Getting new samples ready for It’s Sew Easy TV season 6 taping, I am finishing designing new dresses and experimenting with embellishing with embroidery. I have had this purple raw silk for years and really like the color, but it’s SO bright by itself! I will probably color block with black for one of the designs, but for this one I wanted to try adding a touch of embellishment. This is the start (obviously I have not pressed out the embroidery hoop marking) …
I found this flower in the Brother Quattro sewing machine. The flower was originally a medium size, so I tried to make it as large as possible for one of the flowers and as small as possible for the other. This was so easy to do! Using the touch screen I was able to enlarge the flower and move the design to the top left of the screen, which will embroider in the top left part of the hoop.
You can see below how the first larger flower is embroidering on the top left side of the hoop.
First flower looks great!
For the second flower – I turned the shape upside down, made the flower as small and narrow as possible, and moved the shape to the bottom right side of the hoop.
Looks pretty good!!!!! I used a silver metallic thread, although you can’t see that very well from the photo’s – clean and simple.
As far as designing, I cut the bottom of the dress to allow for a straight skirt or adding darts or pleats to the waistband. I am definitely adding the darts 🙂 I will post photos when the dress is finished.
Congratulations Wilma Coats the winner of my Creative Serging Class on Craftsy! Again, here is a coupon if you would like to join us in a fun, creative online class.
Ruching with Elastic Thread on a Serger / Coverstitch Machine
Loose flowing tops are right on trend right now, here is a quick way to add a little flair and fit with one of my favorite serging techniques; ruching with elastic thread. Add the ruching to the sleeve edge, hem or neckline. This is so cute and really easy! This ruching can be done on a sewing machine by winding the elastic thread in the bobbin, threading the machine with any silk, cotton, or polyester thread, and stitch with a narrow zigzag. What about serging with the chainstitch? The chainstitch is found on coverstitch machines or sergers with the added coverstitch function.
SET UP THE SERGER / COVERSTITCH MACHINE For this sample I am using my Brother 1034D 3 or 4 Thread Serger with Easy Lay In Threading with Differential Feed
. Thread the machine like you would for a chainstitch: use thread in the needle and elastic thread in the looper. Be patient with the elastic thread, but it will go through the machine just fine 🙂
Adjust the tension:
Loosen the needle tension (loosen by 2 notches)
Tighten the looper tension (start by tightening 1 notch)
When adjusting the tensions, my coverstitch has a standard setting at 4 – so adjust the tension on your machine accordingly. Then simply run the edge of the fabric through the serger. The photo’s below show you the front and back side of the first row of stitching.
Put the fabric back in the machine, line up the previous row of stitching with the edge of the presser foot and stitch.
That it! I usually ruch 2 – 6 rows depending on the design. Another idea is to ruch the waist on a skirt – the elastic ruching makes a great waistband and then you wear the waist high or low. I will dig up a photo of my silk bathing suit cover up that is sewn like this.
FREE SERGING CLASS GIVEAWAY!
Speaking of using a coverstitch and overlock machine – I have a class on Craftsy called Creative Serging – Beyond the basics. I am giving away a FREE CLASS to one lucky reader. All you have to do is leave a comment below telling me why you would like to take the free class. Click over and “‘like” my facebook page and you will get 2 entries. If you leave a comment on the facebook page you get an extra entry as well (that’s 3 entries total :)). One name will be drawn randomly on August 1st. I know many of you are already in my class as we are just under 5,000 students, awesome! For those of you that are already enjoying the class, leave a comment as to what you like most about the class and I will include you in the next giveaway (trust me, it will be good :))
A well-made jacket can show off an outfit to its best. Join me on PatternReview for the fundamentals and fine points of creating a contemporary couture jacket (hint: my version of the traditional Chanel jacket).
You’ll love the comfort and style of this jacket… it feels more like a sweater! It’s the perfect topper for jeans or more formal dress. This couture jacket is a must-have for the modern lifestyle!
The class offers 12 videos with 2 hours and 45 minutes of HD video. There is also a 164 page PDF file with photos and close up details of every step.
Selecting fabric and lining.
Creating a 3-piece sleeve, laying out the pattern, and cutting the fashion fabric.
Attaching fusible interfacing, finishing the edges, and cutting the lining.
Using a couture technique to quilt the lining.
Sewing a jacket with a plaid.
Preparing and hand-stitching the lining.
Sewing the sleeve vent and attaching sleeves.
Covering shoulder pads.
Trim ideas, including a tutorial on how to crochet your own trim!
Closure options including custom covered buttons.
Pockets with a couture touch.
And last but not least, adding the prestigious weighted chain.
Thinking you don’t have time for a few hours of hand-stitching a couture jacket? Why not bring the jacket with you! Seriously, I hand-stitched the lining on this jacket while fishing (see the finished jacket below). The lining is hand-dyed (and not with fish blood and guts :)) Fishing and sewing might be an odd combo, but it worked. How about you, any fun sewing stories that can beat fishing? Now be nice 🙂 Cheers xoxo Angela
There is nothing more frustrating than sewing a gorgeous jacket with luxurious fabrics like faux fur, velvet, and leather (to name a few) and when it comes time to attach the lining to the facing, you end up with small puckers and an uneven feed – meaning one layer of the fabric ends up longer than the other. Well, I have great news for those of you that have the Brother PQ1500S.
You have already done the hard work sewing the jacket, why not use a few tools to make sewing the lining a breeze. The PQ1500 comes with an easy way to perfectly adjust your presser foot pressure and feed dog position, it’s color coded! Seriously, this takes all the testing and questioning out of the picture, heck you don’t even need to read the manual (which I know most of us are too busy to do :)).
First, look at the presser foot pressure indicator. You can see the color coding and the dial to adjust the presser foot height is on top of the machine. Simply turn it right and left to raise and lower, but here is the key … no more guessing where the height ends up. The colors on the indicator coordinate with the feed dog position and there is a fabric chart in the manual that you can use as a guide.
The main features I am going to show in this video involve the “pin feeding” that you will find in the feed dog position and the “fabric separator” that is used to join lining to the fabric. This is so easy you won’t believe it, so watch the video and if you want to see my previous post on how to mark and cut faux fur click here. Cheers 🙂 Angela
In my mission to come up with fun and unique fabric manipulations, I thought I would test out quilting (taking a short break from embroidery this week :)). And yes, I said QUILTING! I am not sure about you, but as a fashion designer when I hear the word “quilting” I typically cringe! It’s not that I don’t think quilts are beautiful and I sure wouldn’t want to offend all my friends that have a passion for this art (especially my mother :)) – but the fact of the matter is, the word itself makes many apparel sewer’s run the other way. The term quilting gives me an instant vision of cotton, LOTS of cotton, and bins of more cotton scraps that can be added to some project down the road. I know, I am so judgmental! I obviously overlook my bins of silk scraps that I know will fit into a pocket eventually.
But I think I should really take another look at this art, especially with fabric manipulation on the mind. Besides, who made the rule you can only quilt cotton. What about my favorite sewing technique, that is very Chanel inspired, where the silk charmeuse lining is “quilted” to the jacket fabric. Very luxurious and looks fabulous! Although we call it “Chanelism” not quilting. Go figure!
Or have you seen the quilted leather shown by Proenza Schouler – definitely on the short list for a fall must-have! Givenchy and Chanel both added some form of quilted leather to their collections. I really love the way you can use quilting to create a unique looking fabric or you can place the quilting in particular area of the garment to add a custom design element.
So, as to not risk ruining a large piece of luxurious fabric, I thought I would try a small sample. I am going to use silk charmeuse with batting and create Eye Candy (those of you that travel often will understand the name.) This only requires a little fabric and should be easy for testing the quilting method before I add quilted silk to a garment.
Start with 2 pieces of silk charmeuse and 1 piece of batting.
Pin together the layers.
Use clay chalk to mark a straight line, diagonally across the fabric.
I am going to start the first row of stitching using my laser-vision as a guide to follow my chalk line. Although, the light is a little hard to see, probably because I have the bright light turned all the way up on the machine – I swear I can get a suntan from the brightness LOL!
Then, using my foot as a guild, I am stitching row after row. I noticed that sewing at a medium speed with the MuVit foot works the best, in fact the same is true for the walking foot on my Quattro.
After quilting the entire piece of fabric, I laid my pattern on top of the quilted fabric and cut it out.
I added an elastic band to the back, pinning in place at each side.
That was very easy! In fact this was going to be a gift, but I think I might have to keep this one for myself 🙂 So you can see the technique of quilting is pretty easy and it does work on other fabrics besides cotton. I have a few more fabrics I am going to try, I will let you know how they turn out. But I can definitely see this quilted silk charmeuse used in a jacket or vest. If you any photos of fabric manipulation post them on flickr here is my link to share or add them to facebook! Inspire others by your creativity! Cheers, xoxo Angela
Brother™ has provided me with the DreamWeaver XE, but all opinions expressed are entirely my own.
You can see below how the first larger flower is embroidering on the top left side of the hoop.
First flower looks great!
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