Finally! A Sweater Pants Tutorial

It's happening.  I'm bringing my sweater pants sewing technique to the masses.  (Okay, maybe not "masses", but like, 4 people.  Still.)

You'd be excited by these, wouldn't you?:

Before we start, here are the Four Horses of the Sweaterpants Apocolypse:

1.  Pin, pin, pin.  It it isn't pinning right, it isn't going to sew right.

2.  It's sweater you're sewing, so go slowwww.  If you've got a ballpoint needle, you should use it.

3.  Use a long stitch so your waist will have give.  By long, I don't mean basting stitch of course, but like, longer than average.

4.  Do not fear.  Sweater pants can smell fear.  If they smell your fear, you will make a Thneed.


(Also: for your entertainment, I will occasionally use my expansive knowledge of rap, hip-hop and lite rock lyrics to guide you along through this journey.  You are welcome.)

Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin.-- House of Pain

I like big butts(eams) and I cannot lie-- Sir-Mix-A-Lot

Tuuurn arouunnd...-- Bonnie Tyler

Cut bitch, camera off, real shit blastin'-- Eve

I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it-- Missy Elliott

Baby what a big surprise.  Right before my very eyes-- Chicago

Pin that crotch seam one mooore time.  Once is never enough-- Captain and Tenille

Knowin'...that you LIED, straight-faced, while I cried-- Rod Stewart

Smack it up, flip it, rub it down- Oh nooooo-- Bel Biv Devoe

I got nothing here, folks, but a sudden revelation: what does it mean that our American songbook is so anemic when it comes to turtlenecks.  SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.

Back, front back, fr-front back, ft-front back, side-to-side-- T.I.

I got it mastered man, in the hood I'm like plastic, man.  Stretch. -- 50 Cent

Did you ever know that you're my heeeeero?-- Bette Midler

Bring it, cute face.

It's Happening Again. Terrible Hats 2.0

Aww, poor little guy thought I was over that embarrassing thing where I work on winter hats an make the children try them on when they're in the pattern fitting stage.

He looks at old pictures like this one of Phinny and laughs, thinking ha ha, you really got the worst of mom's bad sewing didn't...WAIT!  WHAT?!:

Sucka.

Who's laughing now?

Your sister, that's who.

She comforts you, gently whispering, "It's okay little buddy, she won't make you wear this out in public- it's just a rough draft.  Just a rough draft, little buddy.  There there."

This hat is yet another expression of my inability to believe in the limitations of old sweatshirts paired with double-sided fleecy whatever that stuff is called.  I will update you on further humilations iterations of this hat.

Isn't it just terrible what I do to my children.  Terrible.  But when you force a fifth grade tomboy to wear a handmade approximation of Annie's orphan dress and participate in a "Little Orphan Annie Personality-Alike" contest and she wins a Jackson Browne LP and a coupon for unlimited Mr. Turkey hotdogs, this is the result.  It seeps down through generations.  

No one will ever be safe from Mr. Turkey.

A Quiet Japanese Couple

Perhaps by now you're craving a palette cleanser for all the emotional posting that's been going on around here- an antidote to my cathartic oversharing.

And so I give you "The Quiet Japanese Couple", a textile series I've been working on in the studio.  (SEE, there is still the sewing!  And you thought it was going to be all that touchy-feely stuff all the time.)

They are chambray fabric backed by some kind of freaky starched poplin I had in the studio and then thin batting in between.  Follow by sewing for ten thousand hours each and here you go.  They're really just placemats, and I planned to make a set of six, but they are so lovely as a pair, I am torn!  (As I usually do you the courtesy, I will note here that I refrained from more than one joke about "looming decisions", etc.)

I want to offer you the chance to admit that you too *swoon* when faced with chambray selvedge.  When marrying the selvedge of nice chambray becomes legal in the eyes of the federal government, I will be there.  Marrying the selvedge of nice chambray.

The Quiet Japanese Couple is a set of two panels that are inspired by Japanese boro textiles, which I just cannot get enough of.  You feel the same way, no doubt.  I mean, look at these muvs!:

yukaipa.tumblr.com

ddutch.tumblr.com

pilgrimandpie.blogspot.com

National Treasure of Sewing Know-How, Right Up in Here

Is it too pretentious to have two artist references on my blogue two days in a row?  But I get a pass, right, since I didn't post for so long, and because they aren't super pretentious artists, right?

Here's a picture of Phinny after she made herself into a Jessica Stockholder sculpture:

This is what she does when she hangs out while I'm sewing.

That was just for fun.  Now the serious sewing stuff.

All the time all the time I am thinking I should just kick this whole re-purposed fabric thing and make it easy on myself.  Then I can't find any fabric I like, so I'm back to finding the kind of well worn, durable finishes I get from old fabric, and its Groundhog Day.  (Plus there's a whole "Save the Earth" element going on there.)

Here's a recent scarf from striped sweatshirt and a tomato red t-shirt.  I simply sewed a bunch of diagonal pieces of the sweatshirt together and sewed them flat onto the red, leaving the seams undid. Everyone liked it though, so we've designated it a Family Scarf.

And I made this other one out of t-shirts.  

The scarf is not a winner, but in making it, I realized I am the winner of "World's Most Dumb Sewist Award".  Why, you ask?  Oh just this super obvious little thing about it took me like four years to realize that seams with a topstitch will fold over when you sew them against grain.  Oh, so that is why it has happened to every damn knit thing I've topstitched a seam on for the last four years.  

Yeah, I'm a real expert after working almost exclusively with knit fabric for this long.  A reeeeaaal National Treasure of Knowledge right here, my friends.

YES!! No.

You want to see something kinky?

That, my friends, is a binding attachment for an industrial sewing machine.  You see there a very handy diagramatic illustration of what it does.

Yes, you remember all the hours you've whiled away making bias tape, ironing the bias tape, lining up and pinning the bias tape then sewing on this bias tape binding to something, only to find out that it's not lined up between the top and bottom?  Hours you no doubt could have used catching up on Real Housewives of Atlanta trying to decide if you love NeNe Leakes or hate NeNe Leakes.  I'm sorry, but those hours are gone.  But waste no more!

Or so I thought.

I bought a version of this attachment to bind the edge of the shearling/ sweatshirt baby quilts, and in my test samples, I finally got it to work perfectly, as proven in Exhibit A:

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you- that is perfect.  Bias tape made from t-shirt (a continuous length for the whole binding cut strategically from a single t-shirt), and a layer of sweatshirt and shearling.  You feed them in together and the attachment folds, encases and stitches it top and bottom.  That is a truth and not a lie.

So I finally put a finished quilt up for slaughter, all scared and holding my breath as I tried to feed it through my machine.

Demons.  After having to call my nanny out to the studio to hold the tape as it fed, while I held 'fore and aft' and surgically manipulated the tape with tweezers every time it jammed, we got all the way around.  Triumphantly, I said "We made it!  Yes! This looks pretty j'awesome!"

Then we looked closely and realized it is all gobbled and ripped and ruined.

But now it's ours which is a sort of nice downside to ruining a for-sale item.  "Seconds", they're called.  So back to the drawing board.

I emotionally recalibrated from my high then low extremes by making a good old-fashioned piece of do-nothing art.  (And taking half of a Diazapam.  But that's really more for the kids.)

Chevron Quilt and The Potty Zombies

I know it's been a long time since I loved up on my blog, but I have been getting chased by The Potty Zombies in an especially vicious manner lately.  The Potty Zombies are Annika and Griffin and they are like zombies in many ways right now, which, since they kept me awake last night (SEE!  Zombies.)  while Julie was out of town, I am going to go right on ahead and detail the similarities for you.

1.  Like zombies, they teeter menacingly in your direction with arms poker straight in the air.
2.  While doing so, they drool, usually across previous patches of dried up face plaque of unknown origin.
3.  If you try to run, they come faster.  Their talent for somehow matching increasing speed defies physics.
Four. (You remember the spilled coffee on my computer's 'four' button right?):  They bite.
5.  If you try to go to the bathroom alone- if ANYONE tries to go to the bathroom alone, they will be immediately set upon by two teetering, high speed, drooling creatures who, if you are lucky to get the door closed, will bang on the door until it falls to the floor in a pile of splinters.

Still, they're very cute, which ameliorates some of the terror.

Here's what I made, while running from The Potty Zombies:

 

It's part two of a series of six.

For scale:

 

The Real Workroom Reveal + New Quilt Panel

Since I promised I would post a photo of the new studio with all my junk strewn, I must do it.  I'm sure you can guess how it pains me to have defiled such a chapel.

Heal thyself.

I finished this sweatshirt fabric stroller blanket top this morning.  I am working on a series, officially now, so I am going post them as they come.  It may take some time, since sweatshirts are out of season and all my fabric sources have dried up for the time being.  I was smart this summer and bought a load of t-shirts to work with for the winter.  I will be smart this winter and buy a load of sweatshirts to work with off season.  I'm headed for bulk buying soon.  500 lbs. of sweatshirts in my studio?  Sign me up.

Meaningless but pretty color composition shot:

 

Now, you've been wondering about that fraying in the seams on the sweatshirt quilts I made for the babies.  I've gotten many e-mails about it.  Not really, but writing that made me laugh out loud and I take my kicks where I can get them.  But, if you were wondering, I am trying out a seam reinforcement to try and prevent this problem.  This is called Stay-Tape (creative play on words, isn't it?)  I'm hoping it will solve the problem, but I will resent the added 3 bones per blanket it will cost me to put it in.  

So last, but not least, for all you lovers out there...Super Sexy Stitch Time:

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The Baby Hobo Mothership!

Phew.  It is done.  Behold the Baby Hobo International Headquarters!:

300 sq. ft. of pure disorder, coming right up.  I sort of failed to budget for storage solutions, so after this photograph was taken and I proceeded to move in all my other equipment and fabric, it became not pretty, rill fast.  But that is how it goes.  I will iron it all out over time, then post an honest picture of the place as it actually operates as a workroom.

I need to build a bigass cutting table, and procure just a couple of shelves/ carts, then I'll be good. I will report back from the floor shortly.  I am currently just trying to bust through a couple of orders and reel in the dough, you know.  So I can buy me a Mercedes Benz.

Sometimes All You Can Do Is Sew a Hamburger

I can't make anything right now.  Too chaotic with the big sewing machine in the playroom.  My studio interior is being started this weekend.  Phew.

All I made last week was this hamburger for Phinny, per her request.  But it is a delicious hamburger.

Wanted: Shoemaker's Elves

OH I ALMOST JUST WROTE "I COBBLED TOGETHER THESE TEN PAIR OF BABY SHOES".  Then I stopped myself.

But I did make these, and by golly they are going fast, y'alls.  It seems that The People want some soft baby shoes that stay on and promote sartorial self-respect at the same time.  I've told you before not to underestimate a baby's desire to dress well.  And look at this way: the better dressed your baby is the more people will want to hold him or her and the more times you can claim you "just have to run to the bathroom" while you hide in the loo and shoot a few rounds of "Words With Friends" on the sly.  Good plan, no?

Now, I need to talk sewing.  Thems be buggers.  I am having a nice time sorting out the technical issues of baby shoes, and there are many, so it may take a while.  Call these the Beta Shuz.

These fit a 6-12 month foot, per the guideline set by those most ubiquitous of baby shoes, the Robeez.  I realize of course that these are not styled so different from Robeez actually, but to me that like saying, "Hey, your t-shirt is shaped suspiciously like those other t-shirts!", as there's only so many ways to wrap a baby foot in fabric.  The difference we have here is in my patented Not So Damn Ugly® feature. Also, these stay one like crazy well.  But the elastic doesn't strangle the baby ankle either.  So take that.






So, it took me a loong time to make all these, because I have like 8,000 kids.  What I need is an intern!  Now that my studio is in the works, I'll have a respectable place to house an intern, and hopefully get this party started some.  For now, these are mostly sold before I posted them, but there will be a few available at Green Genes in Chicago, and a couple on Supermarket soon too.

Next up: the 0-6 month size.  I have to figure out exactly what is smaller about a younger baby foot and what is not.