Category: Sewing

You would think being as super meticulous as I’ve been with the dress I’m making for my daughter, I would not make a boneheaded mistake, right? Hah!

Yesterday, while pressing newly sewn seams, with my vintage American Beauty iron disaster struck. The petticoat melted because the iron was too hot. Yes, I should have used a pressing cloth. I know, I know…

Now, I could have gotten upset and blamed it on the iron, but let’s get real… this was user error! Thankfully, the fabric melted near the petticoat waist. Whew! What did I do? I cut 2″ off the waist. I then cut 2.5″ of the same material and sewed it onto the waist of the petticoat. Boom… Done! I totally Mcgyered that!

Lesson learned, I won’t, won’t, won’t,ever, ever, ever do that again without using a pressing cloth.

 

 

Making a Proper Press Cloth

This evening, I took a brief break from working on my daughter’s dress to serge a proper press cloth. I had some old tightly woven cotton sheeting laying about. Perfect! Initially, I was going to do a single layer, it is pretty thick; however, I got paranoid and quadruple layered the fabric and the result is what you see above. This was a quick and dirty job. I didn’t feel like measuring, so it’s not exactly even and I’m fine with that.

I tested it out with my American Beauty iron and the fabric didn’t melt! The “press cloths” I’ve used in the past have been old fabric remnants or bed sheets. It’s what I made today, but I serged the ends to make it “pretty.”

Last minute purchases…

Of course, I need smaller elastic for the waist band and so I’ll be purchasing  that tomorrow morning. The zippers I ordered from Wawak (yesterday) arrived today. Currently, I’m in the process of creating my hand-picked zipper.

Sewing needs – Making a list

While I thought I’d had everything covered, with my recent purchases of sewing accessories, it’s obvious that a few things, such as appropriate sized zippers have slipped through the cracks and so I’ve been mentally going over my sewing items in my mind and creating a need to purchase list.  Elastic is going on that list and also buttons. I’ll be stocking up on plain buttons. I might toss some fancy ones in there, but I tend to hold off on the those buttons until I start on a project.

Resource

1. Guide to Press Cloths

I love hand sewing! If you’ve been following my site, you know I’ve been doing a lot of that with my daughter’s dress.  But those stitches were temporary; however,  the hand stitching that I’ll be doing later this week, won’t be.

A few days ago, I decided to add a hand-picked zipper to her dress.

I’ll be using the prick stitch to accomplish this. Take a look at the above picture. It features prick stitch on the lapel. It’s simple, elegant and beautiful. It’s the little details, such as this, that turns a handmade garment into a high quality handmade garment. Yes… it takes time do the extra steps, but the results make it worth the effort.

While searching my zipper stash, I found out that I didn’t have any 22″ zippers. The longest I had were 18″.  Additionally, the ones that I did have were all invisible zippers. These definitely are not going to work and I really needed something longer for my daughter’s dress.

Since I don’t have the proper zippers on hand, I’ve decided to purchase them. Initially, I was going to buy them from JoAnn Fabrics, but I really don’t like shopping there so I turned to my favorite online sewing accessory store, Wawak! Their turnaround time is quick. I normally receive my items with two days. Perfect! If I don’t receive the zipper tomorrow, I’ll cave and snap up a zipper from JoAnn. My daughter’s Middle School dance is Saturday. Since I know I’ll be doing a lot of sewing in the future. I purchased several 22″ zippers in a variety of colors. I have to make my capsule wardrobe after all, and there are definitely a few dresses on that list that will need 22″ zippers.

Dress update

My daughter’s dress is coming along smoothly. Last evening, I hand basted the horsehair braid into place, so now I have to sew that into place. I most likely will use my overlock machine. I’ll be sure to take pictures and post those.

Resource

Threads: A Hand-Picked Zipper is Worth the Effort

Remember when I said I ordered horsehair braid from Wawak? The horsehair braid arrived the very next day. I love Wawak, thus far I’ve received my orders within two days.

Today, after work, you could find me working on my daughter’s dress and once again I was hand basting.

This time it was hand sewing the 2″ horsehair braid to the dress hem of my daughter’s outfit. I’m so happy that I did this instead of using my sewing machine. Why? Although I had pinned the horsehair braid to the dress hem, there was some slippage; however, when I was basting the braid to the hem the gap that had formed was corrected and I was able to hand sew everything into place.

I then followed up with my sewing machine for the permanent stitching.

I had my daughter try on the dress.

We both like where the hem falls since you can now see a fair amount of tulle peeking under the dress.

Final things needed to be done to the dress

1. Clip all those strings
2. Add sleeves to the lace bolero jacket
3. Add elastic to the waist of the petticoat
4. Add a hand picked zipper
5. Line the upper part of the dress
6. Secure the upper part of the horsehair braid with a finishing stitch on my overcast machine
7. Wash and press the dress

It might sound like a lot to some people, but it really isn’t. The remaining tasks are easy. I might do a bit more this evening, but will definitely try and finish this tomorrow.

 

 

 

Today, I put the permanent stitches into my daughters dress. I used my sewing machine and serger. Since I’d hand basted the seams yesterday, this process, even though I was dealing with super slippery fabric, was easy.

 

Which is one of the many reasons why I adore hand basting the seams  first.

 

Pinning, basting and THEN machine sewing as my final step is the method I use. Why? Most sewing issues that I encounter are addressed and corrected while hand basting. Yes, hand basting adds time, but the results make it worth the extra effort.

 

Once the seams were machine sewn, my daughter tried on the dress. I wish you could see how excited she was.  Her eyes sparkled and a big smile was on her pretty face. Getting her to stand still was a challenge, but she did it for a bit and I marked the adjustments to be made. After the modifications were marked, she floated about the room watching the folds of her dress flair out in a circle.

She reminded me of a glittering spinning toy top, remember those? She loved how the dress caught the light as she danced about the room.

Of course, she really didn’t want to take off the dress, but I told her I couldn’t complete if she was still wearing the outfit. There’s still plenty of work to complete, such as adding the horsehair braid to the hem and completing the adjustments that I marked on the dress.

Also, I’ll be shortening the dress so the tulle from the petticoat can be seen a bit more.

A few hours after I arrived home from work, I started cutting, marking and hand basting my daughter’s dress.

 

and I must say I enjoyed the process immensely.

You’ll notice that I’m on a table, not the floor! I still haven’t broken down and purchased a sewing table yet, but I most likely will… eventually

After all the cutting and marking was complete,

 

I moved on to hand basting seams. My daughter loves leopard prints so I was not surprised she chose this fabric for her dress.

 

 

This fabric is super slippery, so for me, it made sense to baste all the seams.

So  a simple running stitch was done to join the pieces together. I’ve gotten into the habit of using a thimble and I have to say I really like them.

Within a few a few hours everything was completed.. well the hand sewing. My daughter tried it on and I can see that a few adjustments are needed, but that can wait until tomorrow. You should have seen her eyes sparkle and her smile became broader as she twirled about the room. This dress, was definitely made for twirling and oh how it shimmers as it catches the light.

Tomorrow, I’ll sew the hand basted stitches on the sewing machine.