New Look 6515

I finally got a little sewing done and finished NL 6515. THis is a rayon crepe that I bought at F&S fabrics in Los Angeles, the last day of PR weekend. I tried making this shirt last year but it did not come out right. This one is much better.




















The first thing I had a problem with was this band piece. It is supposed to be straight. I had been very careful to keep the grain straight on this fabric, but it was really hard to keep straight and shifted around a lot. This piece is a perfect example of what happens when you cut something on the fold and the grain is not straight.

I barely had enough fabric left to cut another one, so I tore the fabric to get the grain right and trued it with the grid on my cutting board.

I usually use a rotary cutter and mat, but my "cutting room" was unavailable to me this week since my dad was staying with us. I had forgotten how hard it is to cut things out with scissors! Anyway, here you can see the before and after.


At PR Weekend we took a hand stitches class from Susan Khalji. One of the things she taught us was the hand picked zipper. Now Sherry, who was sitting at my table, mentioned that she uses hand picked zippers for everything, but that she prefers the lapped application, sewing the first side down by machine. Since this blouse calls for a lapped zipper in the side seam, I decided to give it a try. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, although you can't tell much from this picture. The irony of the whole thing is that I can get the blouse on just fine without opening the zipper, so I didn't need to even put on in!


Another thing I did differently was to use silk organza bias strips rather than pre-packaged seam binding to bind the armholes. I thought the s.b. would be too heavy for this rayon crepe. I cut the strips 1-3/4 inches wide, but should have gone with a minimum of 2" due to the 5/8" seam allowances.


I also did a "baby hem" on the bottom of the blouse. First I stitched 1/4" from the cut edge and used that as a guide to press up the hem, with the stitching just barely turned to the inside. Then I used an edgestitching foot to stitch really close to the edge. Next, I trimmed the excess off close to the stitching. You turn that under one more time and edge stitch again. This gives a really nice, narrow hem.

What else did I do today? Well, I decided to go to the Babylock store and check out the cover stitch machine. First of all, let me say that the local Babylock dealer is about the only thing that would KEEP me from buying a BabyLock. I went in there the other day to ask about the coverstitch machine and he had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to explain to him what a cover stitch was, and he kept showing me other stitches on the regular sewing machine that were nothing like it. He told me that he didn't think that BL even sold such a machine, and then I saw one on his shelf and pointed it out to him. He said "Come back on Saturday when Linda is here." OK, so I went back today, but learned little other than the price, which was $899.00! I think I'll just continue to hem things the way I always have.

I also went to the Bernina store, which happens to be the local quilt shop. I think I may sign up to take a class there. They have a lot of great classes (all quilting) but I'm always open to learn new skills. They also have people who actually do sew working there and know what they're talking about.

OH, and I have a new sewing buddy - although his biggest contribution to my sewing so far has been to climb up on my table behind the ironing board and tear up some pattern pieces. But, most of the time, he is happy to just sit next to me while I am sewing. His name is Dobbie and we got him from the SPCA this week. We were lucky to find such a mellow dog and he really is a sweetheart.