Party in the back

I really enjoy my annual leotard sew for my daughter.  This year, we took our inspiration from this flow with elegance leotard.



Here is our version.

Party in the back.

Plain in the front.

To make this, I started with her latest swimsuit pattern, based on Jalie 3134, which was modified to combine the front panels, and to lower the legline, as well as adjusted a little for her fit.  Further modifications for this leotard included

• lowering the neckline
• raising the back scoop, to cover the waistband of her tights
• changing the angle where the front armhole meets the side seam
• adding straps, as per the photograph below.  The straps are sewn as tubes.

There are some pull lines on the front neckline, so I probably need to adjust the front strap extensions a little, if I make this again

I used a matt nylon lycra.  She feels that this is too much like swimwear, but I don't know where I can buy the tactel lycras that are used in modern leotards.

The shorts are made from Jalie 3247.  I usually go up one size for Jalie leggings, but this time I went up 2 sizes, because this mystique lycra is very firm.  I think I actually should have gone up another couple of sizes. 

Cheerleader Dance Costumes

This year I made a cheerleader-style dance costume for all the girls in my daughter's jazz class.

For the pattern I used the bottom half of Jalie 2798.  I like the skirt on this pattern because it is less fabric hungry than a circle skirt.  I didn't use the top half of the Jalie pattern because it had too many pieces to make up and fit quickly for a whole class.  Instead, I used a self-drafted pattern.  It was actually harder than I anticipated to blend the 2 patterns together, particularly to get the back length right. 

The fabric is mystique spandex from glitter and dance, which came up really well under the lights.  The letters were made from heat fix glitter, which stretches with the lycra and is very easy to use.

The costumes were a hit with the dancers and the audience, and were rather poignant, given that this announcement, which will greatly affect the viability of our town, was made on the morning of the dance concert. 

Cheap & cheerful (lemon scented) pom poms

This post is not about a sewn item, per se, rather an accessory for the dance costumes that I have been making lately. 

Dance costumes for end-of-year concerts are always a big expense at the wrong time of year, so I thought I would keep the costs down by making the pom poms for the jazz class to use in their "cheer-leading" routine.  These worked out at about $2 per set.

Supplies:  Multix large garbage bags, hat elastic, packing tape, rotary cutter, ruler and mat

Stack 7 garbage bags on top of each other.  Cut off the bottoms of the bags.

 Cut off the handles.

 Fold the bags in half.  Use the rotary cutter to cut strips in the bags, stopping the cuts about 3 inches from the folded end.  My strips were 1 - 1.5 cm wide.

Take a length of hat elastic (~30 cm) .  Tie a loop in the elastic, large enough to go over the wrist.

Thread the loose ends of the hat elastic through the middle of the folded bags, at the folded edge, and tie to secure.

Wrap a length of packing tape around the folded end, to form a handle.  The loose ends of elastic can be secured under the tape.

Separate each of the strands to "fluff" the pop pom (this step is a little tedious).

 Cheer away!

Demitards

Candy pink velvet lycra!  Purple and silver glittery swirls!  It's dance costume time again.

Last time I mentioned costumes, some of you asked to see the finished costumes.  I rarely take photos of the costumes, as for the most part, I am just the seamstress and I don't feel that they are my property to post publicly.  I also don't want to go through the process of getting permission to post photographs of other people.  The ones or bits that I do post are costumes where I have had a lot of input into the design / pattern, like this next one. 

I was asked to make demitards.  When I have sewn demitards in the past for this dance school, I have used a style that has a single pattern piece, wrapping around from front to back, with a CB seam and a crotch seam.  The little girls that I was sewing for this time had hip measurements that were larger than their chests, and I wasn't happy with the one piece pattern, so I decided to draft my own, starting with Stuart's blocks. 

My design has side seams., CF seams and a CB seam, allowing for a better fit than the one piece pattern.  Pattern details include camisole style top, back cutout, CF gathering on some versions.  After measuring the class, I used a smaller size for the top half of the demitard than the bottom half.  I graded the pattern into 5 sizes.  I gave my coverstitch machine a good work out.

The pink version was for the dance school.  The pink straps have not been attached as I fit them to each child individually.  The purple version was made up as a gymnastics leotard for the daughter of a friend.

Self Drafted

I recently had the fun of sewing costumes for an adult dance group.  About half a dozen costumes, mostly for men.  Now, I don't have a lot of experience sewing for men, but I was under the general impression that men had less fitting issues than women.  This did not match up to my experience.  Of the 4 blokes that I was sewing for, one was lanky and lean, one was short and stocky, another had the broad, muscly chest and narrow hips and the last one had more of a rotund shape.  The broad chested, narrow hipped one was the hardest to get right, and in the end I created a "bust" dart from mid shoulder to his pecs.  3 out of 4 of them had much thicker necks than the Burda pattern that I was using to make their jackets, but perhaps that is a dancer thing?

Whilst I am on the topic of sewing for men, this morning my hubby informed me that his orange work shirts were infinitely more comfortable than his yellow ones.  That would be the Hard Yakka ones being more comfortable than the King Gee ones.  Well, I was delighted to hear it, because there is nothing I love more than a bit of pattern comparison, to understand why some clothes work better than others.   My quick investigations revealed that the Hard Yakka one had a yoke, with a couple of pleats in the lower back to fit onto the yoke.  The King Gee one went for a wider back, with no pleats.  The Hard Yakka one has a higher underarm, and what looks like a more fitted armscye, resulting in a shorter shoulder seam, and narrower chest and back.  I guess the King Gee shirt is quicker to sew, with less detail and less curves.  The sleeve length on the Hard Yakka is the perfect length.  Apparently everybody finds the orange shirts more comfortable than the yellow ones, but when pressed for details, I could not find out who "everybody" was.  I was only asking to determine whether different body shapes prefer different shirts.  Maybe I'll cut up one of the Hard Yakka ones and make a pattern from it.

Back onto the costumes.  I also made a cat suit for one girl and then part of a wedding dress for another.  The wedding dress was the most fun because it was a bit unusual and required a lot more thinking on my part.

As I was playing around with the wedding dress, Pam posted a blog entry about the term "self-drafted" (I can't seem to link to the actual entry, but it was dated 5/2/2012).  I try not to take too much notice of opinions on the internet, as the world is a big place filled with all sorts and everybody is entitled to an opinion, but this post did put me on the defensive a little.  Perhaps because I use the term "self-drafted" a lot.  Well, this costume does not meet Pam's definition of self-drafted, because I did not start with my own blocks, but I'm still calling it that.  I'll let you know what I did and you can decide for yourself.

I was given a photo of another costume and a raw silk overcoat that had some similar features to the desired costume.  This overcoat was made in a woven fabric, but I thought I could get the costume to work better in a lycra.

• I measured the dancer.  Bit of a bummer, I did not realise that the tape measure I was using started from each end, and that the dancer's measurements were all somewhere in the middle of the tape, and sometimes I read from one side of the tape and sometimes the other, and I am always a bit nervous measuring the dancers, so I was not thinking clearly and did not discover this until I got home and had a strange set of measurements written down.  Nothing like adding to the challenge!

• I took a Kwiksew pattern for a basic tank swimsuit.
• I marked on the line for the bottom of the bodice, a little below the pattern indication for the high hip.
• I took a basic bra pattern, and combined with my knowledge of typical waist-to-under bust measurements, I drew the cup lines from the bra pattern onto the front swimsuit pattern. 
• I put in a seam line from the top of the bra cup to the side seam.  I did this because I don't usually have fabric for muslins when making costumes.  The lycra I was using was thicker and heavier than most, so testing the pattern in a a regular lycra may not have given me an accurate result.  By breaking the front up into more pieces, I would have less of the bodice to re-cut if something went wrong.
• I drew on the the style lines for the upper front bodice.  I had to take into account the fact that the basic swimsuit had bust darts, and the bust section of my costume was cut out.
• I split the lower section of the bodice into vertical sections.  This not only added style lines, but it also meant that the lower centre front bodice could be lined with a woven, holding the bust cups in the right shape, whilst allowing the lower side panels to be made of lycra, giving the required stretch for dancing.
• I took the back of the bodice and added princess seam style lines.  I then moved some of the curvature of the side seam to the princess seam.
• I tried the bodice on the dancer.  I had to take some length out of the upper front bodice.  I re-cut this piece.
• The armhole and neck edge were bound.  The underbust cups were held in shape with bra wire channeling.
• I read about drafting peplums.  It seems that there are 2 general approaches. The first is basically a short circle skirt.  The second is to take a skirt pattern, flare out the darts, split the skirt and flare it out a bit more.  Being lazy, I went with the circle skirt.  I put the bodice on my dressform (at a bit of a stretch...I am just a wee bit bigger than the dancer).  I pinned on the peplum but was not happy with the drape.  I played around with it a bit, moving the waist seam on the peplum and the side seams of the peplum until I was happy with the drape.  I marked the shape of the peplum at the centre front.  The peplum hem was left raw.
• I tried the costume on the dancer.  I had to let out the lower back side seams a little.  All seams but the side seams were overlocked.  I had only basted the side seams to allow for fitting and also allow the costume to be adjusted for other dancers in other performances.

Dancer and dance teacher were both happy with the costume.  This dress was worn over the top of a red lycra dress.

On the way home from watching one of the performances, my daughter's friend commented that the wedding dress was her favourite costume...and she didn't even know that I made it.  Couldn't be happier than that!

Binding Lycra

Recently I had to make 2 little boys t-shirts in shiny lycra for a jazz exam.  This was my first lycra project on the coverstitch machine and it looked as though it was going to be an epic fail.  See all the twisting on the neckline?  The smaller shirt was even worse

I redid it a number of times, and could not improve much.  I turned to the internet and found this great link (http://sewing.patternreview.com/SewingDiscussions/topic/51298) where Belinda offers the following advice

The twisting you are encountering is most likely due to one of three things.
a) Binding strips cut off-grain. Pay very close attention to both grains when cutting your strips, and be very accurate. Many stretch and knit fabrics can be off-grain. Some are even knitted off-grain making them totally useless for binding. Off-grain strips will always twist and turn binding into a frustrating nightmare.
b) Poor quality fabric. Even if the fabric is on-grain it can still be of a poor quality and cause issues.
c) The wrong differential feed settings on your machine.

I was using good quality lycra. I checked that I was cutting on grain.  I tried changing both the width of the binding strips and the amount of differential feed.  Still no joy.

Up until this point I was using the binder that came with my machine, which makes 1/2" binding.  I have also bought a number of industrial binders to make bindings in other widths.  I was tearing my hair out at this point and decided to switch to one of the industrial binders....and woo hoo, look what a fabulous job it did.

Admittedly, the binding fabric was a different lycra (because I was rapidly running out of blue lycra on my samples).  Time to try again on the real thing.

Here is the smaller shirt.  Not perfect, but much improved.

Here is the larger shirt.

I thought it was interesting that the same binder, using the same width strips, made binding of a slightly different width in the 2 different lycra fabrics.

I'm guessing, but can't be sure, that the success was not due to using an industrial binder instead of the binder that came with my machine, but rather due to making a narrower binding.    I have had trouble with another project that I am yet to show you, but I am thinking that width of binding is important for some fabrics.

For those interested, I bought my binders from ngosew on ebay.  This is a different supplier to the one mentioned in many of the PR discussions.  They are a bit cheaper, the supplier has answered my email queries, and I have had no problems with delivery.  I attach the binders to my machine with blu-tack.