In Praise of the Muslin

I admit it, I'm a muslin groupie, one of the 7 people in the world who publicly takes a stand in praise of the muslin. I am a true muslin believer.

We all  know people who don't sew garments because of the fitting issue. These same people will spend a million or so hours making up a quilt with a zillion or so pieces, each requiring perfectly matched points, yet they won't sew clothes because it takes too long to sew up a muslin.

I recently spent time with one of those, a friend who didn't believe in wasting time on a muslin. She visited me with a perfectly constructed, embroidered and crystalled blouse that she can't wear because no amount of changes will make the neckline not gap and the fronts meet correctly. Ah... the case for the muslin.

Anyway, I am a believer. I've drunk the muslin Kool Aide.

So it doesn't make sense that I would make up a top without making a muslin first, but I did. In my own defense, Friday I was at a wonderful little fabric store in Diamond Springs California where there were samples of many of their patterns made up in a variety of sizes. As I watched my friends shop, my hand clasped over the top of my purse (did I mention I'm very poor) I decided to try on a few of the samples to pass the time.

And therein lies my mistake. One of the samples was magnificent. Well, the sample was OK, but the pattern it was made from was magnificent. So I bought the pattern. Never mind that I sell patterns for a living (but not the Christine Jonson patterns). Never mind that my queue of proposed projects is longer than Richie Rich's Christmas list. I noted the size of the sample (X small) bought the pattern, took it home and traced it out.

The pattern is Christine Jonson's Princess Wrap top. It's a simple T- top with a wrap front. I had a compelling reason to move this pattern to the front of my sewing list; I could use it to make up the last two presents on my 'nice' list. As both of the people requiring gifts conveniently wear the exact same size as me, I was ready to sew. I had lots of knit fabric in the house and  I knew this would fit both me and my friends because I had tried on the sample.

The pattern is delightful. It takes NO time to make and it looks wonderful on. Well, let me re-phrase that, it looks wonderful on when you make the right size, which unfortunately I had not.

My initial try was with a delightful heavy black knit covered with little white nubs. Too bad I had cut out an extra small and I (and my two friends) wear a small. After construction I tried on the top. I should say I tried to try on the top. I pushed and pulled and squeezed and finally got it on. The word sausage comes to mind.

Yikes! I had thought that I had my last two presents complete. Thought that that stress and pressure of the holiday gift race was over, yet now I had two more presents to make. And there was a time crunch. The clock read 3 pm Saturday afternoon and the next gift giving occasion was Sunday at 4.
 
The end of the story was that I did make up both tops with plenty of time to spare. I didn't have enough of the black and white to make third and fourth tops so I had to find something else. Luckily, the hall closet has taken on a new name, the knits stash closet. Hiding at the bottom of the pile under puddles of slinky and poufs of polar fleece lurked a silvery, shimmery gray knit. Voila! Enough for the two tops.  I was ready to sew.

I went to my first choice of sewing techniques, I waved my wand and called the sewing mice from Cinderella. Unfortunately they didn't show. Guess it's a pretty busy time of year for sewing mice. No way around it, I was going to have to do it myself. I traced the pattern again, this time in size small (I guess that X on the label at the store was really a schmear or scribble or something. That top in the store couldn't have been an extra small, must have been a small.)

Luckily the top sews up very quickly (as I've already said).  I finished it with time to spare. Even got in a bicycle ride after I finished. Here's the top on me. Look fast - it's already out the door and in another home.

So now to make one for myself which means adding embroidery. I haven't been working with embroidery on knits much. Time for that to change.

Celebration!

I do love sewing and part of what I love is the endless possibilities. I think the love  of a fabric stash comes from the unlimited potential.

One of the pieces in my stash was a gorgeous remnant I liberated from Britex fabrics many many years ago. It's a 3/4 yard piece of a wool boucle with a black base with brown and metallic gold threads woven in.  At first glance 3/4 of a yard seems limiting, but with these new, shorter jackets three quarters of a yard can be the body of your jacket and still leave enough for part of the sleeve.

The back side of this fabric was more subtle than the front and it was tempting to stand things on their head and use the fabric in reverse, but this was foiled by my discovery of some tied threads on the back side.

I've been eying a jacket in the August '08, 2010 Burda World of Fashion, in the section on Jackie O (pattern 115).** It's a simple jacket with princess seams and a slight funnel neck topped with a Peter Pan type collar. I decided to ditch the Peter Pan collar because 'sweet' is not my style. Several weeks ago I ran up a muslin of this pattern. Fitting was fairly easy, just needed a little more space in the bust and little less space in the shoulders. (Curses to narrow shoulders, the bain of my jacket fitting existence).With the muslin done I was ready to go this morning.

I always do my embroidery before cutting so that was the first step. Unlike most of my work, I visualized a piece with very subtle embroidery. (I know, you're thinking, who is this woman, but is really is me.) I chose a design from the set I'm releasing next week, Celebrations!. The design is a bell but set on it's side it was perfect for the jacket; waist high on either side of the front opening. The embroidery design is a subtle gold and copper on an applique fabric (black in this case). I placed it at the natural waistline to emphasize mycurves. 


As usual, I went through multiple iterations of the embroidery - the first border was a chocolate brown that matched the fabric's brown, and ended up too subtle. The second was tan and too light. My final choice for the outer border was the same gold tone I used within the embroidery.

I'm often asked the best way to embroider with metallic thread. First, find out what thread your machine likes. I swear, each machine has likes and dislikes on brands and types of metallic thread. And don't believe that because your friend's X machine likes a particular brand that yours will. Not so. Your machine might like a different thread. It's really machine specific.  For this design I used the metallic gold Superior Thread's Glitter line in Gold 201. It seems to be more forgiving than a lot of threads.

My best tip for working with metallic thread is to extend the thread by holding the thread between my fingers rather than to let it go through the machine's normal thread path. This reduces the natural kink found in metallic threads and eliminates troublesome breakage that is so common with metal threads, saving hours of frustration and "do-overs." While you might have avoided using metallic thread in the past, this tip can change your experience.

Here's the picture of me holding the thread. Nothing high tech about this. The longer the thread path, the more chance to get the evil kinks out of the thread.

 

Here's the embroidery.  It was designed to be a bell but when you set it on it's side, stitch one on a front and mirror it on the other side,  it's the perfect accent at the waistline of the jacket. This is a free design on my website.

The jacket went together really quickly, once the embroidery was finished. The alternating multicolored and black panels work well and I think the jacket is flattering.

Next, I'll make it again in another fabric.  Hmm... which of those wonderful pieces of potential in my stash should I use?



** I've just found out that many of the patterns from Burda World of Fashion are also available on the Burdastyle website.  You can find this one here.

I've Been Pantsed

Today's project should have been quick and easy: the first of a series of sample pants for an article proposal I'm putting together. The article will feature multiple pairs of pants, each uniquely embellished with embroidery. The operative phrase here is 'should have been'. The reality was a little different.

Let me explain that I love making pants. I really love making pants. Once you have you have a pattern or set of alterations that fit, pants almost make themselves. Unfortunately that lesser known ancient pant god, Bracchaeos, was not smiling on me today.

My goal was to use an embroidery design of mine from the Cutting Edge design set.  You might have seen these designs before because I use this set often. It's versatile and adaptable to all kinds of clothing.

Here's a picture that was published in Designs in Machine Embroidery magazine. No false modesty here - I love the designs and I love the vest.

Today I had another vision for these designs; using them to tart up the side seam of a pair of pants.

Because my goal was to produce pants that didn't resemble clown pants (or emphasize my, shall we say, low center of gravity), I wanted a color combination that would be less bold than the one on the vest. A quick search of my internal resource center unearthed a woven cotton with a little lycra in a quiet beige. The cotton/lycra meant the pants could be close fitting. 

My closest fitting pants pattern has a seam down the front of the pants, offering an additional design opportunity. I decided to put a stripe of a coordinating fabric in that front seam.

I spent quite a bit of time auditioning fabrics for the stripe. I tried an animal print, a stripe set on a bias, some wonderful men's wear fabrics.... on and on.  I sent pictures of my auditions to a few select friends seeking input on what fabric to use.

I thought I was so clever, coming up with this idea of using the embroidery and the stripe. I made the pants and took pictures.

The pictures made me humble. The stripe looked terrible.

You don't have to tell me. I know. The pants don't look good.  Here are a few of the captions I came up with for the picture.  Feel free to add your captions below.

"Surrender your wallet and valuables. We're putting you in cell 3."

Or

"Where's the striped shirt to go with those convict pants?"

Or

"The black and white forest shirt, found in the temperate regions of Kazakhstand, is known for sending out root tendrils that navigate the length of the pants to sink into the earth, eventually rendering the wearer immobile and planted."

I have memories of a movie usher selling cigarettes and I'm pretty sure he wore pants with a stripe down the front but so far I haven't located any pictures of the guy.  Does the phrase 'Call for Phillip Morris' ring a bell?


No matter how I sliced it I wasn't going to wear these pants in public.

So I removed the stripe. It took less than an hour. That was an hour well spent. I was right about the embroidery, though.

Now, if it were as easy to get the wrinkles out of my neck!

In case you're interested, here's a closeup of the embroidery:

The Quilt Show Entry

As a fiber artist I often feel compelled to enter quilt show competitions in the wearable art category. I do this even though I know that my entries are in a unique niche that seldom gets recognition.  I'm a little to the side of the usual wearable art entries. You would think that my work, being so different, would be considered cutting edge and would earn a first place here and there. Well, that's my hope. So far I've won ribbons but none with prizes attached.

Despite that, when the call for entries for one of the largest quilt shows in the country came around, I decided to try again. Unfortunately, the entry deadline fell in the week that Randy and I would be out of town on vacation. 

So, the night before our long awaited vacation, I scurried around to get my project ready for pictures so I could send in my entry.

At 11 PM, I thought I was doing well. I had my entry jacket finished except for closures and crystals. I knew that a few carefully placed straight-pins would discreetly hold the jacket closed,  so I wasn't too worried about that, but crystals were non-negotiable.

I was enamored of my handiwork! It was gorgeous!  I hadn't tried it on in a couple of months, but I loved the way it seemed to beam down at me from the hanger. I was an artiste extraordinaire! My plan was to wake up early, early, Saturday morning, apply crystals and whip up a skirt to wear with it for the pictures. The Callisto Skirt from LaFred was a perfect choice; two side seams  and a hidden zipper. The skirt requires cool stuff at the hem but that could wait till later. 

So, 4:30 Saturday morning found me hunched over the jacket, applying crystals. Did I mention that this jacket requires lots of crystals?  Lots and lots of crystals? 

A mere four hours later and the crystals were attached. Four sweet hours of blinging. Next task, the skirt. As expected, the skirt went together very quickly. Unfortunately, when I slipped it on, the waistband was more than ten inches too wide.  I had expected some stretch from the bias, but not that much. To inhibit the stretch I had stay stitched before I started any work. Obviously that didn't work. OK, not to worry. I could tuck the skirt top under my bra, the bra and the top of the skirt well hidden under the jacket. Ahh, the bra-belt!

At 9:30 am Randy stopped packing the car (a task which he had been doing somewhat annoyed-ly by himself, as I was buried in the sewing room) to take pictures of me in my outfit. 

Down to the wire, and I still hadn't really evaluated how the thing looked on. (Did you notice that by this time my masterpiece has now become 'the thing'?)  It was not until I saw the downloaded pictures that I realized that this jacket is the perfect example of disaster in wearable art. The thing looks great on the hanger, incredible, exquisite! Unfortunately, on me it looks less than stellar. I look dowdy in the thing, like I've gained back all of the weight I'd lost. It's kind of the Queen Mother look. I've become a solidly built rectangle somewhat resembling a fireplug.

Why?  I can't even tell you why. Analyzing the fit problems at this point would mean the ice melting in the car, and escalating irritation from Randy. Maybe I should have named the piece "Frumpy" and run with it.


But with the vacation clock ticking, there's no time to turn back. This is it. On to the next step, the application.

The application required a printed photo as well as pictures on a CD. At first I tried to upload the picture to Long's Drugstore in Placerville. After 10 minutes I sigh a big sigh of relief. The picturewas uploaded.

Hold on, wait a minute, Long's doesn't have one hour service. Photos take four to six days. I try to upload to Raley's. No, that won't work. Raley's has no on-line uploads.  Here's where I could actually use a corporate merger  so I could have both online and one-hour photo service.


Finally I just printed the doggone thing on my own printer. A year or so ago, I did all of our photo printing at home until I discovered Costco photo printing, which is easy and cheap. If only we were going by a Costco.  In theory, the new photo printer should be better than the one of yore. It was the same brand, HP, and it WAS a photo printer, and it was a newer model. So I hit the print button.

Yikes! The print came out kind of dark. Like the flood was "kind of wet." Or like we were "kind of running late."


I couldn't try printing again. I couldn't. Randy, bless his heart, had put up with doing all of the work. He had packed the car, filled the cooler, assembled our hiking and snowshoe gear and gathered the groceries. We also had a stop at the Placerville post office.  I wrote up a formulaic Artist's Note and popped the whole thing in an envelope.


Next stop, the post office. Knowing that the application was due the next Wednesday I grilled the post office worker, "What's the estimated delivery for an Overnight Letter?"

After fiddling with her terminal she answered, "Tuesday."  (When you live in the boonies there is no overnight mail). That worked, the application was due on Wednesday.  Just for laughs and giggles and to save fifteen dollars I asked about delivery for the Priority Mail option. True to the unerringly bizarre nature of the post office, the answer to that was "Monday."  Well, one thing was working for me.

The whole thing is now hopefully winging it's way to the folks at the quilt show. I'm hoping they think that I'm just a dumpy looking person wearing exquisite clothing. Not often do I hope to be thought of as built like an outhouse, but there you have it.

Thus ends the saga of my latest quilt show entry.

On the Blog Again

It's been really a long time since I've posted a blog. It's funny, Every time I sew, I mentally compose a blog. As I work, I start a conversation with myself saying things like, "When I put this in the blog, I'll make sure I make a note about how hard it is to xxxxx.....".  My answer might be "Make sure you mention that it helps to .... whatever".  Unfortunately, for the last 5 or 6 months these conversations have been internal. I haven't gone from sub-verbal chatter to blog posting.

Today I started a new project and I began the same type of mono conversation. The chatter began, "when I post this on the blog, I need to make sure I mention how much I want the embroidery to be appropriate for the subtlety of the stripes." and  "How, cool, I'll get to play with the angle of the stripes on the collar." and "Maybe I should mention my internal debate about whether or not to underline in silk." and "If this is lined, the inside will be hidden so I can use a cutaway stabilizer, that makes life easier."

Instead of just saying these things in my head I decided to head to the computer and start the chatter here - in my Blog. This is probably a good thing.  Surely typing in a blog is a better sign of mental health than talking to one's self.

So, as I make this jacket, I'll also log the process here in the blog.

The Project - a Jacket:
I'm making a jacket to add to my trunk show. In addition, I can use a new jacket, so a jacket it is.

My usual sequence is to start by pulling fabric out of the closet and this project is no exception. For quite a while now, a lovely black silk woven with a slender stripe of salmon and tobacco yarns has been calling my name whenever I get anywhere near the fabric closet.  When I saw this fabric for sale it, was very reasonably priced, probably because there was so little left on the bolt. I bought all there was, maybe a yard.  Of course, that's not enough to really do anything, but that just means I have an opportunity for creativity. I do have a solid black woven that will work with it.

Even as I was pulling the fabric down off the shelf I knew which embroidery designs I would use; a continuous line of designs from the latest design of the month club mini set, Cadeau. I'm really happy with these design and have plans to expand the mini set into a full set later this month. Using them on the jacket can only help when I do put the set on the market.

My choice of pattern is Sewing Workshop's new pattern, the Verona Jacket. It's a cute, short, double breasted jacket that includes a front dart. It has lots of potential for embellishment.

Today I made a muslin to see the fit and was pleasantly surprised to find that the size small fits almost straight out of the pattern. The only adjustment will be to lower the front darts a half inch. Considering that my breasts seem to be plummeting down my body faster than a sled on an icy hill, a half inch felt pretty good.
  
Tomorrow I start experimenting with thread colors.

So that's all I'm typing for today.  Don't worry, I'll be back.  No more 4 month gaps in blog postings for me.

A Ringing Endorsement

Last Friday I decided to make up a new project using the Bell Choir Embroidery Designs. It’s obvious now that what appeared to be a compulsion was an avoidance technique as my to-do list rivals the national census. But that didn’t matter, I wanted, no, needed, to make up a wall hanging using these delicate bells. The seed was planted when I received my copy of the latest "Through The Needle” magazine (Winter 2009) which features my article on the mantel scarf shown here.


The seed germinated when I saw the pictures of those golden bells stitched across those pristine white rectangles. I wanted - no, needed - to use these designs again.

I won’t go through the excruciating details of choosing my fabric.I’ll just mention a trip to a local quilt store and the ravaging of the closets in my ‘internal resource center.’ At one point our house was covered with multiple stacks of fabric, all auditioning a particular color/print combination. No room was left untouched - not the living room, the kitchen or even the downstairs bathroom. After tripping over fabric for two days it became clear to me that the bells wanted to be sewn on my collection of cream and gold silk dupioni silks.

I decided that, like the mantel scarf in the article, this would be another Quilt as You Go project. The Quilt as You Go method is a method of quilting in which you finish individual quilt squares, including batting and backing, then assemble the squares into a quilt that bypasses the free motion quilting step. (I have free Quilt As You Go instructions on my website on the Bell Choir page. They will be there for no charge for a while.) You can use the Quilt as You Go method with the Bell Choir embroidery designs because there is a version of each bell that includes a rectangle of stippling surrounding the bell. It’s easy to make the quilted rectangles. Here's how:

• Hoop your top fabric and batting and stitch out all of the colors of the design the last color (the stipple stitch). Remove the hoop from the machine but DO NOT REMOVE THE FABRIC FROM THE HOOP!
  Turn the hoop over and cover the back of the hoop with a rectangle of fabric.I use masking tape to temporarily attach the edges of the fabric to the edges of the hoop.

• Turn the hoop over so the right side is up again and place the hoop back into the machine and stitch the last color.
  

So I created quilted rectangles, lots of quilted rectangles. I chose a deep gold thread and cream dupioni and stitched 12 of the designs.

I love the contrast of the luscious dupioni and the embroidery. I think its stunning. Nevertheless, after stitching 9 of the suckers boredom set in. Luckily, boredom can breed creativity. The appliqué version of the design, I started changing fabric combinations.

First was the original cream dupioni on a gold silk background. Next, I used the cream again, but this time with a checked gold dupioni as the main fabric. I liked that pretty well so I pulled out another background – a striped textured silk, again with the cream as an appliqué. Then I used a white dupioni with the striped fabric from the last square as the appliqué. I have more; a pale yellow dupioni for the background, a white with a brocade appliqué.

I've begun putting the wall hanging together so I have more fun and games and pictures. Stay tuned!

Out of the Depths of the Scrap Hamper

Utilizing Your Embroidery Stitch-Outs

I recently discovered that I have accumulated wealth. In my sewing room I have a softsided hamper, overflowing with orphaned sample embroidery stitch-outs and pieces of fabric too small to fold.

I would guess that I'm not the only sew-ist who has a collection of very small pieces of fabric and / or samples of embroidery not associated with projects. Still, I feel I need to explain why I have this hamper. It's not just that I am a fabric hoarder (though I am). I'm a fabric addict. But the scrap-embroidery addiction all started in a class I took from my friends the Pixeladies. I was commanded to keep all scraps for future free piecing works! Call that my first taste of the drug.

The vessel of choice for collecting these small pieces of fabric and unused embroidery designs is a bright yellow soft-sided hamper. When I began my collection, the hamper seemed like a good choice; standing about 3 feet tall, with a 24" diameter, it seemed as though it would hold all of the small pieces I could possibly collect.

Naturally, as with so many things, the collection expanded to fill all of the available space and now my hamper is not only full but overflowing.

The hamper stood unmolested for almost a year. But then, the siren song called to me, and first I tasted...then repeated...and soon it fed off my own genetic tendencies to fabric addiction...until I was completely powerless and out of control.

Of course, I could never weed through it and discard some of my valuable fabric pieces, small though they might be. For me, the queen of fabric hoarders, it seemed that a better idea was - gasp - to start using these pieces!

My first foray into the "use-what-I-have" scene was fairly innocent: I took pieced rectangles from the Piece Party class and combined them with a sample stitch-out from Crested Beaut 2 and made up the Travel Documents case from my own Quick Gifts 1 Booklet.

Ahhhhhhhh....the first rush of using something from a forgotten stash!

But it wasn't enough. While digging, I came across so many beautiful stitch-outs nestled in that bed of little scraps. The urge was upon me!

Oprah had guilted me into carrying my own bags to the grocery store. I could always use more shopping bags. "It's good for the environment," I reasoned. Call it justification, call it rationalization, or be realistic and call it my drug. Out popped one of the flowers from the Flowerful design set. Put that together with the Stitch-N-Flip method and...a star is born.

(OK, a grocery bag star, but a star never the less.)

Arghhhhhh! Ahhhhh! Groan! The scrap junkie woke! "Use all this gorgeous crap! USE IT! MORE! NOW!" I broke out in a cold sweat. My digging in the basket became more frantic.

What about using the pieces from the hamper in a more formal setting? It's easier to justify things if they're classy and upscale.

Enter 4 stitched-out designs (from the Savannah set) added to the front of an in-progress sewing machine pad with pockets from the Quick Gifts 2 booklet.

"MORE! MORE!" the addiction roared! It was time to get serious. No more "one scrap here, another two there..." If I really wanted to set these pieces free from their hamper-dungeon, I would have to get more pieces than that out for my next project. And it would be hard to stop me from doing just that.

I noticed that the colors in the hamper were heavily weighted in the oranges and reds. I started pulling and Voila! I had a lead for my next fix! Even though all of the colors were in the red/orange/yellow family, some of the pink toned reds were a little abrasive when placed next to the more orange reds. The problem was solved when I did some neutral brown lines.

It took a lot more work for this fix than the previous ones, but I loved the results*. All of the fabrics for a blouse came from the piece hamper. The designs had already been stitched as samples and the only place I had to work with yardage was the dividing lines. Luckily, I had the deep brown print in my main fabric stash. (Could I interest you in a hit from your own stash?) The designs are again from Crested Beaut Design set.

Just then, Randy found me, bent over, head deep in the hamper. He grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me out. "Look! We've got a business to run! How is anyone going to get their embroidery fix if you're stuck there with your head in the scraps!" He slapped my face with a wet remnant and shook my shoulders. "C'mon! You've had enough scraps for today! Get out here and start shipping orders!"

I knew he was right, that my scrap project addiction was interfering with my livelihood. I got myself together, took some deep breaths, and went back to work.

But don't tell - that hamper is still over half full...and the moment when nobody's looking...

you might find me rummaging in there again...making...who knows? A pet-cosy? Car organizer? Remote control holder? There were some turquoises in there with crystals that would be perfect for a...

Stay tuned until the next time I fall off the scrap wagon.

*I'm not the only one who loved the Scrap Hamper Blouse. This blouse was accepted into the juried show, PIQF 2009.

Don't forget, you can see more of my embroidery designs on my website.