Having A Bad Sewing Week

I'm not having a good time, my bottom lip is all wobbly and I want to throw all my toys out of my pram.

I got all excited by the launch of the new Colette pattern, Laurel this week,  I've never entered a sewing competition but I couldn't resist this one so I downloaded the pattern and got to work.  I decided that I'd attempt to make a few Laurels in a multi generational way, a top for my Mum a dress for me and also one each for my daughters each garment to reflect the style of the individual.

Mum lives 200 miles away in London but was arriving this week for a brief stay to collect the children for Easter, so I had to get on with Mum's top before she arrived. I made some adaptations, a tunic style opening, a bit of length to the hem and an increase to the bust dart.  There were just twenty minutes before she was due to arrive and I was just finishing off the bias binding on the hem when my bobbin thread ran out.  So I wound a new bobbin only to find that the bobbin winding icon on my Janome stayed on the LED screen even after I'd finished.  I tried turning the machine off and on again, flicking the bobbin thread spool backwards and forwards and nothing changed.  The machine wasn't going to sew anything, it was determined to stay in bobbin winding mode.  Argh, so frustrating and as the children were off to the Grandparents my plan was to do lots of sewing over the long weekend.

Anyway Mum arrived and tried the top on in it's almost finished state only to find it doesn't fit at all right.  Yet again I was too impatient and instead of making up a muslin I made it in the fashion fabric, it honestly didn't even cross my mind not to do this I really do wonder about myself sometimes.  At this point I was ready to throw the top away and sulk.

Mum (with offending Janome in the background)

In the meantime children and grandparents have headed down south and I worked out that if I stick my finger in the gap in my machine where the bobbin thread spool is I can get the bobbin winding icon to disappear and the machine to work.  Clearly I can't sew with my finger stuck in the top of my machine, but hooray I've fixed it with a lump of blutack, so that's that solved (temporarily).  Now all I have to do is see if this Laurel top is fixable.

I'm not sure if it's clear to see here, but there was some excess fabric around the bust darts, which I have pinned for reference.  I had already increased the bust dart a bit, but clearly not enough.  What I think is clear to see is that it's too tight across the chest, which was made worse when she moved her arms.  Do you think this is salvageable, or am I going to have to throw it in the bin afterall?  I'm wondering if I need to make the arm opening wider at this chest point and then remake the sleeves I do have enough fabric left for sleeves.  Although I'm not too sure on how to redraft the sleeve pattern, I might have to dust off my pattern cutting books.  Hmm, I'm not sure if I should just give up - help!

Elvis has left the building

I've spent today warm and snuggly indoors - can you believe it's been snowing in England today?  It's supposed to be spring!  I've been immersed in changing the collar on the shirt I made my husband following his comment yesterday that it was 'a tad Elvis'.  Using one of his many linen shirts as a guide for size I redrafted the collar piece and set about remaking the collar, although I wouldn't have chosen to remake the collar the new one has accidently turned out better.  When I started on this project I bought some light woven interfacing specifically for the shirt as I thought it would give a little more body to my linen which has a fairly open weave.  However after interfacing my collar stand this (third!) time I realised there just wasn't enough left for the collar piece, so I looked to see if I had any more in my stash to find that I did.  However this wasn't a woven interfacing and was much more lightweight, being that I didn't want to leave the house I used it and it has given a much better finish for this particular fabric.  The woven interfacing had been used on the 'Elvis' collar and it did look a little stiff considering that a linen shirt is inevitably casual in style, this lighterweight interfacing is more appropriate and has given a more relaxed finish.  What great about this is not only that it's a better finish, but also I never really got the point of different types of interfacing and now I do.

The second happy accident with the collar is that when my husband tried it on yesterday we found that it was too tight to ever be buttoned at the top, now neither of us were too bothered by this as again the shirt is casual and will always be worn with the top button open.  However, it's nice to get it right.  As I had already trimmed the seam down to 1cm where the shirt joins the collar stand I decided that rather than doing the same to the collar stand piece I would continue as usual with a 1.5cm seam allowance.  This way the collar is a tiny bit looser, but just enough so that it can be button comfortably.  They say that you learn best from your mistakes and today has been one of those days.

I have now finished the shirt except for the buttons, our local town has a small fabric shop with a limited selection of button but Tuesday is market day and there is a regular stall with a larger selection of buttons so I thought I'd wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime have a look at the work in progress, I'd love to know what you think.

This is the 'Elvis' collar version, not particularly massive, but I want this shirt to be worn and it wasn't going to be.

Redrafted collar piece, I chose not to bother with separate upper and under collar pieces and just used the iron to ensure that the seam fell to the under collar.

Elvis has left the building - the new smaller collar

                      Just the buttons left to do, I might make the sleeves a bit narrower next time.

I'm pleased with how the cuffs turned out, I made a bit of a mistake with the placket and made it too  long but I think I can get away with it.

Why I should do as I'm told

I've already posted about how much I've been enjoying The Classic Tailored Shirt online class from Craftsy, but what I haven't told you is that I couldn't get hold of the suggested pattern.  When I say couldn't get hold of it, what I actually mean is that I was too impatient.  The lovely Pam gives a choice of three patterns for this class, they are Kwik Sew 3555,3586 and 3422 so why did I buy Vogue 8759?  Well I could tell you that it was because the patterns looked similar, but the real reason is I didn't want to wait for the pattern to be ordered in.

I was doing so well, my collar was looking great although I had trouble with the part of the collar band where you have to cover the raw seam at the edge of the shirt - (I may send Pam a message via Craftsy about this and let you know what she says).  Other than that I was progressing nicely and my shirt at that point looked very professional.

However the inevitable happened once I got to the placket, my pattern has a two piece sleeve and a sort of grown on placket as opposed to the Kwik Sew one piece sleeve and separate placket. I thought that I'd watch Pam's method and read the Vogue instructions and work it out.  Hmm, it wasn't so much worked out as cobbled together, the outcome wasn't great on the inside but the outside looked passable so I carried on to the second sleeve.  Only to find out that I'd cleverly made two left sleeves, don't you hate that?  Well fortunately I still had lots of the black linen left so I thought I'd finish off the one sleeve and then start over again with the second.  Soldiering on I got to cuffs and this is when I threw in the towel.

My cuffs are not like Pam's cuffs, mine are in two pieces and the Kwik Sew cuffs are one piece folded over.  However having read the questions on the Craftsy platform it transpires that one of the suggested Kwik Sew patterns are the same so Pam has addressed how to work with this type.  Hooray - I thought I can plough on through only to find that the width of my cuffs is shorter than my sleeve edges.  I had basted my pleats, so I don't know where I went wrong.  Now if I had bought one of the suggested patterns I could ask where I'd gone wrong, but as I'd gone off piste I'm done for.

I've packed away the ironing board, tidied up my sewing table and am writing this feeling very cross with myself.  I'm not sure that there's much point in continuing, cutting out and resewing a correct sleeve and attempting to stuff a sleeve that's about 2.5cm's too big into a cuff.  Even if I can get it to work it's not going to look good and the whole point is to learn how to sew well.  I think I should treat my work over the last few days as a lesson partly in how to make a classic tailored shirt and partly in being more patient and doing what I'm told first time.

Now, I wonder if there are any fabric shops in North West England that stock Kwik Sew patterns?