I realized I could use the powers of the grommet press to add spring snaps to strips of leather to make wrist cuffs. Consider these Proof of Concept.
Yes, most of these pieces of leather are left over from the purse I made a few years ago, plus one strip from a pack of leather scraps. I may further embellish these in the future, whether I make more or not.
...although...I suppose I could try making some from vinyl too...
Last October, I made a vest from a whole bunch of 2" squares of Halloween print fabric sewn together. I really like how it turned out, and, while I do enjoy the idea of Halloween all year, I'm ambivalent about orange outside the Halloween Season Proper.
So, I had a vague plan to make another 2" square patchwork vest, and earlier this year I was struck by some red and pink fabrics in my small yardage stash. I gathered similar and coordinated fabrics, then acknowledged, and proceeded to ignore, the distinct Valentine's Day feeling of everything together.
Last weekend I started cutting the squares. It helped a lot to reference the finished Halloween vest, so I could count how many patches were needed. I still managed to cut too many, which is always better than not enough, of course. I used the Halloween vest as a guide for what patches should go where to make panels big enough for the pattern pieces, and I also learned from the Halloween vest to pay attention to the front opening overlap on the other side, to avoid the same print ending up near itself (it's the second row from the edge on the lower side that the opening edge on the upper side lands next to.)
I started sewing squares together in the evening, then finished the next day
Then I procrastinated and dawdled for most of the rest of the week and finally finished today.
A friend helped with some things this week--I had already baked something as Thanks, but, yesterday, I decided I wanted to make something more. And I wanted to use the grommet press to install some spring snaps. Because that's not something that just anyone has the equipment to do.
Initially I thought it would be a simple bag, so I looked through my fabric for something that seemed suitable for this friend, and this caught my eye
This friend likes bright colors (I made this jacket as thanks for them for something else), roller skating (which...close...), reptiles, and tackiness. Someone sent me this fabric a few years ago, and I've been hanging onto it because...well. Look at it.
What isn't apparent in this photo is that it's essentially a border print, with the print radiating from a packed geometric stripe at the center fold to the selvedges...and that's why I thought that maybe it wouldn't be so great for a bag after all, because there is a slight natural crosswise stretch of the woven cotton due to the weft yarns being weaker than the warp yarns, and that would also mean the weaker direction of the fabric would be the load-bearing direction in a bag.
At that point, though, I really wanted to use this fabric for this Friend Thanks project (I had considered, for years, using it for something for the kiddo, but his Ironic Humor Standards change so often that even if he liked it when I made it, he might not care about it a week later just because it's no longer the right kind of funny.) As the title of this post indicates, I decided to make a bomber jacket.
There was just enough fabric.
So a few weeks ago, I made a slip jumper from bias cut subtly plaid wool. It fit very strangely.
I realized it was because the facing was not cut on the bias, and that led to...ah...unflattering compression at the bust.
So I decided I had nothing to lose by cutting the facing very short, cutting the top of the lining to match the contour of this new facing edge, then sewing them back together
This way, the facing is still there cut on-grain for stability, but doesn't extend over body parts that need the kinds of contours that on-grain fabric doesn't offer so easily.
The lining got a lot shorter, so I picked out the lining's hem, which regained a lot of length, and just serged it.
It's not beautiful, but it just might actually get worn.
After my last go-round with trying to make a slip dress jumper from McCall's 6696, I wanted to try it again, but this time not over-complicate it
well
not over-complicate it as much
because apparently I've turned into one of those middle-aged-lady sewing types who puts appliqués on everything.
Well, not a big renovation--I used the grommet press to add spring snaps to the patchwork and appliqué house purse I made in February.
Since these were added after the purse was finished, there's no extra interfacing or other reinforcement inside where the snaps are, but there is some, since I interfaced everything for general body and to withstand the appliqué process.
I really like these snaps, and I am resisting acquiring ALL THE DIES for the grommet press. I have plenty of things I can make with what I already have.
I finished this dress over a week ago--I have already worn and washed it, and am only now getting around to recording it here.
It's another hacked Simplicity 9153, made with fabric printed in Côte d'Ivoire, according to the selvedge. This is not an actual wax print--it's a fancy fabric print (it says on the selvedge that it's screen printed.) I got it from the friend who brought their relative's destash fabric a few years ago--many thanks!
So last night I picked apart the second Carbuncle's face and tried changing some things.
Structurally, I cut the upper piece in half to make a seam so the forehead would be narrower when it was sewn, then changed the lower center front seam to be the same width to match.
I pressed the knit used for the mouth, then used fusible webbing to attach heavy embroidery stabilizer to the back. I trimmed the curved edges, both because I realized the mouth should be smaller and also because the original edge was in rough shape after having the zigzagging removed.
It was very awkward to sew the mouth back on, since the overall body was still sewn. The first round of zigzagging went badly; I left that in place, so I wouldn't need to deal with straight pins again, while I went around the mouth edge more carefully.
There are still a lot of problems--as well as some new problems, caused largely by not even thinking about the possibility of the replaced mouth not aligning with the "can't move them, there're holes in the fabric" eyes--but I think the little changes helped a lot
This time, I made a pattern.
It's not a good pattern but, if I want to keep trying to make Carbuncles, the pattern will give me a starting point for future changes, and oh, does it need changes, because I very much overcompensated.
So in November I made a simple little felt Puyo Puyo Carbuncle for the kiddo. As I am not much of a plush maker, it turned out...oddly.
That, however, did not stop me from trying again, on a larger scale.
I am still not much of a plush maker.
This is what I cut first, then used the remnants from it to cut the shirt sewn first, blogged in the previous post. That project proved that the serger wasn't going to immediately break the left needle, so I went ahead and sewed most of this with the serger as well.
I have been cautiously using my serger with one needle since I tried to rectify its propensity to destroy the second needle when it was installed. The serger seemed to be fine with the single needle, so I decided to go ahead and try a project with two needles...not that I had much shirt-appropriate knit fabric left after making all the T-shirts in February.
I finally settled on a heavy knit lace to make into a mock turtleneck for layering purposes. After I cut that out, I looked at the amount of fabric left and decided to see if I could eke a tank top out of it, and that became the project used to test how the serger would behave with the left needle in place.
It behaved just fine! (although I still don't entirely trust it, so didn't run it at full speed.)
Just over a year ago, I made a shirt with a vintage pattern I'd used about nine years before.
When I first finished the shirt, I was so distracted by the way my overall sewing improvements, in the nearly-decade since making it before, meant that was now aware of how much the pattern itself is...not the most advanced. And that distracted me from noticing how the bust darts were way too high.
I put the shirt in the sewing room to work on, but I didn't want to calculate how much to lower the darts. Today I finally picked out the darts and the side seam a distance about twice the unfolded end of the darts. I gathered the front to fit the back, fiddled around with attempting to press out at least some of the fullness, then sewed everything back together.
I wasn't able to shrink out all of the fullness, so some gathers did get stitched in place
It's far from perfect, but that applies to the whole shirt,and, as always: it's fine/nobody better get close enough to notice.
I have had fun playing with layering the spiderweb lace slip, and it made me say...hey...why not make a slip dress from something sturdier and just wear it like a jumper...
(Which, yes, layering slip dresses was absolutely a trend in the 1990s, but, as mentioned, I never wore slip dresses in any way back then.)
I'm going to put the main picture here, then ramble a lot before getting to any other pictures
