frankenpattern top

October 18, 2020October 18, 2020 ~ Tia Dia ~ 13 Comments

I love fall. I love all the colours as they change, and the different shades that the changing light provides on the same tree throughout the day. They make me happy!

My top is a mix of Vogue 1412‘s front bodice, the back bodice from Burdastyle 09/2019 #111, and the sleeves from Burdastyle 09/2010 #136. I didn’t know what to do with this fabric, so I draped it around my sewing area on and off for what seems like a good 12 months, trying different ideas, laying out different patterns (not enough fabric), trying to work around a pattern repeat that I ended up completely ignoring, and generally second-guessing myself until I was struck by lightening (or courage), and laid out the pattern for the front bodice and started cutting. I would have preferred to use Vogue 1412’s back bodice, too, but I didn’t have enough fabric and wanted a more fitted back.

This is the third version of Vogue 1412 that I’ve made. I really like the front neckline, although this iteration, due to the slightly dropped shoulders of the back, and because I didn’t stabilize the shoulder seams, required a shoulder pleat, extending from a dart in the upper back through to a pleat in the front. It’s quite hidden with the busy pattern, but if you look closely, you can see it.

The fabric is a treat. It has a very fine herringbone weave, which just makes this that much more luxurious.

modal-wool-cashmere challis detail — _{a modal-wool-cashmere challis}

And it goes with so many different items in my wardrobe, just because of all the wonderful colours.

Burdastyle 01-2016-135 jeans — ^{these are not the shoes to wear with jeans}

This is probably my fifth pair of Burda 01/2016 #135, the skinny jeans with the interesting seaming details. I have worn this brown pair to the point of the colour fading, so I over-dyed it with Rit in my front loading washing machine and couldn’t be happier with the result. They don’t look faded and yucky! 🙂

Have you ever re-dyed a garment?

burda 8680 denim skirts

September 23, 2020September 28, 2020 ~ Tia Dia ~ 11 Comments

It’s been my goal to work through my stash as much as possible, instead of buying new fabrics to only have then sit and wait to be made into wearable garments. These skirts for DD3 have put two lengths of denim into her closet for wear, and gotten them out of the dreaded stash! Yay! DD3 doesn’t really wear a lot of skirts, but I think she’s probably finished growing, so making up these two made some sort of sense. I have purchased various sorts of denim in a variety of blue shades for DD3 over the years because she prefers custom jeans to RTW. She is short-waisted, but her waist-hip length is 5cm longer than the usual 23cm RTW typically is drafted to accommodate, so every pair of trousers or jeans or shorts or leggings rides low, which she dislikes.

However, skirts never seem to present a fitting problem. Hopefully she will wear these as a casual alternative to shorts next summer season. She wanted a plain ‘jean’ style skirt, and so I pulled Burda 8680 out of my pattern stash.

The first version is the View A from a black stretchy denim from EOS. I initially used this denim to make a pair of capris for DD3, but didn’t cut them in a single layer, and the grain of the right front was off and caused a lot of twisty annoyance during wear, so they were thrifted. I suppose I could have made them into a skirt back then, in perfectly 20/20 hindsight as I type this, but I didn’t. Someone else is wearing them; hopefully, happily.

It’s a rather plain, utilitarian pattern. I added the belt loops and didn’t bother to add back pockets for her phone.

She was nonplussed about the omission, as the front pockets on this pattern are plenty deep. I finished the interior with gingham scraps leftover from a Dorothy costume I made for her three years ago.

Burda 8680 black back waist — ^{No back pocketses….}

But I did add the pockets on the second shorter version in blue denim.

Burda 8680 blue pockets — ^{yes, it’s truly a dark navy, despite how it looks in this photo!}

And, for a lark, because I felt like hammering studs, I added studs for all the pockets. It was a very simple make, and the fit is really good on this pattern.

Marfy 1913: Pretty In Peach

September 15, 2017September 15, 2017 ~ Tia Dia ~ 24 Comments

I’m finally taking pictures of my sewing projects since April. This is Marfy 1913, the blouse that everyone made a few years ago when Marfy released it as a free download. I’ve made several for other people, including modifying the pattern so it’s dress length, but this is the first one I’ve made for me.

The fabric is from EOS. It’s a silk crinkle chiffon with the prettiest floral design. There was just enough fabric that I could make the blouse double-layered, and match the colour design of the fabric.

Like everyone else who has made this pattern, I have plans for others. It’s not difficult to make, requires very little fabric, and is simple to alter.

The trousers in this outfit are Burda 1/2016 #135. I’ve made three versions of them, which I’ll be sharing with you. I love the details, and I love how they fit. I’ve always shied away from slim fitting trousers, being a curvy shape. I dread looking like an inverted pyramid, but these seem to fit perfectly and they’re fun to make with all the seaming details.

The denim is an Italian denim is from EOS. This also was a roll end. I was pretty pleased with the quality when I made these purple jeans, so I jumped when I saw this roll end available. There was just enough to squeeze these trousers out of 1.3 yards.

This denim has a lot of body to it, and feels quite different from the softer fabrics I made these trousers in, which changed how they fit. You’ll see this next time when I post pictures from Drumheller! I went on a road trip through my childhood haunts in Western Canada. These pictures today are at my grandmother’s farm in Alberta. It was a great trip, although I didn’t purposely photograph what I packed and wore. Anyways, it’s great to be back!

Rosie the Riveter

October 30, 2015October 30, 2015 ~ Tia Dia ~ 15 Comments

I’ve made another jumpsuit, albeit for DD3, this time ’round.

She wanted to be Rosie the Riveter for Hallowe’en, and I offered to make her a denim jumpsuit if she agreed to it becoming part of her wearable wardrobe. She gave it a few days’ thought, and said yes. Yay! After scouring Burda’s website, she loved the May 2010 jumpsuit best, so I found the magazine and purchased it via eBay from Germany last week. In a perfectly-timed coincidence, Fabricland emailed me a coupon for 50% off any single cut of fabric, and I used it for 4 metres of stretch cotton denim, purchased last Friday. The Burda magazine arrived on Tuesday, and I’ve been sewing ever since. Today she wore it to school.

The pattern is pretty straight forward, but, because the magazine is in German and Google translate is horrible for sewing terms, I didn’t follow the directions. And I made some changes: I put a proper placket and cuff onto the long sleeves; left off the epaulets; and omitted the elasticized hems on the trousers.

My DD3 loves blue, and wanted blue buttons and blue top stitching. The shirt pockets are faux, although I made fully functioning buttonholes because I don’t like the look of buttons sewn over faux buttonholes. I think it looks unfinished.

The trouser portion of the jumpsuit runs large.. surprisingly. I cut DD3’s recommended size, and then narrowed each side seam of the trousers 3 cm to get a good fit. No other changes were made to the pattern. In retrospect, I’d lengthen the back crotch length, but she hasn’t changed out of it since coming home from school, so it must be comfortable.

Oh, and, because it’s a jumpsuit, here’s another jump!

Shorts, Capris & Ankle-length Trousers

August 4, 2015January 28, 2016 ~ Tia Dia ~ 13 Comments

DD3 needed some new bottoms this past spring, so after looking through all the stretch denim available in Mom’s stash, she chose three fabrics, and three patterns. Here’s the collection. First up, another version of the shorts I’d made for her last summer. It’s a shortened version of Burda 6/2011 #110. It fit her well last year, and I didn’t want to re-think the fit on another pattern, so I re-measured to ensure it still fit, and started sewing.

The next project was capris, and she wanted them to be skinny, but not too skinny. So I opted for Burda 03/2014 #115. DD3 has a crotch depth of 11 inches – about one full inch longer than any standard block, and finding RTW trousers/jeans/shorts that fit her properly is a challenge. She’s inherited the long back crotch measurement, too, but the extra crotch depth means bottoms are always low-riding on her. As she prefers bottoms that sit at her natural waist, I altered the pattern using the slash-spread method to get the required depth. Here’s the first pair at a true capri length. The fabric for all these bottoms is from EmmaOneSock. You can find it in other colours here. This was a roll end, and I have enough fabric for shorts next year if she needs more. This fabric worked extremely well for these capris, and the fit is perfect. I don’t have any other photos of her wearing them at this point.The next pair was ankle length in a striped French stretch cotton blend, again from EmmaOneSock as a roll end. It’s lighter in weight and as a lot of stretch. I used the same pattern, but they refuse to sit at her natural waist without a belt once they’ve been stretched out through wearing. They’re her favourite pair, btw. (I’m too lazy to alter the waist yet again). I used a BurdaStyle idea for binding the pocket edges in bias strips. The denim (?) was lightweight enough to do it easily with a little help from my hammer for flattening the bulk.You can see in the pic above that the crotch depth appears to be too long, but the trousers are not actually sitting where she would like them to. I really should take in the waist some more. Here’s the back view.The fit is pretty good through the back. The fabric is really fun. She wasn’t too sure of it to begin with, but every time she puts these on, she tells me she really likes them.

Fitting trousers/jeans/short is always so challenging. The only trousers I’ve ever been able to fit without any wrinkles whatsoever are classic trousers, although these Burda patterns fit pretty darn well right off the tracing paper. I’d love to try Jalie 2908 (stretch jeans pattern) for fit on her. Next time.

Brown Jeans

May 4, 2014May 2, 2014 ~ Tia Dia ~ 12 Comments

I made another pair.From the Jalie pattern again. And here’s a conundrum perhaps you could help me with: I cut these in a single layer, very carefully, from the very same pattern as my previous pair, and they were too small.

What’s up with that?!?

So I did my unintentional denim rescue trick again, since I had a good yard of fabric left over, and added a 2-inch wide strip down the outside of each leg. At least it looks like an intentional design element. For fun I decided to use hot pink thread in my serger. You can see it just peeking out at you under the belt loop.Apparently this denim-like fabric has less stretch than the cotton-lycra denim I used before. And I totally love this denim-like fabric from EOS. It’s a cotton-poly-lycra blend with a subtle stripe effect in the weave, and it’s super comfortable. And I decided to add a few copper rivets for a different look. Lots of fun pounding fabric and hardware with a hammer!

I cut both the front and the back using the low-rise pattern this time, and it fits very well. Better than the mix of the two I did for the blue pair. I’m actually going to see if I can edit that first pair: lower the back rise and place the back pockets differently. I can totally see myself wearing these to death, not the least because they’re chocolate brown. Let’s hope the fabric blend withstands hard wear.

My first pair of Jalie jeans

May 2, 2014October 2, 2014 ~ Tia Dia ~ 28 Comments

This is my third pair of jeans (the second pair went to live at the thrift shop because I really didn’t like the too-short-for-my-liking length), and I’m really happy with them. I used the famous Jalie jean pattern, and followed along with Angela Wolf in her Craftsy course on making designer jeans.

Well, I wouldn’t call mine designer, but there were many little tricks that were helpful in that course:

using a hammer to flatten many layers of denim
distressing tools, particularly sandpaper
a beautiful fly zip with a fly shield
how to keep your waistband in place against your body
topstitching tricks of the jeans trade

I confess these aren’t distressed very professionally, but it was fun to sandpaper the denim!I kinda overdid this pair on the front. Because it’s a stretch denim, when it’s standpapered, little folds of fabric appear out of nowhere. Hence the slight visual mess. It looks a lot worse in the photo above than when I’m wearing them.

I’ve been wearing these all day, and they are really comfortable. I used the normal rise pattern in the back, and the low rise pattern in the front because I usually need to shorten the front crotch length by one inch anyways. I thought I’d see if I could save myself the hassle and just cut it. I measured first, and it was perfect. It’s supposed to sit below the waist, but it sits at the CF of my short waist. 🙂 You can see the difference in the rises in the picture above.The back yoke was cut using their mid-rise pattern, which is a good inch or so higher than the low-rise pattern. I usually need to add length through the back crotch area, so this worked perfectly. On me, the back waist sits 1″ below my real waist.

I love the fit of these jeans. That crucial POM at 2″ above the bottom of the crotch curve is precisely 6.5″, which is why the back of these jeans fit so well. I mentioned this in my last trouser post, and finally tracked down the blog that made my “aha” moment. The diagram is linked to the original blog post at www.madalynne.com.

The back of my jeans looks pretty good. The topstitching is all precisely marked in chalk everywhere. I have never used so much chalk in one project before.You can see the distressing around the edges of the pockets and seam edges. It’s fun to distress and hammer those multiple layers of denim flat enough to topstitch easily. Great therapy. 😀

I made minimal changes to the Jalie pattern:

using the low-rise in the front and mid-rise in the back
substituting a contoured waistband from my BurdaStyle pair for the bias one they suggested
tapered the boot-cut silhouette in by 1/4″ at each side seam

Has anyone made these jeans with the bias waistband? What did you think? Did it work well? I’m curious about it, but I don’t know if I care to make another pair of jeans with a bias waist if it’s not going to be a good thing. I’m happy with the fit of the contour band. It’s on the straight grain at CF, and I added twill tape along the top edge. It hugs me perfectly, even when sitting or touching my toes.

If I were to change anything on this pair, I’d move the pockets closer to the CB seam and not add 2 inches to the length. The hem can always be changed, and the pockets will have to wait for the next pair.I’m just so excited about that little 6-7″ POM that I’m happy to make up trousers forever. Let’s hope it doesn’t let me down because I get so happy about it I get cocky and forget to measure or make toiles.

unintentional denim rescue

November 21, 2013 ~ Tia Dia ~ 13 Comments

I’ve tried again. I was so hyped after making my first pair of jeans that I wanted to try again, only this time I was going to try to fix those pesky smile lines in the back. And I wanted a pair that was heavily topstitched in a dark indigo denim. The fabric is from my stash – a length of stretch denim blend purchased at a roll end party from Emma One Sock this past year.

I got ~~cocky~~ distracted this time around and didn’t measure properly, so this is a rescue post. First, I had to add width. Yup. I wanted a pair of jeans that fit a little looser than my previous pair, but I didn’t add the extra inch or two of width when I cut. *headdesk* So, after offering them to DD1 and DD2 (neither of whom were particularly enthused about a new pair of mom-made jeans) I put them aside and went to bed. For the second day. During the night, of course, inspiration arrived and I added a strip about 1 3/8 inch wide down the sides. Piece work was required because I was using scraps.I was pretty dayum pleased with myself for this little bit of ingenious rescuing. Of course it turned the jeans into dress jeans because the legs are wider than I wanted them to be. My DH thinks they’re too wide. I will not pick out all that topstitching, so they’re staying wide. *humph*But let me tell you, I had a saaaagaaaa of fitting frustration that drove me to distraction. They’re still not the way I want them to fit, but they’re pretty good. And I think I’ve finally figured out how to fix those lovely little smile lines. Of course, I learned it too late for this particular pair. But I now know.And they’re too short, damn it. I wonder how stupid they’d look with a hemline add-on…Y’know… maybe something a bit flared and cut on the bias, because that’s all the scraps I have left!

Bronze Jeans: Burda 1/2010 #136

October 3, 2013June 11, 2015 ~ Tia Dia ~ 34 Comments

Warning: there’s a lot of pictures in this post, and, well, no amount of tweaking can make my 40-something mother-multiple-times exercise-free butt look younger, childless or hawter. Don’t say you weren’t warned. 😉

I did it. I crossed into the world of the unknown and I did it! I cracked the jean mystery, peeps, and I am so EXCITED! I have long scoffed at the idea of making my own jeans. Whatever for? What a hassle. That’s just sewing geekiness. Not interested. But the idea of making jeans has a way of getting under one’s skin and wandering through one’s sewing plans, and more than once I was coerced by Linda at EmmaOneSock to buy stretch denim. For no reason except that it’s nice to have stretch denim in your stash, right? No plans for jeans here. Stretch denim can be used for a LOT of other clothing items besides jeans. So you see it’s really not my fault that I made a pair of jeans. The entire sewing universe has been conspiring to convert me.I’m so glad I did! I feel like I’ve taken one major sewing step forward. As I sewed this up, cracking the big jean mystery one seam at a time, it was amazing to learn how simple jean construction is. I used this model from Burda 1/2010 #136.I did not make a muslin specifically for this pair. After sewing up my one and only pair of skinnies from the Burda block, I had a pretty good idea of what needed to be altered, so I measured myself from various angles very carefully, and then measured the pattern very carefully. And re-measured.

I didn’t make any adjustments to the to the front, except to leave off that weird front patch between the front thighs. Why it is there? It looks…. well, uncomfortably embarrassing. Maybe their designers thought it would be interesting, but I didn’t like it. Besides, can you just picture it in this bronze denim with dark purple topstitching? *shudder* Wrong visual. BTW, the front crotch depth is good, but I’m not sure if the little extra fabric at the front crotch should be left or adjusted. I need to think about that more. It’s not uncomfortable and I don’t think it looks bad, but I still need to think about it from a “perfect fit” perspective. Any opinions on this would be lovely!I lengthened the back by one full inch by extending the crotch curve. This was a mistake because the inseam of this pair is 1 inch forward of where it should be. This is a good lesson to learn! I should have left the crotch alone and slashed and spread the length of the CB seam instead to get the length I needed. This would have left the inseam in its proper place. I did need to taper both the CB seam, the yoke and the waistband to fit the curve of my lower back. This was no big surprise, and since I was anticipating this adjustment as a last little fitting tweak, I constructed the back in such a way that the CB seam was the last to be stitched. I attached the waistband to the jeans and fit the CB seam, taking in about 3/4″ at the waist and tapering it to the hip level. Burda’s instructions suggested stitched the CB seam and topstitching it prior to attaching the waistband. Well, I knew that was going to be an un-picking nightmare, so I went down a different construction street quite happily.

My side seams are almost perfectly perpendicular to the floor, which is a good thing, and I don’t need to tell you fellow sewistas that I’m very happy about that. After taking these pics, however, it’s obvious the back thighs need to be shortened – probably a good 4cm – so the wrinkling under my butt goes away. I have some thoughts on this and will share them next post.

The pockets have a decorative self-fabric binding, which I wasn’t sure about. That could mean too many layers of denim to sew through, but after a couple of test runs on scraps I went ahead with it. It’s a unique detail that I’ve never seen on jeans before. Not that I’ve seen a lot of jeans in my life. But anyways… I used a denim needle for this project, and it stitched through all 5 layers of denim at the turned-under ends of the pocket binding with no complaints.The topstitching pattern for the back pockets is all Burda’s. I claim no credit for creativity. But I like these pockets.The belt loops were the other area I discarded Burda’s instructions. I was supposed to stitch a long tube and turn it. Uh. Right. I hate turning tubes of fabric on the best of slippery fabrics, so why would I want to do that on thick stretch denim? So I serged both long edges of the belt loop piece and turned the edges in on themselves in thirds, exactly like all the RTW jeans I inspected. It turned out to be a little wider in width than typical belt loops, so I took the opportunity to use one of the decorative stitches on my machine instead of just straight topstitching.I didn’t use studs to reinforce any pocket corners on this pair, although I studied every single pair of DH’s and DD1’s jeans to see where the studs were used. I wanted to keep this project simple without a lot of extraneous detail or embellishment. The only new-to-me hardware issues were the stud button and shortening the metal zipper by hand, neither of which was difficult or stress-inducing.And I added 2 inches of length. I may be vain, but IMHO, the added 2 inches give the illusion of longer legs than I really own. 😉 After finishing this pair and wearing them for a day, I can tell you I have more in the queue. Thanks to all of you sewing bloggers who have documented the process of making your own jeans. Without all your posts and pics and details and FO’s I would not have crossed the hurdle of jeans. You know who you are. 😉