sewing

Window Seat Cushion

finished objects, sewing, upholstry

One of the most exciting things in our new apartment is a window seat with a great view. The previous owner of the apartment had a cozy-looking cushion on it, and I knew making one would be a fun, productive project.

a ticking-stripe window seat with a city view.

Supplies

I found an online foam supplier with straightforward custom ordering, FoamSource. I went for the high-density, medium foam. When the foam arrived, I held my breath as I tested it on the seat… it fit perfectly! I am not a foam expert, but it feels pretty medium to me when I sit on it.

For the fabric, I wanted a pattern that wasn’t too trendy and is easy to pattern mix. I thought ticking would look nice, but I didn’t want it to look too “country.” I also decided that I wanted to go the extra mile to find a yarn dye vs screenprint ticking. After searching through some options, I settled on a teal version. I mocked up the cushion dimensions with seam allowances in Figma, which helped me figure out how much fabric I needed. When I ordered, I forgot about feet vs. yards and got 7 yards of fabric instead of 7 feet (!!). This ended up being a very fortunate mistake because I was able to make self-piping and matching pillows. I originally envisioned a contrast color piping, but my over-order was serendipitous because I can’t imagine a contrast color now, the bias ticking looks perfect to me.

If I make another cushion for this seat, I will use a zipper closure. With this project, I used a 2-yard length of velcro from Pacific Trimming. It works just fine but I think a zipper would look and close better, believe it or not. One thing I’m really glad about is the entire back of the cushion opens up because this long piece of foam is very unwieldy.

a blue ticking-stripe pillow and seat cushion.
I had enough fabric for a bonus THIRD pillow cover. its propped in front of the repurposed bed pillow.

The base pillows are unused bed pillows. They were the Wirecutter best pillow recommendation, but after sleeping on them for 1 night, we realized they were not for us. they were sitting in the closet and i decided to try ’em out.

Construction Notes

I searched to see at how other people created their cushions, and settled on following this tutorial with piping and a velcro closure. One key part of this technique is that it was, ahem… SEWN. I wanted to create a durable cushion, and at first I found a tutorial that instructs you to secure the fabric to the foam with SAFETY PINS. Uhh, that’s gonna look good for about 5 minutes and then turn into a big mess.

a closeup of a blue ticking-stripe window seat with matching pillows.

The cushion dimensions are 82″x17″, so I had to make a LOT of piping for this project. Surprisingly, this was easy and meditative to do in batches as I needed it. This video was pretty helpful to learn a fast way to do it. I cut 2″ wide bias strips and folded it around a length of cotton twine from my stash, and as I came to the end of a strip, I added a new one that I folded under. It was very easy to create the piping as I needed it with each pillow and the cushion, and just left it in a half-finished state until I picked it back up to create more as needed.

an in-progress photo of twine turning into piping.
piping-in-progress.

For the pillows, I created simple piped envelope covers. I have made so many of these that I didn’t use a tutorial, but this is a good one if you haven’t done it before. Note, this tutorial does not show you how to add piping.

Farrow Dress II

finished objects, sewing

I made a second Farrow dress. It surprised me that I chose this pattern again because I was so disappointed in my first one. For that one, I underlined the bodice and used hot pink bias tape to finish the seams, so it felt really wacky to wear even though no one else could see it. For my latest version. I used a much more subdued petal pink for the facings which makes it much more cohesive and professional-looking.

This pattern is labeled easy, but I think matching the diagonal seams on the front and back is rather challenging, ESPECIALLY if you use a plaid. This flannel is an unusual fabric match for this dress. Its a strange mix of Puritan fabric and modern style lines. BUT, its very cozy and I’ve worn it nonstop since I finished it.

The pattern specifies faced sleeve hems, which inspired me to add a facing to the dress hem. I also extended the neckline facing to the shoulders so it wouldn’t flop around (pet peeve). I spent a long time lining up the plaids on the four front and four back pieces, and it took forever. Once I got to the sleeves, I lost pattern-matching steam and didn’t do as nice of a job. I have a tiny head so I didn’t need to do the back neck slit, although, to be honest I forgot about that design element until after I sewed on the neck facing. I realized what I had done right after I topstitched, then quickly tried it on over my head to check whether I had some serious unpicking to do.

here are the guts of the dress.

Nothing like perfectly placed pockets, I notice I am constantly resting my hands in them. The joys we find in 2020.

A Pendleton Wool Jacket

finished objects, sewing
a woman stands, showing off her Pendleton wool jacket.

Here’s what I made with the Pendleton fabric I bought in Portland last year. This pricey wool was intimidating to cut into. After mulling it over for a year, I went for it with the Tessuti Tokyo Jacket. I did not have a lot of wiggle room with yardage, so I had to be picky about where I pattern-matched.

I added some length to the jacket so I could add a more generous hem (2″), and omitted the pockets. I hand-sewed the hem and the inner neckband. Because the fabric is so thick and dense, it was easy to hide the stitches on the right side–I can’t see them at all!

a woman shows the inside of a handmade wool jacket.

I used a bit of this fabric to make my belt bag last year. While sewing it, I noticed this material is prone to unraveling. To ensure the integrity of these jacket seams, I used a combination of french seams and Hong Kong seams. When I sewed this pattern in the past, it was very challenging to sew the french underarm seam’s sharp curve. Knowing this fabric is much thicker than silk, I used Hong Kong seams instead. I thought it would be a fun color pop to use the same finish on the center back seam. I went Bold with the bias tape, because 1. that’s what I had and 2. I think the unexpected pop of sea foam green brightens up the dark print.

the back view of a woman wearing a Pendleton wool jacket.

Clyde Jumpsuit – #ESmadebyme

finished objects, sewing

Important note: This past April, Elizabeth Suzann decided to close her clothing business. Afterwards, Liz shared some of her most popular patterns in their original form. The internet fulfilled a crowdfunding campaign to convert these patterns to copy-shop PDFs for public download. Here’s a blog post from Yay Stitch that tells the full story and gives credit to the humans who made this happen. Unfortunately, as of last week, the patterns have been taken down and aren’t available right now. I downloaded the files last month while they were still available.

In exchange for downloading these patterns, the organizers ask that if you are able, make a donation to a Black-led organization. I made a donation and encourage you to do the same if you accessed these patterns.

5/6/2021 update: Elizabeth Suzann has relaunched as Elizabeth Suzann Studio, and she has released some sewing patterns for sale. As of now, the Clyde Jumpsuit is not for sale yet.

The Jumpsuit

My last jumpsuit adventure, Roberts Collection, was a bust–it was so bad I didn’t blog about it. I concluded that jumpsuits aren’t for me. Well, when I downloaded these ES patterns in July, the Clyde jumpsuit called to me. I decided to wait a few weeks to see if I still wanted to make it.

A woman stands on a city sidewalk, wearing a taupe jumpsuit. #esmadebyme

So, as you can see, I ended up making the jumpsuit. This weekend, I took a pandemic walk to Mood and found some taupe, drape-y linen. Mood got new carpeting, BTW! I was so pumped to get started that I washed, air-dried and sewed it up in one day.

a cutting layout for the elizabeth suzann clyde jumpsuit
the cutting layout I came up with. 60″ wide fabric. This took ~2.5 yds. I made a medium.

The Clyde jumpsuit was very straightforward to make. I referenced Not A Primary Color’s tutorial, which was enough for me to get going. I began sewing around 2pm, and finished at 7pm. I immediately put it on, and wore it the rest of the evening. I noticed that it pulled in the crotch when I was sitting on the couch, so I decided to try it on “backwards.” I must admit it fits MUCH better that way. 🤷

a woman stands on a sidewalk wearing a handmade Elizabeth Suzann clyde jumpsuit
The downside of jumpsuits is the tush never looks too good.

Construction Notes

a closeup of a woman wearing a homemade elizabeth suzann clyde jumpsuit

For the 2 front and 2 back “center” seams, I used a mock flat felled seam. I finished the raw edges with zig-zag then topstitched them at 3/8″. I considered doing a real flat felled seam, but I had flashbacks to the challenges from my jean jacket and decided against it. If I make this again, I would use french seams and topstitch.

a closeup of the pocket on a homemade Elizabeth Suzann Clyde jumpsuit

For the crotch and inseam, I used french seams and didn’t topstitch. For the arm and neck binding, I sewed the final seam at 1/2″. For the hem, I turned up 1/2″ then 5/8″. I made a skinny belt out of some scraps, a la What Katie Sews.

Stripey

finished objects, sewing
a woman twirls in a striped Wiksten tank top and Fumeterre skirt from Deer and Doe.

We escaped upstate for a long weekend. And, me being me, I made sure we had a few moments to squeeze in a photoshoot of this new skirt/top combo. After quarantining in the city for 3 months, it was amazing to be somewhere else. We went on 2 fire tower hikes and spotted some small snakes (eep!). Upstate New York is glorious in June.

The Skirt

Anyway, here’s the story of these garments. I had some Merchant and Mills linen in my stash since last summer. I wanted to make something special with it, and earmarked it for a dress. Then, I thought of making a summery Fumeterre skirt instead. I hesitated because the thought of matching those stripes seemed overwheliming. After deliberating, I decided to give it a try. I re-created the fabric pattern in Figma, since this fabric has one-way stripes. I decided to focus on matching the angled mitres. I labeled 8 pieces of washi tape with each panel name (left front, left side front, right front, right side front, etc). I worked in groups of two so I could ensure the stripes matched at each mitre. I cut out 1 piece, then took its matching pattern piece, flipped it over, and matched the already cut stripes to it. I stuck the labels on each panel and sewed the angled seam. This labeling and batching system helped me keep everything straight.

a vector mockup of the fabric.
^ this is not how i ended up cutting out the skirt
progress photos of making a Fumeterre skirt from Deer and Doe
You can barely tell that I didn’t worry about making the straight stripes perfect. It looks like a 5-panel skirt!

The skirt buttons are from Haulin’ Hoof Farm Store. I bought them at Vogue Knitting Live this year (crazy to think about going to an event like that with SO MANY PEOPLE). I was dumb and skipped the interfacing for the placket, and you can tell. I added an “inside button” between the first and second buttons below the waistband to help with gaping. I shortened the skirt by several inches because the length of my first Fumeterre makes it very hard to walk. I am very fond of the midi skirt length.

a striped Fumeterre skirt from Deer and Doe with pretty blue buttons.

For the waistband and skirt hem facing, I used some leftover Spectrum Cotton from Purl Soho. I had so little fabric that I pieced the facing, but I can’t tell. I love how the facing and the waistband lining contrast with the linen stripes. The spectrum cotton is pricey but its so nice and soft. I will definitely use it again.

A Wiksten tank top and Fumeterre skirt from Deer and Doe laid on a deck.
a woman stands outside wearing a long striped Fumeterre skirt from Deer and Doe.

The Tank

I had very few scraps after cutting the skirt. But, I did have enough to eek this modified Wiksten tank out of the leftovers. I had so little left that I had to cut 2 pieces for the bodice front.

I cropped the tank by several inches and removed almost all the A-line shaping and hem curve. I also added a hand-stitched deep hem facing. There’s something about the armholes/strap drafting of this tank that I don’t love. The back gapes at the neck and the arms don’t lay nicely. The linen stripes are carrying this top, for sure. Overall, though, its a great summer top!

a woman stands outside, wearing a striped Wiksten tank.

Blaire Shirtdress

finished objects, sewing
a button-down shirtdress on a hanger.

A friend sent me some awesome woven fabric she found at an estate sale. She asked if I wanted it, describing it as “Emily fabric.” Spoiler alert: I said yes, and when it arrived last week, I immediately got to work. I thought it would look great as a shirtdress, so I gave the Blaire pattern from Style Arc another go. The first time around I made the shirt version, so this time I wanted to make the dress.

To compliment the elaborate woven fabric, I used some bright blue scraps for the pockets. I think they go together pretty nicely. I drafted a hem facing instead of hemming as the pattern suggests. When I made the shirt version of this pattern, the hem was a nightmare because of the X-TREME curves, so I wanted to come up with an alternate solution. I googled “blaire style arc hem facing” and found a particularly helpful post from someone who accomplished this quite nicely, so with my initial instinct validated, I went for it.

I feel too strange to go outside for pictures right now, so instead here are some COVID-style glamor shots of the details:

a close up of the shirtdress collar.
pretty happy with how this collar came out.
a closeup of the shirtdress pocket with a contrasting lining.
closeup of the pocket!
a closeup of the topstitching on the pocket.
a closeup of the hem facing.
the pocket sticks out a teeny bit, very cute detail.

Repairing a Quilt

finished objects, sewing
before: very ratty edges all over.

I’ve had this quilt since I was a kid. This blanket is not my most favorite colors, but its not about the looks, its about the feels. Sitting on the couch with this blanket brings me immense comfort and calm. I love snuggling with it. Unfortunately, over the past few years the edges have become very weak and frayed. A few weeks ago, part of the edging got caught on my foot and ripped away, revealing the batting.

This week I decided to repair it. I chatted with my fastidious quilter friend, Lizzie, who is immensely talented in this area. She thought repairing was do-able and suggested the french-fold binding technique. The original quilt didn’t have any binding, and its state shows why a binding is so key to longevity! Its condition is fine everywhere else, but the edges are torn and frayed all the way around.

I needed a fairly wide strip of fabric to create the binding to make the finished repair look as natural as possible. As I was contemplating what fabric to use, I remembered my sad attempt at a 9″ block linen quilt from years ago. I wondered if I could use the cut-but-not-sewn squares to make the binding. Once I dug them out, it felt like fate. The block colors blend wonderfully with the quilt. I got to work and sewed several blocks together to create a long binding. Then, I pinned it to the quilt and machine-hemmed it, and then folded it over to hand sew it to the wrong side. By the way, these two lovely ladies have a fabulous tutorial with tips to hand-stitch the miters down on both right and wrong sides at once.


Now my favorite quilt has a personal touch! I’ve had it on my lap all day, and its been heavenly! By the way, this was from a department store and I am pretty impressed that its hand-quilted. I don’t think you’d find something like this in department stores today! I’m so happy I am able to give it some more life.

COVID FO #2 and #3: Kabuki Tee

finished objects, sewing

Friday night, I cleared off my makeshift work desk to reveal my sewing machine, because I thought sewing would help me relax and feel like things are temporarily “normal.” I’ve had the Kabuki Tee from Paper Theory on my to-make list for a long time, so I decided to give it a go. I decided to use this extremely soft vintage cotton/poly blend from my stash, so I got to cutting.

a blue and green plaid top on a hanger.

This is the most comfortable woven top I’ve ever made. The body has great shaping, but still has a boxy look. The fabric certainly adds to its comfort, but the unique arm drafting makes it so easy to move around in.

So, I couldn’t let it go at that, and immediately decided to cut out another version in some eyelet. I spent some serious time figuring out how to arrange the pattern pieces to make the small amount of leftovers I had work. I didn’t have anything that I thought would look nice underneath the eyelet, so I went with silk organza. I hand-basted the organza to the eyelet and used it as an underlining, and used french seams througout. One exception: I bound the armhole seams with bias tape. I decided to blindstitch the armhole and waist hems to make it feel a little more fancy. The organza helps “diffuse” whats happening underneath, and works very well as a modesty layer.

a white eyelet top on a hanger.
an inside-out eyelet top on a hanger.
pretty insides!

Little bagg-o

finished objects, sewing

I had this post queued up last week and never hit publish. Obviously we are in a crazy, unprecedented time rn and things are murky and unclear. I’m trying to power through and focus on making progress on my knitting and sewing. Anyway, here’s this thing I made two weekends ago…

a black and white zipper pouch.

Last weekend I saw a Making Mag post about how to sew up this little bag. I decided to create my own based on the post’s photos. I included the darts at the bottom, and I think it its a nice touch to help the bag stand up on its own.

a peek inside the black and white zipper pouch.

A quick, cute lil’ scrap guy! The black and white hemp/wool blend is leftover from an old dress, and the lining is Liberty Tana Lawn from Purl Soho. I love this combo, plus the bright orange zipper pull I made from unraveled baker’s twine.

Myosotis Dress II

finished objects, sewing
a girl wearing a green and pink floral dress in the bright sun.

Hey, this wasn’t part of my last post! Ahem… a little something bypassed my sewing queue. What is the point of life if not for unplanned sewing projects? I had a long weekend at home, and the idea for this fabric/dress combo popped into my head. Without any hesitation, I got to work. Sewing with fervor like this, running on fumes of whim and inspiration, is one of my favorite parts of life. For 5 hours straight, I didn’t do anything but work on this dress. I don’t experience that level of focus too often, so it felt great. Luckily, the fabric was ready to use because I pre-washed the fabric ages ago. The bonus to all this is now I have a beautiful Myosotis Dress!

a girl wearing a green and pink floral dress in the bright sun.
a girl wearing a green and pink floral dress in the bright sun.

This Blackbird Fabrics viscose has been waiting patiently in my stash for 3 years. The print and dress combo is definitely loud, but I love it. I am not usually on Team Viscose, but I must say it feels delightfully swishy to wear. As you can see, I embraced The Ruffle for this dress. Right now, I’m loving the midi length, but figured if I tire of it I can re-hem to knee length. I don’t have many ruffle-y clothes, we’ll see how they fit in to the rest of my wardrobe.

Construction Notes

a girl wearing a green and pink floral dress in the bright sun.

Except for the ruffles, I used french seams throughout this garment. I should do this more ofte n because french seams look so nice. For the ruffle seams, I used lace tape to hide the raw edges. I haven’t yet, but I’m planning to hand tack them down with a blind stitch.

Unlike my first Myosotis, this version is unlined. I figured that I can wear a slip / undershirt if I want some more layers. Its funny how sometimes I am adamant about lining, but then here I am, not adding a lining and proud. :shrug: