Sunday, February 13, 2011

You Got Me Going In Circles - B5454

Because I'm having the hardest time setting in a sleeve. It has taken me days and I'm still not done. I guess the time I did it here was a fluke. I thought pin basting was such a breeze. Now, I'm ease stitching and pin basting. I'm taking a break to blog.

I have one sleeve in and one that's in except for half of the ease. I really don't want to rip it out and start over because the other half of the ease is perfect and the side seam and the sleeve seam match perfectly. Grr. Of course the one that's in isn't all that hot, but I do feel like I've accomplished something.


I promise you that I really did press that seam. Although part of me was hoping that this muslin will be wearable, knowing that this is a practice run takes some of the pressure off. I'm really enjoying the learning process. I feel like I can experiment. And right now, I'm experimenting with Steam-A-Seam 2 Lite.  It works great for basting. I'm not in love with it for hems on ITY.  Or it could be a case of over pressing or even my struggles to sew a straight line.












SAS worked great on the tie opening, once I figured out how I should use it. I'll be going with the method I used on the right side, plus some better topstitching.



I'm using fusible knit tape on the neckline and armholes. I'm getting better at the application of it.


I've been watching my Threads Industry Insider DVD and I learned that I need to stab pin into ironing board and then I can press the pins down with the iron.


The pin heads need to be pressed toward the seam allowance because they do leave marks when you press them down.


I've also been playing around with clear elastic. Through trial and error, I realized that the easiest way to apply it is by using my nonstick foot instead of my elastic foot.


This project and my work on M6078 have also impressed upon me the need for lighter weight thread. I wish I had done my research before I purchased the thread for the real dress. The C&C Fine thread I'm using for this is a 60 wt.  I wrongly assumed that Mettler Silk Finish would be lighter. Nope, it's the same as Mettler's  Metrosene, 50 wt. Guttermann Silk is a 30 wt! There is so much to learn about sewing.

What I need to learn is how to use my Hump Jumper.











After working hard to match the seams with pins, they shifted when I tried to stitch over the bulk created by the tuck and dart.


Back to pinning the other sleeve ...

I so want to have the muslin done and adjustments made before the Friday Night Sew In. I want to work on the real one for that.


2 comments:

Faye Lewis said...

Can I make a suggestion about that sleeve ease that is giving you trouble ? I read in Sandra Betzina's book Power Sewing that most patterns have too much ease in the sleeve cap. She suggest removing some if the ease by making a pattern adjustment prior to cutting the sleeve piece. I know you probably have the book in your resource library. I've worked with her procedure for removing sleeve ease and it worked beautifully for me. So maybe if you have enough fabric left you could cut another set of sleeves and use Sandra's method - I'll bet you will come up with a beautiful wearable muslin.
Also, particularly when sewing in a knit sleeve (after altering the pattern to remove some of the ease) I've started pinning the sleeve in flat before sewing up the garment side seam. I pin the sleeve in so that the sleeve will be on the bottom against the feed dogs when stitching. The feed dogs will magically work small amounts of sleeve ease in for you. You probably already know this, but just in case you didn't, I wanted to offer these suggestions. Have a great sewing day.

NuJoi said...

Thanks Faye! I was hoping someone would have a suggestion. I have Power Sewing. I'm going to look up sleeve ease.