’m making the sleeve a bit bigger.
 

And here I am with sleeves. I don’t like how they flare out.
 

Back view.
 

Yep.  I think the sleeves need to be even bigger.
 

So I’m writing this a few weeks after I took this picture which is a bad thing.  First off, this is going to be a “hmmm.  I think I was doing this here” sort of post.  But here goes.

I’m pretty sure this was the first go-round with the muslin.
Back. It would behoove you to take note of how loose and floppy the back is, especially in the lower back area.
 

Front. You can see where I’ve drawn in a line at my waist.  Also, please note the lines radiating from the bust point above and below the bust.  This will become important later.
 

More back?  Or perhaps a picture where I show off my massive arm?

After I took those pictures, I’m pretty sure I had Matt pin out the back according to the instructions on the Threads Torso Fitting DVD.  It seems that patterns are drafted as if we are straight up and down in the back and surprisingly, we are not, so there is usually a ton of excess fabric.  So here’s how it looks now, after pulling some of that fabric out.  Better along the top.
 

But still a bit poofy nearer the waist.  Except apparently I found that okay at the time.
 

 The cats helped by watching.

 

Here is my muslin ripped apart and set up to redo the seam.  Look at all that I took out.
 

And then, due to my massive deltoids, I just went ahead and gave me more room in the underarm area.
 

Given the wrinkles around the bust line, I finally agreed that perhaps I am not a B cup any longer.  Which means it was time for my first Full Bust Adjustment!  And here it is.
 

And here is how it looks recut and resewed.  So much more room.  It was a bit of a revelation.
 

But I think there might be too much room now? And look how much extra is in the stomach area.
 

 This is me frowning because I’m not really sure how to get rid of that excess material.