(No) Fun with Stripes

I wanted to get some practice with my overlocker/cover machine, which I had intentionally bought to sew knit fabrics with. So I bought some jersey fabrics and made some t-shirts, in some sort of "mass production". I used pattern no. 112 from burdastyle magazine 2/2010.

I started with a t-shirt with stripes...

did you see the iron-on shark on it? The blurry blue color reminds me of water, and I had this iron-on motif lying around, so I applied it to the t-shirt, just for fun.

There was some fabric left, quite enough to make a sweater for little T., the baby son of a friend of mine.

Then I made another striped t-shirt, which turned out to be better than the first one (unfortunately, it came out a little bit too short, but that's not a problem, I just have to make a skirt to go with it).

Then I made a t-shirt without stripes...

(I'm not too sure about that fabric pattern and colors, but at least it is comfortable to wear at home.)

... and one more sweater for little T. (I couldn't resist buying this cute fabric with those little owls).

The next one is one of my favorites!

And one more with stripes... at this time I was already a bit bored by the pattern, and so I didn't care anymore about matching the stripes.

The last one with stripes, at least it isn't blue like all the others!

It's pretty cool to wear self-made t-shirts with stripes. But that's it. I was pulling my hair out when I did the neckline bindings. I used the cover mode of my overlocker with a chain stitch.

First, the machine used to skip stitches every few inches. Which is really bad because the chains on the back side of the seam are not properly linked, to the seam will probably open one day.

I could solve this problem by using a brand new, special cover stitch needle.
But still, I find that binding necklines is not easy at all. Sometimes the whole neckline stretched out, but there are also shirts where the neckline is slightly gathered under the binding. Even when I just added a fabric stripe to turn it in. And the overlocker seems to have problems crossing thicker parts with more than two fabric layers.

For the orange shirt, I wanted to apply some real cuff fabric, and I did, but it stood from the neckline in a really weird way, so I turned the whole thing to the inside of the shirt and now it looks better. Still, this isn't what the plan was!

The blue-pink shirt came out the best concerning the neckline.

But still, the seam is wonky and not really nice. And the stripes are not matching at all.

This was another problem I struggled with: I didn't get the stripes to match perfectly. They were all nicely pinned in place, but under the foot of the overlocker, the lower fabric layer somehow goes faster, and everything is shifting. It was the same with the differential feed turned off. And it wasn't much better when I hand basted the seams first.

Oh well, at least it's only t-shirts! I guess it will go better with more practice. But I think that for the next project, I will return to sewing nice and easy-to-handle wool fabrics!

Finally finished: the (not quite) red dress!

While being really in a big delay, I finally finished the "red dress" from the Cose Conmigo by Sonia of La pequena aprendiz. But, as I don't like to wear red colored garments, mine is not red, but purple.

I have to admit that I didn't follow Sonia's instructions very exactly. As you can see, I also made a modification of the skirt part. The original pattern, Burda 8/2012, Nr. 121, has a slim pencil skirt. But I usually don't wear these, and I felt very unsure if such a slim skirt would be flattering on me. 

So I modified the skirt pattern and turned it into an A-line skirt. Which wasn't difficult at all. In case you want to make that dress with an A-line skirt, too, I made some bad sketches to show you the steps. 

The original skirt tapers down at the hem, so the first step was to make the side seam perpendicular to the hem line. I also drew some vertical lines (only to the bigger pattern part) and cut them, starting at the hem, but stopping cutting right before the end of the line.

Then I spread the bigger skirt part, so that the upper seam line matched up with the smaller skirt part while staying flat. 

Which left me with a bump at the side of the smaller skirt part, which I just cut away. That's it!

As the pattern is for tall sizes and I'm really short (I even have to shorten patterns for petite sizes!), I also had to shorten the whole thing. And of course I made the usual adjustments which are always the same for Burda patterns, so by now I can do them even without making a muslin: forward shoulder adjustment, narrow shoulder adjustment, and swayback adjustment. Some paper-and-scotch tape work!

I didn't want the dress to become too warm, so I used a cotton fabric, which unfortunately wrinkles a lot. But it feels better on the skin than some synthetic lining fabric, so I decided to only line the skirt (so that it will not clinch my tights when worn) and leave the bodice as it is, with a facing at the neck. 

I made a machine rolled hem at the top of the lining skirt and attached it at the waist with a row of topstitching. It does not look very even inside, but nobody will see it. 

See? I used a bright pink lining fabric, which will never be seen as well, but I like it nevertheless. 

For the zipper, I could not find a matching invisible zipper the pattern instructions call for, so I made a center back lapped zipper again. I just love them so much!

Looking at the photos, I think I should also add some belt loops at the sides, as the belt tends to fall down a bit...

Thank you, Sonia, for the nice Cose Conmigo, and for inspiring me to make that dress! And, although it is not red, I call it the "vestido rojo" by myself, thinking of you and your great blog! Besitos!

One More Summer Dress Finished

I finally finished my last summer dress for this year right in time to wear it for the last warm day.

It was too cold to wear it without a cardigan, though.

I have to say that I'm not completely happy with the dress. I'm not sure if a dress with small straps and no sleeves is a flattering style on me, and I feel kind of naked in it. I do love the fabric, but it feels a bit too bright and colorful (a friend told me that this is just because autumn arrives, and that I will love the colorful dress next spring). But the worst is that it doesn't fit right in the bodice, and I didn't know how to solve this fitting problem.

See how the bodice wrinkles at the side seam? It's not so much on the left side seam, but for some reason, at the right side it's really awful. I spent a whole day ripping, pinning, basting and ripping again, with no success. The wrinkles stayed as they are, they didn't even change a bit. In the end, frustrating as it was, I decided to just leave the wrinkles and finish the dress nonetheless.

I set in a handpicked zipper at the center back,

and I lined the bodice with cotton voile. The bodice is also underlined with silk organza.

For the shoulder straps, I used the same bias taping as for the "piping", but I inserted silk organza straps to keep them from stretching out.

Well, I will see how I like the dress next spring, for the moment it is too cold to wear it, anyway!

And now I'm off to start, a bit late, with my vestido rojo. I already traced the pattern!

Fabricoholic Confession

I'm now diagnosed as a fabricoholic, officially. How I know?

Marina posted a list of 10 signs that you are a Fabricoholic on her blog, Frabjous Couture. When I read the list, I felt being catched, but I also had to laugh out loud. Although it's not a real surprise, I found it amazing that some of the "little tricks" are more common than I thought. 

I totally say yes to eight of the following statements:

• The first place where you go after receiving your paycheck is a fabric store
• Fabric store employees know you by name
• You have a special discount in at least one fabric store
• You hide your fabric purchases from your family
• You run out of storage space for your fabrics 
• You have a secret stash place
• You bought the same fabric more than twice because you lost an overview of what you have
• You are a big fan of sewing blogger meetups (aka fabric shopping sprees)
• Your adrenaline skyrockets just from browsing online fabric stores. 
• Parting with fabric (even if you are never going to use it) makes you feel sick. 

Unfortunately, there are no sewing blogger meetups around here, so this point does not match. And I already did buy the same fabric more than twice, but only because I liked it so much and not due to loss of overview of what I have. 

If you recognize yourself, too, then you should visit Marina's blog to join Fabricoholics Anonymous (FA)!

One More Summer Dress

First, thanks to all of you for your nice comments on my adjusted dress form, and your links to your own methods of making a personal dress form! Next time I have to do something like this, I will probably try one of the methods you suggested, as they all seem to be quite promising. For the moment, I will check out how good mine works, and see if fitting is now easier.
My dress form still doesn't have name. At the moment I just call her "dress form". Any suggestions?


You can never have too many summer dresses, and we still have really warm weather in Switzerland, so I decided to make another summer dress before autumn. Also, I had bought this cotton sateen with a nice retro print, which is waiting patiently since spring to be turned into a dress.

I chose a pattern from an old Burda magazine, it's no. 124C from the may 2007 issue.

When I tried on the muslin, I noticed that the neckline is quite deep. A lot too deep for my taste. So I changed the neckline, but didn't make another muslin. I will see how it will turn out.

The skirt looks quite full on the technical drawing, but on the photos in the magazine you can see that it is full at the waist where the pleats start, but that it is quite narrow at the hem. So I cut and spread the skirt pattern in the middle of each pleat to get a bit more volume at the hem.

No muslin for this part, again. I think it will be a bit of a surprise how this dress will turn out!

Unfortunately, sewing is progressing slower than expected.
I underlined all the bodice parts with silk organza, to get some more stability. Boning would work well with this pattern, but I don't want to have boning in a summer dress for everyday wear in hot weather. I will also use cotton for lining, as it feels better directly on the skin, especially on very warm days.

The Burda pattern calls for some piping on the bodice and waistline seams, made from bias tape in a contrasting color. Well, I wanted to use glossy sateen bias tape und couldn't find a matching contrasting color, so I used a hello one.

And I didn't like it. The yellow color doesn't accentuate the seams enough, and the sateen bias tape is very stiff. So I ripped the seam and went to buy ordinary cotton bias tape in blue, which is still not matching perfectly, but looks better than the yellow one and is easier to work with.

This is what I've got so far, and from today on, it's getting cold around here, and it seems that summer is over before I will be finished with this summer dress. This happens to me every end of summer or winter, I'm always a bit late with my projects. But never mind, I'll just wait for next summer!

I also have signed up for the Cose Conmigo/ Sew along which is hosted by Sonia from La pequena aprendiz, which takes place this week, to make the nice red dress of Burda 8/2012.

I will have to start a bit later, but I hope to finish the last summer dress by end of the week. This will be the start for autumn sewing!