"Dogs aren't dangerous!"

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/General_Woundwort

This year for Halloween I wanted to do something a little bit scary. I haven't dressed as a witch, goblin or other such horror since high school and I figured it was about time. Scrolling through facebook one day, I saw a listicle of the top movies that should have been rated higher than PG. I didn't actually click on it (which was kind of a feat of self-control for me...those things really suck me in), but the cover photo caught my eye. It was General Woundwort, the evil rabbit from the movie (based on the book) Watership Down. I loved that movie growing up and I even own a copy of it on DVD. I used to have nightmares that General Woundwort was under my bed. I remember leaping out of bed to try to get my feet as close to the door as possible so that he couldn't grab me on my way out. 

Dressing up as a rabbit is pretty easy. You really just need clothing of the right color, ears and a tail. It's the perfect costume for which to use a sweatsuit as a starting point. I thought about looking for a brown sweatshirt at Goodwill, but then I remembered the Seamster Avocado Hoodie pattern. I figured that the hoodie for my costume didn't have to fit great, it just had to be wearable for a party. My General Woundwort costume became a wearable muslin of the Avocado Hoodie, or rather the wearable muslin became the General Woundwort costume.

As usual, my measurements put me in three different sizes, so I cut a straight size large based on my bust measurement. I sewed up the non-overlapping hood version B without any of the pockets in a poly fleece from JoAnn's. They had one bolt of sweatshirt fabric. ONE. And of course there is never anyone around to help you find fabric in that place. I thought the fleece felt mid-weight-ish and would be fine, but put four layers of it together when sewing over seams and it was extremely thick. It was almost too much for my machine to handle, but I got it done. I didn't finish any of the seams, add any pockets, or topstitch the thumbholes on the cuffs (I think I would have had to do that by hand). When I tried it on sans sleeves I thought that it was going to be too big from the underbust seam down, but in the end I actually thought it worked out very well, maybe because of the thickness of the fabric. My friend's house was pretty warm and I forgot to put my thumbs through the thumbholes for the photos. I thought it would be tricky to sew those but it was really easy and sew worth it.

I cut out the ears with some heavy interfacing and the same fleece, and sewed them onto the hood. I think I sewed them a little too far back. They were excessively floppy and kept slowly pulling my head down. It was fun to bounce them while dancing, though.

I used some leftover yarn from one of my roommate's old knitting projects to make a pom pom for the tail, using this tutorial. Instead of a fork, I used a big shower comb. 

General Woundwort gets killed by a dog, thus the title quote of this post. The megalomaniac tries to get his evil owsla to stay and fight, yelling to them, "Dogs aren't dangerous!" And then he bites it. Well, it bites him. You know. Anyway, he has bloody scratch marks on his body, so I just snipped some parallel lines into the hoodie in two places and wore a red shirt underneath. I think the effect worked out very well.

I tried to do as well as I could with the makeup, but I couldn't figure out how to make it look like I was frothing at the mouth. You win some, you lose some. All of the makeup is Halloween makeup except the brown, which is a creamy thick eyeliner pencil. I've never worn eyeliner before. Should I learn how? I mean, I have some now.

I intended to wear brown yoga pants with the hoodie, but my brown yoga pants mysteriously disappeared. I still can't find them. I have no idea how that happens. Green jeans = General Woundwort in the grass? Best I could do. If you like the scary rabbit theme for Halloween, one of my friends dressed as Bunnicula and I really wanted to rope somebody into being the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog (from Monty Python and the Holy Grail), but sadly no one took the carrot. (See what I did there?)

Now that I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my wearable muslin, I've started thinking about making an avocado hoodie for more day-to-day wear. It's not super high on the sewing priority list, but I'd like to make it up in a drapey sweater knit maybe with some contrasting color on the pouch and cuffs. I won't bother with the back pockets. No one will be putting their hands in there anytime soon.

Cake Patterns Hummingbird Skirt

I finally finished my Cake Patterns Hummingbird Skirt! In April. But now it needs to be altered. So that means it's not finished, right? Ah, whatever.

I made a muslin of the orange view based on my measurements, and it came out a few inches too big around the waist. It was really easy to take in though, so I took it in and decided my muslin was good to go and made the necessary alterations to my traced pattern.

I sewed up the skirt in olive green twill that I bought online from Mood Fabrics over a year ago, and used a quilting cotton from JoAnn Fabrics for the pocket bags. I also made bias tape out of the quilting cotton to finish the seams. I love the way the floral print looks when it's folded into bias tape!

 I'm pretty happy with how the inside of the skirt looks.

 The inside front edges of the pockets aren't perfectly symmetrical.

 

I am very happy with that invisible zipper, though!

 

I sewed the buttonhole in the wrong direction! Good grief! Also, I marked it and lined it up and I still sewed it too high on the waistband.

That's two individual lines of stitching done without a twin needle. Not too bad.

My edgestitching could use a little improvement, but overall not too bad.

So what is the problem with this skirt? It fits great right out of the dryer, but then it starts to sag. And sag. And with a cell phone in my pocket I run the risk of it ending up around my ankles. No thanks. The thing is, I really hate when skirts and pants pinch me too tightly at the waist, adding curves where I don't really want them. I tried to make it fit closely, but not tightly. Maybe my fabric has a little bit of stretch and that's where my fit went wrong, or maybe I just made it a little too loose in my effort to not pinch my belly. My plan is to unpick the waistband, take in the side seams a little bit (haven't measured yet), make a new, smaller, and maybe deeper waistband and add interfacing. I will then attempt to make the buttonhole in the *correct* direction. Hopefully I can do this one evening next week. We'll see.

Overall, I'm psyched about this skirt. I love it and think I can fix the fit. Once I do I hope to make it in some other fabrics (like denim). No more searching for the perfect denim mini-skirt! I prefer mine without artificial wear and tear, thanks.

OAL!

I am participating in OAL (Outfit-Along) 2014. The objective is to sew a dress and knit a coordinating sweater destined to be a complete outfit. The sew-along part is led by Lauren of Lladybird and the knit-along is led by Andi of Untangling Knots.

Even though I am just writing about this now, I did sign up before the June 1st deadline on the Ravelry thread and I even started knitting my swatch on the actual start date (it's amazing). I think this is a good challenge for my busy summer because the FO deadline is July 31st. Two months should be enough time to get this done, and when I can't be near my sewing machine, I can still knit.

When planning my outfit, the sweater choice was a no-brainer. I would absolutely use the Myrna pattern and let Andi lead me through my first sweater. I mean, I need all the help I can get. I decided to stray from the dress pattern that Lauren will be teaching though, because I bought a couple of new dress patterns recently and thought I should get moving on one of those.

I am going to sew Vogue 8993 for my dress. I'm hoping that the princess seams will facilitate my success in correctly fitting my bust, particularly since there are some really good tutorials on the web already for doing that. The dress pattern for the OAL also has princess seams, so maybe Lauren will cover some of the fitting strategies.

I did my fabric and yarn shopping online and didn't order any swatches (who has time to wait for swatches?) so I am VERY lucky that I *think* my selections are going to work out okay.

I chose a medium weight linen in "beets purple" from fabric.com. On the website, the color looks more aubergine to me. In real life, it is definitely true to its name though. My photo is still a little bit darker than the fabric really is. I selected a viscose batiste salmon lining fabric for the bodice lining. The color for this fabric is also true to its name, and I think I'm going to be sad that it will be on the inside of my dress rather than the outside. I ordered two zippers...one that looked like the closest purple to match (it doesn't at all) and a contrasting one. Luckily, I really like the way the Caribbean blue zip contrasts with the beets and salmon. I ordered a skein of Miss Babs' Yowza (the recommended yarn for the pattern) in the Berlin colorway. I looked at some FOs on ravelry that were made in the Berlin colorway and chose it because it looked like it had lots of colors that would "go" (if not match) with my dress, and it had some light colors in it. Looking at the pile of materials on my bed made me worried that this outfit would be too dark, but halfway through my swatch, I am happy with my choices and think they will look good together.

A bit about yarn...I've been a little bit bummed that my local yarn shop of choice, Really Knit Stuff, closed its doors. I haven't been knitting long and I haven't been shopping there long, but it definitely felt like a great community and its closing felt like a loss. This is the first time I've ordered yarn online, and I ordered the recommended yarn for the pattern. Let me just say that my package of yarn from Miss Babs was beautiful! I love supporting independent businesses and it feels really personal when they write you a note and include little gifts and wrap things up so beautifully. (I'm not saying I need free gifts...I wish TOMS shoes would stop sending me stickers and canvas bags every time I buy a pair of shoes...but this made my first online yarn purchase really pleasant.)

I hope to finish and wash my swatch tonight so that I can have it blocked and measured soon. I hope to trace my sewing pattern and start my muslin by the weekend. My plan is to muslin the bodies as is and try to get the fit as perfect as I can. Then I want to alter the front and back necklines because I think the necklines of that dress don't work exactly with the cardigan. I may muslin the whole dress just for a practice run and just to see how things fit with the weight of the skirt added to the bodice. Fingers crossed!

The NQNM Skirt

In my infinite wisdom as a brand-new seamstress, I thought it would be a great idea to make a birthday gift for my best friend who lives 971 miles away. She had pinned this skirt, the Chloe Scallop Edge Skirt from Neiman Marcus, on Pinterest, and I thought, "A navy A-line scallop hemmed skirt. Maybe I could make that." Thus, I began drafting the NQNM Skirt (Not Quite Neiman Marcus).

I drafted the A-line skirt pattern using this great tutorial by Melly Sews. I added a scalloped hemline to the pattern using a compass, and just played with the size of the half-circles until they "looked good" and fit along the bottom edge in such a way that a quarter circle hit each side seam (see figure below). I actually did a little bit of arithmetic here when determining the diameter of the circles and placing them along them, but I forget what I did! Oops. I used another great tutorial from Colette Patterns to learn how to actually construct the scalloped hem.

I made a muslin of the skirt, inserting a center back invisible zipper using this tutorial and in-seam pockets with french seams using this tutorial. I sent the muslin along with some fabric swatches to the BFF for her birthday, and wrote out some instructions for determining what alterations would need to be made. Unfortunately I lost the photos that I took of the muslin and the instructions for fit-checking (how?!) so there isn't much to look at for the first half of this project. I do have the pattern saved in a folder in my filing cabinet.

Fortunately, I didn't have to make too many alterations to the pattern for the final version of the skirt. I totally guessed at the placement of the darts, and that worked out well. The waistline needed to be taken in a little bit, which I anticipated and had no trouble changing.

I chose a navy twill for the skirt because I thought twill would wash and wear well across several seasons and I thought that it was a fabric that my beginner-self could handle sewing. I made the pocket bags, interfacing and bias tape out of a navy, gold and white quilting cotton from JoAnn Fabrics. 

Since I had made the muslin, the construction of the skirt was pretty easy (oh, that's why you're supposed to make a muslin, right?) with a few minor hiccups. 

The invisible zipper came out sort of wonky on one side. At first I thought I would just live with it, but it got worse after washing. I ended up unpicking that side of the zipper and hand-stitching it, and was MUCH happier with the result. Totally worth it.

Back outside of skirt, showing darts, invisible zipper and hook and eye closure.

I am afraid that the darts on the front of the skirt are a little pointy.

Front outside of skirt, showing darts.

Inside front interfacing.

Although I used french seams in the muslin, I was afraid that they would be too bulky with the twill and the quilting cotton, so I did bias bound seams instead for the final garment. I really really wish I had done french seams, but I am pretty happy with the result of the bias bound seams. I also put bias binding on the edges where the pocket bags attach to the side seams. Is that normal? It looked unfinished. Now it looks finished, but I don't know how well-finished.

Pockets showing bias binding.

Making the bias binding was REALLY REALLY HARD. Oh my goodness. I used this tutorial to make continuous bias strips and they really didn't line up well at all. I don't think it's a problem with the tutorial at all. It was the first time I tried it and maybe I didn't measure accurately enough or line things up properly. I also didn't have a bias tape maker so I just used a piece of cardboard as a guide, and pressing that tape was seriously a pain. I won't try it again without a bias tape maker (but I got one for Christmas, woo-hoo).

I ended up turning the top of the hem under and stitching it to itself (but NOT to the outside of the skirt). This was a little awkward to do, but kept the fabric from fraying.

Inside hem and center seam of the back of the skirt.

I also ended up tacking down the hem near roughly every other scallop. I really didn't want to do this, because I didn't want the stitching to show on the outside, but after washing the garment and seeing how much pressing was necessary to get it back into shape afterward, it was clear that something needed to be done to keep the hem from flopping down.

Inside hem with tacks.

I wish that the scallops had come out more smooth and even. Instead of machine sewing around the scallops I probably should have hand-stitched them. Overall, I think it came out pretty well, though!

The finished product, hands in pockets!

I haven't yet seen pictures of the BFF wearing the skirt, but I hope she finds it wearable. I certainly didn't intend to create a garment that requires as much ironing as this one will, but maybe it will be worth the work of ironing for her to wear it a few times.

Finished and mailed in late November 2013, only two months late for the birthday, and solidly into the season of weather-too-cold-to-wear-a-cotton-twill-skirt. Meh :/

To recap, I used FIVE tutorials to make this garment. All I can say is THANK YOU ONLINE SEWISTS! I learn so much and get so much inspiration from reading your blogs. I had a lot of fun designing and constructing this garment, and I'm pretty proud of it despite it's imperfections. Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to try to gather the waist and add a waistband like the inspiration Chloe skirt has.

** I finished this garment in late November, and since I received the Colette Sewing Handbook for Christmas, I now realize the design is very similar to the Meringue pattern and I could have used that instead of drafting my own. It's okay, though. It was fun. And there is plenty more for me to learn and make in that book!

A Deep Sea Creature of My Imagination

Deep sea scientists have a tradition of decorating styrofoam objects, particularly cups, sending them to the bottom of the ocean with whatever equipment they may be using to study the world down there, and crossing their fingers that they come back to the surface much smaller than they started out. I am growing a nice collection of decorated cups since I have been going to sea to study deepwater predatory fishes in the Gulf of Mexico several times a year.

Before our most recent cruise earlier this month, a colleague gave me a gift. A strange and wonderful and strange gift: a styrofoam mannequin head. A styrofoam head that I could shrink. Oh the possibilities, and the pressure to draw something awesome and do that mannequin justice. I pondered until I came up with an idea, and that idea led to other ideas, and it all turned into a story. It's a mystery, and it's still unfolding in my imagination, so you get what you get here with this description.

She is a badass, genius goth woman adapted to life in the deep sea. 

 The isopods (Bathynomus giganteus) that exposed her brain are now her pets and they do her bidding (while hanging out on her face). 

She has large green eyes, allowing her to make use of every tiny bit of light available when she is in the twilight zone, and photophores on the front of her neck, in her very own pattern that distinguishes her from all the lantern sharks down there. 

She has grown gills, elasmobranch gills to be specific, and she has seven on the left side of her neck and six on the right (much like I have three earrings in my left ear and two in my right), because asymmetry is fun and badass. Gills are complete with windshield wipers so that she is invincible to

hagfish slime.

Her tattoos represent a red moon rising (or setting...I don't remember - time is confusing at sea), the sun shining down through the water (in the photic zone, of course) and the big dipper reflected on the water). A fish hook adorns her lower lip, and she wears a navy and white nautical stripe shirt, because she is on top of the trends. This might be the feature I can relate to the least...I am really not into the nautical trend.

I sent her and several cups to about 1800 meters, clipped to the longline tucked securely in my laundry bag. For a few moments, the bag bobbed at the surface and we wondered if it would sink, but it did, slowly, the whole way to the bottom. When we hauled the longline back up, the laundry bag and its contents came up safely, but alas, she did not shrink very much at all. Those of us with mannequin heads were imagining shrunken heads - voodoo style - dangling from our rear view mirrors, but she came up about 70% her original size. 

I should have been happy that she came back to the surface at all, and I was, but I got greedy. Would she shrink more if I sent her down again? I sent her down again at our deepest site. 

While I slept, the other setting crew put down the anchor, a fish trap, 50 hooks, another trap, a weight, a TDR, a trap full of cups and two heads, several more weights, then a lot of scope and a highflyer to allow us to retrieve the line. 

About four hours later I woke, excited to see my mannequin girl again. We pulled up the highflyer and the scope, and then weight, weight, weight, TDR... no trap full of styrofoam souvenirs! It was gone. All gone. I had her in my grasp, and instead of accepting her for who she was, I tried to change her and I lost her. Perhaps I adapted her too well to the deep sea, for there she remains. I will always remember her, though.

Gifts, Mending, and New Projects

After my first successful hummingbird top, I had a little bit of a difficult time deciding what to sew next. I was afraid if I started another hummingbird right away I would rush through it and not do a good job. The hummingbird skirt (orange version) seemed a little bit daunting for the amount of sewing time I had available. My mother suggested (several times) that I revisit some gifts that I had been planning on making and for which I already had fabric. I was so excited/distracted by making clothes for myself that I was a little annoyed that she brought this up, but she reminded me how much satisfaction I would get from completing these gifts, and of course she was right. At this point, I already had a plan for my best friend’s birthday gift, which I’ll write about later when the final garment is complete.

I don’t think the friends on the receiving end of these gifts will see this blog any time soon, so I think it’s safe enough to post. I made some napkins for two of my friends and their husbands for their wedding/first anniversary gifts. I had so much fun making them, and I used this tutorial for mitered corners for cloth napkins. The tutorial was clear and very helpful. I am sure that I’ll use it again, and highly recommend it! I used quilting cotton for both sets of napkins, and made the napkins reversible. The double-layer of fabric makes it difficult to end up with perfectly square napkins with no ripples (I swear, I measured twice!), but they still came out really nicely. I chose the fabrics based on my friends’ wedding colors. I really hope they like them…I think there’s a lot more napkin-making in my future.

I also finally finished these baby blocks for my best friend Erin’s daughter. I started these last December as an intended first Christmas present, but learned an important lesson: December is too late to start construction of multiple handmade Christmas gifts. These turned into a first birthday present instead. I always pictured Gwennie crawling toward them, but crawling isn’t her primary mode of transportation anymore. Still, I’ve been informed that both Gwen and her older brother William play with the blocks and they were definitely a big hit with Gwen’s mommy. I am really glad that I finished them. When this idea first came into my head, I surfed the web a bit and looked at quite few block tutorials for inspiration, but I didn’t end up following any tutorials, and I didn’t keep track of what I looked at. So, thank you, all you bloggers who posted about fabric baby blocks, and sorry to not give more specific credit!

With Bimini Biological Field Station
friends in 2006.

Amidst my gift-sewing and field work observations, I managed to mend one of my favorite shirts: a dark blue peasant top that I bought when I lived in Wilmington, NC.The side seams started falling apart when I still lived in Wilmington, which means that I moved an unwearable top from Wilmington to two apartments in Gainesville to two houses in Tallahassee…ridiculous! The sides were constructed with French seams, so I tried unpicking them to re-sew them completely, but discovered that the viscose fabric was fraying so much that it wasn’t worth worrying about the French seam. I ended up just stitching straight up alongside the seam. This decision, along with the fact that my body has changed a little over the years, makes the top a little bit tight, so I have to take it on and off pretty gently, but at least I can get a little more wear out of it. I also replaced the elastic in the neckline, which had completely dry-rotted. The new neckline turned out really well and only resulted in one safety-pin deep into the thumb incident.

So what do I sew next? I have traced two of the three pattern pieces for view A of McCall’s M6612. I intend to make view A in a sage colored cotton jersey and view B in a paint spatter print cotton jersey from Girl Charlee Fabrics, both purchased with a birthday gift card from Erin (thanks, Erin!!). Neither of these fabrics seem to be available anymore, so I am really glad that I bought some cheap knit fabric at JoAnn’s the other day to make a test garment. I hate buying fabric just to make a test garment, but frankly, I really don’t expect to get this right the first time. At least the patterns for view A and B are so similar, I should get a lot of mileage out of my test garment. I also made use of a 50% off coupon at JoAnn’s to buy a bolt of muslin for myself. No excuse for not making a muslin now!

I am making this dress in a size 14. Do all my measurements fit into a 14? No, of course not. I chose this size based on my upper bust measurement and my hip measurement, but according to the chart, my waist needs two sizes larger! Can that really be? When there is that much of a discrepancy between all my measurements, I feel like my size choice is just a shot in the dark. I wish I had the experience to predict what size would be best and what pattern modifications I would need. Maybe one day!

My first wearable garment!

Last Friday, I wore my first me-made garment that was not a Halloween or theme-party costume! My second version of Cake’s Hummingbird top (Green version), is far from perfect, but it’s wearable!

I sewed my first version of this top in a tangerine knit from Girl Charlee Fabrics. I attempted to participate in the 30-minutes-a-day sewalong for this pattern, but guess what? It’s silly to start a sewing project right at the start of field season. Although I didn’t finish even one of the two pieces during the sewalong, I really liked the format and instructions and I’m sure I’ll try to participate in another.

I chose to start the peplum at my natural waist, and didn’t make any fit changes.  Unfortunately, but as expected, I didn’t get it right on the first try. The peplum started at an unflattering place on my waist and was a bit too short, accentuating my less than perfectly toned middle. The shoulders were also too wide. I loved the tangerine color, though, and reordered more of the fabric.

At some point in the summer which I truly don’t even remember, I made some alterations to my traced pattern and got started on version two, in a printed knit, again from Girl Charlee Fabrics. I took 1 ½” off of the inside of each shoulder and curved that line until it met with the neckline. I measured to my natural waist and graded the pattern in to the measurement of my natural waist. From there, I measured to where I wanted to try to start the peplum and graded the pattern out to the measurement at this point on my waist. I was feeling pretty good about these pattern alterations until I was brushing my teeth the morning after cutting out the pieces and realized that I forgot to make the corresponding changes to the peplum pattern piece. Oops. Oh well, not too late to fix it.

After sewing the upper part of the top together I realized it was a little bit too long, so I trimmed some length off. I then sewed the peplum on and had a really tough time lining it up. The next morning, when I was brushing my teeth (weird, right?), I realized that again, I hadn’t made the corresponding changes to the peplum. No wonder it was so hard to attach! Not technically too late to fix, but that’s a lot of stitches to unpick, so I didn’t.

After reinforcing the neck and sleeve bindings and hemming the top, I was done! I waited a few days to try the top on, worried that I would be disappointed if I tried it on right away. It could use some improvements, but overall, I like it! I LOVE the neckline…lots of collarbone and next to no cleavage…just how I like it. I think the peplum starts and ends at a good place. The peplum is admittedly a bit wonky, but not enough to stop me from wearing it. I’ll just try to do better for the next version (in the tangerine knit again!). I have a lot of wrinkling at my lower back, and sometimes the lower back seam actually gets caught on the waistband of my jeans, so that could be improved, but I’m not sure how to do it. It also doesn't help that my jeans don't fit me super well. I must say, I notice every imperfection in the photos, and every curve on myself that I wish the fabric would hide, but whenever I walked past a mirror, I was pretty happy with how I looked in this top, so all in all I’m happy with it.

Now to decide what to do next…the tangerine peplum top? Or the Hummingbird skirt? I haven't decided yet.