Marjolein dress in plaid

My name is Lucia. I am a fabricholic. And I never, ever finish anything! Here's hoping to change that.

Burda November 2011 #119

The new Burda Nov 2011 has a beautiful dress (#119) that I am going to make as my first fall/winter dress. I am using an old Pendelton wool that I got as a gift from Kathy Q. some 13 years ago. Thanks Kathy!

I noticed that one key element that helps me overcome procrastination is to have all the sewing elements for a given design on hand. So, I made a plan of a few things I would like to sew next, headed for the Stoffenbeurs last weekend and bought all the thread, interfacing, zippers, etc. that I needed for these various designs. I had never done this before but I sure will do this from now on because it was great! It focused my shopping and kept me from buying only more fabric. Plus, it was so efficient to shop like that, that I was done in 1hr instead of my usual 3 or 4.

Back to Marjolein. I needed to preshrink the wool, something I've never done before. So I googled a bit and found the best advice ever here at Pamela Erny's blog. It worked beautifully. My wool came out looking better than before. It did shrink from 1.98m long to 1.93m and from 159cm wide to 157cm wide, but it was also fluffed up and all folds and wrinkles vanished, even after being folded in a box for nearly 15 years!

As for the pattern, I traced size 40 at bust and waist and 42 at the hip and blended in between.  The fabric has a plaid, so I carefully matched plaid lines at the main design points: side seams in the skirt, cross seams in the top front and all along the back seam, top to bottom.

And once again, I had to eat a huge slice of humble pie with this dress! Every time I begin to think I am an intermediate sewer I make some huge rookie mistake and am cut down to size. This time, for my first Burda dress I blissfully ignored the difficulty rating of this dress... at 3.5 this is about as difficult as they come with Burda. Indeed, sewing the front shirred panels was quite hard, plus the double shoulder. And of course, that wasn't enough and I had to add matching plaids to the difficulties. Anyway, somehow I've survived it, and have a nice dress to show for it. But for the next few items, I will pay attention to the ratings and stick to 2 or under.

Necessary tip: to match plaids it was pretty crucial that I pin the fabric along the seamline from both sides. If I don't, the fabrics still slip and the plaid is mismatched. Perhaps I'll save my pennies for a differential feed machine foot... until then, this is the only way I've found that works.

Great tip: I inserted the set-in sleeves following Claire Shaeffer's instructions in her book Sewing Shortcuts. Wow! Her instructions were clear, she knows what you might be tempted to change and tells you when you shouldn't and boy does it turn out perfect. Thanks Claire!

Colonel Mustard with a pink lining in Iceland

My name is Lucia. I am a fabricholic. And I can never for the life of me finish anything. Until today! My first official garment is now done: a raincoat. I used Vogue pattern 2873 by Michael Kors. A double breasted jacket with wide collar and lapels.

Changes I made: lengthened it to midthigh, removed the decorative flaps, made a back vent, added a belt and sewed rain flaps both at back and on the right shoulder.

I used a waterproof twill that I bought in 2003 in Edinburgh. The matching (loud!) lining I bought at the same time. I used some gorgeous dark brown bakelite buttons from my stash, plus a bakelite buckle also from my stash.

 
I have to admit that I thought I was an "intermediate" seamstress yet with this raincoat I've had to eat a double serving of humble pie. I guess I should have known that this was not an ideal first project after so many years of not sewing. For starters it takes a long time! There are lots of pieces and steps. Then, to make matters worse, a waterproof fabric is very difficult to sew. Why? Let me count the ways: (1) on the good side it is somewhat slippery, good against rain, bad when sewing. (2) on the back side it has a waterproof plastic layer, again, good for rain, bad because it sticks to the sewing plate, cannot be ironed, and marks with every pin prick. (3) it cannot hold a crease, and yet, bizarrely, it wrinkles easily and keeps fold marks for ages! (4) it is not stretchy or shrinkable, so it cannot be eased nor ironed to shape. Hence there are a few small tucks at the armholes and bust where I tried to ease the fabric but couldn't quite manage it.

I did learn a lot, though. Thanks to this fabric I now own a teflon foot (Bernina #52) and I learned how to work with sew-in interfacing. And finally, I had a terrible time topstitching. I used a buttonhole twist on the top, because I wanted more definition on my topstitching. I knew that this required some adjustment to the tension, since the buttonhole twist is much thicker than the normal thread. But even though I increased the top tension all the way to 10, I still could not get the bottom side of the seam to look nice. I am now thinking that perhaps the problem was the needle, because on one of the last seams I noticed that the buttonhole thread was too thick to fit in the needle channel around the eye. But it was just my luck that I noticed this when I only had one more topstitching stretch to do! Ripping is of course out of the question given how the fabric marks. So all I can do is note it down for the next time.

I love the colorful and perfectly matching lining!

Still, I did enjoy working on this raincoat, I am rather proud of how it came out but most of all I am so proud that I finished it!! There may yet be hope for me...

First trench coat

My name is Lucia. I am a fabricholic. I am a dreamer. I cannot, for the life of me, ever finish anything. I want to change that. One step at a time.

I got soaked on the bike again today, and that shapeless red rain jacket has got to go! Waterproof broadcloth I bought in Edinburgh, together with contrasting lining, 4 yds of each. As for pattern, I wanted to use Burda 01-2009 #129, but it is plus sized and it is too much work to size it down to 42. Instead I'll use Vogue 2873 by Michael Kors. Will need to lengthen the coat, remove the flap pockets and add belts at waist and wrists, but that shouldn't be too hard. Plus I like better the wider lapels of this one over the Burda. Depending on how adventurous I feel I may try to add the welt pockets of the Burda. If not, I'll just go pocket less... baby steps