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A flannel rag quilt — just in time for summer

Completed project, quilting June 23, 2015 Comments: 8

My local quilt shop, Country Sewing Center, for years has had various iterations of the same flannel rag quilt on display. There’s pretty much always one hanging in the shop to promote the “Flannel With a Flair” class where instructor Linda Bergmann teaches how to make it. Every version has drawn my acute attention to its pretty patchwork pattern and fluffy exposed seam allowances. I must confess that I have fondled the displays more than once.

I finally couldn’t stand it any more and signed up for the class on a whim and bought all the necessary fabric right then and there. More than 10 yards of flannel. In April. I don’t remember why I went into the shop. I’m not even a quilter.

The process to make the quilt involves sandwiching precut squares and rectangles of something called Osnaburg (a loosely woven, somewhat coarse cotton) between matching pairs of flannel. The sandwiched layers are all sewn together in a patchwork pattern with half-inch seam allowances, and the quilt is bound in the usual way.

I don’t have a walking foot, which the instructor said doesn’t help much for this kind of quilt anyway because the flannel ends up shifting all over the place regardless. My supposedly half-inch seam allowances varied from one-fourth to three-fourths of an inch as the layers moved around. And some of the corners did not remotely line up.

All those seams allowances end up exposed on one side of the quilt. All of them are then snipped close to, but not through, the seams. Snip-snip-snip. Snip-snip-snip.

Jeanne Marie's Sewing Studio. Snipping a rag quilt.

I snipped seam allowances for three days. There’s a tool designed specifically for snipping rag quilts. It was a huge help during this tedious step.

After all the snipping of all those quirky seam allowances, the front of the quilt looked terrible. TERRIBLE!

Jeanne Marie's Sewing Studio. Snipped rag quilt.

I had no confidence this caterpillar of a quilt was going to turn into a butterfly after washing.

The magic is supposed to happen when you wash the quilt. All those snips are supposed to turn into fluffy seam allowances. This being my first time making one of these, I had my doubts about all the crazy seam allowances right up until the quilt came out of the dryer. I needn’t have worried. The instructor said the quilt is very forgiving, and she was right. It looked just like all the pretty samples I had seen at the shop over the years. You can’t even see the variations in seam allowances or the ones that don’t match up like they’re supposed to, so I guess they weren’t as bad as I thought.

And here it is!

The quilt fabrics were picked out to match my family room.

How pretty is this? I just followed the process, and the process worked beautifully.

When fall comes back around, the quilt will live on the family room couch.

I picked out the fabrics to match my family room. Fifteen different flannel prints are used for this quilt.

And here’s the reverse side:

The back of the quilt doesn't have any seam allowances.

The back of the quilt is smooth but not nearly as pretty.

Here’s an up-close look at the fluffy seam allowances:

The seam allowances end up looking surprisingly tidy, almost like a ruffle or braid.

Binding is optional. You can actually snip the edges and let them ruffle as well, but I prefer a tidy edge.

Binding is optional. You can actually snip the edges and let them fluff out as well, but I wanted a tidy edge.

There were only two class sessions, with all the cutting done before the first, and some sewing done in between. After the last class, all I had left was binding, snipping, washing and drying.

The whole thing was completed within the month of May. All that flannel is fairly pricey, but, as the teacher warned us, it’s such a satisfying quilt to make that you end up wanting to make more. I can see making one for my daughter’s dorm room before she heads off to college in 2016.

I still don’t call myself a quilter, but I’ve been collecting free simple quilting patterns off the Internet for several months, so I’m hoping to dive into that really soon.

Flannel With a Flair

Country Sewing Center, Elk Grove, Calif.

Next class: September 21 and 28, 6-8:30 p.m.

Instructor: Linda Bergmann

Fee: $30

For information on registering, visit http://www.countrysewing.net/.

Vintage style bicycle-print blouse

Completed project, Vintage style May 29, 2015 Comments: 6

I saw a shirting fabric with a bicycle print at Jo-Ann’s and couldn’t resist:

How cute is this little bike?

I decided it was perfect for a shirt, and since I had already altered dress pattern Butterick 5846 to be a blouse, I used that. I did move the tucks down an inch, because I think they stopped too high, and I also made each tuck a little shallower. (As it turns out, the fabric has some stretch to it, so I probably didn’t need to make the tucks shallower. I really need to start paying closer attention to the information on the bolt ends.)

Here’s the finished blouse:

The fabric didn't seem like it would stand on it's own, so I also bought a coordinating blue for the collar.

The fabric seemed like it needed a little something extra, so I decided to use a contrast fabric for the collar. I forgot to take photos when I finished, so these were taken after the first wash.

And the back:

I do like the yoke on this pattern, but I am over making all those tucks!

I think I am over making the 12 tucks called for in this pattern!

Detail of the collar. The light area is just the sun through the shrubbery in my back yard.

Detail of the collar. The light area on the collar is just the sun peeking through the shrubbery in my back yard.

I bought the buttons a while ago from a Jo-Ann’s clearance bin at 50 cents a card. They are octagon shaped and faceted. A good match for the bicycle wheels, I thought.

I’ve worn this blouse a couple of times — once with my wide-leg denim pants and once with some navy capris — and I really like it. But I usually wear blouses untucked with pants or capris, and this really flairs out below the tucks. In short, it makes my butt look big. And I don’t even have a butt.

But this blouse will be fab tucked into a navy skirt. I need to get on that, but the sewing project list is long!

Vintage-style denim pants from Simplicity 3688

Completed project, Vintage style April 3, 2015 Comments: 4

My second attempt at Simplicity 3688 is a success.

This is a distinct improvement over my first go at the pattern. Nearly two years ago, I tried (with a few tragically cut corners) a fitting technique that didn’t work out for me. I decided to go back to my favorite way to fit a pattern: Make a muslin and figure out what I need to change from there.

For those who aren’t familiar, here is the rather famous Simplicity 3688.

Simplicity 3688.

It’s a reproduction of a 1940s pattern that is well-known among people who like to sew vintage styles. I’ve made the skirt twice.

For the pants, I cut the pattern a size smaller in the hips than in the waist, but that’s the only change I made before the muslin.

From the muslin, I determined that it was an inch too long in the crotch and that if I took that inch out through all the darts, they would end in much better spots. I also needed to add two inches to the length. That’s it.

I made the pants from a dark denim (that turned out to be stretch) with white top-stitching thread and a white vintage button at the waist. Here are some closeups of the details.

Simplicity 3688. Photo by Jeanne Marie Tokunaga.

Top-stitching on the waistband.

Adorable vintage button closure.

Note that the buttonhole isn’t stitched with the usual satin stitch. The buttonhole was a new-to-me technique on my sewing machine. The Fancy Damn Sewing Machine has an automatic buttonhole function and fancy foot. You tell the machine how big your button is, set the wheel on the foot so it starts at the beginning of a buttonhole-sewing cycle, and press the foot pedal until your buttonhole is complete. Works like a charm (except on silk).

But I had told the machine I was sewing on heavy denim, so it changed the buttonhole stitch style from a satin stitch to Xs, and it wouldn’t let me go full automatic. I used a regular buttonhole foot. I had to hit the reverse button when the first side was long enough, then the machine made a bar tack and started sewing the other side of the buttonhole. When I pressed the reverse button again, it finished with a bar tack. Amazing.

The pants are very comfortable, and the fit is close, but there are some things I already know I want to tweak for the next time around:

I thought at first that the crotch was still too low, but then I realized that my waist is lower in the front than in the back, and if I fixed the pants to match, the crotch would fall where it should and the pants would hang better. I have already adjusted the pattern at the waistline to accommodate this.
The waist may need to be taken in. Since my hips have always been a size smaller than my waist, I am used to wearing pants very tight in the waist so they aren’t crazy loose in the butt. These pants have zero ease in the waist, but I may want a half-inch to an inch of negative ease. I’m going to wait on that decision until I’ve worn them a few times.
Somehow I made the pattern too long. I don’t think I’ll bother to change that, better to err on the side of too much length than too little.
I’d like to add single-welt pockets to the back. I’ve never made them before and am dying to try the technique. I actually could still add them to these pants.
The top-stitching length gets shorter the more layers I went over. I think I’ll need to lengthen the stitch in thicker areas so it all looks the same. I also think I should use a longer top-stitch length overall.

And here are the pants on me, with the blouse I most recently finished (and a new pair of shoes).

The finished pants.

I don’t normally wear blouses tucked in, so here’s how I wore the pants on my recent visit to the Legion of Honor Museum.

Simplicity 3688 and Butterick 5846.

The blouse is in a quilting cotton whose print I couldn’t resist, so it doesn’t drape well, but next up is the same blouse in an adorable bicycle-print blouse-weight fabric.

And here are the pants on me a few days later, with a knit top, cardigan, and loafers. So comfortable! I’ll probably wear them like this most of the time.

Simplicity 3688. Photo by Mark the Brother.

A different way to wear the pants.

I really like the silhouette and comfort of these pants. I’m definitely going to make at least two more pairs in denim and dial in the fit before I eventually make a lined pair from the really nice navy wool crepe in my stash.

My new vintage-style blouse from Butterick’s 5846 dress pattern

Completed project November 18, 2014 Comments: 3

For my latest project, I started off with dress pattern Butterick 5846 and turned it into a blouse. I love how this blouse came out, particularly since I my last attempt at a project had a sad ending.

Here’s my new garment:

This is a quilting cotton, so it’s a little heavy for a blouse, but it’s soft. I love-love-love the colors.

And the back.

Here are some of the fun details:

The pattern calls for top-stitching all over the place, which I liked.

The vintage buttons are fun and a good match.

As a reminder, here is where I started:

I originally had this darker green thread selected for the top-stitching, but as you can see, I ended up going with a bright yellow-green instead.

How a dress became a blouse

I decided the 1930s-40s lines of Butterick 5846 would be perfect for the vintage-style fabric I found that only had enough yardage left for a blouse. I made some adjustments to the pattern to turn the dress pattern into a blouse pattern and then made a few other changes just to customize it:

I made the bodice longer. The bodice originally ended at the waist seam with a total of 12 tucks into that seam. I extended the tucks an inch (the better to hide behind a waistband) and increased the bodice length about 9 inches.
I changed the gathered sleeves to regular set-in sleeves. Gathered sleeves are not the best look on me. I liked the sleeves on New Look 0134, which I had recently made, so I wanted to substitute those. I measured the armhole sleeve seam on New Look 0134, and it was a perfect match for Butterick 5846. Once I eased them, the sleeves went in beautifully. Love them.
I made the collar a little larger to better reflect vintage styles. Vintage blouses tend to have bigger collars than today’s blouses. I made a line bisecting the point of the collar, then drew a new point an inch out from the original one. I then blended the lines into the original collar where it joined the neckline and at the shoulder. It’s a subtle change, but it gives me confidence that I can do pretty much anything I want with a collar shape.
I turned the two-piece yoke into a single yoke. I couldn’t figure out why the yoke had a seam at the shoulder — until I was tracing it to make it a single piece. If it’s done in a plaid or a stripe, the lines on the front part of the yoke will be at a weird angle. That didn’t affect this print, and I was already tracing, so I continued on and made the yoke one piece. It was a simple matter of overlapping the shoulder seamlines and tracing.

Construction changes

I still don’t want to deal with my serger (which probably only needs to be serviced), so I am all about tidy seam finishes that don’t require one. Since I practiced flat-felled seams on my recent ill-fated project, I used them all over this blouse. I love the way they look.

How slick are these flat-felled seams? They were a little tricky here at the armhole seam, but I made them work.

For the yoke, I used a technique I’ve been reading about for years but had not had the opportunity to try. The yoke is sewn entirely by machine and then turned out. The trick is rolling up the bodice pieces before you sew. Style Arc’s website has a great explanation of the technique here. The top-stitching on the yoke is strictly decorative.

And here it is on me!

My new blouse. Photos by Matt Henry, the 10-year-old.

The back.

I am so happy with this blouse that I eventually want to make a long-sleeve version with a white collar and cuffs. And I have the perfect fabrics in my stash. Until I find something else I like, this will be my go-to blouse pattern. It’s already fitted, so the sewing is quick.

Meanwhile, I have this fab blouse and nothing vintage-style to wear with it. But I’m trying to take care of that with my next project. A muslin is underway and going well so far. I’m thinking dark blue denim.

Gemini Note (because it’s not all about the sewing)

After an amazing start, and a horrifying June Swoon, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series for the third time in five years. As much as I love sewing while watching baseball games (three hours of multi-tasking!), I canNOT sew during playoffs. Not with the way the Giants play. I’m too busy clutching a pillow. I’m so glad the season is finally over. My nerves couldn’t take much more, and I have lots of sewing to do!