How to do a Perfect Curved Hem

A clean finish on a hem that is not straight is tough. The curve tends to pucker a hem.  To prevent this you can staystitch while applying your finger to the back of the foot thus applying resistance to the fabric from coming out freely.  This is also known as staystitch plus.  This eases the fabric as noted by these tiny accordion type looking pleats:

 

If your fabric is very convex then you may want to run a basting stitch and pull up the fabric to gather it even more in order to fold it in neatly.

Now turn your raw edge up right at the stay stitching line, using this as your guideline for folding and pressing, press under once more so you have a nice clean edge:

Now I use my overlocking foot to do hems a lot of the time. This is my cheat method.  There is a knife like projection in the middle of this foot. This is your guide that you place the fold next to as you sew you get a perfectly straight and even hem!

How easy is that?

The Abby A-Line Skirt

I use to love using contrasting colors and different fabrics to construct clothes for my daughter Abby and being like a kid myself I thought this design element would be a bit fun to bring into adult clothes.

Thus the Abby A-line skirt it is 🙂

I used a fun cotton for the pocket facings too because I’m such a kid:

The pocket backs are black as well as the band on the bottom of the skirt and unfilled piping along the waist band:

I lined this skirt with aqua to pick up the blue on the print of the skirt. Plus its my favorite color. My favorite thing to do is bring out the color I love about the fabric and use this in my serger as well!

Before committing to the side seams I baste first and try it on just in case it needs some tweaking:

I put in an invisible zip and I think I finally have this zipper thing down! I am going to make a tutorial on invisible zips soon.

There will be no raw edges showing, I will be hand sewing the waist band in place, as well as around the zip, and the bottom of the band. I usually hate hand sewing but when I did my pencil skirt with hand finishing touches it was kind of relaxing and enjoying. Wow did I just say that?

I love the lining in these skirts, it hangs better and feels fantastic!

And here is the skirt completed!! Yay, I spent 3 hours in total hand sewing and finishing touches AKA: button 🙂

and again I think a dark neutral top looks best with a busy print:

 

Drafting the A-Line

What sewing projects are you working on?

I have been using my skirt block and drafting a new skirt. This time I choose an A-Line shape. I started off with 2 inch insertions but it turned out a bit to flare for my taste. I redrafted with 1.5 inch insertions and was happy with the drape.

I want this skirt to be more casual but still fun so I decided on a color block design.

I am going to have the pocket area a contrasting color as well as a band on the bottom of the skirt. I had some scraps lying around and did a mock-up in muslin to see if I would like it.

I think it will be very cute in the fabric I bought. Here is a sneak peek (I am completely finished it except for hand sewing)

I am still plugging away on my bodice sloper too! This was an absolute mess, I had so many copies I had tweaked lying around, ahhh why did I not consolidate these changes!!  That took 3 hours or so to recheck and recopy a master draft with careful measurements and ….yes yet another muslin…

 

It takes a long time for the instructor to get back to the student. She has so many classes she teaches and I can just imagine what her email box looks like! Yikes.

So what changes should I make?? I don’t know what else to do. My CB is shorter than my CF which is really weird and not really suppose to happen right? So I would hate to shorten it any more, but I think it needs some sort of tweaking??

Pencil Skirt with Flounce (custom made by me)!!

I have oodles and oodles of pictures to share with you!! I am so excited about how this skirt turned out! Thank you CRAFTSY and your drafting courses!!

Ok so I drafted a high-waisted pencil skirt, with a flounce and facing. It was so nice to cut into REAL fabric for a change and not MUSLIN!

Here is the skirt shell: Check out my darts, no bubbles on the vanishing point of the darts! YAY! These courses will make you really good at darts and confident with your construction.

The invisible zip went in surprisingly well. I don’t know why but zippers always make me nervous and are usually a bitch to put in!  I interfaced this area with fusible interfacing.

I basted the side seams and tried it on, it was perfect so I went ahead and sewed it for real. I also serged the edges to get a clean look.

I prepared my flounces and facing:

I cut out my lining and pleated the dart areas. I serged it and pressed it ready for applying the facing:

The facing got sewed onto the skirt, everything matched up very well. I edged stitch along the facing so that it would stay put better. The lining is folded up a 1/4 inch twice for a clean finish:

Now comes the flounces:

I prepped these by stabilizing the inner circle by stitching both the material and the lining. I stitched them together along the outer edge with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. I took my time to clip the lining and fashion fabric, staggering the clips so that when they are turned they will fan out nicely with no “gaposis”

 

It’s a bitch to do but if you open up the seams first on a pressing hem before turning you will get a nice finished smooth look.  A clapper helps with that too 🙂

I attached the flounce to the skirt then clipped gently into the lining to help turn under to sew in place.

I was so excited to finish this skirt I hand sewed the lining around the zipper and the whole lining of the flounce in place all in one night doing the tiniest slip stitches. It took 3 hours! Ta da!!

Close up of flounce…..

Lining near the zip…

Inside out, upside down, sunny side up!!!!!! I know, I know, I have a ton of pictures.  Can you tell I am excited or what??!! ;)…..

and another close up for giggles…

Ok here are some pics of me wearing it so you can actually see the fit 🙂 I have a major hole in my wardrobe to find a top that will go with this high-waisted style but what I had wasn’t too horrible.

Viola’s Sheppards Pie

While making supper Friday I snapped some pictures with my iPhone.  I thought I would share with you this version of my mom’s shepherds pie 🙂 Traditionally the topping is mashed potatoes but to mix things up a bit my mom decided to slice thin potatoes and just cook them that way with butter and salt and pepper.

First off cook 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef with salt and pepper to taste with 1 clove of garlic (or 2 if you really like garlic) finely minced.

I got so caught up in my potatoes I forgot to get a shot of the corn! I know corn is so exciting lol.

 

Take a can of cream corn and layer that on top of your ground beef along with two cans of regular corn and spread that layer even as well. This brings a lot of moisture to the dish as well as flavor. Who doesn’t like corn right?

Next take 4 potatoes or so (mine are puny so I have a few more) and roughly peel them. Now slice them into thin slices. This is where I break out my mandoline to make short work of this process 🙂

Layer your finely sliced potatoes on top of the corn layer and sprinkle with salt and pepper and a drizzle of EVOO

Hmm because I’m french I need to add butter right here!

and cheese…..(flakes of Parmigiano-Reggiano)

Ok into a 425 Degree oven it goes for 40-45 minutes till the potatoes are tender.

Voila:

I served this with a nice light herb salad with fresh tomatoes

Bon Appetite! This is so easy to make and delicious I hope you guys try it out 🙂

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 1hr
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1-2 cloves of garlic minced.
• 1 can of cream corn
• 2 cans of regular corn
• 4 medium size potatoes
• 1 tbsp of EVOO
• 4 tablespoons of butter cut up in pieces
• 1/2 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large skillet brown your ground beef with salt and pepper to taste, along with your garlic. Layer this into a 9X12 pan.  Layer the cream corn next then the 2 cans of regular corn.

Roughly peel your potatoes and slice thinly.  Layer this on top of the corn add your salt, pepper, EVOO, butter and cheese.

Place in oven for 40-45 min (till potatoes are fork tender) Let cool for 10 min and enjoy!