CHICKPEA SEWING STUDIO: Bernina 780

Leather Accent Pouch

leather accent pouch by LBG studio patterns

When Miriam first showed me this really useful pouch, containing a travel sewing kit I couldn't help but look closer and marvel at the textured decorations she had added to the fabric. Many, many years ago I bought a large leather/suede piece. It is one of the rare things I have not de-stashed over time, along with the very zakka Kokka print I must have purchased when Finn was a baby. I knew right then and there that I needed to finally make a dent in that hide.

fold over pouch

The process of sewing the leather went exceptionally well. I used the smoother side of the skin this time but would love to switch to the sueded side next. I made use of the upper feed dog on the BERNINA 780 that let me bypass a large walking foot. I had no stretching or sliding around of the leather pieces, which is nice of course! As far as needles go, a microtex did the trick, for every step.

fold over pouch

The pattern instructions are really exceptional, I should have followed them, but I didn't (sigh). Therefore my leather patches are ever so slightly... not matching. I'll survive. I attached the lining as an independent step, to have it a little further than the outside from the teeth of the zipper. I just despise it when things get caught in there, don't you? Next I might try to sew the bottom corners a bit rounded, more to come very soon on this subject. You can get the pattern for the Leather Accent Fold-over Pouch by LBG studio on Indiesew here.

fold over pouch

This specific pouch I made as a thank you gift for a great collector of Blythe dolls. She is known in the doll universe as House of Harlow, Harlow is one of her dolls. She organized a meet in Salt Lake City last week and brought us all kinds of clothes to choose from for our own debutantes Blythe's. Her own collection is incredible and it gave me an opportunity to not only hold in my hands a real Blythe but to also look closely at some pretty famous customized dolls. Thanks to her generosity Serafinn is ready for the fall, take a look:

Serafinn is having a 70's revival

The little camera charm was a gift from another great collector with (in my eyes) just as many marvels as House of Harlow.

Posted at 08:04 AM in Bernina 780, blythe | Permalink | Comments (2)

Anna Dress + Splattered Silk

Anna Dress

This summer I decided that to celebrate the new BERNINA B780, loaned to me as part of the brand ambassador program, I would start working on what I call master projects. The first of its kind is the Anna Dress from By Hand London. Sunni gave me the pattern as a gift and it took me 4 bodice muslins to get it just right! I learned so much in the process, but most of all I learned that it is possible, keep working on something long enough, don't give up!

The modifications I had to make after the first muslin are as follows:

1.grading the pattern from a smaller size (4) at the shoulders to a larger size at the ribs (6) and waist

2.removing excess ease at the bust

3. deepening the V-neck

4. moving the shoulder seams forward by 1.5" to 2"

5. redrafting the facings completely!

The construction involves french seams and serged seams (back and waist only). The serged finish is necessary at the waist, it takes a little patience to have all six vertical seams match perfectly at the waist. Ask me how I know!

Anna Dress

The dress feels wonderful to the skin, I used a silk crepe de chine in this intriguing paint splatter. I had purchased the fabric first online (1.75 yard not very wide ) and was very surprised to find that despite the lack of yardage with the shorter length I was able to fit it all in. It won't be a surprise to anyone that more often than not suggested yardage is very generous... The fit of the dress in the waist and ribs however is well... very fitted so take my advice and make a muslin if you have not yet sewn this wonderful dress.

Anna Dress

I know that such a pretty dress deserves some black heels but lets keep it real, I don't walk well in those. Some girls have it, not me sadly... it's almost all flats in this closet. I do however like my cropped leather jacket, it takes the girly out of a silk anna and lets me wear it anytime this fall without having to wait for Thomas to take me on a date (ha!).

Anna Dress

yes I know... I cut the feet out of this picture, oh well!

Posted at 02:51 PM in Bernina 780, master project, SEWING | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oh la la!

Last winter I had the opportunity to join in with other BERNINA ambassadors for a fun weekend reunion. We mingled, ate and played with every possible feet and accessories the team of educators could throw at us. I had a blast. The only stressful/terrifying/mortifying part came in the shape of a filmed Q&A. I am not comfortable with public speaking and under stress I seem to forget how to speak English properly. Still they did a wonderful job editing out the terrified looks I kept giving the cameraman and I am grateful for the opportunity to hear what I sound like to others. Not even remotely how I imagined! Such are the perks of working with a seasoned team of professionals.

Since this video was filmed I have switched sewing machines going from the B580 up to the B780. It is not too early to tell you that they are not in the same class. Both excellent but much like a Toyota and a Lexus, not equal. I have been familiarizing myself with the B780 this summer and hope to be able to really start reporting on it as soon as the little one goes back to school. The backpack as been ordered... First grade is an exciting time for mom and child alike!

So with more on the new "ride" very soon, I leave you to find out what a terrified French woman sounds like (spoiler: she drops a lot of plural s).

Posted at 10:57 AM in Bernina 780, SEWING, We All Sew | Permalink | Comments (2)

Summer interlude continues

Garden update August 1st

You would think that with all the sewing happening here I would have something to show for it, but no. It's all about taking my time these days, making a gazillion muslins (4) and going overboard with the fretting on what size fits best... Logically I should have some great/complicated finished projects to show you soon. In the meantime, much like call waiting music but for the eyes, here is a tour of my garden. I love growing things as much as I like making things so I think it's a fair trade off!

Garden update August 1st

This Dinner Plate Dahlia is currently my favorite thing, I love its speckledness (not a word I bet).

Garden update August 1st

On the side patio, I created a felt bag veggie garden and infant rose nursery. This is my fist year trying out this technique and I am still in observation phase. The roses were mail order from Heirloom Roses and High Country Roses, some David Austins some not. Because they are own root and come very tiny they cannot go in the ground right away and must be cultivated in pots. Makes hoarding all the DA containers a brilliant move in hindsight.

Garden update August 1st

I give my winter Amaryllis a bit of fresh air in the summer and make sure to fertilize them with the rest of the garden. In fact this is what happened this morning and the smell of fish is following me everywhere. The cats are both intrigued. The tiny peonies are being nursed from roots I found at Walmart (!). They are "bowl of beauty", a very interesting pink and yellow flower. I really doubted they would even grow roots but voila, I was proved completely wrong. Two peonies for $5, winning! The cannas are also started from Walmart roots, it was an experiment as well.

Garden update August 1st

My friend Ambre gave me a bag of Hens and Chicks to plant in this salvaged strawberry pot. They really seem to enjoy it. I plan on adding a few more varieties when I come across interesting specimens.

So there you have it! a little update on what makes me smile and now it's time to wash off the fish stink and turn Big Bertha on (Big Bertha= BERNINA 780, because you know, it is The Bomb! in a good way of course!).

Posted at 10:42 AM in Bernina 780, Gardens, Home, Photography | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wearing what I sew, easier said than done.

Wiksten tank in cotton/silk with rayon lining

Wiksten tank in Silk/Cotton lined in Rayon

I am feeling a shift in my way of thinking about handmade clothes, it happened during the test of the Foxglove tank pattern. Being in a group of other women, seemingly excited about wearing what they had made galvanized my inner seamstress. Soon I was looking for more patterns to sew, realizing that they are not easy to find when you have been out of the loop as has been the case for so long. The concept of Indiesew is quite brilliant actually, a marketplace for independent designers to showcase their work. If like me you don't have all day and night to hunt for patterns it can get quite discouraging. This is compounded for me when I am not really enthralled by the current pattern "du jour". Honestly, I don't need my patterns to be "indie". A good pattern is a good pattern wherever it originates from, and I have experienced not so great indie patterns as well as great one in the short amount of time I have been sewing clothes again. The problem can be that the blogosphere is so gentle that nobody will admit that in fact the pattern everybody is raving about is so-so, and nobody wants to be the first to say "meh"... myself included alas, I should try reversing course on that.

Wiksten tank in cotton/silk with rayon lining

Two things I discovered so far on this new journey, is that pdf patterns are fantastic. A complete departure from my earlier dismissal of them as a pain to put together and hard to store. The fact that you no longer have to trace the patterns you want to keep, that you can make changes, mistakes and retain the original make them the only thing I want to purchase right now.

Salme Kimono Sleeve top

Salme Patterns Kimono Top in Crepe de Chine

No seam allowance is best. Yes, you read that correctly! once you have built up an honest amount of sewing experience, you know what seam finishes work best for you. Such as 5/8" for French seams and 1/4" for bias bound neck lines.

It is the first time, since I started sewing about 9 years ago that I stay up to the wee hours of the night, trying to finish a dress I am so keen to wear the next day. AND the next evening I launder it so that it can be worn again the following day. I cannot even say that of my best store-bought garments.

This sudden success came from a complete change in my process. I now always make a muslin. I will alter the muslin until it fits properly, knowing that all this time spent on something that will end up cut up or trashed is not wasted but to the contrary saving me time in the future when I want to sew this pattern again. I feel as if I am investing in my pattern, creating something 'just right'. So I take my time, get it right (hopefully) and when I am ready, only then, I take the pattern pieces to a fashionable stitch not far from my house and have Sunny or Lena help me choose something worth spending hours sewing with. Because the fabric is of the highest quality, I do not wish to buy more than I need to. Sunny lays the pattern pieces this way and that and so far I have ended to up with completely negligible scraps, very economical in the end!

Crepe de Chine detail

Because I decided to start from scratch last year and gave away all the fabric that was never going to be made into anything (I am the opposite of a hoarder, there must be a happy middle somewhere), I now have very few cuts of fabric laying around. This help me in my quilting and is now helping me not feel overwhelmed on the wearable side of things. I purchase the fabric only after the muslin process, and only for one project at a time. Superhuman restraint/willpower I tell you.

Of course, the problem is that not all is rosy and good, I still have these mysterious waves of anxiety about the tiniest of defects (often on the wrong side!) thinking very little about the big picture and spoiling my fun. But if I step back and 'feel' what I am wearing today I realize that the anthro skirt has a lining that keeps creeping up as I walk and that the Comptoir des Cotonniers top is a bit tight in the shoulders. Two problems that would mean a death sentence to my handmade things. Why the double standard? The key I suspect is to take the plunge, wear what you make and get so used to it that the tiny details are forgotten. I try to tell myself while I sew: can you live with this (tiny defect)? if no redo immediately if yes then GET OVER IT!!!

Salme Kimono sleeve dress and Kimono top mash-up

Salme patterns mash-up

Posted at 08:00 AM in Bernina 780 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wiksten Tank + Liberty

Wiksten Tank in Grey Liberty

After 4 years of "I should", I finally did sew a Wiksten Tank (size xs) . The pattern is available as a downloadable now so there is no reason not to. An even longer time ago I ordered the tova top, got started and stuck on the placket and predictably quit. I think I will try a little harder this time and give it an honest go, with a muslim and so on.

The great advantage to being late to any (sewing) party / bandwagon is that you benefit from all the bloggers that have taken time to try and review the pattern before you. For example one of my favorite blog friend Larissa wrote an extensive post about the Wiksten Tank and his cousin the Grainline Tank. I simply followed her advice, made a muslin and compared notes. I agree with her, the original neckline is Olé! Olé! Which might work well for some but as a rule, if you can see my bra than it's too low. I lifted it up about 1/2". The tip to angle the back piece on the fold to take out some of the excess back fabric is good, BUT 1" might be too much. It was for me and created tightness in the arm holes. I ended up cutting 1/4" around each armhole to remedy this problem . Next time I will only angle 1/2" and see if it helps. Blindly following Larissa again, I went for the Grainline tutorial on getting flat bias necklines. It is a gem, but turns a quick tank into a labor of love. I will always and forever use this technique though, it is simply the way to go. After binding two armholes and a neckline, one is basically a pro at it anyways. Here is a look (bottom left)

Wiksten Tank in Grey Liberty

The bottom hem is gently curved and not too high-low, nicely tuckable (not a word I bet) into high waisted pants or skirts, which is exactly what I need it for. The fabric is Liberty, part of the Massdrop 3 yards of Liberty order that occurred recently. It's a good pattern when used with Tana Lawn but I would like to try it in something else as well, something flowery and bright! This grey print is calling for a neon necklace don't you think?

Posted at 03:54 PM in Bernina 780, pattern review, SEWING | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Bess top, second time is a charm

Bess Top in shimmering grey

Much sewing is happening in the new space, as I am getting to know the new B780 better. She is a big, sophisticated girl and I want to explore her menus and options as much as possible. Sewing with a 9mm plate takes a bit of getting used to but when you get it right the results are incredible. Case and point later on when I show you my invisible mess-ups!

This week I worked on a pattern found through Indiesew called the Bess top by Imagine Gnats. I really like Erin' version and since we have the same measurements I decided to go for it. It is very convenient to have found another blogger with similar taste and size. I will be sure to look at the other things she has sewn and take note.

Bess Top in shimmering grey

I first sewed the top in Tana Lawn in size 4 and decided to go with complicated seam finishes that would not lay flat. I cut those (unpicking was not going to work) and started again only to find that the new method was blah. I will attempt unpicking after all today, to save the Lawn.... Second round went much much better!

Following Erin's advice I went for size 2 the second time around, it's more fitted but still roomy in the shoulders, my weak point. Not wanting to repeat the previous bias fiasco I went with the recommended knit strip (in teal), which was easy as pie. I will try Grainline's tutorial next on getting flat bias necklines.

Bess Top in shimmering grey

The fabric was just bought this tuesday at A Fashionable Stitch, it's 100% cotton at bit like swiss dot with a shimmer. It is the perfect weight for this top. You cannot see the high-low hem on those pictures but I pan on wearing it tucked anyway, better look on a shorty like me! Now to the invisible mistakes: Being tired last night I started "forgetting" my seam allowance was 1/2" and sewing at 5/8" mid topstiching. Regrettable! With the B780 super precise knot function I had no need to backstitch anywhere. This way you can unpick and start sewing just where and to you left off and no one would be the wiser. This worked especially well on the neck seam above!

Next up is the Wiksten tank, I have been looking at this one long enough, now where is my tape?

Posted at 11:22 AM in Bernina 780, pattern review, SEWING | Permalink | Comments (7)

A Room of My Own

This weekend turned out to be a rather memorable Mother's Day celebration: we got sufficiently along with our house renovations to move things into the sewing room. To think that this used to be a superfluous corner of our bedroom... look at it now, a light filled space to create in:

A new studio, Bernina Extravaganza!

The L shaped desk is a bit of a BERNINA extravaganza, as I am finally able to unpack the new machine on loan, the B780 !!!

I had the opportunity to sew on this machine during Sewing Summit and again at the Ambassador Reunion in Aurora. It is simply amazing in its technological advancements. I am definitely in learning mode right now, trying to form the right kind of habits and setting everything up properly. I am sticking with "regular sewing" as well until my next appointment with the dealer, where we will tackle embroidery a bit further. I am glad that I staggered the meetings because I already have a few technical settings questions after a few hours sewing a doll dress. Anyway, getting too much information at once doesn't work well for me...

When unpacking I noticed already a few cool things that sets the 700 series apart from the 500. For example BERNINA went back to the hard accessory case, as it was with the Aurora (see one in profile above). I never "bounded" with the accessory pouch of the B580. A personal preference I suppose. Another neat trick is the magnetic holder for the stylus on the right of the machine. I also imagine that the laminated cheat sheet will be brilliant in the beginning.

A new studio, Bernina Extravaganza!

The machine ships with an additional strait stitch plate,this will be invaluable while sewing quilt pieces or tiny doll clothes which need a great deal of support underneath. I already installed it today to try it out on a tiny dress for Serafinn, more of a prototype really (!). I did let the machine know I was changing the plate, this way there is no chance of mistakes and broken needles, which has happened before unfortunately...

A new studio, Bernina Extravaganza!

So much to learn, so much to share! I admit to being a bit overwhelmed but soon to be in control no doubt! Tomorrow I am trying out a few quilt blocks, red houses or New York Beauties?

A new studio, Bernina Extravaganza!

Posted at 07:45 AM in Bernina 780, Current Affairs, SEWING, sewing summit, We All Sew | Permalink | Comments (4)

Urban Thread nod = great day

This morning a friend at BERNINA noticed something pretty great... The picture of my sofa cushions as the new cover of Urban Threads on facebook. I love Urban Threads embroidery files, they come out very well on the B580, which sadly is not always the case with all embroidery design companies. Sometimes the digitizing is just done wrong and terrible things happen, such as big nasty knots of bobbin thread and so on... Not with UB though.

I made the pillows with the Miniature Menagerie design pack and the alphabet preprogrammed in the B580 hooping the large oval hoop three times for each pillows. With the new "immense hoop" (can you tell I don't know the proper term!), on the B780 I am pretty confident you could do all the embroidery in one hooping. Luxury!

Edit: the hoop is called JUMBO hoop, naturally.

new pillows

Posted at 05:38 PM in Bernina 780, embroidery, Home, SEWING, We All Sew | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grey Leggings

While attending Sewing Summit, I had the opportunity to attend a class by Miranda Anderson of the One Little Minute blog who taught us how to draft our own leggings. I learned enormously about knits about during these two hours but first and foremost I learned that drafting results in a great fit. I have made so many garment that looked good but fit horribly that I had all but given up on the idea. That will change I think, as I would like to draft a T-shirt next and some more flattering pajama pants. What is certain is that many more pairs of leggings will come out of this drafted pattern but I will never ever subject my legs and bum to such close photographic scrutiny, absolutely horrible! still here they are as they appear un-retouched ( mostly because I don't have the skills!):

During the Summit Weekend I set camp at the back of the Bernina 700 series class room (in part to help attendants exchange presser feet) and familiarized myself with the top of the line Bernina 780. It was a revelation. The machine is so advanced you could call it a sewing computer but really what did it for me is the dual feed. When using foot 4D a little "finger" pulls the top fabric for you as the feed dog pulls/advances it from bellow. A lot like a walking foot but much more streamlined.

Grey knit leggings

After selecting the light knit fabric from the menu and setting stretch stitch #3 (Miranda also recommends #10, which is very durable), I sewed directly on the edge, without a seam allowance. I was blown away by the quality of the stitch, the dual feed eliminated the lettuce edge that often occurs when sewing knits on a sewing machine. The seam is flat and regular, completely clean.

At the crotch and waistband I used stitch #10, which is similar to a serger overlock stitch for more strength, and a simple zigzag at the bottom to hem the legs turned under 1/2" once as per Miranda's instructions. She also made sure that we didn't stretch the leg around the arm but rather sewed it from the inside as it came (slowly). This also eliminate the potential for a lettuce edge.

Grey knit leggings

Miranda gave us the option to skip the elastic in favor of a yoga fold top. Because I have large scars on my abdomen I went for it and think I might retrofit quite a few wool tights with that non binding option. It is really comfortable and easier than the elastic to sew on surprisingly!

Now it's time to try reproducing these results with the Bernina 580, I wonder if using a walking foot would be a practical option with knit?

Posted at 03:18 PM in Bernina 780, Fashion, sewing summit, We All Sew | Permalink | Comments (3)

CHICKPEA SEWING STUDIO

September 12, 2014

Leather Accent Pouch

September 05, 2014

Anna Dress + Splattered Silk

August 05, 2014

Oh la la!

August 01, 2014

Summer interlude continues

June 18, 2014

Wearing what I sew, easier said than done.

June 09, 2014

Wiksten Tank + Liberty

June 05, 2014

The Bess top, second time is a charm

May 13, 2014

A Room of My Own

April 09, 2014

Urban Thread nod = great day

September 24, 2013

Grey Leggings

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