Activewear

Being bored with what I currently have, I made a couple of things. The fabric was some sort of gray "technical" type I got from ELingeriA before it closed. I couldn't tell you what it was, except that it clearly resists water on one side and absorbs it on the other.

Now that I've worn the FOs, I figure it must've been meant for a warmth layer of some kind. Anyway, I got two projects out of it. Second things first, Kwik-Sew 2779, so out of print it isn't even on their website anymore. I cut it as long as I could with what was left from the first project. I'd also lowered the rise and cut the waist elastic rather long so it would sit lower than the original design intended.

The first project was Kwik-Sew 3835. As my fabric was less stretchy than what the pattern intended, I cut all the bands in much larger sizes. They still stay up quite well. I also erred on the small side for the main pieces, since I felt all the volume wasn't really needed. That all meant the main pieces could be eased, not gathered, onto the waistband.

With the wicking properties, I was concerned about the orientation of the bands. If I'd followed the intended construction, they'd have been water-resistant against the skin, not a great feeling. If I'd made them inside out, I can only imagine what stink would get trapped inside. So I cut them in two along the length and assembled them so as to put the wicking sides to the insides (er, patient inside) on both.

The gray is not an exciting color, but the gathered pair is very different from anything I have, and I like its drape. Now if only I had a cooler fabric for summer. The main parts can be made in a woven; I think they'd be nice in a crinkle gauze.

Favorite Things Pins & Needles: a Tardis knitting needle case

I got this Tardis fabric at Gala in Victoria. The pattern is pretty much a simple rectangle that folds and rolls up.

I made a zipped closure for the small pocket (at lower right), instead of a Velcro flap, because of what I had on hand. Also, I feel the zipper is unlikely to allow stuff to dump itself out.

 

To keep the needles in, the case just folds up. This isn't the neatest thing ever, since the flap ends up being a bit big and loose relative to the rest.

But it's simple and does the job.

I also made tie ends instead of using the elastic-and-button closure, figuring elastic could wear out and not really wanting to bother choosing a button.

Other things to note about this pattern:

• Directionally patterned fabric (a.k.a. "with nap") can be an issue because the main piece is just folded up to form the pockets and the flap.
• The pattern has you stitch twice through the different pockets. I think it would be difficult to get both stitching lines in the same place, plus it's more work. I only stitched through all layers once, after positioning all the pockets.
• It's probably best for straight needles and maybe DPNs, rather than circulars. Personally, it holds all my straights, and I don't plan on acquiring more. It won't also hold all my DPNs; as there's a chance I may buy more and/or find ones I've misplaced, I've punted on any sort of elegant storage for those, for the time being. But I think the stitching line spacing and/or pocket size might need some reworking if you want this to be mainly a DPN case.

This should be my last quilting-cotton accessory project for a while.

The finished patchwork bag

I've declared victory on this. It will most likely be used for small project storage: patterns, knitting stuff, that sort of thing.

Because of the buckram retrofit, the lining had to be put in by hand, not a fun thing to do, but it didn't take long. I tacked the corners together too, hiding the knots in the seams.

The lining fabric itself is a leftover piece of something from Dressew. It's much more suited to garments and looks rather sad in a bag; if I had been less cheap or lazy, I'd have either used a heavier satin or cotton, or interfaced it.

 
The bag is meant to have little tabs with grommets instead of these D-rings. But I wanted antique brass, and this was the only thing available that really matched the clips I could find. No great loss since they're easier to do a good job with anyway (although getting them in on top of the stiff ends of the zipper tape was a little tricky, as I recall).

Buckram: putting the 'construction' in 'construction techniques'

So here's that bag again, in the process of being retrofitted with two-ply a.k.a. crown buckram:

What I did was cut the buckram to slightly smaller than the size of each piece without seam allowance,

then tuck it in beneath the seam allowances, open each pair of seam allowances flat, and glue them down to the buckram on each side. The layers of batting and interfacing, not to mention the buckram itself, kept the glue from bleeding through to the outside.

The glue I used is some unidentified fabric glue I got from Kaufland back in Germany. Whatever it is, it's definitely neither Elmer's nor cyanoacrylate, but that's all I can say.

Binder clips make good clamps.

That loop off to the side will become the handle.

Why not sew the buckram in, you might ask? Well, this is very heavy stuff—even if you do trust your machine with it, and have a free arm, it's a real pain to get the right parts of a small project under the needle. Kind of like sewing doll clothes if they were made out of oaktag. And I didn't want any topstitching on this project, either.

I used this stuff because I happened to have lots of it left over from several years ago, back when I was trying my hand at making a few hats. It isn't the easiest thing to deal with and can't be washed, but if you're looking for something 'sculptural', it does the trick.

Many stores don't carry this weight; you can get it online from places like Judith M or Farthingales, to name a couple. The two-ply is two fairly heavy weights of buckram fused together, while others are single-ply and quite a bit softer. It will generally come rolled up in a long box or tube, since there's no non-destructive way to fold it. (Keep that in mind if you're in Canada; a US supplier may try to ship UPS.) I'd have to see how it would compare to something like Timtex, but I have a feeling it's a great deal stiffer than that.

Pieced bag from a German magazine

Here's an issue of (German) CUT magazine I got a couple of years ago...

... the main reason I bought it being this bag pattern.

I got started on it and was quickly reminded that I don't especially enjoy piecing. It's doable—not that I'm perfect at it—but fiddly, too much work for a result that's in most cases ultimately two-dimensional. This bag, at least, obviously isn't in overall structure, although the sides certainly are meant to be flat. (The fabrics were, I believe, discharge-patterned by my aunt-in-law.)

While I did back all the pieces with fusible fleece and then a woven interfacing, that clearly wasn't going to be enough. If I did this over, I think the ideal sort of backing for a lightweight cotton like this would have been fusible fleece backed in turn with the heaviest fusible available, with a generous amount of seam allowance cut away from the latter.

An issue with this style is that the zipper naturally wants to form a nice smooth curve, while the pointed shape of the sides wants to induce a sharper bend right at the center top of the bag. It would probably be a bit less obvious with a much stiffer fabric, which is almost certainly what the pattern intends, at least for the lining—since it's meant to be a toiletry bag, the pattern calls for a coated fabric to be used there, which would add a fair amount of structure.

Being as it may, I retrofitted the whole thing with two-ply crown buckram, which I'll post about next.

Happy 2016

While I don't necessarily understand why we celebrate what seems to be an arbitrary time of year, I have to admit it did prompt me to post something here for once. :D

If this trend continues, here are few topics that might turn up in the near future.

• A pieced bag from a German sewing magazine, and why it's taking me so long.
• A few useful and unusual notions.
• Some knitting, mostly socks.
• A bit of wardrobe organization (mostly because I said I'd do it).
• Some patterns and fitting, vintage and not.
• A new machine, my first computerized one. And maybe a bit of mechanical-machine adjustment stuff.

At any rate, best wishes for 2016!