Time For a Trim

 Looking for a quick and easy project between sewing tops and putting off sewing together a machine knit cardigan, I decided to do a slight update to my Panama straw hat. It was fine the way it was, but I was in the mood for a small change.

I started out with this: 

The only change made to the purchased hat was an added beaded butterfly. The band around the hat was a simple leather strip. It was purchased from Goorin Bros. I've gotten a few hats from there; I like the fact that most of them are available in multiple sizes. 

I thought it might be nice to have a wider band, so I bought some lovely silk ribbon from Etsy seller SewVintagely. I went with 1" wide black ribbon, and because I wanted to do some manipulation I got three yards -- which turned out to be a fairly accurate guesstimate.

I used a technique I had done before on a sewing project which is known as a double shell ruffle. It's quite simple to do, and I think it gives a nice effect.

As long as I was doing this, I decided to change out the beaded butterfly for a different one. And here's what I ended up with:  

For anyone interested in how to do: a basting stitch (I do by hand but it could be done by machine) is run down the length of your trim in zigzag fashion, like this:

I marked the top edge of the ribbon with a chalk dot at 2" intervals. On the bottom edge I made the same mark at 2" intervals, but offset them by one inch so that they fell exactly between the top marks. You can use whatever measurement that suits your material -- the important thing is to have your basting at crisp right angles. 

Baste away, pulling the stitches every few inches so that you are gathering as you go. For the hat band I pulled them up fairly tightly. As I was sewing the ends together for a circular band I left them straight edged -- for using as a trim on a garment it would look nicer to miter the ends into a point when you've completed the gathering. 

As noted above, I had purchased 3 yards of ribbon and I ended up with 20" left over, so as you can see it does eat up a lot of ribbon/fabric. For reference, the length of finished trim needed (plus seam allowance to sew together was approximately 24".

I have used fabric for this too -- for trim on a voile cardigan I used a tube of the voile about 1.5" wide and basted exactly the same. I wouldn't try this on anything too heavy or stiff, but it worked beautifully on the silk ribbon and the voile.

June - already?

Well, May whizzed by without me documenting any projects.  Good thing I do this so I have a record of what I've done and not for any audience!

I got to the point where I felt I had enough basics sewn to get me through warmer weather, so then I decided to play a bit. 

When we lived in Houston, many moons ago, everyone had at least one "Mexican" dress. (Local terminology - I believe they are more properly known as Oaxacan dresses) They were (and probably still are) sold from vans along major routes in a virtual rainbow of colors, sizes and designs. Not especially finely crafted, they were a fun casual "just throw it on" look and a great pool coverup. My own were worn out (and truthfully, outgrown) long ago. So I decided to try my hand at one.

I used a pattern diagram from redpajamamama.wordpress.com (May 14, 2008 entry). I intended to make a full length dress, but messed up with the fabric requirement, so it became a top. (sad face) I decided to use a beefier cotton than what I remembered from the van dresses, and ordered some Kona cotton yardage. That was really nice as a background fabric for embroidery, but actually a less heavy fabric would have been better for wearing drape. Live and learn. I bought an embroidery pattern from Folkwear for the bodice and used it (sort of) for what I expected to be the front bodice. Oops, no - I placed it much lower than I wanted it so...that became the back bodice. I hadn't cut out the head hole, so that wasn't a problem. Then I decided I really didn't want that on the front even properly placed. I ended up taking some elements of the Folkwear embroidery pattern and adding some other random flowers and a couple of butterflies from a stencil I had. Somehow it came together and I ended up with -- 

Definitely not a work of art, but cheerful enough for a breezy summer top. I used regular 6-strand floss divided in half for the embroidered elements, and pearl cotton (size 5) for around the neckline, sleeves and lower bodice.

I wasn't really happy with the way the sleeves stuck out at a 90 degree angle, so took a small dart at the sleeve edge going to nothing at the top of the sleeve. It seemed to pull the angle of the sleeves down just enough to be tolerable and simply looks like a seam.  I'm thinking in a lighter weight cotton this might not have been an issue.

As for the back, with it's too low design --

My embroidery skills are embarrassingly primitive, but I'm OK with that for this type of garment. Basically it's satin stitch, outline stitch and chain stitch. I tried a feather stitch, but ummm, no. My appreciation for the artisans who do this on the regular is immense. 

As much as I'd like to have a full length dress for the summer I think this particular itch has been scratched. The amount of time that it would take for an inexperienced stitcher (i.e. me) to do this by hand for a full dress would be enormous. So, while I'm glad I tried it will be back to my regular sewing for my next projects. It would be fun to try small hand embroidered touches though -- a shirt pocket perhaps?