Front Quilting - Kensington Gardens Shirt - Technicos

I'm calling this my Kensington Gardens Shirt, because the fabric came from London. I love visiting Kensington Gardens and always return to see the Peter Pan Statue. The trim is William Morris Strawberry Thief. Unfortunately I didn't note the name the green print.

I love floaty, fluid Tanna Lawn fabric from Liberty of London, but in a weighty shirt,  like my tried and true No. 1 Ladie's Detective Agency pattern, it means that the material drags in the front in the facing and edge of collar band. So I've been quilting the mandarin collar and the front interfacing to give them some structure.

I also edge-stitched the front inner edge with a leaf stitch on top of a blanket stitch. The extra layers of thread are giving it more stability.

Glad I machine basted initially, because I had problems with the fabric pulling funny. So I used my seam ripper to remove those stitches, hand basted and then machine stitched again to get a better lay down of this quilted area. I also stretched a little bit by hand and sewed very slowly. I used a really long machine stitch for the quilting because of all the layers.

Another thing that helped when I tried again was using my teflon sewing machine foot, instead of my Viking 'B' foot (for heavier fabric). The teflon skates over the surface a lot better and doesn't seem to pull. I still have to go slowly and stretch a little as I go.

You'll notice I used masking tape to get straight lines when I hand basted. Originally I used posit tape, but it was not adhesive enough. Also when I tried leaving the masking tape in place and machine stitching along the edge, the stickum on the tape somehow got in there. So I now vote masking tape for hand basting/quilting only.

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Next time I'll show a bit about the under layers 

Terminado! My CA Summer Skies Seersucker Shirt

I talked about the techniques I used, and what I learned about working with seersucker in the June Enchanted by Sewing Podcast.

Yeah! 

You know the joys of completing another project, don't you?

Love my new blue and white checked seersucker shirt. It's just made for summer. Well in fact it is! That's what I made it for :-)

And it's perfect with that new denim, elastic waist skirt I finished a few weeks back and have been wearing all the time. No, I don't think of myself as a skirt person but this garment has changed my mind. It's both comfortable and flattering. Nothing beats being able to design for my own figure.

I drafted the skirt myself but the shirt is an altered version of B5526, that infamous pattern I've made four times now and talk about all the time in my podcast. Yup, it's the one my buddy Susan originally altered. It started out life as my No. 1 Ladys' Detective Agency shirt. It's so great having a pattern that fits well, and lets me move on creatively from there.

Alterations on B5526 this time, in addition to Susan's original alterations to fit me

- No collar band. Oh I like that!

- Cut ends of my 3/4 length sleeves straight. Then rolled them up and hand sewed them into a permanent just-above-the-elbow roll. I'm the kind of person who always rolls up a sleeve, so why not make it permanent?

- Added pockets on either side. I varied the original pocket on the pattern, taking out the tuck. Lined the inside of the pockets with silk organza. I also used silk organza for the interfacing on the front facing (not included on the pattern), and the collar.

-Less topstitching this time because of the seersucker. I just did one row on all the edges - the hem, collar, and front facing. On crisper fabrics I do 2 or 3 for more of an edge. One row on the seersucker gave it enough definition. I continued to use commercial bias tape on the inside hem, to define the hem edge. Gee that works great.

More about sewing this shirt in my June Enchanted by Sewing podcast.

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Web Resources

The Enchanted By Sewing Podcast http://enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com

Kits 1 and 2: Refitting B5526, with help from Helen - my DTD

Fold and refold, and cut the sleeve out twice
on two different pices of fabric
(Yes, I remembered to cut out one left and one right!)
 to squeeze out a front, back and two sleeves from
1 1/2 meters. Luckily it's a wider fabric

In my most recent posting, I described several personal sewing kits I've been creating - the first two were for B5526 shirts.

Somehow I did something funny with my back pattern piece from B5526, but I managed to recreate it ...using muslin, pattern tissue, a lot of comparing to my No. 1 Lady's Detective Shirt

My fantasy version of
Helen
my Duct Tape Dummy

and a lot of help from Helen - my Duct Tape Dummy. It took me 4 hours... I started at 10 p.m. one night and went to bed at 2 a.m. No, I'm not actually a night owl, but that was the best time to get it done.

Yes, I do wish I hadn't been so casual when it came to storing away or properly marking that original pattern piece!

After refitting B5526  I cut out most of two shirts using a lilac Robert Kaufman gingham for one and a green print LIberty Tana Lawn for the other. For both I used half meters (19.5 inches) of specialty Liberty Tana Lawn fabric for the cuffs and front facing. I had to do a lot of fooling around to  squeeeeezzze the front, back and sleeve out of the 1 and 1/2 meters (a little over a yard and a half) of green Tana Lawn I got the first time I visited this wonderful London store. I've normally been counting on having about 3 yards when I cut out these shirts.

I'd been holding onto the Liberty fabrics since my previous trip to London's wonderful Liberty (* See my blog and podcast links below for more on this London trip and the fabric I bought there at Liberty), but since I got two full shirt lengths on my more recent trip, it was time to use up these originals.

I love this classic William Morris Strawberry Thief print
As a matter of fact, one of the new shirt lengths
from my more recent Liberty trip, is
the green version of Strawberry Thief
I talk about this in the podcast (*link below)

I didn't cut out the collars and collar stands yet, because I didn't recheck the collar fit, and I had some issues with that collar being a shade bigger than I'd hoped when I made this shirt in the pink mille fleur print, just before our trip to the U.K. I'll probably have to use bits of the alternate fabric for these, probably on the under side of the collar. I'm sure I'll have to piece the green print, but hopefully it won't show.

Feeling confident I've got a shirt pattern like B5526 working so well, helps keep me enchanted by sewing!

* Have you gotten a chance to see my post - Lovin' London's Liberty and listen to the June "Enchanted By Sewing" podcast show, Laurel Loves London)?

Spring Break:Disneyland Plain Sewing

Me in my my Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Shirt)
on a quick spring break at Disneyland

As regular followers of this blog may have noticed, I spent a lot of time focusing on improving my sewing techniques over the last couple of months. The green and golden jungle print shirt (previously blogged about as my Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Shirt) in this photo, was the product of that work. 

After so much effort when it came to crisp edges, pattern fitting and alteration I had fun making a couple of simple tank tops with no pattern at all and the simple joy of scissoring wherever I wanted. The results were perfect as layers under a travel wardrobe for a recent quick-hop Disneyland trip with my grownup daughter. With my new green shirt as a top layer, I managed to pack light - using just a very small rolling suitcase for the trip. My simple shirt and tees wardrobe,  made a second floor motel room and return-by-Amtrak trip really easy - no problem hefting that bag up steps, onto the top shelf of the luggage area, or pulling it up the gap between train and track.

I loved this opportunity to use machine embroidery
I almost forget to use a top layer of stabalizer between
the needle and knit fabric! You know what happens if you
forget, right? The fabric is sucked down and gummed up
 under the throat plate and it's awful.

I enjoyed using machine embroidery to create this lovely zebra, the only motif on the green shirt for which I had a match on my (now) old-fashioned embroidery machine, which uses cards instead of the more modern downloadable designs. I also made use of an inexpensive white tee - which I totally cutup and simply used as fabric. The binding (and headband - which you see simply tossed over the hanger here) was the remains of a tee that didn't work out. I loved the 100% cotton knit fabric when I found it - at Stone Mountain and Daughter in Berkley-, but it had an awful lot more stretch than I realized and the long sleeved tee I made  out of it is too broad and too short. It just didn't work out. But the remnants make great trim for this zebra shirt. Now that I've experimented with this tee, and another, I'm hoping to make a similar one out of better quality white cotton knit. I think I've still got enough of the black and white remainder for binding and enough black thread for another zebra too!

If you have machine embroidery capabilities and haven't done so on knits, make sure you use a top layer of stabalizer as well as a bottom layer. I use the kind that looks like saran wrap. You tear it away and any remainder washes away.

This is my kind of uniform
Something I can put on any day
and pretty too

As I've said before, I like making pretty clothes that I'll get a lot of wear from. Whether I'm in the land of Princesses and castles or back home on my bike, I'll get a lot of use out of this zebra tee. And I'll always enjoy pulling it out of my drawer.

Machine embroidered tees like this, keep me enchanted by sewing.

It's Done! No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency Shirt (B5526)

Butterick 5526
With Alterations
Click on the Illustration above for more detail

Are you a fan of the No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency books? Heroine M'ma Ramotswe often reflects on fine animals, like the ones on this lovely print, that we over on the other side of the world, associate with Africa. I've had this animal material in my fabric inventory for years, never feeling quite sure what to do with it. And I'm glad I saved it, because it's going to see a lot of use. Precious Ramotswe would like it too, I know.

I'm not sure I've ever spent so much time sewing one garment. But the time put in was worth it. Here's what makes me proud and happy, when it comes to this project.

1) Thank you Susan for all your work! The pattern fits really well. It's comfortable and flattering.  I'm looking forward to making many more shirts with it. And after all Susan's work, I still managed to finish off the sleeves on my own, using my favorite front-of-the-bathroom-mirror technique! You know that one right? Yep, I use lots of pins, and try not to spill too many all over the counter, or worse yet in the bathroom, the floor.

That mirror is where I got that final fitting on the sleeve to work, when it was time to get on with the project - my first of three for my intermediate sewing class. There's a time to be fitting and a time to just use the mirror, figure it out, and start sewing.

BTW I'm not the first person to need a lot of alterations when it comes to this pattern. Good thing my buddy Susan worked so hard creating that muslin before I sewed this garment, unlike Sarah Sew who loved  the results but can’t wear the shirt she labored over! Here's an excerpt from Sarah Sew’s review at Pattern Review "I would check your fit before finishing the shirt completely. Most patterns seem to run large, this one, however, seems to run small. Also the armhole is rather high. "

No kidding on the fit challenges, especially those armhole comments, Sara.

Cute buttons, huh?
You can see here, how the topstitching adds oomph!

2) I've also focused on learning to be a crisper sewer in the beginning and intermediate sewing construction classes at Cañada. I'm particularly proud of my crisp, neat hem and the sharp edged cuffs on my 3/4 length sleeves for this shirt. For the hem (as well a the inside edge of my front facing) I cut double wide packaged bias tape down the middle (lengthwise) then sewed one edge to my raw edge and the other edge behind/under/sandwiched between the bias fold and the back side of the garment - then hand (for the facing) or machine (for the hem) stitched down.  It looks neat if it's exposed when I'm wearing the shirt open over a tee and it gives the kind of definition I was looking for.

I've also learned that multiple rows of topstitching add crispness/definition/body. I just can't decide on the best word for this, so I guess I'll go with oomph!  My hem has two rows of stitching (stitch lengthof 3.0 or 3.5 is nice I think), and the front edge of the shirt has 3 rows.

See I told you I do a lot of checking
in the bathroom mirror!
There's my little red tray of pins,
 the ones that like to scatter.
Here you can just see I'm checking the
positioning of the buttonholes I'm
planning to sew. They're drawn straight on the
stabalizer, and on the hanger. But
will they be straight when I wear the shirt?
Yes!

3) My buttons march down in a nice straight line. I used a technique I've blogged about before, using stabalizer I normally use for machine embroidery to layout my buttonholes. When I have just a few buttons, I can use the scrap leftover from embroidery, but in this case, where I was sewing 8 buttonholes in a strip, I did use a brand new length.

4) I made some alterations I really like, both on the muslin and the actual shirt as I sewed it. Those include:
a) The cuff's were supposed to button in a traditional way - but I never really button longer sleeves shirts. First thing I do is to fold up my sleeves to just below the elbow. So why not start out that way, especially with such a casual style?  I permenently turned these cuffs back, and sewed them down with unbuttonable buttons. The little sleeve placket gap I like to wear in a regular sleeve, is a feature of the shirt now.
b) The front placket was just a turn-under-twice deal. Maybe that's OK for those who button their shirts high, but I won't be wearing this shirt like that. When I tried turning under the placket and put the shirt on, the back of the fabric (a vague shadow of the print) showed at the open neckline. Ugh! So I created my own facing pattern from the bodice front.
c) I fooled around with how far the buttoning part of the front should extend beyond the buttons. Because I used these large, printed-pattern buttons I left it kind of wide. Then I did three rows of topstitching to give it a nice heavy edge. Ancha in my intermediate construction class has suggested I add another three rows of stitching on the other side of the buttonholes, and I'm planning to take her advice.

Yep, it was indeed worth putting my energy into sewing a practical and versatile garment. However since I finished it I have been inspired to do some breakaway, rule-busting sewing! You'll hear more about that soon 

:-)