Ninni Culottes 03

Pattern/Technique: Ninni Culottes by Named, size 50

Modifications: No mods. Used the Zanzibar pocket tutorial (see last Ninni post) that I saved to my Drive (Resources folder).

Used 1 1/4” woven non-roll elastic, cut to 37” with 1” overlap to get a 36” waistband. Added zigzag (2.1W and 2.0L) topstitching at 1/2” from top & bottom of waistband, which resulted in a final circumference of 38”.

Materials: 2.75 yds (44” wide) Ruby Star Warp & Weft Holiday.

New skills: n/a

Lessons: Add bartacks on the edge of pockets after sewing the pocket pieces together. The bartacks will make it hard to get your needle all the way to the edge of the pocket.

I used Wondertape to baste each of the pocket pieces in place on the outside seam which worked great; I was also extra careful to position the tape at the very edge of the flat pocket piece so that the adhesive would be in the seam allowance and wouldn’t make my needle gummy.

On this set of Ninnis I serged the edges of the outside leg pieces before attaching the pocket pieces, and in the future I’ll also serge the flat edge of the pocket pieces too before attachment. (I had a small mishap trying to serge the attached pockets where I serged into the pants fabric itself and had to rip out a small section.)

What I'd do differently: Because the wrong side of the fabric has a lot of floats, I’m a little concerned about these wearing/breaking from friction in the crotch. I didn’t add a lining at this time, but I may add one in the future if this becomes an issue.

I also tried styling a matching set with the Seamwork Bo top (last slide in gallery) and I don’t think the small pattern quite works. I’d love to try again with a larger print pattern.

Care: Machine wash cold, dry flat.

Essex Apron

I’ve been watching a lot of cooking videos featuring folks wearing really nice aprons. My partner mentioned in passing that they’d love to have an apron for making bread, so when Seamwork released an apron pattern in their 2020 gift collection I got to work.

Pattern: Alex Apron by Seamwork in size L. Made in Robert Kaufman yarn-dyed Essex in Nautical.

Note: The original pattern includes a pocket at hip height. I find that most apron pockets seem really impractical (what are you going to put in there?!) so I left it off. If my partner would like one, it’s really easy to attach a patch pocket.

New skills: Working with fusible interfacing, grading seams, creating stitch sequences on my sewing machine

Lessons: Grading seams is really important and shouldn’t be skipped. (In fact, I should abide by the rule that if a pattern goes to the trouble of providing an instruction, it should be followed.) Grading essentially tapers the thickness of a seam, making it less obvious on things like turned loops. On this pattern it was particularly important for the small strap attaching the D-rings, because the rings would rub the ungraded seam and stress the fabric.

A couple months ago I bought a new (to me) sewing machine* that has the capability of creating stitch sequences. My initial goal was creating text that would seamlessly integrate with a running stitch, but I couldn’t quite get that to work. I suspect it would require creating a long line of straight stitches before/after the text, and using offsets to align the text with the bottom of the running stitch—by default straight stitch is aligned with the middle of the letters—and sewing a test seam to get the distance from the edge of the fabric correct. Because this was my first time, I instead opted to just sew a sequence with my partner’s name just above one of the finished seams, and a heart with my initials at another spot. Sequences also allow programming a STOP function, which is very handy because by default the machine will repeat the same sequence.

Pay attention to which direction you’re supposed to press seams, e.g. to the side vs. open.

Using a damp press cloth protects your iron from interfacing adhesive and provides a good gauge—when the cloth is dry the adhesive is probably set.

What I’d do differently: Be more careful with laying out the interfacing pattern and cutting it, specifically the inner curve at the top of the interfacing. (It was pretty hard to cut with a rotary cutter—mine’s pretty large, maybe a smaller one would be easier? Should try this out.) I fudged it a bit, and ended up with an interfacing piece that didn’t quiiiite align with the edge of the apron, but I managed to make things work.

Care: Machine wash, lay flat to dry.

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*A Pfaff Performance Icon; I’m pretty stoked about it as it’s a machine I can grow into. I’m also excited that I got it used because Pfaff—really all the big sewing machine companies—did a less than stellar job stepping up to support Black sewists. I’m definitely still learning how to use my voice to advocate effectively, but voting with my wallet seemed like a very basic immediate step.