Sweet Selfish Sewing Poetry

Enjoying my Saturday brew

With Selfish Seamstress haiku

Not selfish: proceeds donated to Haiti.

Image radically modified in Photoshop due to bad quality
of my phone's camera. All coffee mugs I've collected
for over 20 years are black and white. So this is perfect.

Thank you Selfish Seamstress for giving
validation and acceptance to sewing selfishness.

Score! Simplicity Cynthia Rowley for $1. Leaves $ for Hardware Closures.

At Joann a few days ago, I picked up two Amazing Fit pants patterns at the $1 Simplicity sale. I'm interested to examine differences between the slim, average and curvy patterns.

But I didn't even know about the new Cynthia Rowley jacket, Simplicity 2443. When will be the next $1 sale? So today I hoped hope-hope-hope it's still on sale when I swung by Joann after work. It was. But where it wasn't was in the drawer. Argh. So I need to go to Target anyway for shampoo, and there just happens to be another Joann near Target. That Joann is also a very old run-down looking store, so I hope it's less popular than the brand spanking new store. Think there's a higher probability there will be envelopes behind the 2443 tab? And indeed there was. Yay.

I will likely do a different front closure. But don't want to lose the funkiness. Just something that looks less messy. Ideas? Maybe a front placket with snaps like this:

 It's OK. It works, in a manual way. But it doesn't work. It loses uniqueness.

Maybe use this Dritz Magnetic Closure, with petersham or grosgrain to attach it in the seam? Attached with the ribbon, the metal pieces would be a little floppy when unfastened. But still a cleaner look than the original floppy ties.

A swivel clip closure? For something very different?

And if you're looking for swivel clasps, check out all the swivel clasp styles at Pacific Trimming. Who knew there were so many?

There's many other unique metal closures. I may go this route. I love metals and hardware.

A-HA! Here's what I want to use. I have a bunch of these in copper. I just couldn't find a picture of it online. I see this is called a surcingle. Never woulda guessed.

But if I got these in gold, I have gold RiRi zippers and I would consider replacing whatever that horizontal detail is on the front jacket with nonfunctional RiRi zippers, with the zipper tape exposed and topstitched on outside of the jacket. Just to add to the hardware angle. Actually the zippers would be functional, but wouldn't lead to anywhere except a view of the top under the jacket. Or the gold zipper tape and teeth could be stitched on without the pulls, with no purpose other than having some zipper teeth detail. Hmmmmmm ... this project may be elevated to priority status.

Would You Use Liberty of London for Bias Trim?

I bought some green quilted fabric for a vest or jacket, and it frays very readily. The seams will need a hong kong finish. A classic Liberty of London fabric -- Strawberry Thief in a colorway matching the quilted fabric -- was nearby in the fabric store.

The two fabrics were meant to be together. Forever. Into eternity. Bound together with silken threads. The Liberty lawn would bring printed charm to the hong kong finish, making it more interesting than hong kong seams usually are. And the cotton lawn is so lightweight, it's ideal for bias trim and hong kong finishes.

But here's 3 reasons why I left it behind.

• It's expensive.
• It's expensive.
• It's expensive.

It is crazy to use a $40/yard fabric that will never be seen, YES?! It would really make the inside of the vest come alive. But c'mon, it's the inside!

I thought I was the only person on the planet who may have contemplated using Liberty for bias trim.

But no. During blog travel journeys, I find six and a half stitches used Liberty bias trim on a beautiful knit child's cardigan:

Although it is visible bias trim. Mine would be hidden. But this is a child's garment. Mine is for an adult who could wear it longer. So I call the justification even-steven.

If you Google "Liberty bias binding," you find others have tread here already. How cute is this Liberty bias binding on wooden spools, from UK-based clothkits:

Colette Patterns' tutorial on making bias tape features Liberty:

You can get ready-made Liberty lawn bias tape like this from etsy seller PollyDangerNotions:

So ... maybe  it's not so crazy an idea ...

Frrrrrrrrrrrosty Coooooold, But Warm Stylin'

*****

* snowflakes * snowmen * snowdrifts * snowballs * snowfall *

* frosty winter * silvery icicley frosty *

*****

 little falling lights, long graceful pearl fringe earrings from etsy seller jennifermorrisbeads

***

 cool silver rayon jersey from EmmaOneSock, sewn into McCall's 5890 jacket, style B

***

black 14 oz rayon jersey from EmmaOneSock, sewn into McCall's 5890 dress, style D

***

cinch the silver jacket with a double-wrap silver belt from Bluefly

***

black boot with zipper design detail from Bluefly
***

***** snowflake *****

from Wikipedia:

*****

Stylin' Series Sews & Shops for Valentine's Day

It's not too early for Valentine's Day if you need to sew and order accessories.

If time & money were no concern, I'd dress like this for dinner:

las frambuesas mexican cocoa ruby dangle earrings from etsy seller jennifermorrisbeads. I featured her earrings previously here where a whole outfit was planned around the earrings, they inspired me so. Someday, I will bite and buy. The jewelry and descriptions are drool-worthy. It hurts to look at what's sold, knowing others own these beauties. Check her store out. It goes without saying, this outfit started with the earrings, then I shopped for fabric ...

... and found rayon jersey in deep red at Gorgeous Fabrics. Looks like Chianti, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon ... pick your favorite red ... romantic and yummmmmmmmmm!

Sew it into a drapey top with Jalie's Knit Scarf-Collar Top, with sleeves or sleeveless. So you don't need a necklace. Let those earrings shine. And the scarf will play up the vertical drop of the earrings.

Wear it with a black skirt or pants you already own.

Add an antique gold clutch from Nordstrom to hold lipstick so you're ready for Valentine kisses, and Elie Tahari old gold sandals from Zappos.

Making & Using Ribbing As Shaping & Design Element

Some of this post repeats what I posted previously about sewing ribbing, when I made ribbing for the Hot Patterns Slinky Shrug.

Close-up of the ribbing:

First, excellent resources with tips about sewing ribbing:
-- The Sewing Divas tell how to sew your own ribbing.
-- Connie Long's "Sewing With Knits" book has a section with tips
-- Threads magazine Twin-Needle Reference Chart showing how to get various effects

You will be sewing with a twin needle, so your machine will need ability to do zigzag stitching. Here are resources for twin needle sewing:
-- The basics of twin needles from Sewing and Craft Alliance (PDF doc)
-- Twin-needle stitching article at BurdaStyle

Have extra twin needles on hand. I did not have extras while working on a large project requiring hours of twin needle stitching. I was using a stretch twin needle, 4.0 millimeter width, and it broke. I had only smaller millimeter stretch twin needles on hand. So, an emergency trip to JoAnn ensued, but they did not have stretch 4.0 twin needles in stock. So I got a universal 4.0 twin needle so the ribbing would be the same width. Unfortunately the twin needle kept skipping stitches on the old cotton jersey T-shirts I was sewing. Lots of skipped stitches. Really bad. UGH! So I rooted through my notions and found a denim 4.0 twin needle. Thankfully it worked fine on the cotton jersey.

Sewing ribbing consumes a great deal of thread. Just like starting a business, where they tell you however long you think it will take and however much you think it will cost, double the estimates ... I learned that doubling the thread you think you will need will help you avoid unnecessary trips. Unless your thread source is close by. You'll see a spool of woolly nylon here. I use woolly nylon in the bobbin to add stretch to the ribbing.

Get good thread such as Gutermann or Metrosene. For a big ribbing project where I needed black thread, I was thrilled to think I could use up a bunch of $1 sale Coats thread that I'd had on hand for many years. Use it and get rid of it! Cheap! Joy! Well, well, well ... the threads kept twisting and knotting together before going through the twin needle, and I could see a great deal of thread dust and fraying happening. This caused the threads to break frequently, bringing frequent interruption in the middle of a nice line of ribbing, causing me to have to rip out lines of stitching and rethread the needles. Then it would happen again. By the fourth nasty entanglement, with very little productive sewing time between entanglements, I gave up on the $1 spools and loaded the machine with a Gutermann and a Metrosene from my thread rack. The thread flowed like a smooth river through the needles and through the fabric, and sewing line after line of ribbing was a serene exercise after that thread change. Not a single tangle. Very zen.

This experience reminded me of a post on Stitcher's Guild years ago where someone showed extreme close-ups of various threads. The picture showed all the frayed pieces on Coats threads, versus the smooth finish of other threads. At the time, I honestly was skeptical that thread could make such a difference. But I could see this happening with my project, it's like the fraying of the Coats threads were getting hung up and stuck on each other. So save yourself the grief and the time, and from the beginning choose your thread carefully.

The reverse side of ribbing looks interesting too. Here are both sides of old t-shirt fabric with ribbing samples. Depending on the look you're going for, either side could be used.

"Right" side:

"Wrong" side:

Tunneling is A-OK. The great thing about sewing ribbing is that while tunneling is frustrating when twin stitching the hem of a knit top, and you must problem-solve to eliminate it, tunneling is exactly what you want with ribbing. I set the tension on the highest possible setting to make the ribbing as visible as possible. But you can experiment with various tension levels for different effects. This effect is demonstrated on this "corrugated" coffee cup sleeve from BurdaStyle:

Although, you may not get massive ribbing like this -- there is cording underneath the ribs to make the corrugated effect more obvious.

Ribbing & pintucks create cool design elements and shaping. Here's ribbing used in a very different way on sleeves, from the same BurdaStyle article as the corrugated coffee sleeve above:

Ribbing isn't just for hems. As the above photo shows, you can be creative and use ribbing as a decorative and shaping element in many areas of a garment. Pintucking can produce a similar effect when there are lots of pintucks. The photos below shows an idea to shape the waist area, from a BurdaStyle article about restyling t-shirts with pintucks:

You can strategically use ribbing to make a garment fit closer and more shapely, as Connie Long explains in her book Sewing With Knits. Use ribbing to make a knit top fit closer over the bust and release fabric to fit looser over the hips as shown here:

Here's a little burst of ribbing for shaping on a knit top at eShakti:

Here's waist shaping from a knitting pattern, but the concept could be applied to a sewn knit garment:

The above photos look like knits. Here's a similar effect with pintucks on a woven, on an Eileen Fisher silk tank from Garnet Hill:

You could choose thread colors that contrast with the fabric color to make ribbing even more of a design element, on right or wrong side of fabric. If you don't want thread to show so obviously, just choose thread in a close color and it may disappear into thicker knit fabric but will likely be visible when viewed closely on thinner knits.

If you're not sure about shaping a garment for the human body, try ribbing fabric for a pillow or other home accessory. Or, a scarf.

Use ribbing effects to texture fabric. Threads magazine has an online article showing how to get various ribbing effects with twin needles, resulting in fabric textures like this garment from Kayla Kennington:

Most of all, have fun! It does take patience to sew many lines of ribbing, but I find it very meditative. Surprising, as I'm not the most patient person on the planet.

EDITED TO ADD: If you don't want to sew, here's a beautiful silk ribbed fabric at EmmaOneSock:

It would make something similar to the Eileen Fisher tank shown above.

Stylin' Series Desperately Searches for Spring

Winter just recently arrived full force, but I'm over it already. I mean, the gardening catalogs are coming now. It's time to plan for spring. And, this sunny totebag. And what I'd sew to wear with it.

Tote from Hayden Harnett which I'd never heard of  before, but glad I tripped on this site through blog surfing today. Edited to add: Keep eye on the price. This tote goes on and off sale, at different sale prices.

Silk fabric from Fabric Mart for a tank top to wear under jacket. Bubblegum4Breakfast used this silk as lining in a coat. It's beautiful!

Tank pattern is BurdaStyle Sadie.

Fabric for jacket is Relish Tweed from Sawyerbrook.

Jacket pattern is BurdaStyle Jorinde Jacket.

Pants from Anthropologie.

Refashioned boots from etsy seller. They are old Candie's boots cut out to make them into gladiators. I absolutely hated the gladiator look until recently. I guess they make you look at something long enough, it eventually grows on you. What more obvious consumer trend to make us buy short-term impractical stuff during a recession than design something that looks like nothing that people already have in their closets, so trend slaves will spend money to buy this ugly trend. I'm not a trend slave, so I'd never really buy these. I'm just exercising my style eyes on a Saturday afternoon. And my eyes are bored by plain old boots and plain old shoes. But I think I could live with these boots because they already existed and they're refashioned, and they'd only peek out from under the pants. Alas, they're not my size, so if they are your size, they're yours.

I like the idea of bringing these casual pieces together, some with loud elements, with a Ralph Lauren-ish tweedy jacket to tone it all down a bit and bring some contrast. Indeed Sawyerbrook says the tweed fabric is from Ralph Lauren. And because I love silk, I will wear silk mixed in a casual outfit. What's the problem with that. It's not like I'm sweating while playing basketball in this outfit or something like that.