Category: BYOC

Thank you to Kathryn at sewingworld for today’s title.

I tried to make yesterday a sewing day.  My goal was 3 pairs of pants; it was not met, but I did get a lot done.  It would have helped if all the fabric had been prepared and at the ready and if I had not needed to redraft pants patterns.  The drafting work IS done now however and future pants will move much faster, at least as far as these styles go.

I started with knit one-seam pants from the last of the Nancy Erickson knits, the plain canvas knit.  I made the one-seams several times last summer and loved them and they fit pretty well, but not perfectly.  In September I was in San Francisco for one of Sandra Betzina’s Power Sewing weeks, and while I was there she had her patternmaker come in to give us a class on altering, drafting, and balancing pants patterns.  It was very interesting and after the class she spent some time with a couple of us who needed extra pants help.  In my normally absentminded way I did not write down the pattern person’s name, I want to say it is Monica, but knowing me that is probably wrong.   Any way, I came out of the class with a newly drafted pair of pants based on one of Sandra’s patterns, which was convenient and available.  I really was only interested in basic pants that fit, where the pattern came from was beside the point.  I learned that my back crotch depth and curve is very long and curvy, kind of bowl-like, and the back crotch depth is VERY LONG.  My front is short in length and short in crotch depth too with a very short little curve, more like a bump.  The whole front curve is less than 2 inches total dept from waist to center.

Here is a picture:

The altered pattern from the Sandra Betzina (Vogue 7940) seminar is on top of the old one-seam pant pattern (pants 101 from mysewnigclasses.com).  The yellow line was the waistline on the original one-seams but I changed it to match the new wasitline from the Vogue pattern.  Notice the slope of the new pattern and the steep angle from center back down to center front.  This sewed up beautifully and the waist band went right along the wasitline seam as I marked it from the pattern without any problems, perfectly positioned.  This is the first time that has ever happened to me.  I can see now why, when pants are  cut so the waist is perpendicular to the grainline, the pants skew off center while I wear them.  this way the grain of each leg is straight and the waist is angled to accomodate me.

You can also see the shorter front crotch curve and that it is a less gradual curve than on the original pattern (which was shorter than many patterns I have tried).  The back has a much longer and deeper curve and the tip of the curve actually curves back up forming a bowl shape although that may not be evident in this picture.

After I redrew the one-seams to match the new waist and crotch curve they sewed up very quickly and I love this new version of the pattern.  I spent some extra time stitching three rows of stitching along the hems, to make a deep hem and add extra weight to help them hang.  The twin needle was too narrow so I stitched three rows 6 mm apart.  This was tedious because the stitches really dissappeared into the fabric and was hard to see so I probably wobbled here and there.  All in all though, they look good and the extra stitching gives them a nice hang.

After the knit pants I traced the new altered top to a pair of basically straight leg flat front pants, not the narrow kind like the Vogue pattern, but a wider more straight-leg version, but with side seams.  These have about 20 1/2 leg at the hem, still pretty wide and they are good for linen and other light summer pants.  I am making these out of a blue linen, which I had thought to wash first, but I hadn’t pressed the fabric.  I did that and decided that there was a fair amount of show-through and I should line them so I had to search through the linning box and find a lining, then wash it and dry it.  The lining is waiting to be pressed, after which I will cut and probably flat-line these pants.

Then I sewed up a pair of basic chinos in a lightweight poplin.  These are fairly roomy through the thighs with deep pockets.  They are good work around the house and yard and good "adventure tourism" pants because they are casual and I can move around well in them if I need to climb or squat or get in and out of things in funny ways.  Those are done except for the hem which is marked and waiting for the handsewing fairy to come along.  This pattern is based on a menswear pattern and I did not redraft it because I am pretty satisfied with the pants.  They are more practical than stylish but they work well for me so I heeded the advise that "perfect is the enemy of good" and left well enough alone.

I also hoped to make a pair of silk pants out of a lightweight silk in a deep french blue.  I was going to line these with aqua silk and put a slit at the side seam, leaving them loose, kind of a dress casual kind of look.  I hadn’t washed any of the silk, and I wanted to do that although I probably will not wash the pants.  Luckily silk dries quickly so I was able to wash them, let them dry and press them, but no cutting out.

I do hope to continue today, but it is a busy day with a lot going on at work.  Tomorrow I have to prepack, at least get all the planning done and check supplies and make sure that everything works and works together.  I will probably still have some sewing time and I hope to get a few more of these things finished.

I have hit my afternoon slump and so it is time to take a break from sewing.  The "pebble weave" knit sweater set is almost done.  I have to cover the shoulder pads for the cardigan, sew them in, sew on the buttons, and make buttonholes.  Buttonholes are not a good project to tackle when one’s head is nodding.

I made the cardigan a little too short.  It doesn’t look bad, kind of cute actually, but I think I would like it much better about 1 to 2 inches longer.  I have made a note of this on the pattern tissue.  The cardigan would be nice with pleated pants now, but I am taking flat front on the trip; c’est la vie.    I would have sworn I measured the pattern before cutting and decided that it was the perfect length based on the length I like my shorter handknits, but then it is quite possible I measured the pattern and forgot to include the hem allowance.  I seem to recall I was feeling a little distracted when I cut the cardigan out.

The cotton top does not require very thin shoulder pads, as the wool jersey one did; perhaps this is because although it is a thin knit, it is firmer and does not hug the body as much.  On all the pieces I had to shorten the sleeves by about 3 inches and the cardigan is meant to have a cuff. Amazing!! I left the cuff off and still whacked off a good bit of sleeve length.  Long torso and short arms, kind of a funny looking picture don’t you think.  It is not so much that I am long waisted, which I am, but only slightly for my height, but that I have these stubby little arms, who would have thunk it??

I wonder why all the RTW turtlenecks I buy are too short through the sleeves?  I don’t think I have ever purchased a sewing pattern that needed lengthening through the sleeves.  hmmm… Gives one pause doesn’t it?

I finished cutting the pebble weave knit sweater set.  After cutting the top I stalled out for a while.  I had to put the fabric away before cutting the cardigan which was good because I decided to trace off the draft pattern into two new patterns, a short version and a long version with separate pieces for right and left front and an entire back piece rather than the original "cut on fold" piece.  This seems to work much better for me.  On the first pattern I had lines with notes such as "cut on yellow line for left and green line for right"  a clear cut path to future mistakes.   Having separate pieces will reduce errors.

I cut the cardigan tonight.  It went faster than the top mostly because I have worked out a technique for squaring up the knit and marking grids on the back of my fabric before putting the pattern pieces down.  Still it was a slow go just because life intervened and I was not able to find any interruption-free time, even for the roughly 30 minutes I needed for cutting time.  Although it is only 10:30, I am tired, too tired to even thread up the serger or fuse the interfacing; I know I will make a mistake. 

I had hoped to be further, had hoped to have a sewing day yesterday, but life and workmen interfered.  At least it was nice outside, and I did get to start clearing out a part of the garden in anticipation of spring.  Today it is snowing again and we are supposed to get 8 inches by morning, heavy wet stuff this time and the power has already gone out a couple of times this evening.  I will not be surprised if it goes again; another good reason not to get rolling on the sewing machines.

I finally have returned to working on my cruise wardrobe, about time since we are leaving in two weeks.  I was distracted by a desperate need for black t-shirts.  That vacancy filled I am ready to move on.  I decided to sew the periwinkle "pebble weave" knit from Nancy Erickson.

This proved to be a more complicated task than I anticipated.  I washed all the periwinkle knits some weeks ago and folded them neatly without pressing on the assumption that I would end up pressing them again before cutting anyway.  When I got the periwinkle pebble weave knit out and put it on the ironing board I started in the normal way, pinning the selvedge in a straight line along one of the grid marks.  Then I really began to notice the texture of the knit.  The little "pebbles" are little yarns carried purlwise over some knit stitches, making a pattern like waves or pebbles, depending the direction from which you look at the fabric.  When I look at the back of the fabric you clearly see the rows of knits and purls and the selvedge edge seems to be almost biased, as if it was cut about 75 degrees off grain.  This seemed very strange to me, but as I looked at the entire fabric and squared it up I realized that the fabric was not indeed square, and in fact this accounted for the funny jagged edge the supposed "selvedge" acquired on washing. 

I suppose the fabric was knit tubularly and then cut before placing on the bolt; it was apparently not cut with great care or attention, the edges are erratically raveled and whoever cut it made no attempt to see if it was straight or to follow the clearly delineated vertical pattern of the knitted rows.   Perhaps this is all done on a machine and the fabric got twisted somehow, which would account for the cutting.   When I bought the fabric it was cut perpendicular to the selvege in the standard fashion, and I am sure that Nancy did not notice that the fabric was not square.  In fact the nature of this knit is that from the front, the fabric looks "right" from almost any angle, so unless one really analyzed the stitches on would not notice the direction of the knitting.

I have doubts about cutting this fabric on the bias or 30 degree bias, I am not sure this is the best way to cut knit garments, and if I squared based on the selvege that is what I would be doing.  I painstakingly pressed the knitting lines as straight as possible and given the small guage this was quite a challenge.  I placed the fabric eccentrically on the cutting table, trying to mark and pin straight grids to indicate the grain of the knitting, not the edges of the piece, which were about 30 degrees off.

It is proving to be an interesting challenge in cutting.  Luckily  I bought plenty of fabric, because I did not plan to cut the fabric on the bias, which takes extra yardage.  An interesting concept that:  I am almost cutting on the bias as the piece is cut off the bolt, but by doing so my fabric is on the straight of grain.  Life is not always what it seems, is it?

I wonder if anyone else noticed this with this fabric.  I wonder if the same thing will be true with the next piece, the aqua one.  I am glad that I can mark the pieces, be sure that each one is square and trace it directly onto the fabric on the stitching lines.  Then I double check my grain and cut using the offset rotatary cutter.  In fact this is the first time I have used this cutter.  I used to draw the stitching lines and painstakingly measure all the seam allowances with a compass and measuring stick, making little dots and then tracing the cutting line.  This is much faster.  I’ll take anything that makes the process easier without sacrificing accuracy.