New Industrial Sewing Machine and Sewing Room Organization

Every sentence I can come up with right now will make this sound like I just gave birth to a new baby. And there he is! I brought home my new Juki on Saturday. It's got everything I wanted. A new kind of Servo motor which is absolutely silent; even when I sew it's quieter than my home machine. A maple table top which makes my bedroom look only halfway like a garment factory. These industrial Jukis are wonderful; a sewer who has only used home machines just can't understand until they test one out. A Juki responds to the material being sewn. It can sew almost anything from delicate chiffons to those bulky jeans hems (provided you go slowly and have the right needle). It has a knee lift for the presser foot, which is especially helpful when going over those aforementioned jeans hems because you can raise the presser foot a tad to help it over the thicker parts and still have both hands free to guide the fabric.

We got pictures right away, so I was still breathless. Those things are heavy. It took my dad, two sisters, and me to get it up the stairs. But it came from the shop fully assembled and with the motor synchronized, which I'm so glad I didn't have to do myself. It's so satisfying to purchase something you saved for and put off buying even when you could have used it earlier. And when you find that it didn't even cost as much as you anticipated and you have the start of your next machine fund!

Since I had to move the armoire and the bookshelf to the other side of the room, I deep cleaned and reorganized all my sewing supplies. Yes, that is organized! Well, at least I know where everything is when I need it. The armoire is a beautiful piece of furniture that hides all my ugly electrical cords and sewing machine oil cans and all those other things I don't want to see when I'm not working! The two hat boxes on top hold zippers, buttons, interfacing, boning, and all that stuff.

I have two large canvas boxes (bought at Joann) on the top shelf: one for scrap material and one for works in progress. They have these nifty window pockets on the front where I put a running list of all the things in that box, and I just cross things off when they leave the box. If I have project in mind, I can read through the list and I'll immediately know if something in that box is just what I need.

Since I draft a lot of my own patterns, storage and organization is a problem. For now, I've jammed all of my patterns, both self-drafted and store-bought into one drawer. I used to put each pattern in a gallon ziploc bag, but those don't file nicely.

Now I put newly drafted patterns into small manila envelopes, and so far I'm liking this system much better. More expensive, but more tidy. I write the name of the pattern on the outside. This is where it makes sense to give the patterns a real name (like Georgina) that you'll always remember, rather than a description.

The other three drawers hold my uncut fabric lengths. One drawer for knits, two for wovens. I use the list method to keep track of my inventory here too.

All of my design, sketching, patternmaking, and sewing books fit on one shelf, along with about five or six binders of technique samples and notes and charts taken from classes and library books.

Look what I found when I was cleaning out my room. The first thing I ever sewed when I was eight years old. She was a Christmas present for my baby sister. I sewed her by hand, and I thought it was so hard. I would not have been happy to hear that I would be sewing for a living later in life! It would have been hard to throw her out, had she not been disintegrating and puffs of... something... coming out every time I set her down on the table.

And this little clothes pin doll. I used to make these all the time, but this one was my favorite. I took a photo to remember her by before I threw her out. I don't have room in my life to be sentimental about these things. If I have a little girl one day I'll certainly teach her how to make clothes pin dolls then!

Sewing Stripes, Stripes, and More Stripes

I've completed several projects in the last couple weeks. Hacking away at that fabric stash to make room for bigger and better things! This brown and gold striped knit is lovely. And I used all my creative problem solving powers to make two tops out of it!

The Batwing Top

This was taken in my sister's mirror since I threw away half the things in my room including my dresser and the mirror along with it! I'm not sure how to style this top, yet. With jeans, of course. I wore it one day with light khaki twill crops and gold gladiator sandals.

Side view on the dress form. I drafted the pattern for this top, basing it off of a top I saw at the store which I really liked except for the too-big neckline. There are only 4 pieces- front, back, and two gussets under the arm. The ruffles are just an extension of the front and back. They're widest at the top and taper down to nothing at the hip, just about an inch from the hem.

This is my room in the midst of rearranging furniture and awaiting new fixtures for the room! I feel like I'm moving. Every time I do my hair in the morning, I have to rummage around for my stuff in a plastic bin on the floor.

Things I learned from making this batwing top:

• You can use plum colored thread on a brown and gold top, even though there is a lot of top stitching. It's different if you actually peer at it closely, but it looks good anyway. Why buy more thread when what you have will do?
• If you decide that you want to cover your shoulders a little more after you've completed the top, just use a zigzag to hold the two juxtaposed pieces together. I kinda wish I'd zigzagged all over these seams.
• You can try to leave the neckline unfinished, but it will eventually roll. (I was lazy, and I tried.) To finish all the raw edges on the neckline and the ruffles, I folded the edge under 1/4" (single-fold, not doubled over) and stitched it down with a narrow zigzag (set on 1mm)
• You need to stretch knit fabric as you sew with the zigzag on my machine. The tension turned out much better on this product than on the flyaway I did recently. I don't have to be careful at all when I pull this shirt on and off or move around, because I gave it that stretch.

Dolman sleeve top

I designed this top to be most flattering on my pear-shaped figure. A horizontal stripe on a dolman sleeve top usually means that the stripes start turning downward on the shoulders, which on broad-shouldered women is really flattering, visually cutting off their shoulders. On me, it practically eliminates my shoulders altogether. I like the horizontal stripes in the center of the shirt, so I added style lines, and cut out my fabric in two different directions. Instread of turning down at the shoulder, the stripes turn out. Voila, instant shoulders!

I'm loving it. The cut, plus the stripes, plus the color, looks so eighties. But I'm still loving it. It also looks sort of athletic. I'm picturing it with tracksuit-inspired drawstring pants and wedge sneakers (neither of which do I have nor do I plan to buy) or tweed crops with a racing stripe down the side (which I have actually seen and might buy if the colors look right together.)

I didn't design this pattern entirely on my own. I started with this McCall's pattern in size Medium; raised and slightly broadened the neckline; raised the hem about 4 inches; added style lines; cut it out and let the pieces hang so that they get any wonky stretching out of the way; sewed it up and found it to be too baggy; trimmed off a total of 3 inches all the way around the circumference (I was able to do that without interfering with the sleeves, thanks to my style lines); removed two inches altogether from each sleeve (from the bottom only! If you do this, you don't want to remove anything from the top or you won't be able to raise your arm very high, and you'll cut off your shoulder!); sewed it up again, and it was perfect! It's so odd. Based on my measurements I really should be a medium, but clearly I'm not. Ai, ai, ai, this is why I don't use commercial patterns; so much trouble.

Asymmetrical peplum top

I thought I would like this top more than I do. It reminds me of an ice skater's dress, and I can't decide whether that's a good thing or not. My sister Kayley loves it for that very reason. She is a ballet dancer, and it's very much like her. I like the tarzan neckline with a wide strap covering the other shoulder, the alternating diagonal lines, and even the peplum, but all together? I just don't know. I wanted to make something like this for a while though, and I'm glad I did it.