Here There Be Pirates!

This is the pirate costume from Simplicity 5446, the adult size, medium. I had nobody to model the children's pattern for me, so it will go unphotographed until I get pics back from my family. It is a tad big on Ed, but we were able to pin the pants so they fit. The vest is supposed to be the correct size for him though, had we made this for Ed instead of my brother for whom it is intended.

You can see our little picture pal Lily in the background of the second photo. She just wanted to get in on that attention!

Anyways, the pants are made of some cotton/poly blend that really could stand a few more washes to make it a little softer. I have no idea what it's original purpose was since I found it in the thrift store, but the pattern sure makes good pirate pants (or prison pants if you were going for that look!). The floofy pirate shirt is made of a recycled queen sized bed sheet and the vest is some faux suede fabric, again found at a thrift store.

The vest material was actually a huge pain to work with because the minute you touched the fabric your hands turned brown! It practically oozed dye. I gave it a soak 3 times in the bathtub with some Woolite before I judged it had released enough dye that it could stand a turn through the washing machine.

After it came out there were white spots (probably from the fabric softener that was in the detergent) that I had to scrub out with a brush before I was satisfied of it's appearance. Definitely something I do not want to work with again if I have to, which is a pity since the fabric itself is so pretty and suede soft.

All in all, the pattern was pretty easy to work with. I had some trouble with the vest lining, and I do blame that on the vague instructions. If I had lined more things I probably wouldn't have been so confused I think. But, other than that one mishap, the pattern was very fun and quick to work with. I would recommend this pattern if you are looking for something piratey, or even to use as a Ren Faire costume since the pants and shirt could easily be from that time period. They are pretty versatile!

I know, I know, I owe some pics

But, I don't have them yet. I have finished the tops and bottoms, both man and child for the pirate costume. AND I still haven't posted a final photo of the Superman jacket (which I still haven't sent off because of that reason). I also have made a pair of cargo pocket capri's that I need to show, and...no wait, that's it. ;) I haven't started on anything else yet.

I was asked to make bloomers and wide legged shorts for a Halloween costume. Ed and I will be attending a "Steampunk Halloween" with some Browncoats we know. Browncoats being fans of anything Serenity, Firelfy or Joss Whedon; you know, they guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and more recently Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. Ok, so I'm a fan... Anyways, a gal I know has asked me to do the culottes and bloomers so that the bloomers peek out at the bottom. I'll be adapting Simplicity 9871, which is a pj bottom pattern that I use for myself.

Pics to come!

Ahoy me mateys!

My nephew, who is 6, is in love with pirates and everything pirate related. Ed and I were in Hobby Lobby looking at patterns. Yes, Ed looks at pattern books! I send him in search of guy stuff that I can make for him. He was flipping through McCalls costume section when he came across 5446, a pirate costume. We called my brother to see if he and his son would like to be matching pirates for Halloween, and of course he said yes. We're doing the more ruffian type of pirate (the larger image in the pic) than the tailored type, as per my brothers wishes, although I would have liked to make them the fancy coat.


So, we bought the pattern and the next day I went to the thrift store (I go to the thrift stores around here a LOT, as in I think it's another hobby of mine, but I refuse to admit it) and found this great length of black and white, jagged striped fabric that would be perfect for pants. So I've sewn the pants already and they look great, and started onto the shirt in the boy size last night.

I must have picked the wrong fabric to work with. It's some poly blend that is really soft, but a little slinky. I should have known from previous experiences with similar fabric. I just couldn't get this stuff to stay put. The seams were puckered and wavy, when I tired to attach the collar I got little pleats from the fabric straying from it's position, no matter how careful I was. I spent 6 hours between cutting and sewing this thing before I just chucked it in the trash and went to bed. I have another, more losely woven white cotton, similar to the faux linen they sell at JoAnns that I think I'll use instead. It should behave a lot better.

I will keep updated on the costumes and have some pictures to show once Ed gets his new camera up and running. He even bought a macro lens to take close up pictures of the beads I make, for me! What a guy. Of course he too wants to do macro photography, but the bead thing was what sealed the deal for him I think.

Baby Shorts

I don't have kids, but my brother has 2 little ones that are 3 and 6 and they just had another not too long ago. If my sister-in-law ever gets me the measurements for the bigger kids (it's going on a month now...ahem) I can make them some cute clothes and I have a pirate costume planned for my nephew. But, I digress...I picked up a kids pattern at the thrift store for 69 cents and it has a cute and very simple pair of baby shorts or panties, depending on what material you make them out of I guess. So far I've made 2:

One in a scrap of floral fabric that I got in a grab bag that was too small for anything else and another in a light weight denim. I hemmed and hawwed (or is that hawed?) about the denim thinking it may be a little too rough, but I'll let mommy decide that. These are sized to a small since I got the baby's weight and the pattern thankfully wasn't in measurements, which is a little bigger than my neice but babies grow fast, so I figure by the time I have these in the mail she'll fit into them.

And an update to the Superman Project...it's done! I just need to get it washed since it has picked up every since piece of thread it touched, and then photographed. Stay tuned for the grand finale!

Superman Progress Pt 3

The hood is attached! It took a while for me to get it just right. After the buttonhole mishap and having to recut another hood in both the red fabric and lining, I was a little discouraged and needed a small break. But, I pulled the jacket out again tonight and attached the hood. And my thanks to Ed for being a good sport about modelling it for me.

Since the two layers are pretty thick, I needed to use double wide bias tape, rather than regular bias tape, where it said to use it as the neck facing. Since I didn't have the light blue I originally had bought for it, in double wide, I ended up just using black. But that matches too since the Superman fabric has enough black in it, and a lot of the top stitching was done in black. Which brings me to the details that I promised a few posts ago.




The first image is the top stitching I achieved using a twin needle. I am in LOVE with my twin needle! And it makes such a nice finish on the inside as well, which you can see in the second photo. Since I didn't plan well about pocket placement and the hem, I started the hem stitching further towards the back of the pocket, though I did hand stitch to the lining on the inside. Basically it looks like the pocket is placed over the hem stitching, though it's not. I saved myself by that idea! I really didn't want to have to rip apart half the zipper and place the pockets higher up so that I could make a hem.

I realized too late to go out for it, but I didn't have nearly enough elastic. So, the project waits on hold, again, until I can get both more elastic for the hem and cuffs and a drawstring for the hood. I made a point NOT to photograph the buttonholes because those are pretty bad. My idea to put in the buttonholes after the hood was stitched in place wasn't a good one.

A Brief Intermission

I've been a little ill the last few days and haven't been up to working on the Superman jacket. So, I made what we've been needing badly. Zippered pouches to hold our mp3 players. It's hard to keep the earbuds and the player all together in a pocket or a purse without it tangling, so I used this tutorial to make a lined zippered pouch. Mine is on the left and is larger because I wanted the ability to watch movies on my player (which means it has a small screen) if I was sitting in a doctors office, and Ed's is the smaller and just functions as an mp3 player so he can listen to audiobooks at work (he does graphic design work). Both were bought, I might add, utilizing sales and shopping the best deals at the time, and were also saved for, rather than it being a rash decision. The Budget and all...

The larger polka dot pouch has a blue heart lining and uses a vintage zipper, bought at one thrift store or another. The smaller, check pattern (which only matches by chance!) has a red lining to match the vintage red zipper. Very guy, if I do say so. Thankfully I had a small scrap of the check fabric that I got in some large bag of scraps. It wasn't big enough to make much else, except maybe another pouch.

The Big List of Sewing Blogs

I first came across these little badges proclaiming "I'm on the Big List of Sewing Blogs" about 2 months ago, a bit before I first started this blog.
It provided me with hours and hours of blog reading pleasure and gave me a lot of new information. So, if you haven't checked out Suzical's Big List of Sewing Blogs, I suggest you run over there right now!

Vogue 8333

(Photo from here)
JoAnn Fabric was having a sale on Vogue patterns from the 7th-9th. Thankfully I remembered a half an hour before they closed tonight that I have been drooling over this jacket for months now. Every time I cruise the site, I always, always end up back at this pattern. I don't usually buy Vogue since they are a lot more expenisive than the other big pattern names. Budget sewing doesn't allow for frivilous pattern buying, unless of course, it's one of those 99 cent sales. Because of this, I own a lot of Simplicity and Butterick, but less Vogue and the lesser known names. I'm not saying that the money they want isn't justified (though I've never been a brand name/designer kind of girl), but I just simply can't spend over $10 on one pattern. There is that pesky budget after all, and that means being thrifty.

But, $3.99 I can do! This pattern probably won't get made for some time, but it's pretty classic and probably won't go out of style quickly. It's an advanced pattern, and I'm not confident enough about my skills to attempt it. Yet. But, I will. I will choose my fabric carefully and make sure I utilize sales and/or coupons, but some day you'll see another blog post about this beautiful Vogue 8333.

More Superman Progress Pt 2

I've made some progress lately by sewing up the side and arm seams and adding the pockets, and even attached the hood until I realized that I had made the buttonholes a bit wrong. Though, in all honesty I don't think it was my fault. I reread the instructions many times and the buttonholes are just in the wrong place on the hood. The need to be closer to the hood edge, but they are pretty far back. I ened up ripping out the hood and scrounging for more of the blue flannel, except I didn't have any blue flannel left. So I had to wait to go to the store for more RIT Dye (and now, at this point I'm getting frustrated). So I have some flannel to dye and then a hood to attach again. I'm going to wait on making the buttonholes until I have to sew up the hood's self facing this time. Lets hope that it works!

But, I'm very pleased with how it is coming out. The pattern is pretty easy, as I've found most Kwik Sew patterns to be. From what I've found, Kwik Sew has some great mens patterns that aren't too difficult and that work up so nicely. I have had to make a few alterations on the Kwik Sew patterns I've used, but what pattern doesn't need at least a few alterations to make it "yours"?

And I just realized that I need to take pictures of the details since I promised that as well. The inside is pretty as well since I used a twin needle and the twin needle also kind of finishes the inside as well as sewing the outside details. Closest I'll come to a coverstitch machine is the good 'ole twin needle

Superman Jacket

I found this incredible Superman sheet at Goodwill about 6 months ago. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do with it when I bought it, except make something for my cousin who lives and breathes Superman. Seriously, the guy has about 4 tattoos of Superman and related things and that's a rough estimate. As soon as I left, it hit me that I should do a raglan hoodie jacket. He lives in Tennessee and it gets cold there and it would showcase the Superman graphic perfectly. So I searched high and low for an appropriate jacket pattern and found Kwik Sew 1367, an out of print pattern from the 80's I believe, on ebay soon after.

I chose to do view B which is the guy in the turquoise jacket, but I altered the pattern so that the pocket holes started on the side of the stomach rather than the side seams. That just looked awkward and weird to me. I also angled the pockets so that things wouldn't fall out of them, like your pocket litter does on regular RTW hoodies. Boy, does that drive me nuts! I can't tell you how many things I've dropped in the toilet because of that (yeah, eww!).

After consulting him on it, he wanted blue arms, so it would be like Superman's outfit, and a red hood to resemble Superman's cape. I decided to make the pockets blue as well because more Superman would just be too busy on the front. The blue pockets give it a little breather.

I'm not finished yet on the jacket because I ran out of thread and needed to pick some up. I lucked out because JoAnn's is having a 50% off sale on Coats and Clark XP brand thread (which I didn't know about going in there).

I did line it with flannel. I actually dyed it blue after testing a batch a while ago. The larger pieces came out a lot lighter than the test pieces, and mottled looking at that. But since it's inside and it kind of looks like the sky, which goes with the Superman fabric, I kept it as is. I know that the flannel will likely make getting it on and off slightly difficult, but I explained that to my cousin who wanted the flannel anyways. The flannel is a queen sized blanket I found for probably under $3 at some thrift store or another.

I had to baste ALL the flannel to the outside fabric to keep it secure. In planning this, I didn't realize that I would have to do that. But, it makes for more precise construction. Sometimes the flannel was larger than the outer fabric and I'd have to trim it.

I'll post more about the details once it's completed!