Pattern Bashing: Hacking the Cashmerette Montrose into a button-down top

 

After hearing some comments about "we should initiate a 'Hawaiian shirt Friday'," I decided it was time that I got myself a Hawaiian style shirt (aka "Camp Shirt"). I obtained about 3 yards of "Baby Yoda" fabric on sale thinking that would be fun as a Hawaiian shirt. It's goofy and geeky at the same time. 

I originally considered using the camp shirt pattern that Guy really likes for himself (McCall's 2149), but that vintage pattern is a bit too oversized and boxy for me. Also, since it's a men's pattern, there are no darts. I need to have darts for shaping. I checked a bunch of other patterns I have in stock but didn't find one that worked for what I wanted. 

I don't often make woven garments because I prefer the ease of fit one gets with a stretchy fabric. I've made the Cashmerette Montrose top three times already, and it fits me nicely. That top is a simple woven top with bust darts and a back yoke. The best part is that because I've made it 3 times previously, I have made most of the necessary adjustments to the pattern. This means it would be a good start for my Baby Yoda Hawaiian shirt project. 

I checked the McCall's 2149 pattern and noted that they added 3/4" + 1 seam allowance to center front for the button overlap. It also had 3" wide facings that matched the shape of the center front of the main front pieces. 

Since the neckline of the McCall's 2149 pattern was much larger than I'd want, I grabbed the center front and yoke pieces from my Cashmerette Harrison shirt and traced the neckline onto my Montrose. After tracing, I realized that the Harrison shirt's front neckline was narrower by the width of the button band, so I matched up front and back shoulders, and cut the front neckline so that its width matched the back. 

For actual cutting of the shirt, I lined up the Yodas along the center front line and cut each front individually. I added some length (about 3") to the shirt and curved the hem from the side seam toward center. I also cut the yoke in two pieces on the bias, adding a seam allowance to the center back where the fold line had been. 

 I like the look of the bias Yoda stripes on the upper back. Also, by cutting it on the bias, the upper back has some stretch to it which will make the shirt slightly more comfortable. 

I also cut the sleeves on the bias because I'd done that for the last two versions of the Montrose and found the bias cut sleeves more comfortable than the standard on grain cut.  

For the collar, I folded a scrap rectangle of fabric in half top to bottom and in half again from side to side. This allowed me to have a collar without a seam on the outer edge. I cut it to a trapezoid shape using the Harrison shirt's collar pattern (minus the outer edge seam allowance since that wasn't needed for an on the fold collar cut) as a template. 

I assembled the shirt following a combination of the directions for the Montrose and McCall's 2149 pattern. 

I sewed the shirt using my modern Bernina 830. When I got to the buttonholes, however, I pulled out one of my vintage Singer machines - the Spartan - because the vintage Singer buttonhole attachment makes the best buttonholes. 

It turns out that I had a set of 9 matching buttons and I could easily space the buttonholes by placing each one just above one particular Yoda. I drew lines where I wanted the buttonholes to ensure I placed the buttonholer in the same place relative to the waving Yoda. Above, the butthonholer is in place and ready to sew buttonhole. 

Stitching the first side.

Rounding the corner of first loop.

I always go around twice so that the buttonhole stitching is well-covered. 

Birds' eye view of the machine putting in the buttonholes. Only the area where the buttonhole is being sewn has to be neat, so the rest of the shirt is bunched up on the back of the table. I didn't bother to fix it for the photo so you'd know it wasn't faked.

I was using my Singer Spartan for this project. Anyone notice something "surprising" about it? In case you didn't know, the Singer Spartan did not come with a light, and vintage lights would never be as bright as what you see above. 

I have a little LED light attached to a magnet that I can stick to the underside of the Spartan. Because the light is affixed using a magnet, I can move it to any of my other vintage machines that need a boost with their lighting. 

Singer Spartan with the LED turned off. Pretty dark over there, eh? The blue dot is a reflection of the "ready" light on the LED.

Originally, I thought that this plate was only needed when making buttonholes on machines that you can't drop the feed dogs on. Not true: the plate rests well above the feed dogs, which means that if you don't use it, then the fabric will slide around under the buttonholer and your buttonholes will not turn out. I learned this the hard way by forgetting to use it for some test buttonholes and wondering why the attachment was having so much difficulty properly feeding the fabric - the attachment is a little shorter than the regular presser feet so that when the metal plate is present it firmly holds the fabric in place.

Always attach the plate and really tighten the screw after you've aligned the needle hole. If you don't tighten it enough, the plate will move out of place and you will break a needle. Guess who broke a needle learning that lesson? 

And, here's the finished shirt! 

Here's a close-up of the center front. You can see that I put the buttonholes right above the waving Yoda. Since he repeats every other line, it was easy to evenly space out the buttonholes simply by aligning the top of Yoda's ear with the edge of the buttonhole attachment. 

HAPPY SEWING!!

Bucket Light for Book Club

 

A few times a year I host my local Book Club gathering. Because we meet in the evenings, and my street doesn't have street lamps, it's difficult for the first few people to spot my driveway (once it's full of cars, it's a big hint that it's the right location). After hearing about other crafters making lighted buckets as "signs" to help others find them, I decided to make one for myself. 

I found an empty white bucket in the garage that was reasonably clean. The bucket used to contain whole wheat grain, but we finally finished off all of the grain recently. I was glad my husband hadn't thrown the bucket away (they can be useful for a lot of things). I washed out the bucket and did my best to scrub off the label. I wasn't able to get all of it off, but I figured that I could cover the writing with vinyl and it would be mostly hidden. 

I have shared this project, "Love Books", in Cricut Design Space since I was able to make it using several free images available in Cricut Design Space. It's simple enough that Silhouette users should be able to find a similar book image online and recreate the project on their own. 

I first pulled in the book image and resized it to be 11" wide. Since the largest mat width we can have is 12", I wanted the book to be a little bit narrower than the full width to provide some "wiggle" room.

I duplicated the image, then clicked on "Contour". Contour can be used to hide elements of a design. On one copy, I hid the black part, leaving the two pages on their own. I colored them yellow so they would be easier to see on the screen

Next, I clicked on the other image and used contour again to hide the two pages so that it would leave a solid book cover as the second piece. 

The result is below. We will, of course, have to align these when finished, but having them in this arrangement illustrates that the machine will cut a full book cover and pages in separate layers.

I then decided that the book needed the illusion of text. I didn't want to write "Lorem ipsum...." to fill it, so I create curved lines for the "text". I selected the Oval shape and stretched it until it was close to the curve of the "pages". 

I then duplicated the oval and placed it just below the original oval so that I could select both and hit slice to leave a curved line that would represent the "text". 

In the above image, I changed the first oval to red so that the resulting "text" swoosh would be visible. I selected both ovals and hit "slice". 

This resulted in a number of pieces I didn't need as well as the one piece that I wanted. I deleted the extra sliced pieces. 

I then duplicated the curved "text" slice multiple times and arranged the slices to represent "text".

I also changed the color of all the curves to black. On the left side, I added a heart in red, and then used the rectangle to slice the "text" to remove the left side of it for the "text" that ends just shy of the heart. 

If you are creating this in Silhouette studio, the steps are similar, except you would use "Subtract" to remove the top shape from the bottom shape. In the image below, I created a blue oval and then duplicated it in red, so the red is on top of the blue oval. When I hit "Subtract", the portion of the blue oval not covered by the red will be left behind. 

Once the design has been completed, select all of the "text" lines in the layers panel and group them using "Attach". This will ensure that the "text" lines are cut in the intended layout rather than rearranged to best fit on the mat. 

Although that arrangement will result in more waste vinyl, it's far easier to align the text lines as a set rather than manually arranging them individually.

Click "Make it" and cut out the designs. I used blue for the book cover, white for the pages, red for the heart, and black for the "text". 

This design needs to be layered. I decided to layer it flat, then apply it as a complete design to the bucket. I chose that strategy because in sewing it's best to complete as many details as possible while the garment is flat. 

First place the book cover on your table. 

Lay the pages down on the table. 

Apply transfer tape to the "Pages".

Cut the backing of the pages in the center. Lay one side over the book cover and ensure it's in the correct location. Begin peeling back the backing of the side that's still lifted up.

Press the vinyl down on the book cover as you peel back the backing.

Once the first side is placed, lift the other side and slowly peel back the backing and press the page down on the book cover. Remove the transfer tape.

Rub over the top of the "pages" to smooth out any bubbles and to ensure the "pages" are stuck firmly to the book cover. 

Next, use transfer paper to take the "text" off of its backing and apply it to the "pages" using the same technique (cut backing in half, align, and remove backing from one side and then the other).

Finally, use transfer paper to apply the heart to the upper left corner. 

Next, we have to apply the complete design to the bucket. Again. slice the backing in the middle to create a hinge.

Place the design on the bucket, strategically locating it so that it covers any remaining label mess that you couldn't scrape off.

Peel back the backing first from one side to apply it to the bucket.

Then peel back the backing on the other side to complete the transfer.

Remove the transfer tape and plop a little tea light or other light in the bucket to light it up!

HAPPY CRAFTING!!

Mathematics + Crafting = Hilbert Curve on a t-shirt

 

It's amazing how cool the Hilbert Curve looks in confetti glitter HTV. I especially like the fact that the shape weeds so easily and all in one piece.  I suppose you could save the weeded out bits and make something using them, but it does tend to get a little bit tangled and stretched as pieces are pulled out. 

I made this second Hilbert Curve shirt upon request of a geeky friend of mine. I like it almost as much as the one I made for myself. See https://craftingwithandie.blogspot.com/2022/05/mathematics-crafting-hilbert-curve-on.html for information on my Hilbert Curve sweatshirt.

When you zoom in on the Hilbert curve, you can see how it's a fractal design which looks almost the same regardless of zoom level. 

Intense closeup of the Hilbert curve, showing off the sparkly goodness that is confetti glitter.

A view of the complete Hilbert curve as it sits on a size Small t-shirt. I hade to size it down to about 9.5" so that it would not overwhelm the small shirt (my original is 11.75").

The completed t-shirt. Definitely have to make more of these just to be totally geeky and all that.

HAPPY CRAFTING

Infusible Ink + Glitter HTV + Brown Sweatshirt = AWESOME

 

I really like infusible ink because it becomes one with the fabric and the final product feels like it was screen printed. The only problem is that infusible ink is translucent, so if you apply it to a dark colored item, the dark color will show through making the image difficult to see. The standard color of choice to apply infusible ink to is white. It will work on most pastel colors, but it won't show up very well on anything darker. 

But what if you want to use it on a dark item? There is a little trick, which I used for my dragon rampant: apply white glitter HTV to the area and then apply the infusible ink on top. This works because most white glitter HTV has a lot of polyester (for the glitter) to which the infusible ink adheres. 

I cut the dragon using purple infusible ink, and cut an offset outline shape from white HTV. 

To replicate, import an image into Silhouette Studio and size it appropriately for your garment. Since my sweatshirt is unisex XL, I made it 11" tall by about 11.5" wide. Select the design and open the Offset panel. 

Click on Offset, then adjust the width of the offset to a value that looks appropriate for the design. 

I left it at the default of 0.1", but some designs may work better with a larger or smaller offset. Click "Apply" to apply the offset. 

Once the offset has been applied, move the original image off to the side.

Since the Offset function included parts of the wings, tummy, and eyes that I didn't want cut away, I edited it to clean it up. Right-click on the design and select "Release compound path". 

This transforms the image into a bunch of separate items. Deselect everything, then click on the main outline and drag it off of the canvas. You will be left with all the unneeded internal cuts.

 Select them all and delete.

Move the original image back onto the canvas. With the image selected, right-click on it and select "flip horizontally" to reverse the image. Infusible ink is cut with colored side up, but applied with the colored side down, so the image has to be cut reversed so it turns out correctly when applied. 

Attach the infusible ink to the mat with colored side up and load into the machine. Hit "Send" then 

change the Material to "Heat transfer, Smooth".  Adjust the autoblade depth to 6, set force to 26, and speed to 4.

Click on send to cut the infusible ink. 

After it's cut, weed away the extra infusible ink. The infusible ink feels like paper when you pull it off, and the backing is clear (with some gridlines on it). I weeded the dragon so that all that remained was the parts originally colored in black. Having the image on screen near you while weeding help ensure that you weed out the correct parts.

Once the infusible ink has been weeded, move the outline onto the canvas and remove the image that was just cut. Flip horizontal as above. Apply white glitter HTV (I used Cricut White Glitter HTV) to the mat and hit "SEND". 

The Cameo 4 has a Glitter HTV setting that usually works fine. I like to raise the cut depth one number higher than the default. Hit sent to cut the Glitter HTV.  After it's cut, weed away the excess glitter HTV. 

Place the garment on your ironing board and smooth it out. Pre-press it with your heat press to remove moisture and to smooth it out better. Lay the glitter HTV design on the garment ensuring that it's centered left to right and the top of the design is about 5" below the neckline (on the back). You can measure it or simply eyeball the location. Some people fold the shirt in half and press the fold so that they can use the crease to help center the design, while others measure the distances from the design edge to the side seams to center the design. Either method will work satisfactorily. 

Press the glitter HTV in place using a heat press. I have the Cricut EasyPress 2 and set it at 340F for 10 seconds since it would be pressed again to apply the infusible ink. Peel off the backing while it's still warm. 

Next, place the infusible ink on top of the glitter HTV so that it's centered within the offset design. There is some wiggle room because the offset was 0.1" on each side. Once it's in place, you can use heat resistant tape to help hold the design in place, or if it appears to be sticking fine on its own, simply place the butcher paper over the top of everything and the press with heat press. I set my Cricut EasyPress 2 to 385F for 40 seconds.

Once the pressing is done, remove the butcher paper and peel back the infusible ink carrier sheet. Your masterpiece is ready to wear. 

HAPPY CRAFTING!!