Ultimate Reform

Last year I made a vest with thick yarn I hand spun specifically for the project.

Unfortunately the vest was very hard ... it was more like armor than clothes...
I assume that I gave too many twist to the yarn as I spun and the yarn became too stiff.

I couldn't wear the armor but couldn't throw it away either so I decided to perform a major reform.


I unraveled the armor to make yarn. The yarn was curly so it was straightened with steam.
Then I wove this yarn into fabric. Plain double weave.

After weaving I washed, dried and pressed.

I measured and it ended up approximately 1 yard by 2 yards.
It was smaller than I expected but still destined to become a jacket.

The fabric was woven loosely comparing with the commercially available wool fabric therefore I sewed the fabric onto the lining so that it wouldn't stretch.

I heard that this way of garment construction, quilting the fabric to the lining, was used by Chanel. I don't know if it was true but it was fun to explore different kind of sewing.

If you are interested in, you can find detail of this construction in Thread magazine back issues or Claire Shaeffer's book.

 

This is the result.

Not bad for the salvaging armor-like vest project.

Left-over yarn blanket project part 2

Last year I made a blanket with left over yarn.
It was a mere effort to decrease the stash of yarn but I really liked the blanket.
I still have a mountain of left-over yarn, so I decided to make another one.

This time I only used white and brown color yarns.
In the warp I used yarns which I spun when I just started to learn spinning.
These yarns are bumpy and somehow charming, and can be made only by beginners.
It is a kind of sad that I can't recreate this charming yarn anymore, but I at least can cherish them every time I use the blanket if I use them in this project.

Double weave just like the last one.
This method enables to make a blanket double the width of the loom.

The thick white yarn is the charming bumpy yarn

The result is ... I think it really looks good! I like it!

...and warm! (my cat agrees, I think)

Bordeaux Bag Project

The other day JC entered a competition of Bordeaux wine.
This was an event to promote Bordeaux and Bordeaux Superieur AOC wines.

Bordeaux AOC is the regional standard appellation, and Bordeaux Superieur is an appellation which has a little higher quality than Bordeaux AOC.
Bordeaux Superieur wine is mostly red and made under stricter regulations than Bordeaux AOC such as lower yields or higher potential alcohol.

He didn’t win the competition but was among the finalists and brought back these wines as a prize for participation.

He tried these and other wines at the event and said that Bordeaux and Bordeaux Superieur wines had really great values, especially whites.
I look forward to trying these wines but for now, I was intrigued by the bag which came with the bottles.

The color and design reminded me of an image of shopping at farmers market in sunny afternoon so I decided to make a tote bag for market strolling.

My market strolling bag project:

1. Reinforce the bottom with oval shaped plastic board. 
2. Make lining with pockets. 
3. Change handles to leather.

The result is...

It's very close to the image I had for this project.
There is a room for improvement but overall I'm happy with this. 

Wine Bag reform

There are many kinds of events held in San Francisco.
At some tasting events, they give away bags.
This is one of them, from Loire Valley Wine Tasting.

I like the design so I want to use this as a main bag, not a sub bag, but it has a little novelty feel.
To use daily, I want a little more durability since I tend to carry a lot of stuff.
I need to do something to promote this bag to everyday-use main bag.

From my bag making experience, I think the bag handle is one of the critical factors of the quality of the bag, so I decided to remove the fabric handle and change it to leather.

Cut out two leather handles.
Smooth the rough edge with water and sandpaper (do not make water stain!), and polish both front and back of the handles.

Use rivets to attach the handles to the bag.
This hand press is, by the way, one of the best investments I made in my craft life.

I also planned to add a lining for durability and convenience.
Make a pocket and fix magnet to the lining.

Make it into bag shape.
Attach the lining to the bag, baste and machine sew.

Finished!

It's cute, cuter than I expected! 

It possesses some cool, French-feel (I believe!).

Thank you Loire Valley Wines!

Christmas sewing

This time of the year I somehow feel the creative impulse.
What works for me is that it's Christmas time!
I made men's shirts x 2 as Christmas gift.

Fabric I chose is NANIIRO, double gauze from Japan.
Double gauze is hard to work with because it's soft and frays easily. However, NANIIRO's double gauze is relatively easy to sew so I use this fabric for garment making often.

I use books or magazine as a weight to fix a pattern on fabric as I cut them. It is heavy and wide enough to keep the pattern in place.

The pattern is from a book "Otoko no Shirts no Hon (Men's Shirts Book)" by Ryuichiro Shimazaki.
I made maybe more than twenty shirts from this book and always get praised. I highly recommend this book!

Spinning thick yarn

It had been hot in October. It was still warm in November but recently it started to feel cool, so it's time to spin.

I cleaned a storage, a.k.a. my room, and found fibers of white wool and grayish brown mohair. I carded them together and started to spin.

I was trying to spin thick yarn but it was difficult. Every time I aimed at thicker yarn, it became bumpy.
It's interesting that when I was a beginner, I couldn't spin thin yarn. Now I get used to spinning, I can't make thick yarn. This seems to be happening to many people.

I somehow managed to finish spinning bumpy yarn, so washed in hot water and dried them.

It's about 500 yards of yarn. Hopefully it's enough to make a vest... 

Liberty shirt

I probably have a poor man's mentality.
At meal time, I save my favorite dish aside until the last and when I buy something, I hesitate to use it immediately.

This fabric is Liberty I bought years ago.
I planned to make my cloth, but it's so beautiful that I couldn't bring myself to put scissors to this fabric. I don't know if it was because I was afraid that I might have destroyed it, or I wasn't sure the best way to use this fabric. Anyway, that's who I am.

However, I also understand that leaving this beautiful fabric on the shelf is a total waste, so I finally decided to make a shirt for myself.
The patters is from Japanese sewing magazine "Style Book."

The design is too flashy...?
Well, I'll wear a jacket on it so it should be fine.

Many of colorful cotton fabrics at fabric stores are not suitable for garment construction unless otherwise it is meant to be for cloth making.
Those fabrics are usually too stiff and don't create nice line as a garment.
I didn't know this when I started sewing and I learned costly lesson after a pile of failure.

Unlike them, Liberty has variety of designs and their soft textile makes beautiful cloth.
It is indeed expensive but in my opinion, it pays off.




Liberty is so beautiful that even the leftover can't be thrown away.

I made pocket chiefs with it.

Leftover yarn blanket

All knitters in this world share a common problem: leftover yarn.

These yarns are usually too short to make something and too long to just discard.
One solution is to make multiple crochet motifs and join them together to make a blanket. Unfortunately, I somehow don't like the process of joining motifs.
In that case, I of course weave to make a blanket. 

Simple twill, double weave.
Different yarns with different shrinkage made the surface wavy...
There is no color scheme. I just threw any yarn on my hand, but I kind of like the colorway.

Summer Dress

Summer sewing.
I made a summer dress using a pattern of not summer dress.

Tina

The original pattern is Tina from Annee-Patterns.
The design is simple but I like the silhouette.

To make this dress to summer version, I took off the collar and sleeves.
The pattern came with the alternative round neck design, so I used it.
For the sleeves, I simply eliminated them and finished the sleeve line with facing.

To make long sleeves to sleeveless, you have to change the sleeve line on the pattern, but I found several people on the net who made this dress sleeveless without changing the pattern, so I followed them.

The result was success!

The dark color of the fabric emphasizes the cute design, in my opinion.

Chopping off a Bag

This is a bag I made a couple years ago when I went to a Craft Fair. I planned to do a lot of shopping so made a big bag for that.

It didn't take long to realize that if I filled such a big bag, it would become too heavy to carry.
Besides, the height was too long and I couldn't reach the bottom of the bag. It was inconvenient.
I never used this bag since.

Then I thought "why wouldn't I chop off the bottom of the bag to make it smaller!?"

I wasn't using it anyway so I didn't need to be afraid of failure.

I reused the bottom part of the bag with plastic board attached.
Cut it into the size so that it would fit to the body.

Turn the body of the bag inside out and sew that bottom to the body.
It wasn't easy to sew with the plastic board. This is the hard part about recycle sewing.

Attach the bottom to the lining in a same way.
Wrap the seam allowance with bias tape.

Now I can reach the bottom of the bag.

Still big enough for shopping, but small enough for the daily use.

Pairing of cushion and slippers

Summer here is relatively cool, but the sunlight is intense.
The color of the cushion by the window fades quickly, so I made a new cushion cover.

The old cover was made with a simple interior fabric. For new cover, I used two brighter color fabrics: one is striped and the other one is Japanese-style flower design.

The thinner cotton fabric feels good in summer.
I hope it won't get wrinkled too much.

The old cushion cover had faded color but was still in good condition, so I made slippers with it.

The pattern is from a book "Jibun de tsukuru room shoes"
I used the leftover flower design fabric for the instep and the thicker old cushion cover fabric for the rest.
Now the cushion and I have matching design. How romantic.

Card Case making

I live near bus stop so I use bus often but it was pain in the ass to have exact change every time I took bus (it doesn't give me change). Therefore, when Bart Clipper card (prepaid card for public transportation) was introduced, it was like a heavenly gift.
I had this card in my wallet, then worried that I could have dropped other cards while I took in and out the Clipper card, so decided to make a case for this card.

Design is simple: rectangle and two pockets on both sides.

Put stitches around the window for reinforcement.
Crease at the fold lines.

Attach pockets on the body with glue.

Stitch around the pockets and treat the edge with Edge Kote to give smooth edges.

Done!

It's very simple, but the leather gives some thickness and heaviness so that the case wouldn't get lost in the bag.

I'm more like an indoor person, but with this card in my hand, I became more active.
This is not an overstatement.

Weaving stash

It's fun to buy new material to make something: many hobby craft people admit that choosing materials at stores is more exciting than actually making something.
It's also fun, however, more challenging way, to come up with the idea to use the left over materials, which many craft people also admit accumulating in shelves.

I found pale and dark green color linen yarn which were too long to discard but too short to make something by themselves, and decided to make a small floor mat.

The pattern I used was #518 from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns.
Warp is green, weft is beige

It was a little looser than I wanted, so I washed vigorously hoping that it would shrink and become tight, but no avail.

I made this for summer and the loose linen fabric has summer feel, right...?

Men's Tailoring (or something like that)

Finally! I finished making JC's suits!























I started to make the jacket last spring.
This was my first time to try men's tailoring and I had only one book to rely on.
The progress was snail's pace but somehow completed the body and I was to attach the sleeves, then found that the basting threads at the shoulder line was lost...

I lost momentum and ditched the sleeveless jacket.
Then last month, I found the jacket during the cleaning (we do major house cleaning at the end of the year in Japan) and decided to finish.
Once I completed the jacket, I regained the momentum and finished making the trousers too.

The pattern is based on Vogue 2836 and I fixed it so that it would fit to JC's body and work with the book I had.
The book I used was Men's Wear from Bunka Fashion College.
I read all the men's tailoring books that I could get my hands on for this project, and found this book the most thorough and practical.

It wasn't easy and I'm not satisfied with the quality, but I'm really glad that I didn't give up.
Do I want to try again? I don't know...

Recycling a Curtain

When I changed to the new curtains this year, I was left with a lot of leftover curtain fabric.
That material wasn't suitable for the garment making, so I decide to make another bag.
I already had a lot of daily use bags, so this time I made a big duffle bag.
The theme was "recycle".

I wanted the bag to be soft and light, so the lining was sewn onto the curtain fabric without the interfacing.
Pocket was another recycle: Paella rice bag.

Sew the zipper to the body, and attach the side to the body.
Wrap the seam allowance with bias tape, and flip over to finish.

Recycled daffle bag.
I used a free hand to draw the pattern (the curved line was drawn with a pot cover) and the outcome was a little bigger than I expected.
I'm happy with this, but if I fill this big bag fully, it might become too heavy to carry...