Happiness Through Sewing
My daughter needed a skirt but it’s never that simple, is it? She needed a skirt that covered her knees, was lightweight enough for humid summer weather and, of course, it had to be a style she would wear. I thought if I took her to the mall that finding the skirt would just […] Read more…
The princess seam is perhaps ubiquitous and therefore not as appreciated as it should be. Or maybe it’s the name that turns us off. This is a great seam for fit and fitting. It runs over the bust in the front, separating the center of the garment from the sides. It allows for a […] Read more…
Drawing curves freehand, as with sewing curves with out a pattern, turn out, more than not, to be lop sided. I don’t know why the human hand cannot draw or sew a perfect curve over and over again and I do not have an answer how to do such a feat but I have a […] Read more…
After the last washing of my favorite knit shirt I noticed a hole in the back armhole seam. Luckily this is a quick and easy fix. How easy? Two steps. How fast? Faster than exchanging the shirt at the store. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across a knit shirt where one part of […] Read more…
I made the orange skirt without a commercial pattern. I based it off the brown skirt which I had bought years ago. I like the way the brown skirt fits and thought how hard would it be to copy it? It’s simply constructed with ten identical panels, a side zipper and a 2″ facing at […] Read more…
Darts are magical. They make a flat piece of fabric take shape. They can blend in to the garment or stand out as a design feature. I admire a well placed dart. I do not like a pointy dart, or one with a pucker and those boo – boos can easily happen to your darts […] Read more…
I’ve started a new project; a summer top. It has four darts in the front and two in the back. Tailor tacks are what you’re supposed to use to transfer dart markings from the pattern to the fabric. However, I think Tailor Tack Lite* (TM 😉 work just as great Tailor tacks are more secure […] Read more…
Recently a young friend of mine showed me a dress she bought second hand. This rayon floral dress featured two strong design elements. The first a corseted center front, purely decorative with a self fabric tie. The second feature was an exposed, silver toothed, zipper along the center back seam from top to hem. The […] Read more…
If you’ve sewn more than a dozen patterns I bet this has happened to you. It’s completely frustrating and this time it’s not your sewing skills or lack of attention that caused it. It’s your commercial pattern. It wasn’t trued. A true pattern is a pattern that all seams fit perfectly together as you would […] Read more…
Summer to me means new skirts. I like wearing skirts in the warm weather as much as I love wearing cardigans in the cooler weather – a lot. Usually, I buy a new skirt from Boden at the beginning of spring. The prints are really fun, they’re well made and they’re lined, which wasn’t a […] Read more…