Sewing Room

I've had a sewing room for almost 4 years now. It's very exciting because in my old apartment I did all of my sewing in my living room and it was very cramped. But my new apartment is a 2-bedroom so I now have a room dedicated entirely* to sewing and crafting.

Earlier this year I got an awesome desk from my work when we moved offices. It's a nice large corner desk (it was actually my old desk at work). I had to take one side apart to even get it into the room - which I did entirely by hand because I didn't know where my boyfriend kept his power tools.

It's in a pretty useful configuration right now, so I thought I'd share some pictures/hints/etc.

Note: unlike some bloggers I only did minimal cleaning before taking the pictures - crafty is messy and I'm not going to hide that (entirely).

First off here's the desk:

I can fit both my sewing machine and my serger on one desk! I can reach them both without even having to get out of my chair! I can't even begin to tell you how awesome that is.

The hat boxes in the corner of the desk have all kinds of fun crafty things stored in them: lace, flowers, yarn, pens, etc. etc. etc.

The drawers are especially handy. I've got bins that balance perfectly on the top of the bottom drawer with room left to store other things underneath:

 And this keeps my thread contained (it's always trying to escape):

Next up are my patterns:

They are all in those manilla envelopes in those drawers. My friend Tidy Tina did this for me and it's pretty spectacular. The 2 binders at the bottom have the commercial pattern envelopes in them sorted by women, men, kids, costumes, vintage, lingerie, etc. etc. etc.

So when I need a pattern I just look in the binders to see what I have. Then I go to the drawers for the actual patterns - which are organized by brand then pattern number. I used to keep them in boxes and I'd have to go through all the boxes whenever I was looking for a pattern.

And here's my bookshelf full of crap:

Scripts, sewing books, costume history books, a zombie cross-stitch kit, my balsam head in it's case, boxes of photos/receipts/etc., fireworks, magazines, hats, a laminater, photo paper, my gemagic (bedazzler), and even some crayons.

Here's a wider view of the first side of the room:

So, earlier I had an * on my claim that the room is entirely dedicated to sewing and crafting. Well, since my boyfriend moved in last year that's no longer true. He built those shelves to hold some of his stuff. Fortunately I'm pretty short and really can't reach them so it's hardly in my way.

Here's my ironing corner:

 And my favorite piece of art in the room:

 

Then there's my desk with my computer, printer, important papers, yada yada:

 

Above my desk is my inspiration board:

 

I haven't added much to it recently.

And my closet full of fabric, ribbons, and other frou-frous:

The other half of that close is scuba gear, golf clubs, tools, Christmas stuff, and clothes neither of us wear much.

So, it's not very pretty, but it is very practical. Though I still do most of my cutting on the living room floor - it just really helps to have lots of floor space...and a TV. =)

Couture sewing on Craftsy.com

I am currently taking an online class through Craftsy.com called The Couture Dress . It's taught by Susan Khalje and it's wonderful.

Within the last year I've had an interest in going to the mainland to take a sewing class. Most of the sewing classes on island are mostly quilting related or don't really fit my needs. UH Maui College (where I'm now a Guest Lecturer in Physics!) offers a fashion AA degree, but I don't have the time to pursue an actual degree - plus I already have a bachelors.

So I started looking online for sewing classes and I found a great weeklong program in Couture sewing taught by Susan Khalje. Couture refers to Haute Couture which is kinda of a school of sewing that is done by the big fashion houses in Paris, London, Milan and New York. It involves custom fitting and usually involves high-quality, expensive fabric. While the class sounds fabulous (although a little expensive) I haven't been able to work out the time off from work. Right now I'm saving up my vacation for a trip to England with my sisters.

Then, this week I got an email from McCall's about this online course that was 50% off for a limited time and you get a free vogue pattern with the class! So I signed up and I've learned so much already and I haven't yet had time to actually sew anything.

The process in Couture sewing is very different from what I'm used to. It's a lot more time consuming but produces a much better product. The garments fit better and they are better constructed.

However, while the Couture process is very interesting, I don't know if I'll be able to use all of it all the time. When making costumes for a play I usually don't have all the time in the world to sew, and often times I don't need the costumes to be of such high quality. But there's things I've learned that will help my costuming no matter what I'm sewing, and there's often times when I do want my costumes to have a more high quality look.

Plus, some of the sturdier techniques from Couture sewing will definitely help with costumes that get abused just from being on stage. And it will be interesting to see how I can morph the Couture process to improve my sewing.

And if I ever get the time it would be fun to make myself an actual Couture dress one day. I just wish she record the process again with a different dress so that I could learn more techinques.

If you have any interest in apparel sewing take this course!!

Tennis Skirts

A couple posts ago I talked about Sewing with Knits and some tennis skirts I'm making for my mother's tennis team. In this post I'll go over how those skirts are actually made.

To make the patterns for the skirts most of the ladies gave me a skirt that they liked and I extrapolated the necessary measurements from the skirts. But they all follow similar ratios that can be used to make a simple tennis skirt for most women. All you need is a waist measurement (or measurement for where you'd like the skirt to sit) and a desired length.

Materials needed are:

1/2 yard of 60" spandex or lycra (swimsuit fabric)
1 yard of 3/4" elastic
Twin Stretch Needle

The length of elastic needed is the waist measurement + 1" for overlap.

The rest of the skirt will be two trapezoidal panels. The top of each panel will be half the waist measurement + 2" for stretch + 1" for seam allowance. The side lengths I've worked with range from about 13" to 17" depending on where the skirt is worn (waist vs hips) and how long (or short) you want the skirt to be. You'll need to add 3/4" for the waist band and 5/8" for the hem. The bottom of each panel can range from 5" to 9" more than the width of top the panel.

Below is a diagram with the measurements for the panels for a med sized tennis skirt (29" waist):



Cut 2 panels from the fabric.

With right sides together sew up the sides (angled sides) using either a serger or a zig-zag stitch. Overlapping the ends by 1" sew the elastic into a band. Pin the elastic to the wrong side of the fabric with top edges even and distribute fullness (I like to half, then quarter each and mark with pins). Serge the top edge stretching the elastic to fit the waist of the skirt.



The waistband should look like this once the elastic is attached:



To finish the waistband, fold the elastic under, pin in place and sew from the right side of the skirt using a twin stretch needle stretching the elastic to even out the skirt fabric. You can use the elastic as a guide since you can't see the edge that's being hemmed. Since it's a 3/4" elastic I like to line up the top edge of the skirt with the 5/8" line on my sewing machine face plate to account for the needle offset.



The bottom of the skirt is hemmed the same way, except that you don't have the handy guide of elastic so you need to mark where to fold to get a 5/8" hem. Pin the hem and then sew from the right side of the skirt using the twin stretch needle (for the 5/8" hem I align the edge of the skirt with the 1/2" line on the face plate.

Ta da! Tennis skirt (or bathing suit skirt).

Sewing With Knits

I am currently working on a job for my mom's tennis team. They will be going to Nationals in Indian Wells, CA in october and wanted cute, matching, Hawaiian print skirts to wear while competing. My mom asked me awhile ago - while I was overwhelmed with Wedding Singer costuming - and I agreed knowing that I'd be working with a fabric that would be new and different and potentially very, very challenging.

Fashionable tennis skirts these days - well on Maui at least - are really more like bathing suit skirts. Pretty simple, made from lyrcra or spandex. But while the patterns are very basic, the fabric can be tricky to work with.

Sewing with knits, or any fabric that stretches is different from sewing with regular fabric because regular seams don't stretch. So, you need to use stitches that do stretch.

The best thing to use for sewing with knits is a serger. It creates that fancy overlock stitch that is found on all commercially produced clothing. I have a serger, though I use it mostly for creating a strong covered edge for regular seams - it helps to prevent raveling.

The next best thing for sewing with knits is a twin needle, specifically a stretch twin needle. A serger creates an overlock so it requires an edge. To get a nice edge it is equipt with a knife that cuts the edge just to the right of the inside of the seam. This means that a serger really doesn't work for hemming.

To get a stretch stitch on a regular sewing machine the easiest thing to do is use a zig-zag stitch. The zig-zag will allow for stretch. However, a slightly better, more professional looking seam comes when you use a twin needle. This is two needles spaced apart by a couple millimeters with a crossbar and a single end that goes into the sewing machine like a regular needle. You need to thread the sewing machine with two threads and thread each needle with it's own thread. Nothing changes with the bobbin. Because of the two needles the bobbin thread gets zig-zagged between the two and this creates the stretch.

I'll post pictures as I go.