Sometimes things just don't work out

I am sorry to say that this maxi dress just didn't work out for me. Bad enough that I am not even going to show you the final project. I am a bit embarassed about it. Luckily my sister Rian was able to take the reins and make most of the posts this month. And hers turned out great. Mine on the other hand turned out matronly and dumpy. Hopefully I can cut it up and do something with the fabric in the future.

All in all it was a good reminder to me that I have a lot to learn. So here is to some simple pillows next month. (thank goodness I need it)

For next summer...

Luckily I finished this project in time to use it once. I made my maxi dress as a swimsuit cover-up, thought I really could wear it else where. The one time involved a day at the local lake, complete with BBQ, boating, and digging in a somewhat rocky sand. The maxi dress preformed perfectly. I felt bleach elegant. I picked my fabric just for such occasions and as desired there was no wrinkling, sand brushed right off, and it gave the breezy swish. Too bad it started to snow today (only briefly, but still). I await the warm summer days of 2010 to resurrect the maxi dress.

As a review of this pattern you do need to be careful of the gappiness under the arms and after seeing the back in this picture I am going to add a hook-&-eye just above the top of the zipper as it appears to be pulling open a little.

zipper tutorial

The most frequent request I get for our blog is help on sewing in a zipper. I have always kindof avoided this as I am not overly confident in inserting zipper's myself. But the other day I was on the textile blog for Lillstreet Street and found this wonderful tutorial.

I hope this helps. I know that it is not the exact way that the pattern gives for this particular maxi dress, but you could always try this method instead.

Skipping Step #7

Instead of baste stitching one midriff on and then adding the other I just pinned all three layers together at once. If you are at all worried about doing this, then just follow the directions. But if you want to I would just suggest using a lot of pins so make sure your gathers stay in place and evenly distributed.

What kind of pins do you like to use? These ones are quilting pins, I like then because they are long, but I am constantly bending them beyond repair.

Square Corners, Tip for Steps 3-4

If you want your corner edges to look nice and square like this:Then before you flip it through like this:

You need to clip out your corners like this:

If you don't clip out the excess fabric on a corner it is just too bulky to get a flat, sharp edge.

And the winner is....

The winner of our giveaway is Courtney!!!

She said, "Pillows have been on my to do list for... forever too, this would be great motivation. :-) Thanks for the chance to win, and the motivation to get them done either way."

Courtney will be our guest blogger for the month of October, but you can get to know her now by checking out her blog. Congratulations and glad to have you aboard!

cutting the darn thing out

For some reason I have really had a hard time getting going on this project. But FINALLY I cut out my pattern with the necessary changes. Because there were quite a few changes determined from my muslin I thought I would post some pics of the changes that I made.



First on the list was raising the neckline. I used the same method that Rian used in her post called Taking It Up a Notch.Next I lengthened the bodice front and bodice back by about an inch. I did this by simply cutting straight across the bottom section of the bodice piece and then using some of the extra tissue paper provided to tape a 1 inch section of space in the pattern. Here is what it looks like.

Front:

Back:

I found the waistband also to be a bit wide for my upper waistline so I made that a bit smaller as well. To do this I simply folded a 1/2" tuck on either side of the waistband to take out the excess width. Here is a closeup look:

OK, now I have just got to get rolling so this doesn't become another half finished project on the pile.

Do you guys have the same problem as me? If so what do you do to keep on task and get excited about a project again?

WITH SCRAPS: Vintage Sheet File Folders

I first came across this great idea on Design Sponge who in turn soaked up this great idea from Katherine Jalaty of Making Chicken Salad. I love the idea of using vintage fabric (my local thrift store sells fabric by the bag), but any fabric scraps would work (well, as long as they are big enough, but then again you could do a little patchwork). For Katherine's full tutorial click here.
Have a great idea for scrap fabric? Email us pictures with your write up or a link to you blog post showing what you've done at dearpresserfoot@gmail.com. Share the love.

Getting the Proper Swish

The first skirt I ever made was in the 6th grade. I was making a full twirly skirt to wear to church. I have no idea why but I was making it out of a red and cream striped denim. I can remember being so excited laying my fabric out on the floor and smoothing it to perfection. Then I just slapped the pattern on and cut it. Not a good idea. I'm sure there were grain-line arrows on the pattern, but I paid them no mind. I never did wear that skirt to church. The swish was non existent, it more of wrapped in between my legs. And the great, ever so slimming, red stripe went in two different directions, never vertical.

Yes, those arrows are there for a reason and if you want a perfect swish and beautiful hang on your maxi here is how to do it:

Step 1. lay your pattern on your smoothed out fabric and measure the distance from the arrow to your salvage edge, pinning it in place.

Step 2. going down to the opposite end of the arrow, adjust your pattern until the distance from the arrow and your salvage edge is exactly the same as the other side, and pin. Now you can pin the rest of your pattern piece with swishing confidence.

Now the grain-line arrow should run exactly parallel to the selvage or finished edge. Remember that with this pattern you will be cutting 3 skirt pieces, so make sure that you have your graphic running in the same direction on all 3! I still do love a good swish.

What about you? Any good grain-line errors to share?

Oct. Pattern + Giveway (the twist continues)

For October's project we are going decor. I have had a goal of making pillows for my couch for, well, years. My problem is that I tend to dream too big. All I want is three couch pillows, but I want to make seasonal slipcovers for each of them (now we are up to 12 pillows) and then a few holiday inspired ones as well (Christmas, New Years, Easter, Halloween, National Waffle Day, ...ect). See my problem? So to solve this problem I haven't done any at all. Well, I did go to the thrift store and bought three pillows to make the slipcovers for...and i did wash them.

Then Kelli and I had a revelation. We pick the projects, so why not pick projects that we want, need, or have been putting off doing. Genius. And incredably selfish. So, this month's project is pillows! Simplicity 4108 to be exact. Thankfully, many of us creative DIYers have the same problems and projects lined up. Lets do them together. And please, don't judge the project by the pattern cover. There are a ton of different options with this pattern and in the end it's all about fabric choice. Plus, you have two weeks to pick yours out, unless you are this month's giveaway winner and in that case I'll send fabric and the pattern right to your door!

Last month's giveaway was a huge success! So, let's keep the ball rolling. You can sign up for our giveaways between the 15th and 22nd of every month. Here is the fabric to win this month. All three are 3/4 yard home decor fabric. And remember pillows aren't just for couches.

Here is how it works:

What presserfoot will do:

• we will provide you with next month's pattern
• we will provide you with some awesome fabric to make the pattern
• we will do a short feature on our blog about you and your blog (if you have one)

What we ask of you:

• we ask that you make the pattern in the month given with the fabric
• we ask that you be an author on our blog for that month and make at least 4 posts during the month about your experience making the pattern.
• you will need to get your own notions, interfacing etc...

Pretty great deal right? Well, to enter for this month's giveaway for the pillow pattern and fun fabric just comment on this post. Make sure that you have either your email or blog url on there so that we can contact you. It will be open until next Tuesday the 22nd until midnight.

Time Management

A small break from sewing. I promise that I'll get back to sewing very soon (I'm working on a post about cutting out & altering pattern pieces!), but I wanted to ask you all something: where did the last week go? Somehow I forgot this over the summer, but grad school is time-consuming! I read a lot of sewing/craft blogs, and so many of those ladies (and you ladies?) have families and jobs and sometimes Etsy shops, and yet they (you?) still manage to find time to sew and craft and write about it. It just blows me away, because I can barely manage to make time for sewing, and I only have myself to worry about. How do they do it? How do you do it? How do you find the time for all of the sometimes time-consuming steps involved in sewing, when there are always other things that must be done? I am determined to finish a muslin for the bodice of the dress this weekend (good call, Kelli, on not needing a muslin for the skirt portion), but I also have to grade 100 quizzes, read about 200 pages, and catch up on laundry and various errands.* There are only so many hours in the day, and I would like to spend at least a few of those hours with my friends and/or boyfriend. How do you find time to sew? Does anyone have any time-management tips? Do I just need to manage my time better and schedule time at my sewing machine? Perhaps I should stop reading sewing blogs for hours and just do some sewing myself? If anyone has any special tricks, help me out! And if anyone would like to just commiserate and share their tales of busyness and woe, that's fine too. And I promise, my next dispatch will be about sewing, hopefully about my successful experience altering the bodice pattern.

* One of those errands might be buying more fabric that I don't, strictly speaking, need. I don't mean to shill for a big huge corporation--I try to shop at local, independent fabric stores whenever I can--but Hancock Fabrics is having ridiculous sales all month. Kona Cotton is $2.98/yard (!!!) this weekend, and most of their stock is either 30% off all month or 52% off for a specific weekend. I would never encourage anyone to buy fabric or sewing supplies they don't necessarily "need" (that might be a lie), but if there's something you've been thinking about buying, check out the flyer at their website, because 52% off is just crazypants.

Taking it up a notch

Maybe it's my old age, maybe it's just my old prudish ways, but the neck line is a little too plunging for me. If you are the same here's a quick way to take it up a notch. If you're not like me, well, all the power to you!

Step 1. trace the neck line of the pattern on a piece of paper
(this allows you to keep the same shape, just higher)

Step 2. cut paper along traced line

Step 3. mark any end seam circles
(pattern paper is so thin I just use a pen to poke through onto the bottom paper)

Step 4. slide your bottom paper straight up until you have
reached your desired neck line height.

Step 5. tape in place and trim off any excess

Step 6. Pin to fabric and cut using your new neck line.

Happy plunging!

Making a Muslin

Before cutting into my real fabric I decided to make a muslin of the top of the dress to make sure that it fit correctly. I am very glad that I did. (Since the bottom is gathered I didn't feel like it was necessary to make a muslin of the whole dress.)

For those of you who don't know what a muslin is it is a preliminary trial run of your pattern with really cheap fabric to get out any kinks before you cut into your expensive fabric. It is almost essential for anything fitted and I would definitly recommend it if you are using expensive fabric. It has saved me before.

Instead of making a facing for my muslin I cut off 5/8" where the seam allowance would be turned under.

After sewing it together according to the patterns instructions I tried it on and started marking away with a pen so I don't forget everything that needs to be done.


Here are all of the changes that I need to make:
-take in the band 1/2" on both sides
-add 2 1/2" to the modesty of the neckline
-lengthen the bodice part by 1"
-put small dart in the armhole to keep the armhole from winging out.

OK, I think that is it. Hopefully the real one with fit like a glove because I took the time to do all of this.

OLD THINGS MADE NEW: Memory Quilt from Old Clothes

Almost two years ago my husband's younger brother died unexpectedly. As we were trying to put together our thoughts and emotions, as well as a funeral, a neighbor asked my mother-in-law for some of Stephen's clothes for a quilt. What do you do with someone's things after they are gone? So, after my husband took a few t-shirts for sentiment my mother-in-law rounded up an old dress shirt and tie, his painting pants, college sweatshirt,camping plaid flannel, and snow boarding beanie and give it to the neighbor. A few months later, with the help of some of the youth at the local church, the neighbor presented this:No, it's not a technical quilt. And yes, it could be done a million different ways. But, can't you feel the spirit of it? As a family we cherish this quilt because it was made with love and because it is so Stephen. And a quilt like this doesn't have to follow death, it can follow a graduation, a growth spurt, a birthday, the last kid, or time to leave home. Fabric can be more than fabric. It can be memories.

Got a great idea for making old things new? Email us at dearpresserfoot@gmail.com. Share the love.

Needle Needs

As many of you will hopefully be venturing past quilting cotton for this project I thought now would be a good time to review which needles are appropriate for which types of fabric. Below is a basic chart I made for a sewing class. I keep a copy next to my sewing machine. Click here for one I found online that is more in depth. Your sewing machine will last longer, perform better, and your projects will look more professional when they are sewn with the right needle. If you have ever sewn with the wrong needle and gotten a thread snag, well, you'll understand the importance; its enough to pull your hair out.

Hello from Marina

Hi there, party people. In case you don't know me, I'm Marina. I won this giveaway, and then I answered a few questions about myself. I am super psyched to guest-blog for Presserfoot. Kelli & Rian have created something pretty cool, and I am honestly in awe of their very detailed (and very well photographed!) process posts. I am also dying to try that jeans fitting tutorial that Rian posted.

I hope that I'll be able to contribute to this sew along experience of ours. As I explained to Kelli & Rian, I am definitely still an advanced beginner at best when it comes to garment sewing, but hey, maybe some of you are too. I'm going to be using a lot of new-to-me techniques, so probably there's some frustration in my future, but hopefully I'll be able to write about figuring things out rather than how frustrated I am. That would be so boring, right? I'm really hoping that I will figure out some good tips and tricks for my fellow beginners, and probably I will be asking for tips from those of you who know what you're doing.

Ideally this is where I would include a photo of the pattern & fabric in its pristine condition when I received it. That is unfortunately impossible, as when I saw that package sitting on my coffee table, I tore into it and immediately unfolded the fabric and opened the pattern envelope and started planning. Well, okay, first there was a bit of panic (so many pattern pieces in that bodice!) but then there was planning. I'm going to need to do at least two pattern alterations (full bust alteration for sure, and I may need to add an inch or so to the waist region), but two things make this totally not scary. One, I actually bought muslin to use to make a, um, muslin. Normally I either wing it or use an old bed sheet, but this fabric is too nice for winging it, and I'm out of bed sheets. Well, bed sheets that I want to cut up. I have a couple amazing floral ones that will someday be quilt backings. But, I digress! (Um, possibly you should get used to that? I'll work on it.) The point here is that I will be making a muslin so that I do not risk making a mistake in measurements with my pretty, pretty fabric.

And the second reason that I'm confident I'll end up with a proper fit? I bought a dress form! I've been thinking about buying one for awhile, and when I was at Hancock buying notions, I asked about ordering one. Normally you have to special order them and wait about two weeks for delivery, but they happened to have one in my size. How could I resist? One of my favorite things about sewing might be all of the sweet gadgets/trims/notions/etc that you get to buy. I mean, I own a dress form! How cool is that? And useful, of course.I am pretty confident that I can handle the alterations I'm going to need to do, but they will just be so much easier on a dress form. Pin fitting patterns on an actual person seems like something that was most likely much easier when patterns were printed on thicker tissue; the one time I tried it with a skirt pattern, I was too worried about tearing something to properly assess the fit. I think it'll be much more feasible on a dress form.

Okay, I should wrap this up! Next time, I will talk about my [lovely, lovely!] fabric and the lining & notions I bought, and probably also I will have made some progress on the pin fitting and muslin sewing. [Just realized I did not buy a zipper for my muslin; is that bad, experienced sewers? probably I'll need that if I want to really get an idea about how it's fitting, right?] The last thing I will mention, since I'm talking about fit, is a little tip I picked up when trying to determine my size. If you have more than 2" difference between your bust and high bust measurement, use your high bust measurement when determining your pattern size. The exact number seems to vary between companies, but basically, if you're going to have to do a FBA, you should use your high bust measurement to get a better idea of whether the pattern will fit you.

Knowing what size to cut

There is nothing worse, well maybe, than taking all the time to make something that doesn't fit. So, what size should you cut? If you go with the size you buy off the rack you may be sorely disappointed. "Fashion sizes" change from year to year and brand to brand while "pattern sizes" stay pretty standard. I a store I'm an eight, but when I cut my patterns I'm usually a 10 or 12. But don't you fret, for that same reason Marilyn Monroe is reported to have worn a size 16 dress. In reality and by today's ample dress sizes she was more of a size 6-8. So really, measure your self and cut the right size. You can always add a tag with a much smaller number, but a trim look can only be achieved by wearing clothes that fit. The great thing about the maxi dress is you just need to worry about your bust size. The skirt is so gathered and loose that you just need to fit the top. I suggest having a friend help you so that you are sure to have your tape measure run across the fullest part of your bust while keeping the tape parallel to the floor (line 1 from left graphic). The back of the pattern will have a chart to tell you which size to then cut. Any questions?

Cute Lunch Bag Pattern for only $5

Hello fellow seamstresses!

I have been absent from the Presser Foot sewing projects for the past month or two because our family moved from Delaware to Pennsylvania. Whew!

But I did want to stop in and share a great link I found today for this incredibly cute, inexpensive and easy sewing project...

You can purchase a kit with all materials needed to create one lunch bag from Spool (my local sewing shop in Philadelphia) for $22. But I went with the pdf pattern + instructions for only $5! Because hey, we all have extra fabric to use up!!!

To purchase the kit click here.
To purchase the downloadable pattern + instructions click here.

Just thought I would share!

Maxi Dress : my fabric

I had a really hard time committing to a busy fabric for a dress that would cover most of my body, so I chickened out and went with a solid. I am not really sure what this fabric is made of. Some kind of cotton lycra blend. It is a grayish khaki (I love neutrals) with bit of stretch and a bit of a sheen. Best part about it is that it was only $1.39 a yard at Vogue fabrics so I jumped on it. I plan on layering it with a boyfriend cardigan and bold scarf to brighten it up a bit. Can't wait to get started!