Narrow hem work: I am not sponsored by WAWAK - cool hem marking toy division

I am back on my usual jobs and hobbies. Jobbies?

While looking for matching thread colors, I stumbled on 

I could probably make something like this from the box of scraps I keep in the cave. I have kluged similar, but this makes me deeply happy in a 'put your foot there - boom! process sewing measuring weird job site way.

 https://www.wawak.com/cutting-measuring/marking-chalk-pens/marking-tools/plastic-pants-marker-15/#sku=ta1009

But let's look at the project that brought me to this page

Pal is a bridesmaid in September. Dress needs hemming. Needs to hang out to be hemmed.

Side note: this is a dress that will get worn twice at most. The poly satin isn't nasty, it's cut on grain, but this dress at this length and color isn't going to hang long enough to deform that hem. So letting it hang out is relative overkill. But the dress form can't be adjusted taller, so it needs to be made taller. And let the shirt drape.

Nothing else worked.

After letting it hang for a day, a thing started happening.

One side of the center back skirt seam started puckering (helpful finger pointing it out so you cannot unsee it)(she doesn't read this blog)(it's going to be fine). NO, I am not undoing it as I know I would be unleashing the hounds of off grain hell and you can't put that back. It's not heavy enough satin.

Took that right off the mannequin. 

It was determined that the hem was consistent, so I went with the 'stitch the hem edge' plan. Marked the stitching line from the needle on the arm with blue tape and did my level best to be consistent.

I did double check to see if the curve was consistent with the floor, used the laser* picture framing level and it was a pleasing shape so I moved forward.

Folded almost a quarter inch from the stitching.

Sewed it and trimmed right up to it.

And folded it again on the stitching line.

And it's okay. I did have some tricky hand sewing work getting the lining to match up on the open seam at the side to the other side, and I left the hem open enough to fool around with it to make it hang straight. Putting a weight in it would be overkill.

Buttons and Hems And Mending

The blog Spitalsfields Life is just a gift, this post is particularly pertinent

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/11/maureen-rose-button-maker-x/

Button Maker.

photo by the Gentle Author of Spitalsfields Life

Meanwhile, I am hemming dresses

Girls come in all sizes for this choir. There are four choirs I'm hemming, but the pants choirs are already done.

Altogether there are 22 for this one, 8 for the other, with a couple more coming in. I'm actually half way done at this point.

And mending pants/making a pattern of favorite pants for Em. Sacrificed one pair to patch the crotch of the other, and traced off a pattern to make more.

Should get a couple more wears out of them and fill in the holes on the outside

And I am one photo short on another Miyake post and I WILL take that photo tonight. Work has been busy, marking hems ate up time, and homework for what was supposed to be 'the easy A' accounting class has been a nightmare (not the work, but trying to get the online textbook from Pearson to work is INSANE).

Excuses excuses excuses.....

March Mending Madness: Navy thread edition

There was no Easter morning sewing group for costumes for the musical.

You do all the stuff with that one color, and then rethread.

You sew this way, I know you do. 
Black, grey.....

So after I rethreaded......in navy blue......it's time for navy blue polka dots!

Hemming out the hi/lo feature of the chiffon overskirt brought my friend the laser level out of the box.

It is hard on the eyes, as the red light is reflected back from the poly fibers (like tiny mirrors). I don't leave this going for any longer than I have to.

I use coil-less safety pins because there's less to get snagged in the fabric with them. Craft and knitting shops have them. Worth the cost of a bag in saved tears.

I didn't need the antacids for this job, but the container was the right height for the level.

 I moved a lot of furniture around to get the dress on the form on a board on a tipped-over plastic box I could sit by to mark the hem; the whole assembly being altogether shorter than the height of the basement sewing cave was an hour I won't get back.

Next time I'll take photos. It's comical, certainly.

It's chiffon. Shams has a great tutorial for this.

http://communingwithfabric.blogspot.com/2016/05/tutorial-tiny-machine-hem-for-sheer.html

I sewed a line, using the pins as a guide.

There is power in navy blue polka dots.

 How many different ways can I  take in the waistband on a pair of jeans?

This is not my greatest moment, but frankly, this process matches a pair the wearer already has, so I did it. Yes, I'd recommend pulling the waistband off the back and altering it and the back separately, but....eh. Customer is right.

So spreading the darts to the center sides works to break up any monodart distortion.

And the dart in the stretch material is going to end in the pocket.

See this poochy dart end?

I hate stretch denim. It's going to do this at a fold or a turn now or later. Go look at every pair of stretch demin RTW you have. Look at the pockets? That lump won't stay steamed out forever.

Where is that poochy end? It's in the pocket!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Fifty Dresses Fifty - Choir Dress Wrap up

If it's Autumn, it's choir dress hemming time!

As the dresses for Northwest Girl Choir "Fresca" group age, more of them come in the fall to be hemmed and repaired. Last year 40, this year 50.

I don't have photos from the fittings, because these are 10 and 11 year old girls, and they're not my kids. 

They are really funny. Yes, these dresses are party dresses but maybe not the one you would have picked. At some point, one girl will exclaim how ugly she thinks they are. And at some point, two or three of them will be wearing them in the room at the same time, and then: They Get It. A uniform makes you look alike.

SISTERS!

 And the skirts are swooshy and you can make a lot of noise with them. And they do.

The key to fitting little girls is making sure they know you are here to make the dress work for them. "That dress looks good ON YOU", not "You look good in that dress". And if the first dress doesn't work, we can find another. 

Because every inch of you is perfect, from the bottom to the top.

So I take in and I let out and I steal fabric from one to add to another. And I've saved all the scraps all these five years, which paid off big time this year.

Pulling long hem thread injury: I know thread cuts, but I was in a hurry. And after this, I kept the bandage on.

I hang the dresses from the ceiling of my very short room

They are two layers: poly taffeta and poly chiffon. The taffeta is a quick job; after five years I've got them all marked evenly and corectly, and I can just mark from the current hem.

The outer later  is badly cut and offgrain chiffon, which needs to be hung to be marked. Each and every one.

Now and then one of them needs to be recut on the taffeta skirt

 Hemming the taffeta is easy peasy. I trimmed a ruler to make this part swifter.

I cut off the extra bit of the plastic ruler to bring it up to the beginning of the measurement

Hem needs to be let out 3 inches: I line the ruler up on the 3" on the old hem line

I fold the hem over the ruler

And I pin with glass head pins (so I can iron over them)

 Fifty dresses and a handful of black two inch velvet ribbon belting (just try to find that stuff on short notice)

Added a sleeve gusset or two. 

I had to take one of the bodices apart and resew the neckline from the inside. That was a fun day; I tried many new techniques to undo/remove serged seaming, and have nothing definitive to report. Just give yourself too much time and some really sharp pointy snips.

This American Girl has her own custom made dress. She's a raffle prize for the winter fundraiser.

 They're done. Other stuff was sewn. Lots of fail.

 I've been better on Instagram than here this week, but here's where I get to think about stuff with words, and words are still my best friends.

This blog will be back to a regular schedule next week, and I'm revisiting the YSL exhibition, with extra camera battery.

Gussets, Puppets, Chicken, Flannel: this week in work

Starting in June, I have a stretch of full to bursting employment in the office and  in the sewing cave (and we do know it's really a cave, right?)

A bodice was taken in

Sleeve gussets were added to a too small dress

Ant puppets were made. This is version one, an actual sock puppet made of socks. Sorry it's such a dark and blurry picture, it's from a quick demo video I did and it's gone now. Deemed "too sweaty" sadly. Version three is under review. There's still four more tech rehearsals and I know that means three more versions until we're cranking out an army at the last minute.

I love it.

Chicken stock was made and frozen.

(this is so slack: we buy rotisserie chicken, strip it and eat it. I stuff the carcasses into a plastic bag in the freezer. When the need/space/time arises, I shove those into a crock pot slow cooker, chop an onion, add water to fill and a bay leaf and let it go until rendered. eight hours? Take that, strain out the stuff, chill it and skim off the solid fat. Put that in a wide pan and simmer it to reduce. This time I didn't burn it. It takes time but it doesn't take effort, and it makes other stuff taste amazing)

A JoAnn's coupon was used to buy Xmas jamas flannel

.

This shrank a little, but fluffed up beyond my expectations and six yards only lost about a 1/3 cup of lint. Dang! It's so fluffy now! Mine, all mine!

 (oh, the Armani bag! Like a postcard from a different decade of my life, it appears and disappears from time to time).

But there are more dresses waiting.

As of this moment, I've got 32 done, 18 to go, with 18 days left. 

And patterns to finish testing. A second set of puppets on the bubble. The usual mom stuff. 

and

Halloween!

We're going with the Dr Who stuff. It's faster to rehab and wear.

And I have a ray gun to repair.

Make good stuff. Not too much candy. See you later.