Tuesday Tip-Selecting the Right Pattern Size

I just now decided to make every Tuesday a tip day. A lot of them will probably be going back to the basics of sewing and they may be things you have been told 100 times, but they will be things that I find useful that I'm hoping will be beneficial to at least one person.

The first tip deals with selecting pattern sizes. Have you ever purchased a pattern and made something up that just fits terribly? I have...many times. You've probably even used your measurements and felt pretty confident that you did choose correctly. I learned very early on to never fully trust the pattern sizes. Every pattern incorporates what's called design and wearing ease into the garment. The patterns I have made usually have way more ease than I'm comfortable with. I don't really like my clothes to be a "second skin" as some may say, but I definitely don't want them baggy.

To remedy this issue, look at the finished garment measurements. Sometimes it can be found on the back of the pattern envelope at the bottom, but it seems like newer patterns are just having it on the actual pattern piece. If that's the case, don't be afraid to pull out the tissue paper and carefully unfold until you find the finished measurements. I do it all the time in the middle of the store.

Depending on the type of pattern (skirt, dress, top), you will focus on different measurements. For example, for a top, typically the most important measurement is the bust size. For a full skirt, the most important is the waist, since it wouldn't be form fitting around your hips. For a dress, it's easiest to get the pattern that fits your largest measurement then you can tailor in from that. My mom always taught me that you can always take away fabric but you can't add it back.

Anyways, back to the ease issue. So let's say you are making a pencil skirt, like the one in my last post. Let's say you have a 30" waist and 41" hip. The pattern would suggest you make a size 18 because of your hips. However, the size 16 has finished measurements of 34" waist and 45.5" hips. That's a LOT of ease for a pencil skirt. That would give you an extra 2" around your waist and 4.5" around your hips. For a pencil skirt, I only like about 1" of ease. The finished measurements for the 16 are waist 32" and hips 43.5" which would even still be a little large but way easier to tailor down. I made this skirt and was shocked at how huge it was in the hips. I had to put it on and pin it down to exactly how snug I wanted it. Another clue that you might want to go down a size is that in the description on the back of the envelope, it says the skirt is semi-fitted. Right away you can tell that it's not actually a snug pencil skirt style.

Some patterns aren't lying to you on your size though. For example, I just made a pair of jeans and made the size down that I usually do and luckily I made a practice pair first because they were SO tight! I could barely get them on. For that pattern, I would have been smarter to trust the measurements. I have just been in such a groove and going down a size that I didn't even pay attention.

Take time to take your measurements and see how the suggested size compares to the finished measurements size. You may be surprised at how much ease the pattern companies are suggesting.

8 Years in the Making

I have finally completed a project that I started eight years ago. When my brother and his wife announced that they would be having a baby boy, I wanted to embark on my first quilt. I made one quilt then decided I wanted to make a second one (Don't worry, the first one just barely got the binding put on but it's not as exciting). At the time, I was obsessed with cross-stitching. I have this book called 101 Bears with Personality and I had run out of reasons to make them so I used a baby as an excuse to make a bunch! I spent hours cross-stitching all of the bears and then did my best to piece them all together and that was the end of it. I didn't know much about quilting at the time and didn't know how I wanted to quilt it. I knew I didn't want to tie it because I didn't want all of the yarn to take away from the bears so I just gave up. It sat in my closet for years, just staring at me and waiting to be finished. I took a home decor class last spring and learned how to free-motion quilt so I figured I would try that...but the semester ended and I still never finished. Then I thought I would just stitch in the ditch with my own machine since I couldn't free motion it. I safety-pinned together all of the layers and then never did anything with it of course. Then I planned to free motion it when I started school again in January. Never happened. Well as my final semester began I knew it was now or never. Thankfully I was working in the sewing lab as an aid and had plenty of time with the machines. One Saturday I had to work the entire day and I free-motioned the whole thing that day! That's about 10 hours of time it took to quilt the whole thing! It was a miracle. It took me until a couple weeks ago to finally finish hand-stitching the binding on, but it is finally completed. I never have to worry about this darn quilt again! Obviously, Ethan is now about to be baptized so I will just have to keep it for my own someday!

 (I fully intended to crop my awkward self out but I forgot and I'm too lazy to re-upload)

You have no idea how happy I am to have this finished. So many hours of work have finally come to a close.

Denim Trousers

I have tried for months to get a good picture of these pants. I made them back in February...March maybe? Something like that. They were for one of my sewing classes. When I took that class, I had heard we would get to make jeans and I was so excited. I had always wanted to learn how and thought it would be so fun to get to embellish them however I wanted. Much to my dismay, on the first day of class, I found out we were making dress pants instead of jeans. But I was determined to get my jeans and my sister had always talked about how much she loved trouser jeans so I decided to make the dress pants out of denim!

The following photos are proof that I am terrible at photography. :)

 I tried to make them a little more casual by adding the white topstitching on the edge of the pockets.

I was so happy with how they turned out. I tried really hard to take my time and pay attention to my teacher, who is amaaaaazing. Miss her tons. Best part about these pants? Well, you can't see it, but the lining is purple! That's another fun part about making your own pants, you can do the lining in any color you want. Mine was actually by accident kind of, I forgot to buy my lining but thankfully my mom had some buried in her fabric box.

If you are interested in making these, you can find the pattern here. This pattern is really great because it has different types of fits (curvy, average, and slim), so you can really make them to fit you well. It also walks you through step-by-step of how to measure and make sure you make the right size. They are supposed to sit just below the natural waist, which is way too high for some people, but I wanted to try it, especially because I get really sick of super low rise pants. If you aren't a fan of the high waist though, you can shorten the rise a little bit. It would be really boring to explain how to here, so if you need help, I'm here! :)

Well, what do you think? Any suggestions on a project to do? I really would love to do a sew-along or something but I want to make sure it's something people want to make. I hope people are enjoying the blog so far! I'm still learning!

Tutorial: Make Your Own Shirt Stencil

I learned this really awesome trick in my textiles class last semester. Maybe it's something that lots of people know how to do, but I was really excited to learn about it! Basically you can design your own T-shirts and make a stencil for it out of freezer paper. It's so easy and fun to do! I have seen so many tees that I love but they are always so expensive so I like having this new way to recreate them.

This is the first one I did in class. I took the idea from a delias tee that I loved!

Let's do a step-by-step on how to do this:

What You Need

Freezer Paper

Pencil

Scissors or X-ACTO knife

T-shirt

Iron

Newspaper or plastic bags

Paint (I just used the $.50 acrylic paint)

Round flat paint brush

Alright let's get going!

On the NON-waxy side of the freezer paper, draw what you want on the shirt. Make sure that you "bubble" it or whatever, so that you will have a thick line for your letters.

Take your knife or scissors and carefully cut out the design. You want your cuts to be as smooth as possible to help your painting look better. I highly recommend an X-ACTO knife. They are only like $3 and make the cutting so much easier. For letters like that J, keep the cut-out piece from the middle.  

Lay out the freezer paper on your shirt with the WAXY side against the fabric.

Then just press it with a fairly hot iron. Mine was almost all the way up. Don't be afraid of high heat. As you're pressing, be sure you don't get any bubbles or creases, keep it flat and smooth.

Then place the little cutouts where they belong and press them.

Get yourself a little paint...we don't own paper plates so this is what I came up with :)

Dip your brush in the paint and dab the excess off. You don't want the brush to be caked with paint. Also, stick some newspaper or plastic bags in between the shirt layers so it doesn't seep through.

Lightly dab in your stencil...seriously don't get too much paint on your brush or the shirt. It will take forever to dry and it's just not necessary. You just want a thin layer of paint

Here's what it will look like after all the paint is on. Let it dry completely.

When it's dry, just peel off the stencil carefully.

Then you will have a fun new shirt! I have regretted not getting an I Love Paris shirt when I was there, so I tried to make up for it. It's definitely not perfect but it's still fun.

This is seriously addicting! I already have a whole list of shirts I want to make. It's so much easier than trying to sketch your design on the shirt and painting with a tiny little paintbrush. If you make one, send me a picture! I would love to see what you come up with.