Put down your pencils.

Work on the pencil skirt is ongoing.  After assembling most of the shell on Thursday, I decided that I wanted to pick out the back seam and do it again.  The problem though with finding a very close match between thread and fabric is that it can be difficult to see your stitches to pick them out!  By the time I'd gotten to that point, it was late afternoon and there wasn't enough light to see what I was doing, so I set it aside.

On Friday, I decided that what I really needed right away was some dark brown narrow-leg pants.  It's an item I'd been feeling I was missing for quite a while:  there have been so many times in the last months that I've wanted to wear a top, but felt I needed these pants to make the perfect outfit.  While I was at Vogue last week getting the fabric and notions for the pencil skirt I happened to find some stretch cotton twill in the exact shade of brown I'd been wanting, so I snapped up two yards.  On Friday, I washed it up and made it into my third pair of Clovers.

These aren't any different than the first two pairs I made.  I made the longer length, without the pockets,  using the pattern adjustments I'd made in my muslin.  The only difference this time was that I used the invisible zipper foot on my new sewing machine.  And WOW!  That thing makes a big difference:

And it makes it so easy.  I did discover though that I don't like the normal zipper foot on the Janome at all.  It's quite a bit wider than the one on my Kenmore, which made sewing the seam below the zipper difficult.

Yesterday I finally got around to "fixing" a top I'd bought on sale at Anthropologie maybe three years ago.  I bought it because the fabric is a design by Vera Neumann (whose scarves I collect and love).  I don't think the shape is fantastic for me (it does come with a waist tie, but I opted not to wear it today) but the fabric is so pretty, and it goes with my new pants!  However, like a lot of my tops from Anthropologie, the shoulders were way too high, so the neckline hung too low.  Because we had a lot of sun yesterday morning, I got out my seam ripper and unpicked the binding around the neck, then took each shoulder in by an inch (half inch front and back) and restitched the binding on.  It's still not a perfect fit, but it's a lot better than it was, and I think I'm more likely to wear it now.

I know - it makes me look preggers.

I'm not bothering to show any details of the Clovers because you've all seen a million pairs of these pants by now!  For me, and with my alterations, these are both comfy and flattering.  The only thing I don't like, and haven't yet figured out how to fix, is the amount of bulk where the right waistband seam meets the side seam.  No matter how much fabric I trim away, it's always bulgy there.  Any ideas?

I wore this outfit to go have coffee with Alicia this morning, but since it was chilly, I also had to put on a sweater:

And my new Meandering Vines scarf.  As I was taking pictures, the sunlight was coming and going.  The complete outfit shot was super sunny:

Oooh, the mother ship is here!

There has also been a good bit of progress on the Exeter sweater.  I'm hoping to do an update some time this week.  I've also got a house that could really use a good cleaning.  So I think work on The Pencil is at a temporary standstill.  Good thing I don't really need a pencil skirt.

Better Late than Never!

Remember back in June when Alicia and I went to Vogue and ended up each getting a remnant of the same border print?  We promised a co-blog project, each of us making a different project with our fabric.  We've both finally finished, and yesterday we had a nice outing to a yarn shop and then lunch, and we both wore our new garments.  Niecey-poo was kind enough to snap a couple of pictures for us.

We were laughing because we'd had a couple of funny outtakes before we got this picture!

I love Alicia's skirt so much, and I'm not the only one - when we were in the yarn shop, a girl actually came up to her and asked her how she made it!  So flattering.

I ended up making the Lisette Portfolio top, and I must say, I'm kind of in love with it!  Much more than I was expecting to be.  I had hoped to make the tunic length, but the fabric wasn't wide enough to make the print work, so I had to go with the top.  I was worried that it would be too cropped, but with a narrow hem, I think it came out just right.  I wore it with my red Clover pants, but I also like it with jeans.

I made this over 2 days right before Niecey-poo came, and took a bunch of great in-progress shots.  But somehow, they all got lost in the demise of my old computer.  I tried to take a few shots of the blouse itself yesterday morning, but it was very cloudy so they're not great.

 

 

front

back

I spent a long time on this top, and was very careful with all my details.  Consequently, I think it's one of the best things I've ever made.  I finished all the seams except the center back by serging both layers together.  But I'm most proud of my stitch-in-the-ditch around the neck.  That's a technique I find really difficult, so I did it very slowly, sometimes even hand-cranking at the curves, and got a result I'm very pleased with.  I decided to go with a machine-stitched hem because my thread was a good match, and I didn't think it would detract from the overall look.

finished seam and hem

front inset

This fabric was so nice to work with.  It's very lightweight - I'd call it a lawn.  The label just said cotton, but Alicia thinks there might be a little silk in it, and I agree with her.  It has a very nice drape that's almost floaty, and it doesn't press as crisply as a cotton would.  I love it so much, when I found three more remnants of it at another location of Vogue, I bought them!

For details on Alicia's skirt, head on over to Iron-On Maiden!

I can't believe I did that!

I've been trying to arrange and organize my sewing things, because I keep them all in my guest room and my niece will be coming to stay in just a week and a half, followed by her parents and sister a month later.  Yesterday I neatly folded and stacked my fabric stash, and put away patterns I had taken out of my pattern box.

In order to do that, I had to shift - yet again - the Clover muslin that's been sitting on top of the box since March, just waiting for me to cut a new waist band and finish them.  That thing has been taunting me, so I decided to just get to it.  And here they are:

With my vintage Shirt of Awesomeness!

I like them so much more than I was expecting to.  I'm not a huge fan of this cropped length (which I accidentally cut when making the muslin - I thought I was making the longer ones), but the fit is really great.  And I'm proud to report that things went much better this time, zipper-wise.   I did a few things differently from how I normally do, and the result was just perfect.  And I do mean perfect:  this is my best invisible zipper insertion ever.

No gaping, no waving, no hole at the bottom!  Mostly to remind myself later, but also for those who might be interested, here's what I did:

1.  I cut a strip of lightweight fusible knit interfacing about a 1/2" wide and fused it along the sewing line for the zipper.  This fabric has a lot of stretch, but doing that took care of my waviness issues!  Thanks to all those who suggested that in the comments after I finished my red ones!

2.  Instead of trying to make the top end crimp of the zipper line up with the 5/8 waist band seam line line I usually do, I pinned the end of the tape level with the top of the fabric.  That means that the crimp is now buried inside the seam, and I think it's much neater that way.  It was also easier for me to line up the second side to get a perfect match side to side.

3.  When sewing in the zipper, instead of trying to go beyond the pull with my zipper foot, I stopped sewing just before my foot reached the pull.  That made it a lot easier when I came back later to finish the seam, and took care of the gaping I usually get toward the bottom of the zipper.

4.  I was also able to get a much better press of the curved zipper by using my new ham - even though it's only half full so far!  I really can't wait til it's finished!

Now that these are finished and looking so great, I'm wishing I'd done a better job from the get-go.  I'm not really in love with this color, and because it was only meant to be a muslin, I didn't finish any of the seams - and I used red thread because I was trying to finish up a spool!  Despite all that, I think they're wearable.

I've been trying to get a lot of sewing done because I probably won't be able to sew at all once my niece gets here.  Besides these pants, I took pictures of three new finished tops today, so those will be coming up over the next few days!

Almost-toile Voile

On Tuesday, I shirked most of my duties and instead made this blouse:

This is the Lisette Souvenir Blouse, in a cotton voile print that is very like toile, except that there are no people.  I bought this piece of fabric a few months ago from Vogue, intending it to be for the muslin of this blouse - which technically, it is.  But I ended up really loving this print!  So I'm glad there were no unhappy surprises in the construction of this piece.

I cut a straight size 10, and only made one modification.  Rather than doing a deep hem like the pattern calls for, I did a tiny hem to make it longer.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  Yes, it covers up the wavy zipper of my Clover pants!  But to accomodate my hips, I ended up having to make side vents.  I just unpicked each side seam 3"  and then stitched 1/4" from the fold:

I love this blouse, but there's one tiny detail that I'm not too happy with.  On the front neckline, there's a part of the design that makes it look like I made a mistake in stitching!   See if you can spot it:

I swear, it's the print of the fabric and not shoddy stitching!

This pattern wasn't too difficult; I'd say the whole thing took me about 4.5 hours, and that includes tracing the pattern and cutting the fabric.  The construction of the sleeves and yokes is interesting, and I'll admit the directions didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  But I was able to figure out how it was supposed to go together and just ignore the instructions.

Yesterday I wore it to run errands and do chores around the house, pairing it with the Clovers for their test run.  I'm pretty happy with the fit of the pants, and they didn't loosen up (read:  get baggy) as much as I'd suspected they might.  And with this top to cover up the zipper, I felt pretty darned cute, even though allergies are keeping me from wearing any makeup these days.

Are any of you thinking of making this top?  When the new spring patterns from Lisette came out, I was a little underwhelmed, but they've really grown on me! 

Clovers, finished

I finished my Clovers this afternoon, and I'm pretty happy with them overall, but there were a few hitches.

Remember how I was so proud of myself yesterday that I quit sewing before I got over-tired?  Well I guess I didn't quit soon enough, because this morning I discovered that I had sewn the wrong seam on the waistband facing.  Of course, I didn't realize this until I had attached the facing to the waistband and then severely trimmed the seam allowances.  I did wonder why I had to stretch the fabric so much as I was sewing.  And then I took a good look at it and realized it was all backwards.  So I had to pick it all out and redo it.  Sigh . . .

I also spent a lot of time on the zipper.  I hand basted it in to make sure everything was lined up.  But I always have a lot of trouble with the bottom section of invisible zippers, where the pull is when you're sewing.  I can never get my stitching as close to the zipper teeth in that section as I need to.  I ended up going back over it by hand to try to fix it, and it is a little better, but it still gapes at the bottom:

Does anybody have any tips for avoiding this?

The biggest problem with the pants is that the zipper is wavy, and I really have no idea how to fix this.  Was I supposed to put some organza lining in the zipper section to counteract the stretchiness of the fabric?  Look:

 That is the fabric bulging out, not my body!  And it's frustrating, because the other hip (the one I altered) is so smooth!  Any advice anybody has for this would be greatly appreciated!

My immediate solution is to wear the pants with a top that's a little longer.  This one looks good with the pants (and these sandals!), but it's not quite long enough to hide the "wave" :

And here they are from the back:

I think overall they're a good fit, and the alterations I made to the pattern were spot on.  I can live with the little bit of bagginess in the back of the legs for now (until I actually read Pants for Real People that I made Hubby buy me months ago).  I just need to figure out how to deal with the zipper issue.

For reference, I started with a size 8 and took in a couple inches at the center back and about a half inch at the right hip (my less full hip - thank you, Body Map!).  I did not alter the crotch curve in any way.  There is a little whiskering at the front crotch, so I may do that on future makes, but I want to wear these for a while and see how they loosen up before I make any more changes to the pattern.

And for fun, here are a couple Hubbyisms:

Before I even put them on after I'd finished, he said, "Those pants do not make your butt look big."  Good boy!

And once I had them on he said, "Those pants make your butt look amazing!"  Best boy!

The Clover Chronicles

On Thursday, I went a long way toward realizing my dream of making the Clover pants.  And it wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd thought it would be - but true to form I made it a lot harder than it needed to be, mostly because  I spent so much time procrastinating and taking breaks.  Here's how my day went:

7:00  Got up, ate breakfast and got dressed.  Spent a fair amount of time doing "internet research" on pattern adjustments for these pants.

10:00  Finally decided that I should get started.

Traced the pattern pieces.

Took a break.

Cut out and marked the fabric.

Took a break.

12:00  Ate lunch.  Did some more internet research.  Results inconclusive.

1:00  Decided to finally dive in and sew up the pants.

Done sewing by 2:00.

The moment of truth - trying them on.  SO scary!

But they weren't too bad!

I had my normal issues with pants:  gaping at the back waist and extra fabric at the right hip.  But now that I've done the body map, I knew that the excess at the right hip wasn't just my imagination or a seam allowance gone wrong!  And guess what - when I started pinning it out, I took out a total of 1/2" there - just like my body map said I should!  I ended up pinning out almost 2.5" at the center back.


**WARNING:  DERRIERE PICTURES FOLLOW**
Disclaimer:  as weird as I feel putting these pictures on the internet, I'm doing it anyway in the hopes that it might help someone else who wants to make these pants.  In all my research, I didn't find any pictures of muslins in the process of being altered - most people just mentioned as an aside what kinds of alterations they did.  But I'm the kind of person who needs to SEE it!

Here's the excess pinned out at the center back and right hip.  I was twisting around so there's some wrinkling at the back of the legs which isn't as pronounced when I stand straight, although there's a little more fabric there than I'd like.  I'm still researching how to handle this.

A view from the front.  At this point, I had resewn the back and right side seams to the new measurements.  Not perfect, but not too bad either.

From the right, with excess removed.

And from the left, with safety pins standing in for a zipper.

I made Version 1, not realizing they were very cropped.  When I make my final version, I'm planning on making them ankle length.

Once I had resewn the pants with the adjustments and tried on the fit, I took off most of the waistband so I could transfer my new markings onto my pattern pieces.

Waistband removed.

Drawing in the adjustments.

The new center back seam line and cutting line.

The new right hip seam line.

Conclusions:

These sit lower than I was hoping for, so I may have a long rise.

I still need to figure out how to deal with the extra fabric at the back of my thighs.

I'm a little concerned that the stretch fabric will end up being baggy after a few hours of wear.  My plan is to put the muslin back together and add a zipper, then wear them around for a day to see how they do and how I feel in them before making up the "real" pair.

All in all though, I think this was a pretty successful first go, and I'm feeling confident about moving ahead with this pattern!