Chinese New Year – Gjeometry

Hi everybody! I have been MIA for quite some time now, and I have genuinely missed you all and the sewing and blogging world a lot! Where was I? Well, stuff happened and this and that and the other thing and then, yadda, yadda, yadda, I sewed this dress! 🙂

I might blog about the lull at some point, but right now, it’s a sewing blog, so onwards and upwards! I can’t wait to see what all of you have been up to! Feel free to leave a link in the ‘comments’ section of your favourite recent activity, if you like.

A sincere Thank You to everybody who asked about me on twitter, instagram, email and even through the post and in person and kept me in mind! It was so very sweet of all of you. (I must give a special shout out to a few people: Anne, other Anne, Caroline, Shannon, Kat Eldridge, Kat and Mel). I can’t begin to tell you how touched I am by this and how much it cheered me. I feel loved. 🙂

So, in the meantime…..I finally sewed something! 🙂 BurdaStyle 7221. If you follow my blog, you know, I loves me a good research project, and I always research the pattern I’m about to sew. Well, I found absolutely nothing about this dress blogged on any sewing blog and only ONE (1) review on Pattern Review. Anne always says that she selects sewing pattens that others do not, but I have to say, I may have won the “Has Anybody Sewn This Pattern?” prize! And… I like the pattern and the resulting garment! If you’ve sewn this pattern, or if you own it, or even if you’ve had a drunken-stupor induced dream about it, I’d love to hear from you!

I used black and white fabric as my entry into July’s The Monthly Stitch Mono Sewn challenge, where we shun colour and sew garments in monochromatic, only black and white. Have you checked out the monthly sewalongs by TMS? They are just getting better and better! Also, to celebrate the Year of the Horse, I used black and white horse fabric for the skirt. To find out more about Chinese New Year and the Year of the Horse, go here.

Kitty. Looking Dramatic in Monochromatic.

Model Poses. Model Pose 1: Look far off into the distance at something interesting and/or an emergency. Result: Well, kind of an uncaring raving lunatic, standing there doing nothing but looking at an emergency off in the distance. Model Pose 2: Come Hither Look / Bedroom Eyes. Result: Fairly self-explanatory. Extremely tired and/or really stoned.

MODEL POSES. Pose#1: Look far off into the distance at something interesting and/or an emergency. Result: Well, kind of an uncaring raving lunatic, standing there doing nothing but looking at an emergency off in the distance. Pose#2: Come Hither Look / Bedroom Eyes. Result: Fairly self-explanatory. Extremely tired / bored and/or really stoned.

The dress has a bit of a 60s vibe. At least when it kind of hikes up as I raise my arms. In the Garden of ridiculously enormously tall flowers, I totally feel appropriately dressed! (PEACE!)

The Inside Story

The pattern has a self-lined bodice and unlined skirt, but I underlined the skirt horse fabric with the same white fabric that I used for the bodice. This white fabric and I were not friends. It stained SO easily. I bought it in the ‘ends’ bin, so once again, I don’t know exactly what it is. Likely a rayon/linen blend with something else. It has a tonne of lovely drape and is textured. But, I transferred pattern marks with sewing chalk and it stained permanently, I couldn’t wash it out. So, I had to re-cut everything but the sleeves. Even just ironing it, would sometimes leave a brown/yellow stain, so I had to use a press cloth. I have no idea why it absorbed everything so easily, but it will likely make it difficult to wear. The horse fabric is a cotton voile, so very transparent, hence the need to underline it.

How do you eliminate wrinkles on a garment made with very drapey fabric with a self-lined bodice with darts, and an underlined skirt without creasing the under layer? Well, you can’t really use the iron, since you would have to spend a lot of time shifting, smoothing, straightening, etc. So….you use your new Rowenta Steam Iron! It works really well for getting out wrinkles without creasing the second layer. But, with my model (Rowenta Ultrasteam GS2010), you do have to refill the water reservoir rather often if you have a lot of wrinkles. I got mine on sale for a good deal and do highly recommend it! I will definitely be using it for most of my ironing needs. (Keep in mind, you still have to ‘press’ your just sewn seams, the steamer would be used for removing wrinkles afterwards). You also don’t require an ironing board and it is Kitty-safe if he happens to knock into it!

I added white iron on interfacing and then sewed all around it, to finish off the raw edges of the folded straps. It adds strength and ensures that the black horse pattern does not show through the white bodice after I sew on the straps. I overlocked the seams and hand sewed a blind hem. I was able to stitch the hem to just the white underlining, so that it was truly invisible on the right, horse fabric, side.

Self-lined bodice and underlined skirt; overlocked seams; hand sewn blind hem; interfaced raw edge straps.

The sleeves were a bit wide and did not touch my shoulders, plus I found them to be really boxy. So rather than just taking in the seams to make the sleeves smaller, I added a dart to the centre of the top of the shoulder on the sleeve, to alter the fit, and to provide some roundness and shape. I have no idea if this is the ‘right’ alteration to make, but it did work out perfectly! The sleeves fit great on the drop shoulder now and have more of a round shape to them.

Kitty indicating darts added to shoulder area of sleeves.

Drop shoulder sleeves and straps detail.

Next time, I’ll narrow the sleeves. They’re looking a tad too boxy and wide.

In the Future

The only alteration I would make for future Burda 7221 garments (and I do believe there will be more as I’ve already cut out the pattern for version B, the tank top) I will narrow the sleeves by about 2 cm (3/4″) as I felt they were a bit wide on my twig arms. Also, keep in mind, the pattern runs long. I shortened the bodice by 3cm (1″) and the skirt by 6cm (3″).

I find this dress easy to wear and fairly casual without looking sloppy. I’ve no idea why practically nobody else in the world has sewn it! But, perhaps it’s a testament to my, ummmm, fabulously avant-garde style?? Yes, that’s what we’ll say.

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.

Kitty!!! “Help Me!” -Kitty

Me and my Burda dress in the Garden where literally hundreds of tomatoes are forming.

Ooops, sorry a little distracted by my tomato plants; Oooooooooh!; An almost ripe one!!

Black Cherry Tomatoes (will turn a Merlot wine colour); Roma Tomatoes; Zebra tomatoes (these are huge, can’t wait to see what colours they turn).

Kitty’s Eye View of the Garden.

In Conclusion

So, to sum up:

Black and white is über chic
I love my sewing friends
We heart horses and horsie fabric
If you are in the ‘hood in the next 2 to 4 weeks, drop on by and we’ll have bruschetta, gazpacho, pasta marinara, Bloody Marys/Ceasers and caprese salad.

Looking forward to it!

Jungle January, hosted, once again, by the vivacious and print loving lady, Anne, comes to a close today, on Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai (pronounced King Hey Fa Choy in cantonese or Gong See Fa Tsey in Mandarin) means “happiness and prosperity”. And, Xtnnian hao (pronounced shin-nyen ha-ow in Mandarin or sen-nih ha-ow in Cantonese) means “Have a good New Year”.

source

It is auspicious on the New Year to wear red, hang red lanterns, give monetary gifts in red envelopes or write in red ink. Red is representative of fire and is believed to symbolize luck and ward off evil. Also, this is the time to set aside grudges against enemies and call off unpaid debt. Let bygones be bygones – if personal differences or financial obligations cannot be settled before the Chinese New Year, they shall be forgotten.

source

I sewed Lolita Patterns Gunmetal dress in an abstract art leopard print for Jungle January. I was lucky enough to win this pattern over on Melanie’s Blog when she was a tester for the Gunmetal dress. The pattern is for knits and is a lined princess seamed dress with option to add a sheer overlay. There were many pattern pieces and lettered notches, so when cutting the pieces, I used small stickers to label the various notches.

The pattern uses a tiny cap sleeve with the option of adding an elastic hem. I wanted long sleeves, so extended the sleeve to the desired length, using the same angle as the sleeve pattern piece.

Originally, I wanted to add cuffs and a hem band in a beautiful teal fabric. This fabric is a sueded microfibre knit and is also the devil. Do NOT look directly at it!!!!

Uh oh…MY RETINAS! THEY BURN!! I tried everything with this fabric, using a large sized microtex needle, using tissue paper strips, using various stitch types (lightening bolt, triple stretch, zig-zag) and a walking foot but nothing worked. It ultimately ended up damaging my new sewing machine. Ya. Luckily, I was able to take the case off the machine and pick out bits of thread and fabric and fixed it.

And, I could not use my overlocker to sew it as it was already damaged by the tissue knit fabric that I used for the lining. The overlocker pulled it into the feed dogs and seems to have misaligned everything. I don’t know how people sew with tissue thin knits, either on an overlocker or sewing machine, they seem very temperamental to me. And, is tissue-knit just another word for ‘only lasts through one wash?’ The fabric feels lovely but stretches out of shape almost immediately, especially the 4-way stretch knit, and just cannot withstand any kind of stitch ripping whatsoever and often gets pulled into the feed dogs. I would only use it again for a very simple, non-fitted pattern.

Anyhoo, despite this, I did add cuffs to the sleeves using a zebra print stretch knit that’s been in my stash for a while that I obtained from a sewing meet-up.

How to Sew a Sleeve Cuff: 1. Measure how long you want the cuff and double this. Next measure the desired width and cut out the rectangle. Sew the rectangle together along the length. 2. Fold the rectangle in half, right side out. Line up the cuff seam with the sleeve seam. 3. Match raw edges of cuff and sleeve and sew with right sides together. I opted to make the cuff tighter than the sleeve, so first gathered in the sleeve to fit the cuff. 4. Pull out cuff from sleeve and press.

I lined the dress in a 4-way stretch tissue knit, added black lace seam binding to the hem and sewed the seams with a lightening bolt stitch.

For the bodice, I did not make ruffles, but rather used 3 strips of black sheer organza ruffled ribbon for the middle and then added 2 rows of a teal lace to either side.

I found the neckline very low on this dress, too low for my comfort level to wear. I’m not sure if the 4-way stretch leopard print and grey lining fabric stretched during sewing or if it is because I am short-waisted. So, I added black fold-over elastic binding around the neckline and stretched it while sewing. This helped to tighten up and lift the neckline somewhat. I love the ruched side panels on the bodice!

And, Kitty, for his part in Jungle January, opted to sew himself a zebra print collar and tie. This project, along with the dress cuffs are my contributions to Stashbusting 2014, January’s Challenge, where we had to use stash fabric that was less than a yard in size.

Kitty Prepping His Collar and Tie Pattern

Colourful button added to the back of the collar.

Kitty Sends Up the Cat Signal

Do you want to sew a collar and tie for your cat? Ya, you do!! Here is the link for the free pattern and instructions. Make sure you measure your cat’s neck before you cut the pattern as you may have to add length.

Measure Kitty’s neck and adjust pattern, if necessary.

SO Handsome!!

Look At Mah Collah and Tie!

LOOK AT IT!!!

Zebras are ungulate mammals that are members of the horse family, Equidae, and are closely related to the domestic horse.

And, being the ever relevant cat that he is, Kitty opted to fashion his collar and tie out of zebra print since 2014 is Year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac.

Were you born in the years: 2002, 1990, 1978, 1966, 1954, 1942 or 1930? Then, you, my good friend are a Horse in the Chinese zodiac. Those born in horse years are merry, skillful with money, witty, talented and good with their hands. Rembrandt, Harrison Ford, Aretha Franklin, Chopin, Sandra Day O’Connor, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and Jerry Seinfeld were born in the year of the horse.

Strengths: Cheerful and perceptive. Very social, with high energy.

Weaknesses: Can be impatient and quick-tempered and independent to the point of excluding others.

Zodiac sign compatibility—Best matches: tiger, sheep, dog; Avoid: rat, ox, rabbit

According to Paul Ng, an astrologist and feng shui expert, horse people are entering a year of conflict in 2014. They are to pay extra attention to their health this year. Do not make any rash decision when it comes to personal finance and avoid gambling. Spend modestly and increase savings.

What animal are you?Kitty is the sign of the Dog. Makes sense, doesn’t it?