How to set in a zipper by hand

How was the weather where you were today?

Here it was hot from early morning, unusual in Nova Scotia where, being on the ocean, even our summer days are framed by cool air.

The kids and I had fun but by the end of it they were getting a bit ragged with the 3 year old trying to assert his position as boss of the world (a position I have more or less wrapped up) and his sisters doing various renditions of not being impressed by that.

So after a long hot day it seemed the best thing for me to do was to post one of my highly professional Youtube videos on how to sew in a zipper by hand.

This really is the easiest and most relaxing way to put in a zipper, sort of the sewing equivalent of sending your husband out to pick up a roast chicken and sides in the getting supper on the table department, something I have just done.

So here's to doing it the easy way:

Leggings sew-along

Here we go. First leggings in July and then swimwear in August.

I figured it made sense to start with athletic type fabric first in a garment with fewer pieces and then work out.

For the first foray into something I have never done before, meaning a sew-along, not meaning the sewing, here is the schedule:

Monday July 9: thoughts on patterns
Friday July 13: fabrics
Monday July 16: thoughts on fitting
Friday July 20: stitching options
Monday July 23: gussets and seams
Friday July 27: waistband options
Monday July 30: customizing ideas and wrap -up

August - stay tuned for swimwear sew along!

I have tried to figure out a way to make this more visually interactive than only text comments so I have added some info onto Facebook page my husband set up a month a go for a project when he had an afternoon when he was excited the book came out. Like it an feel free to post your thoughts, ideas, questions and photos.

I will be posting text and pictures here, doing some of my slick high level production kitchen table Youtube videos in my Youtube channel, also posted to this page, and giving updates on Instagram @bemodi


The sewing part doesn't worry me, managing all this social media might get a bit bumpy. Bear will me, this should be fun.

Just when you thought you had seen everything: zipper pocket tutorial

I see C&T has just put up a little video I made in San Francisco on a zipper pocket.

For all those sewers/sewists out there who could use some entertainment tonight, live, sort of, and as will soon be evident, completely unscripted:

Any interest in some summer sew-alongs?

Hi folks.

I have an idea and I would like to know if anyone is interested in what is a new idea for me.

How about two sew-alongs for the month of July?

I am thinking of sort of an all ages and stages leggings series and a similar swimwear (swimsuits and rash guards/sun shirts)  series.

Nothing too complicated at all but based on what I would like to tell new and returning sewers about sewing these basic garments so many are frightened of attempting. As usual my authority on this would be my own lessons of experience and that always includes my mistakes.

And because some folks are visual learners I would supplement the blog posts with some Youtube videos.

I am also thinking that I will give my ideas in parallel format - one for those with sergers/coverhems
and one for those working on a conventional machine.

And as always since this blog is a collaborative project, and since the smartest things said here are so often in the comments, I am looking forward to those with experience sewing these garments to pitching in with advice.

So my question of the day is this?

Who's interested?

Both?

Once I have some feedback I am going to put together a timetable and off we sew!

Terrible home made pictures, good idea and thoughts on emotional sewing

Whenever I take a break from the blog you can assume that I am either:

1. At the top of some mountain somewhere in the rv where there is neither water, electricity, nor internet (we can carry enough water for 3 days and there is a generator for electricity if we need it, but the internet thing is random)
2. Have company in the house, something that happens fairly regularly around here, and I am not one to miss out on a conversation of any kind (actually had the kitchen walls taken down so I could participate in all discussions even when I was off getting dinner ready for guests, I kept burning things running into the living room to contribute my 2 cents worth)
3. Off deep in some sewing project and if it is for family usually under some sort of deadline

#2 and 3 have been at play this week and part of the week before as my son from San Francisco and my daughter-in-law have been in town for a wedding and visit (couple of my son's friends from the States have met and married girls from Halifax who were down there, interesting and random).

My DIL is expecting and I have been making her a few maternity things.

This is the point at which I talk about emotional sewing.

Now let me get this straight. I do not "sew for other people." I would rather go over Niagara Falls in a barrel than replace a zipper in jeans. It is my experience that the kind of people who ask you to make things for them are also the kind of people who have no idea what they are asking, how long it would take, or how those take it in or let it out a little jobs are far more work than making a whole new outfit.

My one real foray into sewing for others happened years ago when one of my sisters and I briefly made wedding dresses. My sister was a nurse and it was for people from her work we usually sewed for. Our grand finale in that little adventure occurred one day when we arrived at the Head of paediatrics' house to deliver dresses for the bride, bridesmaids, flower girl and even grandmother of the bride.

I remember walking up to this lovely house with our arms full of dresses. And being nearly run over by the groom being chased out the front door by all female relatives. He had chosen that exact time to show up and say he had met someone else and the wedding was off.

Man did we drop those dresses fast and run ourselves.

We quit sewing for other people after that.

Subsequently my sewing was all about me or sewing for my children. I did a lot of experimenting. I will always know how much my children love me when I think of some of the things I put on them to go to school, and that they wore without complaint.

Later there was a lull when the kids became adults and went out into the world able to feed, dress, and support themselves. Usually on all counts better at it than even their mother.

This coincided with my discovery of the words "add to cart" and the instantaneousness of PayPal.

You could say, with accuracy, that I filled my empty nest with fabric.

And now, like all the other times in my life when sewing has stepped in with a life solution, consolation or new direction, it is giving me a way to mother a family who is no longer under this roof.

Now- particularly now that I rely on their good taste rather than my own- I use my sewing to build my emotional bridges.

I make shirts for my two sons in the States, and am starting one for my marvellous son-in-law down the road. I make shirts for my daughter to wear to do one of the hardest jobs in the hospital and for my niece as she trains to do the same. I make warm jackets for my husband so he can finally have clothes that fit him, and swimsuits for the kids to wear all summer. And I have made maternity clothes for my wonderful daughter in law who is way too far away so I can in my own way make a contribution to an exciting time in her life.

Anyone who has ever woken up in a quiet house and has only one or two toothbrushes in the bathroom rather than the half a dozen that used to be there, next to the toothpaste squeezed in the middle with the top left off, will know what this time of life can feel like and how important it is to reach out to family still.

 It is amazing how quickly you can get up in the morning when there is already a fight you hear down the hall you need to break up. And it is just as amazing how much time you can waste on your phone and with a coffee in the morning when there is no one who needs your intervention any more.

There is always a time in every mother's life when she never needs to wonder what to do because someone needs her. And there is another time when she realizes they don't.

What sewing, sewing that always comes through for me, is doing right now is give me my job back. It even makes me sometimes feel overwhelmed because I have so much to do for everyone and they are all waiting for it.

How normal does that feel?

So now onto some patterns I have used this week on the maternity sewing binge, because of course there aren't any maternity clothes in the stores at all now. Unless you count the ones made of polyester and I don't.

This week I used two Patterns for Pirates patterns - the for purchase pattern Cocoon cardigan and the free pattern for leggings, the Peg Legs with the add-on that includes a gusset the maternity add-ons.

Here are the pictures but really you should go and click the links to see how these two patterns looks on every body type - something the indie patterns do so well and the Big 4 just doesn't.

Also a giant shout-out to P4P for their wonderful range of free patterns, really quite impressive, and there are a few more of those I want to try out this summer:

Now I don't really have my pictures of my versions yet, I just passed these onto my DIL before they left for the wedding, but those will come.

So all I can give you here are some shockingly bad hasty pictures of the leggings snapped on hangers on the back of a door. Hopefully they are just barely clear enough for you to see the shape of the over the belly version we decided we like best. I made Maddie three pairs initially with three different waists, these ones and two under belly bands, but she found the over the belly most comfortable.

This is a side view showing how the front slopes up

This is a front view showing as well how wrinkly cotton lycra can get

Now you know I loved my Jalie Clara leggings so I want to point out a difference between the Peg Legs and that pattern. I would describe the Clara's as more of a real workout legging, a close fit definitely with some caution that you need a really stretchy two-way knit to make these work.

The Peg Legs are not quite as fitted, still leggings of course, but with more room in the thigh definitely which is why I thought they would work for maternity adaptation.  I would describe them as more everyday around the house leggings with not quite as strict a requirement for super stretchy fabric.

I am thinking though that there is no reason why I couldn't just sew that P4P over belly waistband onto the Clara's (they stop with the waistband seam at roughly the same place) and will turn that idea over in my mind, probably around 3:00 am.

So there will be some follow-up on this post, probably with some pictures even of my own cocoon cardigans, let's look for that.

Two things to think about when making T shirts

I have decided, atypically, to make some practical clothes for the summer. I am still going on the bathing suit tear, expect more on that later, and on some maternity leggings for my DIL, but am doing a few T shirt side projects.

There are a few things this T shirt making has brought to mind.

1. Fabric really makes a difference. 

I think we tend to think that when a pattern is for knits that this means any knit with the right degree of stretch (and hopefully the pattern is specific about this, either with a 4" of fabric should stretch to here, or a % figure) can be used in any pattern.

When you think about this, assuming that a knit is a knit is a knit doesn't make sense. After all when we sew with woven fabrics we don't assume that all are suitable. Who would make the same pattern in say a melton, a corduroy, a poplin and a chiffon and expect them all to work equally well?

So why do we grab any knit for say a project that says for knits and expect it to work?

A T-shirt that looks great in a cotton lycra for instance, is this Jalie classic T ,I made for my daughter this week:

This is a close fitted top and needed the structure of the cotton lycra to hold the shape without being clingy. I thought this one really worked; a good example of cotton lycra appropriate to the pattern. By contrast I have tried to use cotton lycra is fuller shirts and been very disappointed - any degree of flare and it just sticks out.

The new Mimosa top from Jalie is really an expanded, literally, version of this shape, from fitted to boxy and it is interesting that the fabric requirements specify something that flows.

I followed this advice when I made my first one, you have also seen this shot before, and it is worth noting that the rayon I used had pretty much the same degree of stretch as the cotton lycra above, but because of fabric content, and this is important, it had a completely different hand and considerably more drape:

I was quite happy with this top too and was glad I had used such a flowy fabric considering the tie thing going on with the sleeves and the fact I wanted to wear it with a fitted skirt. This is such a light feeling top and so comfortable.

But this version brings me to thought #2.

2. Now the first time I make any pattern I always try to make it up as per specs because there seems to me to be no point in adjusting something without seeing first how the design works (some folks call this a muslin I call these garments clothes-to-wear-walking-the-dog.)

The first version of the Mimosa worked I thought but it reminded me that it's important to remember your bones.

I made the Mimosa 1.0 as per my bust measurement, which often works just fine with Jalies because they are not drafted for big shoulders. But in a light fabric with a scoop neckline I definitely felt it was too loose around my meatless shoulders. Even though the shoulder seams were sitting in the right place I wasn't filling out the upper chest well.

Which returned me to one of the first principles of fitting which is to use your upper bust for choosing a pattern size and add where you need it from there down.

The first Mimosa I made was a size W, my size for bust, waist and hips, but for my next version I traced off a smaller upper bust/neck, size U, and by mid armhole returned to the W.

Here is the result (pardon the wild fabric this was piece that came to me in a Fabricmart mystery box) and you can see what a difference this makes - only the neckline and upper chest is a different size than the version above but the whole shirt looks totally different. I have to say that one reason I like Jalies is that they have such a huge number of sizes in each pattern, with only an inch apart between each, so it is easy to make these minor tweaks in fit:

Really folks I am really happy with this shoulder fit now combined with the loose body shape to me this is a winner and a new TNT.

For those familiar with the pattern I have made one other construction change. The sleeve view here was for the sleeves to be rolled up. Since my fabric had both a right and a wrong side I made a deep hem instead and folded that up again to make the rolled up look. I then tacked it by machine a the underarm and with a few stitches at the fold on the upper arm.

I have some other patterns to try out for T shirts but this one is definitely going in the personal file.

Flypaper thought: another boss of the world edition

• Sometime ago I made a list of things I would make sure happen
• If I were the boss of the world
• It turns out that if you have an aptitude for world domination
• The ideas keep on coming
• So here we go
• If I were the boss of the world any actual world leader
• Would be forced to behave the way their mothers told them they should
• Or we replace them with the mothers
• If I were the boss of the world jars of face cream would be packaged
• Only in boxes that were the same size as the actual face cream
• Not in some Russian doll (to offence to actual Russian dolls) system
• Of a large cardboard box
• That contains a jar
• Under a lid that fills out half the inside of the box
• That screws onto a jar with the thickness sides you ever saw
• That when you lift off the plastic thing under the lid
• Reveals about half a teaspoon of something that does not contain enough to take the wrinkles off the face of a mouse
• If I were the boss of the world half a teaspoon of something that 96% of people you don't actually know, and who you can't access their names or addresses to actually check on this have endorsed
• Would never be disguised like that
• By 96% who are pretty sure that they probably had noticeably fewer wrinkles they are fairly sure
• Than they did two weeks ago if they had been checking at that time
• Or as a statistician would tell you
•  If two sisters looked at their faces and one asked the other one
• "Do you think this cream is working at all?
• And the other one said "Well maybe,"
• "What do you think?"
• That in the world of high level statistics and the science of probability that works out to exactly 96% a positive result
• Which come to think of it are pretty good odds for half a teaspoon
• If I were the boss of the world
• Dump it and forget about it crock pot meals actually tasted better than careful cooking
• And no food blogger or writer would be allowed to use the work riff
• As in "a riff on the traditional potato salad" you know the one that uses miso instead of mayo
• And no sewing blogger can use the word hack unless they mean
• Cut into tiny pieces and stomp on that pattern that used up all the good fabric and told you to do what no one human, not and particularly not 96%, could ever do even if they were sewing geniuses
• And hack involved scissors 
• If I were the boss of the world
• No one would be allowed to write in a cover letter that they were passionate about anything
• That they know full well they would only do if someone were going to pay them and make it worth their while
• Or say they are excited
• About things that involve writing a report
• While sitting in a cubicle
• If I were the boss of the world 
• I would install a feature on all cell phones that turned them off in parental hands any time a child was within 10 feet
• Except when pictures were being taken to send to grandparents
• If I were the boss of the world sewing would be listed as a profession
• And there would be pension plans for people who collect fabric
• And fabric stashes were tax deductible
• And spouses said things like
• We have that extra money to spend before year end
• And "do you think you can do something about that?"
• And time off to sew was included in corporate wellness plans
• Where it belongs
• If I were the boss of the world