Book Review - The Sewtionary By Tasia St. Germaine

About two weeks ago I was searching Amazon for sewing books and saw one that had a pretty cover. I'm all about pretty covers so I clicked on it. The title intrigued me so I clicked the icon that said "see inside". Usually I am not interested in books based solely on technique because in the past I have seen some that are very vague on descriptions and didn't have easy or clear step by step directions or reasons why things are the way they are. This book, "The Sewtionary" by Tasia St. Germaine, creator of the Sewaholic blog, was the exact opposite of those. The book not only tells you what the technique or item is, it tells you when and why to use it. It also gives you step by step pictures that are easy to follow and very concise.

After reading the entire preview I decided I had to have this book. I ordered it from Amazon for about $23 and got it two days later. I love Amazon Prime. This book has pretty much everything that a beginning to intermediate sewer needs. The explanations are clear and informative. Mostly all of the pictures are real life pictures, instead of diagrams, so you can see the details instead of having to infer them like some books do.

The writing is clear and concise and will reference back to previous sections so you can jump straight to the page. For example if one technique requires binding but the book hasn't talked about binding yet it will tell you what page to skip to to learn about the binding.

This book is fun, pretty, and informative. It is definitely worth the money if you are looking for a reference guide you can actually hold in your hands. I believe there is an ebook format as well.

Follow this link to purchase your own copy from Amazon. Or you can purchase the book directly from the author and get it signed as well!


I know my blog posts tend to be a bit wordy so I tried to make this one as short as I could.


Happy reading!

*All pictures were taken from the author's webpage. I didn't want to run into the issue of showing a page that was not authorized as a preview.

Red Cloak

I am so excited about this project! I finally made/finished something for myself this summer. I was working on some dresses but with how close it is to school starting backup and the Texas Renaissance Festival is a few months away I had to put those on the back burner and work on the stuff that really needed to be done.

After making two pieces for my boyfriend's outfit I decided to take a break from his costume and work on a small addition to my own. I wanted a cape because sometimes it gets freakishly cold while out at the festival. I was hesitant to make one at first until I saw the blog by Angela Clayton. If you are into costumes her website is a wonderland of beautiful ideas and dresses. Very inspiring. She updates her Tumblr account more often with progress pictures.

One of her posts was making this cloak. When I saw her post I knew I wanted to do a variation of her cloak. She added boning into the top to hold up the hood and that was an idea I couldn't pass up!

I went to the fabric store and purchased 5 yards of crushed red velvet. I wanted to make a burgundy cloak in the same stretch velvet she used but it was way out of my budget to purchase that particular material. So I settled for a velvet that was cheaper and closely matched my dress color. I've had bad experiences with velvet costumes and clothing in the past (not made by me) and I feared that it would be an ucky material to work with. Turns out whatever the costume stuff is made out of is crap in comparison to what they have at Joann's. This velvet I got was thick and soft and comfortable.

I got home and measured out the same measurements for Angela's cloak lengthwise. Her measurements were 67" X 118". I am guessing she is a lot taller than me because I still need to chop off a few good inches from the hem when just using 60". I didn't really follow any rules like you are supposed to for the nap. It looked and felt fine just using the fabric sideways so when it opened it was 60" X 118". I also left it all in one piece instead of making three pieces like she did. I'm assuming she only had to do that because her shoulder to floor height requirement is taller than mine. I'm only 5' 2". Leaving it as one piece didn't make a difference in the way the cape looked.

When that was done I used the hood pattern from McCall's #4698 since I was too lazy to draft a pattern myself. I cut out the hood in the velvet and a second for the lining in black broadcloth. I had this broadcloth in my stash for about a year since it was from last years Renaissance costume. I realized how much I have learned since then. The broadcloth from Hobby Lobby is the cheapest most paper-like fabric I have seen. I didn't realize it until I was trying to decide between that and some from Hancock. The Hancock fabric was way softer and didn't literally cut like it was paper. Still I wanted to use it though and it wasn't too uncomfortable for the hood.

I sewed both pieces together. I had a lot of problems with them matching up and slipping everywhere. I should have used more pins. Once that was together I flipped it right side out and basted the neck area closed. I decided that I was going to sew a gathering stitch at the top of the hood to create my gathers and give my boning channel a marking place. I made the gathers/channel closer to the edge so that the gathers wouldn't be so long in the front. I also top stitched around the entire top of the hood to keep everything in place and not look puffy. I pulled the gathers up to fit the piece of boning I was going to use. It looked amazing!

I especially liked how using a shorter gathering section kept it out of my face. I wish I had thought to make the hood more like in Angela's version because the boning has the top floating above her head since she used a longer piece.


I made a boning channel using a 1" piece of fabric and hand sewed it to the hood. I'm sure there is a better way to do this but I didn't want the channel's stitches showing through the top part of the hood. I shoved the piece of 36" industrial zip tie through the channel and sewed the ends shut.

I had been so excited while making this I didn't go to bed until 2 am! So I forced myself to go to bed and woke up early to continue working on the bottom of the cape.

Angela used cartridge pleating to gather all of the fabric. I did the same thing. I measured out every half inch and marked it on a piece of muslin I sewed close to the top. Then stitched only on the markings.

When I was done I pulled them all together and fixed any that were twisting so they were all in a compact row. I also turned in the sides of the cape 1/4" and then again 1/4" (1/2" total reduction) and stitched so that there would be no fraying or jagged edge showing.

To cover up the muslin I decided to attach a fold of fabric that would also act as a neck drawstring channel. I took a 5" piece of fabric and sewed it to the hood. I wanted a secondary way to tie it around my neck than from the hood. I felt more secure that way.

Then, because I'm barbaric and the stupid regular way to attach them wasn't working, I sewed the pleats straight across with my walking foot to attach it to the hood.

Then I folded over the black fabric to hide the stitching. But since I wanted there to be a separate channel to put a drawstring though, that didn't touch the pleats, I folded in the ends of the fabric on either side and folded the fabric down towards the stitching line that attached the cape and hood. Then I folded it over again tucking the pleating inside. Then I pinned and slip stitched the flap down to the cape. and it made a nice smooth collar/channel for the drawstring. You can barely tell that its supposed to be a drawstring channel. I did this so that if I find a clasp I like at the fair it wont look out of place.  

Once that was done the cloak was finished for the time being. Man it was heavy. There was so much fabric in the cape! When I had all the gathers together it almost was too big for the hood. It was a little long but I don't plan on trimming it down until I get my whole costume together to see how it would fit. I don't want to take too much off of the cloak.

This piece is my pride and joy and I am so glad I made it. Even if it doesn't get cold enough to actually wear it I will still have it for years to come. I also felt like Red Riding Hood and it gave me some inspiration for next years costume.

Better pictures will be coming soon!

I have also added new stuff to the blog! I made pages for awesome sewing resources, a detailed about me, and a main resource for my completed projects. I had just way too much free time the other day.

Keep sewing everyone!

Simplicity 4059 - Men's Pants

Well I managed to focus all my energy on sewing this week and was able to turn out this pair of pants.

This post is going to be less of a step by step instructional and more of a pattern review.

I found this pattern to be intermediate on the difficulty scale. This should have been a really easy pattern and it was shaping up to be until I had to put the crotch together. Actually the whole crotchal/fly region was annoying as hell. Once again, like with the shirt, the pictures are unclear and the instructions are vague at best.

You start off with the fly which should be easy enough but putting it all together felt like something was missing and wrong. The two pieces of the fly seem uneven in width and don't line up correctly. I sorta gave up with their instructions and did it my own way that I thought would work. It still looks a little messy but it works.

I used linen for the pants since it would be nice and breathable in the hot Texas heat. I serged the edges of all the inner seams since it was fraying like crazy. For the two main side seams I did a modified turned edge seam. Instead of turning and sewing so they are separate little flaps I sewed them to the pant leg to make two rows on either side of the seam. I thought it looked neat and professional. I was only mad that the inner leg seams couldn't be done the same way because of the crotch being jacked up.

I honestly couldn't even explain properly how to do the crotch. When I went to sew the inner legs together, the top of the legs was 1.5" - 2" shorter than the front part of the middle leg which made no sense because the picture shows it to be lined up perfectly. Then when I sewed from the fly down, that part was way over the top and didn't go together perfectly at all and caused a weird indent in the front of the crotch. So what I basically did was use the seam allowance as a binder to connect the back part of the crotch and the front. If I hadn't done it that way there would have been a hole where all the stuff met together. Then I clipped off the excess from the weird protruding part and it looked a lot better.

I think these pants look really sharp. They did end up being too big for Charles but the tie in the back should tighten it up once I get better cording. The outside design looks good, but construction wise it has some problems. I probably will not make these again. I might look at another pattern if Charles needs new pants.

Below are pictures of the front and back of the pants. When I get the entire outfit all together I will take better pictures and show how they fit.

My next project is a cape for myself. A post about that process will be coming very soon!

Here are links for the other pieces in this costume pattern:
The shirt
The doublet

Thanks for reading.  

Drawstring Bag Update

I finally finished the bag. I went to Joann's and they had ZERO silver grommets in the size I needed. I checked twice in one week but all they had was the starter kit. I finally just bought some at Michael's.

Here is the finished product!

My mom really liked how it turned out. I like how it is a lot more sturdy than the original. The original was basically two pieces of fabric sewn together without any interfacing and felt flimsy as heck.

Also, the original video I had for installing grommets dissapeared. It was a really good video and used the same kind of grommets I do. I searched online and found a similar video. The only difference is that he uses a different type of grommet. The process is still the same though.

Video:  How to install grommets.

I started working on the men's pants. Hopefully I will be done with them soon and can update. The fly was the most confusing part. And like most reviews I saw on Patternreview, I improvised and did the fly how I wanted. Also using linen....why did I decide that? It frays everywhere! Ugh. But the pants will be soft and breathable and that is what matters.

Til next time!