Striped Strathcona

My husband often jokes, "When are you going to make me a suit?" And I tell him that I will never make him a suit.  Never say never, but honestly, few sewing prospects excite me less than the idea of tackling a full men's suit.

But a t-shirt? That I can do.

Last year I bought the Thread Theory Parkland Wardrobe Builder. I love all three pieces and am looking forward to making the Jedediah shorts this summer and a Newcastle cardigan for fall.  But first I tried out the Strathcona Henley.

I measured J carefully, this being the first time I have ever sewn for him, and he fell squarely into the medium size.  I was concerned, having read reviews that recommended sizing up, that this might be too small, but decided to go ahead and as you can see, it is fine.  I read over the instructions for the placket, noting that those without much experience sewing knits were encouraged to hand sew the placket.  I have a lot of knit experience, though, so I figured I could handle it.  Plus, I wasn't sure that hand-sewing through six layers of fabric and two of interfacing at the bottom of the placket was going to be all that easy.

Well.  I had a beast of a time with that placket. I lost count of how many times I ripped out my top stitching, how many times I re-pressed the placket, how many times I tugged at it to get it to sit right. And finally I gave up.  It's a t-shirt.  It should not take 5 hours to sew.  The placket looks ok from a distance, and I guess that is fine, as no one but me should be getting that close to my husband anyway ;)

J is 6'1" but his height is all in his legs.  So I cut 3" off the hem before turning it up 1". I probably should have cut off just 2".  I cut the short sleeves per the pattern but ended up taking 3" off those, too, and I like the length they ended up.

I asked him how he liked it and he was kind of blasé about the whole thing.  It turns out he's not particularly fond of the fabric I chose.  The Cloud 9 organic cotton interlock is dreamy to wear (I know, I tried the shirt on to see how it would look on me - and it's definitely cut for a man, in case you were wondering), but he does not like the color.

I may have told him to suck it up.  I think the color really suits him, and it is a nice neutral to go with some of his more colorful shorts. But I have ordered some rust orange, charcoal and light blue knits to make him a couple basic tees from the pattern.  The man loves orange.

I don't think it is super-noticeable in these photos, but J's left shoulder is lower than his right.  This is a result of the stroke.  While his left shoulder and arm are no longer entirely immobile, they are still vastly weaker than the right side.  So his muscles don't hold his left shoulder up the way they do his right.  As I was writing this post, I noticed that the neckline of the shirt shifts over to the left until it is stopped by his neck.  In addition to making it look like the shirt is too big on the left side, it makes the left sleeve does hang funny off his shoulder and it looks as though it is longer than the right sleeve, when in fact they are exactly the same.  

Going forward, I wonder whether there is an easy fix for this issue.  I've heard about sloping shoulder adjustments but don't know exactly what they entail, nor whether it is possible to do the adjustment on one shoulder only. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be happy to hear your ideas!

Thanks for reading!

Palm Sunday green

Today is Palm Sunday on the Julian calendar.  It is customary in our church to wear green to Palm Sunday services.  On Friday, Zoia noted with a twinge of melancholy that she did not have a green dress in her closet.  I told her that I would try to sew her one, but cautioned that it would be a tight squeeze to have a dress ready by Sunday morning. In her typical, sweet, undemanding way, she said "Mama, I would really love it if my dress is ready on Palm Sunday.  But if it is not, I will wear something else."

There was no way I was going to fail this child.

Last year I bought the Oliver+S Roller Skate pattern in the larger size range.  I had had my eye on it ever since the pattern came out, but was waiting until my girls outgrew the smaller sizes to buy it.  With only two pattern pieces to cut, it seemed like the perfect.quick sew.

I cut the dress in a size 5, lengthened 1.25".  After it was sewn up, I tried it on her and it was just long enough.  I had planned to add lace trim to the hem anyway, so I just stitched my 1.75" trim to the hem with a 1/4" seam allowance for a total of 2.5" added to the length of the size 5 dress.  I'm really glad I did this as it is a great fit now and should last through the season.  As I was sewing the dress, I thought I might like to add some embroidery to the bodice (or maybe the skirt, I'm not sure).  I didn't have time before the deadline, but I still might go back and add it.  Though the dress was plenty cute without it, and got compliments at church.

The fabric is a Japanese shot cotton shirting purchased from FabricMart a year or so ago. It is iridescent and lovely, though you can't tell from the photos.  The perfectly matching button was a thrift store find, part of a giant bag of buttons that cost about $1.50.  I love buying thrift store button bags - but at this point I've bought enough of them that I need to go through and cull to make my own button bag to donate to the thrift store!  The dress is lined in a very light white cotton shirting, also from the stash.

The dress was an easy and enjoyable sew, but I struggled quite a bit getting the elastic threaded through the casing.  I had had to go out earlier this week to buy 1/2" elastic for Niko's Easter pants, and I guess it had been awhile since I had shopped for elastic.  I didn't pay attention to the type that I bought, and it is some horrid flimsy curly braided stuff that twists like crazy when you stretch it.  I actually did not even end up using it for Niko's pants because it was so awful.  For the dress, I had no other options, and it took me about 40 minutes to get it threaded through the casing, untwisted, and sewn in.  

It was worth it, though.  Zoia is thrilled with her new dress.  I was reflecting as I sewed this how irritating, and likely frustrating, it would have been to have to run out this weekend searching for a green dress in the stores.  One of my very favorite things about sewing is being able to fill a wardrobe need with my sewing machine and my stash.

Parachute pants and the boy on the pink bike

G recently turned 3 and ditched the diapers.  He also got huge, and consequently outgrew his favorite pants. They were the sweatpants from a 2T Elmo hoodie-and-pants outfit that my mother sent him for Christmas, four months before she died.  They were the last item of clothing she gave any of my children.  So G wore them as flood pants for quite awhile before I could bring myself to retire them.

The Oliver+S Parachute pattern seemed like a perfect replacements.  I have had my eye on it since it was released, and I had even mentally reserved a piece of stash fabric for it.  It is a super-soft forest green cotton/lycra French terry, purchased from Fabric.com ages ago when I was curious to know what exactly French terry was (and was overseas and not near any stores that sold it).  I cut the pants' stripes from a scrap of cotton interlock leftover from a yet-unblogged blanket I sewed G a couple months ago.

I veered off the instructions when it came time to sew the waistband.  I truly abhor sewing elastic casings in knit fabrics, so I first sewed the waistband to the right side of the top of the pants, then serged my 1" elastic directly to the wrong side of the top of the waistband.  Then I folded over the waistband and coverstitched from the right side.  Doing it this way meant that I had to trim off some of the waistband at the bottom, as it was drafted wider than the elastic to make room to stitch the casing.  Next time I should probably measure the waistband piece and trim it before sewing.

And yes, my boy rides a pink balance  bike.  Having two older sisters will do that to a guy.  He is a beast on this thing, though - my husband takes him to a BMX course where he competes with other kids in the 3-and-4 age group.  While watching him today I realized that all that practice has paid off; he is nearly ready for a proper pedal bike now.

These balance bikes are great.  After about a year of riding on it, Natasha graduated to her big girl pedal bike (no training wheels) before her 4th birthday.  It took Zoia a little longer, but she was still riding her big girl bike by age 5.  And G seems on track to beat N's record.

Back to the pants.

As directed, I made casings for the elastic at the ankle and it really wasn't bad at all with the coverstitch machine.  I think maybe I should reevaluate my thoughts on knit elastic casings now that I can use the coverstitch to sew them.

I sewed the size 4, which is still a bit long on him.  I cut the ankle elastic 10.75" as directed in the pattern, but the first day he wore them the bottoms kept slipping down over his heel.  So I had to rip out some of my coverstitching (ugh) and shorten the elastic.  I shortened it to 9" and sewed it together with a 3/8" overlap.  This works much better for G.

I coverstitched the rise seam after sewing it together for extra durability, and I'm glad I did - these are going to get worn out before they are outgrown!

G was nothing less than thrilled when he saw the pants back in his drawer after my fix.  They are his new favorites, and he wears them whenever they are clean.  I like them too.  Though comfy, the slimmer fit makes them smarter than many RTW sweatpants I have seen.  They're really the perfect pant for this age group. 

Making clothes my kids love (and of which I approve) is some of the most satisfying sewing.

Thanks for reading!

First quilt

A good friend of mine is due any minute with her fifth child (and first boy!).



This happy turn of events coincided with a recent longing, quiet at first but growing persistently louder, to make a quilt.

I used this tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew and fabrics from my stash for the quilt top and binding.



The piecing went relatively smoothly.  I read roughly a billion tutorials online about all aspects of making a quilt, and was feeling pretty confident when it was time to make my quilt sandwich.  So one night while J and I were watching TV, I taped the backing to the dining room floor, layered my batting and top, and stuck 90 pins into my 39"-ish square-ish quilt with what I thought was the greatest care.



When I started quilting, though, it was pucker city on my quilt top.  I kept going, thinking that the quilt would just look "organic." But with each new quilting line, the quilt appeared ever less "organic" and ever more "assembled by chimpanzee."



So I grumbled a little about how hard quilting is, but ultimately ripped out the stitches, pressed the heck out of the top and the backing, and started over.  This time I used twice as much duct tape to tape my backing to the dining room floor and took a lot more time smoothing the backing, the batting, and finally the quilt top.  Then I stuck 170-odd pins into the quilt.

And I guess you really need a mass quantity of pins to successfully pin a quilt because this time it was much better.  I quilted the vertical brown rails first, by stitching in the ditch.  Which, by the way, is really not so easy.  I've done a bit of stitching-in-the-ditch in garment sewing, but that's never more than a few inches at a time.  These long lines were a lot harder.  I kept popping out.

Then I quilted the horizontal seams on either side of the center rail, starting from the inside of the quilt and sewing out to the edges.  That worked well.  At the end I did the horizontal quilting lines on the "flipped" portion of the quilt, between the rails.  In retrospect, I probably should have started quilting those lines from the middle of the flipped portion, and then moving up or down.  Instead I started at one end and you can kind of see how the strips got distorted towards the purple and brown end.

The backing is a white with black crosshatch quilting cotton I got at Joann's.  I should have taken a close-up of the fabric, but I think it's a perfect contrast to the print-crazy quilt top.

I hand-stitched the binding to the back of the quilt in front of the TV over an evening and an afternoon.  Just like with my second quilt, I found that process immensely satisfying.  Up until that point, I don't think I quite believed that I was really going to end up with a quilt.

I am pretty happy with the finished product, but I wish I had used flannel or something thinner for the inner layer.  I used some Warm and Natural cotton/poly blend batting that I had in the stash and it seems a little thick for this size quilt.  A thinner quilt would drape a bit better and be easier to wrap an actual baby in.

But I think it will make a nice play mat.

Summer nightie

This fabric, a crinkly cotton gauze bought on sale.  I was indifferent to it when it arrived.  I used it last fall for my Josephine, feeling meh about it as I sewed.  And then once the blouse was done, I del l in love with the fabric and wished I had more of it.

Then my sister asked me to sew a summer nightgown for my niece.  She had outgrown the one I sewed her three years ago.  I had just enough of the gauze left for the job.  Again I was ambivalent.  I thought, this will use up the cut and it is the perfect weight for a summer nightgown.  So off I went.

Once again, I fell in love with the fabric.  Which is serendipitous given that FabricMart just got more in.  I'm thinking of ordering another couple of yards.

The pattern is Kwik Sew 3423, which I sewed before here and here. I made a size 4 (my niece actually wears a 5 or a 6 but the pattern is roomy).  I made a couple of adjustments.  First, the pattern calls for 1/4" seam allowances which I don't like - little girls tend to jump around and put pressure on the bodice/skirt seam.  Several of the other nightgowns I made using this pattern ended up with holes there.  So now I alter the pattern pieces to allow for a 1/2" seam allowance there.  I sewed the seam with my sewing machine, then serged the edges without trimming for a second line of stitching.

The pattern calls for finishing the neckline and the armholes with lace edging which is zig-zagged to the raw edge to prevent raveling.  I finished the neckline with invisible bias instead.

My final issue with the pattern has to do with the button placket on the back.  The pattern calls for folding the placket over and then applying interfacing to the edge.  The raw edge of the fabric+interfacing is then just left raw.  I finished it with my serger but in the future I think I'll add 1/4" to either side so that I can fold the raw edges under and topstitch.  I don't know why they don't do that in the pattern.

Z agreed to model her cousin's nightie for me before we gave it away.  Her cousin is just a tiny bit shorter than she is.  If i had had more fabric I would have lengthened it a bit, but I figure it will fit this year and next.

Second Quilt

After my husband's stroke, we were positively overwhelmed, in the best way, by the kindness of people wanting to help.  People brought food, offered to watch the children, donated leave, sent gifts and visited J in the hospital.  One of J's colleagues did all of those things and also sent real, hand-written snail-mail letters to J while he was in acute rehabilitation to lift his spirits and give him something to look forward to.

Those letters were such a small thing but they meant so much to J.  I think they helped him feel like he had not been forgotten or left behind.  I felt, and still feel, so grateful to the letter-writer.  So when he recently became a father, I wanted to return part of his kindness by making something very special for his little boy.

J has been back at work for nearly two months now and it is going really well.  He is walking and driving and providing, and we are finally seeing some movement in his previously paralyzed left hand.  He actually wrote his name with it this week!  Considering that he is only 10 months out from his stroke, this is pretty amazing.

We are really fortunate.

So ... the quilt.  This is actually my second quilt, made on the heels of my first.  The first one is still unblogged as it has yet to reach its final destination - but it will be up soon.

This one is a wonky star quilt, based on Elizabeth Hartman's Sparkle Punch quilt.  I made it using only fabrics from my stash (though I did have to buy the batting). 

I found the piecing fun and relatively quick, but the quilting was difficult.  I think maybe my walking foot doesn't work properly - I don't ever find that it evens out the feed discrepancy of the upper and lower fabrics as much as I think it should.  It's also possible that my expectations are too high.  In any case, I was completely unable to keep my stitch length uniform.  This is not a large quilt - about 40" square - and I tried really hard to support the weight of the quilt uniformly, but it still got stuck under the presser foot quite often because I wasn't supporting it well enough.

This was kind of disappointing because I think I have caught the quilting bug and I'd really like to attempt something larger ... but I am afraid to try something bigger than this little baby quilt.  So if anyone has tips, I am all ears!

The back is pieced from leftover fabric from the quilt.  I don't love it, but I was trying to work with stash and my travels around Internet quilt-land show that this is a common way to make a backing.

 

My favorite part of the whole process had to be the binding.  I hand-sewed it on, and I found it thoroughly satisfying.

 

I enjoy a little hand-sewing at the end of a project.  I know a lot of people hate it, but I don't mind an hour's work finishing something in front of the TV.  That said, I enjoyed sewing on this binding so much more than turning up a hem.  It is transformative in a way that adding buttons to an otherwise completed garment is not.  A shirt without buttons still looks like a shirt - it isn't going to look that much different once the buttons are on (unless, I guess, they are crazy loud novelty buttons).  But after you've quilted a quilt, but before it is bound, it still looks very unfinished and very different from the way it will look when that excess backing is cut away and those threads are trimmed.  Sewing the binding on wraps up that mess in a neat little package and all of a sudden you have yourself a quilt.  It is so cool!

So, there you go.  Quilt #2.  I'm already dreaming about #3.  But I just got some new clothing patterns in the mail so I had better go sew some pants or something.

 

Photos and the Internet ... and some jeggings

I have had a hard time making up my mind when it comes to social networking.  I've been in and out of Facebook a couple of times now (current status: out, I find I'm a lot happier that way).  I'm on Ravelry but mostly use it as a knitting notebook rather than a social outlet.  When I started posting my sewing projects to Flickr in 2011, I was very shy about showing my kids' faces.  And I was the same way when I started this blog - I didn't even use their names.

So for the last five years or so, a fierce debate has been raging in my head.  Do I go the route of some of the blogs I follow, which feature lovely photos in which you never see a child's face? Probably Actually, S is for Sewing and Nest Full of Eggs come to mind.  Or the route of other bloggers who draw you in with beautiful photos of their kids and funny stories to illustrate their temperaments?  (See Five and Counting, Stitched Together and Inder Loves Folk Art).

The latter blogs drew me in, made me feel welcome and almost part of the family.  I got to know them and I loved it.  I wanted, so much, to share a little bit of our life, to participate in this community the way many others do, to feel a little less anonymous.  So I began using my children's real names on the blog and started posting photos featuring their faces.  I did the same on Flickr.

And then one day, maybe six weeks ago, I received a notification that someone whose name I did not recognize had favorited a couple of my photos on Flickr.  This happens from time to time.  I usually click through to see who they are, have a browse through their photos or favorites to get a sense of whether they are interested in sewing or something else.  If it's "something else," I will usually block them, but of course I am aware there may be others interested in "something else" who are looking at my photos and never make themselves known.

The man in question was interested in a few photos of Gabriel wearing swim trunks I had sewn last year.  I opened his favorites with a sinking feeling that was confirmed when my eyes met with row upon row of photos of little boys - wearing little or nothing.

I wanted to throw up.  I immediately blocked him and set about fiddling with my privacy settings.

It's not that I did not know that this was a possibility.  In fact, the photos in question were headless because I was uncomfortable posting identifiable photos of my son in his swimsuit.  So I'm not stupid.  But even so, seeing photos of my little boy in that line-up ... it was an awful kick in the stomach.

So I thought about it.  For weeks.  And ultimately I have decided that I don't want to stop blogging.  I don't want to leave Flickr.  I don't want to go Internet dark.  (In fact, I even joined Instagram last week - mostly because no one is on Flickr anymore - find me here).  But I just don't feel totally comfortable posting identifiable photos of my kids online - honestly I am not sure I ever was fully comfortable with it.  So from now on I will mostly be posting headless photos and the like.

As for these headless shots, they are both Oliver+S Playtime Leggings in jegging fabric - two different fabrics bought at different times at different stores and I don't remember any of the details.

Z's are a size 5 with an extra inch of length and N's are a size 5 with 4" extra.  She probably only needed 3" extra but I accounted for shrinkage and growth; I need these to get us to summer at the least.   My love for this pattern is already well documented (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), so  I guess there isn't much more to say about that!