Damselfly's Delights

More Boring Grey Sewing

May 23, 2019 damselflysdelightsLeave a comment

Happily, more sewing has been happening around here! I knew if I cut out a bunch of things then I would have no excuse not to just dive into the sewing. I seem to work most efficiently with this Batch Method. Anyway, here’s the next three items hot off the machine.

Smiling woman standing in front of a large houseplant with a window to the right and a chair to the left and wearing a grey top and matching cropped pants. — Cattywampus Top and Croppies Pants

The first top (tunic? sweatshirt?) is one I’ve made before so no modifications were necessary. It’s B6101 from Katherine Tilton. I’ve nearly worn out my original Black Snakeskin version so this is a more subdued substitute. I’m calling it the Cattywampus Top because it’s asymmetrical and rather wonky which I love. This time I interfaced the collar so it doesn’t flop down so much. I also brought the neckline in slightly for a little more warmth. Now it just fits over my head! The fabric is the same cotton/lycra doubleknit as the Croppies and as you can see they go together quite nicely as an outfit.

Next I moved on to the darker charcoal grey cotton single-knit jersey. Not sure if there’s lycra content in this but not much if any. It stretched out some when I test-sewed a scrap so I used my walking foot for the first time.

Close-up of grey jersey fabric on a sewing machine under the needle and showing the walking foot attachment. — Janome walking foot

It helped keep the layers aligned and stopped them rippling up. The foot is a little more difficult to attach to the machine because you have to unscrew the clip-on part and screw this monster in place, making sure the arm (on the right there) is above the needle screw. As the needle goes up and down it moves the arm which engages the white teeth to help move the top layer forward. The whole beast is rather large and bulky but works fine and doesn’t seem to get in the way at all.

I also had trouble with the serger stretching the fabric when I was overcasting the single layer hems. To solve that issue I engaged the differential feed (set at 1.5) which worked well but switched back to normal for the other seams. So what did I make? A plain ordinary Hey June Lane Raglan t-shirt dress with 3/4 sleeves and a straight knee-length hem. No pockets because I ran out of fabric.

Dark grey dress with three-quarter sleeves hanging on an orange door. — Lane Raglan Dress

This pattern has been my raglan TNT but I’m still not happy with the neckline. I kept thinking I was stretching it out when applying the neckband but I don’t think that’s true. The neckband lies nice and flat which is how it should be. I did bring up the whole neckline about 1/2″ but I think it needs about 3/4″ more on the back and sleeve areas. It’s just a little too breezy on my neck and threatens to expose bra straps. We’ll see what happens the next time I make a Lane Raglan. Meanwhile this one is quite wearable. It’s meant to be a layering piece anyway.

Then there’s the other garment from this jersey fabric, a test sew for a self-drafted Big Pockets Tunic.

Grey tunic with big pockets hanging on an orange door. — Big Pockets Tunic

For this one I used my personal stretch blocks for a long-sleeved, shoulder-princess tunic with pockets integrated into the seams. I think it turned out the way I had envisioned. The neckline on this one is more comfortable than the dress because it’s somewhat higher on the back and shoulders but a similar height on the front neck. Lesson learned. Maybe.

In future I’d like to play with princess seams some more. I suspect armhole princess might be a better shape for me. The shoulder version’s back seams end up right on top of my bra straps for a rather lumpy look. I know you can get some nice closely-fitting garments with the extra seams to manipulate but I’m rather avoiding anything too tight from the bust down. Anyway, I seem to be gaining confidence in my drafting skills which is rather exciting and very freeing. As long as I have my blocks that fit properly then I can use them to hack whatever I want. Such power! Must be used for good, right? Heh.

So that’s four garments in boring grey. I spent some quality time cleaning up my sewing area and vacuuming out the sewing machine and serger ready for a new adventure. What’s next on the agenda? Some colour! I have 2 items cut out of snow-dyed cotton knit to sew. It’s rather wild stuff. Get out your sunglasses!

Dyer's chamomile, fine toothy green leaves and white flower buds. — Dyer’s Chamomile, ready to burst into flower

Mid-May

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 damselflysdelightsLeave a comment

I think I may have finally run out of sewing patterns to prepare! I was on a roll gluing and making fitting changes to a whole list of them:

L-R: Felix, La Bella Donna, Rushcutter, Yuki

And there’s even a few more in my already-cut-out pile. I finally sewed one garment out of those 8 today.

Not the old top! The stretch grey Cropped Pants underneath.

This was a test sew of a pair of RTW knit pants that I copied for a new pattern. I think they need a little more height on the rise but these are quite wearable anyway. I’ve just about worn the original black ones out so it’s good to have a replacement. I hope to make more pairs of these Croppies! More sewing coming soon too.

You might also notice my new sandals. I don’t often buy shoes because my feet are rather (OK, extremely) particular about their footwear. And I also have an aversion to flimsy or overly embellished shoes. I want relatively plain, well-padded, comfortable flats and these fit the bill perfectly. I loved them so much I bought 2 pairs!

You will note that those are not pink. The colour name is Terra Cotta and it’s much more orange than pink. (Thank goodness! You all know how I feel about pink.) The other pair is a lovely indigo blue referred to officially as Navy. I was obviously on a blue kick because I also bought a new indigo hat from Edie’s Hat Shop on Granville Island. It’s a Wallaroo Tori and I knew the minute I tried it on that it was coming home with me. See?

It just felt totally right on my wee head. Plus it rolls up to stash in my pack and 50 SPF sun blocking too. Yup, I’m worth it.

Garden vs Studio

May 8, 2019May 8, 2019 damselflysdelights2 Comments

Hope you’re having a lovely May wherever you are! Yes, I realise our Southern Hemisphere folks are heading for colder weather. But they were complaining of the heat when we were freezing up here so it’s only fair to turn the tables, right? Heh. Anyway, I’ve written a dozen delightful posts in the last few weeks – but unfortunately they were only in my head! My hands were very busy.

I’ve been trying to get the garden, especially the vegetable garden, into some kind of shape now that the weather has actually warmed up enough. I’m forced to dig the beds deeply twice in order to eliminate as many of the walnut roots as possible. English (aka Persian) walnut trees don’t produce as much juglone, a toxin that inhibits nearby competition, as black walnut does but I do see a difference in some plants not being as vigorous near our monster tree.

Walnut tree just getting its baby leaves. It’s always this late!

The ancient beast is over 50 feet tall and wide and the roots extend even farther out than the canopy does! The greenhouse is now partially under said canopy and this year the root situation is ridiculous. I needed Thom’s help to dig the tomato beds in there and after only clearing half of it we dumped five (5!) buckets of roots into the city’s green bin.

I think those walnut roots were way too happy to grow in the dry and slightly warmer (at least in the daytime) soil in there all winter. Yeesh. I managed to only (only!) get less than two buckets of roots from what will be the squash and bean bed, even after going over it twice. But then it’s a little farther away from the walnut tree too.

After we finish the greenhouse there’s only a bit of tidying to do around the edges and I can call the veggie garden prep done. Still have to plant the beans and cucumbers and transplant tomato and squash seedlings yet though. Gardening is kind of like housework. It’s never really done! Although this is definitely the busiest time of the whole year out there. Once everything is planted it’s down to watering and weeding. And harvesting.

When I got too tired to mess about in the garden I switched to my studio. I’ve mostly been working on my patterns, assembling PDF printouts and doing fit adjustments. Once they’re all ready to be used I can just grab whichever one I need to cut out without having to stop and prep the next pattern. I’ve also cut out a total of 8 projects already (all knits) but haven’t started sewing them together yet.
What can I say? I was on a roll! I’m going to have to sew them soon though because at least 3 of these are test garments, aka “wearable muslins” (or toiles, depending on your country of origin). I need to see how they work out before cutting any more using those patterns. Just in case any adjustments need to be made.

In other crafty news, my hands are too tired to do anything else! I did finish my Blue Dragon socks (pattern is “Shur’tugal” from Alice Yu’s book Socktopus) if you missed it on Insta.

The yarn is from Black Cat Custom Yarn, colourway “In the Navy” and for once I pretty much followed the pattern except that I made the leg longer so the socks come up above the top of my Blundstones. Other than this though, I have barely touched needles or spinning wheel for ages. I did do a wee bit of dyeing however, but I’ll save that for another post.

Oh, you might be interested in this last tidbit: I finally got three separate offers for my bead de-stash, all within 24 hours of each other! Talk about synchronicity, eh? A whole month after I put them up for sale. Unfortunately I had to tell everyone that they were already gone home with my sister. You snooze, you lose. Might have actually made a few bucks (sigh) but at least my sis is happy!

Can’t you just smell them? I sure can. **Atchoo!!**

Sewing Exercises

April 28, 2019 damselflysdelightsLeave a comment

Been awhile, hasn’t it? Time flew while I was having fun! You know they say that older people need to exercise both their body and their brain, right? I’ve found that running around my cutting table is definitely physical. Pasting patterns together, making fitting changes, straightening fabric folds, organizing pattern pieces and cutting them out makes quite a workout. The brain gets fully engaged too: deciding on pattern/fabric combinations, how to make it fit me correctly, getting the most economical layout of pieces and making sure I have them all on grain. Serious body/mind engagement! And I haven’t even started to actually sew any of it yet.

As you might have noticed I tend to work in batches. I mess with patterns for awhile, then I cut out for awhile and then I sew for awhile until I’ve sewn up all the current pile. Wash, rinse, repeat.

So far in the last couple of weeks I’ve assembled 4 PDF patterns: In The Folds Rushcutter Dress, a revised Grainline Farrow, Thread Theory Jedediah pants and Wardrobe By Me Chinos but I’m not going to cut and sew them quite yet. (The last 2 are for Thom.) Instead I’ve also done a rub-off copy of a pair of cropped knit pants that I’ve had for at least a decade. They’re sadly wearing out so I wanted the pattern before they do. And I drafted a new knit tunic pattern based on my personal TNTee. It’s got shoulder-princess seams and I’m calling it the Big Pockets Tunic for the obvious reason. The pockets are so big that I didn’t have enough fabric to cut them on the straight grain so they’re cross-grain instead. No biggie. (Hah! See what I did there? Punny.)

There were two different grey knit fabrics in the stash so they’ve become my wearable toiles/muslins for the Croppies and the Big Pockets. Of course there was enough fabric to cut out another garment from each. I like to use up as much as I can! So the slightly heavier knit (on the left in the photo) will also become a Katherine Tilton B6101 top. I’ve made this one before and wear it so much that it’s starting to pill. All I had to do was press the wrinkles out of the pattern. Have you sewn one of Katherine’s (or her sister Marcy’s) patterns? They are often an exercise in cutting a gazillion asymmetrical pieces single layer and then piecing them all back together again. Must keep your wits about you! They also are not at all economical with fabric though I managed to get it all cut out with a little room to spare.

This fabric’s fibre content is lost in the mists of time. I think it’s a cotton/poly blend and there may or may not be a hint of Lycra in there. Dunno. Anyway, I actually like the reverse side better with it’s one knit row black/one knit row tweedy grey. The “front” of this interlock knit is softer and more blended. You can see it on the wee top square here. Anyway, I’ve decided to use the striped side as “public”. That leaves the softer side next to skin. I like that.

Even tighter of a cutout was the second grey knit (the one on the right up there and a little darker than the first). I first cut a dress version of my slightly modified Hey June Lane Raglan. This pattern is my raglan TNT shirt and I’ve been wearing the heck out of 2 previous dress versions so another would not go amiss. This one has my favourite 3/4 sleeves. This single-knit cotton jersey (no Lycra) came as a very wide tubular fabric and, boy-howdy, it did NOT want to lie flat! I ended up cutting it down as close to a straight selvedge as possible and then into two pieces so that I could get it as straightened as I could. Whatevs. I did my best. Hopefully it will be wearable. The second garment from this wonky stuff is the test of my self-drafted Big Pockets. Same issues with the grain. As I mentioned above I ended up cutting the pockets sideways. We shall see how it goes.

I still have more patterns to mess with and of course lots more fabrics in the stash. I’m trying to work with what I have for now and see how far I can go before I need to go shopping! Speaking of stash, my sister from Haida Gwaii came to visit and took all the rest of my beads and about half of the leftover books with her. Yay! At least they were driving so not having to deal with airline weight restrictions. Heh. And the rest of the books, magazines and even my poor old Pfaff sewing machine went to the salvage. Hopefully someone will get some use out of them. Apparently they were quite happy to receive craft stuff so I know where to unload anything else I decide to de-stash if nobody wants it. I’m not done yet. There will be more. As soon as I get over the trauma of that last lot!

So the weather has been quite cold at night still. There was even some frost on the roofs and cars this morning! Yikes. My plantlings are being held too long without going into the garden beds and are starting to show signs of stunting. I’ve had to bring everybody in from the greenhouse every evening. Bleh. My min/max thermometer in there only registered 2C on the minimum this morning! Everything is still running quite late and I’ve kind of lost some enthusiasm at the moment. You watch, I’ll be complaining of the heat in another couple of weeks. No pleasing some gardeners, I tell you.

Sewing stuff is easier right now. So that’s what I’m doing. Avoidance maybe?

Brown

April 18, 2019 damselflysdelightsLeave a comment

You know when you’ve had something for ages and every time you wear it, you wonder why you haven’t thrown it out yet? Because it’s just annoying or uncomfortable? Such as pants that won’t stay up? But you haven’t chucked it because for some reason you still like it? This pair of leggings is one of those:

Actually there’s two pairs, this brown one and a black pair that’s currently in the laundry. I’ve had them forever – at least 10 years – and they’re both by the same manufacturer. I liked them because they are warm and have interesting seamlines combining a heavy stretch knit and a rib knit. They’ve actually been quite durable even if they weren’t as comfortable as they should have been. Sorry I didn’t give you a before photo but by the time I thought of it, I’d already started altering them. This is the fixed version! Originally they had a wide folded waistband with that 2″ elastic inside. But they didn’t have a high enough rise for my body. And the elastic just kept folding up inside the waistband. And they kept sliding down. Grrr…

So I finally broke down and thought of a way to make them better without a whole lot of work. Took me long enough, eh? I didn’t want to take off the whole waistband piece so I cut through the back layer next to the flat-lock stitches and removed the elastic. Which didn’t look too bad after I pressed the wrinkles out of it so I just used a 3-step zigzag stitch to attach it onto the top of the unfolded waistband. Which effectively added nearly 4″ to the rise so the waistband is actually at my waist and most importantly, above my hips so that now they are comfortable and stay up properly. The elastic stays flat and doesn’t fold over into a rope either. So simple. Now I hope to get another few years out of these leggings. Why the heck didn’t I do this way back when I first bought them? Sigh.

Brown is definitely the theme today. I finished the second pullover for Thom that I had cut out back in February before I started on the Peacoat Project. This one is the modified Love Notions North Star pullover but this time in a brown cotton fleece-backed sweatshirt knit.

He likes this one best of all since it’s really warm and cosy. I put the soft fleece side out on the neck side of the collar and on the pocket bands for comfort. The zipper was another too-long separating zip from Dressew. It’s got bronzy-green plastic teeth with a nice rubber pull and brown tape that matches the fabric. Not a problem to shorten it. This fabric sewed much easier than the navy french terry even though it was quite thick.

Now that Thom has four pullovers made by me, I think he will stay warm for awhile! And I will go on to other things. Time for a reassessment of my sewing queue. I also hope to finally have a finished knitting project to show next time.

In other news, the garden is not growing very quickly thanks to the cool rainy weather we’ve had. I’m still bringing seedlings in and out of the greenhouse daily and I’m getting impatient to get them planted. In a moment of fair weather I did manage to get the dye garden cleaned up and ready to plant as soon as it’s warm enough for my little indigo babies. The tomatoes are still in the basement grow-op under the lights and I haven’t even considered planting the squash and cucumber seedlings quite yet. There’s plenty of time still and their beds are still waiting on me to dig them properly. Spring is still running quite late this year.

Got My Sewjo Working

April 10, 2019 damselflysdelights4 Comments

I’ve had a couple of sweatshirt-type pullover tops cut out for Thom since before I started the Peacoat Project back in February. Both that coat and the sorting/cleaning for the craft supply sale last weekend kind of got in the way of any other sewing projects since then. Which reminds me. If you don’t follow my Instagram (where I’m @damselfly.ca) you might not have seen the photo I managed to take at the sale.

It was more fun than I anticipated and I did alright but there’s still too many beads, books and magazines left! More on that later when I finalize what I plan to do with the excess. Anyway, I had a few days of a rest after all that socializing – if you can call it rest when it includes repotting seedlings and getting baby plants in the ground – and finally got back to the studio yesterday.

Having something already cut out made it a lot easier to get started. Having made this Thread Theory Finlayson before I expected an easy sew. Not! The fabric, a heavier cotton french terry, gave me a much harder time than similar fabrics I’ve used before. It curled. It slipped. Pins didn’t hold it. Clips didn’t hold it. The sewing machine went through all the layers ok except that it was hard to get such thick seams under the presser foot. The serger wouldn’t cut through the seam areas so I had to pre-trim them. The top layer kept curling over the cutting knife instead of going under it which messed up the seam.

Note to self: keep your fingers away from the knife!

Struggling to keep everything doing what it was supposed to distracted my attention. Luckily the blade only sliced into my nail and not me! Anyway the final results look reasonably good from the outside. Just don’t look too carefully at it because none of the seams line up properly and the inside serging looks like it was nibbled by rats! Thom doesn’t care nearly as much as I do. Besides he’s likely to wear it out mowing the lawn or pruning the shrubs anyway.

I was just happy to finish and thought that hanger shot would be the end but Thom immediately put on his new pullover so there’s a modelled photo.

So now I still have a modified Love Notions North Star pullover cut out and ready to go. It’s a fleece-backed sweatshirt fabric so it might been even more problematic to sew! I hope not. I only have just so many fingernails.

Meanwhile I think I’ll go spin for awhile It’s raining again.

April Showers

April 5, 2019 damselflysdelights4 Comments

We’ve had such lovely weather in March but now it seems that the old April showers trope is true. Luckily I got quite a lot of the garden dug and ready before the rains hit. The peas and spinach are coming up now and I’ve been harvesting kale buds, corn salad (mache) and chives. In the greenhouse the baby seedlings are waiting until they are a little bigger before being transplanted into the garden. The tiny Japanese indigo plants are still being brought in every night since it’s warmer under the grow lights.

They won’t be going out into their bed for awhile yet. Neither will the coreopsis, marigolds or sulphur cosmos.

The cosmos (the very similar looking plants in the back) are new for me this year. I’m testing to see how well they do in my garden and also how well they do in the dyepot. A yellow to orange dye, depending on pH., similar to the dyer’s coreopsis. They can grow quite large and need sun so it remains to be seen if I can give them what they need. Nowhere in my yard gets full sun all day anymore thanks to all the big trees but most things do OK with less. We shall see, won’t we? At least they don’t need a lot of water or fertilizer.

The rest of the biannual and perennial dyeplants are already perking up in the garden. The madder seems to have survived being dug up, root-pruned and divided into a different part of the dye garden. So did the rhubarb. I keep digging out part of the clump of dyer’s chamomile but it keeps looking just as large. I have a couple of volunteer weld plants which I’ll probably allow to go to seed this year just to freshen up my seed supply. Though I don’t need more than one or two plants a year anyway for the small amount of dyeing I do with weld. It’s a large plant! And very easy to grow just about anywhere.

It’s kind of nice to have a bit of a break from the digging. Though I’m especially happy to be finished with days and weeks of sorting out all the stuff for the craft supplies sale tomorrow. I have books, magazines, a bit of yarn, some sewing patterns (uncut), and beads-beads-beads. I only packaged up about 2/3 of the bead stash and there’s still lots left. For this go-round I concentrated on the beading, doll-making, paper arts, and embellishment stuff. I didn’t even go through the fabrics or fibres at all. Plus there’s still plenty of sewing, knitting, spinning, dyeing, crochet, weaving and braiding books and mags left! So I think I’m all ready now. Maybe. I have way too much stuff for a single table (18 boxes full!) but that’s all the sale space I’ve got to work with. And this was just the first pass through the stash too. Yikes. I’m certainly going to be very aware of anything new that comes into this house in future. Remind me of this when I get antsy to buy any new stuff, won’t you?

Uh-oh. Glad we already loaded up the van in the garage with the sale boxes during an earlier dry period because now it’s raining quite hard! If this continues tomorrow it’s going to be equally exciting unloading without getting vulnerable books wet. I am so not looking forward to this. Wish me luck finding new homes for it all! Or at least some of it.