Fall for cotton - and we're finished

Morning folks,

well would you believe it the end of September is here, I know everyone says the same, but I really can't believe how fast this month has gone by.  I've had a lovely month and I hope all you have too, although I had a bit of a cold for some of it, you know the sort that just hard to shift, but it didn't stop me getting on with stuff and doing most of what I wanted to do.

When you stop and look back and think what have I done this month it's hard to remember everything. Sometimes I find it hard to remember what I had for tea yesterday.  I do know what I had yesterday at the moment, it was fish and chips, we don't often have this but it was a treat, as myself and the Dr were out at a tea dance all afternoon and had no time to cook.  It was a delightful tea dance, and the weather was so good that we cycled over to it. Numerous people we chatted to, who we hadn't seen for awhile, asked, as you do, 'so what have you been up to?' and I found it quite hard to remember much.  I know we haven't danced as much as we would have liked and the DIY hasn't progressed as much as it could have, but we haven't been lazy or killing ourselves overdoing it either. Last winter and spring we work at it so hard that we were both exhausted come summer, so we have now taken a policy of pottering pace, the house is more than liveable and the rest will be done eventually.

Well with the end of September comes the end of the fall for cotton challenge and so I present to you my finished blouse. First though a couple of thoughts and notes about the progress.

 I miss measured on the bust area and had to add a small extension under the arms, with the pattern as it was this wasn't too bad and really isn't noticeable in the finished garment.

 

I covered the seam down the front facing with bias binding to as I just really loved the flowery bias tape, and obviously ran it around the hem. As the hem was a curve I decided very early on to hem with tape rather than try to do it normally, but I have to say that this material was just a dream. I sewed the tape on then ironed it up expecting to have to work in the excess material somewhat, but it just seem to fit straight off, one of the easiest hems I have ever done.

I made shoulder pads out of wadding cutting two different sized semi circles and covered them with the cream material, so that they wont show at all.

Choosing buttons, I wanted something different as the blouse was quite plain I thought the buttons should be a little special. 

 And I added 4 down the front rather than the three on the pattern, less likelihood of gapping round the boob around.

Well here it is and I couldn't be bothered with my hair so I popped a hat on for the photos.

Well I hope you like it, and as a side issue the blouse falls as it should due to correct underpinning, yes I finished the circle and spoke bra and even wore it out to the dance yesterday, where it withstood all the dancing and cycling and was very comfy.  I'll write more about that on Wednesday though, but don't you love the colour.

take care honeys
love ally x

Fall for cotton - pattern cutting

Hi Internet World,

I have just completed cutting out the material for the jacket, so I thought I would share with you my pattern drafting for my over small shoulders, I prefer to say it that way round rather than the other (ie the rest of me being too big).  All the commercial pattern I have ever bought have the same problem they think when they adjust a pattern upwards in size it should go up in equal proportions all over. This I completely disagree with, my shoulders are no bigger than a size 12, it's just the rest of me that is, so I always have to draft downwards again over the shoulder area.

Very hard to see I'm afraid but you may just be able to work out that the two pattern sizes are overlaid on the printed sheet, now I'm not really sure looking at it what size 14 or 40 are. There is no finished waist or bust size I can see, but they are all I have to work with.             With this jacket I have decided to use the '40' for the bottom, waist and the bust and then use the '14' for the shoulders with a little jiggling around.

By measuring across all the patterns pieces around where the waist will be I reckon it should be about my waist size, and if not I can adjust the small triangle inset bits to work out any difference, so I feel fairly secure in cutting out the pattern pieces straight on to the material and not doing a test dummy, I can easily cut some more inset triangles if I find I need to adjust the waist. As for the shoulders they are quite the '14' so they have to be trimmed down some more.

Here is my jiggling about, you can just about see where
I have drawn the new shoulder seams ready to be cut.

So the back and shoulder seam have had about 1 inch reduced off them. I use to find this a bit of a pain trying to get a decent curve around my new arm holes until I bought (from ebay) a set of french curves and I have to say they are marvelous I use them all the time now, especially in the bullet bra drafting, but I will write a blog on how that is coming along soon.

And starting to cut

So the material is all cut out now and I've had a nice break and a cup of tea, so back upstairs for some more sewing, but not on this.  Some lovely 100% wool felt arrived this morning so I feel a hat a calling, after all that is what I am suppose to be doing.

speak soon, 

love ally x

Fall for cotton - finding cotton that drapes

Morning World

A little more about the sew-along, Fall for Cotton.  Well who knew buying cotton could be so tricky.  The pattern I have picked for this project is draping jacket and as such a stiff cotton just would not do, and I wanted something nice and soft to feel comfy in, for the cooler autumn months.

First I went through my own small collection of material, ok not so small, (but they were all bargains and will be used at some time) thinking that there must be something suitable amongst all that lot. Most of what I have I have bought from the kind of places that don't really tell you what the material content is, and to be honest I never really bothered about it, I know that I have to be extra careful when ironing some items, but is the material 'felt' right I got it.  Anyhow after a good sort though that turned up a few items I had forgotten and increased the to-do list somewhat I had possibly 3 materials that might be cotton and a little bit of flowery stuff that I knew was cotton, but wouldn't do at all for this pattern.

So outside I headed next to do the burn test.  I had research this bit on the internety and apparently you can tell a bit about the content of material by the way it burns, this does make sense when you think about the way synthetics melt with heat. Well I took a square of each and a test bit of the flower material as a guide to what should happen.

Amazingly I didn't burn my fingers doing this, but hopefully you can see that the green and brown material melted whereas the white and flowery ones burnt and became powdery ash. So apart from being quite interesting I discovered that the two bits of material I wanted to use I couldn't because they weren't cotton. The white I really only put in as I thought I should, I was hoping it wouldn't be suitable as I didn't really think it was any good for the job, and had no intention of using really.  So now the only thing for it was a trip to the fabric shop - what a shame...

This didn't prove to be a easy as I had hoped. When I arrived I asked to be pointed towards the cotton jersey, as I thought perfect for draping. Only one roll had information on it saying 100% cotton and it was white and way too thin. So I asked about the rest of the unlabeled ones, and one assistant told one shelf was full of 100% cotton, so i picked one from there. But when I checked that the material I had chosen was really 100% cotton another assistant insisted that there was no such thing and a cotton would never stretch.  Anyone out there know which is right? I always thought you could get 100% cotton jersey.

I wasn't overly enamoured with the roll I had picked anyway, so I asked this second assistant for more help; what could I do to get a cotton draping?  Well we mooched around for a while finding numerous stiff cottons, but nothing like what I was hoping for until we approached the bed sheeting area, and there was soft brushed cotton in a lovely warm cream.  Now this may not be the best idea for this jacket as I can see it bobbling before my very eyes, but it might make an interesting experiment, and as the material was quite cheap I really could use it as a draft pattern for a more expensive wool later on, and it will make something lovely and cosy to snuggle in.  I did a quick burn test on it when I got home and it burnt the way I hoped. So on to the next stage, cutting out.

I'll keep you posted.

ally

A sew along - yes thats what I wanted and so soon.

Hi folks 

I'm quite excited about the content of this post.  I have been aware that the world of internet sewers got together from time to time and did something called sew-alongs.  Up to this point I had always found out about it too late and would have just been too busy anyway.  Well not this time.

Introducing:

Lucky Lucille and By Gum, By Golly present... *Fall For Cotton: a vintage sewing challenge for the cotton lover!* see sidebar for more details.

It seems pretty straightforward, sew something in cotton for autumn.  I can do that, in fact I have a number of projects waiting upstairs in the sewing room that would fit the bill very nicely, but which one.

And the timetable is quite acceptable; get supplies together now, start sewing 1st September, finish for the end of September, for a parade of photos on flicker.  I feel quite excited about it.

But the real call of duty this week is Dr J. costume for a party next Saturday, I'm not going to put up any more fact about that yet, as someone going may be reading and I don't want to give anything away, only to say I quite looking forward to seeing him in it.

possible choices

I dismissed the ones that I thought wouldn't really do for cotton, but that still left 5 to pick between. Well after much umming and ahhing, I decided  on ....

a 1940 fitted jacket pattern from EvaDress Patterns, C40.1284, that I have been sitting on for far too long,  doesn't she look so demure. So now to decide on material. I'll keep you posted on that.  

 

But I think that for today, that best be all as Saturday approaches and as well as Dr J's outfit, I still have to work on mine.  

take care all you lovelies.

ally