Short-term plans

I've finally got a little time to work on the New Look shirt, and that's slowly coming to a close. I just need to finish hemming it (a slow process; I don't like any of my thread colors against the print enough to topstitch, so it's blind slipstitching all the way), unless I decide the closure moves around too much and needs a snap at the neckline.

Next up, I think, will be a few T-shirts which I'll try copying from a touristy but well-fitting RTW one I have. They won't be anything fancy, since they should play well with as much of my other stuff as they possibly can. So it may happen that I'll sew along with one or the other Patternreview contest this month, but I probably won't make anything that'd look impressive enough to be worth entering.

Fabricana

I took advantage of the BC Day free transit and went over to Fabricana the other day. Here's what I thought of it:

• It's a decent size, certainly larger than what was in my small city in Germany, though not as big as G Street Fabrics or the largest multi-story shops in Paris (hey, much bigger city.)
• Prices seemed pretty normal for Canada, not that I've recently had much to compare them to. (And I'm talking about the marked-down prices; most bolts had an "original" price and a slightly lower one.)
• There are a lot of notions, trims, buttons, tools, etc. The buttons are the carded kind, meaning they are maybe somewhat less high-end-looking than the sort that vendors usually display in plastic tubes, but still good quality, and a lot more reasonably priced. (Let's face it, one hallmark of the homemade is using high-end materials, by which I mean most things that are nicer than plastic, on anything but denim or very expensive fabrics. Not that that's something we're forced to care about, of course.)
• There are big eveningwear and home dec sections, which I pretty much ignored this time. There's a good-sized quilting section as well; I don't really quilt, and I try not to use those cottons for apparel, but I might make an exception for the batiks. I glanced at the flannelette, but it all looked like very obvious children's prints. I also noticed fake fur, rainwear, some activewear (not sure if any of it was wicking), sweatshirting and fleece, random prints on sale, etc.
• Things I liked: chambray and slubby cottons, which are unassuming and therefore could be the best wardrobe builders; rayon batiks, which are very pretty as prints and about the closest thing to rayon challis I can usually find these days; and linen knits, which I sort of regret not buying any of, though they were relatively expensive and in few colors. They also had a fair amount of denim, lots of wool suitings, some meltons and other coatings, and lots of bamboo knits. I didn't notice a whole lot of silk, but that's probably because I didn't have the time or inclination to look at the eveningwear area. I don't remember seeing all that much linen either, aside from the one small stand of knits.
• They have the major American pattern brands, Burda (I think) and a few Canadian ones (Jalie, Sewaholic, and Favorite Things, at least, if not others I missed). I suspect they might stop selling Simplicity and New Look, since they'd pulled out all those drawers and put a deep discount on them; from what I'd heard Fabricland/ville had announced they'd stop selling them too, quite a while ago.

I think it's a pretty nice store overall, but given the distance, I'm probably not going to go there that often unless I somehow really need something I can't find in the city. I might feel otherwise if I didn't have such a fabric stash already.

Stats for May-July

I haven't done much sewing during this time, but my stash has changed a lot.

• I acquired four pieces of silk and one of acetate (some from friends, thanks!) which amounted to 14.08 yards.
• I gave away a net 31 pieces/72.3 yards of fabric before the move, which presumably means a total of 36 pieces at 86.38 yards.
• In the past month, I cut one project, New Look 6387, using 1.11 yards. This is not far from done, but I do have to finish the hem, and decide on and finish the front closure.

Notes to self:

• I now have access to a dryer, so I feel like I can go wild get more washable but slow-drying spring and fall fabrics.
• I need to recheck what my stash reduction goals were, but it's less than half what I had since I started keeping a database. 
• I'm behind on my planned project rate. Part of the problem was that my stash was inaccessible for a month and a half. Not to mention it isn't realistic to get a lot of other things done around a move.
• Although I kind of wish I had more linens and cottons, the proportion of those in stash actually decreased. A lot of what I had was in colors I no longer prefer, so that's why. I'd also acquired some more silks and wools in good colors, because those were readily available where I was, but I'd really like to find some more rayon wovens and linen prints, among other things.

So that's out of the way. I hope I get more done this month.

Short note about bias tubing

This pattern I'm working on has you sew bias tubing using a scant 1/4" seam allowance. I don't have a problem with that in theory, but the thing is, you're using a bias strip 1" wide and you're supposed to stretch it while sewing. In this case, at least with the particular fabric I'm using, you'd end up with the seam allowance being too wide to fit flat inside the tube.

I think a better plan for these narrow-ish tubes (if you're turning tubes at all — RTW doesn't bother with this quite as often as home-sewing patterns seem to; sometimes they just fold and edge- or topstitch) is to focus on keeping the seam allowance just slightly narrower than the tube itself. So you're sewing just a bit over half the width of the folded strip from the folded edge. For thick fabrics, the seam may need to be slightly closer to the cut edge than for thin ones.

 
Ideally the seam allowance width will stay consistent throughout, but if you haven't cut perfectly accurately, it's more important to keep the stitching the same distance from the folded edge. No one will see the exact width of the seam allowance once it's inside the tube.

This is all assuming there isn't a very precise with the turned tube must be, but in general, tubes made this way will end up about a quarter of the width of the cut piece. These particular ones are meant for tie ends and are 1/4" wide finished.

Patterns with optional set-in sleeves

Generally, if you're making a set-in sleeve, you want more armhole/-scye depth than you would on a sleeveless version of the same thing.

Very often, home-sewing patterns with sleeved and sleeveless views do not take this into account. I've just cut (out-of-print) New Look 6387, which is no exception. In this situation, it's usually a good idea to raise the bottom of the armhole if you're not adding the sleeve.

How much? I find an inch or so tends to be about right, if the pattern is fitted, and assuming the armhole started out at a good set-in-sleeve depth for the wearer in the first place. You might get away with tightening the side seam slightly too, if necessary, but IMO it's best if anything sleeveless is fairly fitted in the shoulder/underarm area to begin with (meaning the right amount of dart shaping, and not too much bust ease). Otherwise, gaping is a likely result. An 80s/90s-style boxy, drop-shoulder, low-armhole top would not be the best starting point for this.

What's next

I have finally finished setting up the sewing room. I should be able to get back to sewing things shortly. Here's what I'm considering doing in the near term:

• Summer sewing. I don't have all that many summer fabrics left, but I may as well sew one or two of them while they're still appropriate for the weather. One example is this cotton lawn. There's only 1 meter of it, so I don't have a lot of choice as to what to do with it. I may use New Look 6387. 
  
• Knit tops with various sleeve lengths. These should be fairly long in the body. I have a lot of RTW trousers with poor fit that needs covering up, and I can sew a knit top much faster than I'd be able to replace them all. Besides, I got rid of a lot of tops before I moved, and I don't have much for the sort of in-between weather that's more common here.
• Jeans, for a bit later in the year.
• Some bookkeeping regarding the fabric stash. I gave away quite a few pieces in May, so it's gone down a bit.
• Possibly getting a new steam iron.
  I have only dry irons at this point, having dropped my Black & Decker Classic a few too many times, and having given away the basic steam iron I got in Germany to replace it (it wouldn't have worked here anyway — yes, I did have step-down/step-up transformers I could've moved back with me, but IIRC the iron was 2400W, too much for any of them).
  For the moment, I've been making do with a Continental dry iron and an old Sunbeam, both of which work fine for regular ironing. I'll see how it goes for sewing.
  I'd consider (a) a cheap household iron, on the sad presumption that most things these days won't last much more than a year anyway; (b) a nicer Reliable household iron; (c) a gravity-feed iron, if I can find a place to buy one.
  At school, the latter worked fine with well-padded, heavy, non-vacuum boards. While separate steam generators/boilers and vacuum tables seem ideal, I very much doubt I can trust anything that high-wattage with the circuits I've got available.
• Possibly looking for a coverstitch machine. All of my experience has been with ones that were very temperamental. I'll want this only if I can find one that isn't.

Cowl sleeves

So, the latest Vogue Patterns catalog has this Guy Laroche, which, as far as I can tell from the flats, may have cowl sleeves. (I won't be absolutely certain until I have it, which probably won't be for a month or so — if anyone's got it already, correct me if I'm wrong.)

I don't see these often. Have a look at the Vintage Patterns wikia (if you block or don't mind all the ads) for a few; they seem restricted to the 30s and the 80s.

Like a neckline cowl, they can be made with or without pleats. Rhonda Buss drafts an example of the latter type here. Pattern pieces tend to look either squared off or forked at the top of the cap.

Far left: short pleated cowl sleeve on the blue dress; far right: both long sleeves are cowls, the green one having an opening, and the pinky-beige one pleats. (The brown sleeve on the upper left is not really a cowl; it just has a slightly droopy pleated cap.)

They're not the most classic, restrained look, which may explain why they don't show up often. I probably won't make the Laroche in its original form; I mostly want to experiment with it. It looks different from all of the above styles in that the pleats are nearly all in the underarm seam, not the cap, placing the fullness much further down the arm. So maybe it's a true cowl, or maybe it's just got some extra length being pleated up. The pattern piece will tell.