Thursday, April 30, 2020

Gaza dress modifications....

Wow this took a long time, but here we have it the Gaza toile / muslin completed.  Why so long? you ask, the long seams are flat felled by hand.  Don't know why, I needed a little zen sewing.
It looks so much better after a good press.


 
  
I'm not going to lie, this pattern gave me some problems.  It might have been the fabric choice, they say not to pick a light fabric, because of the embroidery, and this is a cotton lawn.  I could see this being better in a double gauze, or something heavier with drape.

It's an interesting pattern, there's a front, back, three side panels, two piece sleeve (with an option to make it one piece), and two yoke pieces.  It is  one size fits all sizing.

 


So my first hiccup was with the neck circumference, my neck is 15", the pattern was 15 - 15 1/2, that didn't leave a lot of space.  My personal preference, is not to have anything too close to my neck.  The final measurement of the neckline after alterations is 23".

And if you remember from my last post, I also had excess on the sleeve cap.  The sleeve is set in an interesting way, there are no gathers at the cap, almost like a kimono sleeve with a gusset (except with no separate gusset piece). The armhole encompasses the side panels, so the armhole opening is 31". 




The center of the sleeve seam, aligns to the center side panel.



In the end, I added a panel to the shoulder to fix both the neckline, and the sleeve excess. Adding the shoulder panel fixed the sleeves, and the neckline. It also had the benefit of not having to cut into the yoke making it shorter, which I did not want to change.

Later, I wondered how I got this piece in there if the sleeve was the same size as the armhole.  I measured the pattern, front, back and across the three side panel that make up the armhole and the pattern is correct.  I can only surmise that I opened up the underarm seam on the sleeve in excess of 1 1/2" while setting it in.

I shaped the shoulder a bit just to reduce the excess fabric.


I've always drafted patterns with a shaping at the shoulder seam.
As you can see on the pattern, it is straight across.


I did a little research and found a traditional Gaza dress, and there is a slight taper to the shoulder seams, which reduces some of the excess fabric around the shoulder and armhole. 

You can also see that the shoulder yoke neckline is a different shape than the dress front and back neckline.  They measure slightly different aprox 1/2".  



When I cut out the pattern pieces, I did not cut the neckline out, but kept it intact.  Then I marked the neckline from the shoulder yoke and sewed it, and trimmed away the center.  I thought this made things easier.  What didn't make things easier was the seam down the center front yoke, which made things very bulky, and made the slash opening a bit tricky.  This is not part of the instructions or the pattern, it was me trying to make things interesting with the Chevron yoke.  I won't be doing that again.


The one last item that needed to be fixed is the sleeve width, at the wrist/lower sleeve.  It does fit, as is, but I am accustomed to rolling my sleeves up, and it is too narrow to accomplish this.  The wrist measures 9", I would need to add another 2" to get a comfortable rolled up cuff circumference.  I'll wear it and see if I need to do that, if I do, I'll update, but thinking a slit, bias and buttons might be the way to go.

In the end I have a new dress to hang around the house in, and when I find the right fabric, I'll make another, with the modifications.  In the meantime, I have two embroidered yoke pieces that will need to be used, and a tunic might be in my future.... or a kilt.  Stay tuned.


Thursday, April 23, 2020

Gaza Dress Toile .... yikes

I really didn’t want to cut into the black linen until I knew that the pattern was going to fit.  So this is the where we are. I’m glad I tested it, because it’s going to need work. The pattern is a one size, fits all, so chances are it's going to need some tweaking. The sleeve pieces are larger than the armholes, the sleeves are too tight from the elbow down,  the neck is too small for me, and the side panels need to be lifted because.....


This is what it looks like from the side, on me, it kicks out more to the front and the back, so we'll take these corrections in order.  I think first, I should correct the neckline, and make it a bit larger.



The side panels are going to have to be lifted, the shoulders will need to be shaped.

 
The bib piece isn't sewn down yet, but this entire area pulls, hopefully it will lie down once this neckline is corrected.

The sleeves will need to widened from the elbow to wrist, and the excess will need to be addressed.

There's a lot of work here... I may have to take a break from this to ponder.



Tuesday, April 21, 2020

For All of you Mask Makers, a bit of levity ;)


Someone sent this to me as a thank you, please forward, it's really very well done.
hugs to all...

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Anyone else making masks?






Dear Lord,
This reminds me of the Australian wildlife request for Joey bags, there were so many patterns to pick from.  It was heartbreaking to hear that there were containers of items that had shipped to Australia that could not be used because of incorrect fabric, confection or pattern.  So much waste,  I told myself, nope, I'm not doing it, no masks.

I started watching youtube channels and sewists making masks, I saw the same thing happening.  I saw one channel use leather for the lining of the mask.  Her heart was in the right place, but I can't see that being practical.  then there was the HEPA vacuum filter face mask, in which you had to remove the plastic layer, otherwise the recipient would not be able to breath.... the team at a hospital that requested, exactly what they wanted, showed you how to make it, and then they would provide the filter once the masks arrived.  They even said they would sterilize the masks.  They were very well organized.  Then the four layer mask... the one with interlining, flannel.... then I happened upon a group coordinating masks with recipients.  They also have a library of patterns and some research.

The Makemasks2020.org .... click HERE

Research on fabrics and their efficacy...
Research Gate net... click HERE.

I was warming up to the idea, but still not convinced, until my brother in Texas,  asked for masks.  Then my cousins and their children, grandchildren...

The next step was to test the designs.
This is the Clover mask design on the makemasks2020 website, and it was uncomfortable, it pushed down on my nose, until I put a 16 gauge wire at the bridge.  It's pretty comfortable for my face.  Then my cousin asked for a 4 layer mask, and I found another pattern.... I tried it and I couldn't breath through it, so we went with the clover mask, and the Bonnie Hunter youtube video for masks for men.... click HERE






Features... the masks have filter pockets, and nose guards.  The nose guards are made from  16 gauge wire, that was a bear to bend.




I was awash in hearts.....






I had thought to donate some, but my family have requested them all except for two.... 31 masks finished, and they took much longer than expected.  I estimate each mask at 45 minutes, I need to organize my space better for workflow.  I made the mistake of trying to make the ties out of bias cut muslin... never again.  I found a roll of round elastic, and that made things move quicker.

Ok, well, I may make a few more and donate them, but I need my fingers to recover.
They are pretty cute, I must say....


Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Embroidery is tricky.... gaza dress color matching challenge...

Embroidery is trickier than I thought. Just for the record, my first project with the cross stitch feature in the embroidery program. There is a way to scale it up and down, and for the really experienced to get it all on one piece of fabric, but I had an idea for this and followed it through. Here’s what I didn’t expect.

The embroidery thread was “matched” with the navy linen, a bit darker, but that was ok (I am after all trying to work with what I have). Once stitched up on white it looks black. I wasn't expecting that....



So here we are... the plan... see above how nicely that thread matches the navy?
See how the embroidery looks better with the black?
I mean, come on....

So I'll be using the black linen, but it will have to be lined, because as you can see, it is sheer 
It's never easy people... but we will forge ahead.


More to come, this is definitely a slow sewing project, because that yoke will be hand sewn for the next step.