Sew Paradise

Oh how we miss our lives before. Will they ever be the same again?

There’s a blazer hanging in my closet. I sewed it myself. Fellow blazer friends of it also hang nearby, they were also made by me. I wore a blazer (with jeans or a dress or skirt) every day, for my work-from-home, work-from-coffee-shop, work-from-client-office life. I’ve worked from home for half my professional career, save about 15 years when I owned a building in a “trendy” gentrifying neighborhood. I’m a work-from-home pro. Up until March, I still wore the blazer. But right now, none of us need that blazer hanging in our closets.

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What did we lose along with the blazer-wearing meetings? We lost interactions with our “third place” coffee shop staff and regular customers. I wonder how Larry, the elderly single gentleman who frequented my favorite coffee shop, is doing now. Larry and I saw each other three times a week or more, through three owners of one coffee shop, before they closed and we both moved our third place to another coffee shop nearby.

We lost driving to out of town meetings (or flying to conferences) to engage with clients, feel the energy of colleagues and learn.

We lost sending our kids off to school, running to catch up with their friends, before Mrs. Sara walked them across the crosswalk. I lost hearing the bell ring and the delightful cacophony of an elementary school that I can hear from my back deck.

We lost being home when our middle schooler unlocked the door and dropped her backpack in the front hall. We lost racing off to hockey practice, getting home to make dinner at 8pm.

Our future is unknown. But here’s what we gained in the process:

Our kids are safe at home. We have played many games of Monopoly and Clue, checkers, backgammon and Slamwich. We have baked many batches of brownies and cookies. We’ve moved our house around to accommodate two reluctant home learners, and two busy (and equally reluctant) homeschool parents. We bought a WiFi mesh router to extend our network to the far reaches of our house and deck.

We gave up the blazers for Zoom sweaters and Zoom shirts. I even have Zoom hair!

There’s a blazer hanging in my closet. It is waiting for the return of meetings, of parent council meetings, the coffee shop work sessions. The blazer in my closet is waiting for me to put on jeans (fixed waist pants? Haven’t done that in six months.) The blazer in my closet is waiting for normal.

I’m not sure we get to normal in 2020 at all. Maybe not even 2021. And if the blazers sit that long, will I even want to wear them?

The blazer sits, and while it does I change my business. I lean in to product development, so I can sell things online to people anywhere. I lean into marketing tech training, and I work with clients everywhere but here. The blazer might not even need to come out of the closet with my new business. I love my new ideas, forged even before the pandemic, honed by the changes in life and business along the way.

But I still want to visit the coffee shop, it’s noisy mass of mobile humanity. I still want to work to the hum of the espresso machine every now and again. I still want to ride my bicycle around town, the blazer flying out behind me as I cruise to the post office, all those online commerce packages behind me on the rack.

The blazer in my closet represents normal. It represents work, purpose, and fulfillment; something I’ve always defined as a professional career. I spend much of my time with my kids now, where blazers aren’t required. I love my kids. I miss who I was, the woman in the blazer, jetting off to a conference, checking the departures board.

There’s a blazer in my closet. And I miss it.

The “paperbag” style elasticated drawstring waistband is super popular right now. And it’s a SUPER easy hack too!

1. Any elastic waistband skirt or pant pattern.
2. A ruler
3. Some tracing or large-format paper (even newspaper will work fine.)
4. A pencil/pen/marker
5. Fabric marker

Trace your pant or skirt pattern.

Add a piece of paper under the top of the pattern near the waistband.

Using your ruler, draw up from the sideseam 2″ (this will allow for a 1/2″ ‘paper bag’ at the top, if you want more, add another inch here)

Repeat for the center front seam and the other piece of the front/back of the skirt or pants.

Connect these two new lines with a perpendicular line to create a new, taller waistband.

Sew the pants as directed; when you get to the waistband instructions, follow these instead:

Mark the waistband at 1.25″ from top – this is your fold over line

Fold wrong sides together, and press on this line. This will allow for a casing plus a turn-and-stitch hem for the waistband on the inside.

Follow directions here for making a self-fabric tie plus elastic waistband

Mark and sew a buttonhole on the front of the pants, below the fold line. This is where your drawstring elastic waist will exit. You do not have to do this step if you do not want ties exposed here.

Stitch the folded hem edge of the waistband down, leaving a 1″ gap at center back to insert elastic.

Mark 1/2″ below the top of the folded waistband, and stitch along this line. Do not leave a gap. This is your paperbag part.

Insert elastic into the channel below the paperbag section, try on, adjust and stitch ends of elastic together securely.

Stitch the open section along the center back.

Voila! Trendy paper bag waistband!

“The Stack”

One of my favorite RTW brands, J. Crew, does this thing called “the Stack”. A stack of curated essentials / capsule wardrobe. They photograph it as a stack and show you how the pieces work together. I know many, many sewists struggle with this idea of a capsule wardrobe. And since I prefer to align with the slow fashion/sustainable fashion movement, I buy my J. Crew mostly secondhand these days.

Over the years, I’ve developed a VERY simple capsule wardrobe formula for myself, extended it to sewing brands that I have worked with, as well as shouted it from the rooftops. Make what you love to wear, make just one or two pieces to work with the rest of your wardrobe and build on it. This way, you’re not overwhelmed by the six, eight, ten pieces you have to sew, you build gradually and work in your existing closet, which is the ultimate in wardrobe sustainability.

In this “Stack” are some of my favorite me-made garments (all except one from the past 12 months.) They go with many things in my existing wardrobe and are things I wear every day (in fact, two of these I plucked from my “not quite dirty” pile of clothes on a bench in my room, because I’d worn them this week! Two were in the clean laundry.

From top, a linen curved hem skirt with hybrid elastic drawstring waist (tutorial here) using Christine Jonson Patterns Base Wear Two straight skirt pattern. Hacks shown here for the curved hem (including a clever way to hem the thing without tears!) Printed geometric linen is from Seams Fabric in downtown East Lansing.

The second item is the Ann Normandy Designs Slip Dress pattern, a really wonderfully constructed and simple dress that I sewed from Kona cotton, batiked the designs myself and then stitched it up in an hour on my children’s Janome SewMini sewing machine (I took it with me in a backpack!) at a Seams Sewcial, back when we did such things in person, together, last summer.

Below that the Scout Tee from Grainline Studio in a cotton voile black print from Seams Fabric in downtown East Lansing. This fabric is incredibly lightweight and goes well with this tee pattern.

Next up, my favorite, favorite white “linen” pants (in a linen/poly blend that is virtually indestructable) made 25 years ago, from an OOP Butterick pattern. Any basic elastic waist relaxed fit pant will do, I show you how to craft the paper bag waist here. If your pants don’t come with pockets, you can draft one. Try this one from Sew News with a fun side square pocket and add my hack for the waistband paperbag add-on. The Sew News pattern has several other patterns, all in the same casual chic vibe, so it’s a great value. I’ve taken my version of these pants on every warm weather vacation for the past 25 years, summer, and winter getaway. Plus, I wear them at least once per week. There are a few minor stains that work their way in to the slubby look of the “linen” and I let them go. An alternative is the Christine Jonson Taper/Wide Leg pant. Designed for knits, you’ll need to select a size at the waist that will go over your hips (e.g. use the waist measurement that fits your hip size) to make it in a woven fabric. This one also doesn’t have a sideseam, but there are tutes on the site for how to add one using a dart, which is very clever!

After that, another Scout Tee from Grainline Studio in fuscia silk noil, washed for a faded look. Also from Seams Fabric in East Lansing.

Last up, the Gypsum Skirt from Sew Liberated in a gorgeous rayon border print from, again, Seams Fabric (this one is one of their vintage “estate sale” collection, so as far as I know, no other exists, but any cool border print works with this paneled, pocketed skirt.)

Planning a wardrobe is easy. I use the Pick One, Sew Two method that I wrote for Christine Jonson Patterns. If it’s no longer available there, you can download this here (with my branding.)

I pick ONE item in my closet and I go into my stash and sew TWO more. Sometimes I do not have stash for both, so I then head over to my LFS (Seams Fabric, y’all, all online too!) and pick something that works for both.

It’s been a while since I’ve sewing-blogged regularly under my own name. I’ve worked for about five years helping other sewing brands. It’s nice to be back! While I still work with sewing brands, most of my work now is in marketing coaching and marketing-tech training. I’d rather coach sewing pattern companies’ brands through developing content, as their authentic voices come through in what they write, photograph and record. A perennial challenge for any brand is maintaining that level of content (I do not have this problem!), but we work on that, too. Think of it as coaching AND motivation.

Very last, the fedora hat is one of my favorites, from Sunday Afternoons. It’s adjustable, it’s durable, affordable and its called aptly, their Havana Hat. Get it here. They offer a lifetime guarantee, and for such an affordable hat, that’s a bonus.

We love Maxi Dresses in the summer! But we also don’t love wearing a bra in summer’s heat or wearing one peeking out of the dress spaghetti straps. Fortunately, even if your dress doesn’t come with an option, it’s easy to add a knit shelf bra to a maxi dress (with or without molded cups sewn in.)

1. Mark the underbust spot on your sewing pattern by holding the pattern up, measuring from the neckline or shoulder or up from the waist mark on the pattern to your underbust. This will be your finished shelf bra length
2. Mark a spot 2” below this on your pattern
3.  Trace the top of the dress front and the dress back to the line you marked. You’ll trace out a copy of each of these. These will become your shelf bra.
4. If your dress has folded-and-stitched facings, your shelf bra will replace these facings
5. If your dress has applied binding, you will sandwich the shelf bra and dress wrong sides together, baste the raw edges along the top of the dress and apply the binding to both at the same time
6. Sew the top of the dress and the top of the shelf bra.
7. Fold up the shelf bra bottom band .5” and press
8. Fold up the shelf bra bottom band 1” and press
9. Stitch around the bra band, leaving an opening to insert ¾”  non-roll elastic. You may also cut off the hem allowances and apply soft waistband elastic instead, stitching it directly to the raw edge of the shelf bra
10. If you’re using a casing, measure elastic around your underbust, and subtract one inch. This is your elastic cut length
11. Thread elastic through the casing and pin with a safety pin. Put on the shelf bra and try the fit. The band should be snug but not too tight.
12. Once your shelf bra is finished, you’ll apply this either as a facing, right sides together with the dress, stitch around the dress top/neckline and fold inside the dress, or you’ll apply this wrong sides together to the inside of the dress, baste the top edges and apply binding to the neckline and armholes.
13. If you are applying this as a facing, you can use the facing instructions for your dress OR apply the facing to the neckline only, then turn/press under both the armholes on the dress and the facing and stitch together. If you choose the latter, you’ll finish both the armhole edges at the same time.

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I’ve used the Greenstyle creations maxi dress with bias binding.

Using a precious fabric bought on an Italian vacation, I made a sewing mistake. And I fixed my sewing mistake to become one of my favorite summer outfits!

Around the corner and up two twisty blocks from the Duomo in Florence, along cobbled streets, zig-zagged with crazy Italian scooter drivers and bicyclists, there’s a three-story fabric store. On the first floor, the premium fabrics – silks, Italian wools, leather and suede. The second and third hold better bargains. On the first floor, in the silks, I selected a beautiful silvery grey hammered silk with black and purple stripes. I bought two meters. Intending this to be a blouse of some sort, I figured that was enough fabric. I also bought gray windowpane lightweight Italian wool (still in my stash! Must sew!)

My two fabrics went home with me in a large gallon ziploc bag in my small 40-cubic inch “going to Europe” backpack.

The next spring, I sat down to sew the blouse, but it didn’t want to be a blouse at all. It wanted to be palazzo pants. I selected a no-side-seam pattern (now OOP, from Sandra Betzina, but a similar pant, with modifications, is the Christine Jonson Wide Leg pant #824.) Except, during cutting, I realized I didn’t have enough fabric.

At first, I pondered adding in a patch in each crotch seam. Too weird. Then, I looked at splitting the pattern at the side seam, and using actual scraps left over from cutting the pants, cut across the crossgrain of the bottom of the fabric to create long, ruched panels down the side of the legs.

The crossgrain panels put the stripes sideways, and the long lengths I had of these scraps I ruched from about mid calf to the hem. This ruching and crossgrain stripe ended up being the very best part of these otherwise simple elastic-waist wide-leg pants.

I had quite literally zero fabric waste on these pants when I cut them out (except for the crotch cutouts, and I’m pretty sure I saved those in a scrap bag somewhere to make, I don’t know, a bookmark or something.)

A complete screw up during cutting led me to making my favorite summer pants. This precious fabric became one of my perennial favorite summer garments, super lightweight pants with enough style to hold up a simple tank top and flip flops.

Top: Christine Jonson Flyaway Top and OOP Sandra Betzina pants (similar, Christine Jonson Wide Leg Pants #824 with leg width modified below the knee.)

I sewed my second Scout Tee from Grainline Studio this week. This one, in a raspberry silk noil I sewed in a smaller size than my printed cotton voile one here. Both fabrics I purchased from Seams Fabric in East Lansing (my Local Fabric Store/LFS).

Woven tee shirts are interesting. Over the years, I’ve purchased ready-to-wear woven ‘tee shirts’ in various (usually polyester) prints. They are dressier than a knit tee, which is their appeal. I made a commitment to making some of these woven tops (of various shapes or styles) in much nicer fabrics to build out my casual work from home wardrobe. They have all the look of a tee shirt, but a slightly more polished fit. The Scout Tee has a scoop neck, with bias binding, a cap sleeve, a fitted upper bodice and a flowy lower body to the tee. This means it hides a multitude of post-quarantine dessert-baking sins, and looks cute with jeans and a knit blazer – the Silverton Blazer from Straight Stitch Designs.

Prior to the pandemic, this jeans+tee+blazer was my go to for most of my work weeks. Since I no longer have work meetings anywhere but my home office desk, I fell down the (admittedly, comfortable) rabbit hole of track pants and sweaters for about seven weeks there. It felt good to put on a blazer and a tee with jeans that zip and button.

The Scout Tee is an easy sew, for a beginner, this tee will teach you how to set in a sleeve, and sew a bias faced neckline. As for making woven tees versus knit, the ease of hemming a woven fabric versus a knit, cannot be overstated, but the ease of sewing a set in cap sleeve in a knit or making a reverse-bound neckline on a knit cannot be overstated. So you’re trading one set of challenges for another with this tee. Neither is better or worse.

The silk noil is new for me, I’d never sewed with it before. Seams Fabric made this their January sew along project, and everyone and their sister in my town is sewing these Scout Tees in silk noil. Not wanting to be left behind, I bought two yards of it on my last pre-pandemic curbside order from Seams. I love the easy elegance of this tee on everyone I’ve seen make it in this fabric, and I wanted that same look for myself. I wasn’t disappointed – it’s exactly the kind of casual chic that I love. It sews up very well.

A few tips on set in sleeves: when you do the gathers on the sleeve, you sew two rows of gathering stitches near the edge of the sleeve cap inside the seam allowance. But then, you have to actually sew the sleeve in with those gathers in place. I recommend you sew from INSIDE the sleeve cap AND that you sew about 1/4″ or 1/2″ away from the stitching (yes, this means a bigger seam allowance than the pattern states) because it’s only there that the sleeve cap is flat enough to not cause bunching while stitching. If you try to sew right next to those gathering rows, you’ll end up sewing in some tucks you don’t want. However, if you sew from inside the sleeve cap (and 1/4″ – 1/2″ from those gathers) and curve the sleeve into the machine as you sew, you will find that this helps ensure the cap is flat without little tucks. Curving the sleeve means to hold it up off the sewing machine in it’s curved-sleeve-cap shape and roll it down and under the presser foot as you sew.

All in all, I like this pattern a lot. I did size down 1-2 sizes from my full bust measurement, and I tweaked this by cutting my “measured” size and then using a 3/4″ seam allowance on the tee. For finishing, I used pinking shears. I think pinked seam allowances are very underrated – they lay flat, they are kinda retro and they are simple to make.

The Scout Tee is worth your time to make it more than once. I would consider this a staple in my wardrobe, and I’m off to raid my stash to find all sorts of 1.5 yard cuts that I can squeeze a woven tee shirt out of.

Ruffled raglan waffle-knit tee with tailored trackpants Sewing pattern hack + review

I love waffles. Their puffy, soft nooks for butter and maple syrup to pool are so yummy. I hate making waffles. They are a complete pain in the rear to cook, and clean up after.

So, too, did I love this waffle weave knit fabric I purchased from Seams Fabric in downtown East Lansing. It’s so soft, a buttery, creamy color and it even has a bit of heft to it. But waffle weave knit itself is infuriatingly stretchy with zero recovery, making the choice in both pattern AND technique especially important.

I originally cut this into another pattern, but the pattern required a slightly more substantial (and certainly less soft-stretchy) fabric than this, so I used the same pieces and some of the fabric I had left over and cut a Christine Jonson Patterns Raglan Tee. The reason I chose this pattern is it’s ease of construction and excellent fit.

The pattern itself is designed for very stretchy knits with soft recovery (similar to this) so it has some interesting details that make it suitable for that.

The neckline is cut tight so when you sew with a soft stretchy fabric, it stretches while sewing (as it always does) but the pattern has accommodated for that. That, in my opinion, is brilliant design. I still modified the neckline to be about 3/8″ wider (trimming off 3/8″) and I used matching cream rib knit. With waffle weave, using a rib with some snap to it (not a lot, but a bit) was the key to getting a good neckline. I sewed this with a straight stitch, and because I used the 78% (roughly) measurement of neckband to neckline ratio, I stretched the ribbing while sewing, so I don’t really have to worry about stitches popping.

The ruffles are another Christine Jonson Pattern, the Ruffle Top. The ruffles are actually flounces, meaning they are cut on a circular inner shape, and when you flatten them out, the curve on the outside creates the ruffled effect. This makes it easy to sew onto the raglan tee – just straighten the inner flounce and sandwich the layers together as you sew the raglan.

I opted to edge serge the ruffles as the knit was a bit soft. Normally you just cut these with a rotary cutter on rayon/lycra knit, and that’s it! No hemming of the edges needed.

The other nice design feature of this tee is the shapely but slightly flared wrist opening on this tee pattern. This makes finishing the sleeve hem of your tee MUCH easier than most other finishing (other than a rib knit cuff). I edge-serged both the sleeve and the bottom hem, then turned and used Steam a Seam to hold and fix the hems in place for topstitching.

IMHO this Steam a Seam is a godsend for sewing knits. It permanently stabilizes the hem once ironed, is slightly sticky, and offers a stable base upon which to topstitch. Because the sleeve opening is flared, I did not have to worry about this edge being stretchy, unlike a typical tee shirt sleeve.

I also cut this tee about 2 sizes up – it’s a fairly fitted tee shirt in your typical size, so going up gave me a bit of slouch that I was looking for. Still shaped, but slouchy.

ETA: the knit was not pre-washed (boo!), I usually do this right away but didn’t, you know what happens next… It does, however, look fabulous on my 13-year old!

I’m wearing this with the HotPatterns Tailored Trackpant in rayon doubleknit and this combination is pajama-comfortable but casual and stylish.

#sewingpatterns #workfromhomeoutfits

I’ve joined the HotPatterns Secret PJ Club Sew-a-long for April 2020, during quarantine, and this is my first entry!

These Tailored Trackpants are just that, a classic jogger style with trouser cuffs. I’ve sewn jogger banded knit cuffs, which are optional; the pants normally have a narrow, ankle standard folded cuff (or turn-ups) which is super cute with flats or sneakers or flat strappy sandals, and elevates the pant to “wear at work” when we’re all done with this quarantine stuff.

For the moment, though, I sewed these RIGHT out of the envelope in a size 14. They are designed for woven OR knit fabric, so I made a muslin in woven in the 14, and I made just one teensy alteration – the pants have a curve upward at the side waist (you can see it in the line illustration on the pattern cover). If you are curvy in the hip, try this. If you are straight, like me, I took a small wedge out at the top waist near the side seam across both front and back. Basically I flattened the curve, LOL, see what I did there!? Ha! I flattened the waist shape so it went straight across to the sideseam, without that little upward curve. Otherwise ZERO alterations on these pants. A little gallows humor is necessary in these times.

I will admit I tried to make these 4 years ago, but I cut out too small of a size. Being the daredevil that I am, I cut the PAPER pattern (not a download!) and cut them off to an 8 (what was I thinking?) So I actually TAPED the stuff I cut off (at least I was pragmatic; I saved the pattern cut off) and RECUT (well, traced, this time) the size 14. I did cut it slightly generously to a 16 which, as it turns out, I really do not need, especially in a knit. I’m a 32″w, 41.5″ hip but HP goes way up into the plus sizes. This is why I’m a 100% download girl, and print-at-home to boot. Just print a fresh one if you need it.

I chose a lusciously soft rayon doubleknit from stash (I’d previously made a slim, front slit, midi skirt from this fabric too!) and used up just about all but tiny scraps. Feeling very WWII miserly in my fabric use on this one. The fabric is gorgeous, a deep heather burgundy, and it feels heavenly. Just heavenly!

Being that this is, after all, the Secret PJ Club, I drafted my own jogger cuffs, and, thank goodness this fabric is super stretchy because I had to stretch the cuff like MAD to get them on the leg openings. If you plan this, make sure you have a ton of stretch or narrow the lower leg before you sew on your jogger cuffs.

I measured my ankle with a tape measure, making sure the measure was not tight around my ankles, and I used that measurement as the long side, and the short side for me was 6″. I drafted a cuff that was 6″ tall (folded to 3″ before sewing onto the pants.) You can vary this to have a wider or narrower cuff if you prefer. I didn’t record my ankle measurement but I’d say it was 11″ x 6″ when I cut them out. I have skinny ankles as you can see, but these are not tight. Trudy talks a lot about these being secret pajamas, that you’d be taking naps in them at this time, and this is a VERY FINE idea. This time that we are in, during quarantine, is hugely stressful and I’ve admitted to taking a nap (during workday) at least once, especially when I was ill with a cold (or COVID-19, who knows!)

There are a few important waistband construction tips that I recommend that vary from the instructions. Full disclosure, I cannot FIND the instructions, BUT Trudy and Jeremy have done a great YouTube video here, sewing the Tailored Track Pant in it’s entirety in a video. A fellow sewist in the HP Sewing Club on facebook did send me the waistband instructions, but they aren’t as detailed as what I’m about to give you, so:

1. When sewing the waistband, attach it to the pants flat, before inserting elastic BUT SEE #3 for very important tip
2. Sew your channels, leaving them open, too
3. Do NOT sew the back 2″ of the waistband to the pants – you’ll need this open to insert the elastic channels above. I used two channels because my narrower elastic all got used up making health care masks during the quarantine, so I used wider elastic and made just two channels.
4. Use soft braided swim elastic or pajama elastic, not the non-roll kind. These are soft pants!
5. Make a muslin. Yes. Please do. Especially if you’re making these in a woven fabric! I tweaked the waistband and marked it later on my muslin for reference.

These are going to be my most-lived-in pant during quarantine – and once we’re done and I’ve decided against wearing jeans every day for most of my work life, I’ll make them with the turn-ups/cuffs and wear soft pants in woven fabrics forever. I got rid of all my dress pants a few years back, after moving my work home, and I have never regretted either decision! But these are way more comfy than my skinny jeans.

I’m wearing this with the HotPatterns ShirtTail Tee shirt, a classic cut-on-cap-sleeve with a cute cuff detail, shirt tail hem and a clever folded band neckline that makes sewing this type of neck a breeze. The hems of the curved tee are sewn BEFORE the sideseams, saving you any fussy hemming.