New Materials: Linen Knit

It's always fun to try out new materials, techniques, and styles.  While in Minneapolis, I found some linen jersey knit.  I've worked with woven linen fabric and some knits, but never a linen knit.  So, I bought enough to make a T-shirt as a test garment.

Most fabrics I buy go straight into the washer before I even think about cutting them out.  Pre-shinking the fabric means the final garment will still fit.  In this case, washing before cutting may have been a serious mistake.  The fabric came out of the dryer with a very serious roll to the selvages.  I decided to iron the fabric and take care of that problem.  BIG MISTAKE.

Ironing did remove most of the roll, but in the process, the selvages were stretched relative to the center.  A second trip through the laundry didn't fix the problem, nor did an attempt to stretch the middle of the fabric with an iron.  Lack of recovery (not returning to the original shape after stretching) seems to be an issue with this fabric.  After a third trip through the laundry, the problem wasn't all fixed, but it was at least better.

The roll at the edge of the fabric made it impossible to line up the pattern pieces on the straight of the grain in the usual way.  I tried to lay out the fabric straight, then applied the pattern pieces.  I'm sure there's some error in the placement, but with a knit fabric, maybe that's OK.  Also, due to the earlier differential stretching, there wasn't a consistent grain anyway.

I my standard T-shirt pattern and construction techniques, described in detail in a previous post.

Unfortunately, a fold of fabric got caught up in the neck seam.  I was able to fix the problem, but in the process, I got some small holes in the thin fabric.

I was able to fix the holes and hopefully the repairs won't be too obvious.

I'm not sure that I like this fabric.  Maybe I don't know the right ways to deal with it, or maybe I didn't have the right application for it.  I'll wear the shirt a while and see how it goes.  Linen is a wonderful fabric for summer, very cool and comfortable.  Here in the South, we've definitely got some more warm weather coming this year.

Come back next week for a post about the embroidery on this shirt.

Amateur Radio Operator's Purse

It's Hamfest Weekend here in Huntsville, Alabama, when amateur radio operator operators gather from far and near.  There aren't many Young Ladies (a term encompassing all females with radio licenses) in the hobby, but there are a few of us.  We all need some place to stash a handheld radio.  It's also customary for radio operators at an event like this to wear something, like a hat, shirt or name tag with our call sign that identifies us to others we might have talked to on the radio, but never met.  I decided to create a purse that would fulfill both needs.

 This handy purse displays my call sign and has a specially designed pocket for my radio.  The lightening bolts and daylilies are just on there for ornamentation.  It's made of micro suede, which is easy to work with, durable, and even washable.  I'd live to give a pattern number for this purse, but there isn't one.  It's an original design that I've evolved after making a few purses.  The purse is deliberately small, so it doesn't tend to collect junk.

I used a variety of techniques in embellishing the purse.  The radio is applique.  Needless to say, there's not a applique pattern commercially available, so I designed my own and hand guided my machine to stitch it down.   The buttons on the radio were also hand guided machine embroidery, with a wide zig-zag stitch.  The lettering is from built in stitches in my sewing machine.  The "speaker" in the middle of the radio is actually reverse applique.  The mesh is attached to the back of the micro suede fabric and once the circle was sewn, the micro suede was cut away to reveal the mesh.  There's a matching mesh window in the purse lining, enabling the radio to be monitored while it's in the purse.  My call sign and other embellishments were done with conventional machine embroidery.

The top of the radio pocket has elastic, which keeps the radio from falling out.  The purse is closed with a zipper.  The open end of the zipper is on the same end as the radio pocket, so the antenna can stick out of the purse while it is closed.

Come back next week when I explore using a new to me kind of fabric.

Latch Hook Rug Pillow

We all have those projects lurking in the sewing room that never seem to actually get finished.   One of mine was a latch hook rug.  The latch hook part has been done for nearly a year, but I've never done anything more with it.  There's a few things you can do with the rugs, like making them into wall hangings or decorative throw pillows.  I chose the pillow route.

The first thing is to select a suitable backing material.  A heavy fabric works best and I chose a black duck canvas.  It works well with the black in the rug.

The backing material needs to be machine stitched to the rug all the way around, which means either a zipper or overlapping panels needs to be used.  I cut pieces of the canvas so that they would overlap by about 6" and have a 1" seam allowance for the rug to canvas seam.  The overlapping edges of the panels need to be finished first.  Then, the whole back of the pillow is basted together.  Here's the pillow back laid over the rug.

It's necessary to trip excess canvas from the rug.  Leave about 1" of canvas all around.

The rug and back can be sewn together with a wide stitch.  I used a three step zig-zag.  The wide stitch helps catch more threads in the mostly open rug canvas.  Be careful to sew very close to the yarns without catching them in the seam.

The finished pillow is 14 x 20, definitely not a size where you can get a pre-made pillow form.  I made a pillow in the right size with polyester-cotton broadcloth left over from a different project and poly fiber fill.  

To finish the project, just insert the stuffed pillow into the rug cover.  Whew!  That's one more project out of my sewing room and out doing something useful.

Purse with Hungarian Style Embroidery Part 3

This is the final installment in a series discussing the construction and embellishment of a purse.

Part 1 discussed materials selection and embroidery.  Part 2 discussed finishing the outer shell and some modifications made necessary by the use of different materials than those recommended by the pattern.  Now, we'll take a look at the lining and finishing.

For the lining, I chose light green poly cotton broadcloth.  My aunt pointed out that a dark lining in a purse just makes it harder to find things!  This is an experiment to see if a light colored lining is an improvement.  The pattern calls for just one pocket, divided into two sections in the lining.  So lame!  I decided that adding a zippered pocket would make for a much better purse.  To make the pocket, I cut two rectangles, each 11" x 7".  I cut a slit in the lining and in one side of the pocket 9" long and about 1/2 wide.  

The 9" zipper was sandwiched between the lining and the pocket piece.  Getting this lined up correctly does take some effort, but it's doable.

Next, the back of the pocket is stitched to the front.

After the pocket is added to the other side of the lining, the lining from and back can be sewn together.

Add tabs and a facing, and you have a complete lining.  The lining is then sewn to the outer shell.  I like to top stitch around the top opening of the bag.  I find it holds things in place better an adds to a neater appearance, especially with the use of heavier materials.

The handles can now be sewn on to the D-rings.

The final step is to add a stiffener to the bottom of the bag, to help it hold it's shape.  The pattern calls for cardboard or plastic canvas to be covered with lining material and simply added to the bottom of the bag.  I like the idea of plastic canvas a lot better than cardboard.  It's tougher and more washable.

Finally, the purse is complete.  Come back next time for a new project!

Purse with Hungarian Style Embroidery Part 2

 This is the second of a three part series on constructing this purse accented with Hungarian style embroidery.  The first part discussed the embroidery.  With that done, we are ready to move on to assembling the outer shell of the handbag.

Before sewing the front band back together, it is best to add the attachment points for the handles.  This is where I got in trouble for changing the materials used.  The pattern calls for attachment points shaped like a bottle.

The idea is that you sew two of these together and then turn it right side out for a clean, finished look.  The only problem is that when I tried this, I got this Epic Fail:

It was clear that a completely different solution was required, but keeping the same general size and shape was required to keep the purse looking balanced.  I made little straps by cutting a 12" by 2" strip from the blue fabric.  This got folded lenghwise down middle, then the edges got folded in.  Add edge stitching on both sides and you have a nice narrow strap, very much like a belt loop.  This was then cut into 4 pieces 3" long.  Then I cut 1.5" squares from the left over heavy interfacing I used for the main body of the purse and 2" squares of the blue fabric.  The blue fabric was wrapped around the interfacing and the strap and D-ring added.  Here's one ready to stitch:

I sewed around the whole square once to that it would hold together as a unit, then I attached it to the purse front and back, stitching over the first stitching and giving it an X pattern for extra strength.  The D-ring loop is secured by the X stitching, too.

The magnetic snaps that hold together the top of the bag at the ends should be added next, and then the front and back can be sewn together.  At this point, it starts to look like a purse.

The handles aren't attached until later, but they can be prepared now.  As with the D-ring attachment points, the pattern's plan of making a narrow tube and then inverting it wasn't going to work, particularly with interfacing in the handles.  I constructed the handles in much the same way as the straps for the D-rings.  The two sides of the handles are different colors.  The first step is to sew the two sides together long one edge.  Then, fold in 5'8" on each side and stitch.  Here's a picture of folding in the seam allowance and pressing.

Here's the handles, all pinned up and ready to be top stitched on edges.

Finally, the handles, all stitched.

You could certainly stop here, but decorative stitching can be so much fun and many machines have quite a selection of built in stitches to choose from.  The handles, with two layers of fabric and interfacing are a good base for all kinds of decorative stitching.  I chose a floral pattern, to keep the theme from the embroidery.  I also used thread from the embroidery to tie it together with color.  I used orange on top and red in the bobbin.  Stitching on the blue side, the finished product looks like this:

Be sure to catch part 3 of this series, where I construct the lining and finish the purse.

Purse With Hungarian Style Embroidery Part 1

Purses are a fun accessory.  One nice thing about making them is that unlike clothes, they don't have to be fitted.  Pattern alterations are never necessary.  However, there are lots of fun changes you can make to a basic pattern to better suit your taste or intended use.

This purse was made using McCall's 7369.  I mostly used View A, but there were some pretty extensive modifications to the pattern.  The pattern calls suggests that the purses be made of pre-quilted fabrics, with lightweight cotton fabrics as contrast.  I've had good success making purses from microsuede.  This 100% polyester fabric is fairly easy to work with, quite tough, and best of all, goes through the laundry well.  We all know that purses end up in all kinds of places and can pick up some pretty nasty stuff.  Would it be nice to just toss them in the washing machine periodically?  With some care in choosing materials, that's very possible.  This purse is made with dark green and contrasting dark blue microsuede.  The lining is polyester/cotton broadcloth, a remarkably tough material.

Rather than use a decorative band of contrasting material, I chose to decorate the purse with embroidery.  With the right stabilizer, microsuede can take even rather dense embroidery designs.  I chose the Zala Flower Spray from Embroidery Library in the 9" x 4" size.  This size allows the design to be nicely centered on each side of the purse.

I used a 100% sized print of the design to select the exact location for the embroidery.  It's not centered on the panel.   I placed the attachment points for the handles on the piece before selecting the where to put the embroidery.  Particularly in the contrasting fabric, the attachment points reduce the apparent height of the purse.   

Selection of the embroidery thread is important to the success of the project.  Traditional Hungarian embroidery uses fairly bright, saturated colors.  I chose to use red, yellow, and orange matching the recommendations from Embroidery Library.  However, the purple and blue had to be just a shade lighter so they'd contrast well with the background.  The greens had to go a lot lighter than the original design.  I like to collect all of the threads together and lay them as a group on the fabric in natural light to see how well they work together.

For an embroidery like this, a proper stabilizer is critical.  Done properly, the stabilizer can also act as an interfacing for the whole purse.  Previously, I'd used a nice cut away stabilizer for applications like this, but stabilizers don't generally come in wide enough widths to be the interfacing for a purse this large.  I found a craft weight sew-in interfacing that was the right weight.  Using the interfacing as the embroidery stabilizer does help bond the two, a real advantage.  

Here's the machine, all ready to start the embroidery.  All the thread spools are lighted up in order, ready for thread changes.

In Part 2, I'll show you how the embroidered pieces got crafted into a purse shell and Part 3 will show the lining and finishing.

Lizards, Anyone? A Simple T-Shirt

JoAnn Fabric has these lovely knit fabrics in the juvenile section.  They are perfect for T-shirts.  I saw this blue print with green lizards and decided I needed it.

The fabric is a 100% cotton summer weight knit.  I supposed they figured that this would be perfect for little boys, but why should they have all the fin clothes?  I made a shirt sized for myself.

I used Kwik-Sew 3766 for the pattern.  It has options for sleeve length and neckline.  This shirt was made with the higher neckline and short sleeves.  This pattern is one of my patterns that I return to again and again: a solid pattern for a wardrobe staple.

The pattern calls for 1 1/8 yards for a short sleeve shirt.  I've found that often isn't quite enough, so I buy 1 1/4 yards of fabric for this shirt.  The front and back must be cut before the sleeves, because the fabric has to be folded differently to cut out the sleeves.

Stretch is great in a knit shirt, but not on the should seams.  Adding some non-stretchy material, like this hem tape, to the should seams helps the garment to maintain it's shape.

The neckline seam is the hardest one in the whole shirt.  The neck band is smaller than the neck hole, so it needs to be stretched evenly all the way around.  Using lots of pins to distribute the fullness equally, then stretching the fabric slightly as you sew the seam does the trick.

I've tried a bunch of different way to hem a T-shirt without a serger.  The one I like best is to use a knit or stretch stitch to finish the edge of the fabric, then fold up the hem and sew it in place with a straight stitch.

There you have it -- an easy and colorful addition to your wardrobe, perfect for warmer temperatures and more casual summer dressing.