Upcycled Sweater Hoodies No. 7 8 and 9

Here are some photos of my latest hoodie cardigans made from felted wool and cashmere sweaters.  I wash the sweaters in hot water and dry them in the dryer to make them felt.  Then I cut them up and sew the pieces together on my serger sewing machine with some stitching done on my regular sewing machine because a serger doesn't do everything.  First is Sweater Number 7.  My great accomplishment on this piece was the front placket with buttons.  The placket is two layers, so it lies flat and is quite functional.  I'm quite pleased with this design, and I'm now using this placket on all of my cardigans. Of course, I used this as an excuse to splurge on vintage buttons.  I love buttons, and I was tickled to have a reason to buy more of them.  Sweater Number 7 is in marsala burgundy, hot pink, gray and brown, size medium with woven leather buttons.  It has two pockets and is super snuggly.

This is a photo of some of the pieces before I assembled them, mostly wool with a bit of cashmere.

This is some detail on a matching cotton skirt that you can see peeking out of the bottom.

I made Sweater Number 7 as a commission for a friend, not realizing that she's actually much broader than I am.  Although it fits me perfectly, sadly, it's too small for her.  Before we found that it doesn't fit her, she asked me to cut off the point of the hood.  Here you can see the difference that a pointed hood makes versus a rounded hood.  I thought I was in completely in love with pointed hoods until I cut off the point.  Now, I think I actually might prefer the rounded hood.  One thing I wasn't expecting when I cut off the point is how much it changes the shape of the collar around the neckline.  The very first sweater hoodie I made, I kept for myself, and it has a pointed hood.  I find the point kind of gets in the way.  I think from now on, I'll make most of my hoodies with rounded hoods.

 

Sweater Number 8 is in aqua blues, size small.  This one is quite elvish with a pointed hood and a long pointed pocket. It's about two-thirds wool and one third cashmere with green vintage plastic buttons.

Sweater Number 9 is in purple, blue, gray and olive, size medium.  It has a stripe up the back in purples and a pocket on the front. It's mostly wool with a bit of cashmere and vintage purple plastic buttons. 

These pieces are all for sale at Isabella Boutique in downtown Sunnyvale, CA.  Many of the techniques I used I learned from the ever-talented Katwise.  Thanks for looking.

For the Love of Silk Ribbon and Lace

Last time I was preparing to visit my friend Jennifer to teach at her bead shop, Naturally Jennifer's Gallery and Beads, she asked me if I had any clothing that I wanted to tie dye.  See, Jennifer had something around 30 buckets of dye set up in her garage because she was filling a large order of tie dyed t-shirts for a local music festival.  As luck would have it, I had just won a HUGE lot of silk charmeuse remnants on Ebay.  The fabrics were gorgeous, but some of the colors were a bit boring, like khaki, pale lavender and tan, and this was the perfect opportunity to make them beautiful with some hand dying.  Could Jennifer's dyes work with silk?  Sure they would!

I wanted a mottled look rather than a traditional tie dye, so Jennifer taught me to "artfully wad" my fabrics in large plastic tubs.  With over 30 colors to choose from, I poured maybe six different, related colors of dye into each tub.  Here is a photo of one little corner of the purple piece.   Pretty, isn't it?

These dyed silks have been sitting in my closet since Spring, patiently waiting for me to figure out how to use them.  Last night, I was browsing hand dyed silk ribbons on Etsy, and I saw that a few different vendors were selling ribbon with serged edges.  I realized that I could make ribbon by CUTTING strips of of silk from selvage to selvage, and then SERGE a rolled hem on both edges.  OMG!  I CAN MAKE SILK RIBBON AS WIDE AS I WANT!  See, if you've ever shopped for wide silk ribbon, you know it costs a small fortune, often around half the price you'd pay for 45" wide fabric.  Silk ribbon is a real luxury item, especially the wide, hand-dyed stuff, and as a consequence, I don't own any wide silk ribbon... until last night!

On my first try, I made a gorgeous yard of silk ribbon in purple and burgundy with black serger thread.  At nearly an inch, it's significantly wider than the narrow ribbons I own, and the fabric is a bit thicker as well.   Once the machine was set up and the strip was cut, sewing it was pretty quick and easy.  It's a little under an inch wide, over a yard long and I tapered both ends to a point.  I strung some beaded beads on it, but didn't love the way they hung because they weren't heavy enough to weigh down the ribbon,  So, I ruffled the ribbon by sewing a zig zag like in my Doceri drawing below.

I rolled up my silky ruffle to make flowers, folding and twisting it, this way and that.   I made some wiggly lines with it.  I sat at my cutting mat, rather mesmerized by this little ruffle, all soft and squishy with undulating colors that shimmer in the light like only silk charmeuse can do.  I became inspired:  I dug through my bags of lace, cut some pieces, and arranged them under my ruffle.  I tried some ribbon flowers.  Deciding a cuff would be a good project, I found a scrap of black rayon jersey fabric leftover from the lining of my new mini dresses, and I cut a rectangle about 8 inches wide.  Starting with the bottom layers of lace,  I sewed my appliques to the jersey, layer by layer.  I started with hand sewing, and switched to my machine where I could.  After all of the lace and ribbon was attached, I sewed on a few pressed glass flower beads.  Then, like making up a pillow, I attached a lining made from some purple cotton corduroy.  The corduroy lining makes the back soft, adds a little warmth, and hides all of the stitches and thread ends.   I left open a side seam to add elastic button loops, pinned the loops in place and finished the last bit by machine, which you can see running vertically below in black thread.  I finished it by attaching the buttons, sewing through all of the layers for stability.

As I sewed, I just kept thinking about how super girly girl this cuff is.  It's purple and rosy, with flowers, ruffles, and lace.  It's beyond girly.  It's not my normal style for sure.  I've heard people call it a "romantic" style.  My boyfriend called it "too much," but the girly girl in me really likes this kind of explosive overabundance of ribbon and lace.  A little part of me wants to be dressed head to toe like this, maybe just for a little while.  Yes, this style is a bit out of my normal aesthetic, but I like that it all started with a piece of beautiful purple, hand-dyed wide silk ribbon.  Yeah for Etsy.  Yeah for silk ribbon.  Yeah for inspiration.  

Click on the photos for more photos and information about purchasing this cuff.

Making a Sweater Coat Part 10 Attaching Hood, Facing and Sleeves

ATTACHING THE HOOD
I sewed the hood to the hood lining around the face earlier.  Now I press it and I baste the bottom edges together on my regular sewing machine.  Think of a hoods as a really long bulging collars.  To attach the hood to the coat, I will have to sew through four layers plus seam allowances, which my serger definitely won’t like, unless I do it right.  My serger has proven to only sew well through two or three layers at a time, so I decide to serge the edges separately.  I serge the edges of (a) the two layers of the hood, (b) the neckline of the coat, and (c) the neckline of the (3 piece) facing.  Then I pin the hood to the coat and baste on my regular machine.   

After laying the coat out on the floor,

I lay the facing on top of it.  Finally, I pin the facing on the neckline and sew all four layers together on my regular sewing machine with a very strong and slightly stretchy stitch.  

In doing so, I busted a needle in three pieces right at the center back seam and had to use needle nosed pliers to get one of the pieces out of the fabric.  The fabric was really thick, and the piece was entirely embedded before I fished it out.  The neckline seam is always a real bitch but this method seemed to work well and I’d definitely do it again.  Yes, it’s a lot of passes, but it’s all done by machine, and the seam is strong, straight, and centered. This seam has to be strong because people lift and handle coats by their hoods.

I press the facing in place with tons of steam.  I let each section cool before shifting the coat.  Next I pinned and sewed the front facings to the front.

Oh, I missed a spot where the hood meets the coat on the front edge. You can see how the right corner is correct, but the left one, you can see the threads poking through the hole.

 When I flip it wrong side out, you can see how the edges shifted right at the end of the seam. 

 So, ya, I need to redo that.  I rip out the stitches for an inch or so and resew it.  

SEWING THE SLEEVES

While pressing the facing, I sew the sleeves and repair the skipped overlock stitches on the sleeves.  With doubled thread, I whipstitch over the seam allowances on two spots on each sleeve.  Interestingly, the chain stitches are all good.

I attach the sleeves to the armholes.  First, I pin and hand baste the two pieces together.  Then, I sew the seam on my serger.  Works great.  Sorry, but I forgot to take photos.  You'll just have to imagine it.

Next time, I sew the lining and the hem.

Making a Sweater Coat Part 7

SEWING SLEEVES AND FRONT

I lay out all the sleeve pieces just like before, leaving pieces on one sleeve.   

I sew the other sleeve together, first in strips in strips.  

With all the strips done, I decide how to press seam allowances, trying to get most pointing down, and at the same time trying to avoid really bulky spots.  I press with a medium hot iron and tons of steam.  The wool really responds well to lots of steam as long as you wait for them to cool and dry before moving them.   

I assemble the two front panels just like the sleeves.

This is the pile of colorful scraps of felt cut by the cutter on my machine. It feels like there should be some use for these bits of wool and cashmere.  Anyone?

After I finish each seam on my serger, instead of cutting the thread, I sew two scraps of fabric together and leave it in my machine until I get the next seam pinned and ready to go.  

This way, I don't end up with so many long ends of thread everywhere, plus I get crazy patches of new fabric to make stuff.  I might make a pillow with these.

Don't you want to see Part 8 where I sew together the hood and facing?

Making a Sweater Coat Part 6 Starting to Sew on a Serger

SETTING UP THE SERGER SEWING MACINE

Last summer I got my very first overlock (serger) sewing machine, a Babylock 8-thread, which sews a bazillion different combinations of overlock and cover stitches.  It’s quite a different beast from a regular sewing machine, and I’m still learning how to use it properly.  Fortunately, I have a big box of scraps to practice and experiment.

I’ve learned that the different stitches on a serger essentially give you different ways of finishing a seam or hem of a garment.  On my 8-thread machine, I can pick super wide stitches that are so complicated as to be more decorative than functional.  Alternately, I can pick super skinny rolled hems made with just two threads, which finish the smallest possible edge of a cut piece of fabric.  And of course, there’s several medium choices in between. 

3-THREAD SEAMS

Since I’m thinking of making the seams a design element on the outside of the coat, I start with a 3-thread overlock-narrow hem because I think it should be the strongest of the seams with a very narrow hem.   I run a few samples.  I mess around with the dual feed so the fabric won’t stretch as it passes under the pressure foot.  I click up from Neutral by one click, two clicks, all the way up to 2.0!  The seams are still super stretchy.  Apparently, the dual feed system doesn’t work as well with super thick felted wool sweaters which makes sense if you think about it.  I leave it all the way up and decide not to mess with the dual feed adjustment lever any more. 

My fabrics are super thick, and when they go under the pressure foot, they’re super smashed in there.  With my regular machine, I can adjust the pressure of my presser foot to accommodate thicker fabrics, but not so with an overlock.  An overlock has to smash the fabrics to get them through the cutter.

I make my stitch length super short, just a few clicks above 1.  The close the stitches are, the more the seams want to stretch, and I don’t want rippled seams.  I’m pretty sure the fabrics are too thick for rippled seams to work.

I look at my samples and don’t love the results.  The seams seem spindly, they are not pronounced enough to be a design element.  They also don’t look super sturdy, like I want for a run-around-and-play-in-me coat. See the right side of the photo below.

So I add Metroflock thread into the upper looper to fill in the stitches (left side of photo above).  Metroflock is “fluffy” thread.  It’s the puffy polyfillament thread they use on underwear.  You know, when your underwear starts to fall apart, the thread around the elastic unravels, and it’s that puffy thread. Well puffy thread fills in the space between stitches.  Metroflock is good for making narrow rolled hems look like nice solid lines.  With the Metroflock threaded through one of my loopers, the seam fills in nicely, that is, nicely on one side of the seam.  I need another spool of Metroflock for my other looper if I want both sides to look nice.

I convert my serger to do a 3-thread overlock rolled hem.  The seams are much puffier because the Metroflock is covering more of the seam with the rolled hem than it did with 3-thread overlock-narrow hem. Good to note since these two stitches are almost identical in terms of how the machine is set up, and I don’t have to rethread a single thread or move any needles to move between these two stitches.  With sergers, it’s not usually so easy to switch stitches.

I’m doubting my desire to put the seams on the outside.  On my practice bits, I’m not getting clean consistent results.  See the green and aqua seam on the right above; it’s messy, yet the side without seams looks neat.  I stretched my crazy patch, I pulled really hard on the seams and I poked the corners with my fingernail to see how much the abuse the corners would take.  

I didn’t actually poke a hole, but I gave a corner a good ruffing up, which did manage to permanently ruff up the fabric inside the seam and now it’s wonky.   

Hmm. I don’t want the seams to be the weakest part of this coat.  The fabric is STRONG and I want strong seams.

5-THREAD SEAMS

If I keep the seams on the inside, I can use a wider seam with more threads, which will make the coat more durable.  I’m going to try a wider stitch.  I try the 5-thread safety stitch, which is a combination of a 2-thread chain stitch plus a 3-thread overlock.  It’s the seams that run up most pant legs.  My machine can do this stitch in three widths, the narrowest is 3/8”, and I use that one.   

It’s noticeably much wider than then 3-thread stitches and feels super secure.  Now the seams are bulky, and when I sew over them, I have to push them a bit to get them under the presser foot and through the feed dogs.  I also have to check that the cutting blade catches and cuts when I cross over seams.  If the cutter misses and doesn’t reach up and over the fabric to cut it, and I keep sewing, I will almost certainly jam the machine in a nasty way.  This is very bad:

This is what it looks like after I pulled the fabric back down below the cutter:

I realize that when sewing with thick fabric over seams, I MUST keep my eye on the cutter. Oh, and I still have my dual feed compressing all the way (2.0), and the seams are still plenty stretchy.

I decide to use the wider, secure seams and put them on the inside of the coat.  That means I’ll need a lining.  I figure that I will need at least 2 and 3/8 yards of 60 inch wide fabric for the lining, something stretchy, like cotton lycra knit would be nice.

I don’t have 5 spools of thread that match.  I buy 2 spools of charcoal gray for the chain stitch, and use 3 spools of black for the overlock. With a lining, nobody will see the seams anyways, so it's not that important.

My patches of felt are all cut, and the machine is set up.  I am so close to sewing my real coat patches I can smell it. 

START SEWING PATCHES—FINALLY!

I start with the back panel, arranging all of the pieces on my table into their proper places for one side of the back.

Then I unpair them to make the whole back, but I leave the paper patches there just to keep everything in order.  I try to place everything knit side up (as opposed to purl), but some of the fabrics are so fuzzy and felted I can’t tell the difference.

I sew one side of the back at a time so I don’t accidentally switch pieces.  I pin the patches, right sides together, matching talyor’s tacks and edges.  I sew a patch… ooh, cr@p!  I get a messy seam because I forgot to put down the presser foot.  I have to rip out the messy threads and redo.  I resew the seam correctly and it’s fine.  I pick up and sew one or two seams at a time, leaving my patches of fabric mostly laying flat so I don’t get confused before everything is sew together. 

The skinny lime green patches are tricky and I accidentally catch the seam allowance on one side into the seam on the opposite side (this is easy to do because the patch is skinny.)  So, I cut the stitches and resew to get it right.  Problem solved. I find that turning it upside down, so I could see the problem seam, helped me do it right the second time.  In general, if something doesn’t work well the first time, it’s often useful to flip the work over and try sewing from the other side, which also requires that you start at the other end.  I’m happy I‘m using a wide 5/8” seam allowance because it’s giving me room to fix errors, and I’m making plenty of those.  With such thick fabric, it’s easy for the seam to shift by 1/8” or 1/4” when you use pins. 

I’m figuring some things out about my serger.  (A) If I clip the leading corners to make the leading ends the same shape, it’s easier to feed the fabric into the machine.  Cutting perpendicular to the seam is best, but sometimes I just cut the top edges even, and that works well enough. 

(B) If I pin the top layer a little (1/8” or so) forward of the bottom layer, then this compensates for the shift of the bottom layer moving forward when it gets pulled forward by the feed dogs. (C) I just realized that I should have been pressing my seams as I go.  I have been sewing so much faux fur and other synthetics, I forgot about pressing.  Wool presses wonderfully, so I press the back and vow to press as I go until I finish the coat.

See Part 7 in which I sew together the sleeves and front panels of the coat.

Fuzzy Hoodie Suit with Ears Horns and Tail

I just finished my first full body suit.  It's made out of faux fur with a polyester cuddle fabric lining. With all of its furry goodness, it reminds me of a cross between an abominable snowman costume and something from "Where the Wild Things Are." It has a hoodie-type hood with horns and ears.   This was a commissioned piece, completely made to order.

I started with a muslin mock up made from Simplicity Pattern 2853, size small, plus I added a two piece hood.   I also lengthened the sleeves and pants to be too long for the fitting.  My client and I arranged for a fitting of the mock up.  With him dressed in the muslin suit, inside out, I added a bunch of safety pins to fit the suit to his build.  I pinned the cuffs and pant hems, I took in the width of legs significantly, and also in the hips, waist and a little in the chest.  I drew on the placement of the side seam pockets and the inside patch pockets exactly where he wanted them.  I also marked where the bottom of the opening should start.  Then he got out of the suit, and I penciled where the seam should be as identified by the pins, removed the pins, ripped the muslin apart into its component pieces, transferred the markings to the paper pattern, added seam allowances back in, and my pattern was ready to go.

With the pattern in hand, I cut out the lining and fake fur, trimmed all of the fur out of the seam allowances, and serged all of the pieces including the lining.  I sewed the fur pieces together and all of the lining pieces together.  Then I added ears, horns, and a tail.

Normally, with a fur coat, I machine sew the lining to the fur, right sides together, up one side of the front lapel, across the shoulders, and down the other side.  This leaves just the bottom hems and cuffs to finish by hand.  However, because the particularities of this suit, I decided to finish everything entirely by hand.  It's more work, but I have much more control when hand sewing, so I could finish all of the corners neatly.  Adding the lining by hand required that I cross stitch all of the hems of the fur around both cuffs, pant hems, and the whole front opening (including hood).  You can see the cross stitching in many of the photos below.  I also added five extra-large hook and eye clasps along the front opening. It took me a few tries to figure out a good way to start adding the hooks, but if you look at the photo below, you can see the first two stitches that are adequate to anchor the hook efficiently.

Here's what a hook looks like after it's sewn, before it's covered with the lining.

I was worried that the fabric would rip at the bottom of the front opening, so I added a patch of flannel (it matches the pockets) with multiple rows of stitching across its width, an a tons of knots.

I also cross stitched down the seam allowance where the hood meets the neckline, under the arm pits, and at the crotch.  I did this to reduce bulk.  This photo shows an armpit.

Then, I added the lining.  In addition to stitching all around the openings, I also tacked the lining to the fur in the bottom third of the arm hole seam, on the crotch seams, and where the hood meets the neckline.  I added my tag and it's done!  Here you can see where the lining meets the fur at the front opening.

Today, the suit's new owner came over to try it on and he let me take photos.  Yeah.  We were both very happy with the fit, and he was amazed that the seams blended right in.  He couldn't even feel them.  I really enjoyed this project and we are both super happy with the results.  I put a little piece of my heart and my best workmanship skills into making this suit, inspired by the vision and enthusiasm of my client.  I joked that it's industrial strength, a family heirloom, so he can stay warm on the Playa at Burning Man, in his new fuzzy suit for many, many years to come.