First up.

I have had this pattern and material in my stash for a while, so it is time to make it..New Look 6563,,, I am making view E, the sheer one on the left,, my material is a light weight cotton not sheer,, with a ribbon look like thing running through it,,(will take  a pic later,,,)

I had to do a 2 in FBA to start off with,,

Ha, this is bad,, I got the Cd from Palmer/Pletsch Full busted,,, but I feel like this is going to bust me,, and i am just starting out,,,, its kinda hard to see, but after the 2 in alterations,, look at the bustline compared to the neckline,, there is a good 1/2 in difference,, now I know that the pattern is lower than this, but this is how high we want it. well maybe a little lower, but not much,,,.. sooooo...

I realize one thing about sewing for Holly, darts are my friend,, i need to use them everywhere,,,, so I took out a 1/2 in dart in the neck,,,

 Plus I took up 1 inch in the back, I actually went all the way down with the tuck, but after looking at it,,, I realized that below the neck,, it got tight at the mid back,, but I still needed a little tuck in there, now the CB is supposed to be cut on the fold,,, not anymore,,,,,

I hope you can see, it, forget that, i hope you can understand it,,,,lol..first,, I had to take out the dart in the neck,, see that black slit just below where the neckline line is,,, that is the dart that I made,, BUT then i rotated it to the waist,, now wait for it,,, I had such a big side dart,, that I rotated some of it to the waist to,, see the tape in the middle of the side dart,, well there you go,,

  Now if it goes together in the material like it is supposed to,, Hallelujah..

Alterations,,

Have you ever heard someone say, I hate alterations,, well it was probably me..I hate ripping out seams,,  I was given some clothes the other day,, and some of them needed to be altered, to fit either myself of Holly,, this was a dressy top, this is the first time I have put in an invisible zipper though,, I didn't even know if I had my foot attachment or not,, but I luckily found it.. 

Not only did I have to put in the zipper in, but I also had to deal with the fact that there was a little excess material,, I didn't feel like taking in the seam, and besides, I thought I could ease the material in a little,, the print material I figured would "hide" and puckers,, and it did... 

In the process of learning invisible zippers, I found out you can get too close to the teeth, the black thread shows where I actually stitched into the teeth,,so  #1 seam ripped out,,, now where the thread is also, is where the zipper is curled, where my thumb is is where I have "opened" it up,, like a normal zipper would be,, it may be hard to see, but and invizible zipper is actually where the teeth of the zipper has been curled around to back, so that when the zipper is closed all you see is material, as opposed to a regular zipper, where you can see the teeth,,

This is a pic of after I have sewed it in,, to the left  of my thumb, there is about 2 mm width of the zipper stay, that is the part that is sewn to the material,, to the right of my thum,, I got a little closer than that,, too close actually,, it probably would have been fine,, but it just didn't seem like the zipper layed as flat sewn that close to the material,, so taking out another seam,,

Much better here...

Done,, and the puckers don't show too bad,, yes I know the seam is a little off,, but in reality, it isn't that bad,,,

Knit shirt pattern again!

Ok, learning experience here,, there are products made to clean mirrors with,, water isn't one of them,,,,really lol.....this is embarrassing, but I had to show the before and after pix,,, so before

and after,, ok, disregard the mess it in the background,, what can I say,, I'm a messy,,

Ok, this is why I had to make a new sleeve,, see the puckers in the armhole,, the sleeve is pulling in too tight,, this is what I call "troubleshooting",, and it's something I am not always good at,,, (and yes there is a seam in the elbow area,, I ran out of material and had to piece the sleeve together,,,

I just got to thinking,, I know several ladies that digitize,, ( make embroidery designs) all I can say is ,my hats off to them,, I can't imagine how many times they have to go to the software to change a stitch, move a column, add stitches,, and each time they have to send the design to the machine (how ever that method is, whether it via a box, or memory stick or whatever) with the new stitch placement,, to sew it out, to see if it is any better, or worse,,back and forth, time and time again, to get the design just right,, that is almost how I feel about sewing sometimes,,, every time you need to change something on a garment, to make up a new pattern piece with the adjustments, then cut material out again and sew it up,, I KNOW it is worth it in the end,, but that doesn't mean I have to like it,,, take this shirt for instance,, the front and back are good,, the sleeves were a little tight,, I had to add more room in the sleeve top,, so I folded it in half to find the center,, drew a line almost to the bottom,, the cut it open,, ( slash and spread),, I opened it 1 in ,,(ok you experts out there,, don't laugh,, I am still learning,, :) make new pattern with the alterations, and cut material again,,

Well, I ran out of red,, so onto purple,,( see, I knew that $1.00 a yd material from Wal-Mart was good for something,,,lol )

Hopefully I can get this put together today and see how it fits,,,

Knit shirt

I have been wanting to make a knit shirt for a while now, a pattern that fits has been holding me back,, I have several, but the shoulders are either too wide, arms too long, and or tight,, that is a tricky one for me,, when the upper arm is too tight, but the rest of the sleeve pattern fits,, my brain goes into a freeze and I think, ok, where do I start,, I understand enough about alterations, that I would have to do what is called a slash and spread technique, if that were the only thing I had to do, it wouldn't bother me so much, but when you have half a dozen things to do to make a patten fit,, why bother,, unless you want a challenge,, which right now,, I don't,,,

So what I did, was get a shirt of my own,, and take it apart,, a good shirt mind you,, yes it "can" be a sacrifice,, if it were tore up enough that it couldn't be put back together,, but I think I was careful enough that it can be saved,,,


This is the front piece,, the part to the right, that you can't see much of, is the back,, I left it attached at the shoulder/neck line,, it had a binding on it that I didn't really want to mess with taking off, so I worked around it,,

I don't have any plain white paper wide enough yet to trace patterns onto,, so newspaper is the next best thing,,, I just folded the front and back in half,, placed the cf (center fold) on the straight edge of the paper,, and used a marker to go around the material,, leaving a 1/4 in sa (seam allowance)...

This is without sleeves, but so far, I am pleased,, it does fit fairly well ,,,

Inside of back of jacket,, i had to take it up about an inch at the waist,, cut open the darts, trimed them and pressed flat,, and put a coverstitch hem in,,

Back of jacket,, now the pattern didn't call for darts,, but it just wasn't fitting right,, so i put it on my dress form, and just started pinning out the fullness,,, man i love my df.. it makes life sooo much easier,,, usually,,,,