Step by Step Sewing Part 4 - the Final Product

I finally got a chance to take pictures in my latest sewing creation. We have been blessed with some absolutely beautiful weather lately. Friday evening Brendon and I took advantage and hung out in the sunshine. And I conned him into taking some pictures of me in my dress.

Here is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 of the project. It took me almost a month to blog, whoops! Life has been busy lately. Wonderful, but busy busy busy!

I LOVE this dress! It is super comfy. That seersucker fabric is so light and soft, I love it. It is perfect for spring. It was a tad big around the waist so I added a little pink ribbon to cinch it up a bit. Not a permanent solution, but it works for now. Out of all the dresses I've made, I think this one was the simplest and I think it flatters me the most. The skirt part of it is the perfect length for me, which is nice because a lot of the time I have to alter the length on things because I'm on the tall side.

We had a great evening by the lake, relaxing, people watching and catching up with each other. This last couple weeks were rough for me and Mr. H. We probably saw each other for maybe 5 waking hours all week. No fun! I had also just finished a 9 day work marathon (my fault, asking for days off early in one week and late in the next is not a good idea), so it was extra nice to have a night together. And knowing you have the whole next day off together doesn't hurt either, especially when it is a certain someone's birthday (which was wonderful).

On our way home we stopped by a snow cone trailer for some goodies. I am obsessed with snow cones right now. They are SO GOOD. I always stick to my boring favorite, strawberry, but Brendon always has to one up me. He got blue raspberry and it was delish and I was jealous. Way to out order me babe.

Cutest husband ever. In my opinion.

 Brendon is way better at looking cute while eating snow cones. I just look awkward, as usual.

See how soft that dress looks? I could basically sleep in it. That fabric is the best. And it hardly wrinkles at all since it's fairly textured already. Win-win y'all.

Not sure what project is up next. I just got a bunch of new patterns, so I have too many options to chose from! I'm no good at making decisions!

Step by Step Sewing Part 3 - Construction

Alrighty, finally the next installment of the sewing project! I've named this dress the "candy striper" dress, for obvious reasons. Check out Part 1 and Part 2. Now let's tackle putting this thing together!

First things first we'll make the bodice. Really what you're making here is a kind of vest that eventually will be attached to the skirt. I ironed the interfacing onto the fabric, giving the fabric some stiffness and strength in places you'll need it. Most importantly here, where we'll be putting the buttons and button holes.

Next up, we sew in some darts onto the bodice pieces as well as the bodice lining. You basically have two mirrored copies of the bodice, one in your good fabric and one in lining. You'll sew them together so that on the inside of the bodice there are no exposed seams.

That up there is the lining. There are bust and waist line darts in the two front pieces (left and right sides) and then two waist line darts in the back piece. Darts are super easy, you basically are sewing out a wedge in your fabric, creating some definition/three dimensionality to your fabric. It makes your garment more fitted and tailored to your body. It also creates space to put your lovely boobs. Yes I just said boobs.

So I sewed in all my darts to all the bodice pieces and lining, then I sewed the front pieces to the back piece at the shoulder seam. Then I sewed the fabric and lining versions of the bodice together, good sides facing, so when you flip it right side out you can't see the seams on the inside or outside. Secrets of the trade here y'all. Just kidding, if you've sewn a pillow, you can do this.

Inside out:



Right side out:

Next up, the skirt! I pleated the top edge following the pattern guide. The nice thing about this pattern is that the pleats are intentionally uneven and random, so if they're not perfect, no worries! I love pleating. The other option is usually gathering, which I am not a fan of. More on that another time.

The pleated front and back skirt pieces:

Here come the pockets! Each pocket is half lining, half good fabric sewn together.The side with the lining goes on the front side of the skirt and the fabric side goes on the back. This is because when you've got your hands in the pockets or they're partially open, you'll see more of the back of the pocket than the front. Ideally, I guess this is saving you on fabric, but since the pocket pieces are so small it would be easy and just fine to make both sides of them out of your good fabric.

The right pocket is super easy. You sew the pocket made of lining to the front half of the skirt and the one made of good fabric to the back half. Then you basically sew the sides of the skirt and the pocket pieces together at the same time in one long stitch, leaving an opening for the pocket.

Finished right pocket:

The left pocket is a little different, and was easily the most challenging part of the dress. Since there is a zipper along the left side seam of the dress, you have to sew that side differently. The pattern calls for an invisible zipper, but since that requires an invisible zipper sewing foot (and way more steps), I just got a regular zipper. I might actually have an invisible zipper foot, but I lost my machine's manual years ago so I'm pretty clueless as to what a lot of my machine's accessories do. I need to buy a new manual online.

So anyway, I sewed the zipper and the left pocket in on the same seam line, leaving the pocket open. It was way more complicated than that sentence, but I don't think it's worth explaining. And I took no pictures of that part because it was stressful haha.

After sewing the skirt sides together, you attach the bodice to the skirt. Super easy, just a straight seam. Here's the dress, inside out, with the pockets sewn in:

Adding the buttons and button holes is up next! Using the button hole guide the pattern came with, I marked out where the holes would be sewn in.

I love sewing in button holes. Mostly because the machine does all the work, and they look so fancy! You just use a button foot on your machine, use the button hole settings to make stitches that reinforce the area around the hole, use a seam ripper to cut open the area between stitches and BOOM, button holes.

Then use the guide again on the other side and sew on your buttons. Sophie is helping me out here, by sitting exactly where I need to sew. She's awesome like that.

The bodice is all done! 

All that's left is to hem the skirt:

And we're done son! Obviously this is a highly simplified version of what took a few days. But as far as sewing projects go, this dress was fairly simple. And it would be a super easy pattern to alter.

I'll save pictures of the whole finished dress for later. I want to build suspense! But mostly I look terrible and there's no way I'm taking any pictures of myself today. But soon y'all!

Step by Step Sewing Part 2 - Pattern and Fabric Cutting

Okay so I am finally getting to the rest of this little sewing project tutorial thing. Check out the first part here. My apologies for it taking forever, life has been busy lately! Also cutting the patterns and fabric is easily the lamest part of all this, and I always drag my feet when it comes to getting around to it.

We looked a little bit at the pattern sheets last time, but here's what they look like unfolded:

There are usually two of these giant tissue paper style pattern sheets with a bunch of patterns on each. Also, if you're lucky, your pattern comes with a free cat.

Each pattern piece is made to be cut into different sizes, you just follow the line with your size number on it. There are tons of pattern pieces on these sheets and unless you are making every piece that the pattern includes (in this case, a shirt, dress, and skirt), you wont need them all. Each piece is numbered and each number goes to a different part (shirt, dress, skirt).

For the dress, I only needed pattern pieces 1-8 (there are 18 pieces total). I cut all the other patterns out as well, although I don't cut them to a certain size yet (in case my judgement on my size proves wrong). I set the pieces I wont need aside, fold them up, and put them back in the envelope so they're ready to roll whenever I decide to use them.

Above are the pieces I will need in order by number, top to bottom, left to right; 1-bodice front, 2-bodice back, 3-front interfacing, 4-back interfacing, 5-skirt front, 6-skirt back, 7-pocket, and 8-buttonhole guide. The last piece is not actually anything you cut out of fabric, just a placement guide for your button holes. As far as patterns go, this is a pretty small amount of pieces for a dress.

Next up, cutting the fabric! I washed both my fabric and lining so I wouldn't have to worry about my dress shrinking post-construction.

You have a cutting layout guide in your instructions that tells you how to lay out the patterns on the fabric. Some pieces are cut on folded fabric (so you get two pieces), some on the fold (so it opens up as one big mirrored piece), and some on single thicknesses. This is a "guide", I often find a more efficient way to cut my fabric, leaving me with a bit of extra. However, sometimes, you have to do it their way or it wont all fit.

These are my last two pieces, the front and back of the skirt, and as you can see I have quite a bit of extra left. This is almost always the case, but extra fabric is not a bad thing. I save everything for projects later on and in case you have a little sewing mishap and need to re-cut a pattern piece.

I also cut out fabric for the lining of the bodice and pockets:

And for the interfacing:

I thought I might explain what interfacing is. Interfacing is a kind of gauzy material that stiffens/backs your fabric in places you might need more weight. In this case I believe it is around the neckline and where the button holes will be. There are all kinds of interfacing, both fusible and not, in various thicknesses. This is lightweight fusible interfacing, usually if you're sewing clothing this is what you'll use. It's "fusible" meaning that you just press it (iron it) on to your fabric. Super easy and it works wonders.

And we're done! I pin everything together for each piece (pattern, fabric, lining) to try to stay organized. There are all kinds of guides on these patterns that you can either mark with a pencil onto your fabric or mark with pins. For example, dart or pleating lines. I pencil in the circles that mark the dart lines, but I use pins to mark my pleat guides. It's all up to you really, whatever works well for you. Just remember if you're working on fabric that's lighter in color, you probably want to make very light marks. Darker fabric is different, I either use a felt tipped marker or a white pencil.

So that's it for cutting patterns and fabric! Woohoo, we survived the lamest part. Next up is the fun part, we sew this bad boy together. I'm still debating on how to document that. Obviously I can't do every step, or your eyes would fall and you'd die of boredom. We'll see. I have a busy weekend ahead of me (yay for friends visiting!), so we will continue this project next week.

Also, totally unrelated but I must vent: how can I be breaking out and finding grey hairs at the same time? That's just unfair.

Hello March, and Step by Step Sewing Part 1!

Can you believe it? It is March already. Two months of this new year already gone. Jeeze!

March is always a good month. The weather is usually awesome (time to turn the ac back on, I woke up sweating this morning), there are birthdays to celebrate, and spring break! Oh wait I'm not in school. But spring break for Brendon! And after a little schedule switcheroo last month, Kristy is coming to visit next weekend! And maybe Z too! I have high hopes for this lovely month.

Alrighty, so I've had a couple questions about how exactly I make these things I sew so I thought I'd document my next sewing project to show you how I roll. Or sew.

First and foremost, I use patterns. I wish I was talented enough to just make things on my own, however I am not. Eventually I'd love to be able to just whip something together out of an idea in my head, but until then, patterns are my bread and butter. So I guess the first step in sewing anything, my way anyway, is to pick out a pattern. I'm using this Simplicity pattern I got a while back.

Every pattern usually comes with multiple pieces or variations. In this pattern's case it comes with a skirt, dress, and shirt pattern with a variation on each. Each piece gets a letter. I am doing A, which is just the dress pattern with no variation, the grey dress in the top left corner. I plan on eventually making the shirt (D) and maybe the skirt (C) as well.

The back of the pattern tells you all the info on what kind of fabric to get, how much, and what kind of notions (thread, zippers, buttons, etc) you'll need depending on what part or version you're making:

I apologize for the terrible quality of these photos, I was rushing, bad blogger! There is always usually a pdf of the back of the pattern envelope online, for example here. I suggest checking that out (click the link!), it's way easier to read. Sometimes I'll print that out to take with me to the fabric store instead of the whole pattern. Deciphering these things takes practice and even then it still gets confusing. They break it down for you by parts of the pattern by letter and then by size. I usually highlight or circle the parts I need and in what size.

Sizing for patterns is different than your usual dress/pant size. I am usually a 2 at most stores, but when sewing I use a size 8 or 10. They give you body measurements to help you figure out your size, as well as finished garment measurements, but even then it's weird. Some patterns run big, some small. It's good to just eye it and try it on as you go. And it's always better to err on a size bigger, you can take things in but it's usually impossible to make things bigger.

The pattern gives you lengths of fabric for both 45" and 60" widths. Most fabrics, unless you're at a fancy specialty store or are buying home decor fabric, are sold in 45" widths. So, for this particular dress I needed 2 and 1/8 yards of fabric, 1 yard of lining, 3/4 of lightweight fusible interfacing, thread, a 12" inch zipper (it calls for an invisible zipper, but long story short, I just got a regular one), and four 7/8" buttons. They always give you suggestions for good fabrics to use at the top of the list. Very helpful, it gives you an idea of the texture/weight of fabric you're looking for. I chose to get some pink seersucker for my dress, which is made of cotton. You should always wash your fabrics if you're using something like cotton or a knit that might shrink. I am extra guilty of not doing this, but post-sewing-shrinkage can seriously ruin a dress (I found out the hard way) so I'm making an effort to do so from here on out.

Here are my materials for this little dress: I've got my seersucker fabric, some broadcloth lining (I always just get extra cheap stuff for lining), buttons, matching thread, and a zipper. I got all this stuff today at Hancock Fabrics for under $20, a pretty good deal. The seersucker was the bulk of the price. Not pictured is my interfacing, I always keep a few yards on hand because you use it for everything.

Here's a little peek into what's inside that little envelope:

On the left are the actual patterns that you will cut out. They're printed on super thin tissue-like paper, there are A LOT of them. There are usually at least 2-3 sheets folded up that unfold to be about 5'x5'. On the right are your cutting and sewing instructions. These tell you how to lay out the patterns on the fabric when cutting them. Crucial info. Also, of course, it tells you how to put the whole thing together.

So next up, after washing and drying my fabric and lining, I'll show you the pattern and fabric cutting process. Really exciting stuff! Hopefully this info is helpful. Feel free to ask any questions if I wasn't clear about something or didn't cover something you'd like to know. Sew on y'all!