Category:

Sewing for me

A red Northshore swimsuit for me

by Elsa 20 August 2023

*This article may contain affiliate links.

The sewing project

Pattern and notions

The sewing project

Pattern and notions

Northshore, a gold mine for swimsuit styles

That’s an amazing pattern that has so many options I hope you will find your style in it. I’ve already covered its details in my first article you can read here.

I chose to sew the high rise bikini bottom without band and the pullover top with the deep V full cup.

I muslined it with a size M for the top and L for the bottom. I used a very dense La Panda Love knit and I oversized it a bit.

This muslin showed me that I needed to redraw the cheek curve and to drastically cut some at the front leg.

Add some gold…

…and here comes Wonder Woman!

Almost, LOL! I had the pleasure of being gifted this lovely red chlorine-resistant lycra* from Minerva. I also lined it with some nude swimwear lining*.

Lining tip: cut your lining pieces as instructed, and then take a sliver on each edge. It will help the lining be tighter once wet.

Cutting lycra and swimwear lining is made easier with my beloved 18 mm rotary cutter.

I used some size 80/12 stretch needle for assembling.

Always try your hand on scraps when dealing with lycra and swimweaer elastic. I found that a 3-4 zigzag was great for sewing the elastic onto the fabric whereas a 6-1.5 triple zigzag was great for topstitching.

Well….Not bad!

I still have some adjustments for a better fit, but it’s a swimsuit I really like to wear.

Next time’s adjustments may be:

altering the shape of the cheek a bit more and shortening at the crotch: I have too much fabric there.
checking my fabric’s stretch and recovery better. I could have sewn a S for the top and M for the bottom with this lightweight lycra.

And, this time, I didn’t forget to write my choice of stitches and stitch length in a note book!

Tips for sewing swimwear elastic

Don’t trust the lengths given in the instructions

Yes, you read right: don’t trust the ealstic measurements!

Elastic will not give you elasticity and recovery. These are given by your fabric (hence a good fabric is necessary). Your elastic is here to help the swimsuit to regain its shape quicker once wet.

So, keep your elastic on the roll, place it against your fabric with a tiny bit of tension (except at the front crotch/leg hole where no tension must be applied).

Pull the elastic beforehands

Before sewing your leastic on your fabric, pull it a few times to stretch it.

Check stitches and stitch lengths

I’ll be honest in saying that I spent 2 hours trying to topstitching the lelastic with my coverstitch. Utter failure: I couldn’t get the right combo stitch length/pressure/etc.

I used my trusted Janome 6700P for the topstiching (along with its narrow walking foot).

Stretch thread like woolly nylon?

I didn’t use it, but you can.

20 August 2023 0 comment

Sewing a denim skirt

by Elsa 21 June 2023

* This article may contain affiliate links.

The sewing project

Fabric and notions

The sewing project

Fabric and notions

Some skirt patterns

Kennis already designed some skirt patterns, but I had never tested any of them until recently.

For a denim skirt, there’s either the Quebec*:

and the Danube*:

They look alike. The maindifference is that Quebec is a pull-on skirt. That means you will need fabric with some stretch in it.

I don’t like pull-on skirt/pants because it gives me a muffin top.

The Danube skirt was too straight for my liking.

Since I had tested the Taroko skirt, I opted to sew a denim Taroko.

Taroko, a perfect pattern (again!)

It’s fair to say that I love Kennis’ patterns. She has a way to explain things that makes sewing even tricky patterns, easy.

I wanted a quick sew and I skipped the front pockets.

In terms of alterations, I pushed the pockets more to the center back. I should also have moved the darts since, now, they are not centered on the pockets.

A challenging denim

A size 6-8 skirt is not a fabric hog. I had this remnant of denim from a I-can’t-remember-what-kind-of-project!!! It was heavy and with absolutely no stretch…

Taroko* needing a no stretch fabric, I thought I could use this denim.

I assembled this skirt with a size 100 denim needle because there were multiple layers.

I played with topstitching. I bought this Gutermann jean threads kit* and I love it.

TOPSTITCHING tips:

Stitch length: 4-5
Less tension (a notch down)
If your machine can’t handle heavier thread, you can use two regular threads and a topstitching needle.

Even with a rather powerful, but still domestic, machine, I couldn’t sew the belt loops.

I also tried to sew my buttonholes using the topstithing thread. Bad idea: bird’s nests all along.

Once my skirt was finished, I tried it on…

Well, I TRIED to try it on. The denim was so stiff I should have sized up at the hips.

If you compare this skirt to the corduroy I made before, you may notice it rides higher on the legs. Actually, the poor skirt is trying to lay where it can!!!

I don’t know if it’s something that has already happened to you, but my second project of a same pattern is always a failure! I don’t know if I’m too confident or else, but about 80% of my second projects end up going to the thrift store because of sizing errors, poor choice of fabric, etc.

Too bad for this skirt… I really wanted a denim skirt and it was pairing nicely with the yellow Santorini top I made.

21 June 2023 0 comment

Needles and Threads Sewing for me

Sherbet Lemon Santorini top

by Elsa 6 June 2023

* This article may contain affiliate links.

The Santorini project

Material

The Santorini project

Material

Santorini, Summer’23 top

I’ll be honest and say that, once I had applied for testing the Santorini* top, I regretted it. I had second thoughts about the shape of the top and the fact it was sleeveless (and my arms are missing in training!).

But I’m really happy I tested it now!

Santorini* is meant for wovens like poplin or linen.

It features princess seams front and back and it has a cute side button placket.

The inside is clean-finished thanks to facings and the use of the famous burrito roll method. I made a blogpost and a video about that amazing sewing method for clean finish.

Santorini* is a PDF-only pattern, going from US00 to 40 (with cups ranging from A to DD).

Sherbet Lemon in Santorini

I cut a size 4B for graded to 6 at waist and hips.

I chopped 6 cm on the total length (3 cm at each L/S line) because such a length was not falterrign at all on me.

Kennis gives detailed instructions on how/where to shortent/lengthen, but since there are princess seams and I had to quite drastically cut the legnth, it tool me some time to get it right and have nice gradings.

I have two main reasons to be wary concerning tank tops:

neckline gaping at the shoulder
too long shoulder line

While placing the front pattern piece against me, I noticed point #1 immediately. I lowered the shoulder slop by 0.5 cm near the neckline on front/back pattern pieces and facings as well.

The shoulder length seemed fine.

The lovely curved hem is a narrow hem as well. And it gave me a headache because I was lazy and didn’t baste it first! There are many layers where the princess seams intersect the hem and basting by hand would have saved me time.

So, don’t be as lazy as I was, and baste your hem by hand.

Sunny Santorini

I chose this viscose-linen blend from the summer mystery box I had bought last year.

I wasn’t sure about yellow against my skin, but this lovely pale yellow is nice.

The fabric being a bit see-thourgh, you may notice the seam allowances and facings underneath.

Santorini* looks great with a skirt too. Here its worn with a Taroko* skirt (pattern by Itch to Stitch as well).

Buttons are mother-of-pearl buttons. I debated using larger ones because the button placket was rather wide, but they may have caught some skin under the arm.

The shirttail hem is great for lenthening the legs. This top will be in constant rotation! It’s a great change from knit tank tops. It’s more flattering than a boxy knit top.

I could fine-tune the fit a bit more by shortening the shoulder length and center back upper width (-0.5 cm). But this is because I’m a bit picky with woven tops!

6 June 2023 0 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts