How To Stuff A Mild Bikini

More stashbusting!  This time it's swimwear.

Despite the fact that I do not like to be in pools with other people (too splashy) and therefore do not like to swim and even though Fogville is just too cold for sunbathing I love swimwear.  I love it. Passionately.  I probably have 20 swimsuits despite the fact that they only get worn when I'm poolside at a weekender somewhere. Vintage-style swimwear is the best.  The BEST!  It's sexy and flirty without showing too much skin and hides so many figure flaws, which I especially appreciate as I don't exactly have a "bangin' beach body"...or whatever.

So, when my Tia Maria gave me a big pile of fabric a while back including some interesting polyesters, it seemed obvious that the polys should be used for swimwear.   Franky, I don't know what else to do with polyester.  Even if the print is cute, it's still polyester which in my mind means it will eventually become permanently sweat saturated and stinky.   Ick.

This yellow poly with a tiny red rose print fairly screams "kicky early 60s bikini" doesn't it?

Unfortunately, once I started working with the fabric it became clear that it probably wouldn't hold up to much wear.  While somewhat stretchy, it doesn't bounce back well. Instead it sort of melts.  Weird.

Also, it runs like a pair of pantyhose.

I forged ahead anyway with the idea that this could be a semi-wearable muslin.

It took forever to find a bikini pattern with the kind of bottoms I was envisioning. Everything in my stash had either regular short-shorts with open legs or was from the later 60s and had "below the belly-button" bottoms.  I did a lot of internet searching and finally found Advance 3169.  (The swimsuit is the teensy photo of view 3 a the top.) The bottoms are exactly what I was looking for!

Being as I am a busty girl, a more constructed top than what was included with the pattern was a must.  Many years ago, I owned a few vintage 60s bikini tops and they were very constructed, almost bra-like.  To make sure that I wasn't imagining the bra-ness of those tops, I did some internet searching and found a few examples of vintage bra-style swim tops on Ebay.

Reassured that it wasn't crazy to make a "bra" for the beach, I went with this Sew Lovely bra pattern for the top.  It's from 1970, but it has exactly the shape that I want.

At first I was a little scared of the tiny pieces and all the tiny seams but you know what?   It's only three main pieces (I made the straps from another pattern) and was super duper easy to put together!

I cut out two copies of the fashion fabric (one outside and one interior lining) and one additional copy out of power net for interior support.  To give the cups more shape, I added Dritz molded foam bra cups between the inner fashion fabric and the interior power net layer.  The serger was invaluable again as I simply basted all of the seams together on the Pfaff and then finished the edges with the serger. Once everything was stitched together and the right sides were flipped out, I zigzagged the edges for extra support.   Instead of bra hooks in back, I added a swim hook.

Outside

Inside

Shorts construction was super easy too.  I finished most of the seams with the serger and added elastic to the waist and leg openings.  I love the zip back!

Since I had extra fabric, I went ahead and made the bandeau top that came with the shorts. The center twist doesn't really work at all with my sizable chest so I gave up on that.  Without the twist, it makes me look a bit more bulky up top than I would like. It works, and looks okay, but I don't love it. 

But the finished suit with the bra top isn't bad.

It is a full coverage, mild but not modest, bikini and I like it.

With the bandeau top.

With the bra top.

It mostly held up to one wearing for photos and then the side seams, which I neglected to serge, began to run. Also, pale yellow might not be my color.  Eh  la la.  These things happen.

The final result is that I'm not afraid of making swimwear anymore.  Hooray!  I will definitely be making this suit again!

I'm Not Crabby, I'm Lobstery

I was thrilled to find a lobster print pinstriped/faux-seersucker 100% cotton Tommy Hilfiger twin flat sheet for 99 cents at the thrift store!


It was pretty small and had some faint bleach stains on one end, but I thought it would make a wonderful summer dress, if I unfolded all of the seams and used a bodice pattern that didn’t require much fabric.
 I used the bodice from McCalls 6780.

Somehow, even though I’ve used this bodice pattern before, I forgot that it is a 36 bust.  The waist fits fine but the bust is ginormous!  I didn't do the alterations beforehand, so, after the whole thing was put together and lined and, dare I say, perfectly constructed, I had to take the top in on the sides to keep it from gapping.  It ruined my perfectly sewn interior, but it was worth it.  It fits, and that’s the main thing!


The skirt is just three giant rectangles gathered dirndl-style.  There are more gathers in the back than in the front and boy, is it ever FULL!    I love big puffy floaty skirts.  Especially with a crinoline.

The worst mistake was mis-calculating the placement of the lobsters when I cut out the skirt panels.  I had originally intended to put the bleach stained section in the back where there would be more gathers and it would be less noticeable. Unfortunately, in order to get all of the lobsters to (mostly) match up at the side-seams, I had to put the stained panel in front. Bummer!
 Luckily, the pattern is busy enough that you can’t tell that much.

My favorite element of this dress is the matched lobsters in the straps!

I love this dress so much!  It's crisp and preppy and peppy! It makes me super happy whenever I wear it.
  

Our Little Casa on a Hill Featured on Janel Holiday Interior Design

My friend Janel, from Janel Holiday Interior Design came by with her camera last Friday night and snapped a few photos of our home.  She's posted them in a photo essay on her blog. You can see them by clicking the link below.

http://janelholidaydesign.blogspot.com/2013/04/friday-night-fireworks-at-gabriella.html

Janel is an incredibly talented interior designer and she is one of the most stylish people I know.  She is also an artist who makes amazing collage art and shadow boxes.  Plus she is a super sweet person.  Having her wandering around the house snapping photos made me feel so house proud.

The hubs and I are inveterate flea market and thrift store shoppers and vintage collectors.  We have so much fun finding treasures and arranging them in little groups throughout the house.  None of it is worth much or probably very desirable to anyone else, but we love our little piles of "junk."  Having our "junk" appreciated by someone who I respect so much was a real treat. I do wish I'd dusted before she came over, though.  Oh well!

Do stop by Janel's blog if you want to see the photos.  Below is a teaser snap I took myself,  just to give you a little taste of what our house is like.

The living room.

The Gertie Pedal Pushers

Pattern Description: 
Butterick B5895 - Pedal pushers with pockets and rolled cuffs.  My first "Patterns by Gertie!"

Pattern Sizing:
I traced off and cut out the size 12 (26.5/36)  My actual measurements: 29.5/39.


Fabric Used:
Dark blue denim reminant from Fabric Outlet

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
Deepened the darts in the back to narrow the waist a bit. Moved the zipper closure over to the side.  I may replace the hook closure with a button at some point in the future.

Used some left over quilting cotton with a Japanese print instead of self-lining the pocket.

Were the instructions easy to follow?
Yes. I imagined that the front bit with the pockets would be difficult but it was SO easy.  Everything fits together perfectly. 

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
Love the front detail and the SUPER easy pocket. (...and I never like pockets!)

As usual, with a modern pattern, I sewed up one size smaller than my actual measurements and it's still a titch big in the waist.  This is after I deepened the darts by a half inch each.  Damn waist to hip ratio!  OH well.

Absolutely HATED the back zip.  Did nothing at all for my bootie and created some pretty horrid gaposis (verging on plumber's crackosis) when I sat. Sigh.  I was much happier after I moved the zip to the side but I've still got some gaposis going on back there.  As it is now, my best and most authentic pin-up (read: granny) pants peek over the top a bit in back when I sit.  (Yeah, that's right, I gots no shame.)

This is a bummer because pin-up granny pants are the best thing ever under trousers. They don't make underwear lines, they erase tummy bulges, and I think they help to create a more vintage silhouette. Luckily I have a slightly less authentic pair of grannies that don't peek over.

Next time I will raise the waistline and deepen the darts even more.  I think that will help with the gaposis and also make them look much more like real vintage jeans.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
Yes, with alterations for a better fit.  This is a super easy pants pattern with a nice retro look.  I'd like to make an ankle length pair and a pair of shorts. 

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it?
Sort of.  I imagined that the waist would be a smidge higher.  As you can see in the photos below it hits just below my natural waist. Next time I'll adjust for that.  Also thought that the legs would be narrower, especially at the bottom cuff.  I may narrow them later as, at the moment, the hems definitely look better flipped up.

Conclusion:
There are elements to these trousers that I really like.  In particular the pockets are delightful.  I think that, over all, I like the fit of my tried and true 60s pants pattern (Simplicity 4401) a bit better and will continue to use it for slacks.  For banging out a quick pair of knock-about jeans, tho, this pattern is pretty easy and pretty cute.

 

And that's quite enough photos for one post!

Stashbusting Can Be Groovy

Even though I've pretty much stopped buying fabric, my stash keeps growing.  I always say yes when someone is cleaning out a storage space and wants to give me a few yards of this and that. There is always some really good stuff in those bags of discarded fabric.  There is usually also some stuff that is really not my style but that I will probably never get rid of because, well,  it turns out that I am a fabric hoarder. Le sigh.

So this year I am making a concentrated effort to sew more often and to sew from the stash and to use up the fabric that I think is hideous challenging.  I'm also going to try to use up some of the fabrics that I love so much that I am afraid to cut.  I mean, it's only fabric, right? Riiiiiight....

It is sort of like eating your veggies, stash-busting.   It's not that you don't like peas and carrots, or you wouldn't have selected them in the first place.  But when everyone else is nomming cake and licking frosting off of their fingers, the peas and carrots can seem a little unappetizing.  Still, veggies are good for you so you come up with ways to make them more appealing.

What I'm trying to say is that sometimes a fabric that you really thought was icky looks much better when it's made up into something totes adorable.  For example, this is a super stretchy moss green faux suede with an embroidered pattern all thorough it in teal blue and light green. Yikes, right? It's pretty terrible.

I don't remember who I got this from so, if they are reading this, I hope they don't take offence.  I'm sure they loved it when they bought it and their vision for what it could be was obviously clearer than mine. But every time this floated up to the top of the stash pile, I'd think, "WTF am I ever going to use this for?" Recently it ended up on top again and I decided that it was time to figure it out.  

Whatever I made had suit the wackadoo vibe of the fabric but still be something I'd wear. It also had to be pretty small because I only had just over a yard of it.  My choices were limited to...oh, I don't know, lederhosen and a matching vest (tempting!) or a hippie mini dress.  I went with a mini dress from 1970.

I chose this pattern because it's pretty groovy with that way out collar and the lacing in the front. Embroidered faux suede is nothing if not groovy, IMHO. 

There was barely enough fabric to cut out all the pieces so I had to get pretty creative with the layout.  It wouldn't work unless I shortened the minidress quite a bit from the get-go.  After a little measuring and a lot of eyeballing, I decided that I could take about four inches off the skirt length (these patterns are always much longer than the illustration would have you believe)  but I'd have to give up on the possibility of a proper hem.

I was a little worried about construction because the collar seemed like it would be extra fiddly, but this dress went together quickly and without incident.  A zipper was unnecessary because the fabric is so stretchy.  Hooray!   The only thing I don't like is how thick some of the seam joins ended up and that the sleeve facings don't want to lie flat.  The hem problem was an easy fix: serge, fold, iron, and top stitch flat.

And peoples, despite the fact that I did not love this fabric at all when I started, I gotta admit, this dress is supa cute!

 It looks great in the dining room AND the living room.

...and it makes me feel like Fay Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair.

Which is a pretty groovy way to feel.

Another OPP

Another OPP from my friend's mother in-law.  

I started with pale bluish-grey linen that had been partially cut  into pants and some random pieces of cut fabric.  

I think that the oblong pieces are supposed to be the pockets, but I hate pockets so I ignored them. The long rectangles might have been intended as the waistband but I guess someone forgot to cut on the fold.  The serger came in handy again to connect the two waistband pieces in the center.  I'm beginning to wonder how I ever got along without that thing.

The pants weren't too far off from my size but they had only been partially cut out and the legs were a bit too wide for my taste.

I used this pattern to trim them down a bit and complete the cuts.

Once all the cutting was done, the pants went together lickety-split.  I love sewing with linen.  It's always so darned easy to work with. It's even easier than quilting cotton, I think.  I used the serger to finish all of the inside seams and for the first time in a very long while, something I made looks as good on the inside as it does on the outside.

You Down Wit' OPP?

And by that I mean Other People's Projects.

From time to time I will be offered someone's box of old sewing stuff that has been sitting in the back of a closet and collecting dust.  I almost always say yes because you never know what you will find.  Recently I was given a collection of really lovely fabrics by a friend's mother in law.  She gave me some very good quality stuff, much nicer than anything I'd ever buy for myself: wools and linens and interesting prints and a couple of unfinished projects.

I'm not sure the scanner does it justice, but this wool is a heathered blue and purple and the checks are made with alternating beige and yellow stripes.  So pretty!  This gorgeous wool had been cut into a skirt.  

Gathers had been stitched into the waist line and that was about as far as the previous owner had got.  It was a couple of sizes too big so I used my tried and true easy skirt pattern to trim it down to the right size.  I turned the front gathers into darts and cut a waistband out of the excess that I'd removed from the skirt pieces.

I'd never sewed with wool ever before and never anything with checks or plaid.  But it was so easy!  I used my serger (for the first time!) to finish all the edges and then just lined up the grid at the seams. Whoever cut this out originally did a great job.   I suspect that all the hard work with plaids is in the cutting.

I ended up with this.  Yowsa!  I love it!

This skirt is so luxurious and warm and dare I say it classy!  Perfect for work but it still has that retro vibe.

In this case, I am mos def down wit' OPP.  Yeah, you know me.