A to the Z

I am currently visiting Phoenix for a business trip! Cool, huh? I've never been to this side of the country before and it's very different from New England! I have to admit, I'm not really looking forward to going to work tomorrow because Phoenix has vacation-vibe all over it (sunny, hot, and all those palm trees.)

This  morning was very nice, I enjoyed my morning coffee on the patio by the pool.

There is a major lack of green here. It's very unsettling when you're used to seeing green lawns everywhere. But I did find a pretty bush at the house of a coworker's friend:

On the way back you could see the storm in the distance right over Phoenix! (Also... train. Was stuck on a left turn forever because it was so long!)

When I got back to the hotel, it was a full-on blown storm. Rain, thunder and lightning. The lightning was beautiful! I didn't think it rained much here, so maybe I'm lucky to have witnessed it??

And finally, super-classy dinner for one. LOL.

Also, where are all the Nintendo DS's at??  There is a serious lack of StreetPass in Phoenix.

Invisible zipper with french seam tutorial

I made pretty good progress this weekend on Daphne. On Friday, I was able to cut and mark all the pattern pieces. Saturday, I assembled the front and back, including all the darts and the invisible zipper. I also decided to give french seams a go. However, I ran into a dilemma: after I put in the zipper how the heck was I supposed to make the remaining part into a  french seam?

I tried finding tutorials online, but I couldn't find any. I found several places that had written instructions on how to do it, but they were just really confusing (especially to beginners, such as myself.) This thread on Pattern Review was the most descriptive I could find, so I basically used that and took pictures as I went to post here for a brief tutorial.

First you sew in your zipper. I used this video tutorial on how to insert an invisible zipper without a zipper foot. Worked fine and the zipper looks great, even better than on my muslin!

Once you've sewn in both sides, sew down about an inch or so below the bottom of the zipper (I basically followed the video tutorial except I didn't stitch the rest of the seam down, only about an inch below.) Also back stitch these seams.

Then I snipped the seam allowances right about where I finished stitching on both sides. I stuck my seam ripper in the snip, so you could see it a little more clearly. (Also, if you made those triangle notches to match up your fabric, make sure you snip them off after you've pinned the seam, otherwise they poke through on the right side. Ask me how I know, haha.)

Now you can fold WRONG sides together and stitch up to your snips for the first step of a french seam.

After, turn RIGHT sides together, press again, and stitch the second step for a french seam.

All done! I still need to tack down the bottom of the zipper to the seam allowance. Hopefully this is helpful to the people who are more visual learners. Enjoy!

All The Cosplay!

I wanted to chronicle the making of my second cosplay piece and my very first sewn garment (gasp!). I also figured this would be a good use of my blog.

I present Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo!

While I don't feel a super-close connection with this character (one, I was only an occasional viewer of the cartoon and two, when I did, I related much more to Velma), my friend does a really nice version of Velma and who doesn't love group cosplay?! Plus, as far as putting this together, it seems a lot more low-key than a lot of other things I want to do.

Perhaps by documenting my successes (hopefully), I can encourage other newbie cosplayers and beginner seamstresses to hit the ground running!

I bought a great vintage pattern (1969) from Cedar Closet's Etsy shop, McCall's 2087. Nothing says vintage like a package that lists a price of 75 cents, heh. It's actually a really cute dress (and I'm not one for dresses, but I do like A-line styles.)

I already mocked up a muslin per the Sewing Powers That Be (that took me a month or two, but I don't really have a deadline for this) and it was worth it! I discovered that the pattern as-is made it look like I was wearing a sack. Not fitted at all as shown on the package. I wasn't really sure what to do, take in the seams? Alter the darts? Redraw the design? All of the above???

Well as it turns out, it was just a matter of adjusting the darts!! I added a half inch all around the existing darts on the front piece only (back fit was fine) and the end result looked Much Better. Sassy, even. No adjustments to the seams or redrawing of the whole pattern. Darts are amazing!

The sleeves are a little bit of a different story. Set-in sleeves are a PAIN. I've done set-in sleeves in my sweater knitting, so I knew the basic principles, but for some reason yarn eases so much easier (heh) than fabric does. I even ripped out and tried again, and did both sleeves for my muslin, and I still get strange little tucks at the shoulders. The sleeves are also not very fitted, but they look decent, and honestly, if I try to get perfection, I will never actually get this done. So decent is fine with me.

The pattern also calls for a collar. For the life of me, I cannot figure out the instructions for the collar. Many hours of internet searches and watching You Tube videos and I still can't figure it out. But you know what? Daphne wears a green scarf so no one is going to see the collar anyway. I decided to make my own facings for the neckline instead. Plenty of good tutorials on the Interwebz for that. Take that, Collar. Now you don't get to be on the dress :P That's what you get for being difficult.

Oh, and this is also the first time I'm trying an invisible zipper. I've only done a regular zipper once (and it came out really nicely!) I found this great video tutorial for using your regular zipper foot instead of buying a specialized invisible zipper foot. The zipper came out pretty well on the muslin, you could only see a little bit of the tape and when it actually matches the fabric, it'll be fine.

Finally went and got my fabric today! Washed and iron and ready to go for tomorrow for cutting!

Wish me luck and minimal tears for this project ;)

Superchromat!!

So I've been re-reading The Black Prism by Brent Weeks (of which I will be reading The Blinding Knife next), and so when I came across a friend's facebook post with a quiz, How Well Do You See Color, I was like, "Oh snap! This totally fits in with the Lightbringer universe!" Within the story, magicians called Drafters can harness light and color to produce a material called luxin, and depending on which part of the visible spectrum they can draft dictates the type of luxin. A smaller amount of these Drafters are superchromats, which can view the subtle differences within their color.  Upon completing the test I got this:

W00t, w00t! Superchromat up in here!! Now if I only I could draft yellow luxin....

If anyone hasn't read Brent Weeks yet, you totally should! His Night Angel trilogy is a fantastic read as well!

Happy reading!

It's official...

I am a knitting ninja.

Thank you, that is all.

Blog Disclaimer

This blog is not intended to belittle, insult, or disparage individuals affected or diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. All posts should be taken with a grain of salt, and perhaps a bit of tequila and sour mix too.