Father's Day Shirt 2010

Curtis has another Hawaiian shirt to add to his collection! I wasn't sure when I bought the fabric if I'd be able to get it done in time, but I did. It took 2 Sleeping Beautys, 1 Robin Hood, and 1 Finding Nemo (Z needed something to entertain him while I was sewing!). Unlike last year (post 1 and post 2) when I bought fabric on a whim and didn't have enough, this year I bought the specified amount of fabric, so the shirt is the right length. (Although when C tried it on it looks too long! I can't win.)
If I had read those posts from last year, I would have remembered that the pattern calls for much more fabric than I really need. Since I had so much left over, and C's shirt didn't take all week, I decided to crank out a couple more shirts:
Too cute, right? So all three of my boys have matching Hawaiian shirts! I couldn't get pictures of all three of them wearing them together, because it seemed like they were never all three wearing them at the same time! Z kept switching shirts, because he's 2.5 and it's his job to drive his parents crazy, and C was working on a painting project at one point so I made him wear an older shirt. The only one who wasn't going through the outfit changes was D, who's actually wearing his shirt again today because it's too cute. (Uncharacteristically, Z would not look at the camera; he was too busy telling his brother that I was taking pictures.)

Then I went back to the fabric store and bought just a bit more of the Hawaiian material (the last of the bolt) to make a skirt for myself as well as some jersey knit for a blouse. I got the blouse done but haven't started the skirt yet; I plan I'd like to get it done before we leave on our trip to CA. My new blouse:
Yes, that's the inside of our house :-) I'm standing in the doorway to the boys' room, and that's the kitchen island behind me. I'll get a new House Update post up soon. Speaking of our new house, another thing I'm really excited about is a dedicated place for my projects, including sewing. Because this got old real fast:

From fabric to shirt

Here is DH’s shirt! I took the picture with my phone. My phone takes terrible pictures, which is a little disappointing. Anyway, I think I did a pretty good job on this shirt! Straight lines of stitching, I even remembered to zig-zig seams (maybe someday I’ll have a serge machine). Of course, there are little mistakes, and it certainly wouldn’t win any awards (except maybe a thrift award since I eked it out of so little fabric! I even had enough for a pocket!) Speaking of the pocket, let’s take a closer look – are those FEET sticking out underneath?
There’s a hula girl in his pocket! If you scroll back up to the other picture and imagine the shirt without the pocket, you’ll see that there would have been two hula girls in the front. Yeah, not so much. So even if I’d HAD enough fabric to match the pocket, I wouldn’t have! And I couldn’t quite cover her feet because then the pocket would have been too low and might have looked funny. As it is, it’s a little too close to the sleeve. If I use this pattern again (which I probably will), I’ll put the pocket a little closer to the center front. But the vertical placement is good.

DH really likes the shirt, and declared that it is now his favorite Hawaiian shirt. He also couldn’t get over how cool it felt compared to wearing a t-shirt, and so now he understands why my dad wears Hawaiian shirts ALL THE TIME in hot Bakersfield (CA). (Well, and there’s the fact that my dad’s dad was born in Hawaii). So DH and I are now on a mission to pick up Hawaiian fabric wherever we see a good deal so I can fill his closet with them. So now I just have to figure out exactly how much yardage is perfect: 2 yards was almost too little and 2 5/8 is way more than we need.

Hawaiian shirt fabric

Somewhere between moving the computers upstairs and packing up "stuff" that's now stored in the garage, I found a bag of fabric. I have lots of materials and supplies from projects started and finished as well as unfinished projects. But this bag was full of materials for a project never started! The date on the receipt was 4/27/2006. Wow. That's three years ago, and I had completely forgotten about it! Of course as soon as I saw the fabric I remembered: DH and I had been at Walmart and saw this beautiful Hawaiian fabric on the sale shelf. We absolutely couldn't resist the pattern and the price. Not having a pattern, however, (and apparently being unable to walk over to the pattern section) we guessed how much yardage we would need for a shirt and bought 2 yards.

So when I found this fabric (again), I kept it in the back of my mind and realized last week that a great use would be to make a shirt for DH for Father's Day! (My family loves handmade Hawaiian shirts. DH has two from several years ago and I can't tell you how many my dad has. California, you know?). I figured I could put it together during LB's naps while DH was at work and surprise him with it.

Well, I didn't get a chance to even begin working on it until after the wedding. We must have picked up (or my mom gave us) a pattern at some point because there was one in the bag. The only problem is that the pattern called for 2 5/8 yards. I thought maybe I could squeeze the pattern on the fabric. I folded the fabric just so for the back piece to not use any more fabric than absolutely necessary, pinned it in place, then tried laying out the rest of the pieces. Looking at the shirt front on the fabric (and needing 2 of them) and the sleeve (and needing 2 as well), I just didn't see how it could all fit. I told my mom as much (she was on the phone trying to help) and we were both severely disappointed. Since I had purchased the fabric at Walmart, I thought maybe they'd still have it and I could pick up another 1/2 yard or so.

The next day, DH stayed home to work (because his advisor was out of town), so LB and I had the car. I told DH I has "some errands" to run and off we went. We went to 3, THREE!! different Walmarts, NOT including the one we normally frequent. None of them carry fabric anymore. They've all succumbed to the reorganization that took over ours several months ago (this reminds me of the Nothing that eats up Fantasia in The Neverending Story). I was, again, severely disappointed. Although LB and I did not come home empty-handed, it was not the successful shopping trip it was supposed to be.

After lunch I decided I really needed to get fabric or I would have enough time to make the shirt before Father's Day. So I convinced DH that LB would take a long afternoon nap since he had had no nap in the morning, and I took off again. I headed to our closest JoAnn's store: 20 minutes away. They had Hawaiian fabric on 60% off! So I picked up my 2 5/8 yards and came home (and LB was still asleep, bless his heart).

That evening, after LB had gone to bed, I pulled out the (newly purchased) fabric and began laying out the pattern. Again, I folded it just so, pinned the back in place, and laid out the other pieces. Looking at the front (and needing two), it just didn't look like it was going to fit! But I knew I had enough fabric this time. So I unpinned the back, unfolded the fabric, and started with the front piece and sleeves, THEN laid out the back, collar (twice), and pocket. All the pieces fit. They fit so well, in fact, with quite a bit of fabric left over, that I had a funny feeling I didn't really need that 5/8 after all.

So, I went BACK to the fabric from 3 years ago, and realized that I liked it ten times better than the stuff I had just bought. Which gave me motivation to spend the next half hour fiddling with the pattern pieces and trying to squeeze them in. It was so close! I could feel it. I knew it would work, but I didn't want to mess up, since I couldn't get anymore of the fabric. After much deliberation (and I mean MUCH), I decided it worth ruining the surprise to have my engineer's help.

So DH came to my rescue. He understood that I had wanted to surprise him, and he assured me that he still felt very special that I was making a shirt for him (and I think he was a little flattered that I needed his help). It didn't take him but a couple minutes to see that everything would fit, if we just put this here and that there and be sure to cut this out first. And so I did. After I cut out the fronts and back, I realized that I could even get the sleeves facing the right way (I had thouht I would need to cut the sleeves out on the cross-grain), as long as the collar was cut out on the cross-grain. Very cool! I was worried about cutting out the sleeves "sideways" because the pattern would go across the sleeve instead of down (think palm trees growing sideways instead of up and down). So that made me happy. So happy, in fact, that I had to call my mom to tell her that I would be able to use the pretty fabric from three years ago after all! Even though we had talked for three hours the day before, we ended up talking for another hour and didn't get off until I'd cut out all the fabric and we'd booked my flight. (But I'll have to talk about that in a different post. Perhaps it won't be as long as these last two!)

So today I've attached the collar and started pinning the sleeves. Tomorrow I hope to finish the sleeves, which leaves all of Saturday (well, as much time as LB or DH-watching-LB will give me) to put in the buttonholes, buttons, and hem. I think it's doable!

Feed Dogs

The title is not in reference to any animals, but to sewing machine parts. Are you with me now? :)

I had a little trouble with my sewing machine this afternoon and called a sewing repair center. The guy made a few suggestions, one of which solved the problem (for now). I had called the repair center because I couldn't find any information online regarding my problem. So after I solved it, I wanted to share my experience with others who have the same machine. However, there doesn't seem to be an easily-found forum or other place to share my knowledge, so I figured I'd blog about it instead and hopefully others can find the information (if they need it) through the search engines.

About 4 years ago my mom bought me a fabulous sewing machine. I could list all its wonderful features, but I won't. It's a Bernette 80e for Bernina. I've been very happy with it. This afternoon I was sewing on buttons (not by hand!) which required dropping the feed dogs. So I dropped the feed dogs, sewed on the buttons, all was fine, until I was done and ready to put the machine away. The lever that dropped the feed dogs did not bring them back up. It moved back and forth like it's supposed to, but it felt like it wasn't attached to the mechanism anymore. I took off the faceplate and was greeted with such a collection of lint I figure that was the problem. After an application of pressurized air the feed dogs still would not come back up. So I turned to the internet.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, my internet searches were fruitless. I'm not one for making phone calls, but for some reason I decided to call a sewing repair center. I quickly located (the only) one in my city and called them up. The guy who answered wasn't immediately familiar with my particular machine, but it sounded like he'd heard of the problem before. He confirmed my fears that to fix the problem may require taking the machine apart, which meant paying someone to do it. But he had a couple suggestions first. He recommended fiddling with the reverse lever while using the handwheel, since the reverse lever is connected to the feed dogs in some way (it makes them go backwards).

After I hung up, I sat down and gave it a try. And it worked! The feed dogs came right up. Then I decided to tempt fate: I dropped the feed dogs again, and again, the lever did not bring them back up. But I was able to bring them up again just by using the machine in slow motion. So it seems that my feed dogs and lever need a little tweaking. It's something I'll have to be careful of until we have a repair budget. But at least I know how to manage the problem. And I hope my experience can be helpful to someone else.

So to summarize (and this is probably applicable to most machines, not just the Bernette 80e): if the feed dogs are stuck down, just use the machine in slow motion (i.e., use the hand wheel) to bring them back up. If that doesn't work, try fiddling with the reverse level as you continue to turn the handwheel/push the pedal slowly. If THAT doesn't work, the machine probably needs to be taken to someone who knows how to repair it.