the easy peasy tank top dress

When I was a little girl, my mom made me three dresses from tank tops and what at the time was probably a half yard of fabric. I remember one in particular, a blue ribbed tank with a skirt of a red, yellow, and blue ditzy floral seersucker. I remember them as being my favorite summer outfit.

 

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that this is nothing new under the sun, and actually, someone had improved upon it? I wasn't really surprised, more like, oh how cleaver. Wish I'd thought of that sooner. 

I read two tutorials about how to make these,  but the clearest by far was from A Small Snippet's blog about making just the dress I'd had as a child. Of course, for a child, you end up not needing nearly as much yardage for the skirt, and the skirt on my dresses was short because I was playing in them.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure how my mother made the dress so that the waistband wasn't restrictive. I tried making another teeshirt dress with a shirt and an attached skirt, but it just didn't work.  I wanted something breezy and non-binding for a midsummer surgery, and I really wanted these to work. 

Enter elastic thread.

I used my Singer Precision to sew two of these dresses, and I was able to wind the elastic thread on my bobin using the machine bobin winder just like regular thread, no problems. The problem was I now have umpteen bazillion yards of elastic thread because a cone of the stuff was all I could manage to find. Pandemic problems, much? Unless you're planning to make several for yourself, your kids, the nieces, the neighbor's kids, the little Dritz package of elastic thread will suffice. Unless you've got another use for elastic thread in which case, go nuts, buy the big one. 

So, I've convinced you, you want to make one. Excellent. I'm not going to rewrite the tutorial here, but I will add these notes from my making experience that may make your life easier.

Materials you may or may not have on hand

A tank to cut up - As I said, I got mine at WalMart, I paid $3, if that? The fit for the green one is loose, the pink is more snug. 

Fabric yardage - you do need to measure, and you can measure either by using a tape, measuring your waist (or where your bra band is, if that's where you want the skirt to hit), and add half whatever that number is, OR you can go to the fabric store, and wrap yardage off the bolt one and a half times, and have them cut it at that spot at the cutting counter. If you're still confused...
Say a 40 inch waist, which means you add 20 inches to that for a total of 60". Which is roughly 1 and 2/3 yards of fabric. See, I practically did the math for you. There's also nothing saying that you couldn't use more yardage and have a fuller skirt, but I'm not sure why you'd want to? It's a giant tube, so it's not going to flair out at the bottom. 

Elastic thread - essential. Your waistband won't be elastic without it. Trust me. You need that waistband to have some give. Did I mention I had surgery? Did I mention I was ridiculously bloated beforehand? To the point I looked five months pregant? This dress had me comfortably covered. I'm also wearing them post surgery because they don't interfere with the incisions.  

Some construction notes - 

- Elastic thread isn't that scarry. It really isn't, and it's going to help you get that dress on after you're done sewing, trust me. 

- I wish I could have tried the tanks on ahead of time (dressing rooms closed, thanks COVID). I wouldn't have bothered with the green one, though it does do a better job of covering everything it's supposed to. The pink one not so much.
The lighting is horrible in this picture, but you can see there's a light colored stripe running around the front of my shoulder. That's where the tank doesn't cover my light pink bra. It's not just this bra, either, it's all of them.

For reference, I'm a 36F, and the tank is a 3X Time and Tru from Wal-Mart. I marked three inches above my natural waist on the tank (with a pin) for the skirt, which also happens to hit my bra band. For the skirt length, I measured my bra band to ankle length, and added about two and a half inches for seam allowance and hemming. Since you cut one of the selvage (woven side) edges off to get your length, I used the finished edge at the top to keep things neat, and hemmed the cut edge - it gave me an excuse to try the blind hem foot.  

- I took the extra step of finishing the inside of the pink floral gown by leaving a big seam allowance of the knit fabric, trimming down the print, and making a casing (French seam) out of the pink knit. On the outside, it looks like I have 1/4 inch elastic at the waist... but as you can see from the inside, it's really that small folded over casing, and three rounds of elastic thread keeping things snug but not too snug. I wore this pink gown to the hospital on surgery day with a little lightweight cardigan, and the waist band stayed up and out of the way of the incisions, which was the overall goal.

- The back seam of the dress is the only seam - aside from the bottom hem - that doesn't use the elastic thread in the bobbin. I wish I would have taken the five seconds to finish the raw edge of the back seam - it's just a nicer presentation, and it really is more comfortable to wear. 

 The tutorial I followed said a vent for a maxi dress was optional.
Hah.
 Save yourself the trouble. Put in a vent.
It doesn't even have to be that long,  I think the vent in this one is 10 inches at most? Just remember to mark how long you want the vent to come up from the raw hem edge, reinforce the top of the vent, and stitch the edges of the vent down. I did the back seam first, and back stitched at the top of the vent. I then clipped the seam allowance so that the vent edges were separate from the back seam and rolled them under, and I top stitched up one side and down the other, back stitching at the top of the vent. Remember how I said I was lazy? I should have finished the back seams while I was at it, and just reinforced the top of the vent while I had everything turned under. Alas. 

Last but not least. I don't have a picture of the waistband that you make out of the leftover bit of fabric you cut off the edge of the fabric. I end up tying them in a square knot because they're not long enough to make a bow. They also don't stay in place that well. I'm seriously considering making belt loops, either out of fabric or using some crochet cotton and making a little crochet chain I can stitch to the sides to keep the belt in place. Why the belt? It coveres the join, and it does make the dress look more finished. 

gym-ish shorts

I love these shorts. My mother says they look like pajamas and I shouldn't wear them out of the house... this may have something to do with my choices of fabric. Regardless, I sort of don't care what she thinks about it because they are so comfortable. They've been made for a while now, but I haven't gotten around to posting about them because life? COVID? They're probably two years old, maybe three. 

These shorts [for me, at least] fall into the category of Things-I-Can-Make-With-a-Yard-of-Fabric, or conversely 3/4 of a yard of this and half a yard of that. And some very rando bias tape. Something else I love about these shorts is that there is no pattern - shut the front door, I know! Here's the however because I can see you've already decided you don't want to bother without a paper pattern because anything without a paper pattern is too hard. If you have any kind of straight ruler, a measuring tape, a bowl, and either a few brown paper bags from TJ's or WF or a roll of wrapping paper, you, too, can do this. Pinky promise.

Some things to note:

If you're liking the shorts idea but don't really want your shorts to wrap around, check out this pattern from Purl Soho City Gym Shorts

I mashed up two patterns to do this; the instructions and pattern from a pair of shorts designed by Tara Miller and published in the Stitch Magazine originally and the measurement instructions for these Tap Pants [which I also have made]. I made the tap pants first, and then adjusted the tap pants pattern so that it had the lines I wanted for the gym shorts [tulip shorts, boudoir shorts, seriously, these things go by many names]. The Miller design wants you to cut out out the front fold over bit as two pieces, so that there is a side seam. If you follow the original, you can add pockets. Don't get me wrong, I love me some pockets. At this juncutre, I didn't want a side seam, especiallynot when I planned to use a solid for the back and sides where the seam would be obvious. The blue rose print would hide a side seam better. 

Making the side panel and back panel into one is simple enough. If the pieces are already cut out, simply fold the seam allowance bit over (if you're the type to include a seam allowance in a paper pattern - I am, I never remember to put it back in!) and tape the edges together, or if you're feeling very bold and daring, lay the two pieces down together on the fabric with the edges lined up and pin them to the fabric to cut out the pieces. You make have made a pattern alignment mark, such as commercial patterns have notches so you know where to line things up. That should help. 

And that's it! This doesn't really change the construction of the shorts, only that you've eliminated two side seams. 

Project of the year, 2020

Well, howdy. Its been a while.

I've been pursuing master's degree #2 which hasn't left a lot of time - or let's face it, interest - for writing outside of the academic. But it's winter break now, and I've caught a moment to breathe.

I've been hearing rumblings about the new Pantone color, the latest this, new year's resolutions et cetera, and it made me reflect on the projects I have in progress and the ones I completed.

I actually finished a Dr. #4 scarf! And I gifted it! I have a picture of it done; I'll post it eventually.

I also finished a pair of mittens and a hat which were also gifted. And I knit myself a new hat and cowl set, and a hat to match another cowl. [None of which I have pictures of, of course.]

A little extra space was found to set up the sewing machine, and while I really wanted to start something new [don't we all?] I took a look back and began digging things out that were partially completed. I finished the top of an I Spy throw, and in the process, I ended up donating a 30-gallon trash bag worth of fabric to a charity that makes small lap and lovey blankets for nursing home patients and children in crisis. I could have easily given more; I may yet. I felt such relief in letting it go and knowing that it would be put to use instead of being mouse eaten, dry rotting or molding in storage until I got to it. In this mess of donated fabric, I found a partially completed quilt that had been given to me to finish, one that I knew I never would. It had been given to me by someone parting with their mother's fabric stash. I have already come to a standstill where it comes to buying more fabric to stash. I'm working on not buying any more yarn unless it's to finish a project, which is a hardship given that there's this new, scrummy local yarn shop with fabulous fibers.

All this got me thinking:
Do I really want a legacy of half-finished projects?

That said, my goals for 2020 are to finish some projects that I already have started:

1. Finish hand quilting a utility quilt - confession. I'm not even sure which project I was referring to. Maybe the orange marmalade one? 
2. Bind two matching green quilts - I know exactly where these are. Under a bunch of mask making supplies. 
3. Finish a green 18th-century jacket   Done and done! :D
4. Finish the 18th-century linen gown   Its done! I finished it for a weekend event 10/24/ 2020!
5. Finish the 18th-century worsted wool gown - So. Stinkin'. Close. (I'm not sure when the last update of this was, but now as of 10/30, it's even closer to being done than it was when I last updated this)
6. Find the missing Row By Row from 5 or 6 years ago [whenever the water theme was] Located 3/2020
7. Find the missing Cathedral Windows rag quilt Located! currently working on finishing, 7/2020
8. Find the missing Asian bunny squares  - these have been located! 2/8/2020 (Confession, I started buying fabric to complete this project, after researching what I wanted to do with it)
9. Fix my mouse nibbled hat [this may involve buying fabric!] -  This has ALSO been finished, thanks to a sewing weekend get away with friends! Now it needs to be trimmed, to cover the mouse eaten bits

This ought to keep me plenty busy for the new year.

This post originally published on 12/26/2019, updated 7/28/2020, 10/30/2020

Sweet dreams: bedding for a tiny bed

After making a small bed out of a combination of balsa and bass and painting it a federal blue, and then making a tufted mattress for it stuffed with six layers of cotton quilt batting, I found some wool and cotton blend sock yard at the local charity shop that I knit up on 2.5mm  DP needles [I realize it's not finished, but I needed it for the pictures. It's 40 sts, done in a knit 1 purl 1 rib for 5 rows, then switches or a stockinet for 4 rows with 3 stitches of seed on each end and the 5th row is garter, knit to the desired length, which was this bed specifically. Folks kept thinking I was knitting a miniature rug or a potholder; it's such lovely yarn in person, I wouldn't want to muck it up with grease. 

The blue fabric below was labeled 'summer denim'. It's hardly what I'd call a denim; it's a straight weave and the only thing it has in common with denim is the color and the warp/weft white blue combo. Otherwise it's very light weight.

It's too big for the little blue bed, and too narrow for the double bed. I had thought to make a coverlet and double it over, but for the scale of the miniatures, I'm going to leave it alone. As a weave, the design is reversible if a little big. Color wise, it would have been appropriate for the 19th century. A turkey red would have been more difficult to accomplish, but the use of a white warp and a colored weft still might have been costly for something as large as a blanket. Not that people didn't do it.

 

Princess Elizabeth [Darcy]

 Back when dolls actually resembled human form but melted in the rain...

row by row experience 2015 - row one

I finally got on the cool kid train and picked up my first row pattern at Kelly's
Sewing Corner in Erie! I'm keeping everything organized in my wicked cool binder from my college days as a member of Alpha Psi Omega - I don't remember what our rush was, but we picked Wicked as our musical and I did a fusible appliqué for my binder instead of printing out a color image and sliding it into the front of a binder pocket.

I also picked up some excellent fabric to help tie the quilt together -  the beach glass was made especially for the Row By Row experience this year. And for Erie, why no one has lobbied for beach glass fabric before, I'll never know. People are obsessed with the stuff. For real.

I'm going to use my batik stash for this project, since one of my goals is to move on with a bin of finished quilt tops/finished quilts and not bins of fabric... we will see how that works out... you should see how many bins of potential projects I have... forget the bins of loose fabric...

Anyway. The first row I picked up!

 The star part is pretty straight forward, I just found the cutting directions confusing at first - like the 'cut star points' {what? oh, you want me to cut out squares, gotcha. Tell me that first, the way you told me to cut out 4 rectangles.}

 Then to complete the row, you have to make the chevron wave blocks and add 'bubble fabric' [the dark bars]. At least the chevron is sewn by making strips, or I'd have thrown this out the window, or made it up myself.

When I make this myself, I plan on grading the colors of the block so that chevrons go light to dark the way water would. I appreciate the use of nautical fabric, but I found it a little busy myself.

Awesome in a stand

A friend just dropped this off at my parent's house for me... At first, I want sure what it was, and then she opened it up...

And my jaw hit the floor. Her mom saw something like it years ago and her dad built it. They created a fabric panel for both sides, which does cut down on the weight of the case, but I'm guessing it's at least 40 years old, just dating the fabric. 

Closed, it's 36 1/2 inches tall, 16 1/2 inches long and 6 inches deep, with 3  interior shelves on each side, for a total of 6. It's a basic box construction, except that instead of being flush with the ground, the bottom sits up about 3 inches, giving the case feet. 

Today, I ripped the fabric off the back, pulled out all the tacks and fabric, and began priming it. The fabric is dryrotted and smells a little musty, so it's time for a change. There was no sanding, just priming. In the basement. With a window cracked (I know, super intelligent...)

The lighting down in the basement is terrible... 

It's been painted a pale blue, the bottom shelf raspberry. The bottom pocket is a little off, but not enought for me to want to rip the tacks out and readjust it. 

The fabric on the back is upholstery grade, the interior is a twill and a light weight canvas. 

Of course, I got it all set up on the vanity where I sew and the machine decided to quit working. But it's ready to go, and it's been a fabulous place to store the fabric for and finished Christmas presents I was sewing. 

String theory

At the quilt show last  year I bought this bag of scraps that included stings of skinny strips that had been sewn together. My initial impression was to make a wall hanging. Except that, inevitably, I ended up saving my own skinny strips... because a string quilt would be great. Add it to the bucket list.

I have a friend who has made it her goal to be able to pack her life in her station wagen. At the time of that conversation, I knew I had a lot of stuff in my place. I knew there was no way I could pack my life into my new car. To that end, I've been trying not to buy extraneous things, and weed through my life - if something comes, something must go. As for new fabric, I'm trying not to buy any, to use what I have laying around to finish a project [she says as she comes home from this years quilt show with about 8 yards of assorted shirting material...] I did not come home with 8 new spools of ribbon... I'm quite proud of this.

 But seriously. Quilts travel better than fabric. I did buy the grey, to tie it all together; everything else is pulled out of storage or left over from previous projects. This does, however, mean that I am in desperate need of thread. Spools of thread are small though.

deux par deux

 

Not sure why I've got this burning desire to make, make, make. I've got two quilts at binding stage, a small wall hanging that is being quilted as I can get to it and now more tops. Forgive the awful lighting in my apartment - I run into the problem of light and space very quickly. This one is done except for the border and is hanging in the closet. The one below was listed as "experienced" and has been the biggest pain to put together that when I finally got the braid assembled I put it away before I threw it out from frustration - the rest should be a piece of cake.

We're currently locked in a low pressure that brought along some frigid cold temperatures. An infographic from NOAA listed this region as HOTH, and I heartily agree with them. If only we had tauntauns. I have the day off, but since it's so cold and everything is canceled [and I have a sinus infection] is it worth going out? No, not likely. Even though I could really use some cough drops, OJ and chicken soup. Okay, and a fabric run. Which really tells me that a day of rest was a good thing. I should probably just stay home and fold socks.

Mystery quilt a not so much

I tried. I really did. Sigh. Maybe I'm just not good at following directions. By the time the second set of directions for the mystery quilt 'Tranquility' came out I realized I had a big, big problem, made glaringly obvious by the photographs supplied by the director of the project.

This is what I should've had. This is not what I had. All the little squares I cut? I followed the directions and sewed them all together. This was not what you were supposed to do. I like to think that my first hiccough in referencing pictures against instructions was because the instructor used fabrics that were very, very dark and terribly close together on the color wheel... And the pictures weren't terribly well lit.

It wasn't until I got a look at the next set of pictures in the next set of directions that I realized exactly what it was I was supposed to be doing. This is not what I had sewn together either. There was much rending of seams and gnashing of teeth. At which point, I bagged it.

The whole project, by the way, is finished; all the instructions are posted on the website and the participants are voting now on their favorite finished project. Life kind of, you know, happened and I got busy. Which is just as well. Had I kept merrily sewing away I would've had a lot of seams to work out.

I think I need to go back to first grade or maybe even kindergarten and have a lesson in following directions. :P

Rather than try to make their project, I'm just going to come up with something else. 

so I went home and sewed something...

I stayed up until two in the morning finishing it [not today, over the weekend], but it actually turned out pretty nice. And ... big. I probably could have cut down the front panel and the image context wouldn't have been lost. But what's done is done. It has two interior pockets; one of them zippered, and an interior divider [does that make it four interior pockets?], and three exterior pockets with two pen holders.

It holds a laptop - that's the laptop in there, incase you are wondering. The bag isn't padded, so without a protective sleeve, I wouldn't just shove a lappy in there. But it'll hold one. I did use a heavy interfacing for the bottom and thin sides of the bag. I think the only thing it needs is a button for the back ruffle pocket. I had wussy, skinny elastic instead of really wide stuff, which is probably why it's slouchy. The pocket on the back could have been placed lower, and one of the straps as a twist in it that I will need to untwist [it was two in the morning. sweing at two in the morning is a bda idea.] 

Did I use a pattern? Not really no... I looked at tutorials on how to make gathered pockets, but those didn't tell me what I wanted to know, so I had to run with it. The back pocket is a giant rectangle; the bottom is gathered to the point that it matched the dimensions of the back exterior, and I cut the bottom corners to match the curve. The top part has a channel to hold the elastic. 

ordinary time

Working on the project formerly known as purple hots, I have myself a second degree burn on the inside of my right forearm. Whoops.  I used to not press anything - who has time to press seams open, for real?! And then realization hit when one of the quilts I was trying to quilt failed miserably on the hoop, and I had to frog it all apart. The iron has yet to see the inside of the closet. 

Since the fabric arrived in the mail, the project has progressed from this point - 

To this -

I didn't mean for there to be red points on the perimeter of the quilt; I took the PRAXIS Fundamental Subjects: Content Knowledge test this afternoon and was attempting to calm myself down ahead of time by sewing (hahaha...) but I think that the points contribute well to the overall movement of the piece. It also spreads the red around, which also adds some more balance to the project, so I'm happy. What I'm still fencing over is whether to finish sashing it in green, yellow, or purple, what color to do the binding in, and whether or not I want to add some decorative piping, such as this raspberry batik piping from the "Jubilee" quilt from the show last weekend. And of course, if I did add piping, what color would I do that in?

A preliminary outline of the quilt looked something like this - obviously missing the points, with two rings of sashing; an inner ring of yellow and an outer of a lighter purple, which leaves me feeling blah. I was trying to figure out the dimensions for this project last night during a class break and came up with something like 4 feet by 6 feet - ridiculous! - which I blame on exhaustion and a nasty sinus infection, which had only been diagnosed yesterday at noon. 

 I know, midterms, sinus infection, PRAXIS... it's Friday and a wonder I'm still alive and I didn't have to frog this project. But it's coming along. I probably won't have it completely finished for Christmas, but most of the way there would be nice. People have given 'most of the way there' quilts as gifts before, right? I skipped going to the Thursday quilting group at the library - midterms, sinus infection, et all - so I'm hoping that next week, I'll have the top finished enough to posit the final sashing, binding and piping questions to some other eyes. It is at a nice throw size right now, which is the intention for this project, so it does not need to grow. 

bookshelf, bookshelf on the wall...

What would a blog about quilting and fabric be if there weren't things like this? I saw this in the library and had to have my own copy, because, if you can't tell from the cover, the illustrations in this book are thread paintings.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 

Adapted by Joan Aiken, illustrated by Belinda Downes

DK CHILDREN; 1st edition (October 1, 2002),

ISBN: 0789487993

Anyway, I'm not sure of the legality of photographing the pages and posting pictures, so I'll refrain, but even if you don't have a small child in your life, look this book up at a library; Ms. Downes went to splendid effort breathing life into this story.