What I'm working on

After a bunch of work travel (Vancouver, yay!) and other assorted life stuff, I finally had a free evening last night and I was determined to sew.

I'm making a dress that I just can't find on the McCalls website, and I don't remember the pattern number. That's helpful, isn't it? It has a turtleneck, long sleeves, and is semi-fitted. I'm making it with a somewhat-sheer black knit (I thought it was a bit thicker, ah well.)

What I have left - hemming. I hate hemming, and especially hemming a knit. I also have a bit more of fitting and pressing to do, since right now, without a belt, the dress looks like a mu-mu (I made my usual size 10! Sheesh.)

Anyway, some fixing is required.

Tonight, I'm going to try to stand in line for rush tickets to see this concert. Fingers crossed. I really want to see them, but I don't want to pay $45. (Side note: I used to have the world's biggest crush on Zakir Hussain as a kid.)

Since I had a blue zipper - McCalls 4444

I have had other favorite dresses - here, here and here - but this one supplants all of them - this is my new absolutely-favorite dress.

I had cut this pattern out, but I didn't have enough of the fabric I wanted to make it in (the black fabric I used to make this skirt.) I therefore rooted around in the stash, found a blue invisible zipper, as well as this fabric I bought in Nigeria, and voila. Easy peasy.

Here's a review.

Fabric: This beautiful tie-dye. 100% medium weight cotton, bought at-least five years ago from a market in Lagos. I've hoarded it until now, but this is the perfect use for this fabric.

Pattern: McCalls 4444.

Pattern notes: This is a pretty easy sewing pattern. Stuff that's worthy of comment:

- I made a size 10 at the top, and 12 at the waist/hip. This has perfect ease, I love it.
- I thought the pattern adjusting lines were really convenient, since I always need to adjust the pattern anyway to petite-size it.
- The instructions call for the bodice to be self-lined. In my case, I used lining fabric to line the bodice instead, my fabric is medium-weight, and a double layer would have been too stiff.
- The back required a bit of pinning and adjustment to get the dress to fit right. Nothing major - the vertical pieces were shortened, and I pinned the neck piece in place until it felt secure.


(Picture of the back.)

Apart from that, this is a nice, beginner pattern - very easy sewing, though a ton of pieces. (It was a bit of a pain cutting out...)

Time taken: About 4-6 hours, split over three evenings. I'm a very slow sewer though - this is an easy pattern.

And there you have it - my new favorite dress. I feel very sexy in this - I love it!

My First Really Successful Clothing Reconstruction

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that my parents used to live in Nigeria for 7 years, and I bought an unseemly amount of fabric during visits there.

One of the happy by-products of living in Nigeria is that people gave them clothes as gifts. These clothes are traditional African wear, and are typically sized generously, since they are designed to be loose and unconstricting.

Much like me, my parents sporadically try to declutter, and they were trying to get rid of some of these clothes that they just don’t wear.

Enter me.


I firmly told them that I get the right of first refusal at all fabric flowing through the house, and made off with this generously sized top.


(Yes, that is me hidden behind the top.)

I wanted to reconstruct this into a simple shirtdress, and combing through the pattern stash, I found Simplicity 2885 that had the clean lines I was looking for.



And here it is, the finished result. I finished this about two week s ago, and I’ve already worn it out at least 2 times. I’m very happy with it.

Pattern notes: Because this was a recon, there’s a few things I changed or just omitted.
- I left out the collar.

- I didn’t bother with cutting/sewing the placket or facings, since that was already done in the top. I just cut the front piece so as to keep the placket in the center.

- Since I was keeping the neck and back facings, I abutted the front and back pieces and cut as one piece. (The shoulder slopes on the Simplicity pattern, and I did cut the slope, but slightly away from the neck facing so as to keep the neck facing.)

- My sleeves are slightly weird, since I wanted to keep the existing sleeve’s finished hem edge, and the Simplicity pattern has a curved hem edge, while my top didn’t. It is a bit weird, but not too much so.

Due to all these changes, it is hard to review the pattern instructions very well (for example, I didn’t use the most complicated part – the placket.)

However, I’m very happy with the pattern drafting. I made a size 10 gradated to a 12 at waist and hip. It runs true to size, and went together with no difficulty at all.



(Picture of the back.)

Sewing pattern review - McCalls 5474

After the last two projects, both of which are a bit unwearable, atleast to me, I decided I wanted to actually sew something useful that I could actually wear.

Enter McCalls 5474, which I've made before but have never reviewed.

Fabric: One meter of a black cotton, that my mom bought me from India atleast 2 years ago. This was bought before I started sewing clothes, hence the one-meter cuts. (I vaguely thought I'd make a bag with it, or something, I guess.) Anyhoo, I used up all of the fabric on this, but I love it as a skirt.

Pattern: McCalls 5474. View B. I've called this the Catholic school girl look before, but this is a great basic skirt pattern, once you add some length to it.

Pattern notes: This is a pretty easy sewing pattern, and I didn't make any adjustments to it at all. A couple of things worth commenting though:

- I made view B - where the pleats are sewn, which is a look I really like - since I get the fullness of the skirt, without the corresponding fullness at the hip (which I don't need at all.) The pleats are 3 inches long, but it might be worthwhile measuring where you want the fullness to end, and sewing it to that length. (For me, 3 inches worked ok, but I'm petite. I'd imagine that for a taller person, the pleats might end at the widest part of the hip, which might not be good.)

- Also on the pleats - it is worthwhile marking them reasonably carefully. Since there are 6 pleats in all, less than a quarter inch extra on each pleat will make a big impact to the finished skirt size. My skirt is a bit tight, and I think that's because I did my usual half-assed job of marking. (I don't really mark most things.)

- The border band in my fabric was part of the fabric, but it was originally attached horizontal to the stripes on the black, not vertical. Since I didn't want the stripes going horizontally on this, I cut the border out, and then re-attached it once I cut the skirt pattern out. It works fine, and I like the little extra touch the border brings - it makes this seem like a more expensive/finished skirt. (Bonus - the border is finished, so no hemming required.)

Apart from that, this is a nice, beginner pattern - very easy sewing, only 2 pattern pieces, etc.

Time taken: About 3 hours, split over two evenings.

Good things: Wearable & pretty, what's not to love?

Bad things: It is a bit tight, but that's just a reminder that I need to get my ass to the gym. It doesn't bother me too much though, since I never tuck in my skirts.

A little post-script:

A shot of my fabric closet (which to most normal people would be a linen closet.)



Notice anyone?



Yup. Evidently, I buy, fold and store fabric just for Biscuit to sleep on. She doesn't even bother to hide that she runs my life.

My space-age, Swiss-Milkmaid dress

Every so often, I make something that I look at and say - what the heck?

This dress (that I affectionately call the space-age swiss-milkmaid dress) fits that bill. What a disaster! Everything about this dress was painful and flawed. Ah well. It will go straight to the back of my closet, where I'll never wear it, but at-least it was a muslin, and at-least I got to finish a UFO, started way back in March.

Let's review it, shall we?

Fabric: One yard of a yellow cotton, about $4ish.

Pattern: BWOF 04-2008-118.

Pattern notes: Ouch, this really, really stretched my sewing skills. First, all the curved seams in the bodice involved in setting the white band really challenged me. The skirt, with hidden welt pockets behind the a mock-welt pocket, and a inset-seam to get it all together, coupled with unclear pictures and typical BWOF instruction (I really was guessing at the assembly most of the time) - that was a disaster. Along the way -

- I realized the dress, cut in a size 38, but with no petite adjustments, didn't fit. I therefore had to rip the bodice and skirt apart, take an inch off the bodice bottom, rip out and re-sew the bust darts, cut an inch off the skirt top, and then put it all back.

- I sewed one of the pockets wrong, so it was upside down. It was bizarre. And there was no good way to adjust it, since it was already a welt-pocket. I adjusted by just cutting into the pocket fabric, and flipping it. Not pretty.

- The yellow - too thin. I wanted to line it, but at the end of the day, I was done. It was all I could do to finish it. (In the pictures, I'm wearing a slip.)

Also, my skirt - disaster. If you look at it, it puckers like crazy - at the side mock-welt-pockets, at the front, and pretty much everywhere else.

Actually, who am I kidding? The bodice is a disaster as well. It is all a disaster, honestly.



Time taken: Clearly, forever. I had to keep putting this away, I was getting so frustrated with it. Let's go with about a week of work?

Good things: It was a muslin. I didn't ruin my good cloth.

Bad things: Where do I start? It isn't just that I made a ton of mistakes with this. At the end of the day, I learned a lot, and that was worth-while. No, what frustrates me most of all is that this looks pretty horrible on me, for all that work. Either yellow isn't really my color, the pattern isn't really my pattern, or more likely, all of the above.

Question for everyone - the pink & orange fabric still exists. Should I make a version of this dress, keeping the bodice, and using a plain skirt? Or, should I just call this a dismal failure, and move on?

Finishing UFOs

This quilt top has been half-finished for at least a year, and I was determined to get to it this week. All that was needed was cutting the setting triangles, sewing the rows together, and adding borders.

I'm loosely thinking of actually quilting it myself, even though such efforts ALWAYS end in swearing, annoyance and deep hatred of my sewing machine, the quilt, and anything/anyone unfortunate enough to get in my way.

But... I should learn to do quilt properly, shouldn't I?

Sewing pattern review - BWOF 07-2009-120

I'm not actually sure why I made this dress. Let's see - Tany's top was very inspirational. I was looking for a quick, easy project, which this was (sort of.) Also helping was the fact that I had the fabric handy. Finally, I definitely have a personal style that's sort of boring, and I thought this dress would jolt me out of it.

All of which remain true.

But then, I look at this dress and ask - where would I wear it, really? (Blog readers, if you exist. Please comment! Should this dress be worn at all? And if so, where?)

Anyway, all of that aside, construction details.


Fabric: A gift from my mom's friend. She went to India, and got me two saris to cut up. (I think my mom is getting heartily sick of me going into her closet and stroking her saris covetously.) This was a bit of one of them.

It is a polyester chiffon-like fabric, a giant PIA to work with. Slipped like crazy, so it is a good thing this pattern will tolerate that kind of thing. I lined it with a solid green rayon-ish fabric. (Which I happened to have lying around, score!)

Pattern: BWOF 07-2009-120. A weird mix of views A & B. I wanted a dress, but with short sleeves.

Pattern adjustments: A fair bit. When I first made this up, in a size 38, it was huge on me, and perfectly shapeless. I took 2-3 inches off the sides, to get it to present shape. I followed their instructions about adding elastic, since I really needed it. My sleeves aren't also as much off-the-shoulder as the patterns, because I took inches off the side, which ended up shortening the sleeves.

Also, since I lined it, I didn't bother with bias strips at the neck, I just sewed the lining together with the fabric at the neck, right sides together, flipped, and top-stitched.

Time taken: This is generally quick, but it took me a couple of evenings because I was fiddling around with it, trying to avoid the shapeless effect, and doing things to prevent the fabric from fraying like the devil (FrayStitch.)

Good things: Well, it does take me outside my clothing rut. Also, sewing a BWOF pattern the same month? Haven't done that in about a year, I think. This pattern is also pretty easy to put together, which is good.

Bad things: Where do I wear this? Really? Where? My life needs more martini-drinking with girlfriends, I think.

Post-script: I'm loosely tempted to make this again, in a sheer black. I won't, since I own about 10 black dresses. But I am tempted.

Also, I do realize I'm wearing it off the wrong shoulder. Who knew? I've never worn an off-the-shoulder anything before.

Pattern review - Simplicity 2933

It honestly doesn't get easier than this. This dress has no sleeves, minimal fitting - it went together like a breeze, and I really like it.

Let's see - a bit more detail.

Fabric: A gift from my aunt. (People who have figured out that the best gift to get me is fabric - those people are awesome. Well, fabric & beer.) She bought it in India, it is a synthetic with really nice drape. I figured it would fray like crazy, and accordingly took precautions - my side seams are French seams.

Pattern: Simplicity 2933 - view A.

Pattern adjustments: This has the potential to be a bit mu-mu-ish, so I cut a size 8, and it fits pretty well. To give context, my normal Simplicity size is 8-10 on top, and 10-12 at the bottom. I took an inch off at the torso, and inches off the hem to get it to hit above the knee.

Time taken: Not long. This was pretty straightforward. An evening's worth? Spread over several, my life is crazy.

Good things: The fabric - I love it!!!! Plus, honestly, while I think it avoids looking mu-mu-ish, it is really easy-fitting, so remarkably comfortable.

Bad things: A tiny little thing, and something that happens to me in RTW as well - there's a bit of excess fabric in the underarm area. If I wanted to bother, it would be an easy enough fix, but honestly, I'm too lazy.

Overall though - I really like this dress, it feels easy and effortless, and that fits perfectly into my life.

Sewing Updates

The dark red BWOF dress really grew on me. I wore it out, and got a ton of compliments on it. And after musing on it, I decided I really liked the fit. It hid all the bumps, and showed all the curves. :)

I realized my picture was pretty blurry & terrible. Here's a close up of the fabric. It is darker than this, and I really like the orange lines running through it.



And since I'm still working on my third dress (sigh!), and don't have pictures of that to share, I'll show you this skirt instead. It is Simplicity 4036, and only took me about 4 months to shop for and insert the zipper. The fabric was a Fabricland remnant, ~$2.50 or so, and I'm incredibly happy with the way it turned out.

Two new dresses

The second version of BWOF 02-2009-124. I took the inch off the torso, which seemed to make it too loose through the waist... I think this dress needs something - it feels very monotone. Opinions, please?



And the second version of Simplicity 2896. This time, with back darts.



This was Canada Day sewing (and finishing up.) I have at-least one more dress planned for this weekend, so, here's to hoping I'll find time to sew.

Sewing pattern review - BWOF 02-2009-124

More from the Feb 2009 BWOF issue. There's a lot of great versions of this dress - however, the one that made me trace and sew was Allison's fantastic version.

This dress was supposedly a muslin. The fabric is a 15-year old dupatta that I've been meaning to turn into some kind of dress. (My version is unlined.)

Holding the pattern up to me, I figured I didn't need to take any inches off the torso, which turned out to be decidedly untrue. At that point, however, the zipper was already in, so I took an inch off the shoulders instead. When I make it again, I'll also add a bit of extra ease at the hip, it feels a bit snug to me.

Otherwise, the dress was super-easy in construction, and sewed up quickly.

Good things:
This dress just goes to show, you don't need complicated patterns - sometimes the simplest pattern looks pretty good.

Bad things:
Well, it isn't a bad thing necessarily, but this dress turned out way dressier than I would have imagined - mostly because of the gold detail in the fabric. I haven't worn it yet - since relatively few of the things I go to involve dressing up to this extent.

Conclusion: I'm actually going to sew another (less dressy) version tonight, since I'm going out tomorrow, and have decided I've nothing to wear. So, its fairly safe to say I really like this pattern.

How am I supposed to get anything done?

When this happens?



Biscuit managed to get inside the plastic bag, and sit on my fabric. Little brat!

Although, to be honest, I'm not getting anything done anyway - I'm sick and I'm in my PJs feeling sorry for myself.

Dear mom. I lied to you.

Yes, mom, I know I said I'd make this shirt for you.

I lied.

You have plenty of shirts, mom. (Ok, so do I, but stay with me here.) And I really wanted this one. See how good it looks?

And its perfect for my regular day-to-day dressing - pretty shirt + jeans.

So, ma. Sorry. I lied. You can't have it. I'm keeping it.

Love,
Reethi.

P.S. BWOF 12-2008-113. Remnant of fabric from this Vogue dress.

On the bookshelf...

As I said in my last post, I recently became a library member. (To explain why this deserves comment - I have to get out of my front door and cross the street to get to the library. That's it. Its only taken me 11 months to do it.

Anyway, I'm taking full advantage of the ability to order from any branch and have it delivered to my branch. Here's what I've been reading in the last few weeks.


The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie. I liked this book! I grew up in India, and we learned all about the Mughal dynasty in history class. This book was an interesting take on a world that I knew a little about. (However, suspend belief in things like the linearity of time.)

House of many ways - Dianne Wynne Jones Ah, I really, really wanted to love this book, I really did. But alas, no. It was ok, readable, but nothing special. (On the other hand, this book is sort of a sequel to my all-time favorite book - Howl's Moving Castle, and Castle in the Air is also really good, and I recommend both of them highly.)

I'm reading Alice Waters and Chez Panisse right now. I'm finding it a bit heavy going, to be honest. Its filled with listings of menus, names of people that worked at the restaurant, etc. And detail of this sort mostly bores me. I wanted to be interested, but I don't think I'm cut out to read biographies, much though I'd like to.

Mini Project Week - Tuesday - Library tote

Ok, we'll call it the increasingly late mini-project week...


- Toronto is going to start charging $0.05 per grocery bag, which is an excellent thing for the environment, and one I support wholeheartedly.

- And I also finally went and became a member of the library.

- Plus, its getting close to the 4th of July.

- And finally, I have a lot of fabric.

All of the above led to this tote, which I am planning to use for groceries/library books/general errands around town. It is a nice large size, and I love the colors.

That's it for mini-project week, folks. This one is late, I just finished it.

I made 5 things - all very easy, some of them were UFOs, some of them were really simple things I'd been planning for a while, and some of them were projects designed just to use up supplies. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun with this. I'm not giving up garment sewing, of course, but on an ongoing basis, I'm going to sprinkle in the odd crafting project to mix it up.

Mini Project Week - Monday - Using up remnants, with a little help from Anthropologie

More inspiration from Anthropologie, this time, this pretty scarf, which is actually fairly reasonably priced at C$21. Still, I did have all the ingredients at home...

Summerset commented about me already having supplies, but that's actually the big inspiration for this week. I have a lot of supplies sitting around, and I'm trying to use it or lose it. It does not help that I'm a packrat, and parting with anything feels like heartbreak (see this project, for example).

The fabric is a very sheer synthetic chiffon-type, left over from a sewing project (another 2-year old UFO, which I should make a note to finish), the trim I bought over a year ago at a thrift store in Michigan for 40c. Simple hemming, and sewing the hem on - about 30 minutes of work, tops.

And the result is that I have a fun summer accessory, and I've used up a tiny, minuscule portion of the supplies. Win-win.

Mini Project Week - Sunday - Finishing a UFO from 2 years ago

(The Biscuit had to participate in the photo shoot.)



(Once the photo shoot was over, she decided to guard the corridor against intruders. Because, you know, she's ferocious.)


And now, for those that want it, Biscuit-free commentary:

All these pj's needed was hemming, and yet, they've sat in the UFO pile since April 2007. I was cleaning recently, and found the PJs, so perfect mini-project.

(Full confession, work + social life has been crazy, I'm falling behind mini project week. This was done today, but I've labeled it Sunday, since I still hope to catch up with the rest of the week.)

Rather than hem, I decided to make them a tiny bit more interesting by using a coordinating bias-trim at the hem edge (the picture below). This project literally took me 10 minutes. I'm off to do another mini-project now, and try and catch up.

Good stuff - summer vacation plans!

Summer sewing is going to be very slow going for me. I'm going to be insanely busy at work (I'm traveling to 4 provinces in the next 4 weeks, enough said.)

But, better still, I have a bunch of travel for fun I'd like to do - I'm planning on driving the James Bay Road one weekend, I'm going to be in Montreal next weekend with a girlfriend (we are going to drink beer the entire weekend, good times!) and I want to go away to Europe in the August/September timeframe (I've been lusting after Barcelona, especially after watching Vicky Christina Barcelona... so maybe there?) My job can involve a fair bit of Canada travel, so I'm sure I'll toss in Vancouver in the mix, as well as Quebec City - I've never been to either place, and I'd love to go to both.

I'm excited about all of this, but most especially the James Bay road. I'm a bit nervous about doing this by myself (no gas stations, no cell phone reception, kind of out of options if the car breaks down or something) but also, really excited. Here's a bit of an excerpt from the James Bay Road info site.

The James Bay (Baie James) region of northern Quebec is located in northeastern Canada along the eastern side of James Bay. It is a vast wilderness area of taiga/boreal forest, reached by a single road - the very remote James Bay Road (Route de la Baie-James) - 620 km of forest and taiga and not a single town along the way!

I've a big map of Canada in my office, and I keep looking at it, and dreaming of these vast stretches of openness. I'm a very city girl most of the time, but I really do enjoy the remote, middle-of-nowhere road trips. I think Radisson, which is my northern destination, is as far north as you can go by road in Canada. And then, there are no roads, at all, which is a fascinating concept for someone who grew up in densely populated India. (Where there are bad roads, but still, roads.)

And, just to keep this from being yet another picture-less post, the picture above was from early April, I did a bit of a whirlwind visit to Phoenix and the Grand Canyon. (That's my buddy Dave in the picture, we went to school together, and I totally used his apartment as base camp. Bad Reethi.) I had a total blast!

Mini Project Week - Saturday: Quick & Easy Placemats

Way back in the time tunnel, JoAnns was clearing out a lot of its home-dec sample squares, and I bought about a million of them to make bags.

I don't really make a lot of bags anymore (although that's my mini-project for today), so I pulled three vegetable-themed samples together, and cut them out to make placemats. (Quick UFO reality check - I cut these out in March, they were for a friend's birthday - also in March. Finally sewed them together yesterday. Is it strange to give someone a birthday present 2 months late?)

Anyhoo, this is pretty simple sewing. Make placemat-size front, cut placemat-size back, sew right sides together, leaving a bit to turn; turn it through, slip-stitch the opening and iron well. (I might need to re-iron, since the placemat in the picture looks a bit wrinkled. I also opted not to use interfacing, but that's mostly because I didn't want to cut it out.

Of course, I didn't make just 1 placemat, that would be a sucky birthday present. I made a set of 4, and will give it to my friend when I see her this week.

Mini Project Week - Friday: Copying Anthropologie

I'm copying Amanda - and am going to try to do one mini-project a day this week. I've a ton of half-finished projects/easy craft projects, etc, and I'd like to take a stab at paring that list down.

Yesterday's project was copying the Gentleman Juggler necklace from Anthropologie. I love Anthropologie, and now, they even have a Toronto outlet. I, however, do not love their prices, and when I saw this felted bead necklace, I knew I could rip it off fairly easily, and significantly cheaper than the CAD 120 they were planning on charging.

I burrowed around - I conveniently had both copper chain as well as felted beads sitting in the massive pile of craft supplies, and I got to work. I threaded copper wire through the beads, and attached a bead on every link of the chain.

And here it is.



Other project details: My total cost - about $5. Total time taken - about a hour, while watching Law & Order reruns on TV.