Choir Sundays '08 #25

Did she finish it, or did she not?





Answer: she did!

This month's colors: blue jeans w/gold, purple or chocolate brown

I'm wearing my *other* Lee jeans...these require the highest heels I own. Surprisingly, I'm finding it easier to wear heels now than I ever expected; maybe I'm finally getting used to them again. I'm still at a 2 3/4" limit, though, and I don't expect to get higher than that. But that's something for someone who owned nothing higher than 1" for years....

Anyway, I finished the jacket! It's McCall's 5191 from the embroidered stretch eyelet denim. And it's a good thing I skipped the interfacing; this jacket can nearly stand on its own as it is.

The top is Jalie 2682, made from the lovely chocolate brown rayon/Lycra jersey that came home with me from Textile Studio's July sale this year. Incidentally, the other top from that piece of fabric...the one that I cut out in DD's size instead of mine...has been passed along to DD and she has worn it already. It fits *her* well!

Looks like I'll make it....

All I need to do to the eyelet jacket now is insert the (finished) sleeves and add buttons and buttonholes (or decorative snaps?). My goal is to wear it tomorrow with the recently finished brown Jalie 2862, so I've got to make a Hancock's run later today...I don't think I've got any buttons in the stash that really will suit. So I'll take the jacket along and see what I can find.

It's a dangerous trip; Vogues and Simplicity are both on sale this weekend. Cover me, I'm going in... ;)


Seriously, though, speaking of cover, please cover the Gulf coast in your prayers... Gustav is looking pretty mean.

Making Eyelet Progress

So, yeah, I recut both the left front and the left side front. Summerset was right...it would've bugged me even if no one else noticed it.

Once that little task was covered, I started sewing...and got all the pieces assembled I could before I had to change thread in the sewing machine for the contrast top stitching. Now, I have finished that first round of top stitching and I'm ready to put some more pieces together.

One thing that held me up on the jacket was trying to decide what to do about interfacing. I didn't want to use any, because I didn't want it showing through the eyelet holes.

Y'know what I decided? All that embroidery acts as a stabilizer in and of itself... so I decided to skip it altogether.

I think it'll be okay. ;)

Off to an Inauspicious Start....

I absolutely did not catch this when I cut the jacket out.

The two edges of the embroidery were not done the same.

And I cut both the front and the side front with one edge along the edge of the embroidery, not realizing that the embroidery on the bottom layer didn't come all the way to the seam line.

The left front will be be on the underlap, so I may use the one I've already cut, but I'm going to have to cut another left side front. There's an obvious discontinuity at the seam line where the embroidery *should* be.

Oh, I'll probably cut another left front as well, since I've got to re-do it anyway. At least I've got enough fabric.

Maybe I'll still have enough to cut a couple of vest fronts. Sigh.

Grumble, grumble, grumble....

Jeans frustration

Why can't there be stylish jeans that fit?

I have some jeans that fit pretty well...but they're 'Mom jeans' with straight legs. Ok for mom stuff, but if I want to look the least bit uptown there needs to be a little length and a little flare on 'em.

Those Lee jeans I've been wearing in the choir Sunday posts look ok, but the truth is they don't fit around the waist very well.

They're cut below the waist, and after tugging them up repeatedly I finally did a little experiment Sunday and discovered what I suspected was true...I could actually get them off without touching the zipper or button. A belt cinched up enough to make them feel secure wrinkled up the waistband to the uncomfortable point.

I pulled out my Hot Patterns jeans pattern (Plain and simple flare legs? I can't remember without looking...) and put it in the 'work on this' box and wondered where I would get something to muslin them with.

Lo and behold, my friend Miss K was clearing out some old stash fabric and she had a number of yards to donate...either to me or to the costume stash at church; she said she didn't care what I did with it. Wouldn't you know, there was a 2.5 yard chunk of denim in that? The rest of the fabric went to the church storeroom (not all of it is suitable for costumes, but I didn't have time to sort though it Monday), but that denim came home with me.

After I run it through the laundry a couple of times to pre-shrink it, I'll give those HP jeans a try.

Hopefully I will get something that will both stay up and look sharp...

Delays, delays...

(That's supposed to evoke a recollection of Marvin the Martian trying to recover his Space Modulator from Bugs Bunny...)

I thought I'd have a good start on that denim eyelet jacket by now.

Do you know I haven't even managed to change the thread on the sewing machine yet?

So many little things piling up...and I have some more errands to run yet today, on a day when I expected to stay home and sew.

If only I could add water to some instant Martians and set them to doing the chores/errands/tending interruptions for me.

(Apologies to those not familiar with the animation work of Warner Brothers and Chuck Jones...)

While I was cutting....

That 'while I'm at it...' paradigm can so easily get me into trouble.

It's responsible for more patterns coming home with me, more fabric slipping into the shopping cart (literal and online), more projects getting started...

In short, that's a quick way to bite off more than I can chew.

But I limited myself to only one 'while I'm at it' job when the cutting table/mats were out...

I have a nice piece of printed slinky that I bought at the Atlanta Expo last year that I've been holding on to, waiting for, you know, the 'perfect pattern'.

Butterick 5185 struck me as being the 'perfect pattern', but the reviews for it were rather cautionary. Sure enough, when I looked at the pattern pieces, I could see that the front horizontal seam, instead of being at the waistline as drawn on the envelope, is actually placed an inch or so above the waistline.

That would drive me bananas.

So, I pulled out my cheap contrary slinky fabric from the dollar table at Wal-Mart to make up a 'muslin'...which I *might* wear, if it turns out nicely, but won't worry about if it needs to be slashed or otherwise damaged to fine tune fit...in order to try it out.

I added 1" between the armsceye and the seamline on both sides of the front; that'll make it longer than the back but Debra H. suggested cutting the front a little longer anyway in case one needs to tweak the front drape so it hangs better. We'll see how it turns out.

When I get to it. ;)

Choir Sundays '08 #24

A two-picture day. Our pastor and the whole worship team were invited to do the service at a church in the next city down the road this evening.

Anyway, for this morning's service, we are still wearing jeans w/either gold, brown or purple tops. I wore the new brown Vogue 2975 top, the familiar denim Vogue 8045 jacket, and Lee bootcut jeans.












For the evening service, we were to wear black and white w/our jeans, so I pulled out the black poly herringbone weaveLoes Hinse Bistro Jacket, and my black and white stripe rayon/lycra sleeveless, cowless Loes Hinse Cowl top. Same jeans! We only had about 40 minutes after the morning's second service to eat lunch, change clothes, and head out in order to be at the other church in time to do setup and sound checks (it's about an hour and a half away).

Hence the late post...it's been a long day!

(but worth it! ;) )

Eyelet is Committed

Ain't it always the case? I spent a bunch of time hunting that pattern, and then when I found it I decided not to use it.

I had it all spread out on the cutting table, ready to trace, and decided I just didn't want to invest all the time to tweak and fit a new pattern...especially as I hadn't made one of Cynthia's patterns yet and I would be starting from scratch as to what alterations I would need for it.

Plus, I realized I wanted a really good basic design that would be wearable for years; the pattern I was looking at had an asymmetric front...hmm.

So I went upstairs and pulled out the jacket I really had originally intended as the test jacket for this fabric...McCall's 5191, put it on and looked it over really well. And realized that that jacket fit really well, it was relatively easy to make... and it was Ready to Go.

So I pulled out the eyelet denim that has been waiting for over a year to become a nice little jacket and began the cutting process. With a little determination (and, hopefully, no serious distractions!) I can get that made in time to wear next Sunday, while denim and brown are still the designated colors for choir... ;)

Oh wheeerrrreee is my pattern?

I've been looking for two days for my Cynthia Guffey jeans jacket pattern. It's not where I saw it last, and I know I had it set aside to trace at one point early in the summer.

I suspect one of my kids, in a 'let's help mom and clean things up' moment stuck it somewhere to get it out of sight.

Boy, is it.

Back to hunting...

Update 12:21 pm...not the kids fault. It had fallen face down and somehow got a basket of fabric stash moved over on it...imagine that... ;)

The Bog Coat Jesus Costume

Eight years ago (Issue # 87, dated March 2000), Threads magazine published an article by Susan B. Allen about the 'Bog Coat' -- a garment named because it had been found on the preserved, ancient body of a man who fell into a peat bog some 1600 or so years ago. She showed several variations, and a schematic for cutting and directions for making one.

I always thought it would be a fabulous garment for a Biblical-era costume, and I finally got around to trying it.

Our Master's Commission Program requested a costume to be used by whoever would be portraying 'Jesus doing ministry' (as opposed to 'Jesus glorified'). There's a long story behind why it was requested, but the upshot was that they wanted something in linen.

So I scrounged the internet and fabric stores, and found some really nice stuff on sale from Michael last spring...a shirt weight cream color and a horizontal blue stripe (which was blended w/hemp). The shirt weight, once I had it in my hand, struck me as being a bit too lightweight for a robe, so I kept my eyes open and found some nice midweight linen on sale when I stopped at JoAnn's while passing through Nashville. And, it just so happened that that linen was a dead match for one of the stripes in the blue, so...we have a match. I used my favorite Bible Costume pattern, McCall's 2339 for the robe, but pulled out issue no. 87 and made a Bog Coat for the cloak.



I managed to get DS to model it for me; he kinda liked it. Our usual over-coat is a sleeveless vest; he liked the sleeves on the overcoat.

I did modify the coat somewhat...the article says to cut the neckline in a u-shape, basically the depth of the sleeves, then seam the sleeves w/the seam on the outside and put a band over it.

Instead,I cut the neckline a little deeper than the fold on the sleeves (so there'd actually be room for the back of the neck), and I cut it in a teardrop shape, so that the coat front would meet in the CF.
This is my really rough representation of the cutting changes. It's not to scale, but you can see the difference in the neckline...the original is on the left, and my modification is on the right.

And I made a facing for the neckline, since this costume is going to get MUCH abuse in its lifetime, I wanted it as sturdy as possible. And, since I wanted the coat to *appear* to be seamless, I put the seam on the wrong side of the coat and serge-finished it.

The only tricky bit (besides measuring!)is the corner where the sleeve joins the body; that's sewing a right angle to a straight line. I actually chose the wrong spot to match the stripe; it's a little off on the coat body, but it matches perfectly...on the sleeve, which no one will see.

I intended for the front of the coat to be the selvedge, but somehow I mismeasured how far to cut the sleeve into the fabric. I ended up with the coat front extending all the way to the edge of the facing. So the front edge of the coat has been turned under and machine blindstitched down.

I fringed the bottom instead of hemming it.

Now, this is not a dead ringer for the costume that I was supposed to be copying; I couldn't find the right colors of linen for that. And I realize it may be a bit out of the 'customary and familiar' Jesus costume...in other words, the decision making folks in HMC haven't seen it yet and they may not like it. So, I pieced together a more conventional shoulder drape from the leftover, which DS also modeled for me:
When he put it on, he commented, 'Oh, this is the traditional Jesus look!'.

Well, I'm don't think Jesus had earrings...but, whatever...
Between you and me, I kinda expect to see the drape on stage more than the coat. We are creatures of habit.

Long Day...

I sewed, I cleaned up and moved out of the sewing room, I put up posters in my classroom, I cooked dinner, I argued with the computer, I taught class...

I'm tired!

I hope to get a photo posted tomorrow of some of the sewing I finished today...but first I have to sweettalk DS into being my model...

Cross your fingers for me. ;)

Looking for minutes

I managed to get the Vogue 2975 top hemmed Sunday and put in the closet (the review is up...), but I haven't had 20 minutes to switch to the double needle and hem the knit tops that are waiting their turn. Something every night....

But, tomorrow is the last day to sew at church, so my time should be a little less stressed!

We'll see how much I can get finished today.

Costume Maintenance Day -- 12?

I went in and finished cutting out all the stuff I had and decided I could spend the rest of today and the last two days sewing...and discovered that I didn't have spools of any of the thread I needed! I managed to do a bit of serging, and ran out the last of the thread I had that would work...and knocked off early to do some work on my girl's Wednesday night classes and make a trip to Wal-Mart for more thread.

Of course, I had to check out the dollar table, since I'm in need of fabric suitable for muslining my next denim jacket, and I found a nice white mid-weight cotton/lycra twill that will do nicely.

$4 for a possibly wearable white denim jacket is just alright... ;)

A Quick Getaway

No choir post today... My Sweet Baboo and I ran away for the weekend to celebrate our 28th Wedding anniversary! Our waitress snapped this for us as we were finishing dinner last night at the Guntersville State Park Lodge. That's my Burda May 08 #104 dress, what you can see of it, anyway. My Sweet Baboo says it's his favorite of the three dresses I made this spring, and the hostess who seated us complimented it, too, so it was a good choice!

We've had a lovely little escape...back to the Real World now. ;)

Costume Maintenance Day 10: Piece by Piece

Wednesday night I brought my serger home, thinking, "We're cutting now, I won't need this"

And then discovered that, due to narrow fabric issues, I'm going to have to piece sleeves on at least three of the garments I'm cutting out. I managed to piece one set, using the sewing machine and a zig-zag, but the others I definitely want to serge.

So the serger is going back in today.

On the home sewing front, I finished my Vogue 2975 top to the hem last night...after a grumbling half hour of ripping because I twisted the shoulder on one side when I sewed the side front to the front...and I didn't notice it until I tried to sew the side seam. So I had to unpick the horizontal topstitching, the pleat on that side (because the offending seam is enclosed in that pleat) and the side front seam to fix it. Grumble Grumble.

But it's ready for a narrow hem. Dunno if I'll get to it today or not...

Costume Maintenance Day Nine -- We're Cuttin'

Miss M and I finished all the items that I'd pulled to mend and returned the rack and the costumes to the attic yesterday; today we switch gears and start cutting out what garments we have. I'd estimate we've got a couple of days' worth of cutting to do, but I do expect a few more sets of fabric to come in for HMC Bible costumes. If we run out of cutting to do before Wednesday (which is when we have to clean out so the room is available for the resumption of the class that meets in there on Wednesday nights), we'll start sewing on what we've got.

I had a brainstorm...I had a blue pull-on cloak w/sleeves that needed hemming. It had a rather low-ish v neck into a center front seam, and I had Miss M rip out the seam in the front so that it was a regular cloak. Then, when I sat down to hem it up, it occurred to me that I could pull the sleeves off of it, finish off the edges, add a couple of tassels to the corners and then I wouldn't have to make a blue tasseled vest from scratch to replace one that had gone missing from one of our priest/Levite/Pharisee costumes. Took about an hour...and it's done.

Which is good, because there was no blue fabric anywhere in the stash (yeah, there's a small one at church...donations and leftovers, mostly), and I was going to have to seek out blue fabric on the dollar table at Wal-Mart. Now I don't have to!

Progress is good. :D

Costume Maintenance: Day 9- Eyes on the Goal

I'm off for what I *hope* is the last day of mending, although several items have surprised me in that, when I began to work on the issue I noted needing repair, I found that I had to do some serious un-sewing in various places to get it truly repaired, so I'm not going to say that I absolutely will finish today.

But it is possible.

Once the mending is done, we start cutting New Stuff. I have some Angel costumes to make, Huntsville Master's Commission wants their own costume for 'Jesus on Earth' (there is a long story there...just leave it that I'm quite happy to sew them one of their very own), I have one costume for a choir person to make, and so far one new Masters' student has brought fabric in. So it's not overwhelming at this point.

We have to be out of our room in a week; I really hope we don't get inundated with costumes to cut on Monday!

I Goofed

...when I was cutting out my Simplicity 4076 scoop neck top. Originally, I'd made the top for my DD and I traced the pattern in her size. When I made it for myself I just made some add-on pieces for the pattern to take the sizing up from hers to mine, instead of tracing and altering a whole new pattern.


Well, when I cut out my nice brown rayon jersey version of the top, I forgot to use the add-ons.

Rats.

Oh, well, DD will have a nice new top...

Choir Sundays '08 #23

This month's colors: blue jeans w/purple, gold or brown

The jeans are same ol' Lee bootcuts, but the top is new. It's Sandra Betzina's fauxlero top, Vogue 2980. The fabric is a fine gauge purple sweater knit, supposedly a rayon/lycra blend but I have my doubts about that. It's very soft and doesn't have a lot of recovery. But it's been in the stash waiting for the right pattern for probably 5 years now, so it's about time it got used! I *do* have a black lace trimmed knit cami under it...just for my own peace of mind ;).

New Iron

It's been over two months since my good iron died, and I was getting tired of the continual dribble from the old iron that it had replaced. I had a 20% off any one item coupon from Bed, Bath and Beyond, and a little time in between events yesterday, so I hit the store to check out irons.

And, despite my trepidation at getting another Rowenta (which is what the old drippy iron is), I came home with a Rowenta Focus.

It was the soleplate that got me. All those teeniny steam holes...it's different from any other iron I've seen.

I'll give it a couple months and let you know how it works. ;)

Costume Maintenance: Day 6 - No Hot Glue, Please!

This is one of the capes that came in the donated Dickens costumes. That green satin trim has been looped around the hanger to keep it up off the floor since the garments came back from the dry cleaners after our last performance of 'The Gospel According To Scrooge' (if you're keeping track, that would be 2 1/2 years ago. As a side note, everyone that came into the sewing room while I was repairing it looked at it and said, 'Oh, are we doing Scrooge again this year?' and were rather disappointed when I said I was just mending it because it needed doing...we're not doing Scrooge).
Anyway.

The trim had been hot glued on. When it went to the cleaners, the solvents loosened the glue enough that almost all the trim peeled off. But...the glue itself just got softened up, and in the process the edges of the cape flipped back up and the glue re-adhered the edge to other places. I managed to pull most of it loose again, but this little spot (look about 4" ahead of where the trim is being applied) was such a narrow piece that I couldn't get a good grip on it, and it was stuck really, really well. There was no pulling it apart. So I sighed and put the trim over it...hopefully, it won't show much from stage.

And all that trim had to be hand sewn. The glue bead was now a hard, rubbery lumpy line all along the bottom of the cape. Totally beyond the capability of a home machine to handle. So I used a needle and thread and got it back into place.

Now, hot glue is a timesaver I know, but please, if your costumes are going to be used for more than one production...find another way to attach things.

I'm just trying to help you out.

:D

Brave or Silly?

I posted a quote from an old journal in my other blog about 2 weeks ago...just before I got asked to write the skit that five brave MPact sponsors did during the award service last night.

The quote was 'God puts a premium on foolishness.'

That was actually a quote from a speaker at a conference, and I'm not sure I have the proper context, but it sure got me prepared for the foolishness that we were involved in last night.

And, yes, the 'sponges' actually look like slabs of swiss cheese...but they didn't cost anything, so we were good. The point was too many folks go to church and sit on their...sponges...soaking in teaching and worship week after week instead of actually participating in the ministry.



It *seemed* to go over well. At least folks laughed. ;)

First Day '08: for Grandma

No, I am NOT ready for summer to be over! But...it's the first day nonetheless. The Actor begins his Sophomore year, and The Flute Player heads into 7th grade (and she's wearing her Jalie 2682 top, I might add!)

Me, I'm off to church to see if the glue is gonna hold those two foam layers together. If it doesn't...it's duct tape time....

Costume Maintenance '08 Day 3: Spongey Sewing

I had a little, um, unorthodox costuming to do today.

Tomorrow night is the girls' ministry advancement ceremony, and all of the girls will be recognized for the work they've done over the past year, and we will promote them to the new class (club) for next year.

However, since we are chronically and woefully short of dedicated workers, there is a skit to be presented to rather humorously challenge folks to get involved in ministry.

I'm not going into it, except to say that I had to come up with some way to get, um, fanny-sized sponges. They're not padding...they're to obviously be sponges applied to the sitting portion of the anatomy.

I hunted around for large, say, automotive or boat sponges, or even large decorative painting sponges and had no luck. But I did find several sheets of 1" thick foam in the costume area of the attic. After doing a little investigative work to discover who the foam actually belonged to, I got permission to use some of it.

So I cut 18" x 10" rectangles, paired them up, cut holes in the top layer (and a few holes along the edges of both layers) and glued them together. I left them on the table, weighted down with whatever I could find. Actually, they look a little more like large slabs of Swiss cheese than sponges, but I'm hoping that, with the proper introduction, folks will see them as sponges.

And yes, I'm going to be one of the ladies w/the sponge taped to my backside.

The advancement service is actually going to be on the live webcast tomorrow starting at 7 PM central (click on the 'My Church' link on the sidebar), if you want to see me make a fool of myself. ;)

Costume Maintenance '08 Day 2: Bang!

My backup Kenmore sewing machine has a carrying case.

That is, it has a base that screws onto the bottom of the machine, and a plastic cover that latches w/plastic tabs on the side. My Sweet Baboo has warned me of the folly of actually carrying the machine by the handle on the top of the cover, with just those flimsy latches holding the machine to the cover. But, I figured as long as I was careful, it was ok.

You know what happened, don't you?

Halfway from the Caravan to the door at church, the bottom came off. The machine hit the pavement, and pieces went flying. Fortunately, this is a METAL machine, so I scooped up the popped covers and the bobbins and the whatnot that came out of the accessory box that was inside and managed to get everything back together.

One thread guide was bent and easily fixed, and the filament in the light bulb apparently broke. But other than that, it seems to be functioning well...if a little sluggish.

Sigh. I'll just have to watch it for further signs of injury...and I think I'll run it in to the shop for a check up when we're done at church.

Choir Sundays 08 # 22

I realized I didn't get a choir photo in July, but that's ok since we're wearing the same colors for August.... ;)

This month's colors: Purple, gold or brown w/blue jeans


The fellow in the front center didn't spill anything on his shirt; that's the shadows of the microphones! I took this photo early in practice; we had several more who came in a bit late, so we ended up with a fuller looking choir than this.


Me, I did a repeat:
Jacket: Purple poly/rayon boucle Loes Hinse's Retro Jacket. I've got on a dark brown silk modified Loes Hinse's City Dress; the bodice has been tweaked into a shell top.

And long-on-me ('regular length') Lee jeans.

Frog Stitchin'

(Y'know: 'rip it...rip it...')
I have cut out a total of 5 tops this week, 2 purple tops and three brown ones, for choir wear this month. Thought they'd be quick to throw together.

I paused on my Kwik Sew white shirt, changed the thread in the machines and forge ahead into Vogue 8323. The link is to the review for the scoop-neck version, which I've made and like a lot (once the neckline was raised a tad). This time, I decided to try the surplice view. I had some rather beefy cotton/lycra knit that I thought would hold the shape of the neckline well, and I whipped it up fairly quickly.

And tried it on, and found that the back of the neckline hit the middle of my skull. I reread the other reviews for the top, and didn't really notice that anyone else had encountered this problem, but it appeared that the other ladies who had made this view were using drapey fabric that kind of collapsed, so perhaps it didn't matter.

It wasn't wearable as it was. I could make it feel a bit better by folding the back neck down a bit and rolling the folded edge to the inside, but it was already a double layer of fabric and, as I said, this was beefy stuff, so...I took. it. apart.

Cut 2" off the height of the back, and whacked 2" off the sides of the 'wrap' pieces so they'd more or less match, and sewed it back together.

It's still high in the back, and there's a wrinkle across the base of my neck, but it's at least semi-wearable.

I think.

Anyway, it's done to the hems, which need a double needle, so I'm moving on to my other purple knit top (Sandra Betzina's faux-lero top) and I'll double needle 'em both at the same time.

So much for speedy sewing...

Playing Hookie

I had the best intentions...really I did.

I had to take DD to school and turn in all those forms (any one else tempted to write in big red letters "See last year's information!!!" ?), pay her fees and get her schedule and locker assignment. The notice said it would be from 10:15 - 11:45, so I thought we would walk through a set of tables to pay, sign, etc, and as long as we did it in that window we were good. I'd hit the school at 10:15, do the parent thing, and then run home and collect my gear and be at church around 12 or shortly after. My good intentions.

Wrong. We paid our fees, had a (large) group meeting with the principal, where we watched a video of 'hall highlights' from last year, then got a couple of information sessions in which the slight change in the school schedule was explained and the new, no-nonsense and strictly enforced cell phone policy was explained (twice). Then we were able to get her locker assignment and schedule. I was there from 10:15 until 11:45.

DD is going to a birthday party tonight...so we had to go procure a gift to take, and, as it's been at least two days since my last trip to the grocery store, we were out of bread and running low on milk, so we had a grocery stop on the way home.

By the time I cooked lunch and we finished eating, it was almost 3.

Not really worth a trip to church to work an hour and a half or so.

Oh, well, I guess I needed a bit of extra time at home anyway....