Saturday, November 30, 2013

Repairs and Alterations

This is definitely not my favorite area of sewing but sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and go for it.  I worked on four garments this weekend, so more items are in wardrobe rotation as a result. And that's a good thing.

I made a TSW Lotus Skirt years ago in the pre-blogging era. You may recall the Lotus, it was in the Sewing Workshop lineup for quite some time but has disappeared from the site. Maybe it was time-- at least in the long incarnation.


Mine was almost floor length in front but that was the style back then (early 2000's) and besides, I was wearing heels all the time. I stopped wearing it after a while and put it in the closet of the Sewing Cave. However, after seeing some similar skirts on Pinterest, I decided I should pull it out again. However, the full length no longer worked for me. I haven't shrunk but my heel-wearing days are few and far between lately. So I cut 3" off the edges, which translates to 4 1/4" when you include the original hem allowance. I'm happy with the shorter length; it looks more modern now. This wasn't a difficult alteration but a time-consuming one with all the pressing up of the new hem on nice, albeit synthetic, black crepe fabric. It isn't the most pressing friendly fabric in the world and there's a lot of hemming involved.

So that was yesterday's project. Today included two more skirts that I've made, both from View C of  the Loes Hinse Boot Skirt pattern.


I think I've only blogged one of them, though. I flat lined that one, and the lining fabric shredded along one of the seams although there was ease. I guess there was a stress point somewhere. I fixed the seam with a combination of hand and machine stitching, including edge stitching along both of the side seam. Hopefully all of that stitching will work, it's a nice little workhorse of a skirt.

I also made a knit version last winter from remnants of this project but didn't snug up the waistband elastic enough and was too lazy to fix it. Fortunately, I used a normal casing for this one, so it was a simple matter to open the casing, shorten the elastic and close it back up again.

I also had a RTW project, since I'm 5'4" and most pants are too long for me. This pair was a nice pair of Calvin Klein dress pants that I bought during my banking days and never had time to fix. In addition to shortening them 3", I also narrowed the leg a bit below the knees to eliminate an unfortunate flare (another style from the past that no longer works for me). A little extra work, but not difficult and now I have a "new" pair of pants for the office.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Yes, Still Sewing


It's been a little slow in the Sewing Cave lately due to work and other commitments. I did manage to finish my latest project today--the Icon Shirt by The Sewing Workshop. I used some oxford cloth from the stash, so nice to work with! The buttons are shell.

1st mobile post too! Hopefully this will come through ok.



Saturday, November 2, 2013

A Little Housekeeping

I recently had a request to add a gadget to the blog, so I added two. You can now follow SewWest by  email and also translate me to your language of choice. The gadgets can be found in the column on the right hand side. Thanks for the suggestion, Nancy!

In other news, I recently added Blogger to my phone. I'm thinking about adding mobile posts, which I am envisioning as short, informal communications. Still working on it at this point. Has anyone tried mobile blogging? Any comments, hints, or suggestions?