Tag Archives: sewing

Man. I can’t believe Dragon*Con is next week. And I can’t believe how much sewing I still have left. The funny thing is, I had considered making myself a set of BSG duty blues, or doing something steampunk. I thought I had time. A whole month! Surely that’s plenty of time to do another costume. But now I barely have time to finish the 3-4 costumes that I really need to get done. And I’m freaking out a bit.

Sewing the jacket for Chris’s duty blues has not been easy. But up until now, I have not had any issues that have driven me totally mad. For the past two weeks or so, I have been spending much of my time working on the sleeves. The sleeves… oh god, the sleeves. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to rip them off and sew them back on to get them lined up properly. I had one of them on pretty well, then I realized that I needed to sew the ‘suede’ patches onto the sleeves before sewing the sleeves onto the body of the jacket. So I had to use the seam ripper on it, and now, after finally getting the other sleeve on, I can’t get this one (the original one) back on. The fabric isn’t lining up and the ‘vest’ fabric keeps bunching up. I think I’m going to just have to deal with it, and keep the bunching up in the armpit where it’s less noticeable.

This was probably a really horrible pattern to use for my first sewing project. Altering it as much as I did was not the best decision, either. It doesn’t fit Chris very well, and I’m pretty upset about this. It sucks to spend so much time and money on something only to have it turn out so badly. Part of me doesn’t even want to finish it. I’m not proud of it, and I don’t really want him to wear it at DC anymore. But at the same time, I don’t want all that money and time to have been for nothing.

I’m also not having much luck with the outer ‘racerback’ tanks. I bought some shirts from Goodwill to use as fabric, and it’s been a pain trying to create my own pattern. I’ve gone through four shirts and am now working on #5. Luckily this one may actually turn out okay.

Here’s what I have left to do:

• Finish sewing on jacket sleeves
• Put last few buttons on jacket and pants
• Hem pants
• Make outer tanks
• Redo belt loops on my BDU pants
• Buy BDU pants for Chris and put on belt loops
• Make the belts
• Decorate the corset/top for my other costume (it’s a secret!) and create accessories

Can I get all of this done before next Thursday?! We shall see…

On top of all this stress, I’ve had to deal with getting my hair colored. I decided to go blonde for my Starbuck costume, rather than just buying a wig. I went in last Friday and instead of dyeing my hair blonde, they gave me blonde highlights. So I went back in on Saturday, and they put in more highlights. And though it looks a lot better than it did on Friday, it’s not as blonde as I’d wanted. After 4+ hours of my time and $200 (plus tips). To make a long story short, I went in today and spoke with the salon owner, hoping she’d do more highlights as a courtesy; but after consulting with her and another stylist, I decided not to get any more color, as they thought my hair was already really blonde and more color wouldn’t make much difference. The back is a bit darker than I’d like, but I’ll live with it. I’m getting it cut tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be happier with it then.

Suffice it to say, I’ve not been a happy camper this week. My costumes are not turning out well, and the hair issue was stressing me out (I’m not a confrontational person and didn’t know how to handle the situation). But things are going a bit more smoothly today, thankfully.

Can I add another day to the week? An eight day week sounds good to me. Or maybe just another hour or two added on to each day? That would also work.

Seriously though, I’ve been so incredibly busy, and it’s wearing me out. I would love to have a day to sit and do nothing, maybe watch TV, but nope. No time. I can’t even remember what it’s like to be bored. If you complain about being bored, I might have to smack you.

Since I’ve been so busy, I still haven’t finished up Chris’s costume yet. Unfortunately the jacket probably isn’t long enough, so I’m taking a break from it and working on the pants so we can see if it can be tucked in (and stay tucked in) without me having to add extra fabric to it. I really really really hope I don’t need to, because it’s going to ruin my pretty lining and will probably just look stupid.

Isn't my lining pretty (aside from needing ironing)? It looks like a real jacket!

Here’s a peek at the jacket so far:

You can see where I’ve placed some pins to mark where the buttonholes will go. I’m really dreading adding those. If I frak them up, I frak up the whole jacket. The piping wasn’t as bad as I expected, but there are a few not-so-great spots. Also, the pocket might be too close to the buttons, so I probably ought to move it. We’ll see about that…

I wanted to get a lot done on the pants today, but between ironing, cutting the fabric, and trying to figure out the pattern, I didn’t accomplish much. So far I’ve added in some pleats and worked on the fly.

The pattern calls for a zipper, but because I did not have any zippers and do not really care to learn how to attach one at this point, I decided to use buttons instead. Seems more military appropriate, anyway, if the BDUs I’ve seen are any indication. I started putting the buttonholes in right before I had to leave for Ultimate, then realized when I got back home tonight that I’d need to add some extra fabric. So, there are two separate layers with buttonholes, but the initial layer I did should be pretty well concealed.

The perfectionist in me hates all these imperfections, but I’m just going to have to live with them. I’m not going to start completely over after I’ve done all this work, and I don’t really have the time to do so, anyway. If I ever make this costume again (which is likely), it’ll turn out a lot better since I’ll know what I’m doing. I’m actually considering trying to make one for myself, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it done within a month’s time.

I hope I can make more progress on Friday, but we’re thinking about having a yard sale this Saturday, so that’s going to take a lot of preparation, and then I have some web design work I need to get done as well. Again: Can I please have more time? Pretty please?

In theory, pockets should probably be pretty easy. But I suppose that depends on the type of pocket. The pocket I had to make for the BSG jacket was not so easy. I could have just made a simple pocket, but no; I am a perfectionist, and the pocket had to be the same style used on the show. Meaning, it had to have that fancy pleat in it.

One reason the pocket’s been such a bitch is that I had a hard time finding a pattern/tutorial for it. First off, I wasn’t even sure what type of pocket it’s considered to be, so I wasted a lot of time just trying to figure that out. I finally found this cargo pocket tutorial that seemed pretty close. I had trouble understanding some of the steps, so it took some trial and error (read: seam ripping) to get it right. The pocket ended up way too big, so I had to take it in a bit—it looks pretty crappy on the back side, but fortunately no one can see that since it’s sewn onto the jacket. It’s also not very straight. Oops.

One new thing I learned how to do when working on the pocket was making a button hole. It’s definitely an awesomely useful stitch, however it about drove me mad trying to get the damn thing lined up straight. After a couple of practice runs, I finally attempted it on the pocket flap, only to have it end up crooked. Unfortunately it’s near impossible to pull up the thread with the seam ripper, so I ended up having to make a brand new flap. Which, in the long run, wasn’t too bad of a deal considering how crooked the first one was.

The finish result, sewn onto the jacket:

It’s not the prettiest thing ever, but it’s a pocket. I don’t want to waste any more time on it. Though, I may have to remove it and move it over on the jacket, which I really do not want to do. We’ll see how it turns out once more of the jacket is done… which should be soon! All I have left to do is add button holes (gulp), sew up the bottom, and make and sew on the sleeves. Oh, and then figure out how to sew on the ‘suede’ shoulder patches.

I’ve been meaning to write up a post every few days detailing my sewing adventures, but due to lack of time I’ve had to stop in the middle of working on things quite often and haven’t had much to show off.

As of this moment I have taken in my BDU pants, added the wide belt loops, taken in Chris’s light grey tank, sewn the jacket ‘vest’ and lining of Chris’s duty blues jacket, and put together the chest pocket for the jacket. So far, the pocket has been the biggest pain in the ass.

The first thing I worked on was Chris’s grey undertank. Let me tell you, finding a plain light grey (not HEATHER) sleeveless shirt with no logos on it is nearly impossible. I was considering trying to make it myself, because it really shouldn’t be that hard, but I couldn’t fabric for it, either! After much searching online, I finally found a tank (Roundtree & Yorke Jersey Muscle Tee) and fortunately it was in stock at Dilliard’s. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting discontinued, so their supply was limited. I had to get a medium, when I needed a small, so my first real sewing job was to take it in. It’s not perfect, but I don’t think anyone will notice.

I found my BDU pants (brand: Tru-Spec) at an army store in Nashville. I had to get a medium short (the waist of the small size was extremely tight on me), and it was super baggy, so I had to take the pants in as well. I might take them in a bit more if I have time, as they’re still a little baggy. I think they are a little too dark, but oh well. If I ever decide to do the jacket as well, I’ll probably have to redo the pants as I’ll mostly likely have to buy them with the jacket in a set.

For the belt loops, I found a pair of pants at Goodwill the same color as the BDUs and sacrificed them for the fabric. After sewing them on, I realized they are not the same exact color, but hopefully this won’t be too noticeable in most lighting.

It’s pretty noticeable with the flash on… ack. :(

They’re also not sewn evenly on the pants, but that’s more the pants’ fault than mine. Whatever.

I was going to continue writing about the other things I’ve worked on, but this post is already much too long! I’ll save the rest for another post, maybe tomorrow or Friday.

Every time I’ve ever used a sewing machine, I’ve hated it. Although in my mind being able to sew sounded very nice, my fear of the sewing machine kept me from pursuing the hobby.

After buying tickets for Dragon*Con and deciding to make costumes, I resolved to learn how to sew so that I could make some well-made costumes. I signed up for Sewing 101 at JoAnn and brought along my crappy little portable machine. Although the class was informative and helped to lessen my fear of sewing machines, I still wasn’t too terribly keen about using one. The machine I had, which couldn’t have cost more than $30, had no fancy features, only two stitches, and sounded like a lawnmower (much to my chagrin during the class—the whole store could probably hear it!).

I asked for a sewing machine for my birthday, because I knew I’d never be serious about it or be able to really do anything too fancy with the piece of shit I had. Chris ended up buying me a Brother CS-6000i, which has 60 stitch patterns, speed control (!), and some other nice fancy features.

I finally took it out of the box last week and tried a couple of practice runs. Very nice, but I spent about 10 minutes using it, so I didn’t really get a feel for it.

On Monday I pulled it back out of the box and sat down to get some real work down. Much to my surprise, I totally love it.

I’ve come to realize that if you have a good machine, then sewing can be fantastic. The three machines I’ve used in the past were all horrible. The portable one is just not sophisticated enough to do any serious sewing, and the two others were old and clunky, not to mention missing all the extra parts and instructions. The lack of speed control was probably the worst part, so I absolutely love the speed control on my new machine.

I thought I’d get frustrated with sewing, but I actually felt very relaxed for the five hours or so I used the machine on Monday. It’s a bit of a challenge, figuring out how to put the pieces together and planning out what I need to do, but it’s a challenge I really enjoy.

I do feel pressured to get these costumes done, since I’ve got less than two months and am still learning how to sew, but I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about it now.

I’m also pretty excited about the prospect of Chris moving his stuff into the guest bedroom and me getting this room all to myself. A crafting room/office all to myself! I definitely need my own space, and can’t wait to get things moved.

Here’s the first step toward making this room mine—the (finally) completed door desk!

This room is a total mess right now, and I hate how bare the walls are, but hopefully that will be rectified soon!