Banging Out Some Basics

Sometimes a me-made wardrobe is all about cool flashy pieces that you will be super proud of but not wear too often. Other times it is all about the basics. Sunday was a basics sort of day. I managed to bang out two t-shirts, three camisoles, and five pairs of underpants.

Admittedly all of the pieces were already cut out and some of them were even partially assembled already. I had started working on them before my honeymoon but didn't finish because I had to order some stretch lace online. I hate online shopping so I was putting it off for as long as I could. In the end, I was happy with my order from Deb's Lace and Trims. I got a variety of stretch laces that really do have good stretch and for less than $10 I got enough for everything I made and then some.

They may just be basic boring pieces, but man are they comfy. All the fabric is Telio Organic Cotton Jersey, purchased from fabric.com  I bought one yard of the beige, which yielded one camisole and one pair of underpants. I bought three each of the black and the blue. I made one t-shirt, two camies and three pairs of underpants from the blue and two t-shirts and one pair of underpants from the black fabric.

The camisole and panties are both from Patterns by Gertie B6031. If I could live in them I would. The underpants are the most comfortable pair I have every worn. They have full coverage over the bum so you don't get those awful visible pantie lines and I think they lace is a fun touch. I didn't bother making the straps adjustable and I did use the same 3/4" lace for everything rather than a thinner lace. I love love love the camisole pattern because it has adjustable cups. Heaven.

The t-shirt pattern is by Kwik Sew. I find it to be an easy pattern and a well-fitting t-shirt. I've made it so many times now that I have literally lost count. T-shirts are my go-to when I don't feel the need to look pretty and I'm not going to work. I love them.

Sorry for the total lack of pictures. You will just have to take my word for the fact that everything fits like a dream. I don't think I will every get to the point where I am willing to post a photo on the internet of me in my underwear.

Rose Print Knit

I don't usually wear a lot of tank tops, but it's been so hot recently that the idea of sleeves is just terrible. I know, the rest of the country is like, "shut up, it's 85 degrees" but for Washington that is killer hot. I like it here because it stays between 40 and 70 for 90% of the year. So after I made the two Sorbetto tanks I pulled McCall's M6794 and a rather precious rose print knit out of my closet.

The rose print is really sweet, and although I like it, it's not something I would have bought on my own, but I got it out of my grandmother's stash (which also means I have no idea what the fiber content is, but I'm guessing it's got some polyester in it). I was going to use it to make a ruched t-shirt, but I couldn't find the pattern, I don't actually remember if I really bought it, or just meant to buy it, so I made a tunic length tank top instead. I barely had enough fabric, like not even an inch to spare.

The fabric is a little bit on the see-through side. I originally put it on with denim capris and hated the fact that you could see the contrast between the dark denim and my skin through the top so I threw on a pair of white leggings instead (M6360 view c that I made a couple of years ago). I feel very all white in this outfit, I think what it really needs is a pale green pair of leggings, but white was what I had, so it was what I wore. I've only very recently embraced the leggings trend, but now I'm thinking I need to make more in more colors. But I will still only wear them if my rear is covered. I've been told by girlfriends that what I call a tunic the rest of them call a dress. 

A couple of notes on the tunic pattern: The pattern envelope says you can make it in a woven or a knit. Obviously, I chose a knit. The patterns works but the instructions and more importantly the grainline markings all assume that you are using a woven. If you make this pattern with a knit think very carefully about the direction of stretch when you are laying out your pattern pieces. The neck and sleeves are meant to have a double-fold bias facing, I changed that to single fold, but I still feel like it's too bulky, I wish, considering that knits don't unravel, that I had just folded it over once and sewed it down. 

I also played with a twin-needle to do the hems on this. On the one hand, it does look more professionally finished then zig-zagging or leaving them raw, but on the other hand, I had a really hard time adjusting the tension on the machine to make it work. I had to set the tension at the loosest that it would go and I'm still seeing a little bit of distortion because the stitches are too tight and I really don't like that.

All in all, I don't think this is going to become one of my favorite tops, but it was cool and comfy on our recent 90 degree day, and since I can't wear it to work anyway it doesn't matter if it's my favorite.

Gosh That's nice, That Lingerie

I am currently a little bit obsessed with Gertie Hirsch. I have bought most of her Butterick patterns. Today I'm going to talk about pattern 6031. Gertie's blog has a wonderful series of tutorials on how to make the slip from the pattern. I've made this slip once already, which I talked about in this post. Incidentally, I think I now have a personal rule that posts about my underwear must be titled with ridiculous quotes/references. 

Today is really just about posting pictures of the rest of what I made from that pattern. I made three versions of the camisole. One in black

And two in white. All three are the longer version because I've got a long torso. I only took a picture of one of the white ones because they look the same. I didn't have enough black lace to edge the bottom of the black camisole, but I did do both of the white. They are made with knit fabrics so the finish wasn't strictly necessary, but I thought they looked sort of raw without the lace. 

I even went back and added it to the first nude slip. I had initially not wanted it because I thought it would make the slip not move as smoothly underneath a dress, but upon further consideration I've decided that I don't care because it looks so much prettier this way. 

I made two more of the slip too, again one in black.

And one in white. 

With the nude slip I used lingerie elastic (you know, the stuff with the picot edge on one side) to finish the top edge, but on the black and the white slips and the camisoles I just sewed lace all the way around. I initially was just going to leave it raw - I was feeling cheap and didn't want to pay for the lace or elastic - but the fabric started to sort of run on me. Not a lot, but enough to make me want to finish the edges. You can see the run in this photo.

All in all, they were inexpensive, fun to make, fit well, and are really comfy. The fabric is soft, although it doesn't breath super well (pretty sure it's 100% polyester, but I didn't look that closely at the label). They are too low cut to wear the camisoles as tanks, but they make great undershirts, which was really what I wanted them for. The white slip works really well underneath the stripped skirt I posted about last time. I think I'm done with the pattern for the moment, but I feel like I got some good use out of it. I'm sure as some point I'll make the panties, but not out of the same fabric. I like a higher cotton content for my underpants. 

In another couple of posts I'll talk about other Gertie patterns that I've been working on.

One Last Knit Skirt

I have to wear jeans for work (going up and down ladders in skirts just doesn't seem like a good idea to me) but if I'm not at work I live in skirts. So about a month and a half ago I went to Jo-Ann's armed with coupons and wanting to round out my summer skirt wardrobe. I've already posted about my maxi skirt and the knee length square skirt, the last skirt I made that weekend was McCall's 6654 view F. 

The skirt itself if a very simple A-line ending just a bit above my knee. 

It's comfy, looks good with a t-shirt, and took only 1 yrd of fabric. It was quick and easy to sew and I didn't have to make any modifications for fit. I do have to wear a slip to keep the lace strips from being see-through, but Western Washington doesn't really get hot enough for layers to be a problem, even in the summer. This skirt is pretty much a winner in my book.

Quick and Cute Skirt

I have noticed while talking to other sewers that there seems to be a widespread fear of sewing with knits. This is not a fear I really understand. I love knits. I find them to be a bit more forgiving to work with this woven fabric because the fit doesn't have to be as perfect.

I also find knit projects tend to work up faster. Case and point this skirt (which is a McCall's pattern, but I can't find a link to it on their website):

This skirt literally took me less then 30 minutes to cut out and sew together. If I had felt like dragging out my serger it probably would have take about 15 minutes. And that includes the time it took for my to make sure that the strips would line up when I was cutting the fabric.

I'm actually pretty pleased that they lined up because I was still taking valium for my neck injury when I decided to make this skirt and I had actually meant for the strips to go the other way so clearly I wasn't actually thinking that clearly when I cut the fabric. 

I'll freely admit that part of why it was such a quick project was that I didn't bother to hem it. When I started I had intended to hem the fabric, but I decided that I liked the way it curled at the bottom, I think it adds to the fun, casual, flirty feeling on the skirt. And that is part of why I love working with knits. Don't want to hem it? No problem, it's not going to unravel, and you don't end up with awful dangling bits of thread. 

And speaking of not unraveling, that means I don't have to bother with any sort of clean finish for the seams. I just run two lines of zig-zag and call it good. 

Yep, knits are pretty much my favorite. I've got one more knit skirt that I made this same weekend, I'm going to write about it next.

Maxi Skirt

It seems like maxi skirts have been getting increasingly popular the last few years. I've been kind of late jumping on this bandwagon mostly because I am way super not coordinated - seriously, ask my mom, she will confirm - and I was pretty sure I couldn't walk in a long skirt without tripping and killing myself. Secondarily I like showing off my tattoos when I am not at work and nobody could see my way awesome leg tattoos in a long skirt.

I was at Jo-Ann's looking at patterns (I love for 5 for $5 sales) and I found McCall's 7130.

 

Picture of view c taken from McCall's website

I'd gone into the store thinking that some new knit skirts would be just the ticket for summer and this was the maxi pattern that finally lured me into long skirt territory. Note that it has a slit up one side, so my tattoos could still be displayed. 

See, nice slit up to the knee. Also, I should have ironed it before I took pictures, but oh well. 

And here it is in all it's long glory. It's sort of hard to tell in the picture but the skirt it made in panels. I wish I could have gotten a good picture of me actually wearing it because it's much cuter that way. 

I did have to make a few modifications to the pattern. I made a size 16 and while I think the fit through the hips was perfect - any tighter and I would have had serious VPL problems - the waist didn't fit at all. It was huge and because it was actually designed to fold over it ended up being really bulky looking under a t-shirt. It pretty much added about 15 pounds that I really don't need around my gut. I sort of wish I had taken pictures so I could illustrate my point about the bad fit, but mostly I'm glad I didn't because I really don't need those pictures floating around. 

To solve the waist problem I first cut the waistband in half so instead of folding over it just sits straight at my natural waist. That wouldn't have worked if I had ever intended to wear it as a sleeveless dress like I was supposed to be able to, but since I am not into the sleeveless look I didn't mind losing the "two in one" nature. 

It was still to big to actually hold itself up at that point though. I ended up also adding a piece of 1" elastic (because it's what I had laying around). I didn't sew a tight channel for the elastic, it's pretty much just floating in the nearly four inches of waistband. So far I haven't had any problems with the elastic twisting or sliding around, so I'm calling it good. 

As you can kind of see if my picture of the slit I ended up hemming it by nearly four inches too. If you are leggy and tall this pattern would totally still work for you. I am 5'7" so I'm not exactly short, but most of my height comes from my torso so I'm not too surprised that ended up with extra fabric in the hem. 

Bonus: I totally haven't tripped over the hem yet. although one of my nieces did point out that I lift the skirt when I am going up and down stairs/hills. She totally laughed at me when I told her it was to keep from tripping.