Tag Archives: 2015 makes

One of my closest friends, Alexis, has a daughter named Thalia. I was honored when she asked her to be Thalia’s godmother and I offered to make little T’s baptism gown. Fun fact – Alexis and I bonded over the fact that we are both half-Armenian, but we actually met volunteering at a snowboarding event for families of 9-11 firefighters.

Thalia with her parents and godparents

I have never made anything like this but I dove right into. Luckily Alexis gave me free reign on the design of the dress and I wanted to do something really special! I picked up a used copy of Martha Pullen’s Grandmothers Hope Chest at Powells to get some ideas. This book is a great reference for a lot of heirloom sewing techniques! Sadly the copy I bought didn’t have the patterns in it.

There are not tons of patterns for christening gowns available, so I bought Simplicity 2457. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but it gave me a good starting point. I had the pattern and I knew I wanted to use a lot of heirloom sewing on this gown like insertion lace, pintucks and swiss embroidery. I also had to find fabric. Heirloom batiste is incredibly expensive and I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on materials. Luckily I live in Portland where fabric stores are plentiful!

My first stop was the Button & Ribbon Emporium in downtown Portland. They have a small selection of French insertion laces, Swiss embroideries and entredeux. I bought some floral insertion lace, but I wasn’t loving any of their Swiss embroideries. So my next stop was Fabric Depot. The bridal/fancy fabrics department was extremely helpful in selecting fabrics. They didn’t have any fancy batiste but I was very happy with my fabrics. I bought Kaufman Radiance Cotton/Silk in Satin White for the dress and Kaufman Vanessa Silky Cotton for the slip.

I also ventured over to the trims and found that Fabric Depot does carry a few heirloom sewing trims! They had a Swiss Embroidery that I liked so I bought it. Supplies – done!

I also wanted to get a pintuck foot for my Viking 350. I have secretly wanted one of these for years but I haven’t ever had a real reason to use it…but now I did! Lastly, in the 17 years I have owned my sewing machine I have never had it in for tuning, so I decided this was a good time.

So with fabric, trims, pintuck foot, and freshly serviced sewing machine I was ready to sew. This seems very complicated, but honestly it wasn’t that hard or long to make with some heirloom sewing tricks. The pintuck foot is awesome! You only need to mark one line and then that first pintuck is used as a guide for all of the other tucks. You just need a twin needle that works with your foot.

The lace was a little trickier, but I practiced piecing my laces together before I started on the dress. Using stitch in the ditch foot allows you to butt your laces or fabric together and get a nearly invisible join. The other key here is to use a fine needle and fine thread.

As you can see from the photos, I modified the pattern a bit. I changed the collar to a peter pan style. The pintucks and lace on the bodice and skirt are also my own design. Because of the sheer, fine fabric I French seamed the entire dress and slip. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t even think I could French seam the armscye until I tried it!

French seams everywhere!!

The gown turned out beautifully and Alexis and her family loved it. Hopefully it’s an heirloom for their family for years to come! More photos below.

A sweet little cap

Bodice back details

The simple slip

Dad’s Birthday Shirt

posted by lorene

on 04.28.2016

Last October was my Dad’s 70th birthday. He was going on a cruise with my mom and my sister (and her husband). So I decided he needed a nice shirt. I totally stole this idea from Oonaballoona.

This is McCall’s 6932 which is the same pattern I used to make the Diamond Anniversary Shirts for Vanessa and Jeremy. However this is a pure linen instead of a linen blend for extra wrinkleyness!

I have always wanted to play around with hemstitching, so I tracked down a winged needle. I went into a local sewing machine shop and asked for one and they had no idea what I was talking about. So I searched through the Schmentz needles until I found it and then explained what it was used for.

My machine has 4 built in hemstitches and I tried all of them before deciding on this simple one. After I cut out the piece, I drew in 3 straight lines with washable marker and used them as my guide. I also used a lightweight thread.

I actually bought white linen, but after I finished sewing the shirt I thought about my Dad and realized that white was going to be a terrible idea. So I tea dyed it! I steeped a bunch of Lipton tea bags in a big pot and threw in some salt and the shirt. Luckily I had used all cotton thread for my sewing and embroidery! It took up dye very quickly. I was intending to have it be a little lighter than this, but I like the way it turned out.

Tea dying has some meaning too as my metz mama (my dad’s mom) used to tea dye things and it makes me think of her. I sent the shirt to my sister and asked her to give it to my Dad, but in the craziness of the baptism she forgot and they sailed away without it. So I don’t have any tropical photos of him wearing it but I’m sure he’ll get to wear it this summer!

Hazelburn Dress

posted by lorene

on 11.08.2015

I’ve had Colette Pattern’s Hazel Dress in my stash for awhile. I bought this red/blue seersucker fabric from Fabric Depot in Summer 2014 with that pattern in mind, but it never happened. So this summer when I decided I needed a sundress to wear to Pie Hard at Ecliptic Brewing, I had everything I needed.

Well…except an adjusted pattern. I knew that this bodice was not going to to work for me straight out of the envelope. So I did a 1 inch FBA to the bodice front. Then I had to adjust the length of all of the other pattern pieces. I also added one inch to the top of the front because I read that on bustier women it was a little low cut. On the side front I tapered that from 1 inch to nothing at the side seam so that the back remained the same.

Based on reading other reviews on this pattern, I also widened the straps so they would cover my bra straps. Since I had a print-at-home pattern I had decided to forgo printing the giant rectangle that is the skirt, and just cut it out with my quilting ruler. However once I sewed it, my belief that gathered skirts are not flattering on me was confirmed. But I had an idea!I really love the Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt and the Sewaholic Lonsdale dress, which basically is a Hollyburn skirt with a bodice sewn on. So I grabbed my Hollyburn pattern pieces and set to making it work. I removed the pockets, because I feel like the style lines didn’t work with the angled seams of the Hazel bodice. I should go back and add side pockets, because EVERYTHING NEEDS POCKETS!

I adore the result of my frankenpatterning! In my Hazelburn dress I have a unique bodice that fits perfectly and a fun, flirty skirt. I love the way this looks. The seersucker is a great fabric for this pattern since it highlights all the bias cutting and looks cool in the half-circle skirt.

I did not have an appropriate length zipper, so I put in a way too long invisible zipper. I should go back and shorten that at some point. I have plenty of time before next summer, right? I also love this little red bobble button I used to fasten the back. I made small fabric loop for the closure and I think it’s darling. Little details are the best!

Happy Halloween from Roxy

posted by lorene

on 11.01.2015

Many years ago, my friends and I dressed up as the Misfits for an 80’s Party. Not the punk band, but the amazing cartoon band from Jem and the Holograms. I was Roxy and making her costume was really hard! Unlike Pizzazz and Stormer, Roxy’s outfit is very specific fabrics. She has a fuzzy/eyelash purple top and metallic spray painted pants. This was impossible to find at the time.

A few years later I was in Joann’s around Halloween and found the perfect fabric for Roxy’s pants. So I bought a few yards. That fabric has sat in my stash for years and I figured with the new terrible Jem movie that just came out, this costume is as relevant as its every going to be! So I started off using the Cigarette Pants pattern from Gertie Sews Vintage Casual, then I used some other pants patterns that fit to adjust the crotch curve.
The resulting pants were ok, but the legs were to wide and I couldn’t really bend my knees. Also, the fabric I had is flannel backed and the metallic printing on the front was flaking off everywhere but especially in the crotch area. Eek!

So I put them to the side and started focusing on my top. I found this purple eyelash fabric on fabric.com. It’s metallic which isn’t really accurate but it was the best and cheapest thing I could find.

I used the shirt pattern 403 from Burda Plus A/W 2012. Leaving off one sleeve of course! This actually fits pretty well so I may make it out of a normal fabric too!

Next up was the belt, so I was off to Joann’s. It was during lunchtime a few days before Halloween, so of course it was insanely busy. Let me give you a tip – whenever you are buying fabric go to the cutting counter and check what number is in the dispenser and what number they care cutting. If it’s over 10, definitely take a number. That gives you about 15-20 minutes to shop.

Anyway, while wandering around looking for the faux leather I came across the performance fabrics section. There I spotted a pretty good looking fabric for my pants! I wasn’t intending to buy more fabric, but when I spotted this spandex I knew it would take me less time to whip up a pair of leggings than to try to fix my flaking pants. So I grabbed it. It was thankfully not on sale so I was able to use a coupon to get it down to $8.50/yd. I used the Cake Patterns Espresso leggings to make the final pants. This is a TNT legging pattern for me so I knew I could make them really quickly.

Finally I got over by the home decor and spotted the vinyl and they had a yellowy green that would work perfectly for my belt. It was $20/yd but also not on sale and I only needed 1/4 yard so it was $2.50! While looking for something to fasten my belt, I came across an unknown brand that had magnetic snaps and studs that were around $3. Since they only required cutting a slit into the vinyl, I picked up a set of magnetic snaps and some rounded studs to finish my belt.

Practicing my snarl with my friend Mary

The finishing touches on my costume were the wig and makeup. I got this white wig from Amazon for $15 and it’s quite nice. I had to cut it a bit to get the style right, then I teased and sprayed it into submission. For makeup, I picked up a $3 Revolution Orange lipstick at Ulta. Everything else I had. My lipstick is MAC Vegas Volt.

Cashmerette Appleton Dress

posted by lorene

on 10.25.2015

I was on the fence about purchasing the brand new Appleton dress pattern from the new pattern designer but not new blogger. Cashmerette. I’m not really one for wearing a lot of wrap dresses, but that’s partially because of gaping issues. However, this pattern is supposed to solve the gaping and Jenny and I have similar body shapes being top heavy and slim hipped, so if it works for her it might work for me. Also, no FBA? Hell yes!

I decided to order the print pattern and missed out on the first print run, but mine still came very quickly. I traced off my size and the E/H front piece. I searched through my stash and found this cotton jersey I had purchased at Joann last year. I thought it was 100% cotton, but the noxious smells it let of when I ironed it on the cotton setting leads me to believe it’s actually a cotton/poly blend. I was definitely short of the fabric requirements, but since I was going for the 3/4 length sleeve I figured I had some room to fudge. I pretty easily fit this on my fabric.

Sewing this up was a breeze. The only thing in the directions that slightly confused me was whether or not I needed to reinforce belt holes on both sides. I did it on both, which was wrong but not an issue. The other thing I could have done a better job on was aligning my neckline bands to the bodice fabric. They are just slightly off and that’s Because I wasn’t totally sure how they should meet up. On the next version I will know better and so they will be perfectly aligned.

Have I mentioned to you that I love my coverstitch machine? It’s definitely a non-essential machine, but it makes hemming knits so fast and easy! This machine easily contributed an extra 25% to the joy I have of sewing knits. I chose not to do any of the extra stitching to tack down the seam allowances around the neckline.

After I sewed up the sleeves and side of the dress I tried it on over my yoga pants…and I was like “Whoa! This dress was looks awesome!” I did absolutely no changes to this pattern…I even hemmed exactly at 1.5″ and it was perfect. I will definitely be sewing this up in a nicer fabric (wool jersey?) than my crappy Joann poly blend.

The only problem I have with this pattern is that the hem of left side of the dress (the under wrapped side) tends to hang down. I can pull it up higher on my chest to pull the hem up, but I might taper the hemline on that edge up a bit so it’s not an issue.

I wonder what pattern Cashmerette will release next?