Diamonds - Jacket - Part VI

You Won't Believe It!

I'll let you think about that for a minute, while I answer a question that was in the comments - actually I have a few of these to answer, so over the next few days I'll try to get to them all. I'm posting them here because everyone can benefit from them. Vicki wanted to know:

". . . why do you add the dress hangers on the dress - is it to take the weight off the shoulders while hanging? Or to ensure it does not slip off the hanger?"

There are several reasons to use dress hangers. First, it is difficult to hang a strapless dress or one with an usual neckline/bodice design. The only way to do it is to use a skirt hanger with clips and clip it to the hanger. If I did this, it would be from the hem, upside down, as the bodices are usually uneven at the top and of course this would only work if the gown has a straight skirt with an even hem. Second, if the dress does have straps of some sort - spaghetti or otherwise, it's not a good idea to hang it from the straps, especially a very heavy gown as the weight of the gown will stretch the straps and strain or break the seam where the strap is attached. The dress hangers help to take the weight off the upper edge of the dress. If the dress is very heavy, I might actually use two hangers per side - one in the side seam and one anchored at the waist area. Third, many fabrics used in formal wear are very slippery and won't stay on hangers terribly well and need a little help.

Back to the jacket. I bet you can already guess what I'm going to say. I didn't like the square buttons; they're not hideous, just not right for this project. I got them pinned on the jacket and didn't like them. My daughter happened to show up on the studio about this time and she didn't like them, either. I was curious, so I asked her why she didn't like them - before I told her why I didn't like them. She said they looked a bit yellowish, were a bit too big and sort of odd with the jacket. Well, she was right on. She picked up the sparkly buttons I had pulled out from the previous round of candidates, held one up to the jacket and declared she liked those better. Again, I asked her why. She said they were simpler and more silvery/crystal like and looked better with the jacket. It's very interesting what's going on in her head recently. At any rate, here are the photos, not great, but good enough to get an overall impression of the jacket.

I did go ahead with the sparkly buttons. The square ones seem to dominate the jacket and take away from neat effect of the bias lines and seams. Your attention gets focused on the buttons and the rest of the details are lost. Sometimes it's not about the embellishments, but just the lines of fabric itself. More is not always better.

I attached the buttons with Superior Glitter thread. This is probably not the best thread for attaching buttons, but it doesn't distract from the buttons but matches. The thread itself is a flat holographic mylar-like ribbon. Since these buttons are ornamental and not functional, I'm not too concerned if the thread breaks.

Here are the covered snaps, and tomorrow I'll show you how I covered them:

Parting Shot: New Fabric! This is the fabric I got from Julie at Timmel Fabrics with my gift certificate from the SWAP prize. The solid grey and grey plaid are for a winter dressy coat for my son, the red plaid and red boucle will be for me.

Silk Dress - Part 3

Skirt and Zipper

I worked on the skirt yesterday and today, and here's what I've done so far with a few little details.

To construct the skirt, I've used french seams to keep the insides neat, and bound the center back seam allowances as that seam won't be french seamed. I've pressed one seam allowance to the front and one to the back at the side seams. This will help to reduce bulk at the waist seam when attaching the bodice.

For this dress I've decided to pleat both the lining and fashion fabrics together rather than sewing the skirts to their respective bodices and then attaching the lining. I've chosen this because it will help to stabilize the silk skirt's waist seam a bit - it's a thin weight so it needs a little help. This choice leads to another little detail which I need to show you.

When you get around to inserting the zipper, you probably don't want to use the lining and fashion fabric together in the zipper seam. If you do, you won't be able to hand stitch the lining over the zipper tape for a neat finish, instead you'll have those edges and zipper tape exposed inside the garment. Furthermore, you'll have to stitch the lining and fashion fabric together at the center back seam, in which case the skirts wouldn't be independent of each other. To fix that, this is what I do:

I stitched the waist seam to about 2" to 3" from either end. I then turn back the lining only and continue stitching just the fashion fabric skirt and bodice together. I then insert the zipper.

I then turn the lining back into position, turn in the seam allowance at the zipper opening and backstitch by hand that last little bit of seam. I then can turn in the remainder of the lining's seam allowance at the zipper and hand stitch it to the zipper tape.

Tomorrow I hope to finish up the dress, as all I need to do is attach the straps and bodice lining and put in the hems!

Parting Shot: Mail Call! Lots of goodies from Mr. Postman today: a new Quilting Arts, the new BWOF (yes, there is a lot to love in this one!) and the buttons for the Diamonds jacket. Maybe tomorrow you'll see the completed jacket.

The Silk Dress - Part 2

Bodice and Midriff

Well, I didn't think I was beastly, either! Thank you all for the comments. This is why it's so helpful to have more than one pair of eyes to objectively look at a project. For the most part, I'm pretty good and picking what style works with my body shape. Every once in a while, I come up with something I *think* will look good and really doesn't. I know that isn't true with this dress - it's got some of my favorite elements, a defined waist and full skirt!

Today I'll show you how I made the midriff bands. In the previous post, you can see the fabric I'm working with that has a wide border with paisleys that runs width-wise across the fabric, and a narrow border running parallel to the selvedge. In order to determine what would fit in the midriff section, I tried out various things using my traced pattern pieces. As a side note, when I trace off BWOF patterns, I don't add any seam allowances until I cut out the fabric - I then determine how big of an allowance I want. One advantage is that I can accurately line up motifs, stripes, etc. In this case, nothing worked as printed. In order to come up with the correct width, I had to carefully seam two smaller sections of border together to create a larger border piece.

In order for this to look like it was originally printed this way, I needed to very carefully seam the pieces. There's only way one to make sure that everything is where it should be and stays there during stitching: hand basting. This may seem like a lot of trouble to some of you, but it is worth the time investment. Go check out Tany's creations. She spends many hours thread tracing and basting her garments, and the results are in the finished products - just gorgeous!

Firstly, I figured out where the seam needed to be and pressed under the seam allowances on one piece only. This piece is then place over the piece that it will attached to so that I can check the placement and make sure the motifs line up properly. The pieces are then placed right sides together and pinned.

I then slip baste the folded edge to the second piece of fabric that is laying flat. Slip basting is much like slip stitching, except that it's a temporary stitch and will be removed later. This basting allows me to get the piece to match exactly where I want them. When I'm done, I open the piece and make sure everything is where I want it.

I press the seam allowances flat again and then stitch the seam. The seam is then pressed properly and all the basting is removed, resulting in a perfectly matched and seamed piece.

In order to attach the midriff piece to the bodice, it must be properly prepared. Because midriff pieces are prone to wrinkling, I always interface them. I've used fusible interfacing and fused it to the underlining, not the silk. I've also trimmed all the seam allowances off the interfacing to reduce bulk. The underlining and fashion fabric are layer and then basted together along the seam lines, and the excess fabric is trimmed away. BTW, all of the bodice pieces were prepared this same way before seaming.

To attach the midriff piece to the bodice, I went through the same steps as I did to attach the midriff band sections together. I folded the one seam allowance, slip basted, checked for position and then permanently stitched, pressed and removed the basting. Here's what the completed bodice looks like so far:

I hope to get the skirt prepared today and finish up the dress early next week!

Parting Shot: It's Sunday afternoon and time to watch European Formula 1 Grand Prix auto racing. My husband tapes them because they air at really weird times here. This race must have been extremely riveting.

Does this make me look "beastly"?

I've finally got a lot of major projects behind me and I've decided to make BWOF 05/07, #124 in that silk I showed you ages ago before the summer is over and I have to concentrate on work clothes for the school year.

Because this is BWOF, I'm pretty sure the size I usually use will fit perfectly, but I am concerned about how low the neckline is and how exactly it will look on me. I made up a muslin, and asked my husband what he thought. Somehow it wasn't exactly doing it for him. I think the concept that it might "make me look beastly because of my muscle development" came up in the conversation. Now, I'd hope that you wouldn't use that adjective to describe me, especially if you've met me in person. I certainly don't think of myself that way. I'll admit that I do lift weights and have lifted for about 5 years, but I'm not *that* big. Usually I don't wear spaghetti strap things so that's maybe why it looked odd to him? At any rate, it was time for Bodice v. 2.0:

For this one (pinned under the original), I upped the neckline so that I was comfortable with it. I also wanted the dress to be more modest for church with a wider strap, but didn't want to alter the entire bodice because I really like it and it fit. After much thought (and a prayer) about what it should look like, I went to my pattern stash and lo and behold, I found a pattern with a wider sleeve like strap that attached to the top of a similar bodice! The strap won't be as wide as in the photo, I didn't fold under either of the edges' seam allowances.

Now that the fitting was over, I needed to deal with the fact that while the silk is drapes beautifully for a skirt, it doesn't do so well on it's own for a bodice. The solution here is our old friend, underlining. I'm going to underline the entire bodice/midriff section in muslin. The midriff portion will also have interfacing to help it keeps it's shape. The skirt will not be underlined, just lined.

The only other major thing I need to deal with at this point is to finish cutting out the silk. The silk has quite a few borders and I want to take advantage of that for the hem and midriff.

Tomorrow, I'll show you today's progress on the bodice and how I'm dealing with the midriff sections.

Parting Shot: I know you've seen one version of this photo, but I thought it was interesting. In the mirror you can see one of my junior photographers standing on a stool taking the picture.

Diamonds - Dress - Part XVI

Details, Details, Details

[Apologies in advance - there are a lot of pictures today because there's a how-to at the end of the post!]

Thank you for all your comments yesterday - I think you inspire me as much as I inspire you! Helping each other out and motivating each other to do better is what being a community is all about.

As promised, here's the post that shows some of the inside finishing details of the dress. Do be aware that although they seem like small things, added together, it's a lot of hand stitching to complete the dress. Is it worth spending as much time on hand stitching as machine stitching? Absolutely. I don't actually mind the hand stitching, and I like neat and clean interiors.

You've seen the hems already, but below you can see the slit at the hem line all completed. In the second picture, you can see that I've stitched that bound seam allowance down all the way to the top of the hem. Because there's no true placket for the slit, I've prickstitched the lining all around the edges of slit as well.

I've also added dress hangers. You know, I almost always forget the dress hangers! I've had to take apart quite a few gowns and get them installed. If I'd just remember when I'm constructing the lining or even tacking down the lining, things would be easier. Usually I remember when I think I'm done and have the hanger in hand to hang it up! I forgot for this one, too, so I undid the stitching at the waist where the lining is tacked down and installed the dress hangers. Since these start and the waist and not the underarm, they're pretty long. I added thread chains for guides to keep the hanging loops in the right place to support the bodice while hanging. Of course, you pull them out and tuck the loops into the skirt while wearing it.


I've also added swing tacks or thread chains at the side seams to keep the hems together and in place. On a full skirted dress, I wouldn't worry about it. In a long, narrow skirt like this one, they keep the lining where it should be and not twisted about the wearer's legs or creeping places it shouldn't go.

If you don't already know how to make thread chains, it's something you should try. Once you get the hang of it, they're very quick to make. As you can see they're used in two different applications in this gown, but they can also be used to keep a sash or belt in place.

If you already know how to crochet, then this will probably make a lot of sense to you - you're just making a chain, but using your finger as the crochet hook. If you don't, at least try it once.

1. Tie knot in end of thread and secure in the location of one end of the thread chain. Then take a small backstitch (shown below) and leave a loop of thread - do not pull the stitch tight.
2. Place your thumb and middle finger in the thread loop, leaving your first finger free.
3. Place your second finger into the loop and pick up the free end of the thread (that the needle in threaded on).
4. Pull the thread through the loop with your first finger (like a crochet hook), while still holding the loop open with your thumb and middle fingers.
5. Let the original loop slide off of the thumb and middle fingers, while keeping the new loop of thread on the first finger.
6. Repeat steps 2 through 5 to continue to add to the length of the chain. The loop that is on your first finger in step 5 becomes the new loop in which you will place your thumb and middle fingers to start step 2 again.

7. Once the thread chain is the desired length, take the needle (make sure it's still threaded on the free end of thread!) and place it through the last new loop you made and draw it tight. This will finish the chain so that it won't unravel.
8. Take a small backstitch in the location where the other end of the chain will be attached. Knot off and secure thread ends.

Finished thread chain:
Note: Some of you may find it easier to use the thumb and first finger together and use your middle finger to hook onto the thread. Try it both ways and see what works best for you.

Parting Shot: I was sewing this morning and heard some strange sounds coming from the ledge by the window. I knew that Pixie was on the ledge, and when I turned to look at her, I saw her trying to take the jumbo snaps off the card with her teeth! (At least she's not as bad as a previous cat who would sit and take the pins out of things I had pinned together, one pin at a time, right in a row!) Here she is with the evidence between her paws:

"Sewing is the Best"

My daughter and I were having a conversation today in the studio, and all of the sudden she came up with the statement that, "Sewing is the best." We then proceeded to talk about why. We came up with these reasons among others: we sew the clothes we can't afford to buy, we can sew clothes in the right style, color and size for our tastes and we we're not stuck buying whatever the stores happen to carry that season. Pretty observant for an 8 year old.

There's another reason I think sewing is the best and that is because it's an activity that links many of us from around the world in one common interest. Today is the one year blogiversary of Pins and Needles, and over this last year I have met some fantastic sewers from all over the globe. Thanks to you, I am constantly challenged and inspired to really improve my sewing. You have also opened up new worlds of supplies, techniques and patterns for me. Some of you have caused me to really think about the way I look at myself and my wardrobe.

I'd like to especially thank all of your for your encouragement over the last year. There were many times when I was struggling with inspiration, motivation or just plain stitching and knowing that there were people out there reading and giving me a kind word was really helpful. Many people in my regular social circles don't sew or don't understand the passion of sewing and they don't even know of some of my accomplishments, but I have you, dear readers and can share my defeats and joys with you.

I hope that you'll hang around for another year of the sewing adventures that I seem to get myself into!

Tomorrow, I'll show you the finishing details from the Diamonds (sans beading unless I can get it done today!), plus a finishing technique how-to.

Parting Shot: Here's my daughter cutting out a pattern for me. It's for a denim skirt for her school clothes (since I have to make things for her and me, I have to start early!). This is something she's not perfect at, but is helpful for me and gives her some practice, too.

Redecorating My Daughter's Room

A Few More Details

By this point, you've seen the new paint for my daughter's room and her new window treatment. Today I'll show you the canopy and a share a few thoughts about making it, plus the new accent pillows for her bed.

Here's the pattern we used for the canopy, Simplicity 4069. She saw the exact same canopy pattern in Vogue, but fortunately I found this pattern for 25 cent at Martin's House of Cloth because it has been discontinued.

Here's my version, at least the top portion:

We used a floral print for the top and a stripe for the wavy border. The whole thing is fairly easy to make. The top is made of six wedge shaped pieces sewn together. The wavy border is made of two pieces, sewn right sides together, then clipped and turned. This is attached to the top, and then the curtains are added. Once that's complete, a casing is attached which has velcro to enclose the 18" quilting hoop that keeps the whole thing in a circular shape. The instructions tell you to cut 12 pieces of velcro that are 1" long and attach those in 12 different places around the canopy. Um, think again. I just zigzagged a narrow piece of velcro all the way around the whole thing for the closure. The flower wreath is an extra, not part of the original pattern. I made that from clearance flowers and florist's wire. It just sits on the top of the canopy and is not attached in any way.

Here are the pillows that I made after my daughter salvaged the backs for me. I simply took squares of the two fabrics we're using and embellished them with stuff that I had from the stash and some decorative machine stitches. It was actually a lot of fun to do, because I just did whatever worked for the particular top I was working on with no particular premade plan.

The only thing missing at this point is a bedskirt, and some wall art. I have the fabric for the bedskirt (the stripe), but I'm not making one until we buy her a new bed, as the drop for the ruffle will most likely be different from one for this bed. The quilt, btw, is one I made for her a long time ago and we decided to reuse it for this decor since it coordinates fairly well with it.

She absolutely loves her room, and I'm the best mommy in the world. At least until I make her vacuum or something.

Parting Shots: Back to the berry farm. We went out this morning and picked another 3 quarts of berries. There are lots of berries and it's very easy picking. Two quarts went into a batch of raspberry jam. In the last picture, my son is labeling jam jars. We made another batch of blueberry as well as the raspberry today. That brings the total to 27 jars for the year, which will last us until next year, and I won't buy any store bought jams. We're just finishing the last jar of last year's strawberry jam!

Diamonds - Dress - Part XV

The Hems

No more gown pictures. For a long time. I promise. I didn't realize the gown would spark so many comments - thank you everyone for the compliments and memories (good and bad) of your prom gowns.

Today I've finally got started working on the hems. I'm not quite done yet, and I'll explain why in a minute. The skirt has a slit in the center back seam; however, there is only the seam allowances at the center back opening, and not a wide facing like there sometimes is for a slit. I had to figure out exactly how I was going to deal with that and hem the whole thing. After doing some research and pondering the options, this is what I did once I figured out how much to hem it:

First, I hemmed the lining by itself by machine.

Second, I bound off the skirt edge and pinned it in place, ready to slip stitch to underlining. I turned it over to make sure it looked ok from the front and it didn't. There were some weird wrinkles on the front section only, like one layer was too small or too big or something. After a bit of poking around, I finally tracked down the problem. The problem was that somehow during the cutting/sewing process, the fashion fabric and underlining didn't match correctly. I did the line/underline process for attaching the underlining to the skirt sections, so as to finish the raw edges in one step. For some reason, for about 6 inches from the bottom edge up through the skirt front, the fashion fabric layer was too big - the rest of the front piece was ok, though. To make a long story short, I took out the side seam, and all the stitching connecting the fashion fabric/underlining, trimmed the fashion fabric and stitched it all back together. Ugh. Not what I had planned on doing, but what else could I have done to make it right?

Yeah, you're right, not much else to do but redo it.

So . . . . . . third, I slip stitched the hem in place.

All that's left is to bind off the seam allowances below, turn the seam allowance to the inside and hand stitch in place. Which, probably won't happen until tomorrow, because I plan on beading tonight.
Parting Shot: Remember last week, when I showed you my daughter painting her room? The painting is all done, and today I made a window treatment for her from some 70% clearance flowers, some tulle and ribbons. I'll show you the bed canopy I made in another post since it was made from a pattern. Her room is mostly done, with the exception of a bed skirt because I'd like to get her a different bed frame in the next few months, so there's no use in making one just yet.

18 Years and 2 Children Later . . . .

Carolyn (and Marji, too) made nostalgic posts today about past garments/patterns and challenged the rest of us to do the same. So, without further ado, you get to see me in another gown this week, my prom gown:


This was made from Simplicity 8425, in the spring of 1989, when I was 17 for the Senior prom. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your veiwpoint) you could still get this pattern from either Patterns from the Past (scroll down about 2/3's of the way down for it) or from this eBay auction.

The fashion fabric and lining is black taffeta, and of course there's the gold dotted tulle for the skirt and sleeves. Check out those sleeves - don't they scream 1980's? I bought the pattern and fabric at Fabric King, in Leesburg, FL where I lived at the time. As soon as I saw the dotted net on the roll, I knew exactly what I was going to make with it.

I clearly remember making this dress - cutting out the fabric and everything. The bodice is fully boned, with the casings for the boning being formed from the seam allowances of the bodice. It has a center back zip, lapped application. I even did french seams on the skirt seams. Obviously, my fascination with gowns goes back a long way. I also remember having to take 6 inches off of the bottom of the skirt because I'm short, and of course the dress was too long even with heels.

BTW, my daughter took the first two shots, and my son took the third one. I took this last one because we were all being silly:

Parting Shot: Besides wearing fancy gowns, I also do domestic things, like make jam. Here's our first two batches of blueberry jam: