I cut out the poly-chiffon plaid (on the right in the picture above) last week before my wrist surgery, which was a good call, as it was tricky enough with the full use of both hands.I think the choice of a plaid for my first chiffon project, and a chiffon for my first plaid project was somewhat a mistake! Nevermind, if it doesn't work out it wasn't expensive so it's not the end of the world. However, due to these difficulties, I decided that matching the plaid properly was too difficult, so I've only attempted to match the horizontal lines of the plaid. Hopefully it'll still look ok.
After the poly-chiffon, the poly-satin (on the left in the picture above) was a piece of cake. For cutting both types of fabric I pinned the pattern to the fabric, cut about 1-2cm around the edge, and then cut it carefully with my rotary cutter.
Today's post by Tasia for the sewalong involved stay-stitching, sewing the first seam and seam finishes. So to start with, on some scraps of fabric I worked out my sewing machine settings. I also changed machine needle to a size 70, sharp microtex needle.
The poly-satin was easy - the machine stitched beautifully, and a small zig-zag (length 2.5, width 3) finished the edges nicely in a way that wasn't visible from the outside.
Having successfully decided on seam finishes I did do the first few sewing steps:
I've stay-stitched the neckline, and sewn the front and back pieces together at the shoulders. I then went onto fold and press the draped sleeve, but haven't basted it yet as i'm eagerly awaiting any snippets of wisdom from Tasia on that score.
Next my second version of the blouse... the plaid poly-chiffon one.
The poly-chiffon was a little trickier. Shown above is a normal seam with a zig-zag along the edge. This would adequately finish the seam to stop it from fraying but as it has an uneven edge it was obvious from the right side and wouldn't look very good in a finished garment.
Next I tried a french seam (above). This solved the issue with it looking messy, it looks lovely from both sides (incase it's hard to see, the top image is the outside, the bottom the inside). However, it's a technique i've never done before and will need a bit of practice to get the seam allowance the right size etc. I'm also not sure how to do a french seam on curved seams? Is it even possible? Does anyone know anything about this?
The second issue that you can see in the above photo is my failure to match the stripes. So, I had another go:
This one is better, but still not perfect. It was very difficult without the full use of both of my hands, and as such I have decided that I will not work on this version of the blouse until I can use both hands properly again.
I can't wait for the next post tomorrow!
Aren't French seams great?!? I fell in love with them last year. I've found that you can do them on slight curves or if your fabric has a little give to it. But works best on straight seams.
ReplyDeleteLove your fabric choices!