Handy sewing hint #18: buttonholes

I must confess that life/family and actual sewing has interfered with my blogging lately. The good news, if you think this way, is that I am full of new ideas on handy sewing hints.

Here goes, and as usual please add your own insights into the comments.

Buttonholes.

This week a notice of a new Indie pattern arrived in my in box. This detail caught my eye:

A couple of things I noticed. 

First of course was that the buttonholes were way too big for the buttons and that shirtdress was sure to come undone at some point, which is not really a great outcome for a shirt dress or the person in it.

The second thing I noticed was that the buttonhole at the top was dangerously close to the end of the placket likely to fray through. It needed to be moved down so the end of the buttonhole was at least 5/8" below the neck edge of the placket. Of course the sewer might have wanted to keep the placket ends right on top of each other at the neckline but buttons aren't staples. If you want that to happen what you really need is to end the top of the buttonhole that 5/8" or so below the neckline and sew in a small snap to keep it all neat.

All that is showing here of course is inexperience and there isn't a lot of information around on buttonhole fine points, and so I will try to make a bit of a contribution here.

First of all buttonholes freak sewers out. 

I was once followed around a fabric store by a woman with a blouse in a bag. She had heard I sewed and wanted me to put the buttonholes in her finished blouse for her. For 20 years she had sewn snaps onto her blouses with buttons on top because she had such terrible luck making buttonholes.

How nuts and how identifiable is that?

The thing with buttonholes is they are the last thing. It is entirely possible to ruin a perfectly wonderful garment in the last 5 minutes with a buttonhole disaster or buttonhole cutting disaster. I know. I once made a suit for a friend and sliced through the entire front cutting open the very last buttonhole.

I have tons of stories like that.

Truth is that some machine do a better job with making buttonholes than others. This is often a case where it is not you it's them.

My personal view is that many of the super duper computerized gadgety buttonhole systems are not as reliable as the sales person will lead you to believe. When they tell you "You will be able to make buttonhole after identical buttonhole, after the first one because the machine will memorize it" what they should add is that the "sensor" most often is just counting the number of zig zag stitches on the first side and of course if fabric layers change, as they can do in a garment, this may not be the right number of stitches to match the sides, and despite the miracles of New Machines your buttonholes can unexpectedly still turn out uneven even in your $5,000 machine.  (Does that make sense or only to me?) 

I have a former top-of-the-line for example that does this and, even worse, has a default where the sides of the buttonholes are so close together there is a 105% of cutting some of the stitches when the buttonhole is cut open.

So back to the machines.

I personally prefer old school four step buttonholes where you turn the dial - down one side, bar tack at the button, up the other side, bar tack. I have a couple of vintage Berninas and an expensive Janome that make buttonholes this way and I trust them.

This system allows you to control what is happening and that is a good thing.

Of course the nicest and completely most foolproof buttonholes in the world are make with the old template attachments, that you can buy anywhere, eBay, or at consignment shops sometimes (I got a spare at Value Village for $3.50).

Here is what those look like:

These units require you to cover, or drop your feed dogs and remove the presser foot and screw them onto the needle bar.

The buttonholes are made by inserting cams or templates of the buttonhole (including keyhole) of various sizes into a trap door in the bottom of the unit.

To operate you line up the foot, lower the presser bar and give it gas. These devices make a real racket, sort of like a tin truck on a tin road and you really wonder if this is a good idea.

The thing is that totally without any skill at all they make gorgeous round ended buttonholes with zero skill or involvement from yourself, which is kind of nice.

This week I made a short sleeved Negroni shirt for my youngest son's surprise birthday (music festival theme, hence the tie dye) and I made the buttonholes this way.

Here is the shirt:

Very quick one

This week has been a blur.

It started on Monday morning with me sitting under the dining room table beside my daughter's wonderful Golden on her last day while Katrina had to go out (middle child orientation for starting school next year) while we waited for the vet to make a house call. 

It is amazing how the space left when an important soul has gone can feel even larger than their presence.

It just got busier all week but I did manage to get some sewing cutting out done, my husband's pants (guess what, his hip size is three times smaller than his waist - it is not just women who have these issues - and it explains a lot about why he hates clothes shopping) another pair of Talia pants for me, a shell and a birthday present for youngest son (who probably doesn't read this blog but you never know). Tomorrow I am off to see if I can find fabric for an idea I have for my polite and long suffering DIL in NYC who has a birthday fast approaching too and is a recipient of many of my experiments.The more hectic my life is the more I regroup with some sewing fit in in the corners of the day.

I have some more handy sewing hints in my head but just didn't have the focus this week. Bear with me. I am taking care of the three kids while their parents are off to a wedding this weekend so might not get around to being informative until Sunday night.

I had to share a bright spot with you before bed though.

This morning I picked up a little Kenmore sewing machine, a real one not a kid's type but smaller in size that a big machine - must be some sort of older travelling model. It worked well and the stitch was perfect.

I brought it home and gave it to Miss Scarlett after school and she was very pleased. She has set up a sewing station in her room and this means she can sew whenever she wants to now, not just when she visits me. Yes I know she is only six but really that girl can thread and pivot with the best of them.

She told me today that some of her friends have formed a sewing/knitting club on their own. Six and seven year olds. Most of the girls knit she tells me, a few hand sew but she is the only one who can operate a machine (probably the other grandmothers have more sense).

This interests me because her mother and her friends would never have had this interest at this age and most of the other mothers who where my peers didn't sew at all. I realize I am of the generation when sewing was not real cool, good with your hands meant bad with your brains in some circles. I know I certainly didn't talk about sewing much in my professional life. I remember a young colleague once dropping something off at the house on a weekend years ago and he arrived when I was sewing - he told me that his grandmother from the old country sewed but didn't think women like me did.

Does this have any resonance to other women of my generation?

I guess all of this, the split lives we had to lead, persons with interests versus working person, professional woman and mother, make me glad that stigma is vanishing. Those older sewers who look down at bit at the sometimes reckless creativity of the Indie pattern crowd need to remember this - these new sewers have done this, and maybe it is they, not us, who are opening this creative life up for the youngest sewers.

Does this make any sense to anyone but me, late in night, typing from my bed?

At any rate, cleaning up tonight I found this, left behind by Scarlett on one of the practice scraps she was working on with her new machine before she took it home.

This does my heart good I can tell you:

Thread theory, info and birthdays

I have a real nice husband. 

He pretty much spends all his time taking care of this family. He cries more easily than I do, at TV commercials with small children in them, and when he looks at Miss Daisy. His cooking, to quote one of the kids, is so good its its own food group. He thinks he can fix anything and will break it trying. I have seen him do innumerable eccentric things but never once be uncharitable or mean spirited about anyone. He has no dress sense. He will leave the house with four items of clothing all with a different team name on them, from places and states he has visited. He will put on brown socks with grey pants. He cooks dinner for me every night and makes me coffee before I get out of bed in the morning. He fixed his slippers with duct tape. He once asked me if I thought he could make a hot tub by cutting the old oil tank in half. He painted most of the youngest son's B and B after a week of 12 hour days and a 5 hour drive home. He is under the impression I am a real catch. 

Tomorrow is his birthday and when I asked him what he wanted to do he said have dinner with me at home. He then brought home 20 pounds of lobster that he is cooking in the bathtub as I write this in a plastic pail with the Sous Vide and his app. 

He is making his own birthday dinner. 

When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said nothing, he has everything he needs.

I have decided to make him some pants, some Jutlands from Thread Theory. If I can get a pattern to fit him he can avoid the stores and he will like that.

Here is the pattern:

Least I can do. 

Flypaper thoughts illustrated edition

I know it has been a while since I posted any flypaper thoughts, having detoured this blog with useful information for some reason, but the old flypaper seems to be the best way of bringing you up to date on why I have been on a blog posting lapse. 

SO here we go again:

• Youngest son, the one who is the Cheapest Human Being on Earth, put together the resources to buy a B and B.
• Turns out these are family businesses.
• Even I got asked to paint.
• What were we thinking wearing Dusty Rose for an entire decade in the 80s?
• Do you know how many coats of paint it takes to cover over Dusty Rose?
• That stuff is iridescent and also will haunt your dreams
• Next morning it always starts showing through
• You will be pleased to know we hired ethical mouse hunters
• Actually I was ready to join the NRA but the husband has a softer heart
• Involved some kind of powder in the attic to confuse them and one way mouse doors so they could escape the premises but not get back in
• I kid you not
• Installer had huge ear plugs and giant ear lobes and tiny buck teeth and told me to "think like a mouse"
• Even though I still wanted to join the NRA I tried
• Think he found it easier
• Turned out not to be a scam
• First night after the confusion treatment I could hear them running around in the walls
• In circles
• A few turned toes up in the middle of the floor next morning
• Stress I figure
• They must have been confused, I sure was
• Confusion is not as cheap as it was when I was doing it
• View from hill down on son's B and B, his building is the one with the Dusty Rose glow:

• After I was fired as a painter we went to Cheticamp where my husband is doing a National Park job
• Because he is up in the mountains we are not staying there because the coyotes have been dangerous and Daisy is rabbit like
• This one has a GPS on it that my husband said appeared to be making him (the coyote) annoyed:

• You really can't blame him, I mean couldn't they have come up with something smaller
• Not all wildlife is that aggressive
• Here are some moose on site
• Only thing really dangerous about moose is they are heavy and can fall over on your car
• In Newfoundland this is a real worry and there are moose whistles on cars
• A ton of moose is not joke on a Kia
• Long thin legs and heavy bodies
• Who else can identify ?

• Owing to the coyote but not moose situation we are staying in town
• Cheticamp is an Acadian village at the top of Cape Breton with a good lobster and crab fishery
• It is also the world centre of hair foils and not a place you go to the co-op in without your lipstick
• People are so nice, stop to see if you need a ride anywhere since you are walking
• Does the rest of the world know there are places like this that are normal?
• Or look like this:

More on projects later but right now,

Bonne nuit.

While you were sewing, a little fitting information

I have to condense numerous mental posts into this one.

I need to talk about fit, about what I have been up to, and what I am going to do next. 

But first of all let me thank you for all your wonderful comments about the new sewers in your lives. Of course this makes me just wish I had a hundred books to give away. I will be making the draw tomorrow, my husband is keen on some random number generator thing and the publisher will contact the winner for shipping details.

Now to fitting.

Of course I knew this when I brought up this can of worms subject  but there are so many fitting issues it is hard to work through them all. So I have had this idea that if you email me directly with a specific problem at the email address to the right top of this page I will see if my two cents can be of any help. Some of you have already done this and it seems the best way to deal with specific problems.

And of course as the Handy Hints unfold I will talk about general issues again as they come up.

I do too want to pass on the two fitting books I find most interesting of the many on my shelves.

The first one, best for zeroing in on general issues like basic length and width adjustments is Nancy Zeiman's classic on Pivot and Slide. if you routinely try to add a few inches to your pattern sides and end up with sleeves that are too big too or width where you don't need it I would recommend you read this book. The Pivot and slide method allows you to add width for example without distorting necklines and armholes and is a good basic approach once you have got your head around working from a smaller initial pattern. This is what it looks like:

I really think you have to be careful with a lot of fitting tutorials. So many of them tell you to slash and spread and cut and move but they don't tell you how much or where exactly that cutting is supposed to happen. Nancy is so much more precise and one of the really nice things about her method is that it leaves your original pattern intact.

Now suppose you have got the pivot and slide thing working for you, it's not hard at all, what do you do about the very specific issues that a person can't really slide past like a neck that juts forward (I call it computer neck) round shoulders or stuff like your belly or your butt that seem to move that pattern around on your body.

In that case, and again this is strictly IMO, you can't beat this vintage classic by the Singer reference library:

What I like about this book is that there are pictures of folks in clothes that are doing the same thing yours are on you. Without any real sewing knowledge at all you can look at the pictures and say "hey that's me" and next to it is a picture of a pattern piece with the adjustment all worked out on it.

There are of course many other good books out there (if you have favourite please tell us in the comments) but these are the ones I keep going back to.

New sewers

The past ten days have been a blur, and a blur that has not included blog posts. 

I am sorry about that, and just as sorry you can't read all the posts I have written in my head while I have been painting the B and B my youngest son just bought, getting my summer classes ready, or walking the woods with Miss Daisy in Cheticamp Cape Breton where my husband currently has a project. 

More on all of that later.

One of the things that has been on my mind though has been young sewers.

Just before I left for Cape Breton Miss Scarlett, my six-year-old granddaughter and my heir apparent as the family seamstress, and I looked through the latest Marfy patterns.

I was impressed with her eye and for her definite opinions on fashion at such a young age.

This seems to me to be one of the big differences between new and us older sewers.

We were brought up by mothers and grandmothers who emphasized making the inside look as good as the outside (something I still try to do and don't regret) and following instructions exactly, sometimes even when they didn't make much sense.

Many sewers of my generation for example will try their little hearts out to grade the second seam allowance (more on grading and trimming in another post) precisely 1/8" lower than the first trim. I have even seen women try to measure this.

Of course with this sort of stress about detail the big picture, which might include fit and decisions about what really you want to sew rather than should sew, can lead to what I call paint-by-numbers sewing (and you have to be old enough to know what that is) that can sap the creativity and independent mindedness out of sewing.

On the other side, and possibly a reaction to this approach or a product of a generation who did not have home ec classes or family members who themselves knew how to sew, there are the bloggers/designers who are churning out tutorials, patterns, and books that in many cases are steering the readers as wrong as some of the old dumb head pattern instructions used to.

You know what I mean. 

Those "I just learned to sew last year and now let me teach you" sewing experts. I commend the enthusiasm, but not the instant commercialization and perhaps not the the lack of depth of knowledge that really can be useful if you want your garments turn out as well as they should. I am also getting a little bit weary with patterns described as "essential" and "iconic" that really are two or three pattern pieces, as if these shapes have never been presented before.

There is something for knowing what you don't know.

So all this said I am fairly cautious when I read about a new sewing book. I am on kind of a mission to help new sewers get enough of the right information for their first projects to turn out.

I also recognize that new and the newest sewers need accessible information.

In addition to my own experience with Miss Scarlett I have been contacted several times in the last year by non-sewing mothers who wanted advice on how to help their daughters who were desperate to get sewing. Sometimes this has involved me giving basic machine advice and offering to help teach, but really I wanted to offer them a good book too.

I had a fair idea my 1970 Vogue Book of Sewing was not going to do the job.

I was looking for a book with solid basics, covering all the things I think are important, but also that recognizing that newest sewers want to experiment and customize their clothing immediately, not wait for post graduate design courses like we might have felt we should.

I also should tell you that I have been sent a number of sewing books over the years to review on this blog. There maybe is one for advanced sewers I intend to get to, but most of them I have given a pass.

If I don't think it is useful I am not going to tell anyone else it is.

I am about to make an exception.

I have recently read this book by teenage blogger Angela Lan and I love it:

Lan wrote this book between the ages of 11-14 and is clearly some sort of sewing savant. 

She gets all the basics right -  grainline, sewing machine needles and how to read a pattern and gives sensible basic instruction on techniques like setting in sleeves, sewing a knit neckline, and inserting zippers. She also includes some of her own opinions and experiences, for example why quilting cotton is not suitable for clothing.

In addition, like all sewers of her generation, she goes right to basic garments (hence the dream wardrobe reference) and to how to begin to generate your own designs. The book also includes six basic pull out traceable patterns and clear instructions on how these can be expanded or adapted, the high-waisted shorts into pants for example.

To me this is a gift book, perfect for a young girl who yearns to sew or for a mother who doesn't sew at all herself and wishes she could help her daughter start.

On that note the publisher has offered to send a free copy to one of my blog readers.

If you know someone young who could use this book please leave a comment and tell me who your young sewer is. I will make a random draw of the names next week and notify you by email (pm me your email address so I can do this).

The more new sewers the better.

A comfortable blazer and jeans

Lately I have had the bright idea of actually sewing clothes that I would wear everyday, be comfortable in, and go together. An outfit.

Crazy radical I know and let’s not talk about how long it took me to get here.

Specifically I wanted something I could wear to pick the kids up at school, wear to go to the grocery store to get the one thing I meant to get last time but didn’t, or meet the mouse exterminator in.

Real life, my real life, clothes.

What I came up with, this time out, was the idea of a comfortable blazer, a sharper replacement for that old sweater with the pills on it that is a current tired day default, and some jeans-like unit. 

I am on a sort of jeans/pants sewing tear at the moment, and am highly motivated by the fact I am getting sooo over skinny jeans. The truth is that if you are not yourself skinny you end up with long layers to cover it all and a midriff that feels more compressed than it deserves.

I have been eyeing this unlined knit blazer pattern for a while. It had some of the hallmarks of a good pattern, separate upper and under collar pieces, darts in the sleeves at the elbow to give shape, and larger pockets for the longer view and smaller ones for the shorter view - all indications someone was on the case when this was drafted.

I made the longer view and used some navy and white striped knit pique I found at my local Fabricville. Interestingly I see Fabricville now has an online store so I can link directly to the fabric here so you can have a look.

Here is me in my version:

My best church lady pose. This was after the first take where my daughter kept saying "Mom you are always talking and gesturing in the pictures. Try to look more normal."

Another version where you can see the line of the pants too. Really for an outfit that has the comfort level of sweats I am pretty pleased

I am so happy with this pattern I am definitely going to be making it again. A simple classic but without all the work of tailoring and ten times less restricting to wear.

I made the size 14 as is with some construction changes.

These were:

• To add stability to the knit I applied a fusible knit interfacing to both the upper and under collar, the facings of course, and also to the sleeve and jacket hem allowances so they would hang better.
• Because top stitching a knit pocket onto a knit fabric can be tricky to hold still, I interfaced the pocket with a woven sew-in interfacing. I actually made a sort of a pillow case bag, right sides together, woven interfacing to knit, with a small opening in the top hem for turning rather than turning under the raw edges etc. on the pocket. I hate having to fuss doing that and find just lining the pocket and turning it so much easier. Here is how that looked in construction:

• To avoid fish lips buttonholes that look like this:

I made corded buttonholes, which simply are buttonholes made by hooking a heavier thread like a buttonhole twist or pearl cotton over the back of the buttonhole foot and letting the machine stitch over the cord. 

When the buttonhole is done simply pull on the free ends of cord, the back loop will be pulled under the bar tack at one end and hidden, and pull the free ends to the wrong side, knot and tie off.

A buttonhole made like this will not stretch out of shape:

And finally, I have to share the buttons. Love it when they match. It is just luck but I take credit for it:

Now onto the pants.

Since I am so newly committed to comfortable pants I have been looking for some version of "Mom" jeans. Yes, I know, but they are the new big thing (saw them all over Manhattan last month) and personally if anyone has earned the right to wear Mom jeans it's me I figure.

I have had this pattern for a couple of months and been meaning to try it:

When I was down at Fabricville getting my blazer knit I spotted some very nice blue stretch denim, good quality, nice hand, and decided to just do it. I believe this is the fabric here.

I really enjoyed the top-stitching:

Before you get any idea I know what I am doing I have to tell you I just threaded two spools of jeans top-stitching thread in my cover hem (you could do the same thing with a twin needle) so I cheated completely.

If you are wary about using a heavier thread like this in your machine don't be. All you have to do is make sure you have an eye in the needle big enough for the thread to pass through easily. Look for something called a top-stitching needle. I used two in my cover hem machine and put another one in my regular machine when I had to do single line top-stitching.

The pattern went together very well and I didn't have to make any alterations apart from taking in the back waistband 1 1/2" 

Note that the waistband for the size 16 was nearly 36" (mine is 34" and the size 16 is supposed to be drafted for a size 30" waist). It pays to measure the pattern sometimes before you cut. The crotch curve and hips were perfect though. 

You can assess the fit from the photos yourselves but really the only major change I would make next time is to take out the hip curve a bit because my own hips are totally straight without any curve at all. I have in fact already done that to the pattern pieces because I am definitely making these again.

You can see exactly where I bent my right leg the curve I am going to be eliminating next pair. Not hard to do but really when there are no wrinkles anywhere else and the crotch was great right out of the envelope, why not?

On the construction side the only really, really important thing I need to mention is that the pattern envelope calls for a 7" zipper. This is really interesting because the fly extension is, without seam allowances, only 5" long, a more standard length for zippers in women's fly front jeans.

I of course discovered this when I went to put in my 7" zipper which meant I actually had to do the last couple of top-stitches around the fly by hand to get it over the metal jeans zipper teeth. No surprise there are no close-up shots of that here. Ideally you should be able to place the fly front top-stitching just below where the zipper teeth end.

This means, for the next person, you are going to have two choices, zipper wise:

1. Buy a 5" and not a 7" jeans zipper. Easy to do.
2. Lengthen the fly extension by 2," Also easy to do.

All in all I am pretty pleased with myself. 

I felt I took a chance with some nice fabric and two totally new patterns and got lucky. These are both basic staple type garments and they will get a lot of wear. I should probably do more of this type of sewing and continue to explore really day-to-day outfits that to my own mind at least look sharper than their comfort level suggests.

More to come.