Finished Project: Half Zip Merino top

This was the last piece of merino fabric from my somewhat impulse purchase from New Zealand Merino and Fabrics, from a year and a half ago. I guess though since it's been that long, it now qualifies as stash busting, right?

I had a specific idea of what I wanted this top to be, but without really having a clear picture in my head (if that makes sense). Since I'd already made a simple lightweight hoodie, and a vest, I wanted something different. I wanted a slightly longer top, with a zipped up collar. I also though that adding some gathers to the side could bring some interest. And I also wanted a regular set-in sleeve (no raglan), and princess seams at the bust...

With all these requirements, I was looking around for patterns that would work. It was harder than I thought actually, even though the concept of a half-zip is pretty simple. I went through all my burda magazines, and looked online as well.

Eventually, I came across the Ascent Fleece Pullover pattern, by 4 out of 5. It definitely fit the bill, to a point. But to be honest, I have now reached a point where I own so many patterns already - Burda magazine, big 4 envelope patterns, independent designer pdfs...etc that I find it hard to justify buying yet another pattern, especially for something pretty simple.

So instead, I went back to my stash, and sure enough found a pattern that could be hacked into what I wanted. I didn't look very far as I picked the same pattern I had made my merino vest out of, McCall M7026.

I did have to make some changes to make it fit the bill.

The pattern has a few design lines that are much more intricate than what I wanted (especially in the upper back), but it wasn't very hard to tape those pieces together in the pattern and cut them as one piece. 

I then combined the front and back shoulder yoke into one piece. I also removed the back center seam. In the front, I rotated the princess seams so they would end at the armhole instead of shoulder yoke. Since this pattern is for a jacket, and I wanted a half zip, I removed the seam allowance at the center front, and cut that piece on the fold instead.

I lengthened the bodice about 7cm and used the curved hem from view C for the back, as well as the front. Finally, I also added about 4cm to the sleeve length, but that's more of a standard adjustment than a design change...

Once I had all the pieces cut, I basted the whole thing together (sans sleeves), in order to check the fit.

Overall it was pretty good, but I did have to do some fitting adjustments to the princess seam at the bust. I took in the side pieces quite a bit (basically following what a small bust adjustment would be on a princess seam). As a result, the sides ended up being slightly shorter, so I just added a little triangle of fabric just st the armhole, to compensate. It almost looks like a gusset piece in a way. Or if I'd used a contrasting mesh fabric for example, it could have passed for a technical design detail. In any case, the fix worked fine and I don't think anyone would be able to tell that it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

I had noticed on the RTW half zips that I own that there was an extra piece of fabric attached to the zipper on the inside, and folding over the top of the zipper. This is to prevent the zipper from rubbing against the skin on the inside, or the neck at the top. So I decided to add a piece like that as well.

I followed this tutorial to install the half zip. The construction of it wasn't very complicated, once I figured out how to include the extra piece of "zipper lining". The part that gave me most trouble was the collar. After I had it all constructed, I realized that it was gaping in two places, on either side of the zipper, instead of sitting nice and flat against the neck. I hadn't noticed that issue with my vest, but I was using heavier-weight black fabric, so maybe it just wasn't as obvious.

In any case, it took me a few try to manage to reduce the gaping. I think I finally managed to get something better, by basically taking in some of the collar length towards the very top, so it would be shorter and tighter...

Setting in the sleeves turned out way more frustrating that it should have been. I planned on attaching the sleeves to the shoulders before sewing the sleeve and side seams. But I found out the hard way that the pattern had WAYYYY to much ease built into the sleeve head. No matter how careful I was gathering and sewing the sleeves, I ended up with unwanted gathers. So finally after sewing the sleeves twice without success, I decided to chop off some of that sleeve head to remove the extra ease. As I'm writing this I was wondering if maybe the adjustment that I made at the bust seam would have impacted the armhole size, but looking back at in progress photos, I don't think so...Anyways, if you intent on using this pattern, maybe check the length difference between sleeve head and armhole first...

Finally I was almost done. Using this tutorial I constructed the side seam gathers without any problems. The sleeve cuffs with thumb holes also came together really quick, and then came time for hemming. In an attempt to keep my hem from being all wobbly like on my previous merino makes, I used stay tape once again, to make it smoother (which is still only partially successful - maybe I pull too much on the fabric as I sew it, or not enough? hard to tell).

When I put it on, all finished, I didn't like the length and curve of the front, which I had matched to the back. So I undid the hem in the front and re-cut it about an inch and 1/2 shorter in the middle, tapering to nothing at the side seams. I liked that much better.

And voila! Merino half zip running top completed, and all from stash (well, except for the zipper).

I finished it just before my big race, and really wanted to wear it on that day, but B. wisely pointed out that wearing a new piece of clothing on your first long-distance race is not a good idea, as I didn't know if any part of it would start rubbing or chaffing after a while (what? like anything I could make could be imperfect like that :P).

I followed his advice and instead wore this top for the first time the following week-end, on a hike we hadn't done before. Which was very convenient for taking scenic photos of my finished garment!

An Embroidery Project: Baby blanket

Many years ago, I discovered my step mom's collection of craft magazines, and especially one from the 70's and 80's (that has long been discontinued), named "100 idees" (100 ideas). It was an incredible wealth of craft projects, and one in particular was (and still is) a favorite of hers.

In this alphabet, each letter came with a different little character, each cuter than the other, engaging in an equally cute activity of sort. The letters were templates meant to be embroidered.

The magazine suggested embroidering the whole alphabet on a bed sheet, but my step mom used it on multiple occasion to embroider the name of the child on bed sheets or pillows cases.

As a teenager, I had tried my hand at embroidering, using just my initials, but i didn't then have much patience (or care) for it, and my letters remained unfinished for pretty much 20 years. I've always kept that little piece of fabric with me though, with the idea of one day completing it, and what's more, I've always wanted in the back of my mind, to one day use it for a new baby.

Fast forward to a year and a half ago, when our good friends K&J told us they were expecting. Right away I knew their little baby would be the recipient of an embroidered item.

Rather than a bed sheet, I decided to go with a quilted blanket.  First I started looking for a print to be used on the other side of the embroidered side. The baby's mom studied marine biology so I started looking for sea animals. It actually proved to be pretty complicated to find. Although there were a million different options for prints at my local fabric stores, very few of them had a marine animal theme and those that did just didn't appeal to me.

So I turned to online stores and found it equally challenging to find something I liked. But eventually I found this Robert Kaufman print that was perfect, and I ordered it.

Sea Animals in Ocean from Friendly Seas Collection by Cynthia Frenette for Robert Kaufman Fabrics

Once I had the "backing" fabric, I purchased a piece of fabric in a complementing solid color. The embroidery pattern gives details as to which color floss to use for each part of the letter and characters, referencing DMC floss. Luckily Michael's carries DMC and had most of the colors or a variation of so it was easy to source out.

Because I wanted this to be extra special, I also looked at all the little characters on the alphabet, and decided to switch out some of the ones that came with the letter I needed.

His mom loves foraging mushrooms so I used the little girl picking out mushrooms for the W. The little gardener was another one I decided to pick because both his parents are very outdoorsy and that fit pretty well. I also used the little fishing guy since his dad likes to fish, and the little boy with a dog since they own a dog.

I played around in Photoshop to mix and match the characters and the letters and eventually came up with the right combo. I then traced all my letters and characters from the original template, then transferred them onto the fabric. I was ready to go!

Now, all this happened around September of 2015, when the baby was due. The dad had accidentally let the name slip one night at dinner so I was able to plan out everything and I was hoping to have the whole thing done sometime within the month following his birth....

That didn't happen...

Sewing up and quilting the blanket already took me a bit of time - then I took forever to decide the placement of the name. Finally I started with the embroidering but I had very little experience in it, and it was such minute work. And  - as silly as it may sound - I was having a hard time doing it in artificial light, only in broad daylight did I feel like I could see enough to do a good job.

After a while it became clear that it wasn't going to be a present for a new born, and the more time past the less pressure I felt to get it done. So almost a year went by and we were nearing little Wyatt's 1st birthday, plus it was summer = a lot of daylight so I kicked myself in the butt and finally got it finished, just in time to give it to him as a birthday present.

So, I'm a bit embarrassed it took me so long to make, but I really love the result. I don't know that I will jump into a lot of embroidery projects in the future, but this one was really cute to make, and I'm happy I finally got to use this cute alphabet for a little boy.

I also made him a birthday card using Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes"

My step mom also started using this alphabet a while back as a stencil for fabric paint. It takes a lot less time for an equally cute result.


Thanks to the french blog Les Centidealistes, you can find patterns and templates for a lot of projects from the magazine, including the alphabet here.

Finished project: Inari Dress

I bought this fabric a couple of years ago at Fabricana. I just couldn't resist the print. It's a medium weight knit, almost like a sweater knit, so right away I knew I wanted to make a t-shirt dress of sorts with it.

 

Fast forward to a couple of years later, and it's the Inari craze everywhere on the blogoshpere (still is!). Great versions of that pattern popping up everywhere in my blog roll so despite my will to try and not by new patterns, i finally caved and bought the dowloadable pdf.

Because the print is pretty bold, I wanted to break it up a bit, so I decided to do the sleeves in a plain colour. I was lucky to find at Fabricana again, a knit that matched almost perfectly the colour of the main fabric background.

Because it's a pretty basic pattern for a loose fitting garment, I didn't want to  spend time making a muslin, so based on my measurments, I just went ahead and cut the size 36 (which is also the European size I normally wear in RTW), and cut my fabric. 

Matching the pattern at the side seams was a bit tricky. I could easily match the vertical lines, but it proved impossible to prevent the repeat motifs from being cut off or repeat twice. Oh well, i can live with it.

For such a simple pattern, this dress gave me quite a bit of fitting issues. When I first sewed up the pieces, it just looked like a shapeless sack. I could tell there was way too much fabric at the center of the front and back, so I went back to the pattern and folded over about 1.5 cm at the center front and center back.

Another problem I had was excess fabric at the armhole. To remedy that, I pinched a 3cm dart at the armhole. I'm not sure how common those are, usually you see darts at the side deam, but that seemed to fix it. I aslo took about 2cm off the height of the armhole at the shoulder.

One thing I had noticed on other blogger's versions, before buying the pattern, was that the armhole seemed to pull at the front when the arm was extended away from the body, resulting in the armhole seam shifting out a bit. You can see what I'm talking about in these different versions by BeeMade,  Closet Case File and this one by House of Pinheiro . I do love all three versions of their dresses (Bee has made a few of them, all of them really great!) and they've all done an amazing job sewing them. I'm just noting a design aspect of the pattern that I had noticed and was slightly concerned about.

I did do a bit of research before sewing the pattern, and the only thing I could find was Diane of Sew Santa Fe commenting on how low the armhole was on her version.

I don't know if any of my armhole fitting issues had anything to do with this specific drafting, but in case someone has ran into the same problems, I thought I'd mention it here. From the looks of it, I am the only one who was bothered by that anyways.
 

I had already cut my dress and didn't have anymore fabric, but thankfully, since I had removed about 3cm of width on both front and back, I was able to recut new pieces from the same ones. I did lose a couple cm of length, and I had to rake the shoulders in at the neck to avoid a gaping neckline,but luckily the finished product doesn't show any of this.

Because I reduced the armhole height so much (between the shoulder and the dart, that's 5.5cm total, about 2"), I had to do quite a bit of redrafting on the sleeve cap.  I think I might have made it a bit too narrow as a result but that could easily be fixed if I make the dress again.

After recuting the pieces and re-sewing it back together, the dress still felt too wide on me. As much as I wanted to like the cocoon shape (and it looked so great on everyone else!) it just didn't work on me. I don't know if it's my general curveless-ness, or that I cut the dress the wrong size to start with, or maybe my fabric was a bit too drapey for it to work. A lot of versions that I saw used thicker/stiffer wovens with more body, so maybe that's the key. In any case, I ended up recuting the side seams of the back to a much straighter line, and eventually managed to get a shape I was happy with.

I didn't adjust the length of the dress at all (I'm 5'11 and it's designed for a 5'8 silhouette). When I originally put the pattern up in front of me, the length in the mirror looked ok so I just went with it. But I forgot to take the slits into consideration, and those ended up hitting quite hight on my thigh. A bit higher than I would care to show at the office. But nothing a pair of black tights can't fix.
In the end, I'm still quite happy with the result. The uneven, split hem and the rolled up sleeves where the two features that really attracted me ot this pattern, and they turned out well. 

If I make this dress again, I might start by printing out a smaller size, to compare to my altered pattern. I would probably chose a woven fabric with a bit more body to see if the cocoon shape works better that way... I really love this version, which is almost more of a tunic and the silk fabric is so luxurious! if I had the guarantee it would look as good on me as it does on Charlie I would make it again in an instant...

Since the fabric is more on the sweater-weight side, this dress is actually too warm for the dead of summer, but it's the perfect transition piece for the beginning of fall - as you can see the photos were taken with fall well underway and leaves covering the street, such a beautiful time of year...until rain started pouring down :)

Me Made Halloween: Sally

I made a Halloween costume! This year I actually came up with a good idea and managed to execute an actual costume on time for halloween (as opposed to slapping on an old black dress and some face make-up at the last minute and calling it "dead woman", which is what I have commonly done in the past).

The idea started with a red wig that I purchased recently for another event. I really wanted to make the most of it, so I started looking up ideas using a red wig and came up with Sally, the rag doll from Nightmare Before Christmas. It was so perfect! I've seen this movie many times when I was younger and the character's dress was the perfect project for a handmade outfit since...it's a handemade patchwork-type dress.

So after my activewear sewing marathon (posts and photos coming soon!), I launched myself into a Halloween sewing marathon, with one week to complete the costume.

I didn't have time to go to the fabric store, so instead I bought a few items at the thrift store near my work. I looked for garments of the right colors, big enough that they would produce enough material. I was pretty lucky and found all the right colors. I also had a black man's shirt in my stash that had been there forever waiting for a refashioning and so I decided this was going to be it!

The pieces of the dress all have different prints, so I bought fabric markers from Michael's to draw the prints by hand. I also got a big darning needle and some fingerweight yarn to do the "topstitching".

For the pattern, I used the same as my summer dress from last year (burda magazine 108-04-2010). It had the right silhouette to match Sally's dress. I only had to trace the long version of the sleeve which I didn't use before. The pattern comes with one full piece for the front and one for the back (no waist seam) so it was also easy to split them up into the different patchwork pieces. 

First I traced the second half of each side in order to have a full front and back. Then I drew the lines for each piece, using pictures from the internet as guide. On each piece I wrote what colour and what "print" would be used, and I also added numbers in each corners, matching those numbers in the corners of the other pieces it would attach to. This was to make sure I wouldn't get all the pieces mixed up and not know how to reassamble them once cut.

Once I cut all my pattern pieces I cut the fabric each color at a time. I actually left the pattern attached to the fabric until I was ready to sew that piece to the rest, again to avoid confusion.

 

I had made some adjustements to the pattern (slightly more A-line skirt and longer hemline), which I ended up coming back on when I sewed the dress together. It was too long and too wide. So i detached the pieces that were connected around the waist and removed about 5cm of heights from those pieces. I used the bust darts from th pattern but omitted the back darts so I had to get rid of the excess fabric at the side and "center" seam.

Once I was happy with the fit,  I started doing all the print drawing. I placed a piece of cardboard inside the dress to avoid the paint transferring to the other side. The reason I painted the dress after sewing it and not before is that some of these pieces wrap around the side - there is a side seam but I wanted them to appear like one continuous piece around the side, and I didn't want to have to do pattern matching, so it was easier to draw the print over the side seam after it was sewn.

And finally I topstitched all the seams with the yarn for the final touch.

I'm really happy with the result, it looks pretty legit. Now, those are not the colors of the actual doll in the movie (because the movie is so dark, everything is more toned down and muted), but because I had the bright red wig I decided to go with the brighter version of this costume.

I got some white tights from American Apparel, and the stripped "socks" are actually sleeves I chopped off a trift store shirt - I couldn't seem to find simple black & white stripped sockes anywhere so that ended up being the best option.

For the face make-up, I researched online a bit. I didn't want to buy too many elements that I would only be using for halloween. A couple years ago I came accross this you tube video that suggested using Lise Watier's corrector wheel to make pale faces, thanks to the blue and green correctors. I already had the wheel so I used it. As a base I also used the NYX jumbo eye pencil in White, as suggested in this video. I found a couple of black and white eyeliners for 1.99 at London drugs, and I also purchased the cheapest blue eye shadow palette I could find.

With that I was set, and after watching a few different tutorials, I kind of made up my own version of it. Being a wearer of high-prescription glasses, I always find it frustrating to do eye make-up, because it will barely be visible in the end, but oh well...

I went to a couple of house parties on Halloween night and got lots of compliments on my costume, so yeah, pretty pleased with myself! Definitely one, if not the best costumes I've worn...

 

With my friend Luigi, ready to go meet Mario...