Boot Cut Custom Pattern

I have been working hard trying to get this pattern perfected from my sloper. I did a post on this here and used this book to draft a pattern.

 

Here are a few pics of my fitting stage, these are basted up with my dissolving thread that I can just iron out instead of unpicking!

So initially I wanted the waist band to finish at the waist but look like a low-rise …in the end it just looks like a normal waist band lol. Not sure how to construct a waist band,  I did my best and thought it didn’t turn out so bad. I added twill tape to make sure the waist does not stretch. I also interfaced the areas where the button and buttonhole will go for added sturdiness.

I designed these pockets by taking a wax paper impression of pockets from a favorite pair of jeans I have.  I blogged about that here.

I made these pockets extend all the way to the center front so that gives them some “tummy tuckin’ strength”  I used a pretty white swirly print cotton for the pocket lining.

I used a metal zip so it is nice and sturdy to go along with the tummy tuck pockets that will surely keep all my jelly donuts in place. The fly zip went in beautifully and I could not have had an easier time with that thanks to the craftsy course I just completed on pants. Check out that course here.

I wanted to do minimal topstitching so the pants had a semi dressy appearance to them. I used jean topstitching thread and a stitch length of 4.0.  completed with doing a blind hem. Again I love to hem them super long so with my everyday shoes they are just barely off the floor. Hoping it gives the illusion of lengthier legs.

Initially during construction I was going to attach the outer legs first and top stitch them in some pretty decorative stitch…..but I chickened out! Wasn’t sure if this would look good with a boot cut? Maybe it would have just looked cheesy lol.  In the end I did nothing creative and just topstitched the inner leg seam.

I love this button I found for these pants!!

These final pictures I decided to wear these pretty high heel beige sandals and it turns out there is way too much of a heel for the length I made these pants. So after boasting about how nice and long they are …..I’m wearing floods!! My go to pair of comfy shoes do look great with the length of these pants. I should have looked in the mirror first before I got my hubby to snap the photos!

So what do you guys think? Do they look wonky because it is my own pattern or do they look like normal pants?

I must say they are super comfortable and have become my new favorite pants!!!

My next course I started is making your own bodice pattern. Yes it is yet another Craftsy course!! I hope it is as successful as my pant sloper.

I did try to graph out the bodice sloper from the book I have: How to make sewing patterns.

I must have done something wrong though, because the pattern even looked wonky. When I cut out the muslin and tried a pin fitting, well…….lets just say it had me in stitches(I know what a groaner of a joke) hardy har har!! (to embarrassed to even show you a pic) So maybe I will get a more visual idea of what I am doing with this course!

I am in love with the drafting process of making a pattern! I find it as much fun as sewing!! So as I mentioned before if anyone wants to send me measurements for me to construct a pant sloper for you with your exact measurements you can email me at nicole.grigor@gmail.com and I will let you know what measurements I need. I will do it free of charge of course I am no expert and I just want to practice and get better at doing this. You may fall in love with this book as I have 🙂

Happy Sewing

Princess Seams Dress

When I first bought this pattern McCall’s M5890 I was very excited about it! If you make all pieces from this one envelope you have a complete wardrobe that would be fantastic for travel!!!

This is the story of how I became so frustrated with commercial patterns and the desire to sew was zapped out of me for about a month! So according to my measurements I would be size 16.  When I tried the dress as is it was absolutely huge! I was using the right fabric, right size, right needle, right thread, ……(you get the picture)

Turns out I had to re-baste this savage beast 3  times!!!! Arrghhh! I think this made the armscye all wonky because when I went to turn the raw edges under and make a baby hem the tips of the shoulders had a weird shape.  I calmly unpicked that  I threw it in the corner and lost ambition on fixing yet another problem!

So I picked this back up recently and unpicked the sleeve hem and cut off the wonky parts.  I re-hemmed them using my dissolving thread.  Turns out I liked the armscye and sewed them with permanent thread.

On some scraps I tried tweaking my serger to get a rolled hem just right. Turns out Sally Serger was being difficult. The edges were not laying flat and looked horrible. View exhibit A below. Scandalous I know!

So I resorted to cheating and used strips of dissolvable stabilizer but hey…..check out exhibit B below.

A word on rolled hems.  My lower looper thread keeps breaking when I fool with the tension too much. It doesn’t seem to be rolling under so I tried to tighten it and  SNAP!  I did buy some below quality thread that was on sale when I first bought a serger so that might be it. Anyone else have a hard time with this looper? I may get a good brand name thread for that problematic looper and see if that makes a difference.

Here is the finished product. I love the print on this knit and it has a beautiful soft hand to this fabric.

Vogue 1050 complete

I had very high hopes for these pants but my end result was far from good. I will share my failures with you because I need to bitch to someone about my plight  I think we all learn something everytime we pull a chair up to our sewing machine.

Cons:

• I hate the fabric I chose, it is a cheap polyester and I thought the drape would be nice and the fact that they shouldn’t wrinkle very much.  In the end the sheen it has screams cheap 😦  The drape is quite stiff and does not hold any sort of crease, which of course is uber important for the large pleat at the side seam.
• The invisible zipper was a bitch to put in for some reason.  I don’t usually have such hardships with zippers but its obvious a weakness for me and I need to practice. There is a slight bubble or weirdness to the back center where the zipper is…..maybe I will wear a long coat with these pants lol
• The waist band turned out a little wonky and in hindsight I should have had the zip go all the way up to the top of the waist band.  I have a hook and eye closure at the top, but this left a gap that is pretty unsightly.
• The fabric does not hold a crease well, and the large pleats on the side seam doesn’t fall as nicely as I would have hoped.

Pros:

• I do love this pattern. I think now that I have made a sloper for myself (another post about that soon) I will use these design features and try these pants again with appropriate fabric.
• hmmmm that’s all I got I loved wasting 15-20 hours on these pair of “what the heck are you wearing” pair of pants it was good experience and practice…..lol

I finally bought the frog closures. It was hard to find a color I felt would go with the grey and black. I was trying to find a silver or grey of some sort. There aren’t many choices at my local craft store so I just got black. Let me just say I hate hand sewing and applying all these frogs by hand was time consuming and tedious!

Again I tried to hem these as long as possible.

If I am brave enough to wear these in public I think this pattern and fabric will look really cute with these pants. The peplum top will cover the waistband. This was another craftsy steal at $12.94 for the material and pattern! I was going to get the link for you guys but it seems they have sold out of this kit.

Palazzo Pants

I finally finished these palazzo pants! I used Butterick pattern B4807

I may have had to nip in this pattern more at the waist as I usually need to with comercial patterns but since the leg design is so wide, long and flowy they looked great as is 🙂

Super fast and easy sew! I finished the edges with my serger and hemmed them super long ….maybe too long but with heels it will be just barely off the floor. I am trying to get the most out of the illusion of height that I can 🙂

This material is a very thin flowy polyester of some sort I got this at the fabric district in LA for $2.00 a yard!! I feel like I am wearing PJ’s they are uber comfortable!  I made view B and it took a total of 2 hours with alterations. Cost $6.00

Happy Sewing 🙂

Sewing Tips and Tidbits

I bought some of this thread on Amazon.com

The latest course I am taking introduced this product to me and I never knew it existed!!

Why would you want your stitches to dissolve you ask……BASTING!! Brilliant right!

You use this thread in your bobbin and needle for basting up your muslin.  Does anyone out there make the perfect first muslin that you don’t need to unpick? I say NO!   If you do, PLEASE tell me your secret! When you need to get rid of the basting stitches take your iron and plenty of steam and iron them away. This thread will only work with material that you can use steam on. You can always do a test on a piece of scrap 🙂

I can’t wait to try this product out! I am working on a new muslin now with the design elements I chose.  I decided on a faux low rise waistband with fly front, pockets and a boot cut fit.

Here is my new pattern sloper taken from my block pattern and altered from hip to hem for leg design.

I copied the front pocket design from a pair of my jeans using wax paper.  Another great trick I learned from this course. You just take your finger nail and scrape center front, side seam, waist seam and your pocket. Then trace over in a sharpie and apply to your sloper!

You can use this to trace any sort of design from RTW.  I may start bringing rolls of wax paper with me when I try on clothes at the store  😉

One more tip. I wish I would have known this tip when I took Angela Wolf’s class on making jeans. If you don’t have a template for the fly use a spool of thread to get the curve of the fly. In my case you can also use it too get the curve of the fly front during the drafting stage.

Happy Sewing!