Collette Patterns is almost ready to roll out its new online digital pattern magazine. Use this link to get on their email list.
Seamwork from Collette Patterns
I’ve not been fortunate to use any of their patterns yet, especially the much-loved Moneta, but I hope to in the future. And I’m very excited about the move to digital format in the pattern magazine world. Finally, someone who gets “digital”.
Pinterest is covered up with posts about hemming jeans and preserving the original hem on the pant legs. I’ve seen it over and over again. But here is what they don’t tell you.
Stitch the hem, they say. Iron the new hem, they say. It’s easy, they say. And, I guess it is easy. But, I feel like someone needs to be Paul Harvey here and tell the “rest of the story”.
The newly hemmed jeans will need to be washed at some point. I know there are many opinions on washing jeans but that is for another post. The denim will do what denim is known for doing and that is unravel. Many consumers pay great prices for jeans with unraveled holes and tears in the denim. Unfortunately, unraveling from the inside of the hem is not considered a good thing. This pair unraveled despite the fact that I pinked the raw edges. The fabric of leg unraveled up into the stitching and produced a hole in the hem.
My only solution was to restitch the new hem, trying to catch as much solid fabric as I can. I started to doubt myself and jumped on Pinterest and looked at the original instructions on this method of hemming jeans. And, yes, I recalled it accurately. At this point, they recommend ironing the hem flat and going on with your life. This time I decided to press the hem flat and add a line of stitching in the ditch of the new hem all the way around the leg. I used a dark thread so that no one would see it, but I feel that little extra line of stitches will reinforce the raw edges on the interior and help keep the hem from rolling up.
We will see how this works. These particular jeans are the dear daughter’s and I’m sure she will alert me at the first sign of any imperfection.
Do have any experience with this new method to hem jeans? Is is working for you? What did I miss?
I hate when this happens! I could sew every day for the rest of my life and I’m pretty sure I would spend one-third of my time making these knots or fixing these knots. But they have taught me one thing–patience.
Time was when I would toss a project aside at the first sign of this problem. I soon grew tired of tossing fabric and never completing anything. So I taught myself to not give up. Was it easy? No. Was it frustrating? Yes. Did I lose my temper? Yes. Some days I had to physically clinch all my muscles to keep myself at my sewing machine. I’ve even practiced deep breathing exercises.
Now, after years of knots, I have a personal rule. When this knot happens, unthread the machine then re-thread the machine. Take a deep breath and sew. And the third time this happens during one sitting, I acknowledge that the forces of sewing are not in my favor and I turn it off and do something else the rest of the day.
Do professionals have these problems? How much of their time do they lose on such things?
Does the quote “every man who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client” apply to sewing garments for yourself? Does any one that sews to fit themselves have a nitwit for a client? Maybe not all, but maybe those that have difficult body shapes to fit? I’m beginning to feel like a fool, nitwit and idiot.
Disclaimer: I feel I must state here that I have a shape that has an above-average degree of difficulty to fit. (No hating, it is what it is.)
First, there was the green dress. I chose Butterick 6033 because I really crave a dress. I would love a simple dress with a little shaping. It needs to be something I can put together quickly in an easy-care woven fabric. I’m not a fan of draping clingy knit on my body. I chose the Connie Crawford’s because they are the only ones close to my RTW size of 4X (34-36W). I picked a sweet little print in a pale sage green. I cut a 4X but used a pivot FBA to add an inch to the bust measurement in some vain effort to fit my DDD+ bust. I’d show a picture of it but that dress and all photo evidence has been deleted from my life. I stitched the dress up quickly and was hoping to wear it to my daughter’s wedding shower. On the day of the shower, I was able to get the dress on. There was more than enough ease under the arms but when my husband asked if the armholes were supposed to show on the front of my bust, I removed the dress and tossed it.
Next, there was the Pearl Snaps and Pivot FBA shirt. I used a menswear western shirt pattern that I had used in the past with good results. I pivoted the pattern to allow for the FBA and produced a western shirt that I have worn and will wear again. It does fit around the bust AND the hips. It has a rather large blocky shape to it and I fear it does nothing for my figure. It is a fun shirt that I wear line dancing so I will continue to wear it for the fun of it. But I have been reading all of the blogposts on fitting a curvy figure and I crave a better fit.
Then, there was the Killer Bees incident. My husband found a new sporting goods store to visit in a nearby town and I rode along to get in some quality time with him and my latest knitting project. I happened upon a Hancock Fabrics store and decided to run in. Fleece was on a fabulous sale and sitting right at the front door. A few yards of golden yellow jumped off the fabric table and followed me home. Why golden yellow, you might ask? My university’s colors are blue and gold so I envisioned a fleece vest or jacket in gold with a navy zipper and navy top-stitching.
Days passed and the more I thought about that fleece and my shape, the more I began to worry. A mental image came to me one day of John Belushi in his Killer Bee costume from Saturday Night Live. Would I really look like that, I thought. With that in mind, I pressed on. I used McCalls 5252, opting for view D, the hooded full-zip vest. I used the XXXL size, split the yoke and spread it about an inch and increased the width of the underarm side panel piece.
The vest is finished. I may wear it, I may not. It does in fact fit around me. It does fit around my hips. It is long enough to cover my midriff excesses. But the armholes are large enough I could pass a small child through them while I’m wearing the vest. I have so much extra fabric and space in my shoulder area. Three strikes and I feel that fitting clothes for myself seems an impossibility at this point.
Yesterday, I ran across The Truth About Fitting post by on the Curvy Sewing Collective. The timing of Mary’s blogpost was perfect. When the vest did not work out last night, I simply filed it away as a lesson learned. I analyzed all three of my epic-fail sewing as I prepared to write this post, and have come to one conclusion. Fitting yourself is hard for EVERY body. It is hard to do and it is hard to get right. Perfect fit is a very elusive creature. I think trying to fit something on yourself adds a whole degree of difficulty that we don’t take into consideration.
So, I will not give up! I will continue to try, to persevere. I resolve to not use any more menswear or unisex patterns. I will continue in the ongoing search for someone or some idea that will help me conquer an XL FBA. It’s out there, I just need to find it. Or am I the only one of this size out there?
Being a creative entrepreneur is difficult. As artists making a business out of their art, we have several things that need our attention all at the same time. It can be overwhelming. I have blog posts to write, social media photos to post, new patterns to design, Etsy store items to list and, oh yeah, I also have client requests to create. One to-do list does not cover it all. Experts advise us to be organized to be successful. These same experts advise us to be timely and post items regularly. They also advise us to maintain an editorial calendar for our blogs and plan our postings on all our platforms. Suddenly, I find myself spending all my time struggling with what to do next. Then, one morning at the day job, it hit me. Use Google Calendar which comes with every Google Mail (Gmail) account!
In my job at an academic library, I manage multiple calendars…….and by multiple, I mean 3 calendars that I manage as well as edit another dozen or so. Those are in addition to my own 3 personal calendars. We use Google Apps on campus, specifically Google Calendar for everything from building operating hours to meetings to campus events. So, why not apply the tools I use for those calendars to my personal creative endeavors? And it’s free!
So here is a short tutorial on how I use Google Calendars to corral the many tasks I have on multiple to-do lists.
All of my email, calendaring and documents, both personal and professional, are in Google. I find the apps to be among the most powerful in the world. Their integration into each other and sharing capabilities are beyond compare. All my info is stored in the Cloud and accessible across all my devices.
From a Gmail window, the Google Calendar can be accessed by clicking on what we quilters could call the Nine Patch block located next to the gmail account name in the upper right corner. The dark grey square of nine grey blocks is Google’s universal link to their Apps.
2.
Clicking on the Google App “nine patch” expands a drop-down menu that displays nine of the most commonly used Google Apps. Calendar is one of these. Clicking on Calendar will lead to the Calendar app. The calendar that displays is referred to as “My Calendar”. I use it for all of my appointments, events, and anything else that must not be missed. My Calendar will be my primary calendar and will always display for me.
3. I create an event by clicking on the date and time and filling in the event info.
4. Now, here is where the fun starts. Notice that on the left pane of your screen under My calendars, there is a list of calendars. By clicking on the down arrow (marked by the red arrow in the pic), additional calendars can be created for other things.
5. I have a tendency to neglect blog posting so I sat down and made an editorial calendar. (It is recommended by the experts.) So, in Google Calendar, I clicked on the drop-down arrow and chose “Create a new calendar” which led me to this screen.
I named the calendar “Blog” and created events in it for every blogging task that I thought I needed to accomplish. I chose “Repeat” and set up repeating events for any posts that I want to post regularly. TipTuesday, New in the Etsy Store, and Tools are examples of regular posts. I can quickly at any time open up the event either on a desktop or my phone and add the topic or notes for the posts.
6. I forget to manage my Etsy store items when I am focusing on blogging. So I created another calendar and named it “Etsy”. I filled it full of my plans for my store. I make events for the items that need to re-posted or updated or added. (I have a tendency to upload all of my Etsy items at once which keeps them from getting noticed.) I’m using All Day events for now. I will analyze my statistics at a later point and assign the best times during the day for those postings.
Now back to My calendars. I change the colo
r setting to each of the calendars so the tasks are distinguished by from each other. Now doesn’t that look much neater? or cooler?
7. Each calendar can be shared with someone else so that I can have some assistance. If a friend is interested in doing some blogging for me, I can share the Blog calendar with them and they never see all of my personal appointments. At work, we collaborate and agree on a plan for upcoming events and establish themes for postings for that month. The editorial calendar is then shared with all of the team members. It is very helpful to have the whole team on the same writing schedule posting along the planned theme.
Share one of the calendars by clicking on the drop down arrow to the right of the name of the calendar in My calendars. A screen similar to this will appear. Provide the email (I believe they have to be Google mail accounts) of the person offering assistance and set the level of permissions for them. Google will send them an email advising them of the sharing.
Tip: I share all of my calendars with all of my email accounts so that when I have thought, I can pop open the nearest calendar window and apply whatever ideas I have.
Now I have my creative entrepreneur plan for the next couple of weeks, but I don’t have any of this shared with anyone that could help…….hmmmmm, now to find some sucker to take on the huge task of assisting me be me……..
As a #Sewcialist, it is inevitable that at some time in the future, I’m going to snap a pic of some fabric. It will be a fabric find that I want to share with my fellow sewists through my many social media platforms. Sewists often share photos of fabric. It might be a bargain find from a local fabric store or just the random yardage of the day from our stash.
Being a sewist does not mean we are all professional photographers. Learning to be a professional photographer would deprive me of precious sewing time. So, I searched the internet to find some tips and tricks to help me in my future postings and here is what I found:
So when faced with a fabric that I simply must share, smartphone in hand, here are some things to remember:
I am in no way a professional photographer, I’m not even a good amateur photographer. I try to find information that helps me and I want to share it with others.
Further reading:
Tips from Spoonflower designers: Berene Campbell on how to photograph your fabrics
Tips from Spoonflower designers, Pt. 2: KristopherK on how to photograph your fabrics
I’ve had a Ravelry profile for a while now but I only used Ravelry for searching for free patterns. I’ve been inspired by some of their recent Unraveled blogposts to flesh out my profile and actually participate in the whole yarn community. And let me just say, it is awesome! The functionality of the entire website is outstanding! The sewing community needs something like this desperately. I wish there was some way that Ravelry would make the code open source and someone with a less than genius programming knowledge could go in and brand the site and get something rolling for sewists……….I would love to but I have a day job. LOL
Now that the dear daughter’s wedding is over, I can go back to some major sewing. Thank goodness for yarn projects getting me through the stress of that event.
Pinterest strikes again! I’ve been noticing lots of pins with instructions on how to make your own pattern weights. Pattern weights have always been a frivolous tool that never really found a place in my sewing tool budget. Then, I saw the extremely large washers from a hardware store that appeared in my Pinterest feed one day.
Wow, what a great idea! I wish I had thought of it. Those washers were giant and would make perfect pattern weights, but were they available locally? They look like washers that would fit on a oil tanker or dump truck with a hauling capacity about the size of a small town. My husband was recounting his latest trip to his favorite farm and home store when I remembered to ask him if he had seen any large washers. “Yes,” he announced confidently, “I know exactly where they are. I can show you.” So on our next outing, I followed him into the store and he pointed out the variety of washers to me. Yes, they did indeed have some extremely large ones. The box said 1″, $1.99. I was shocked at the price until my husband rolled his eyes and informed me, “That’s a pound, silly.” I quickly selected eight, which I thought to be a reasonable number. The eight washers weighed a little under one-and-a-half pounds and cost me a grand total of $3.39.
The shiny surface of the washers seemed to be slick and I was concerned that they would slip around on fabric and pattern paper. I never miss a chance to decorate mundane things so I quickly whipped out a crochet hook and scrap ball of yarn. Deep in my crafting memory, I remembered crocheting around canning jar rubber gaskets. The same technique could be used to decorate these washers and give them a personality. After a quick search of Pinterest for crochet edgings, I felt confident I could “dress” my washers and turn them into pattern weights that would be useful as well as attractive.
Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I created 8 different designs. I’ve included some rough pattern instructions below. (Be kind. This is my first time writing my patterns down.)
INSTRUCTIONS: Using an H crochet hook and a ball of sport-weight worsted yarn, I started with a beginning loop on my hook and single crocheted all the way around the washer with a slip stitch in the beginning single crochet to end the round.
A:
Row 1: Single crochet around the washer until there are 40 single crochets. Slip stitch to join.
Row 2: Chain 2 for the first stitch and 4 double crochet in the same stitch. Skip 1 stitch, single crochet in next stitch, skip 1 stitch. *5 double crochet in the next stitch, skip 1 stitch, single crochet in next stitch, skip 1 stitch. Repeat from * around. Join with slip stitch.
B:
Row 1: Repeat row 1 from A.
Row 2: Chain 1 for beginning stitch, *single crochet in next 3 stitches, chain 4, skip 1 stitch. Repeat from * around. Join to the beginning of the row with a slip stitch in beginning chain.
Row 3: Chain 1, skip 1st stitch, *single crochet in next stitch, skip next stitch, 8 single crochet in chain-4 space, skip next stitch. Repeat from * around. Join with slip stitch.,
C:
Row 1: Repeat row 1 from A.
Row 2: Chain 2, 3 double crochet in first stitch; chain 1, skip 3 stitches then 3 double crochet in next stitch (cluster). Chain 1, skip 3 stitches and cluster 3 more times. Chain 3 and 3 double crotchets in same stitch (corner made). Repeat sequence 3 more times to create a square effect. (Refer to photo for assistance in this one). Join with slip stitch.
D:
Row 1: Repeat row 1 from A.
Row 2: Chain 2 for beginning stitch, *2 double crochet in next stitch, 1 double crochet in next stitch. Repeat from * around. Join with slip stitch.
E:
Row 1: Repeat row 1 from A.
Row 2: Chain 2 for the beginning stitch, *double crochet in the next stitch, chain 2, skip next stitch. Repeat from * around. Join with slip stitch.
F:
Row 1: Repeat row 1 from A.
Row 2: Chain 1 for beginning stitch, single crochet in the next stitch, chain 3, slip stitch in the 1st chain made to create a picot, single crochet in the next two stitches. *Single crochet in the next 2 stitches, make a picot by chaining 3 and slip stitching in the first chain made then single crochet in the next 2 stitches. Repeat from * around. Join with slip stitch.
G:
Row 1: Repeat row 1 from A.
Row 2: Chain 3 for beginning stitch, 6 triple crochets in the same stitch, skip *stitches. *8 triple crochets in the next stitch, skip 2 stitches. Repeat from * around. Join with slip stitch.
H:
Row 1: *Single crochet in washer, chain 2. Repeat from * around 9 times. 10 single crochets total. Join with slip stitch.
A great dollar store find works as a holder.
And some days we need a LOT of therapy stress relief! Anyone agree?
I have discovered a new sewing tool. It is a set of tweezers that I found while digging through the surgical supply tools in a vendor booth at a quilt show. But this is not any ordinary set of tweezers. They have a “cross-lock action” meaning through some magic of physics both blades cross and actually press against each other to remain closed rather than open like standard tweezers. I chose the sharp pointed stainless steel ones. With the sharp points, the tweezers can be used as a stiletto to push or hold small trims as I sew over them. Then with a squeeze of thumb and forefinger, they can grasp like standard tweezers. I find this especially useful with guiding small, intricate items under the presser foot. I admit that I use them a lot to pull the selvages out the back of the presser foot. You know that moment when you started sewing too close to the beginning edge and things start to ball up?
These wonders are also called self-closing revers-action forceps and seem to be available at many tool stores.
