Category Archives: Sewing

Poncho with Insertion Stitch

Posted on April 24, 2013 by | 1 Comment

ponsjo1

I’m not entirely sure that I like this garment. (The photo is bad. I broke the remote, and since then I have been have trouble taking decent photos of myself) I’m wearing the poncho right now and it’s nice and warm, but I haven’t made up my mind if I like the look of it or not yet.

The idea was to combine the rawness of the cut, unfinished slits with the delicateness of the embroidery, but I’m not sure that it worked out as I planned.

Should you like to do anything similar, you need fabric of some sort. I used thin wool that I felted ever so slightly in the washing machine, before I cut out two pieces, each 90×56 cm (35.5X22 in) and in turn cut rows of roughly 6cm (2in) slits into them.

I cut the slits freehand, but I folded the fabric and made a tiny 3 cm (1 in) mark in the scissors to make the work faster and easier.

The pieces are sewn together with a insertion stitch called Italian faggotting.
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It’s described here (just scroll down a bit) and there is an excellent article about other insertion stitches here.

Here are detailed tutorials for three types of insertion stitches, knotted insertion stitch, twisted insertion stitch and buttonhole insertion stitch.

The poncho is hemmed (the raw edges were just a bit too ugly) by hand with buttonhole stitch.

So what do you think? Ugly and unflattering or passable? Be honest, I can take it.

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Posted in Embroidery, Sewing

A Tale of Three Dresses (part two)

Posted on April 22, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Several days ago I was entrusted with three lovely dresses from Togo and asked to alter them. The dresses are made in the Divine Providence sewing room in Aneho, Togo. The first part of the Three Dress Tale is here.

Finishing the last dress took embarrassingly long.  And still, I altered that one the least.

I left the neckline and armholes just as they were, but I did remove the dreaded shoulder pads.

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The pleats are lovely and not too stiff and I think they suit the bold pattern very well.

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I shortened the dress and gave it a little waist definition with a narrow elastic.

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And last, but least, a tie belt.

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Posted in Recycling and repairs, Sewing

A Tale of Three Dresses (part one)

Posted on April 11, 2013 by | 2 Comments

Several days ago I was entrusted with three lovely dresses from Togo and asked to alter them. The dresses are made in the Divine Providence sewing room in Aneho, Togo.

Clothes produced there, for example dresses like this,

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Photo: Tau frá Togo

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Photo: Tau frá Togo

shopping bags,

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Photo: Tau frá Togo

aprons

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Photo: Tau frá Togo

and more, are sold here in Iceland and all proceedings go undivided to the sister Victorine Orphanage in Aneho , Togo.

The dresses I got to alter had not sold, they were too long and frankly a bit like potato sacks.

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I have been looking at them and wandering what to do with them. I did not want to alter them too much. They have a special character that I didn’t want to ruin. But the first thing I did with all of them was to rip out the outmoded shoulder pads, they had to go.

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I shortened them all, too to lighten them a little.

The yellow one got elastic in the neckline and in the sleeves instead of the stiff folds it had before.
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The self tie belt makes it more modern, but it is still quite large and suitable for several sizes.

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The blue and brown one also got elastic in the neckline but I left the sleeves untouched.
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I did a little shirring under the bust to make an empire line, and there is also a tie belt, not shown in the photo.

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There is one more dress, that one is going to be shown in part two…

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Posted in Recycling and repairs, Sewing

Altering a Second Hand Dress

Posted on March 21, 2013 by | 2 Comments

My son in law bought this second hand dress at a market a while ago:

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It certainly had potential, but it was several sizes too big for the young lady, way too long, and let’s not start on those sleeves!

It has been hanging in my closet for a (long) while now, but this week I finally did something about it.

Altering a second hand dress

First I ripped the skirt off and cut about 15 cm of it. I shortened it from the top so to speak, the hem was beautifully finished and the lining comes with tulle edging that I didn’t want to alter, so this was the easier option.
Then I removed the enormous sleeves and tightened the bodice.
The shoulder elastics from the sleeves were ideal to turn into shoulder straps and with them fastened, I only had to finish the top of the body and refasten the skirt to the bodice.,

Voila, a “new” party dress for the young lady:

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Posted in Recycling and repairs, Sewing

To Replace a Zipper

Posted on October 16, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Lessons learned from replacing a zipper

My husband’s winter parka needed a new zipper for a while. In fact it needed a new one already last spring, but then it was not so urgent and I postponed it. Why sew today what you can sew tomorrow?

Last week it was getting cold so it was time to get cracking.  I bought a strong metal zipper and went to work.

There was nothing wrong with the seaming of the old one, and it was not easy to remove. But with the help of my little seam ripper I got it out without too much trouble.

I pinned the new one in place, found the zipper “foot” for the ancient sewing machine and went to work. All was good right?

No, not really. I broke three needles on the thick stiff material before I gave up and walked to the nearest craft store (which is really very close) and bought a pack of stronger needles.

Now everything was good, right.

No – it wasn’t. The old machine had trouble handling the thick material and the pins didn’t help. I hat to put in quite a lot to hold everything in place, but the material still didn’t stay where it should, and some of it ended up too close to the zipper “teeth” so it became hard to close. And to add insult to injury: I didn’t realize this before I had secured the zipper twice one each side, just to make it extra strong… (I should have checked it before – I know!)

So I had to rip the new zipper out.

I had learned my lesson and I basted securely it in place. I often do this, and I honestly don’t know why I didn’t baste from the start. Sudden insanity perhaps, of the kind often portrait in old mystery novels.

Sewing it in place was easy without the pins, and I did check it before I secured it a second time.

So the lessons are:

• When sewing in really thick and unyielding material, use suitable needles.

• Baste zippers said materials, rather than using pins.

• Check things as you go along.
(goes without saying).

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Posted in Sewing, Tutorial

Pajama Pants

Posted on September 21, 2012 by | 2 Comments

I have moved from the village, but the apartment I’m moving into isn’t free just yet so I’m staying with family for the time being. That means I only have the bare necessities with me. But I did bring some half made pajama pants for my daughter. I had cut them, but had yet to sew them up.

I finished them this morning. On a borrowed machine of course, but a very familiar one. It’s the same colour as my trusted old Husqarna and just as old. But it’s a Bernina.

Pins or no Pins

All my pins are packed away, and I certainly didn’t want to buy any, sewing supplies are ridiculously expensive in Iceland. So I decided to do a little experiment. Could I sew up the pants, AND match up the stripes, without pins or any such help?

I often sew like that, just holding the fabric with my hands, but when I want to march up stripes I usually pin the fabric securely.

But not this time.
I took care to hold the pieces together correctly. The tended to slide apart as soon as I let go, as you can clearly see on the photo below.

The experiment went really well. The stripes fit, almost all over,

except in one place on the side.
Sewing the pants took approximately half an hour, including taking the photos.

Free Pajama Pants Patterns

I didn’t use a pattern. I used old pants as a guide. My method is similar to this one . There are many free pattern and guides on the net here is one and here is another.

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Posted in Free pattern, Sewing

The Jumpsuit

Posted on August 3, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Without further ado:

The jumpsuit is ready and my daughter is very pleased. I washed it, but forgot to press over the seams, as you can see, if you look closely.

It’s exactly as she wanted it to be, very baggy, and much like a baby playsuit.

She and her friend were experimenting last night. This is her first attempt at this kind of fancy nail decoration.

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Posted in Sewing

In the Pink

Posted on August 1, 2012 by | Leave a comment

The pattern part on the grey cardigan is done. The cardigan it self is not ready, so it’s unblocked and messy, but you can still see how it’s going to be.

Free Colorwork Chart

I have adjusted the colorwork chart a little, you can download it here: grá

It’s unlikely that I will write a pattern from this. The colorwork is 50 sts wide, so a pattern would be a real challenge to grade.

I’m at all sure it’s going to be ready before the weekend. My daughter’s jumpsuit has to be finished first. It is no haute couture piece, but it’s still a bit time consuming. The stripes have to match; the hood pattern was a little weird so I had to adjust it etc.

I found this little duck patch in my craft stash. It really livens up the suit and it totally in line with the kindergarten look of these jumpsuits.

I bought the patch on a sale, along with several others, when my daughter was in kindergarten. The other ones were used to cover accidental holes on her clothes, but this little duck is the last one left. And now it’s put to good use.

This goes to show (again), that you should never throw anything craft related out.

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Posted in Knitting, Sewing

A Jumpsuit Pattern

Posted on July 29, 2012 by | 4 Comments

Someone, sometime, said that one should never throw anything out.
Now, I don’t know about that. But I perhaps I can modify the statement, to that one should never thrown anything craft related out.

I live up to that, mostly at least. I don’t have much of a craft stash, but I hang on to the things I do have. Like old pattern magazines. I only have a handful, but I have no plans of getting rid of them. And today I made good use of my copy of the German Birgitte from 1999.

Fleece Jumpsuit

I have to make a fleece jumpsuit you see. You know, the horrible lovely baggy things that teenagers wear? Or perhaps they are not in vogue in you country?

They look something like this:

Photo: OnePiece

My daughter wants one (you didn’t think I would wear this, did you?).

I couldn’t find a suitable downloadable pattern, there is not enough time get one in the mail and I really didn’t want to make the pattern from scratch.

Birgitte Sewing Magazine

So I searched my ancient patterns and Birgitte (above) I found this:

It’s not a jumpsuit, but its close enough. A loose fitting hooded jacket and pants. Easily converted into a jumpsuit.

So today I picked up the pattern

which was a frankly a bit confusing. I have done this often enough and I do know how to find the pattern and follow the lines. After all I started making my own clothes as a teenager. But the pattern book in this magazine was rather chaotic and simply not very well made.

When I bought the magazine, all those years ago, I made this skirt (the one in the center):

The skirt is no more, but it came as a pleasant surprise, that many patterns in the magazine look very wearable and modern. I could see myself in many of the skirts and some of the dresses would look very nice on my young ladies.

The fabric for the jumpsuit should arrive tomorrow. It’s about the same age as the pattern, from my mother’s stash, so we are keeping it thrifty, all the way.

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Posted in Sewing

Recycled Kitchen Curtain to Apron

Posted on July 17, 2012 by | 1 Comment

I like quick sewing projects. And I really like reusing second hand things, for enviromental reasons, but also because fabrics are very expensive in Iceland. Last weekend I stayed at a friends summerhouse along with a group of friends. It is an annual thing, and this year it was out 10th anniversary, no less. So we made an extra effort with a theme (pink), costumes, even better food than usually, etc.

Photo: Kristrún Lind Birgisdóttir

Recycled Kitchen Curtain to Apron

I wanted to bring a pink apron, so I whipped up this little number just before I left.

It’s made from an old kitchen curtain (bought for next to nothing at a flea market).

It requred almost now sewing. Just a couple if darts to make it sit nicely, hemming of the sides, and the bands of course. They were cut from left over fabric.

You could just as well use contrasting, or complimenting fabric for this.

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Posted in Sewing, Tutorial