Snip, Snip, Snip

Cut today: (pictures of all garments to follow in later posts)

*Holly's dress: organza layer of satin, full '50's style cocktail dress, to be finished before Sept.23
*Sylvia's nightgown: very simple gown for a dear (60?70? year old) lady who called me up and asked if I could make her a gown from a pattern she's been using for over 25 years. The lady who originally made the pattern and all the other gowns just passed away and Sylvia needs a new seamstress. Who could pass that up?
*Kelley's pattern: Kelley is my favorite person. She babysat for me all summer for no cash on the agreement that I would make her custom fitted shirts. I trade hour for hour and owe her right now about 21 hours of shirt making. We've just knocked out the last kinks on the muslin and are ready to go to production.
*Brooke: under layer for bridal gown to be finished by this Sunday. Got the whole thing made and you can see her corset layer through the top. The corset is white and the gown is cream. I'm adding a white underskirt to even out the color.
*CBD: skirt, jacket, top, hat, and purse I'm making to list on the Custom By Design section of EBay to see how well I might do with some of those projects.

Whew, my hands hurt from all that cutting. Now to get to sewing, this will be a busy month getting projects out on deadline.

Arika's pictures

Just got this picture of Arika at her wedding. I think her dress came out great!

Brooke's wedding gown

I have several pics from the process of Brookes wedding dress. I'm very frustrated with how blogger loads my pictures (always at the top, never where my curser is) so I don't know how many I'll actually show you before I start cursing.

Brooke is having a simple garden wedding. She wanted a formal gown that reflected the casual feel of the intimate outdoor wedding. Here's how it's going:

This is the coutil interlining. My opinion is that almost every gown should be able to stand up on it's own if you hold it at the waist. My gowns consist of self/shell underlined in silk organza (yummm...I love what silk organza does for a gown. The crispness, the body, the full look of the seams, the swish when you walk...), then the coutil layer with spiral steel bones and grossgrain waist stay, then the lining. Sometimes I put a layer attached to the bottom of the coutil with netting to fill out the skirt. That just depends on the style.

Here's the progress on the shell:There are obvious issues with the fit over the bust. I think I cut the self and the under lining the same instead of remembering to make the self 1/8" bigger per seam, which is what I usually do. Also, it's not clipped on the curved seams yet.

This is the "bustled" view, forgot to snap a pic before we pinned up to measure for the bustle hook. I'm hoping that the addition of the waist stay and grading will take out the stress lines pointing towards the waist in back. The pins over the hips are due to Brooke wanting the skirt more fitted on her hips than originally planned.

Another fitting for this one on Wed to determine:
* if the take up at hips is enough
*to look at edge finishing samples
*to re-visit the puckers over bust after minor alterations have been made
*to determine if waist stay and grading to enough to eliminate waist stress in back
*exact zipper placement

Sewing snafu

Oops. This happened to me yesterday. I'm totally
embarrassed. Olivia's best friend Karen spent the day with us b/c her
mom works at the school and had to work today. When she came to pick
up Karen, I was down in the basement working on a fitting with my
babysitter Kelley, just sewing and chatting, blah, blah, blah.

Kelley is a saint. She's babysat my kids all summer long when I've needed to run to the store or whatever, maybe a total of 25 hours over the summer. She's done is totally for free and I'm exchanging sewing business clothes for her. She's a size 6 and wears a 34F bra. She loves button down tops, but obviously they don't fit her. I'll blog about her muslin tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm just down in the basement sewing away on her muslin, trying it on her here and there and all of the sudden I realize that Quentin (my 4 year old) sounds like he's talking to someone upstairs. Then I realize it's time for Karen's mom to be here. oops!
So I go up and she's just sitting in my living room chatting with
Quentin (who I've not paid attention to for at least 45 minutes, just
left him watching tv while I worked with Kelley). I think she may
have been there 20 minutes or so already. Then, get this...I don't
know where the girls are. OMG. Well, I had told them they could go
play at the neighbors house about an hour before and the neighborhood
girls all move from house to house, nothing unusual, but really not
what I needed right then. Then, (oh, I'm not done yet), when I do
find them, they're all red in the face, too hot or sunburned, couldn't
tell right away, they'd been jumping on a trampoline at the
neighbors). I'm wondering if Karen will ever be aloud to come back!
I think I could get some bad mom award for that one.

Ya know, when you get in that sewing zone, all else just melts away!

What am I doing wrong?

I just spent an hour looking through all the other sewing blogs I've bookmarked. What I can't figure out is how you people have soo much time to sew. Why don't I? O.K. O.K. maybe spending an hour blogstalking isn't the best way to have spent an hour. Maybe I could have been sewing. Well, not really. I currently have 4 children upstairs slamming doors, screaming, and trying to get the littlest one to streak buck naked down the street. It seems that retreating to my sanctuary in the basement might be somewhat neglectful.

I want to sew! I can't wait for school to start Monday, maybe, just maybe...I can actaully sew then. A friend asked me if I was excited about the kids going back to school. I said "somehow 1 1/2 out of 3 just doesn't really feel 'there' for me yet"

Olivia (8) = 3rd grade
Zoe (6) = Kindergarten (um, for the 2nd time, we'll not talk about that)
Quentin (4) = home with me. preschool was too dang expensive.

So, this is where unprotected sex has gotten me. :-) No sewing. Only naked little people running down the street. Well, at least my lifes got flavor!

Navella's placemats

My dear 76 year old friend Navella asked me to make her placemats to match her new lovely decor. umm....in January. They've been on the back burner for so long, I can't believe I finally got them done. I love a finished project just sitting there all lovely. Here's some pictures of the process, including my neat little trick for burying the french knot after hand stitching the bias binding.

Anonymous posting

I've had to disable my anonymous posting b/c I'm getting spammed.

Summer's almost over, what I've been up to (obviously not posting!)

I've just realized that I've really only posted a couple of times this summer. How is that possible. I've had a running blog post going on in my head it seems like constantly. Summer is so chaotically insane around here. I'm 34, my kids are 4, 6, and 8. Between swimming lessons, trips to the mall (air conditioned, our house is not...welcome to Colorado Springs), neighborhood kids trucking in and out the door, peanut butter sandwiches, playgroup, and some strange virus that just won't leave our house...there apparently hasn't been much time to post.

School starts Monday. (wait, I have to get up and do a little dance...o.k., I'm back) I can't wait to get back into the regular routine again, especially my sewing routine.

I've had a series of professional dissappointments lately. I've been searching for contract sewing work. I've done this in the past. It can be somewhat tedious, but I consider it like wholesaling. It's a larger amount of cash for less effort in advertising.

First, a children's wear designer in Houston contracted me to work for her. She sent me an extremely vague sketch that my 8 year old could have improved upon, asked me to just "interpret" the design. I asked her a million questions and she continually said "just do what you think is best". So I sent her the finished top:

This is a really bad picture, I don't have a child size dress form. Anyway, when I sent it back to her, she was EXTREMELY angry that I used 1 1/2" ruffles instead of 2", that the skirt portion was 14" instead of 12", etc., etc. She also said my sewing skills were sub-par and refused to pay me for either the design work or the sample sewing, or any of the notions I used. Lesson learned. Contract sewing= contract in writing first.




Next, I had a local company contact me about making re-usable menstal pads for them. Yes, very strange indeed. We had an initial meeting and everything sounded like it would run smoothly. They were a start-up company and I even gave them quite a bit of advise and access to local networking avenues that they didn't know about. Then I told them I would charge $20 per hour. They completely freaked out and backed out of the deal. I'm not a sweat-shop. I really don't know what they were expecting.

Next (yes, it just keeps going) I was in contact with a western wear company that made shirts for equestrian shows. She was also a bit of a start-up company (she had been producing small scale locally, but was looking to launch into the national market). She sent me to web sites that were selling $800 shirts and asked if I could duplicate them. She sent me some sample fabric and her pay scale.


Well, you can't see the details very well, but it's a very basic top. The problem is that it's an extremely stretch knit. She didn't want the front zipper opening or the underlining for the collar or cuffs interfaced. AND she insisted that the seams NOT be serged. Really? Amazingly, I ended up spending 2 1/2 hours making this top. I'm really not for sure how that happened, but there it is. I think I spent more time working on it b/c it wasn't properly interfaced. It had little sparkles all over it and I spent at least 30 minutes cleaning that up out of my studio. Then I looked at her pay scale. 10 bucks. (stunned silence)

She sent me another shirt as a sample and the craftsmanship on that was about the worst sewing job I've ever seen. ...and I've taught beginners. Here's a portion of the hem on her sample:


I really just can't be involved with a company that is not going to attempt to be professional. She seems like such a nice person and I wish her well, but I just can't do the work for the amount of money she's willing to pay. I've had a bit of a family emergency going on and really won't be able to do anything other than the work I've already got scheduled through sept, so I've pleaded off working for her.



Lastly, I've had a bit of some success. A woman from Gunnison, Colorado contacted me about doing some design work for her. She's wanting to make hunting apparel for women. She's an avid hunter herself (as well as her young daughter) and has limited sucess finding clothing to fit while she's hunting. She really sounds on top of her game as far as what it takes to start a company and I'm really looking forward to working with her. I'll let you know how that's going as we go along.

I've also be doing massive alterations. Ugh. I hate alterations. I remade a bridesmaid dress for my babysitter. It's strapless. She's a size 6 and a 34F bust.

Here it is...like a monster with it's fangs laid open, ready to eat me. Such cheap fabric. I hate alterations.











I've also had several contacts about bridal sewing lately. This is actually my chosen profession. I love making bridal gowns. Pardon my saying so, but I'm very good at it as well. I offer my clients quite a bit as far as services. I source fabric for them, often purchase it for them. I purchase everything else for them (thread, zippers, buttons, interfacing, lining, coutil, spriral steel boning). I do all the patternmaking for them, often working just from a picture. I do a full toille to work out all the details. I make a full corset interlining of coutil and spiral steel boning.

I usually spend about 1/2 hour on the phone with these people educating them on what I can offer them. 75%-80% of them never call back. That is so frustrating. It all seems to hinge on price. I really feel that I'm extremely reasonable. Apparently they do not. I'm working on a website that will hopefully do most of the educating for me. We'll see how that goes.

Hopefully, I'm back to posting regularly again. I really enjoy reading everyone else's posts about current projects and use-ful gadgets. I'd like to contribute something to the greater creative sewing community out there, even if it's just a little something.

Happy Sewing!

ASG

I placed as a runner up in the ASG competition. Very cool. A nice thing to add to my resume.

ASG

Simplicity pattern company called me this morning from New York. I'm a finalist in the American Sewing Guild contest. Cool beans.

Arika's sarong, part 3 (the fabric never lies)

These are the pictures of Arikas sarong at our final fitting. Oddly, I don't think you can get a real accurate feel for this outfit from these pictures. I had pinned up the back as best as possible without having anything to pin it to, but I think it slipped a little before we took the shots.

In the first picture, the only difference is that there will be a bit more midrif showing. In the second picture, the excess fabric hanging was cut off and a fake knot was sewn on.

Arika called me after taking home the finished outfit and said that the top is slightly too tight on the blue layer. I know exactly what happened. The top is cut on the bias, as when working with the bias, goofy things happen. This dress was completely draped, no pattern used at all. When I pinned up the place to cut off in the back (seen in the second picture), I just took my scissors and cut about an inch from the vertical lines of pins to allow for seam allowance. When I laid both layers out flat to inspect the shape, there was a small piece that jutted out at the top. I assumed that I had cut in error and somehow missed this piece (I wish I was able to sketch in this program to show you better). Anyway, apparently this piece was needed.

As my instructor Helen Joseph-Armstrong would tell you, always trust the fabric, it never lies.

Better pictures of Rachel's dress

I got these from Rachel a few weeks ago. The only problem I see with the dress is that there is something going on with the tension on my machine. You can see that the seams going down the gussets on the skirt look a little "pickled". They should be perfectly flat. I can not seem to get this through to my repair guy, and I can't figure out how to fix it either. I've tried everything I can think of. I've probably just abused the maching too much. I'm dying to upgrade to the Bernina Aurora!

ASG competition outfit

Well, I've officially entered the American Sewing Guild Creativity Contest. I entered the "most interesting wardrobe" category. My concept was to create 2 outfits around one top for easy change from daywear to a night out. I'm extremely casual so the "evening wear" outfit is about as dressed up as I ever get.



I sat on the fence about doing it for the longest time, but then the prize of a new serger made me decide to go ahead and do it. My serger is 20 years old if it's a day and I'm pretty sure is also bipolar.

These pictures came out really well. Kelley took them at the park behind her house. There was a rather large flock of geese the children were chasing (I've cropped them out of the background, thought it might be more professional looking!) and yelling things to me like "mama, is this duck poop?" The story of my life....I'm going around trying to appear like I've got it all together as a professional and in the background there is always someone yelling about poop!

I don't know why I had in my head that the ASG was not a very professional group. Maybe I had the Home Sewers Association mixed up with them, but I was thinking they were non-professional, "homey", quilters and crafters. When I started looking at what they offer, I was really impressed. In fact, I've joined the Denver chapter b/c it was the closest and am somewhat bummed that I can't make very many meetings. It is a very well put together and thought out high class group of ladies. I've read through the conference booklet and would love to be able to go to that. The classes had me drooling. My hope for the competition is just to be able to make a finalist position. I'm not entirely pleased with the results of my entry and will give myself a little more time next year to think through the design process.

The main problem is the jacket. I had a really cute idea, and somehow it just did not turn out the way I wanted it to. I think one of the biggest problems was that I decided to add gathers at the bust and it just really threw everything off from the turned back facing to the button hole placement.

The skirt came out pretty darn cute, but I don't like how I look in it. That is perchance due to the fact that I'm about 40 lbs overweight and think nothing looks good on me right now.

The pants need help in the crotch curve. I HAVE to find someone who can help me fit a pants pattern on myself. When fitting pants, you really need to look forward in order to not affect the drape. This is not helpful when trying to fit yourself to not be able to look down!

Anyway, it's all done and I hope to hear from them in a couple of weeks one way or the other.

Arika's sarong, part 2

Yesterday I fit Arika's sarong, but completely forgot to take pictures. I'll continue the visual after her next fitting, in 3 weeks. Here is the result of our fitting session:

Things to be decided at the fitting:

1) how much fullness is really wanted at the neckline

The amount of gathering at the neck actually worked out extremely well. I will leave it as is.

2) line of bodice edge (going from neck, under arm, to back)

It actually followed the same line that is did on my dress form, very simple.


3)how short to make the bottom of the bodice (i.e. midriff showing, or not)

We decided it "bunched" up a bit too much and I will cut off about 3 inches



4)whether or not to finish the sides and bottom of the bodice together

I'm going to finish these separately, let the top sit on the dress form for a day or two and see if the chiffon layer stretches any differently than the under layer, but I'm fairly certain that we can leave them separate. They will both be pulled back to the "fake knot" closing in the back, so I don't think any drooping will occur.


5)width and length of sarong skirt and solve problem of bulky knot

The chiffon layer was definately too wide and I will be cutting about 10 inches off the width before finishing it. I think this will go a long way to solving the bulky knot problem. The turquoise layer was also about 6 inches too long. I cut both of these layers intentionally too big before the fitting so that we could determine exact measurements on the body. I find this to be a much better way of finding the end measurement. Often the client will make a different decision when seeing the actual fabric on herself than she would have with just discussing options.


6)edge finish technique, samples to be shown

Arika liked the roll hem my serger does and I will use that for almost all edges, matching colors of thread to fabric.


At the next fitting, most of the dress will be completed. The sarong will be cut to the size we determined in our first fitting and the edges will be finished. Arika will be able to see if it fits just as she wants.

The armhole edges and bottom edge of the top will be finished and we will be determining the placement of the gathers at back to put in the "S" hook swim suit fastener and placing the fake knot over that.

The casing size for the neck edge should be determined by e-mail once Arika has selected her beads for the necklace that will hold up the top. This will be completed if I have that information and we will see the effect with the necklace.

Oops!

I was doing an alteration for the girls dance studio (Don't get any ideas! I don't do alterations, this was just a quick favor in exchange for Zoe's new tap shoes). The front desk staff put the costume in a bag and just handed it to me with the instructions "make the crotch 5 inches bigger". When I opened the bag there was a little scrap of fabric that matched the costume and was just perfect for what I needed. After I turned it back in, the mom called me and asked if I had seen a "hair scrunchie" in the bag. I said I hadn't, then she described it as a long strip of fabric matching the costume! Oops!

Arika's sarong

These are the pictures of Arika's sarong. Arika is having a beach wedding.

















They aren't in any particularorder. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to layout several pictures on a spread in blogspot. You'll have to just scroll up and down and follow along.

The first and last pictures are of the beggining of the draping process. There will be turqoise fabric under the bodice as well as the skirt, but I stopped taking pictures before I got the turquoise bodice cut and draped. Arika may want a little less gathers at the neck, but I always like to have too much fabric and be able to cut away excess, than to have less than the client wants.

As I went around the bodice with the draping, I figured out that, layed out on the bias, I would be able to go all the way around to the back with one piece, instead of having to insert a side seam. I'm very pleased with this. (you can see this in the next to last picture). When I did the cut-away and tied the knot in back, I discovered that the knot is very bulky. Arika & I discussed this in our original consultation and she's open to using a swimsuit bra hook (the "S" shaped kind) and using a fake knot to reduce the bulky look in the back. This will also allow us to pre-determine where the gathers at the back will lay, rather than Arika and her attendants trying to fuss with it right before the ceremony. While the material is chiffon, the bulk comes from the embroidery and sequins.

There are 2 pictures that show the skirt as well. The same problem occurs with the bulky knot of the white layer. I have cut both the turquoise and the white layer extra big in order to really decide what we like, so we may be able to reduce the bulky look of this knot simply by making the sarong less wide.

Things to be decided at the fitting:
1) how much fullness is really wanted at the neckline
2) line of bodice edge (going from neck, under arm, to back)
3)how short to make the bottom of the bodice (i.e. midriff showing, or not)
4)whether or not to finish the sides and bottom of the bodice together
5)width and length of sarong skirt and solve problem of bulky knot
6)edge finish technique, samples to be shown

Tara's prom dress

Here are the pictures of Tara's prom dress. Tara called me on April 6th and asked if I could have a prom dress made by April 22nd? After talking with her for a while, I figured out that the design she had in mind was not all that complicated and that she was willing to pay an appropiate fee for doing the dress at the last minute, so I squeezed her in.

Normally, I help my clients find their fabric. Once I know what design their dress will be, and we know what kind of fabric will work well with it, I begin looking at internet sights and forward those to the client so that they can obtain swatches. There are also a couple of local fabric stores I will send them to well informed about what they are looking for. Tara, because of the time crunch had to find her own fabric. She found a couple of fabrics at Mill Outlet that she absolutely loved and was able to get the rest at Joann's.

This sketch in the picture is what she drew and brought to me. We decided on a different hemline, but other than that, stayed true to her sketch.

There are a couple of things I would have done differently had I had another week or two. The first decision we made was to avoid a back seam on the skirt so that the seam wouldn't show at the bottom of the skirt from the front. This meant that the zipper would end at the bottom of the bodice instead of going down into the skirt. The dress went over her, but JUST BARELY using this method. Doing it again, I would have just made the seam in the back.

Something goofy happened with the top layer of orange fabric on the bodice. No matter how much I smoothed it out, it came out wrinkled looking when she put it on. The fabric was an incredibly thin gauze silk. I think maybe it need stabalized with an iron on interfacing. I don't think I'll work with it again if I can at all avoid it.

I was able to use 2 new techniques in this dress that I haven't tried before. One was the beaded hand-picked zipper and the other was running an elastic "suspender" through the straps to hold the dress down securely at the neckline. These are both in Threads articles, I'll find which ones and update the post in a few days when I can get back in my studio. (we're having construction work done in the basement).

Over all, it was great to collaborate with Tara. She has some sewing experience and definately had her own sense of style. This was a very fun dress to do, even if I got it done at 1 am the day of prom. (the pictures are of Tara at 9 am, she had come over in her pj's!)

Pin the Fire on the Dragon

I made this poster to play "Pin the Fire on the Dragon" for Quentin's Knight Party for his 4th birthday. He didn't get it when I was making it and went up to put on his dragon costume. He said "I da dwagon, you makin' my fi-wa?" The little blue squiggles coming out of the dragon's mouth is where Quentin drew the dragons "fire" himself before I got it laminated (or "lemonated" as Olivia said).

The Cookie Monster Cable Saga continues....

Where are the sleeves to my sweater? Yup, frogged 'em. After I got the entire thing made and had all the seams sew together.... I decided the sleeves just didn't work. A meriad of problems began with these:

*too small around the wrists
*too short by enough to be noticed
*decreased too sharply (causing a "twisting" effect where the cables met at the seams)

So I thought about it....and thought about it some more....and then decided to just do it (frog it, that is). This sweater has been more about discovering the zen quality of learning to knit again (which I haven't done since aunt Leta & I made a basketweave purse when I was 10) and learning to like the process instead of the end result (which is what has kept me away from the needles for 20 plus years). I also decided it was a heck of a lot of work to put into a project that I wouldn't wear. I don't wear things that aren't comfortable and I wouldn't have worn this with the sleeves the way they were.

So, when's it going to be done? Maybe in time to wear when the weather turns this fall. Maybe...My needles are itching to start some other projects.


I've already bought yarn to make the girls some darling coordinating cable sweaters from Debbie Bliss. The middle yarn is actually a very rich plum purple. I can't remember the name of the book the patterns came out of. I'm cheap and just copied the patterns I wanted out of a book at the library. It's really great, soft, very loud colors of cotton and I'm itching to get started. Typical Alisa style, I'm going to color-block these sweaters instead of making them all one color!

I've also got my eye on a shrug pattern to go with the sleeveless dress I've got sitting in my closet waiting for it's debut at this year's conference. I may put down the cookie monster cable yet again to do the shrug. After all, I need it sooner!

O.K. I'm closing this post. I just had to run TWO BLOCKS down the street after a ball that rolled away. I am SO out of shape.

Rachel's Prom Dress

This is the Prom dress I made for Rachel. Rachel initially contacted me through my add on Craigslist.com. We were several e-mails into talking about her dress when I figured out that she did NOT live her locally in Colorado Springs, but lives in St. Louis! I told her it would be possible to do the dress long distance if we had enough time. She absolutely wanted a copy of the dress Charlize Theron wore to the Golden Globes, but wanted it in yellow satin.

I'm really hoping to get some pictures from Rachel of her in the dress. It wouldn't fit on my dress form, so I had to just pin it to the front to get the pic. There ARE supposed to be wrinkles across the bodice part, but they wouldn't pull out and look right just pinned to the dress form. I'm also not terribly happy with the look of this design in satin. Although I did line it with organza, I'm still not happy with the slightly "bubbled" look around the skirt fullness.

It has a complete inner bodice with several spiral steel bones, including boning over the bust part. I was concerned about the tightness of the fit with it being strapless, so included bones to hold up the curve of the top as well.

It's been an adventure making this long distance, but it's nice to know that it is something I can do.