Replies

1. 
   blondielou | Mar 20, 2008 09:39am | #1

   For a baby, I wouldn't do it!

    

   It is a whole lot of work and the baby would just outgrow it.

    

   I have made gussets a very long time ago (so I don't remember the specifics).....I believe I found the how-tos in a Vogue sewing book.  I suggest buying, borrowing or going to the library and in the index in the back look up "gussettes" if it is that important to you..... 

    

   It is similar to godets in a skirt......but two facing each other.....getting the point looking right is tough.....tight stitching, lots of pressing and good careful trimming probably would have helped my gussetts (thinking back on it).

    

   I am not sure I would bother making one even for myself.....it would have to be one hum-dinger of an outfit for me to consider it....and I doubt a baby would appreciate your work!

    

   Good luck!

    

   Laura

1. 
   denise | Mar 20, 2008 02:23pm | #2

   Hi Laura  it is just a simple little pair of track pants ( pull on stretch pants}

   It is not very sophisticated the gussett is a diamond shape,  after I wrote this piece I remembered I had a very old Reader's Digest Sewing book, so  I found one in there it must be 40 years old.

   similar to what we have in ladies underwear.

   I am not sure why this particular pattern has it as usually pants like this are made with a crotch, Also it has feet attached to the bottom.

   So Perhaps in the U.S. it is something different to australia.

1. 
   blondielou | Mar 20, 2008 05:47pm | #3

   You are most definitely more ambitious than I!  I made it in the armhole of a dance dress that had to look just so and I remember having trouble getting it to look really straight, even and nice (though I did eventually).

    

   It is one of those things that is not done because it is too labor intensive and too old fashioned and not really needed except in ujusual circumstances so only very extensive large sewing books (like my 500 page Vogue) or your old Reader's Digest has it.

    

   Very glad it worked out!  Sewing is a dying art; at least in the US it is.  Fewer and fewer of us make the time to do it and fewer and fewer of those take the time to teach their grandchildren, daughters or neices.....finding it easier to just "sew it themselves".....what they don't realize is what they are robbing the children and later future adults of when they won't know how to sew.

    

   Laura

    

   If it weren't for the internet I would have great difficulty even finding anyone who sews at all.  In the course of my general life, I almost never meet anyone who does garment sewing, especially for themselves as a hobby.  My mother taught me and I had home ec in both junior and high school and it is probably the best thing we shared and that she ever did for me (though she stopped sewing decades ago.....once she could afford to buy her clothes, she stopped making them.  In the last 20-30 years I have even done her minor alterations and basic hems she has become so averse to sewing.  She saw it as something one did when one was just too poor otherwise.....not for its uniqueness, quality, style, fit .....and just being darn different.  I keep all my old patterns that I like and I am known to sew a pattern 10+ years old......I make what I like and current style be hanged!  I love looking different than anyone else!

    

   Laura

1. 
   denise | Mar 21, 2008 12:07am | #4

   Yes i agree i do not have one friend who sews, you hear about a person through someone else,  but personally i do not know any one,  My middle daughter who is expecting her second baby show a little interest and has run up little cord pants with a very easy kiw sew pattern that has only one piece cut twice to it. But that is  a start.

   I mainly sew skirts and pants, and just did a blouse class with Shannon Gifford.

   Her classes are very well attended so there must be some interest out there and a lot of the pupils are in there very early 30's of course i did this on the internet.

   The lady i buy my fabric off in your country is very busy, so there is hope yet.

   I am not a perfect sewer by any means and really took it up when the children where young because of high interest rates,  and here i am again sewing for my granddaughter that has not arrived yet because of high interest rates in this country that is now putting pressure on young famillies again.

2. 
   denise | Mar 21, 2008 12:18am | #5

   I replied but lost the text so if two letters appear you will know why.

   Yes I know no one who sews either,  but from the gathering s  and also pattern review their must be some of us out there, I had a gap of 20 years and when my daughter was expecting her first I started sewing for the baby, and now with the second my sewing is needed because of  high interest rates here, and that was why I started sewing because of the 80's high interest rates, my mother in law was  tailor but as an immigrant to Australia she worked in retail and only sewed for the family,  she was such a good sewer that I only sewed stretch fabric as that was new to her and I even showed her how to attach a facing,  I did a course then in stretch sewing. I have just completed two sewing courses on the interment with Shannon Gifford, and they are very well attended there was some young ones but mainly my age  59 re skilling.

3. 
   Balencia | Mar 24, 2008 11:36pm | #8

   Here here, I get sick of people making sly remarks about being some sort of weirdo for wanting to stay at home and sew, to me it is one of the most creative outlets there is, you can do so much with so much colour and style - a potterer would be hard pressed to match such scope!  - just an example, there are lots of arts that do not match up to the adventure available in  sewing garments in my mind. LG.

1. 
   blondielou | Mar 25, 2008 05:24am | #9

   LG,

    

   Sewing is very rewarding.....it can be basic if you stay with a simple elastic waist skirt or it can be very complex with a wedding ensemble.....all up to the seamstress.....  I fear that fewer and fewer of us are out there and thus it will be harder to find what we need for the craft .....and those items will also be more expensive if the demand is less.  I find it very hard to find anyone I meet that knows anything at all about sewing and I find that very sad indeed.  I do find it special that I think I did influence my niece into going into the field of fashion and design and she is currently in college studying......she wants to design evening wear and have her own shop one day.   I think all the weekends that my ex and I stopped by before the dance to show off my latest sewing/dance creation made a lasting impression on her!

    

   Laura

2. 
   Balencia | Mar 26, 2008 06:23pm | #11

   Yes, I am trying to get my 4 year old interested by making dolls clothes but will not let her near my machines of course.  I make clothes for her in her favourite colours and even a ballet suit which she loves - I think she will grow to love the art of sewing and I hope will also go to college to get involved in may be drama - sewing for plays etc.  especially historical dramas - exciting or what!  but very very hard painstaking work that would have to be shared I suppose.  What are you making at mo? 

3. 
   blondielou | Mar 30, 2008 04:09am | #12

   Hi....don't they have inexpensive child sewing machines?  You might want to look for one ......maybe Ebay or maybe Walmart or Target...or maybe next Christmas would be a good start.....

    

   I think I started with hand sewing/very basic embroidery ....loom potholders....crocheting..... and slowly work into sewing.....always age appropriate/age ready..... 

    

   I get angry when I see mothers/grandmothers with their children/grandchildren who are 12, 14, 16 or so who are picking out patterns/fabric but whose parent/grandparemt never bothered to teach them ....when I ask they always say "it is too much work"....well, isn't parenting too much work???

    

   Laura

4. 
   Digi | Mar 26, 2008 02:19am | #10

   re: "I keep all my old patterns that I like and I am known to sew a pattern 10+ years old......I make what I like and current style be hanged!  I love looking different than anyone else!"

   Laura:  LOVED what you said ...and I couldn't agree with you more.  I like to say that: "I am rarely in "fashion", because I have my own "style" ...i.e. I wear what is comfortable, feels good, and what I think looks good on my body type.  Beyond that ...who cares?  This must be an "age" thing.  LOL!  Strangely ...when our bodies are probably the least attractive in our whole life, we are comfortable in them ... FINALLY!  What a hoot!

   Edited 3/25/2008 7:20 pm by Digi

1. 
   blondielou | Mar 30, 2008 04:29am | #13

   Actually my body is the best it has ever been.....I was the overweight kid in highschool who never went to a dance, homecomng or prom....    So  I finally found ballroom dancing at age 24 (after I had gained to close to 300 lbs at 22 and lost to 180 at 24).....and the man of my dreams (who subsequently abandoned me due to my chronic headaches/migraines, failed neck pain syndrome/cervical fusion, fibromyalgia, osteoporosis relationship lasted from May 1980 - Nov 2003)....  I've since remarried to a loving non-dancer 2006....and am the thinnest I've ever been, size 10, 32D, 37 30, 38....  

    

   When married to my former husband (the ex was very involved as he did the fitting and set the serger and now I am learing all that to do it myself so that is all new for me), I was very creative with my sewing......I am just slowly getting back to sewing and creating now that I am settled again in my own home (lived in one room between marriages at poverty level).... 

    

   I believe in combining comfort and glamour as well as wash and wear.....as I don't like to keep the dry cleaners in business!

    

   To get back to dancing....to find myself a ballroom dance partner now,  I have to be as thin as possible.......not easy....genetically my family is large as well as my own history oif yo-yo weight ....

2. 
   BernaWeaves | Mar 21, 2008 07:06pm | #6

   A gusset is no big deal.  You should have a diamond shaped opening in the crotch where you haven't sewn the leg seams all the way to the crotch.  You just match the corners up with the place where you ended the leg seams, and the other two corners up with the front and back crotch seams.  Then sew each straight edge of the gusset to the leg seams.

   If the diamong shape is perfectly square, then it doesn't matter which direction you sew it in.

   If the diamond shape is longer in one direction than the other, I would guess that the long direction goes down the legs, and the short direction goes front to back across the crotch.

   Baste it in and see how it works, and then sew it by machine.

   The gusset gives bias stretch to the crotch area.

   I personally love underarm gussets.  They make my T-shaped woven shirts look like they have a built in armsyce (sp?) and bust shaping, when they really don't.

   Berna

   Edited 3/21/2008 12:08 pm ET by BernaWeaves

1. 
   denise | Mar 22, 2008 12:55am | #7

   Thankyou  Berna,  you are spot on,worked beautifully the T Shirt is another great idea.