I can’t decide which project has made me happier, the outfit for my cat, or this A-Line skirt for me.

This A-Line skirt was made as part of a 3-week class at Spool. The class used a pattern by Betsy Ross Patterns, and was taught by Aimee Pflieger Dolby, the company’s founder. Believe it or not, the fabric came from Jo-Ann.

I expected darts to be hard. They weren’t. 

I installed a zipper. Badly.

I was convinced that it wasn’t going to fit, and was totally sweatin’ it during class, because the measurements indicated that it was going to be about 5′ too small

I swear, when I tried that thing on during class, and it fit, I think I heard angels singing.

I still don’t understand measurements. They never seem to match what the pattern says.

This whole sewing obsession started with my burning desire to create a tie for my dogs to wear in their Christmas portrait. At the time, the only nice tie pattern I could find was designed for cats:

click image for purchasing information

My dogs aren’t huge, and one of them isn’t much bigger than a large cat, so I figured I could just make the neckbands a little longer and the patterns would fit. 

I’m not sure what possessed me, but I decided to try making one of the outfits from the above pattern, even though I’ve only used a pattern once, and that was with a lot of help and supervision.

Here’s the super cute result:

It’s a bit difficult to see them, but the little “shirt” actually has pleats on either side of the buttons.

Unfortunately (for my cat, Willie), my whole just-make-the-neckbands-longer idea didn’t work out, and the outfit was too small for either of my dogs. So, here’s poor Willie, being the sweet, cooperative guy that he is:

Although I absolutely love this little outfit, it took about 6-8 hours for me to complete it. I had a lot of difficulty with the actual tie, and wound up having to take it apart several times. It didn’t help that the pattern seemed to be wrong in a couple of places, and, if not wrong, then at least extremely unclear. Since I’m a sewing noob, I don’t know how common it is for patterns to be wrong, but this one definitely seemed to have some problems.

The quest for the perfect dog tie continues…

Philadelphia’s Fabric Row in the 1930s

The Philadelphia Sewing Collective offers a tour of Fabric Row that is really worth taking. Christine Phillips, a local fashion designer, was our guide.

The tour helped me to better understand which fabrics can be used for different types of projects. In addition, it made stores that cater to professional designers a lot less intimidating. I really never felt comfortable going into those places before.

We were also provided with a card, good for one year, worth 10% off purchases at all of the major fabric and notions stores on 4th Street. Nice!

A tour of the Garment District in Manhattan is being planned for the Fall.

It takes a village to teach me how to sew. Not only am I taking classes offered by the Philadelphia Sewing Collective, but I’m also taking classes at Spool. Spool has a beautiful selection of popular quilting fabrics (e.g., designs by Amy Butler and Michael Miller), and their classes are very laid back. Class size is limited to 6, so you receive lots of individual attention.

I wanted to learn how to install a zipper, so I took Spool’s ‘Zippered Pouch’ class on May 3rd. The class was 3 hours, and was taught by Laura Singewald, one of the co-owners of Spool.

Here is the finished product:

Each person chose their own fabric, thread, and zipper.

We were able to choose matching or contrasting fabric for the inside.

No, I was not drunk when I was doing the topstitching.

In one place, the fabric is too close to the zipper, so the zipper kind of sticks. But, for my first attempt at installing a zipper, I was happy that it turned out as well as it did.

This post is about the hideous drawstring pajama bottoms that I made in my first sewing class. The class was called Sewing Basics, and is offered by the Philadelphia Sewing Collective. The instructor was Stephanie Rubinetti, a local fashion designer.

Let me start out by saying that being a beginner is hard. I had no idea where to get nice fabric, what brands were good (or sucked), what was priced fairly (or overpriced), or what the heck I was looking for on the “notions wall” at Jo-Ann. But, here’s what I had to track down:

Simplicity pattern #9330
3 yards (45″ or more width) of lightweight, woven fabric (no knits, satins, or fabric with a nap)
Thread (matching or neutral)
Fabric shears
Craft scissors
Ruler
Pencil
Pins
Dressmakers tracing paper
Tracing wheel

Obviously, not everything was a mystery, but the pins and fabric caused me major angst. That, and they were out of tracing paper. Seriously, outside of Utah, is there still an unmeetable demand for dressmakers tracing paper?

You’d think pins would be simple, I mean how many kinds of pins could there possibly be? The answer is: More than you’d think. After what seemed like 30 minutes of deliberation, I finally decided on the ones with the plastic balls on top, figuring they’d be easy to pull out. Then, on Day 1, the instructor tells us that these prevent the fabric from laying flat, so we shouldn’t use them. Grrr…

Picking out fabric was the worst. First, I didn’t want to spend a lot, because I figured there was a good chance that I would screw up my first project. And, because we were making pants, I (wrongly) assumed that I had to use apparel fabric. If you eliminate “knits, satins, or fabric with a nap,” as well as the John Deere fabric, there isn’t much “lightweight, woven fabric” left to choose from in the apparel section of Jo-Ann. So, you’ve already seen what I ended up with.

All told, I think I spent about 2.5 hours in Jo-Ann, most of it in a state of confusion and frustration. 

But, it was all worth it, because now I own these beauties:

Go ahead and laugh, smarty.

The drawstring was extremely annoying to make.

We didn’t get a chance to finish the pants in class, so I taught myself how to make the buttonholes through which the drawstring slides. [You can't see, but, after typing that, I buffed my fingernails on my lapel.]

These pants actually made me terrified of hemming. I’ve since overcome it, but, man, I had to redo these hems about 5 times. Since we didn’t get to finish the pants during class, I didn’t learn the proper way to hem. And, to my surprise, there are a lot of improper ways to hem. I think I used at least 3 of them on these pants, and I’m sure there are more I haven’t gotten to try yet.

At one point, the legs differed in length by at least 3 inches. How does that happen?

At another point, I had about 3 rows of stitches in each leg, because I kept rolling the hem up further and sewing it again.

When I finally decided that I needed to start over from scratch, it took me at least 2 hours to pull out all of the stitches.

My advice to future me: When you get frustrated, walk away from the project and come back another day. Angrily persisting will only make things worse.

Though you can’t really tell from the picture, I eventually got the legs right (I swear, it’s just the angle of the picture that makes them look lopsided), and they are the perfect length for me. Too bad they are too ugly to wear.