Those Sewing Whirlwind Pics!

Hi! Happy Monday!

First off, I want to sincerely thank each and everyone one of you for your kind comments about my Mother-in-Law on my last post. You all are just such a wonderful bunch of people! You truly warm my heart. That may sound cheesy and cliche, but it's true dammit and I make no apologies. She is doing much better now, thank you. She spent 5 days in the hospital and we found out this all stemmed from a really horrible sinus infection. She feels better than she has in months so we have been wondering how long she's been carrying around this infection.

Anyhoo, I finally had some time to snap pictures of my 'whirlwind sewing escapade'! This is a pretty long post, so go grab a cup of tea real quick! ;-)

Okie dokie, Numero Uno is the easy peasy circle skirt. I think this took all of about 30 minutes to make, cutting time and all! I just plugged my measurements into the formula given in the tutorial. The only thing I changed was the waistband. Instead of using wide elastic I used a brown cotton/Lycra and made a band about 14" wide x my waist measurement. I then stitched up the side and folded it in half, wrong sides together. Aligned the raw edges of the waistband and skirt and stitched them together. This makes the very comfortable "yoga waistband" you may have heard of. I can leave it wide or fold it over. For the hem, I was able to use my handy dandy rolled hem foot on my regular machine and voila! A skirt!

The fabric is some I've had in my stash for probably 10+ years. It's kind of a weird color and I have nothing to wear with it at the moment. The fabric is most likely poly and has a touch of sheen. It's sort of a heathered brown/gray with peach... I dunno.

Next, is the bra. This is Merckweardigh BHL15. She now has an Etsy shop and the patterns are in English! Whoo hoo!

 I used some odds and ends to put it together but I like how it turned out. I've made this bra before but I used all stretch fabric and it wasn't supportive at all. That bra is too big now, but I thought I'd try this pattern in a non-stretch fabric. I bought this tricot last year to use for some custom order panties and was dissapointed to find that it was a bonded nylon tricot. Bonded = No stretch, what-so-ever. The shop said nothing of this in their discription, of course, so I ordered it. It worked out fine though because it happens to be the perfect fabric for bras! My favorite RTW Freya bra is made of some similar stuff! Well, anyway, after all that the bra didn't fit in the cups, which is really too bad since the band and underwires fit perfectly!! The lower cup is good but the top squishes my breast tissue in a very unflattering manner. I'm thinking, and if I can get up the guts, I can slice the top cup while wearing it down to the seam and measure how much I need to add then transfer those findings to the pattern. I still haven't gotten up the nerve yet but I may try it.

Lastly, This is my mock-up of Vogue 8546:

 

This first picture turned out all fuzzy for some reason. Sorry 'bout that!

The back shows the wacky fabric a bit better. I really should take a close-up. It's some funky stuff, I'm tellin' ya. I'm forever attracted to the funky fabrics, though. I have a slew of '70's polyester autrocities, but I love 'em just the same. This fabric has a little bit too much body for this jacket. I think it will be much better in something more fluid. That's something I don't have in the stash at the moment, though! This fabric adds too much bulk in front and that's something I really don't need! All-in-all, I really, really like the jacket! It's very comfortable and I'm keeping my eye out on a good deal for some wool jersey. The only thing I'm going to add is a big button, kind of where my hand is in the front view, to hold it closed. 

Now for a bit of exciting news! As you know, I have been a pattern tester for some time. Most recently working with Patterns by Figgy's. Well, the lovely ladies behind PBF, Shelly and Karen, so very graciously asked me to be one of their pattern testers for their NEW BOOK!!! It's coming out next year! Yes!!! Shelly and Karen are writing a book and I get to help test for it. I'm also now an official tester for Wiley Publications. My name will be in the book and on their website and everything! Needless to say, I'm so excited and feel so honored! The only thing that really sucks is I can't tell you what the book is about. YET! As soon as I get the go-ahead, I'll let you all know. I can tell you right now some of you are going to be most pleased...

Well, I guess that's it. I think I have about three posts in one here folks, but it's been building up!

Have a wonderful week!

Merckwaerdigh finished

I finished the Merckwaerdigh CUPL16 bra up yesterday. Here she is:

Here's the cool strap detail:

It threw me for a loop for a little bit. The English translation of the instructions were slightly vague on how to do the whole thing so I just storta went for it and I think I did it right! It looks like the picture....so I say screw it if I did it wrong 'cause this worked and that's what matters!

I do think the fabric is a bit too stretchy. A ridge formed over the seam allowances as seen here:

It shows through clothing and my husband so lovingly pointed out that I look like I'm nippin' all time. Nice. Thanks honey, just want a girl wants. Anyhoo, I'll try it again in a slightly firmer fabric. Maybe 30-40% stretch (this has about 60%). Some other adjustments I'll need to make are:

1. Alter the top cup to bring the straps in by about an inch. As it is they are spaced too far apart so the straps slip off my shoulders occasionaly. Not as bad as my RTW bras but enough to be an annoyance.

2. The band under the cups is too wide so it folds up under my breasts especially when I sit. I'll simply trim the seam allowance so the band elastic is barely visible from the outside. The front band folding up is a common problem for us curvy girls since we tend to have a "shelf" under the breast. The shelf being our tummies.

I'll take pictures as I go along so ya'll can see what I've done. I know several of you out there are making bras for the first time so hopefully this advice will help you along!

My custom pattern from Danglez should be here in the next few days and I'm really looking forward to testing it! I've been stalking our mail woman and all she brings are bills and crap. Well, yesterday she brought me these:

So, I guess I'll forgive her. For now. The two on the top left will be maxi dresses. I'm all about maxi dresses this summer! I LOVE 'em! The pattern on the bottom left is for some very pretty head wraps. A group of us on PR are making caps for people who are undergoing chemo. I haven't had an opportunity to make any up yet since I've been concentrating on bras. I haven't even mentioned it here yet but will go into more detail later. These caps will be donated to my local cancer center. Here's a link to a free pattern if anyone is so inclined to make some up or donation. If you make any up send me link to your pics. I'd love to see them!

xoxo,

Heather

More boobage!

I started on another bra while I'm awaiting my custom pattern from Danglez. This one is Merckwaerdigh CUPL16. I got this from ELingeriA quite awhile ago but hadn't tried it yet. Debbie Cook made a gorgeous 3 piece cup bra from Danglez and it got my sewing mojo flowing to where I just could not wait any longer! When I got to lookin' at my Merckwaerdigh patterns I realized that I have a 3 piece cup pattern, too...duh! Good Lord, I have so much crap I don't even know what crap I have! (Um...not that these patterns are crap, they're actually very good! :-D) I made up a Q&D (quick & dirty) muslin of view B the other day and well.... I'm not to sure if it's going to work. Here it is on Gertie:

As you can see it looks like shit. I tried it on as well as I could and it's just a hot mess. BUT, I think it gives me a good enough idea on how it'll fit. I think. The right cup is the only one I put a wire in and it seems to contain everything. My left breast is bigger though so the cup is a little on the small side. The kicker here is that the pattern calls for a lingerie lycra. The fabric I used for this muslin only has about 18-20% stretch. Below I've used some lycra that I got from ELingeriA in a grab bag. It is like the nicest fabric I've seen in a long time! It's more like a heavyweight swimsuit lycra with about 60% stretch but I'm going to try it and hopefully the extra stretch will help with the fit.



This is how far I got last night. I still need to cut out the band. I'm seriously thinking about using the band from my Dangelz bra since it fits so well and these cups will fit into it.

I had to take a bit of a break since my MIL called this morning and said she knocked her bathroom door off the hinges with her motorized chair. *!* Good gravy! It was no big deal and I was able to fix it quickly. All we had were 3" wood screws so that baby better not fall off again! LOL! I told her if she bangs it again the door will probably splinter where those humungo screws are!! She said she wouldn't take the chair to the bathroom anymore....

Okie dokie, the little kid fell asleep so I'm off to sew some more! Whoo hoo!