Tuesdays with Gertie: Cutting and Thread Tracing
This year I’m sewing along with Gertie from Gertie’s New Blog for Better Sewing. A bunch of other talented seamsters and I have joined up through the Craftsy online community to make her Starlet Suit. Here’s a reflection on my efforts to sew well.
The momentum that carried me into last week’s Tuesdays with Gertie post subsided a bit as I waded through K-Line’s Starlet Suit Jacket posts. I procrastinated on cutting out the muslin all week (helped out by having fun things to do Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evening), then got a surge of motivation over the weekend that resulted in my cutting out every single pattern piece. I even cut out all of the pieces needed for the skirt. I figured if there were problems with any of the pieces, I wanted to know about them sooner rather than later. And, I also hoped that I could use the muslin pattern and not the printer paper pattern when the time came to cut into my fashion fabric. Only after marveling at the sheer number of pieces did it occur to me that it might have been better to wait until I knew the size was at least in my ballpark before cutting every single pattern piece out.
This thought led to the waning of my motivation yet again.
It came back last night after work and errands were complete. I enjoyed thread tracing each of the pieces I plan to sew together for my first fitting. I put one in the machine after the other, creating a ring of pattern pieces connected by purple thread. Now all of the pieces are ready to be stitched together, which means next week I should have jacket and skirt muslins to show off!
Two things of note from this week’s efforts. (1) The back facing is labeled “cut two” with an indication to also cut on the fold. Cutting one on the fold is all that is needed. (2) After laying out all of the pieces, I calculated that I need exactly two yards of fashion fabric for both the jacket and the skirt, not the four indicated in the instructions. I am ever so hopeful that there really are two yards of this ivory linen and wool blend from FineFabrics.com left in the store. Otherwise, maybe a pretty gray? Or a cute brown tweed?
MMMMonday: May 8th through 14th
This May I’m joining Zoe at ‘So, Zo…’ in a challenge to wear something handmade every day for thirty-one days. This post marks the second update of my progress.
May 8, 2012
What: The Circle Skirt Remake
Where: To work. Same old, same old.
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May 9, 2012
What: The Sunlit Teal Garden Lonsdale and the “Paint Me a ?” Minoru
Where: To meet up with Karen of Did You Make That? and a bunch of other sewing enthusiasts (see post here). Photo taken by Laura of Auxetically.
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May 10, 2012
What: The Burberry-Inspired Trench Coat
Where: To the theater to watch the live showing of This American Life with my husband and our good friends.
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May 11, 2012
What: The Plain Jane A-Line Skirt
Where: To work, then to a friends’ house for a party. The party was in honor of their just finding out they’re having a girl!
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May 12, 2012
What: The Black-and-White Satin Organza Crescent Skirt
Where: To run errands during which I scored some silk at 25% off thanks to a Mother’s Day weekend sale and then somehow found myself directing traffic at Costco.
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May 13, 2012
What: The Silk Pajama Party Bottoms
Where: Nowhere! A day at home divided between doing chores and sewing.
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May 13, 2012
What: The She-Sells-Seashells Baby Bubble Dress
Where: To church for Mother’s Day. Thanks to my little niece for participating in MMM!
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May 14, 2012
What: A self-silk-screened shirt: rockin’ out with Tricky in black on a light purple T shirt (better photo of the actual design here)
Where: Back to work again.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Now that the SWAP is over, I can finally get back to the millions of other projects that I’ve had on hold this year. First on the docket is the Jackie O dress for my mom using the fabrics you see above. The beautiful blue on the left is an Irish linen from FineFabrics.com, and the floral on the right is a crepe de chine from Fabric.com. The linen is unbelievable. Seriously. I wish the internet allowed texture to come through to your readers. And, I love that she’ll have a bouquet of mums to greet her every time she goes to put on the dress. Since the muslin has already been fitted, the next step is to transfer the new pattern to the underlining. (I’m already procrastinating though as I’m writing this post instead of getting on with the project!)
Did you make that?: An Evening in the City
May 9th
It’s 5:00, and I’m sneaking out of work. I’ve been too excited to be highly productive all day anyway, so it’s just as well. I pack up my computer, jump on my bike, and pedal home as fast as I can. I’m zooming past the other bike commuters with a giant smile on my face. They probably think I’m a mad woman as is. If only they knew that I’m so giddy because I’m only an hour or so away from meeting up with a group of sewing enthusiasts in the city. Who in their right mind leaves work early to go meet a group of strangers they know from the internet to talk about sewing all night? I can’t wait!
I quickly feed the cats and the fish, throw on my Lonsdale, grab my camera and my Minoru, and run out the door. I spend my time on the train people watching. There’s a woman with a ton of stuff trying to walk between the cars. Once she successfully maneuvers through the doors to my car, she piles all of her stuff in front of one seat and then sits several seats away from it. There’s another family, two boys and a dad, each taking up their own row. The dad is lost in The Hunger Games, a library copy I see. He’s sitting next to a guitar. A few stops before mine, the dad stands up with his guitar. Two stops before mine, the two boys move to the same row. The stop before mine, the tallest boy pulls two buckets out from the row the dad used to be sitting in, while the youngest boy produces a tambourine from thin air. I realize they’re going to play music. On the train. Right now. The dad tells a wonderful story about raising the boys on his own, and then they launch right into song. I’m a sucker for these sorts of things, but we’re now at my stop, so I leave them with only a smile.
I’m speed walking to the wine bar. Four blocks. Three blocks. Two blocks! One block!! I enter, and I immediately see our group. There must have been fifteen or twenty women in beautiful handmade garments.
I smile and say hello to the lovely people I pass as I make my way to Karen from Did you make that?. I figure she’s the inspiration for the gathering, so she should be my first introduction. Now, I have high expectations for her, I have to admit; her personality must match how well she writes and sews, right? She puts my expectations to shame – far, far exceeding them.
I make my way to the end of the table where there was a chair waiting for me. Just a few people down is Shams from Communing with Fabric, and before I can stop myself I admit to lurking her blog. I make a mental note to say hello to Shams on her blog as soon as I get home!
I’m thoroughly enjoying the ladies around me. These women can talk! And not just of sewing. We share stories of Dale Chihuly, must-try restaurants, vacation plans, überboobs, the interwebs, and more. Elisabeth of e-beth knits makes her way over to my end of the table, and the conversation moves to new babies, molecular biology, and troubling darts. Truly, from there on out the evening is filled with constant chatter.
I have my eye on What’s Up Cupcake?, and by the end of the evening our paths finally cross. Out of no where her husband appears and plays a good paparazzi. We laugh about the awkwardness of taking photos of ourselves in our finished garments for our blogs, and when I see she also uses a Canon, I recommend the remote that my husband and I bought for our camera just before our trip to the Alps.
I am delighted to meet another attendee all the way from London, Laura from Auxetically. And, I am a bit starstruck chatting with Beth of SunnyGal Studio. She is as sweet as can be, but I’m so nervous I find myself pointing out the little flaws in my Lonsdale that only I can see. My inner monologue is telling myself to stop, that she is really interested in what I like about the dress, but my mouth keeps admitting my dark secrets.
I meet many who recognize my jacket, and it catches me a bit as a surprise. Me? My jacket? No, no, it’s me who recognizes that dress of yours! I don’t snap as many photos as I’d hoped, but I get enough to capture the essence of the evening.
And, then, before I know it, it’s over. The bill is being squared away, and we’re saying our goodbyes. I feel like I’m leaving old friends. With surprisingly good timing, my husband pulls up to the curb just as I walk out of the wine bar, my knight in shining armor. As we drive away, I hope to myself that this group will get together again soon. The Gaultier exhibit, perhaps?
UPDATE: Firstly, I forgot to mention my most-of-the-night neighbor Daiyami from Sisters are Making It for Themselves. She was fantastic, but I hadn’t caught her full blog address, and I felt it best to stick with naming only those people who already had a confirmed-in-my-world online presence. Secondly, there have now been some more write ups about the evening. Go read about it from the perspective of Communing with Fabric, Did You Make That?, What’s Up Cupcake?, and Auxetically.
Sewing with a Plan: The 2012 Collage
This winter and spring I’m joining a bunch of other talented seamsters in the Stitcher’s Guild’s Sewing with a Plan 2012 challenge. We’re all making eleven garments from tried-and-true patterns. Unfortunately, I don’t have any. My goal is to discover several TNTs over the course of the challenge through proper fitting, and this post continues the discussion.
The Stitcher’s Guild Sewing with a Plan challenge is actually a contest. Garment photos are submitted, votes are cast, and winners are chosen. Because I think the Minoru is the focus here, I’ve named my SWAP the “Mix-and-Match Minoru”. (In the beginning I called it “Fading into Blue” since it was mostly neutrals with a bit of bright blue.)
All of the entries are up here. I encourage you to check out the other talented seamsters who completed this year’s SWAP. They’re inspiring! And, if you’re a member of the Stitcher’s Guild, you can even participate in the voting.
This year I’m sewing along with Gertie from Gertie’s New Blog for Better Sewing. A bunch of other talented seamsters and I have joined up through the Craftsy online community to make her Starlet Suit. This post marks the beginning of the saga.
I’m now moving on to Gertie’s second Craftsy course without missing a beat. I thought about resting a week after completing the bombshell dress, but I like having a weekly mini-goal to accomplish for these classes. I’m one of those people who loved school, and it’s been fun to have “homework” each week.
My goal for this week was to get the pattern pieces ready for the Sew Retro: The Starlet Suit Jacket course. I accomplished my mission, but not in the hour I anticipated. Between the jacket and the skirt there are a lot of pattern pieces. Instead of just going ahead and cutting my size, I cut around all of the sizes for each. I want to have all of my options available these next few weeks when I’m testing fit. I’m hoping fit will be as simple as grading between sizes as necessary. We shall see…
One note for those of you who’ve signed up for this class but have yet to start, I found three pattern pieces that were mislabeled in size. The jacket side front (pattern piece 2), the jacket front lining (pattern piece 15), and the skirt side front (also pattern piece 2) are all marked with the smallest size as the largest and on from there. If I’d been simply cutting out my size willy nilly, I might not have noticed until it was too late, which would have been a drag because the whole process had already taken up so much paper, tape, and time as is. Keep an eye out, kids.
Next week I hope to have the muslin pieces cut out, thread traced, and hopefully stitched together. Then, it’s on to fitting. Has anyone else already gone through this class? Any tips about fitting that would be helpful to know before I cut my muslin?
MMMMonday: May 1st through 7th
This May I’m joining Zoe at ‘So, Zo…’ in a challenge to wear something handmade every day for thirty-one days. This post marks the first update of my progress.
May 1, 2012
What: A self-silk-screened shirt: the wizard from the game Gauntlet in brown on a yellow T shirt
Where: To work. I woke up a little intimidated about MMM’12, and I gravitated towards a favorite self-screened T shirt to ease myself into the challenge.
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May 2, 2012
What: The Straight-Legged Betty Jeans
Where: To work then out to dinner with some very special friends who were in town (one of whom sews and had not only made her entire outfit but also gone to the Gaultier exhibit that afternoon).
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May 3, 2012
What: The Secret Garden Pleated Skirt
Where: To work. A long day at work. Always a good reason to throw on a happy skirt.
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May 4, 2012
What: The Stripey Renfrew
Where: To work and to sewing class. In honor of Friday’s food theme, I had my husband take my photo while we were making a homemade pizza. Mmm… MMM!
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May 5, 2012
What: A self-silk-screened shirt: the female warrior from the game Gauntlet in green on a light blue T shirt
Where: To see The Avengers with friends. I put together my best super hero outfit for the occasion.
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May 6, 2012
What: The Good-Enough-for-a-First-Try Running Skirt
Where: On a morning run with a good friend, then to cheer on her fiancé at a 5k race. He won!
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What: The Gray-and-Teal Floral Pendrell
Where: To a regular day at work.
You might also recognize me by my alias, ahearta. I live in San Francisco and spend my days working as a scientist. I'm enthusiastic about sewing, and I started this blog to reflect on my efforts to sew well. 
