Thread Tracing in Action

There's a new pile of Misato (Not) by Chanel test pieces on the ironing board. While tracing all these out, I discovered I have lost my thimble. I usually don't spend that much time in a row pushing the needle with my finger, but this time I was feeling it.

I'm not sure if I'm not using smaller stitches for marking than necessary, though on these curved edges I didn't want to lose too much of the shape in the dash-dash-dashing. The magnetic pin holder came in handy for finding a dropped needle in the carpet. Much faster than waiting til I step on it.

Here's a shoulder being basted to a front. It looks a little wavy since you have to match  a curved edge to a straight-ish edge. The visible markings on both sides of both pieces does make matching things up that much faster.

And here it is after a trip to the sewing machine and before pressing. The other benefit to this method is no pins on the sewing machine. You're not supposed to sew over pins, but I may have done that once or twice. I don't think I've ever broken a needle, but I've bent the hell out of some pins. All fun and games until someone puts an eye out though.

Also, on these fiddly matches, I either leave the pins in too long and have to try to get it out from under the presser foot which clamps down pretty hard on it, or I remove it too soon and the sewing lines shift randomly in the middle of a seam. Throw in the time to get up and get the pin holder off the board where I pinned stuff up - after getting set up on the sewing machine - and basting with thread is going on the list of "Things I'm not sure why I've never done before".

Thread Tracing

Realizing that at some point, constructing these garments can't involve me drawing on muslin with a pencil, I started trying thread tracing. Somehow I've never used thread tracing, but here we go. I think I'll like it since it shows on both sides. Since I'm marking sewing lines rather than using the cut edge of the fabric as a guide, it makes it easier to line up adjoining pieces and see the sewing line.

Most of my thread is ecru or whiter, but in the closet I had an assortment of Clover silk thread in dark colors. Amazon sells these six spool assortments and I have several of the two white/two black/two "winter white" boxes on standby. The price on these is a little higher now ($21-22) but if you look at camelcamelcamel, you can see an average price of about $17 and a low of $14 for the black and white assortment. I'd wait til it goes back down again before getting more.

Before I started, I traced out some fresh pattern pieces on paper and cut them to the sewing line instead of just generally around them as before. The paper piece is laid on the fabric and running stitches made around it. At corners, they say to exit at the corner point, turn and come back out at the corner point heading in the next direction. Probably easier to just look at it here. The paper is shifting away but I'll use the ol' blue tape to hold it in place next time.

You get the idea.

Eventually you end up with something like this. The dart's not marked here but you can see the shape of one of the front pieces of the Misato (Not) by Chanel jacket taking shape.

The Garden of Words, Final Chapter?

The Garden of Words manga showed up again today. As usual, I've put the pictures on the original post. Yesasia used a FedEx service for shipping it, and once it was picked up from them, it was to my door in three days from HK. We'll see if that is a fluke, since I have the next Da Vinci awaiting shipment.

Still, this is supposed to be the last chapter for the manga. Since I can't read it, I'll assume either news reports were wrong or that it's ending similarly to the 5 Centimeters Per Second manga. The online translator on this post of the Garden of Words FB page is unclear to me whether this picture is from a final chapter in Afternoon magazine, or just an ad for an upcoming book with all six(?) chapters. This appears to be the book but so far further searches by ISBN and all that doesn't turn up any good pictures yet. It's out in a few weeks, so I'm on standby.

Well, the news reports were wrong, so see the main Garden of Words post for the latest update.

Tombow Centennial Pencil Set

Tombow has a set of drawing pencils out for their 100th anniversary, in old school form and packaging. I love fancy packaging and had read these might be Mono 100s so I figured it's a hell of a deal for $15 if true (and okay if not).

They came in a padded envelope and when I opened the envelope it smelled fantastic! My latest batch of Black Warriors have very nice leads, but they don't seem to have any real wood smell.

On to the packaging!

A heavy paper sleeve, that includes "TOMBOW 100HB" in the fine print on the back. Is that as in Mono 100 or 100th Anniversary? In the words of Paul Reubens, I don't know!

Inside is a nice metal box, which I'm sure will get refilled with Black Warriors at some point. The Tombows all seem to come in fancy boxes, so you don't need to keep them for refills of the same.

Just in case you didn't read the sleeve or the front of the box, there's still time to find out what's in the box.

In case of what?

If it's not Colt, it's just a copy!

Almost to the pencils! Please and thank you!

The pencils are held separate from each other with a little insert. I imagine these will still work with round pencils if I keep them nice.

Thank you Carl!

Oh no! More writing I can't read! Okay, it's just the back side of the insert above.

I actually bought more than one box so I don't have to feel bad about using some of them up and to be able to save some to sell on the 200th anniversary for $1,000,000 which will probably be worth about $15 in today's money.

Mugatu's Pincushion

Once upon a time, there was a guy who thought this was a good idea...

A cushion filled with ground walnut shells and a bowl full of M&Ms with all the brown M&Ms removed a la Van Halen. The cushion is actually sitting on a small box to help cut down on the number of M&Ms that had to be sorted. This didn't really work out very well, especially since I had pins with the mulit-colored glass heads at the time.

So this project will come as no surprise (plus, I mentioned it in another post).

I started with a piece of 2" foam and a square.

I cut out two 8" squares so I could have a block 4" tall. I'm not sure I shouldn't have gone to 10" squares, but I have more to make another one if I'm still feeling stupid later.

Because it was there, I used my little Buck 503 knife to cut the pieces, though I'm sure something like this would have worked better.

To start the pattern, I took the square and drew out an  8" square with 4" sides and a 2" fold under.

I'll need to add something to the "flaps" for seam allowances, but this is the basic form.

Laid over the block, you can see where this is going. For the moment, I just taped the two layers of foam together with the greatest invention since duct tape, blue tape. It didn't stick to the foam so  well (it's blue tape), so I ended up just going around all the way, but it will do for now.

I'm easily amused, but I love blue tape.

For the upholstery, I'll be using this red silk velvet that's been languishing in my closet forever. Despite what they say about velvet, I hope this is easier to sew with than photograph. Probably should have tried getting near a window while it was so sunny today to photograph with natural light, but this is the best I could do.

I'll also need to come up with a way to finish the bottom and attach the feet. Originally I was planning to put it on some sort of tray or something and attach something else in the role of feet, but so far I got nothing. I'll bet Ikea has some cylindrical door pulls or whatnots that would work for this though I like the idea of having some sort of base to attach them  to rather than trying to anchor them in the foam. For now though, I'll worry about making presentable velvet seams.

Once again I guess I did it the hard way. I wanted to make a muslin test of the pattern and it immediately came to me all I needed to do was set the foam block right on the fabric and trace around it. Then flip it up on each side in turn and touch it up with the square to make sure everything's straight.

Next time I'll mark the block and the fabric to make sure it goes back in the same orientation that it was traced off though. It seems that not everything is straight, flat and square on this foam block. Surprise! A little trimming and pressing with the point presser on the clapper and it's getting there. Some thin batting under there might help even things out a bit given the underlying block but the velvet may do the same thing.

The Couture Cardigan Jacket, book report

Claire Shaeffer's new couture sewing book came today, "The Couture Cardigan Jacket". All I've gotten done in the past week and a half is one pillowcase, so I was glad for a distraction. "I can't sew today, I'm studying reference materials."

I have her previous couture books and DVDs, but I've been waiting on this one to see what I could use on my Misato (Not) by Chanel jacket project. As expected, it's full of glorious thread marking, basting, hand stitching and pressing on the most terrifying array of super-raveling fabrics and charmeuse!

Some of the chapters such as buttonholes and patch pockets don't apply to my current project, but are still interesting. Here's the chapter I was most excited to see, hand set sleeves.

Ever since Susan Khalje changed my sewing life with hand picked zippers, I've been meaning to give this a try. Between the sort-of plaid loose weave fabric and the odd-angled seams, I think this method will be good for my general stress level as well as the final product.

The book also includes a DVD with chapters that match the book, demonstrating the various topics. I just skimmed the DVD, but it looks similar to her previous ones, so I expect it will be good too.