Friday afternoon, I went shopping with the hope of finding some colorful cardigans to dress up the jeans look and make it more doable. Cleos is a chain store carrying clothing that is easily identifiable by the style or the fabrics. If you purchase clothing there, you are going to run into yourself all over town which is not how I want to dress except that...
... they were having a 30% off the last ticketed price sale meaning that I bought four cardigans for ten dollars each that had a regular price of $49.50 (x1) and $59.50 (x3). Great savings and perfect for work. My favourite is the grey cardigan above with the small gathers at the bust and shoulders and the row of buttons on the cuff. Love the details.
For the price, I even picked up a plain black cardigan although I have several already. This one is lighter weight than anything I have already so somewhat different. Most likely I'll refashion it (even more) because it and the...
... teal one both came with fluffy things appliqued all over the front that was poorly done and not all that attractive.
I picked off the embellishments and then washed the sweaters to remove the stitching holes. They need some more work still. Unfortunately, in the process of picking off, I made two small holes in the left side of the teal cardigan which means re-embellishing in some form that appeals to me. That's okay. I knew that might happen. For $10, the ready-made sweater complete with buttons was way less expensive than buying fabric - a good starting point.
At Sears, I bought this sleeveless, tunic length, t-shirt. It was slightly more expensive but I really liked the woven look of the neckline. I'm still trying to figure out how it's done. It seems to be woven upward from the body of the garment toward the neck edge.
sdBev wrote - Ah wadders and frustration. How well I know these. For me, it's a combination of a changing figure and branching out into more types of sewing.
It was somewhat comforting to read on a number of blogs this weekend about that blogger's recent wadder. I'm not alone in my frustration. Wadders are something I have to expect as I experiment with different styles and fabrics, part of the journey. They can be mitigated somewhat by trying on similar styles at the store however - in the end - how the pattern and fabric and figure combination comes together is somewhat of a gamble even when using a T & T pattern. As always, that's easier to take on some days than others but I can't imagine not creating. Each time I sew a wadder, I give it some time and then pick myself up, dust myself off, and carry on. Oh well!
ParisGrrl wrote - I feel your pain, but sometimes it's good to take a step back and appreciate the skill level you do have. The problem with having your level of skills is that you can perfectionist yourself into a corner where nothing is good enough. Look at most ready to wear and you'll see construction issues that I bet you would have a catnip over in your own work, yet the vast majority of people look at the same garment, buy it, and wear it without even noticing these faults.
So true. I couldn't believe the issues with these four sweaters alone. All four have a tag sewn in with white thread that is visible on the back. Other than that, the grey one is nicely done however one out of four is not a high success ratio. The other three have issues.
The black cardigan had a huge snap as a closure that was barely hanging on by a thread, impossible to open, and completely visible even though it was supposed to be tucked under the embellishment. There are threads hanging out all around the neckline of the teal one where poor sewing was hidden under ugly embellishment and the back shoulder was pinned forward to support the embellishments distorting the shoulder line.
The design on the multi-colored cardigan is printed as opposed to dyed or knit into the fabric meaning that the inside is white, including the back of the ribbing. At the neckline, there are bits of white showing at the edge where the fold isn't quite accurate. This print is already busier than what I normally wear. At full price with these issues, I never even would have looked at it because that particular ...
... cardigan was $59.50. With taxes, that's $66.64. Divided by my hourly rate - never mind the deductions for income taxes - and that's 7.41 hours of my working time for what I consider to be an inferior product. I would never buy that yet... as you say... others are walking around in it no problem. Oh definitely, I can be too picky. I give myself a little chat about that quite often while realizing that quality of workmanship is one of the reasons I prefer to sew. It's not top of the list but important none the less. That said...
... on Friday morning when I was cleaning up the studio, I came across the earlier bodice for my dress that I'd sewn and discarded thinking the bust point would be too low. After marking the 5/8" seam line, I cut the existing bodice out of the dress, pinned this other one in place, and tried it on. It works just fine.
Luckily, I had numbered the bodice patterns and was able to extract the correct one from the pile. Once I adjust the angle of the shoulder seam and the width of the armhole to cover that flab of fat, I'll be able to restitch this design without too much effort. YES YES. Perhaps in a summer fabric to wear with one of my new cardigans. There's a teal/purple/black floral print on a white background in the pile from my holiday. It would be about perfect.
Today is a full day at work. On the weekend I started a t-shirt, the Butterick 5497 pattern shown Friday. Hopefully I'll have enough energy to work on it tonight. If not, I'm working again tomorrow so it'll be Wednesday.
Talk soon - Myrna
Grateful - perspective and cardigan sales
That t-shirt tunic has smocking at the neck. It is not the same as the type of smocking that is found on little girl's dresses. I can't remember the name of the type off the top of my head and I'm at work, away from sewing library.
ReplyDeleteI believe that type of smocking is called North American or sometimes Canadian smocking. Instructions are available in books (usually older books) on handwork or, I am sure, on line. I think it is described in Colette Wolff's The Art of Manipulating Fabric.
ReplyDeleteLana from Illinois
My aunt used to refer to that as counter change or counter point. It's actually a very easy technique and can be finished in a few minutes.
ReplyDeleteI think as a whole, we do become more fussy about fit and construction as we become skilled. I believe we become more fussy because we know it really doesn't take that much more to do a good job than to produce crap.
Follow your thoughts and process regularly (3 months I think) and always enjoy your observations and inspiration. That said, I spent yesterday making a new wardrobe basic. A classic, fitted white T. Didn't try it on because..."how hard can this be?" I cut the wrong size, finished it and then I said...mmm that will not fit!!!! It has a new home already, but sewer beware...after many, many years we all still make mistakes!
ReplyDeleteI was going to come say it was smocking on that top as well - I've seen it several times in RTW recently; you can see the threads on the backside, sometimes they've used elastic thread.
ReplyDeleteI like he neckline of the smocked tee, and I am sure the damaged cardigans will end up being lovely.
ReplyDeleteYou are really encouraging me to push to get my sewing room back up and running. I hadn't missed it because I was going through a period of mental sorting along with the physical sorting, where I needed to focus more on what I actually want rather than following the sometimes wild whims of creative fancy.