I’ve been giving my sewing machine a pretty good workout the last week so I thought I’d introduce you! I know machines are personal things–whether it’s a brand or a vintage or whatever, the important thing is that you have to love sewing on it. And I really love sewing on mine!

No machine is perfect. I’ve been known to yell some not-so-choice words at all my machines. I had the same ole mega-cheap Brother machine for 15 years. I can’t really say it did anything well, but it went with me everywhere, from college to my first midwest apartment, to Europe, back to Texas. And finally about ten years ago, after the bobbin winder cracked off and then part of the machine bed went missing, Derek finally talked me into buying a new one and adding a serger into the mix. Well, not that he had to talk me into either! I didn’t do any research and the extent of my machine knowledge went something like: “Singer=good brand” and “Bernina=better brand but expensive”. So I bought a low-end basic Singer.

Since then I’ve gotten a little smarter. Or the internet got smarter, and overwhelmed me with machine options. I read about vintage machines and cried a little when I realized my mom no longer owned the very machine on which I’d learned to sew, an all-metal Singer in a solid wood cabinet that these days would probably drive an $800 price tag on ebay. After a couple of years of sewing on my new Singer, something went haywire. The zig-zag stopped working. I’m sort of a wannabe gearhead so I took apart the entire machine in search of the problem. Trouble is, I’m usually clueless about how to put things back together once I get them apart. Here was my excuse at last to get a machine that I’d fully researched.

My biggest beef with machines so far had been buttonholes and their feed. There’s nothing more frustrating than sewing two layers together, and watching the top layer creep longer and longer. I like sewing without pins so I didn’t want to use pins to ease everything together all the time.

Those features are how I landed on the Juki F600. It was either that or an industrial machine–if only I had the space for one! There’s a mechanism in the Juki feed that makes it turn in a box rather than back and forward. I wasn’t sure exactly how this would improve sewing, but it does seem to feed fabrics much better than my previous machines. I can also loosen the foot pressure, another feature I never had on my others. This has become an almost essential adjustment in sewing slippery lycra or just about any stretchy lingerie fabric. The heavier the foot pressure, the more the foot pushes and stretches the top layer.

And the buttonholes are to die for. This machine does every type, both boxed and keyhole buttonholes. Light-stitched buttonholes for shirts, and heavy-weight buttonholes for coats. I haven’t sworn once at a buttonhole in progress since I got this puppy three years ago.

A coincidental bonus was the bright lighting. There are two led lights, which make the bed very bright. I have poor vision even with correction, and tend to turn on as many lights as possible when I’m sewing. The Juki has a lot of features which I’ve never touched and probably won’t, like all the fancy lettering stitches. But it’s my first machine that stops needle down, unless I tell it not to. It’s quiet. And the automatic thread-trimmer makes life a little easier. None of these are deal-breakers but I have to say, this is the first machine that I have loved and look forward to sewing on. Sometimes emotional attachments are hard to measure.

All my sticky notes, reminding me stitch lengths and widths for lingerie…

I gave up trying to be neat about my elastic. This is a little cotton bralette I was working on over the weekend…

Sometimes I need a little blog break for mental sanity. The last couple of weeks I’ve tried hard to spend less time on the internet, more time using my hands, for things like… picking flowers! May signals the end of the early spring wildflowers in Austin, so I’ve been rummaging around the garden dead matter in search of the last bluebonnets, poppies and sweet peas. And then of course taking bunches of photos of the pickings (my other favorite pastime).

Who doesn’t love poppies…

The explosion of spring color inspired me to keep up my dyeing adventures. Pale peaches, mink browns, lemons… And mint is next. Except I can’t decide if I want a seafoam mint or a kind of pale cucumber-y mint.

I won’t lie, dyeing takes time, especially if you’re as exacting about color as I am. And all that stirring can get laborious, but it’s so worth the results. Washer-dyeing is a way out of all the stirring, but unfortunately, my washer is front-loading and doesn’t pause on a soak or agitate cycle. For these fabrics, I used fiber reactive dyes from Dharma Trading. They’re carrying some lovely colors inspired by the Pantone palettes for spring and fall. One of my Pantone favorites at the moment is “Linen”, a sort of peached-up ivory. It reminds me my fading roses…

The funny thing with dyes is that they mix really differently than I am used to with paint. And if I’m using a mixed rather than primary color, some parts of the dye can “stick” faster than other parts. Dyeing fans always say it’s part science, part art, and now I can see why. So my “linen” came out more pink than I had hoped but I found a way to use it. These are cotton and modal knits I’d stashed for possible t-shirt projects, but they’re very soft for some simple summer lingerie. I’ve got my eye on some Tencel knits, too. I love soft knitted underwear especially in the hot months.

All of this dyeing led up to samples of several lingerie projects. And that’s another place my hands have been–sewing, sewing, testing, more sewing. I love making things for myself but over the last year I got an itch to do something more with my sewing and designing. It was an itch that wouldn’t go away. My business ideas are still in the nascent stages but the more I plunge into them, the more I realize that designing clothes and patterns is something I’ve dreamed about for many years. I would never have guessed it’d be lingerie!

Anyway, promise I’ll be back with some of the finished projects. Some of them aren’t too exciting; I’m working on developing my distinct style and then there’s just a lot of me trying to improve at handling elastic and stretch. And then some of them are downright secrets until they’re ready. And that’s what lingerie is about, right?

I’m dreaming about yellows at the moment, specifically lemon-y or acid yellows so I’ve been experimenting with a few dyes. My friend Stephanie came over and took some photos of me in the “lab”.

Ingredients: Dharma acid dye in “Fluorescent Lemon”, vinegar, hot water. For the small amounts I am dyeing, I use a Pyrex jar. Don’t forget the gloves and “not-for-cooking” spoon.

What I’m dyeing: bra rings & sliders, hook & eye, and a few samples of elastic and stretch mesh. I wash these in a mild soap to remove any residue. (You never know; some fabrics have surface treatments.)

Before I commit to larger amounts, I’m dyeing just these little bits to see how it turns out. A teensy bit of powder dye goes a long way for so little… even a sprinkle is almost too much. I add the hot water to the dye…

The nylon-coated rings take the longest to accept dye. They usually sit and take on barely a pale stain until I add the vinegar. The water has to be hot. They tend not to dye well if the water doesn’t stay hot. If I’ve already added vinegar and they’re still being stubborn, I take the rings out and microwave the dye water to heat it up a bit.

Oops, here’s what happened when I didn’t take the rings out before re-heating the water in the microwave. Melted nylon!

The rest of my samples seemed to take mere seconds. I used to pull fabrics out and rinse them as soon as they got to the intensity I wanted. But I’ve since learned that the time in the acidic hot “bath” is also important to how colorfast the dye will be. I’m still experimenting, but if there is still some dye left and I don’t want the notions to take up any more, I transfer them to another pot/jar with just hot water and vinegar for about 20-30 minutes.

Since I had a bit of dye left, I threw in another set of rings and sliders to make up for my melted ones. This lemon is super neon! (It really does glow in the dark.)

Note that I’m dyeing nylon (and my elastic is nylon), so I’m using an acid dye. You can also use RIT, as it contains a form of acid dye along with another type of dye for cottons and such. With either an acid dye or RIT, the heat and acidic pH (via vinegar) are the key to encouraging the dye to bond and this works for nylon as well as silk. I love the “professional” acid dyes. They’re much less expensive than all-purpose dyes and the colors are more brilliant and predictable. I still happen to have a bottle of RIT not-fluorescent “Lemon” waiting for my next experiment…

Happy colorific lemon-y weekend everyone!
x

As I look back over my sewing over the last couple of years, I notice that I tend to huddle down in mid-winter and work on one big project, usually a jacket of some kind. This one was completely spontaneous. The night before our Christmas holiday, I had this big idea to sew a red cape. And not just any cape but a red cashmere, fully-lined-in-silk cape. With bound buttonholes. And here’s the kicker–I actually thought I’d be able to finish it in a day!

Turns out a cape was a complete bust for our particular winter, which never quite went much beyond t-shirt temperatures. But the trip to the colder weather of Michigan gave me the impetus to start. I started having these fantastic visions in which I would climb the Joe Louis fist with a red cape and my Flash Gordon shoes, and bravely overcome any blizzard that came our way. I love a good photo opportunity, and well, I feel like a superhero when I’m in Detroit. It’s more like Gotham than Gotham.

I grew up about 30 minutes from the city. My grandfather was a Ford assembly worker in the 40s-60s, the golden era of the motor industry. When I was a kid the actual downtown was sort of off-limits, but as an adult I treasured its steamy street holes and art deco vaudeville theaters. (Probably the only place I’ve seen bullet-proof glass around a gas station.) Detroit brims with a latent, atomic energy. Its people have a kind of directness, an urge to tell the truth, to build and to invent. I accept that strength in me.

So this is my Detroit cape. Paired with appropriately Flash Gordon shoes.

Details:
Pattern: Simplicity 5252, circa 1978? I used a combination of view 1 and 2. I love these 70s patterns with one size and all their lovely markings.
Fabric: Wool/cashmere coating (very nappy, almost like a melton) from Elliot Berman Textiles, silk charmeuse lining from Mood.
Buttons: Italian metal dome buttons from Britex.

My superhero gifts don’t include speed, so I didn’t finish in a day and missed my Joe Louis photo shoot opportunity. But I got surprisingly close. Instead I spent part of January calmly putting on the finishing touches.

This was a project I stewed on a for a few years. Over two years ago I spent some time sourcing all the right materials and notions, down to the buttonhole thread. I really wanted this to be a lifetime piece. It’s a total 180 from everything else I’ve been making, but I’m glad I had it waiting in the wings. Perfect for taking on the New Year and leaping over bronze fists! I don’t have a ton of detail shots, but those may come later. Lots of groovy details on this one–bound buttonholes, stay buttons, internal pockets for when you want to keep your hands safe and warm. I just love capes, cloaks and all their kin. For me, their whole point is having lots of fabric to whip around, even heavy fabric such as this. I don’t care what Edna Mode had to say.

For this shoot, Derek was all too happy to choreograph me jumping out of elevators into an abandoned parking garage.

It’s all about the movement! he said. Here’s a little peak at the world of my better half. He loves flight!

p.s. The dress underneath is Style Arc’s Kristin pattern, a simple shift dress that I’ve tweaked to bits and made multiple versions of over the winter. I had in my mind “Classic Shift Dress” with elbow length sleeves for multiple seasons and fabrics, and who knew Colette Patterns would run a massive contest on that very same idea a few months later? I highly recommend a shift for any body. And I’ll post more about this dress later when I don’t actually have a cape smothering it.

The second bedroom is an all-purpose office and cat hangout. It looks pink and it is pink! This was also taken in the dead of afternoon, when the bright Texas light was blinging everything out. I dreamed about watermelon walls with white linen curtains for something like, oh, five years.

At the moment I’ve squeezed an old drafting table in the corner next to my writing desk, to double as a cutting and machine-sewing area. It’s not feng shui but will have to do till we get the rest of the boxes unpacked, and it is the perfect cutting height for now. Cutting on the floor back in the day just killed my back and my wrists. And I do love to cut! Probably more than sewing…

Then I had to narrow down my machines. My sewing machine was a birthday present for my big 4-0 a couple of years ago. It’s a Juki F600, which I chose after much research and review-reading. I love this machine so much so that I sold off two of my old machines in the move, including the halfway disassembled 1987 Brother on which I made half my college wardrobe. Moving involves so much sentimental sorting, and I’m a terribly sentimental keeper.

Sewing in a small space is quite okay at the moment since I’m doing a lot of pattern work, mostly on the computer. In the meantime, I’ve been trawling Apartment Therapy and Ikea for ideas on small space organization. What I really need is a way to get my thread high and away from kitties.

This is T-Bone. We’ll see how long the curtains survive the claws… I once caught him swinging halfway up a curtain after an hour of parkour with his brothers. I have hours of free entertainment with them, to say the least!

Has it really been two weeks? We’re still in the throes of moving… boxes and boxes everywhere in both places. In the midst we’ve both managed to preserve tiny corners of creative spaces for our own sanity, so I packed up everything but my sewing machine and a few lingerie projects. I’ve been tweaking another new pattern lately which gave me an excuse to play with my latest fabric love, sheer stretch mesh. The mesh I’ve been using is so delicate and soft, and of course I had to spend an evening dyeing it, too! First minty green and then a pale gold-yellow…

But it is a little picky about needles and stitch lengths. And even thread. So today I wanted to share a couple of my new favorite threads for lingerie and especially for these more delicate fabrics. Both are delicate but don’t snap under tension. I love how tailors are unequivocal about their buttonhole threads, and it was inevitable that I’d be that way about lingerie thread, too!

Gutermann A192 (or Mara 150) Fine Thread

Funny enough, it was the Cutter & Tailor forum where I first read about this as a good thread for fine shirtmaking. It is also recommended for silks and lingerie. It’s impossible to capture in photos the difference between these and their all-purpose brother above, but this is a remarkably fine but strong thread. It just sinks into fabrics and makes the topstitching on bra cup seams less bulky.

I’ve only found A192 in tailoring supply shops but it’s well worth the hunt! Mine came from from Oshman Brothers in NYC and according to their gracious owner, Gutermann is phasing out their A192 threads to a new thread called Mara 150, so you might find this thread under either name. I got one of each, since Oshman’s stock is still mostly the older type, but both are very fine, strong threads. I placed such a tiny order from them, but Mr. Oshman sent me a long email explaining the transition and the technology difference behind the new threads (core-spun polyester with microfiber core, etc.) If you want to understand thread, you have a willing teacher!

Wooly Nylon or Wooly Polyester

These are much easier to find in your local store, but I was missing out on a good secret! In knits and especially in underwear, wooly threads make the softest, airiest seams against the skin.

Until about a year ago I was in the dark about wooly nylon. And the first time I shopped for some I accidentally confused it with blindstitch thread. Oops, big difference! I ended up with a bunch of cones of plasticky thread I doubt I’ll ever use.

Wooly threads are kind of springy and spongy, and as you can see look like little cloud-strings. The most common type is wooly nylon but there is also wooly polyester.

I don’t have tons of room for serger threads, so I have a bit of a color strategy. There are a few neutrals that seem to blend with everything. Ivory, dark grey, red, nude and a light grey have been great basics for most of my lingerie. The ivory blends into most pale warm colors. The light grey blends into most pale cool colors. The dark grey is good for blacks and very dark colors.

When serging, it’s easiest to use wooly thread in the loopers and regular serger thread in the needle. And the best way to get those spongy threads through the loopers is by tying the them onto the tails of your previous looper threads, then pulling them through. I learned that one the hard way…

Do you have any favorite threads?

Happy weekend! Now back to those boxes…

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

{Emily Dickinson}

There will be no Lingerie Friday today. This weekend begins…. begins so many things. March, as we say, is an energy-shifter. Austin grows twice its size during SXSW. Friends arrive from England, Derek’s birthday aka St. Patrick’s Day, and in the midst we are MOVING. Our friends are here to help us with that, God bless them. Spring has such a fast approach, and I don’t want to miss a moment of its goodness.

But I can’t wait till we are fully moved back into our house. The last year and a half we’ve been in a rental with no character while we did some remodels. Our house is a teeny cottage, cute and old (for Texas) and it has a personality. I’ll just have to figure out where to put all the sewing equipment that has grown (I mean seriously grown) over the last two years. I need like magic pulleys to store things on the ceiling.

Anyways, hopefully I won’t get too silent around here, but y’all know how moving goes!

I’m making a new lingerie set using this funky yellow zebra lace from Merckwaerdigh. I find animal prints hard to resist and this one is so soft, feminine and subtle. But to make a bra from this set I have to make some pattern adjustments to the band. The matching lycra is a super stretchy 4-way lycra/spandex fabric, and if you have ever tried to make bras with new band fabrics you probably figured out that no two band fabrics fit alike!

If you were to take apart a few of your RTW bras and detach the elastic, you’d notice the bands are all different lengths. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are different band sizes, just that they were drafted with the negative ease particularly needed for that fabric. Unfortunately, most commercial patterns aren’t always clear on the stretch percent or type of stretch for which they were drafted, probably to allow for the widest interpretation possible.

There is a way to get around all this without worrying about sizes. I like to adjust my band pieces for each bra using just a little bit of math. It’s easy math, I promise!

{ONE} If you have already made a bra from your pattern, put on your bra and measure from the side seam of your bra around your back to the other side seam:

The line of the tape should be level with your underbust along the elastic hem. Try to hold the tape firmly–you want a firm number.

*If your pattern doesn’t have a side seam, you’ll need to measure from the side of your cup where the underwire is all the way around to the other side.

{TWO} Find the width of your bra back closure, with the closure on the loosest hook. Subtract this number from the back measurement you just took in step 1.

My Back Measurement 15 7/8″ – Closure Width 2 1/8 = 13.75″

Divide this number in half. This is the length of your bra band piece with no negative ease. Mine would be 6 7/8″. Now you need to adjust it for the stretch of your fabric.

{THREE} Find out the stretch percent of your fabric. I first find the direction in which the fabric stretches the most, and take a length of about 5″ or 12cm and stretch it to its maximum along a ruler.

My lycra stretches from 5 to almost 10″, which is 100% stretch. The calculation: (5″ stretched / 5″ original length) x 100 = 100%.

Using your stretch percent, you can now make some logical adjustments to your band. Obviously the more a fabric stretches the shorter you want your band to be.

{FOUR} For band fabrics, I have found that reducing length by 3% for every 10% of stretch generally works. For example, if your fabric has a 75% stretch, then multiply 3 x 7.5 to get the stretch reduction of 22.5%. My lycra stretches almost 100%, so I multiply 3 x 10 to get a stretch reduction of 30%.

I take my measurement from step 2, and multiply it by 70%. (Reducing by 30%.)

6.875 x .70 = 4.8″

That is how long I want my new band piece to be along the hemline, from the stitching line of the side seam to the line where the back closure is sewn. My current band piece is 5.4″, which was a good fit in a heavier powernet.

To shorten this piece, I slash down the middle and overlap. until the new hem length reaches 4.8″. Then I retrace the band and smooth out the lines. Voila–a new band piece!

*Note that it’s important to take these measurements between the seam lines and not the edge of the seam allowance. Seam allowance doesn’t count toward length!

Of course math isn’t the whole story and there are other factors which will influence the fit, including how tightly you pull your elastic while sewing. But I have found this to be a good starting point so I don’t end up with too-loose bands. As always testing is always your best friend!

If you made a bra following the sew-along, would you like to share with us? Submit your photos to the new Sew Along Gallery!

Leave a link in the comments either here or the gallery to your photos on your blog, Flickr, Pinterest, etc. and I’ll add them. Or you can email me, too!

Speaking of which, I love getting emails and hearing about your bra-making experiences and questions. Sew-alongs are wonderful for the wealth of tutorials and sometimes sense of online community, but they can have their drawbacks, too. We all learn and participate in different ways and in different paces. Getting individual feedback is priceless, and I am happy to help and hear from you!

In other news, I’m up to my ears in projects. More bra-pattern drafting, a new bra-making tutorial, and a cape. Lord knows why I made a cashmere cape in a winter that never dropped below 70 degrees, but we all need a little fantasy sewing now and then, right?

Most of all, I’ve been up to rose-pruning. Roses and lingerie-making–my kind of weekend. Every February, I go into a zone with pruning. It’s a poetic and centering activity, an annual ritual that includes climbing up arbors and tying back some (literally) bloody thorns. Yes, I have gauntlet gloves, but they don’t make much of a difference when you’re battling an 18th century brambler. After we bought our own home eight years ago, I fell in mad love with gardening and particularly roses, and seriously considered training as a master gardener. I published a gardening blog for about five years until starting this one. Sometimes I miss it, taking macro wildflower pictures and obsessing over seed-planting tutorials. It’s what pushed me to take some basic courses on photography and learn more about light and cameras. I still have so much to learn….

Happy weekend, all!

My measurements change, and frequently. It all depends on chocolate or circuit training. Or the time of the year. I am more athletic in the summer. I’m dormant in the winter. A few years ago I drafted some close-fit slopers, which I’ve occasionally used as a “body map” to correct dart and length placements on patterns, but it was time to do some re-measuring. I really want to try some pattern drafts from a few of my new-er books and every drafting style always has its own specific measurement needs.

And obviously there are some measurements that you can’t do yourself–and some which are very particular to posture. I definitely straighten up for myself. And take little smidgens off here and there. I subconsciously cheat!

So I hopped over to a friend’s house for some help in taking my current measurements. Some of the results surprised me and I wondered if she may have been holding the tape too loose. I wanted backup data. How else could I get measurements? Ooh, perhaps a body scanning? After a bit of googling about fit technology I discovered a startup company from Berlin called UPcload, who designed software that scans your body through a laptop webcam. Web 2.5 plus German technology = now that’s what I’m talkin about!

Like the few 3D scanning technologies that have trickled down to retail, this is aimed at shoppers who want to find better-fitting store clothing and it supports itself through retail partnerships. But I was curious what it could do for me in terms of pattern-drafting measurements.

ETA: And IT’S FREE. (Oopsy, forgot to add that.)

So here’s how it works. After a simple sign-up process the software connects to your webcam and a flash movie begins taking you step by step through a set-up process in front of your laptop. First it has you change into tight-fitting dark clothing, with a helpful guide on what constitutes tight–and pull up your hair if you have long hair. To get an accurate body profile you move the laptop and yourself until you fit into a frame. Then you hold a CD or DVD in front of your stomach as a point of reference.

Then another movie starts taking you through the measuring process. I forgot to take screenshots of the process as I was doing it, but these are the poses…

It’s all demonstrated by this cute 20-something couple who seem very happy about the whole thing; their apartment is much cleaner and less colorful than my house (no white walls here!).

The whole thing took about 10 minutes with some swishy disco “scan” noises and voila! body measurements.

So you might be wondering, how accurate are they? I was shocked! Most of my width measurements were spot on within .5 cm of what my friend had measured. The lengths were different but those were the ones I suspected my friend had taken too loosely, so I went with UPcload’s. Of course Upcload’s measurements are minimal and I needed several others specific to the draft I am working on, but at least I got the basics!

Anyone ever done a body scanning (outside of the airport, of course!)? I’d love to hear about it. Or have you ever had a tailor or other professional measure you?

Additional notes: If drafting custom-fitting patterns is your thing, I highly recommend European Cut by Elizabeth Allemong. There are some great drafting explanations in that book, but worth the price alone is the extensive chapter on how to measure–where to hold the tape, how tight to hold it, when to use aids, etc. Few patternmaking books go into that much detail. There’s always The Art of Measuring, reprinted by Center for Pattern Design. But then that’s vintage drafting and specific to tailoring, but I’m definitely curious about it!