Flat/protruding abdomen alteration: theories on what it is and isn't

I have more than my share of fitting books, and I've seen several variants of flat/protruding abdomen alterations. In general, the protruding/large abdomen alterations add width and usually length over the abdomen, increasing the waist dart intake as well. The flat abdomen alterations do the reverse.

Now, I certainly don't have a flat stomach, so it had been in the back of my mind that I might benefit from the large abdomen alteration—that is, if I ever got around to bothering to do it. But on the other hand, I've often felt that skirt and pants patterns (and to a slightly lesser extent, RTW) feel too high in the waist in front, especially compared to the back. Besides, I often need more waist shaping in the back, not the front. So I couldn't quite square the two.

Since I've looked into it further, here's what I think: the usual large abdomen alterations work best when the front waist is small and indented in comparison. So the largeness has to be over and done with somewhere below the waist. As somewhat exaggerated examples, look at this Toulmouche painting or this Annie Oakley poster. In both cases the waist is quite small (due to the shape of corset worn at the time), and there would need to be quite a bit of front waist shaping to mold the skirt from the roundness at abdomen/hip level up into the narrowness of the waist. The same goes for Christian Dior's Bar suit, with its fitted waist and padded hips. Generally, the large abdomen alteration methods presuppose your pattern has the correct waist measurement already, and you just need more length and width further down—wider darts then take up all the excess at the waist.

But what happens if you have a large front waist too, or you have a posture that shifts your upper torso a bit more forward relative to your hips? Counter-intuitively, that might actually need a flat abdomen alteration, as it will result in less dart shaping at the waist. The problem is, most of the methods for those will decrease the front hip circumference as well, something you might not need unless you've started with a larger size than your hip measurement would call for. What some people do is simply leave any front darts unsewn, or sew them narrower (and maybe sew the back darts wider to compensate, if more shaping is needed there instead). The front waist may well need to be dropped too: if there's less of a curve then there's less need for length—though extra length may be needed for apple shapes.

Anyway, I'm currently applying this theory to a jeans pattern I'm working on. I've erred on the small side when choosing a size, shortened the rise length to get it shorter in front, and done a large derriere alteration to make the pattern proportionally bigger in back. I did add a dart in back, which isn't usual for jeans (normally that shaping's moved entirely into the back yoke) but I think it might look interesting; the tips will be hidden under the pockets. And I realized after all this that my fabric had stretch, something I'd forgotten about. We'll see how that goes.

Lazy wardrobe evaluation

For various reasons, work among them, I haven't been getting all that much sewing done. But the weather has recently changed, leading me to think about wardrobe planning. Now, there's no shortage of resources about this. Many of them take the "haul everything out and have a big think" approach. Nothing wrong with that, I do it sometimes, and probably anyone who's set out to find articles or books on the topic is contemplating doing something drastic anyway. But of course, it can't be done every day.

Day-to-day, the way I usually organize my closets is a rotational system. I doubt I'm the first one to think of it: Whenever something has been worn/comes out of the wash, I put it back at one end of the closet. I try to make my next choice of what to wear from the opposite end, or close to it. If anything really backs up there, that means it's being passed over repeatedly, and maybe I need to do something about that.

Other places, you'll commonly see questions about whether the item fits, needs some sort of repair/is beyond repair, is too outdated, etc. I'll skip over those and go to a few other, perhaps subtler problems I've seen with my own stuff.

• It's the wrong level of formality for what I usually wear. In that case, I might move it to either my "formalwear" or "lounge/workout wear" section, if it fits in there and I intend to keep it. (I use the same rotational system for those sub-areas, but I'm a little less ruthless with the formalwear because I'm not a socialite… though in view of that, I probably do need to stop sewing so much formalwear and costumes. Moving right along….)
• I don't mix patterns fearlessly, so printed and even some tone-on-tone separates can be hard to pair up. That usually means I need a higher ratio of solids to prints for that season.
• Some tops need a skin-tone bra, which I think are kinda ugly/boring, so I often don't have a lot of them. When that issue comes up, it means I need to bite the bullet and either buy more of those bras, or get rid of some of those tops.
• Short tops and low-waisted bottoms don't play nicely. This can mean getting stricter about the lengths/waist positions of things I buy/make/keep, or making sure I have quite a few longer tops and/or higher-waisted bottoms. (I think really high-waisted pants are problematic—harder to fit, and since I've got a long rise, they can be unflattering unless they're quite loose—so I tend to prefer skirts for the latter case.)
• The color doesn't match the palette I'm trying to work toward, and therefore most of my other clothes and accessories. There isn't a lot I can do about this, since I'm not willing to dye things, so I'm gradually phasing those things out. It does mean I rarely buy fabric online anymore, unless it's a site that gives out Pantone numbers, thread color numbers, or swatches. (I could write a lot more on that whole topic, but at the moment I'm working toward something of a Soft Summer/Carol Tuttle Type 2 palette.)

All of this lets me collect data over time, which puts me in a better position when I'm ready to do the "big think". I tend to make final decisions on what to get rid of a few times a year, when I switch things around to put the seasonally-appropriate ones in the most convenient closet. I'm trying to get a bit more systematic about that too; more on that later.

Burda 8409

This is an out-of-print pattern I got discontinued (thus the X) several years ago. My notes say it's from 2005 or earlier. It's probably not going to be as easy to find in North America as an OOP Big4 would be, although I do see one on eBay at time of writing.

The reason I decided to make this up is that I had these old H&M cargo pants, on the left, that I'd got a lot of use out of, but that finally bit the dust—first the drawstring kept breaking (they never fit all that well in the first place; the rise was too short and the waist too big, so the drawstring must have taken a lot of strain to hold them up), then the zipper got somewhat unreliable, and lastly they got a nice big hole on the butt. The longer view of the Burda pattern is similar in design, if you don't look too closely. I added view B's back pockets onto view A, but otherwise didn't do anything to up the similarity. The H&M pants have bellows pockets with (rather wrinkly) flaps, more rounded bound hip pocket openings, and back knee seams and front knee darts. The latter especially is an interesting detail, but as I was making these looser, I thought it wouldn't serve as much purpose.

My version is in sage green Tencel twill. The color is less versatile and the fabric may not be as durable; it's a little heavier weight but much drapier than the original's cotton. But it's extremely comfortable and feels cooler to wear. I was waffling between two sizes, but decided on the larger one in case of durability issues and because the fabric has significant drape. The larger size sits lower on the hips; if I'd gone smaller I might have had to lengthen the rise substantially. On the other hand, the waist does grow with wear, so I'm not convinced I made the right decision—and I regret not having added belt loops.

I shifted the lower parts of the legs inward as recommended by Jan Minott for knock-knees. In hindsight I probably didn't need quite as big a shift, especially on the front, but this does make the fit much more graceful in back, as otherwise I get diagonal wrinkles there. I didn't alter the length at all, with the result that these are probably a little puffier at the hem than they're meant to be, but I actually like that. At least some extra length should be kept in any case, because of the drawstring hem.

As for other design changes, I left the zippers off the lower legs, since they aren't really needed and would interfere with the drape. I also made sure to get zippers with dangling pulls for the side pockets, so those hang down even though those zippers are sideways. (Maybe that's going a little overboard, but why not take advantage of Dressew's zipper selection?) Instead of having the drawstrings come out by leaving the bottom of the seam open, I put in grommets. The drawstrings are meant to be made of self fabric, and let me tell you, turning them is a real pain even with a Fasturn. Afterward I also found I could easily whack off several inches (didn't want the bows dragging on the floor) so could have saved myself some of the turning hassle. I'd recommend folding and topstitching them instead, or better yet, if you have an easily matched color, buy twill tape. 1/2" is about the right width. Lastly, I used a hook and bar instead of a button on the fly—no buttonhole and no color match required.

In conclusion, I'm pretty happy with these. They may not be quite as versatile as the originals, but the fit is certainly better and I'm happy to have a working zipper. (Actually, I suppose I could've just sewn the fly shut on the old ones, since I certainly didn't need it to get into or out of them. But they're beyond repair at this point.) If Burda fits you well, I would recommend this pattern if you have or come across it.

Machine covers

I've made two quilted machine covers out of a couple packs of 5x5 squares I got at the fabric shop on Granville Island a while back. (The other one is just a standard-issue plastic Janome cover.) I did need a few extra squares, which I cut out of plain muslin.

They're a bit oversized, part of the idea being that maybe they'd fit other machines if these ever need replacing. The layers (basic poly batting and cotton muslin being the others) are tied together with bits of embroidery floss, besides which the squares have been sewn to the batting along the seams.

I'm satisfied with them, but also happy to be done—I don't ever expect to become much of a quilter, since I enjoy garment sewing a lot more.

Vintage pattern search: The teddy and where it came from

With women's jumpsuits becoming a 'thing' again in the last few years, I thought I'd look into the history (Western, at least) of the undergarment of similar shape. I've included lots of links here; bolded ones lead to patterns that are in (re)print at time of writing. Many of the others lead to the Vintage Patterns Wiki, which may have its own links if anyone happens to be selling that particular pattern.

There are two sorts of under-jumpsuits I'm not covering in detail here, for the reason that there were/are far fewer sewing patterns for them. Often they would be made of knitted fabrics and more easily produced in factories than at home. One is the long-sleeved, long-legged union suit, which started off associated with the dress reform movement and, to the best of my knowledge, was eventually sold mainly as menswear and/or thermal underwear, before it was largely replaced by two-piece long underwear. The second is women's shapewear that is currently being made in stretch fabrics like powernet.

Combinations, 1870s-1920s

Starting around the mid-1870s, there were fashionable 'combinations'. There had been pantalettes and drawers prior to these; this just combined them with the corset cover to reduce bulk under the fitted fashions of the mid- to late 1870s. A problem with jumpsuits in general is how you'd use the toilet; these early combinations solved it by not having a closed crotch seam. As they were buttoned and rather fitted, I would guess they were worn over the corset. I don't have any images of my own of these, but for the costumer, Truly Victorian and Mantua Maker sell patterns for the earliest silhouettes. They had relatively built-up necklines and sometimes even little sleeves.

For the purposes of this post, I'll use 'combinations' to refer to this relatively substantial, complicated type with longish, bloomer-like legs, cut on the straight grain. However, the term continued to be used at least until the 30s, sometimes on rather different styles, and by the 1920s or so, combinations were sometimes described as 'cami-knickers' or 'cami-bockers', or just an 'undergarment'. (I'm not sure just how long those terms were used, but the first seems to have been used in the UK at least through the 80s, judging by Style patterns like this one.)

Combinations of this sort continued to exist for several decades, just changing silhouette to match the fashions. Here are two examples from Past Patterns, from the Edwardian era and the early teens, the latter having interesting princess seaming. Slightly later on, you start to see ones with the option of shoulder straps instead of the built-up neckline:

 Butterick 6209, mid teens (at a guess). As this one is described as a combination chemise and drawers, maybe it was worn under the corset rather than over.

Ideal 8172, ca. mid to late teens (this was a Montgomery Ward house brand)

Past Patterns 501, which interestingly has its own overskirt, dispenses with the gathered neckline entirely. I tried this pattern myself years ago. As I recall, it was nicely constructed, although the perfectly straight bodice with no darts was not capable of fitting gracefully on me. I wish I'd kept it, since I'd have no problem adding darts now.

Butterick 1871 (ca. late 20s): This pattern's fitted bodice could be self-lined for more structure in some fabrics; as that pattern piece is called the 'brassiere', it seems it was meant to act as such—though what we'd recognize as anything like a modern bra didn't come along until the 30s.

Envelope chemises, 1910s-20s

A second general approach starting in the teens or so was the envelope chemise. Based on the name, I suspect it was worn under the corset.* It did have a closure, which is made rather obvious in the illustration of this pattern reproduced by the Vintage Pattern Lending Library — a flat tab connecting back to front. The style seems ungainly to me, but it would have the advantage of being easily ironed. Still, as far as I can tell, the very flat, unshaped style was mostly limited to the late teens and twenties; it just might not have worked very well with the shapelier fashions before and after. 

Nonetheless, the flat tab closure did continue into the early 30s at least; Ladies' Home Journal 6424 has a rather different shape but still the same tab closure, though it's called a step-in and may have been worn over rather than under a girdle or corset (if any).

(* Many overviews of fashion history imply that corsets were abruptly discarded by almost everyone, either on the say-so of Paul Poiret in the teens, or because of the flapper look in the twenties. Well, Ivy Leaf is here (possibly NSFW, depending on your W) to tell you that they were not—unless by 'corset' you're thinking only of the Victorian wasp-waisted shape, corsets in the 1910s being still quite formidable, though not as narrow in the waist. I suspect what happened was that the women who did stop wearing them then were the newsworthy ones, unlike those who continued wearing them as they always had done, if only in different shapes and materials. In fairness, there certainly was a trend toward more elastic, lighter fabrics, and less steel over time.)

A smoother fit, 1930s-40s

As the fashionable silhouette became less tubular at the end of the 20s, the step-in (as I'll call it here) followed suit. McCall 5818 and Vintage Pattern Lending Library T6629 are probably only a couple years apart in age (I suspect a date of 1932 for the latter) but the progression in waist shaping is noticeable. By the mid-to-late 30s, we start to have something that looks pretty much like what we'd call a teddy. Folkwear calls it this in their Intimacies pattern, which I've made, but that's probably an anachronism. In vintage patterns you'll still see 'combination', 'cami-knickers', or 'step-in', as on McCall 4022, which has the same sort of closure — similar to the envelope chemise in that it's still a tab connecting back to front, but with more shaping and therefore less bulk. (Mrs Depew appears to do a reprint of that pattern.)

The step-in with raised, often diagonal, waist seaming was evidently common in the 30s into the 40s, if we can judge by what's on the Vintage Patterns Wiki. Just two other examples are Advance 1939 and Practical 3279. These were often bias-cut, but that may have ended as of the 40s, perhaps to save fabric. Anne Adams A4852 of 1944 has fisheye darts, and Du Barry 5409 (1942) has a whole lot of darting in the bodice front—the most fitted teddy bodice I've seen in what I assume is meant to be a woven fabric.

Disappearance (?) and gradual reappearance, 1950s-70s

Then, for the 50s and most of the 60s, I find nothing of teddy shape in vintage patterns, nor in old ads. Why is that? Unless they're there and I've just missed them, I can only speculate. Maybe they were considered not sufficiently ladylike, too much a continuation of the styles worn during the depression and the war, and/or too hard to fit to the wasp-waist silhouette (though they had managed it in the 1870s). They also seem much less workable as maternity wear than most any other lingerie I can think of—among other things, they could very quickly cease to fit lengthwise if not widthwise—which could have been a major consideration during the baby boom.

At any rate, as far as I know, the first teddy to reappear on the Vintage Patterns Wiki is McCall's 9776, described as a 'bra-pant-slip'. Then there is Kwik-Sew 940, which I presume is from the 70s — and bingo, we have the word 'teddy'. Both of these look somewhat similar in cut to the 1930s-40s styles, though the first seems intended to be more supportive. I also doubt either is bias-cut, though I can't say for sure without seeing the backs of the patterns. Judging from the other Kwik-Sew patterns of similar age that I do have, it seems likely that 940 is intended for nylon tricot.

Resurgence and stretch fabrics, 1980s-90s

In the 80s teddies seem to have returned with a vengeance. Any number of them can be found on the Vintage Patterns Wiki. Some are still rather reminiscent of the 30s, such as Vogue 8219, though it has an even more fitted bra-style bodice.

A new style coming out around this time is the bodysuit, essentially the same in cut as a modern one-piece bathing suit. One example I have that is still available, though only from Sewingpatterns.com, is Neue Mode 21092; as it has a West German address on the back I presume it can be dated to no later than 1990.

A variation on this cut is the addition of a flounce or ruffle on each hip, as on Simplicity 8946—reprehensible, IMO, and there were several others like it.

Poofy blousons and sleepwear, 1980s-90s

Not all 80s teddies were so fitted. Neue Mode 22011, a bit newer than 21092 but not in print, has a bathing-suit-like but looser cut with an elasticized waist. The teddies in Kwik-Sew's Beautiful Lingerie have a similar look, a bit bulky perhaps, but they would fit just fine under some of the very loose tops of the 80s. Some have waist seams and short-style bottoms, while some are closer to the bathing-suit shape in the legs.

Then there are the even baggier and/or frillier ones that are clearly meant as sleepwear. Examples include the rather obnoxious Kwik-Sew 1790, along with the more tolerable Kwik-Sew 1327 and Butterick 3195. 

The present

I don't get the impression the teddy is quite as popular now, or at least so pushed by the pattern companies, as it seems to have been as recently as the 80s. Though I haven't kept up with all the indie pattern brands, you can find stretch bodysuit patterns from Merckwaerdigh, some with nice lace detailing. Kwik-Sew did put out a woven teddy pattern somewhat recently, but it's now out of print, except as a download on Sewingpatterns.com.

Conclusion

The teddy as we know it now seems more decorative than practical, so I thought it might be interesting to look back to old styles that were quite different. If we're due for a revival, my favorite of the past styles is probably the 30s bias cut, since it can be relatively smooth and comfortable if fitted well. Some of the modern stretch-fabric-and-lace types can look nice as well, though they might be too hot for summer, and really high-quality lightweight laces can be difficult to find (more on that later).

Getting through the brocade

I'm trying to use up one major piece of fabric per week for the Patternreview Fabric Stash Contest.
Last week's fabric was the green rayon/silk brocade I'd mentioned in my initial post on the aforementioned contest.

Most of that's become ca. 1969 Vogue 2156, reviewed here; the rest became the clutch from New Look 6092. It was the first time I'd sewn brocade of this particular fiber content, probably around 75% rayon/25% silk or so. Not surprisingly, It was much easier to handle, and in particular press, than the synthetic brocades and brocade-look satin prints I'd worked with before. To the contrary of what Sandra Betzina's More Fabric Savvy says, and unlike the synthetics, it does hold a crease quite well, especially if you've got a decent iron. (I think everything else said above brocade in that book was on point.) While I liked this fabric a lot, and I'm pretty happy with the finished items, I was very glad to be done with them, what with all the fraying.

This week's fabric has been a piece of Bemberg that seems endless, which is why I've been sewing rather than posting. Not a very interesting fabric to look at, but for the record, here it is. The idea is to make lots of dark brown breathable lingerie that can substitute for the black non-breathable kind that's the only (less flattering on me) dark-colored option in RTW.

We interrupt this French seam for a tie end....

Wrap-and-tie styles often have a tie end passing through one side seam. It's not hard to handle this situation if the seam is pressed open flat—you just don't sew the part the tie end needs to go through. In principle, it seems it should be possible on a French seam too—just leave that gap unsewn on both passes—though there are some additional considerations. Here's one way I've done it.

1. The first French seam pass will be done wrong sides together, as usual, except for leaving the gap unstitched between the markings.

2. Press these first seam allowances open flat, pressing under the edges of the unsewn part the same amount. (You may want to trim off any fraying threads first, so those don't stick out and make hairy seams on the next pass. But that's no different from an ordinary French seam.)

3. To stop the edges of the unsewn area from fraying or getting pushed out of the seam later on, zigzag them down. You could also include bits of single- or double-sided fusible here.

4. Now make your second French seam pass, again leaving the marked gap unstitched. You can pivot and stitch perpendicularly across to the edge of the seam at each marking, if you like.

5. It's a pretty normal-looking French seam at this point, aside from that gap and zigzagged area.

6. Press the seam to one side, the side the tie end comes from. If the tie end is to come from inside the front of the garment and 'escape' to go across the outside of the back, then press the seam to the front. Or if it's coming from the back and emerges to go across the front, press the seam to the back. This will let the tie end follow a straight path through the seam, rather than having to zig and zag on its way out.

7. Now that the seam is pressed in the correct direction, push the top layer of the slit to one side, so you can edgestitch the bottom layer down to the outer fabric. Make this stitching a neat, even distance from the edge of the slit, as it will show on the outside. Or you can do this invisibly by hand.

8. Here's that stitching as it shows on the outside.

9. You can now stitch perpendicularly across the top and bottom of the slit for extra security, if you like, or make bartacks. Strictly speaking, this is less necessary if you pivoted across the seam in step 4.

10. Here's how it looks on the inside now that it's done. Not much different from step 5.

That's what I did with my Hollywood 1512 housecoat. Here are some things to consider if you're thinking about doing this:

• This approach is best used on fabrics that don't fray too much, because unlike the rest of the seam, the zigzagged edge will be subject to friction from the tie ends coming through.
• In step 3, if you have a wide enough first-pass seam allowance width to work with, in the opening area you could turn under the raw edge on each side and stitch it down, instead of zigzagging—you'd have to either make a tiny clip on each end of the opening (or just outside it) to allow the seam allowance to return to normal, or taper out the turned-under width to nothing. I've done this on one other project and it's worked well.
• Another (somewhat more involved) alternative to step 3 would be to apply a tiny facing on each side of the slit, just wide enough to cover each cut edge.
• Finally, it's slightly more awkward to pass the tie end through than it would be with a seam pressed open flat. You do get used to it, though.

So there you have it. Similar things should be possible on (true) flat-felled seams too (assuming, of course, you don't put topstitching through all layers of the opening); the main issue is controlling, stabilizing, and/or covering up the cut edges that would otherwise be completely enclosed by the seam finish, but for that opening.

Hollywood 1512 done; brocade next

Just a brief note to say that my first fabric for the Patternreview stash contest is out of the way.

Rather than repeat myself at length, I'll point you to the review on Patternreview. It's already rather tl;dr, but I do have a further bit to post on getting a tie end through a French seam, so that'll hopefully go up here tomorrow.

Next up, and already cut, is this Chinese brocade.

If all goes well, (most of) it will be a late-sixties dress. More on that later.

Patternreview fabric stash contest 2015

Patternreview runs a fabric stash contest every year.

The object is to sew the highest number of (linear) yards of fabrics that you've had for at least six months. Though I've mostly sworn off contests for this year, I'll participate in this one. While I don't expect to get near the top of the list, I'm usually sewing from my stash anyway, so I may as well join.

In the interests of juking the stats efficiency, here is a preview of a few of my longest, narrowest pieces of fabric. These may or may not be among whatever I end up sewing in the next month.
I'm not including a couple of heavy coatings I have lots of—I can't see forcing myself to sew them into finished coats within one month, even if the weather doesn't make that prospect unappealing. The above include cottons, rayons, silks, and one synthetic. I'll see how things go.

Burda 8544 (and a swayback alteration I didn't end up doing)

One of my few recent finished projects is this nightgown.

I'd considered doing a form of swayback alteration, which would have shifted the back neckline down, lowering the shoulder-neck point and requiring the shoulder seam to be redrawn. The new cutting line would have been as marked here:

The idea is to remove the extra length at CB by taking it out all the way up at the top of the pattern piece. (Incidentally, I'm not sure my issue is really a swayback so much as a high round hip that can't easily be fit by patterns without princess or waist seams.) In any case, I pin-fit this and found it seemed unnecessary; I think the cut, in my size and this fabric, is roomy enough in the hips that it isn't an issue.
The fabric is a navy jersey of some sort, and the lace is one of the last ones I bought from ELingeriA in Germany before it closed. Here it is in more detail, but less accurate color:

The fabric is meant to be cut away underneath, but I didn't do that here. The lace pattern shows up better against this dark fabric. I also made the long sleeves the usual tapered shape, instead of adding the circular flounce as intended by the pattern.

This pattern is long out of print, but it seems the main details should be easy enough to imitate. It's essentially a loose, lengthened T-shirt with the lace applied across the front, covering the bust darts. The back is plain, which ordinarily might bother me, but I think in this case it's just as well not to put any potentially fragile lace there.

Rokko's and the Punjabi Market fabric stores

I went to look in Rokko's Sarees & Fabrics the other day; while I didn't end up buying anything then, if I had no fabric at home (yeah right), or had more of a need for formalwear, no doubt I would've found something. Rokko's seems to have quite decent prices and a very good selection of certain types of fabrics. I noticed dressy synthetic and silk fabrics, sheers, allover laces in many different weights and colors, costume fabrics of the types you'd use for dance or figure skating, wool suitings and coatings, many velvets and stretch velvets, some faux furs, and, of course, many saris, as one would expect from the store's name. There were also ready-made skirts, blouses, and children's clothes, and fleece blankets at low prices. Some old Yelp reviews of this store said it was very disorganized, but that no longer seems to be the case.

Also, I went through the Punjabi Market area briefly on the way back. I didn't have time to try to do any shopping there, but for the record (and what is not always clear from sites such as Yelp) many of the area's fabric/sari/bridal stores have closed over the past few years, or moved to Surrey, following the majority of their customers. This is definitely true of Frontier Cloth House, Rani Fashions, Guru Bazaar, and Arora Cloth House, which have all moved, some of them quite some time ago. As of early May, the fabric/clothing stores I remember seeing still on Main were Mona Cloth House, Nurmahal Fashions, Amrit Fashions, Wescana, Mohan Cloth House (possibly very soon to close) and a few smaller stores.

A quick little UFO

So yeah, I've got a backlog of pattern reviews to do, and I haven't been great about starting any new projects that need much planning. On top of that, I've been doing fun things like spending quality time with memtest. Anyway, one thing I did finish recently was this little bag:

I had the main piece all knitted and ready to go, together with the handles, sitting in a drawer for oh, about three years. Two main reasons: a) I thought it should have a lining, but didn't think I had anything suitable on hand; and b) after sewing another similar little bag with rigid handles, I realized I don't especially like using this style of bag. I'd much rather have a shoulder strap, and I find the openings on these things unwieldy, even with fairly generous slits left on either side of the handles.

In the end, I just used muslin for the lining; that matches the handles well enough. It remains to be seen how much use it gets, but hey, at least it's finally done, and I do like how it looks.

The pattern is Patons' Cabled Bag; the yarn is Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Seaspray, used double.

Rain boot socks

Not that there's been all that much need for them this year, but I've continued knitting some heavier socks. These, of course, go quicker than the usual fingering weight. They also help make my boots, which are too loose in the ankle and foot, fit better. The ones below are in Briggs & Little Tuffy, which I like for the mottled and not-too-saturated colors. They are rather short, as the bobbles take up a lot of yarn, but one skein was enough (they were knit toe-up).

The sock shape is the Riverbed master pattern from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters, and the bobble stitch pattern is from Lesley Stanfield's New Knitting Stitch Library. The Riverbed's a very versatile pattern in that all sorts of stitch patterns can be applied to the top of the foot. It needs no grafting or picking up of stitches, things I like to avoid. Stanfield's book is very useful and nicely organized as well; all the stitch patterns are charted, which I think makes them much simpler to mirror and to use on anything knit in the round.

I hope I'll get back to some more sewing soon, but knitting projects are good when I don't have a solid block of time to really think things through.

Facing refinements and edge corrections

A lot of times, commercial patterns' facing pieces seem narrow and skimpy. It saves fabric, I guess, but it doesn't look as nice in my opinion. On a skirt, it also doesn't give as firm-feeling an upper edge. Unless there's any reason I can't, I tend to make facings 2" wide at a minimum, often more, depending on the situation. 

You might find that when you seam facing pieces together and press the seams open, the edges of the seam allowance stick out below the edge of the facing. This isn't necessarily a huge tragedy if you are sewing a facing in the usual way, since the edge can just be trimmed off evenly—automatically, even, if you serge it. If you are sewing the side seams last, though, as in the previous post, it could be more of an issue. So here's a check and correction. Please excuse the slight paper curl and the rather embarrassing sketchy lines.

This is on pattern pieces to which I added my own seam allowance, plus some extra width to the bottom, but I find this sometimes happens even on commercial patterns. Fold under the seam allowances, butt the pattern pieces together, and trim off any protruding excess bits (red). The blue areas are where there is some seam allowance missing; this could be added on in theory, though it might get graded right back off later since it's on the upper seam edge. Any stitching lines, as well as the cut edge, should form a nice continuous curve (I marked the top sewing line and the original cutting line in yellow).

Changing construction order of a faced-waist skirt for easy pin-fitting and alteration

A skirt with a faced/contour waist and a center back zipper is probably about the easiest to alter at the side seams. The zipper isn't in the way, and there isn't a one-piece waistband that might have to be taken partway off. It can be made even easier if you sew the facings to each piece first, do all the clipping, grading, and understitching, and only then sew the side seams of the skirt and facings. You do have to be careful to match the facing seamlines at the top of the skirt, and there may be a slight bit less ability to trim and reduce bulk at the tops of the side seams. On the other hand, the facing/skirt seams won't need to come partially undone if you ever have to rip the side seams to take them in or let them out.

This is what I did for the Neue Mode skirt I'm working on, since I wasn't quite sure of my current size. (Turns out my guess was correct.) It made pin-fitting very easy, and because the facings are already sewn to the waist, there isn't the risk of stretching an unfinished waistline out as you try the thing on.

Adjusting Neue Mode 22716 skirt flare

This pattern is only slightly A-line and has a CB slit (not shown in the illustration).

I wanted a little more flare, and didn't want the slit, so I adjusted the pattern by closing the darts.

First I tried closing the darts all the way. (I'm not showing this step-by-step here; there's already a huge amount of information on dart manipulation to be found on the Web. Search for something like "skirt flare dart manipulation", for example.)

The yellow layer is (approximately) the original pattern, cyan the new one, and green where they overlap. Closing the darts all the way made the hem circumference somewhere around 64 inches. I looked at some illustrations of other patterns I had with similar circumferences, and decided this was way too much. Looking at my other patterns, I thought 46 to 48 55 inches looked about right.

That's around 8 inches more than the original pattern. So I closed the darts partway. I also added 4" to the length, to make the skirt cover the tops of a certain pair of boots I have. Again, this is how the new pattern compares to the original:

 

The darts are about half as wide as they were, still wide enough not to look odd. The CB slit is now unnecessary.

Neue Mode 22716

This is my next project.

It isn't the first time I've considered sewing this pattern. For some reason I don't recall, the pattern cover and instruction booklet are water-stained. Or maybe it was tea or coffee. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have affected the pattern tissue.

Back when I used to stalk Neue Mode pattern numbering (there used to be a site selling their discontinued patterns, cataloguing them by collection, that made this much easier), I concluded this one might have been from around 1999-2000. Nonetheless, at time of writing you can still buy it, and see the instructions, here.

Sewingpatterns.com sells lots and lots of past Neue Mode designs, some of them almost as old as I am. They've now also got a small line called "Neue Mode USA"; I can't tell if those are new designs or if they're just new illustrations of old ones (which I'd almost prefer, actually, since they'd be more likely to have the same fit as before). Long story short, I really like Neue Mode's drafting and fit; I'm less enthused about Sewingpatterns.com's downloadable PDF system. I haven't ever tried ordering their printed Neue Modes, though IIRC I've heard they're fine. Almost all of my Neue Modes are pre-2007 paper patterns.

Anyway, the previous attempt was going to be a red printed linen, but somehow that didn't work out. I got bogged down in something or other having to do with alterations, which might be just as well, because that color and print wouldn't have been at all to my taste now. As I recall it was a fairly warm, saturated red, and the print might have borne a certain similarity to a tablecloth.

This time the fabric will be the dark floral moleskin I got from last November's Our Social Fabric sale, the one second from right. Not very spring-y, but then neither am I.

An overwrought overlapped V neckband, and how it could have been avoided

One thing I liked about the Kwik Sew 304 top I made the other week was the overlapped V neckband.

But wait, you say, isn't that just a regular V neckband with a seam down CF? Well, it is, it turns out, if you look at the Vintage Patterns Wikia's picture of the envelope front linked above, and I suspect if you try to follow the intent of the instructions (which are not the clearest).

The funny thing is, my envelope shows a definite overlapped neckline. I wonder if the illustration was changed to match the instructions? I suspect it was — my envelope style, with its mention of Sew-Knit-n-Stretch instead of Kwik Sew at the bottom, is probably the older of the two.

Anyway, I tried to make a compromise between the instructions and the result that is shown on my envelope. For whatever it's worth, I documented the process, but this is certainly not the simplest way to do it. Skip to the end for that.

First, the band is attached most of the way around the neckline. This pattern marks CF, shoulder seams, and CB on the neckband piece. The proper right side of neckband is stitched on all the way to the corner (most patterns would mark this with a dot). The left side is left free for a bit more than the width of the neckband.

To see how this will work: the proper right side of the neckband -- here seen at viewer's left -- will be on top, meaning that where it's being folded under here will be where you want to stitch it to the neckline. 

This particular pattern happens to have you cut some extra length past CF in the neckband; I would guess many others would give no more than the seam allowance.

This is where we want the stitching line on the neckband to match the one on the neckline. If anything, slant it a bit short at the folded edge, to tighten it up -- but not too much, or it will pull at the neckline.

You may as well clip the neckband to the dot now. 

If you're concerned about fraying or stretching, you may want to have staystitched the V before beginning; many patterns will tell you to do this. I don't think it's that crucial on a firm knit like this, especially if one handles it as little as possible after the clipping.

The stitching line on the band matched up to the stitching line on the opening, with the other end of the neckband held out of the way. This is slightly awkward. Stitch from the corner (so you just meet up with the end of the previous stitching — at the dot, if the pattern has one) to the folded edge of the neckband.

Then the left neckband goes flat on top, and you stitch again over the just-previous stitching, through left neckband, right neckband, and neck opening. Also be sure this stitching closes up any remaining hole between the left neckband and the neckline.

It should look like this from the outside. The remaining end of the left neckband is not yet stitched down, so as you can see in the right of the photo, that side of the band looks a little loose.

 

Now the proper left neckband is stitched, roughly perpendicular to the band, down along the first stitching that was done to attach the right neckband to the neckline. This stitching is analogous to the one was chalk-marked on the right end of the neckband, and again, the neckband can be shorted slightly toward its folded edge.

As this pattern had some excess length in the neckband, that can now be trimmed off. (I actually cut the pattern piece a bit short on one end, for lack of fabric.) Again, I would guess many other patterns will just give you the seam allowance, and that step would then be unnecessary.

Now that I've gone and said all that... I drew out the steps far more than necessary. Instead, you could just [reinforce and] clip the neck opening, lay out the neckband with the overlap as it should sit when finished, and attach it not all that differently from how you'd attach a round neckband — you'd just have to start and end at CF. This method would make it much easier to use a serger as well. The only disadvantage I can see is not being able to adjust the tightness of the neckband along its folded edge, but I think that's just as well done in the pattern in the first place.

As for what this says about older Kwik Sew patterns: I feel that as far as instruction quality and overall polish, Kwik Sew really hit its stride sometime in the mid-to-late 80s. By then, their patterns had cutting layouts, very professional-looking flats and construction diagrams, and completely reliable (if not necessarily glamorous) illustrations. Even so, I would say many of their older patterns are really unique and worth seeking out. Their swimwear, knitwear, and lingerie in particular were more varied than the other American brands'. The company still exists — since 2011, as part of Butterick/McCall's/Vogue — but I feel that it's really drifted away from that niche in the past few years. You can see many other vintage Kwik Sews on the Vintage Patterns Wikia.