Valentine Bird

I made this little Valentine Bird using the side, underbelly, and wing templates from this Martha Stewart bird pattern. I added a quilted tail and heart using my own pattern which you may use if you like. Seam allowances are not included...the lines are your sewing lines. I used the lines on Martha's pattern as my sewing lines as well.

I constructed mine differently from Martha's site's directions. I didn't enlarge any of the pieces. I just printed them on heavy paper, cut them out, and traced around them with a mechanical pencil onto the back/wrong side of my fabrics. I cut the shapes out of the fabric, leaving a little less than a 1/4 inch seam allowance around the outside of my pencil lines.

I took a small piece of yellow fabric for my beak, flipped it right sides together with my bird's head and sewed along the line where the beak meets the head. Then I just flipped it back the right way, like paper piecing in quilting. Next I sewed the seamline along the back of the bird from the point where the underside of the beak meets the body to the tip of the back end, just sewing along the sewing lines, not past them. I turned it right side out, and then pressed under the seam allowance where the body meets the tail.


The tail, the heart, and the wings where all sewn with cotton quilt batting underneath. I left an opening for turning them right side out, trimmed the batting out of the seam allowances, turned the shapes right side out, and then slip stitched the openings closed. I added a little extra stuffing in the heart first. I hand quilted the wings and tail in lines about a 1/4 inch apart.

I took the quilted tail and slip stitched it to the bird's body where I turned under the seam allowance. I let the back overlap the tail by about an inch.

I flipped the body right sides together again, loosely (I didn't turn the beak back inside out). I hand stiched the underbelly to the sides of the bird, right sides together, leaving the area near the tail open by about an inch on either side. From this opening, I turned the bird right side out. I added a small handmade sack of Poly-pellets for weight, and stuffed him with Poly-fil. Then I slip stitched the opening closed, folding the tail in half to get the seam to come together.

The wings were attached with quilting thread run through the openings of heart-shaped buttons on either side, and the eyes are black buttons attached with white thread, also sewn right through, button to button. I hand embroidered my intitials on one side of the heart, with a "+" below them, and my Valentine's intials on the back, also with a "+" below, using a simple back stitch and yellow embroidery floss. Lastly, I used some pearl cotton to make a loop through my bird's beak to hold the heart, knotted it, and slipped the end inside the heart by pulling it through with my needle.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Potholder Project

I made this set of potholders by sandwiching one layer of cotton duck/canvas between two layers of organic cotton batting, then sandwiching those between two layers of cotton terrycloth (I used cotton washcloths), all roughly 9.5 inches square. I used my walking foot to quilt the layers together. Then I trimmed them down to 8.5 inches square with my rotary cutter and ruler.

Since I didn't have enough of my polka dotted cotton to make a true bias, I cut 2.5 inch strips and sewed them on the edges of the potholders without turning the corners. I put the strips right sides against the terrycloth, on one edge at a time, sewed a 0.5 inch seam, turned each strip over to the back, turned under the raw edge to match the front, slipped stitched it down, and then topstitched it down from the front side. I did all four edges this way, turning under the corners where necessary so no raw edge was left out, but leaving about 5 inches of the strip loose at the final corner.

At the final corner, I took the 5 inches of the strip I left loose, turned under the raw edge, then flipped it over on itself to make a loop for hanging, which I then sewed down by hand on the back of the potholder.

We then tested them out on some homemade cheesecake, and they worked great :)

Vogue 7693, continued

I transferred my corrected sewing lines onto my pattern pieces and re-cut a couple of pieces where the seam allowances were too narrow from my sizing mistake. It is a good idea to buy extra fabric as mistakes almost always happen. In the "old days" fabric stores would give you a little more than you asked for, to compensate for shrinkage and pattern repeats, or just to be generous. This doesn't happen too often now. Depending on what I am making, I estimate how much extra yardage I might need if I had to re-cut the largest piece. If that becomes too extravagant, I take my chances and try to be extra careful.

I also drew extra lines on my front bodice paper pattern pieces as guidelines for strips of interfacing, about 2 and 5/8 inches from the center edges. Since this is a wrap dress, the front edges are on the bias, which has a tendency to stretch. Unlike the skirt part of the dress, I don't want this to grow. In fact, I want to make it just slightly shorter, by 1/4 of an inch, than the pattern pieces. This is a modification of a technique from Sandra Betzina's Power Sewing. This will keep the dress from flopping open when I bend forward.

I cut out Fusi-Knit interfacing, following the lines I have drawn on my paper pattern. I just lay the interfacing over the paper and trace the lines. Then I remove 1/8 of an inch from either end of the interfacing pieces, to make them a total 1/4 inch shorter from top to bottom. I find it is easier to look at my cut-out fabric and figure out which side up the interfacing should be when I cut it out. The glue side should be against the wrong side of your fabric piece. For me, it is just easier to figure this out while I have the fabric piece in front of me.

My bodice is lined with the same fabric I am using for the rest of the dress, rayon challis. I lay my facing pieces of my bodice, the ones I am using as lining, on my ironing board, wrong sides up, and using my fingertips, I very slightly push the bias center edges toward their middles, to make them shorter. I lay my paper pattern pieces over the fabric pieces to check for size. I want to make the edges 1/4 of an inch shorter from top to bottom than the pattern edges. I want the middle third of this area to be taken in the most. I use steam from the iron to shrink the edges to size. Hover the iron over the fabric to let the stream shrink the edges. On rayon, this works very well.

Once the center edges of the bodice are the corrected size, I lay the Fusi-Knit on top. Adjust the temperature on your iron to the synthetics setting, wait a moment for the iron to cool a little, then use the iron to "tack" it down to the fabric in a couple places so the interfacing won't shift. Fusi-Knit requires a little extra attention so you don't melt it. I melted some just today! Lay a press cloth over the Fusi-Knit and follow the manufacturer's instructions to bond it to the fabric. Remember not to touch an overly hot iron directly to the Fusi-Knit during the construction of garments as well. Use a scrap piece of fabric and interfacing to get an idea of the proper temperature settings. This will save you a possible mess. I have melted fusibles onto my iron and my ironing board before, which reminds me...make sure you have the rough glue side of your fusible against the fabric and not your iron. I have done this without thinking a few times too.

I interfaced my back collar pieces while I was doing this as well.

Again, using the paper pattern as a guide, I measured some hem tape to the same shortened lengths of the front edges of my bodice pieces. Stay tape or twill tape is fine to use too, but hem tape is what I had and it was light-weight, like my fabric. I hand-basted the hem tape along the sewing lines of the front edge, just as an added measure to prevent stretch should the elasticity of the interfacing loosen over time. I clipped the hem tape at the curves at the top near the neck area.

Oddly, I still haven't looked at the pattern directions! I'm relying on my memory, but I really wish I had kept notes when I made this dress before. I usually put things together my own way, based on modifications I've made, and notes would have been helpful. I did find some on the pattern pieces themselves, but that was after I studied my previously-made version of this dress! Notes are nice.

Sewing Revisted, Vogue 7693 View D

I went rummaging through my piles to resurrect one of the my many partially-made sewing projects and picked out this wrap dress from Vogue patterns, Vogue 7693, view D.

I have cut it out in red rayon challis, which I formerly prewashed like the peach version (above) of the same fabric I bought a couple of days ago. I preshrank both fabrics by washing them in warm water, by hand, and then hung them to dry because that is how I plan to wash any garments made from these fabrics in the future. I presoaked my Fusi-Knit interfacing in warm water and hung it to dry as well.

I use Fusi-Knit for a lot of garments, except for the pieces that need to be stiff, like collars and cuffs, because it doesn't effect the drape of fabrics as much as the nonwoven fusibles. I tend to prefer natural fiber-based fabrics for garment construction like cotton, rayon, Tencel, and silk. Sometimes I will use acetate for linings.

When I looked at what I had assembled already for this dress, I knew right away why I put it in a box for much later. It is a beautiful dress. I have made View B before, but...I cut the top part out in a size 12. I am a size 14. I believe I read that Vogue patterns run a little large on top, compared to patterns from other companies. Why I chose to believe this was an issue for me, I do not know. I have made clothes from Vogue patterns for years and they always fit me. Plus, I am fairly broad-shouldered.

This is a common sewing pitfall. It is hard to explain why it is so tempting to believe you are a size smaller than it says on the envelope, but, trust me, you are not! Always measure yourself and get a friend to read those numbers. If you trust your friend enough to help take your measurements, trust her when she writes down the results. I swear, I catch myself taking an inch off all the time. It's completely bizarre and unintentional. I may fit into a size 6 or an 8 in the store, but in the pattern world, I am a size 14. It hurts, but it's true. If you can't stand it, use European sizes instead. In Europe, I am a size 40. That means nothing to me! :)

So, I see I have hand-basted the corrected sewing lines onto some of the pieces, and I will have to do the same for the rest. Correct fit makes or breaks a garment, and too small is never flattering.

The skirt of this dress is bias-cut and has been hanging for I don't know how long. It should have grown as much as it is going to by now. This is important for bias-cut skirts. Stay stitch 1/2 inch from the raw edge across the top of the skirt pieces. Pin the front piece of the skirt to the back piece of the skirt at the sides. (The side seam allowances have already been cut 1 inch wide instead of 5/8 inch, to compensate for the narrowing of the skirt as it grows. They will be readjusted later depending on fit.) Find some stiff fabric to drape over a hanger and pin the top edges of the pinned-together skirt pieces, through both layers at once, along the stitch lines, in a straight, horizontal line to the stiff fabric. I have used an old sheet as my stiff fabric.

The top of the skirt is pinned to the sheet, and the sides are hanging loose, pinned only to each other. Leave the skirt hanging for a couple of days. This allows the fabric to settle into its new shape. This will help tremendously when you are ready to hem the dress. Bias-cut garments have a way of growing unevenly when they are hanging in your closet if you skip this step.

I have now spent more time blogging about my dress than I have sewing it! I will have to do something about this.

"World peace through sewing"

I was watching Eddie Codel's LunchMeet interview with Nora Abousteit and Benedikta von Karaisl of BurdaStyle today. BurdaStyle is still in beta, but they will be launching their new site in July. It's a new open source sewing site, with clothing patterns that are free or very inexpensive to download. BurdaStyle is a community where you are encouraged to submit your own ideas, variations on designs, and feedback on what you would like to see next.

Nora and Benedikta want to carry on the tradition of Aenne Burda who founded Burda Mode, of which I have been a longtime fan, after WWII to make the latest clothing designs accessible and affordable to German women, and to give women a chance "to look across (their) borders for the first time in many years." Their theory is that fashion is one way in which people from different cultures can communicate with and relate to each other. In the interview, they were saying that people who love sewing will always seem to develop a camaraderie, regardless of whether or not their countries are "friends". I think this is true of the DIY/sewing/crafting community in general, and the Internet has given us all a unique opportunity to be a part of a community.

In high school and college, I made most of my own clothing, and I seemed a bit alone in that. I had a friend or two who gave it a try, probably out of curiosity, but I had no real peers that I knew, in that regard, only fictional peers like Molly Ringwald's character in "Pretty in Pink", or maybe Carol Burnett's Scarlet O'Hara with her curtain-with-rod couture. Oh, those dresses! The one still makes me cringe with embarrassment for poor Molly and the other still makes me laugh.

When I was more advanced at sewing, I got a subscription to "Burda World of Fashion", which is a great magazine because not only can you look at what's new in Burda's clothing designs, but the patterns for all the clothing come with the magazine. All you need is a roll of tracing paper and a ruler to add on the seam allowances. Burda patterns are known for their excellent fit, nice tailoring, and European look. The "World of Fashion" patterns have all sorts of extra detailing that you don't find in the store patterns as well. The magazine is available through GLP International, which specializes in German publications.

I have an issue coming my way, and I'm hoping to squeeze in a little time to get back into making some clothing. I have bolts of fabric stacked in my closet and I don't know how many partially done projects...my usual.