And I'm of again :)

The time around Christmas and New Year is always the busiest for me: I have to wrap presents over presents, visit friends and family and spend as much time dancing as possible as competitions start in January. There seemed to be a big gap in my heart where sewing and stitching and everything crafty usually reside (to melodramatic?). In my desperation (definitely overdoing it here!)I got out a pair of knitting needles and bought some cheap yarn and started on a lace pattern my mother was working on. I didn't even like it, but I had to do something. I did use thickish wool, because I don't like the look of lace. I prefer it if it looks like this.

But somehow it just wasn't mine. It had to many edges and right angles for my liking. I never thought I'd say  this, but it just wasn't playful enough. Also I'd just started knitting and so I didn't know that this thing would be huge. As in: Even-Bigger-Than-A-Blanket-Huge. I opened it up again. Since I do quite like the brightness of the wool I will probably make a scarf from it. And since I can't give up I'll just play around with the lace pattern until it's a scarf-pattern I like :)

That is phase one of my Anti-Craftiness-Deprivation-Programme (ACDP).

Phase two will be digging out this pattern from Caron International, that didn't work out so well. What drew me in where the bright colours and the simple design. As well as the playful stitches, that aren't fussy enough to dwarf my already slight frame (well the bone structure any ways). And it didn't look like it would be far to warm. I was in love and then I started knitting and it went so easily and quickly. But the stitches didn't look anything like in the photos. So with my heart in a thousand pieces I started unravelling. I showed everything in a corner and tried not to think about that lovely jacket denied to me. 

But it would call for me in the depth of the night:

"Butterfly, Butterfly! Don't you love me any more? Just think of my lovely bright red hue that matches your complexion so perfectly! Oh and how soft I am! And isn't this look flattering on just about everyone?"

So I spent an hour looking for ways to fix the problem. I will not be made a fool of by a few stitches!

This is what the folks at Lionbrand got, when they knitted the same pattern.

See? Not at all like the kimono! So I went in search for a holey pattern, that looked as though it had been woven.

First I came across the woven cable stitch.

But it didn't have any holes in it and according to the instructions it drapes badly.

Then I found this great tutorial by Jill. It's still not quite the effect I'd hoped for (or rather: I'd have to use a different yarn to make it work.), but it gave me an idea of how to achieve "my" pattern. If it doesn't work I'll go back to this though.

I won't be able to post for at least a week as I'll be travelling to my aunt's and uncle's and I want to give them and their two darling sons my undivided attention. And afterwards I'll be in dance boot camp. I'll just drop straight to sleep as soon as my coach let's me go in the evening.

The photo uploading is still somewhat tricky. I managed to upload the photos for the last post with Internet Explorer but it just doesn't seem to work with Chrome. It's kind of funny that there should be a glitch with using Blogger with a programme made by Google. But the point is that I just got all my pictures of the web and so I can't claim credit for the photography.

Until then!

Butterfly

Merry Christmas!

I find it fascinating that so many different cultures and religions have come up with celebrations for solstice. So no matter what or how you're celebrating; Have a really good time with family and friends. Do something special and show everyone how much you care.

Uhm a little help please?

Does anyone have any idea whatsoever on how I can upload pictures? The pictures start loading normally and then the thing just freezes :( I have something I'm really exited to show you, but it needs lots and lots of pictures to be fully appreciated and I can't upload even one ...

So I thought I'd beat the stomach flu ...

... and then it kept me in bed for almost three weeks :( Between sleeping, reading other blogs and - um well you know - ... I actually got crafty ^^ So what DID I do?


Stuff I want to fix BEFORE christmas ...

• I drafted slopers based on my new measurements. I'm probably going to have to make new ones again in a month or so. Loosing weight can really annoy you. But twice as much dancing is worth it.
• I started sewing these trousers / leggings based on my new slopers. I choose to experiment with shifting the side seams. Even though they're not finished yet I wear them around the house. They just fit that well.

  

  The wrinkling will disappear ...

  

  ... as soon as the placket is closed

• I finally took in the under bust band on my favourite bra. I have tiny bone structure and lots of mass on top. Ergo: Bra size 26-28 H. Only I can't find any bras in that size. Therefore my bra bands keep sliding up over my shoulder blades. Well not any more!

If I like the length I'll do a neater finish ...

• I restarted a project I'd just showed into a corner a while ago. My feet are weird. They're small in all directions. Having short feet is typical for dancers (they actually shrink ...) Having a very small arch isn't. Nor are slender feet. I'm rambling aren't I? So anyway I decided to make my own shoes. I don't like moccasins. Even though those I have made turned out really well. Instead I wanted to make my own ballerinas. I also decided not to use any glue with them. I want to be able to throw them in the washing machine! But when I started sewing the insoles everything went wrong. The sewing machine was skipping stitches and badly stretching the felt layer.  I'm going to spare you a picture of those insoles! That's about when I gave up. But now I carefully undid all the stitching. I used a lot of pins. I never use pins so this is a big change for me. I'm also sewing the two layers together by hand.

A big thanks to you for choosing to put up with my rambling and start following my blog. :) Now I don't feel like I'm writing to myself.

 

Butterfly

 

Sloper decisions

As I'm still undecided about the sloper issue I decided that Dolly (yeah the name stuck) gets to have a new skirt. That really doesn't make sense as I threw out the horrid dress she came with and made her a wrap skirt instead. She needs a jacket or a top. But yeah, now she has two skirts. I'll post pictures of both skirts and how I continued drafting as soon as she has a top. She might be made out of plastic, but she'd feel pretty embarrassed otherwise.

Oh and my sewing machine is finally going to the doctors.

The Influence Films have

To start of with: It's perfectly acceptable for me to think about selfish Me!-Me!-Me!-projects again. My mum actually bought a new coat. The fit is horrible. But it's much better than the last one. So I'm not going to complain (as long as you don't get me started on the princess seams that is). So there goes the CCP.

So what's the next selfish project? As you can tell from the post title it comes from a film. "Enchanted" to be precise. I got around to watching it. I know a lot of people consider it overly kitchy (why hasn't blogger spell-check heard of it?). I for one think the producers where mocking themselves with it. No? Well you don't have to believe me of course ^^. I will however stick to my hypothesis.

If you start from 4:44 you can see the dress I mean in action. As well as Giselle's "cutting layout". That shot actually made me smile. But not for the same reason as HE did. It's more like the seamstresses perspective  ;).

Anyone who knows me also knows how much I love dresses like that. The full skirt and the fitted bodice: Oh my! I do believe the bodice has a lot of boning, with the bones between the lining and the fashion fabric. The boning channels seem to be by sewing straight seams down the bodice. All in all it reminds me of stays.

So that's the dress I'd like to sew. Do you think it's prom worthy? I know I can neither pull of the colours nor the flowery print. I can't pull of prints in general. In the little flowery ones I look like a child in a nightgown. And quite frumpy too. In the large prints I tend to look like an overhung Christmas tree. Geometric and non-flowery prints work from time to time. But I don't think it would be formal enough. So maybe shiny, navy fabric? I wear a lot of navy as it is my favourite colour. So to spice it up maybe a bright pink petticoat?

Come to think of it, the first dress would probably suit me well too. And it reminds me of the Titanic swim dress. As a matter of fact I haven't seen Titanic yet. As far as I know there's no book that says you can't admire the costumes though.And know the music of by heart. I'm strange like that.

A fitting question

For the next pattern drafting step I'd have to use my own sloper. Unfortunately it doesn't fit any more :(A mixture of dancing and stomach flu has caused me to slim down. I didn't actually loose weight. It's more like putting on muscles in the calf, thighs, but, lower abs .... okay everywhere. Even the bottom of my feet!

But I digress. The point is that I feel like I'm wearing this when I put on a "dress" made from my sloper. I nicked the pic from the lovely Marissa at her wonderful blog. You should really check it out if you haven't done so yet. This dress for example gets transformed into the cutest thing ever.

The really important question now: Should I draft new slopers (again!?) and make my skirt pattern from those? Or should I hope to put on weight again and make it from my old sloper?

Oh and just because I love stealing pictures I find on the Internet and sharing them with you. This is what a blogger suggested to put on clothing labels:

I got hacked :(

Yeah that's right: A very mean trojan attacked my computer jumbling up ALL my files in the process. So instead of spending my time sewing or knitting I played around with  my computer. I love to hear music while I get crafting and it annoyed me that I couldn't. But after a few thousand crashes and hours spend in safe mode I got it out. Let me tell you it was not fun: I had to delete tons of files and redirect loads of processes too. It was almost 40 (!) in total.

On the bright side:

• I now know that my antivirus hasn't been able to update in almost 3 month (Whoopsie! Why didn't I notice before?)
• I won't complain about nerve racking sewing details or difficult projects ever again! If I do you may send me another virus :(
• I also took the time for a computer clean-up. I can't believe how much faster it is now :)
• I am healthy again! No more yoga pants and ugly, comfy knit-skirts for me. Even though I'll still wear the later for dance practice.
• I have new dance shoes! They're just plain, normal, golden dance shoes. Exactly like the pair that died on me! BUT: They're a size smaller! So they don't keep falling of. And they're still clean. Until next practice that is.
• I have a new dance partner. I just don't know who yet. Most of the options aren't quite as good as my old one. But they have talent. And they're way better than my replacement! Who had a knack for toe-stepping and boob squashing by the way.
• I have training tomorrow. For six hours or so <3 Yes I am crazy. No I can't just not dance: It's addictive! But I won't be able to post tomorrow.
• I found a RTW blouse that actually fit. Okay ... it's not really meant to be worn with a top underneath and the top buttons open. But if I do it just fits!
• I have sketches for the CCP. Now if the scanner worked ...

Butterfly

Not so Spirally Spiral Skirt -Drafting Part 2

This is the best resemblance of me I could find. I was down the past few days, I still don't want to eat anything. I have moved from PJs  to extremely soft jeans though. Enough whining from me and on with the tutorial!

Last time we got as far as drafting the position of the break. Today we'll shift the dart control so you don't end up with a bag that shows your undies for a skirt :P!

1. On your break line draw in the points directly underneath your dart apexes. 
2. Then draw a straight line from apexes to hem. This line should go through the dart apex and the point of the right-side neighbour on the break line (If you want the skirt to spiral in the opposite direction you can just flip the entire pattern around at the end.).
3. Shift the darts as shown in the diagrams.

I couldn't find an elegant way to pivot the shaped darts and keep the seam straight. I'm sure there is a method though. I just have to find it. For this it doesn't matter all that much. The skirt is cut on the bias. Well the non-true one anyway. I'll explain about that next time.

So much for today. I'm going to make myself another cup of tea.

Butterfly

Sorry to keep you waiting

So it looks like I can't get the drafting post written in the next few days. A friend of mine just fell over yesterday. I mean honestly one moment he was walking next to me and the next he was just lying on the floor. So I spent the day making sure he went to see a doctor. So I couldn't type it up yesterday and I don't have a lot of time until the weekend. But I promise to try!

Straight Seamed Spiral Skirt - Drafting Part 1

Illustration of a possible skirt outcome
The area where the break is is shown in blue.
The red part shows the amount of turn.

Here is the promised tutorial on how to draft and sew a skirt with gores that wrap around the wearer. I will show you how to do a skirt with 6 gores. This is the easiest thing to do, as you won't have to shift the darts around to much.

Materials:

• basic skirt sloper (pattern of a well-fitting pencil skirt)
• pattern paper (you can use newspaper, butcher paper, paper table cloths, normal paper taped together ...)
• long ruler or other straight edge
• measuring tape
• French curve or a flexible ruler or a piece of washing line

Procedure:

This is roughly what the skirt sloper
for Dolly looks like. As it is only
knee length I lengthened
it to just above the ankles.

1. Trace front and back parts of  your sloper (or of your skirt without the seam allowances).aligning the side seams. As this is an asymmetric design you'll need to trace both halves. You'll have shaped darts at the side seams and a "normal" dart in each of the pieces.
2. Measure the distance from CFW (centre front front at waist) to how long you want your skirt to be. Shorten or lengthen the centre seam accordingly. Shorten or lengthen al the other seams by the same amount and draw in the new hemline.



The red lines show where I will
add length and the green lines
show where I will take some away.





3. Measure the hip measurement (play at connecting the dots with the apexes of the darts) and divide this measurement by six. Dolly's hip measurement is precisely 14 cm. This gives me a result of 2.3333 cm. I will round this measurement up to 2.35 cm. Please remember that you should never round your measurements down.
4. Start shifting the darts and side seams by folding the pattern in one place and adding the same amount somewhere else. This works because you don't have any sharp angles in your body so you can shift the darts a little bit.



I choose to have the break in
the middle.

5. Decide on where the break should be by measuring down from your waist. Draw this line on your pattern paper. It should be the same distance from all the darts. NOTE: The break line can only be as far away from the hem as half the distance from hem to dart apexes.

So much for today. I'll have the rest for you within two days.

Butterfly

About the importance of reading your comments before you publish them ....

So I admit it: I am stupid ... and lazy! I am following a  sew along. It's very graciously hosted by Anna at A Few Threads Loose. There had been a longish gap and I wanted to ask when it would continue. So I wrote a comment in no ill intend and sent it without reading it first. Right now I could actually slap myself for that. My comment was this

 "I know you're very busy with affordable manicures and such, but when does the sew along continue?"


Argh! I'm not the most horrible person in the world. I simply forgot the god-damned smiley. If I where Anna I wouldn't even have kept posting. She had mentioned that she really wanted to get a manicure on her trip (and who wouldn't). So I figured I might be able to start making up for it by taking some work of her hands. Do you think it's any good?


Okay so I know I'm not going to be able to write a sewalong as well as she does. Instead I'm going to write about something that she luckily doesn't have to worry about: LBAs. Anna's method just added inches horizontally. Like the Facebook user I didn't get enough coverage. I was actually afraid things would pop out. Now the Facebook person was much smarter than me: She just scaled the pattern up! So here's a tutorial about how to do that.

Draft of the bra cup pattern. The red lines are those used
to find the BP (bust point).

First you have to find the bust point For this I connected the lower edge of the upper dart and the lower edge of the middle dart along the bottom. And I drew a line that halves the angle on the CF corner. The intersection is where the BP is.


Then you measure the distance from BP to the lower edge along the red line. I came out with 8.75 cm. Anyone have something different? Then measure the distance from your BP (the nipple) to your under bust (where the under wire would lie). From that you can calculate the percentage you need to scale up or down by.


SCALE="BP to UB on you" *100
      "BP-UB on the pattern"


You then just print your PDF-Pattern that much bigger. Be careful about the notches as they will be in a different place now. Measure along the lower edge of the bra cup (darts folded) to determine the distance from CF to notch and mark the new distance on the braa band.


 I haven't made a full bra like this yet, but I have cut a muslin and basted everything together and that fit just perfectly.


You can of course use this method to make any bra cup fit you.  Just find the bust point, measure and scale. This also works for making a bra cup smaller.

Meet the newest addition to my sewing family!

Sorry these where taken with a web cam :(

This is the newest member of the family. Meet ... oh hey! Puppet without a name! Can anybody think of one?

SOMEBODY needs a major swayback adjustment ...
and a dress that doesn't look like a dish rag!

   Okay on to the important things. Who needs a name anyway? I adopted this tutorial assistant for  3 Pounds. She might be related to Barbie, but her proportions seem more natural to me. I might even have a larger cup size than her :). Her waist is tiny though.
   If I'm nice she gets to have a name. Maybe even before the first tutorial. That is coming soon. Very soon actually. It will be about making spiral or swirl skirts with straight seams.

And as to stop you from wondering: I'm still working on getting all the measurements for the Christmas Coat Project (I'll shorten that to CCP). And it's more of a long term project.
   This swirl skirt is more of an Instant Gratification Project. Besides - I really, really need a new one. As soon as the sewing machine is fixed I'll sew one for me. Oh and as soon as I have my new measurements taken properly.

Read from me again soon!
Butterfly

It started with an IGP ...

... and ended with every sewaholics nightmare: a wounded sewing machine! Is it just a scratch? Will it heal by itself? Or could it be the end?

This is my baby <3

It most probably won't heal by itself. It will need some surgery. And out comes the one big problem with the Brother i20 LE. You can't just do the surgery. The problem is that the little "bed" for the bobbin has shiftet about 3 cm. Therefore you can't sew any more. If you wanted to put everything bak where it's supposed to go you'd have to undo two screws. But the screwdrivers that come with the machine are to long and the arm  hangs far to deep. Therefore I'd need to buy a really short screwdriver. But I don't have the funds to buy one right now. Therefore my baby has to stay in it's sickbed for a while.

This is the luggage my baby brought. Notice the screwdrivers?

Until then it will be no sewing and a lot of grumbling for me. On the bright side: I can perfect my new sloper! I had my little sister measure me the day before yesterday and made slopers with those measurements.  Everything but a trouser sloper as I  dissected my favourite pants for that. Unfortunately the measurements don't seem to be correct. Somehow my total bust, hip and waist measurements turned out 10 to 17 cm to large. How did that happen? So anyway I'm back to taking measurements (by myself).

Project Christmas-Coat

So for my first post I'll be jumping right in ...

The project: A new coat for my mum.

The problem:
I want to sew this coat as a Christmas present so I'll have to work on it when she isn't there. That's a very limited amount of time. And she doesn't trust my sewing skills so she won't let me take her measurements.

The solution:
Mum is on a business trip in a few weeks, so I'll have to make sure I clear as much time as I can  during that period. I will "steal" her measurements from her clothing. As I do the laundry that won't be a problem. My biggest concern is the bust area. I know I'd have to do an FBA on any commercial patterns. But that's what bras are for - right? I'll also be making a sloper (that's a first for me). She'll probably figure it out when she has to put it on so I might just make it into a blouse. Discretion is my aim here!

Inspiration: 
My mum used to have a coat that looked ever so endearing. The best description I can come up with is a warm  baby doll with sleeves and a big Peter Pan Collar. Sadly she threw it away before I had a chance of tracing the pattern. Why would she do such an awful thing?

Mum looked youthful and in need of protection in that coat. However she wants to have people respect her and listen to her. Some people think her quite severe and aggressive, because of that. So I think I'll keep the big, rounded collar to make her appear sweeter. I'll add  princess seams, because they are timeless and lady-like and make everyone look good. The empire waistline and under bust band are also a keeper for all of those reasons.

More as soon as I have halfway presentable sketches. I'm of to the drawing board!