Sunday, December 11, 2011

Ottobre 06/2011-34 & 01/2009-23

Both of these patterns are reruns, but I ran into some trouble I thought I'd share.
I made this outfit for Logan as a Christmas gift. The top is Ottobre 06/2011-34, which I made here, and the pants are Ottobre 01/2009-23, which I have made 10 times in various sizes. Needless to say, we like this pattern. For this iteration, I used a poly velour from Fabric Mart for the shirt as well as to line the pants. He has a velour raglan top made for him by his Oma that he wears all the time, but which is showing it's age. I used sueded cotton twill from Fabric.com for the pants outer.
Oma's version has a cool zombie embroidered on it, but since I don't have an embroidery machine, I picked up two Cars patches from Joann and stitched them on. Cute, huh? This was not where I had trouble though. The trouble came when I attached the neckband. This velour has less stretch than the rib knit I used the last time I made this top, so I made the neckband a smidge longer to compensate. It would have been fine, except that this velour curled like no jersey I have ever seen, and when I tried to stretch it to stitch it to the neckline, it curled away from the serger and out of range of the needles. Add to that that my serger has been misbehaving lately and you have a recipe for disaster. Three different neckbands, four broken needles, some basting and a bit of swearing later, it actually looks pretty good. What I learned was that if you have a jersey that curls like a mad fiend, basting the edges together with a zigzag stitch before you serge will tame the curlies. Word to the wise. The cuffs look much better. I basted them.
The pants have some decorative twill tape at the back pocket openings. Mom brought this home from Expo a couple of years ago and I have been awaiting the "perfect" project. I'm not sure this is perfect, but it was about to become To Good To Use, and we can't have that. I think it's a cute touch and it coordinates nicely with the top.

9 comments:

Sandi said...

Cute!

Not to be an enabler, but I highly recommend purchasing an embroidery machine - so much when sewing for children!

Beth said...

Great tip for taming the curlies!
Thanks.
That's a great pattern if you've used it 10 times.

Linda L said...

Good save. I have also read to use a spray starch of some kind and spray the fabric to give it some body. There is an environmental safe one but cannot remember the name now

auntninn said...

I love the cars embellishments. I'm sure it will be opened with squeals of delight.

Anonymous said...

I love the patches!

Methinks I need to add some to my son's shirts. He keeps passing them at JoAnn drooling a bit.

Julia said...

What a great outfit!!!! No one should have anything that's too good to use! Wise use of the trim!!!!

Witch Hazel said...

Very cute! Love the matching twill tape on the pants. I bet he'll love these!

Marjie said...

Cute outfit! I ran into the same problem with Fabric Mart's velour (I have many dresses from it). I serge my edges before trying to finish in any way, to add stability to them. The fabric is so warm and soft that it's worth the extra step.

MushyWear said...

This is an adorable outfit. So glad you were able to work through the sewing issues on the neckline and cuffs.