Back-and-forth

Ok, so I decided to make a tutorial about the “back-and-forth” pleats I showed in my last post.  Camera in hand, I pulled out a scrap of fabric, full of good intentions and cheerful optimism.

Now I know why I had made a firm resolution to never do tutorials.  Oh man.  The lack of coherency.  The weird pictures.  The “WTF?” of it all.  And all for a tutorial that no one is likely to read.

And then I thought to myself , “This will totally allow you to avoid taking down the Christmas tree and/or interacting with your miserable family for several hours… not to mention all the pattern-fitting that can be shoved under the sewing table.” 

A tutorial it is!

I’m calling these Back-and-Forth Tucks.  Well actually Katie is calling them that and I’m stealing it.  Gwensews says she’s heard them called “Mexican Tucks”, which when I Googled it came up with one hit from the now-defunct Creative Needle magazine.  I liked that magazine and was sorry it so precipitously went under, because they tended to have heirloom sewing techniques without the insane over-the-top weirdness that Sew Beautiful seems to go in for all too often.  It also means I can’t look up anything about tucks on their now equally defunct  website.  So, we’re going with B-N-F Tucks.

Step One:  Mark and stitch your pleats as normal.

Use whatever tucks or pleats your pattern calls for.  This method works on any type of pleats, but as you’ll see in a minute, it looks best on tucks/pleats that are set close together and are narrow.

Step Two: Start stitching the Back-and-Forth part

Start at the top of the pleats or wherever you want your b-n-f to begin.  Lower the needle into the stitching of the first pleat and then stitch across to the fold of the last pleat.  Be sure you have a tail of bobbin and needle thread on both sides when you start so you can tie a knot at the back.   Pull the threads to the back and tie off each row as you finish so that the stitches don’t pull out when you move on to the next row.  Here’s the back of the first row (sorry for the blurriness).

Step Three: The Next Back-and-Forth

Press or hold pleats in the opposite direction and stitch next row.  You’ll find that there’s a point of least resistance for where to place your second row of stitches.  The wider your pleat, the further apart your rows will need to be or the fabric surrounding your pleats will warp like crazy.

Keep working until you reach the end of your pleats or to where you want to stop.

You can see some of the warping on the surrounding fabric in this shot.  Here’s a set with narrower pleats:

The far right and far left rows are 1/2” and 1/4” tucks.  The center row shows actual 1/8” pintucks.  Pintucks work best for this technique because they’re so narrow.  However, in this example I placed the tucks quite far apart and there is a lot of “blank” fabric space in between.  This shows up the b-n-f stitching a lot.  If you don’t like this look, you can do this method in a different way that looks really cool with pintucks.  However, it requires hand-stitching.

Supplimental Steps: Handstitch the Back-and-Forth Tucks

To start, knot your thread and bring it up from the back and through the fold of the tuck.  Then take a tiny “bite” of fabric next to the tuck and tighten the stitch.  Take three or four more tiny bites in the same spot  (being sure to catch different threads of the fabric or you will make a hole in it).

Here are some finished rows with machine stitching,  hand tacks (in contrasting color—in a matching color they don’t show up much), hand tacks with a seed pearl attached and, at the end, french knots in 6 strands of embroidery floss.

The french knots are worked exactly the same as the tucks, coming up through the center of the fold and then down through the fabric next to the tuck.  These are really pretty and delicate and would be totally cute on a baby dress.  Or a grown-up dress, for that matter.

 

And that’s my tutorial.  Sorry if it’s not exactly coherent.  My miserable family figured out where I’m hiding and now they’re demanding food.  Sheesh.  So needy.

Exclusivity.

Honestly. You could be forgiven for thinking I never went to art school (where I was required to study basic photography).  You would be correct in thinking I am too lazy to learn how to use my digital camera properly.

Today The Big One wore another version of the Ottobre 1-2008 #6 blouse and so I thought I'd grab a few quick shots of it.  Too bad I didn't adjust for the poor fluorescent lighting that we are now subjecting ourselves to.  Or turn on the flash. 
Oh well, I didn't really have much to say about it anyway. 


If you will cast your mind back, I said I had originally planned to make several of these blouses and then decided not to.  I haven't changed my mind.  So here's the only other version of it in existence today.  I guess that makes it "rare".  Ooooo.

Flashback.

Today I pulled something out of the closet (and by “closet” I mean the giant pile of semi-folded laundry sitting on the chair in my bedroom) and had to laugh.  It’s one of the first garments I made for myself, which makes it at least 4 years old.  The fabric I used had been sitting in my (significantly smaller) stash since- and I kid you not- 1993.  That makes this shirt, or the components thereof, 17 years old.  Yikes.  I see now that hoarding fabric is nothing new to me.  In all fairness, I bought this fabric in 1993 when I went through a brief phase of thinking, thinking mind you, about making my own clothes.  It didn’t last long, but I bought about four pieces of clothes-sized fabric that I then just hung on to on the off chance that I might use them for something.  Quilt backs was my best guess.  Instead I never did use them and finally dug them out when I started making my own clothes.

I don’t wear this shirt very often because it’s pretty sad.  On the other hand, it’s flannel (and about 10 degrees outside today), it basically fits (by virtue of being totally shapeless) and in today’s instance it was clean.  You can’t argue with that.

This is an OOP Vogue/Koko Beall pattern (V7725).

Like I said, this was one of the first things I made for myself.  I chose this pattern with the hazy idea that because it was shapeless and had a drop shoulder, I wouldn’t have to worry about making it fit particularly well.    This was more a sort of vague intuition than a studied concept.  I did already know that my shoulders are narrow and my chest is not, and that RTW shirts are consistently too broad in the shoulder and too tight in the bust to fit me properly.  So, drop shoulders and a big boxy shape?  Perfect.   I also thought, “I’m a beginner.  This pattern says ‘Very Easy’ right on it.  And tells you it has only ‘4 main pieces’.  That must be a good sign.”  This makes me sort of giddy with disparagement now.  “4 main pieces”? What the…?  “Main” pieces meaning…?  This just cracks me up.

Could it get any more shapeless?  Or poorly sewn?

Yes, that is my facing finished with the overlock stitch on my old mechanical Kenmore.  You can’t see it well here, but that is one raw ugly edge.

And yes, that’s the facing irrevocably peeking out from under the hem.  And why did I double stitch the hemline?  I have not one flippin’ clue but it looks odd.

And here’s me.  Lovely.  Well, it was 7:15 in the morning.  I am not a morning person.  I’d like to say that I fixed my hair after I took this picture, but in fact I used up all my hair-fixing time taking pictures and basically my hair looked just this crappy when I left the house.  Clearly I am not taking the “Be Cute Everyday” mantra to heart.

And thus ends today’s little trip down memory lane.  Sometimes it’s good to look back and see how far you’ve travelled.  Or how crack-crazy you are to keep wearing things just because you happen to own them.