Saturday, November 1, 2008

A Change of Heart

Dawn left a comment and I reread her pattern review on her son's Green Pepper Oregon jacket. So I'm thinking the fleece with some type of thin lining will work rather well for the Oregon jacket. What a change of heart from this morning! I really like the style of this jacket, and he liked it too. Yes, Keely, I do have a KS hoodie pattern! Duh! Yeah, I wasn't thinking about using the hoodie and cutting up the middle. That would be easier than drafting a hood! ETA--Yes, Mary ! I did use basting spray :) . Great minds think alike LOL.


However, I really want to sew this Oregon jacket. Originally, this pattern was purchased for my husband. As for when, who knows! He's been mentioning that he needs a new jacket, and I never sew anything for him anymore. The last jacket I made for him 4 years ago is looking very worn out. Even if the smallest size is big for DS#1, that's okay. He'll likely be going through his growth spurt soon and will fit into it for all of 6 months maybe? You know how fast they grow once they start. At least DS#2 would be able to use it eventually. The joy of having pairs :) .


And the material for these jackets??? Several years ago, Malden Mills was selling remnant bags. On the advice of one of my sewing friends, I bought the largest bag. She said it would be as big as my couch and she wasn't kidding! For a mere $75 I got 30+ yards (at least) of great quality fleece in perfect colors--burn red, royal blue, black, light blue, and tons of grey. Most were 200 weight, one or two pieces 300, the light blue was 100. There is STILL some left over so that is what I'm using for the jackets.


I did get some things accomplished today but had to go out to Ursula's store to buy some lace for the insert on DD#2's low-cut halter. I hemmed her skirt, then made the insert. She has to try the top on again for correct placement of the insert. She needs a halter bra for her top and it pains me to have to buy a bra she'll wear once. This girl wears sports bras year round so having to spend a minimum of $15 on a bra just kills me. She's the one who hates all things tight and itchy. Imagine having to deal with a halter bra that goes around the back of one's neck! She's going to go crazy LOL. She'll pick out the most comfortable one to the tune of $30 I'm sure.


So for that insert, I rarely sew with lace and was thinking of easy ways to sew the bias tape on the lace. What I did was create a template of a slightly curved neckline with freezer paper and adhered the freezer paper to the lace with an iron on a low setting. Here's my starting point:


Sorry, that's a bad, blurry pic. Next up, I pinned the black bias tape to the other side of the lace and stitched them together. That's shown here:


In my next bad pic, I started picking away the freezer paper from the seamline very carefully. I pressed my fingernail (what there is of it) just over the edge of the seamline and pulled it off like a perforation. I should have used a smaller stitch length as that would have made it easier. I usually set my stitch length to 3.0 for most projects--it's simply my preference. The freezer paper from both sides of the seamline was removed.

Then I turned the bias tape over and topstitched everything into place as shown here:
Now the lace inset sits on my dressform. DD#2 has to try on the top so I can adjust the placement for stitching. I'll take a pic of it tomorrow.

Using the freezer paper made things so easy. It temporarily stabilized the entire piece of lace and I was able to carefully pull it off when finished. It eliminated all the negatives of dealing with this potentially shifty, stretchy, fussy fabric.

I also started stitching my fleece quilt squares together but was halted by running out of cotton muslin which I'm using for the stabilizer/backing for each square. This necessitated running out to Ursula's store for 4 yards of cotton muslin. I won't need all 4 yards for this project, but want to have the muslin around for other things. Here's the quilt starting to shape up:

Speaking of which, Ursula is planning on having a Black Friday sale at her store with all fabric (fabric only) being 40% off!!! If anyone is planning on vacationing in the Poconos during Thanksgiving, please visit Ursula's store! You can find some gems there. She will help you coordinate fabrics and is very experienced with them as well as pattern design and draping. Here is the website for her store:


http://www.aurafabrics.net/


Scroll down for the directions and phone number for her store. You can tell her Kat sent you :) !

1 comment:

angie.a said...

Great tip on the freezer paper! I never would have thought of that. I was thinking about Dawn's coat yesterday and almost commented about it! Ditto on using a hood you already had as a starting point! LOL. Great minds really DO think alike!