duck bucket sewing

Right! So I've been thinking lately about making three "uniform dresses" with pockets in Alabama Chanin cotton jersey that can be worn by themselves or over t-shirts and leggings, under cardigans, etc. And then I got this new "accessory" in May (which I'll explain in a sec) and couldn't get a red dress out of my head. To match, sort of—even though I hate it—but also, I love red and for some reason have none of it in my closet. So anyway, here's the first Factory Dress! It's single-layer medium-weight cotton jersey in Carmine, in a straight size medium, with hand-stitched seams (although I machine-stitched Eloflex within the SA afterward for extra stability). I used the punch cards from The Geometry of Hand-Sewing for the Cretan stitch around the neckline and armholes, which worked out great.  Bad closeup of neckline: This was a really enjoyable make—I had fun with the combination of machine and hand-stitching. I might k...

Way back, in, oh, 2012, or so, I picked up Alabama Studio Sewing + Design, fell in love with the eye candy, and fell hard for the dress on p. 153: I kept returning to that page, and looking at it, and looking some more, and eventually I went, okay, I need to learn how to do this. And I took a deep breath and went and made my first purchase -- AC fabric in black and blue slate. Eight years later, it is done. I finished it two days ago and debuted it today at a mini-Pattern Review meetup at the Peabody Essex Museum. (Hi Deepika!) (It didn't take eight years. I started in June 2017.) This time around, I raised the neckline, shortened the shoulders, and pulled in the bust area a bit at the center seam. I like the fit much better and might go unpick the first dress to make the same changes.  (Also, you know your second dress is better than the first when your husband says, "Looks good. The first one was a bit...chaotic.") Technique not...

Yeah, I can't believe I'm saying that either! It's going to be a long post, so here we go. Design choices Size and alterations:  Straight size medium, with neckline raised a few inches and made into a scoop neck; the original v-neck is really deep Fabric and thread:   Alabama Chanin medium-weight cotton jersey  — top layer in Sand, bottom layer in Dark Grey (only Dark Grey is currently available on their site) — and red craft/button thread Stencil: Anna's Garden Paint:  Tulip fabric paint in Black, watered down and applied with an airbrush Embellishment:  Outside reverse applique -- in which you stitch slightly outside each shape and then cut out the shape exactly on the lines Stitch type:  Straight stitch for outlining and construction, Cretan stitch for binding Here's how it looks on me: Hanging up: I picked the color scheme after seeing it in a sample book at the  two-hour workshop in New York  last year. (Hig...

Finished the last panel of my Alabama Chanin fitted dress tonight. (The stitching, at least.) Harley helped by guarding the window. Closeup: I'm a little scared to cut into it, but the two back panels are already done, so LEEEEEEROY JEEEEENKINNNNNS. Save Save

My dermatologist yelled at me. "You're doing a good job of protecting your face," she said, "but you have quite a bit of sun damage around your neck and shoulders, and you have got to watch your arms and hands." Then she zapped two not-precancerous-yet-but-they-could-be-someday things on my arms. AUGH. Skin cancer freaks me out. My mother has it (as do a bunch of my other relatives — we're pasty!) I've seen what she has to go through — surgery after surgery, even chemo at one point — and I never, ever want that if I can possibly avoid it. So I buy vats of the highest SPF I can find, wear UPF t-shirts and sun hats and all that. But I draw the line at wearing long-sleeved shirts in the summertime. I've tried, but it's just really uncomfortable to go out in 90-degree heat in long sleeves — especially in polyester UPF fabric. Plus, they don't cover the backs of my hands, where age spots and other things are starting to show up. Enter: Al...

Sprayed the last dress panel to take on the trip. Things I learned this time around: 1. Blotting is still crucial. 2. One part paint to three parts water is just about the right mix, I think. 3. Wiggle Weights are the best. That is all!

The two back panels are nearly done. Here they are (not joined yet). Overall, I like the way it's coming together, although I need to do some cleaning up: Not thrilled with the close-up, and still not sure how to create clean edges, aside from fussing and cleaning and snipping a lot. Maybe this will be my practice dress. I stenciled the first front panel today with the airbrush. I'm still torn on the best possible stenciling method -- Sharpie, spraying or sponging Tulip fabric paint, etc. -- but even though the airbrush is a pain in the ass, it seems to have the best results. Some stuff I learned along the way: 1. Stencil placement is super-duper important and hard to get right. You also don't want too much of the same colors/shapes at the edges when you sew two panels together. I learned the hard way with my first Alabama Chanin skirt , when two of the leaves on the front panels butted up against each other, making one large, misshapen leaf. ...

It's done! Bit of a windy day. Obligatory looking-into-the-distance-with-hat picture: My posture is terrible, I know. This is Alabama Chanin's DIY Verd Unisex T-shirt kit  in size large which my awesome husband gifted me for Christmas. I fell in love with the design as soon as I saw it on their website, and visited that page an embarrassing number of times over several months. When my husband said, "What do you want for Christmas?"  and told me to update my Amazon wish list, I put it up, then took it down, put it up, took it down, put it up, took it down....because it was expensive and definitely fell under the Big Present category for us. Finally I took it down. But by then, he'd already seen it and ordered it. He's the best. So! Here's what you need to know if you're interested in ordering this kit: 1. It's worth the price. The pieces are perfectly -- and I mean perfectly -- cut and stenciled, no mean feat given the pla...

You guys, I about fell over when I opened this: It's Alabama Chanin's DIY Verd Unisex Shirt Kit , which I've been eyeing for months. MONTHS. Thank you, awesome husband. I AM SO EXCITED. Here's what it should look like eventually: I'm halfway through embellishing the top: That's the back; I decided to outline the leaf shapes with the (included) Brunette embroidery thread for a quilted effect, although I think it'd be neat just to construct the shirt as is with no embellishment. If I want to make the shirt I fell in love with, though, I'm going to have to reverse applique the bottom part eventually -- which means cutting out a few of the beautiful, perfectly stenciled black sections before construction. Scary. Gotta be done, though. The front so far: AUUUGHHHH I LOVE THIS KIT SO MUCH. You know what I especially love? The wooden embroidery floss spool. Wooden thread spools make me so happy. I always pounce on them at ya...

We were already planning to go to NY over Memorial Day weekend, mostly to visit some old haunts that were closing (you'll be missed, Pearl River Mart and Salvor Kiosk). Then I found out that Natalie Chanin was hosting two sewing workshops and a book signing...on Thursday, two days before we were supposed to leave. So I exchanged my train tickets and found a hotel and arranged to work remotely for two days. I mean, what else could I do? The workshop was held at LF8 , a nifty boutique in the East Village. There's not much you can do in two hours (and we didn't sew much, just a bit in the end), but it was a great introduction to AC materials and methods. Natalie talked about the physics of sewing, the properties of various textiles (did you know that silk from silkworms is perfectly triangular? I didn't), and the basics of hand-sewing. We practiced stitching on swatches and she walked us through the process of reverse appliquéing the projects in our DIY kits, inclu...