Reverse Engineering: Baby Doll Stroller

I did it!  I replaced the seat on my little girl's baby doll stroller!  It was in terrible shape, almost not serviceable.  So, I took it apart and used the pieces for a pattern, and proceeded to make her a brand spanking new seat for her baby doll stroller!  I'm just absolutely tickled with how it came out, and I learned a new stitch on my machine too!

First, I have to give a shout-out to my neighbor.  She's getting ready to move away, and she gifted me with a couple boxes full of fabric, remnants, ribbons, buttons, and more.  I'll have to write a whole other post about that.  But for now, a great big thank you to her for the free fabric that I used to make the new seat--a pretty mottled pink with subtle silver glitter and a printed silvery stars pattern.  It's actually much prettier than the original fabric!

So, the old seat was falling apart.  I suppose I really should have taken pictures along the way, but I didn't.  Anyway, it consisted of two pieces--a seat bottom and a back.  At first I tried cutting pieces from a pink scrap of material without taking the original seat apart, but that clearly wasn't working too well.  Then I decided to do it right and use the seam ripper to take separate the pieces and use them for patterns for the new seat.  Once they were separated, I pinned them to the new fabric and then set them aside.

I needed to replace the tape that went around the edges of the seat and back, so I made a run out to Hobby Lobby.  I considered the options available there (not so many as at JoAnn's), and decided to use some double fold light blue bias tape.  Originally I was thinking pink, but that was just too pink.  I considered silver, but that was too gaudy.  But the light blue was really nice with the pink and silver fabric scrap I'd brought with me.

Today I had a chance to work on the stroller seat again while the rest of the crew went out for haircuts. I finished just a few minutes after they got back home.  First, I got the two pieces cut out.  Unfortunately, I wasn't really thinking and unintentionally cut through one of the seat straps that I had intended to reuse.  It's all for the better though, because the nice, new, clean seat straps that I made from the pink fabric came out great.  Plus, I learned a new stitch on my machine, like I mentioned earlier.  It's a manual bar tack stitch.  On my first strap (right), when attaching the buckle piece, I just did a seam, then reversed it, then went forward again. It worked, but it wasn't particularly nice looking.  On the second strap (left) I tried a manual bar tack.  I hadn't really found the directions in the manual, but I did find a chart with the stitch program number and a suggestion that it was good for belt loops or something, so I just went for it.  It worked, but it wasn't a very pretty job either, but better than the first strap.  Then did find the write up in the owner's manual and tried again on the third strap, and third time was the charm--it came out quite nice (bottom strap)!  Here's how it works:  Set the bat tack stitch into the computer.  Using foot B, begin stitching, and it stitches a straight, normal stitch.  When you get to where you're going, push the reverse button, and it reverses the stitch.  When you get back to the beginning, press reverse again, and the machine begins to zigzag over top of the two previous lines of stitching.  When you get to the end, press reverse one last time, and it fixes the thread automatically and then stops sewing.  How cool is that?  I was very pleased with the turn out.

Okay, the next thing I did was sew the seam and flap on the seat bottom, leaving a couple pockets on either side to slip over the stroller frame to hold the seat bottom in place.  That was easy enough by just following the stitching marks on the pattern pieces.

Then I had to sew the curved (semi-circular) back of the seat bottom to the long straight bottom side of the seat back.  I just made sure the middles lined up, and then carefully pinned around the curve, creating, of course, and 3D shape to the seat.  It seemed like it would be hard, but it really wasn't.

After that, I positioned and pinned in place the 3 seat straps, using the original back piece  (which still had the straps on it) and just measuring the middle of the seat bottom for the center strap.

Now it was time to pin in place the blue bias tape.  At first I started about 2/3 down the side of the back piece, but eventually I realized I needed to start at the front side edge and go around the sides and back with one piece of tape and across the front with another piece of tape.  I also realized along the way that I still needed loops to hang the back over the stroller frame.  At first I tried to make some pink fabric strips, but I soon decided to just use some blue bias tape for the loops.  I pinned the loops and the straps in the fold of the bias tape so the ends would be both hidden and secure.  Using the double fold bias tape was really handy because all I had to do was sandwich everything in and it was already folded and pressed and just easy.

After getting the long piece of bias tape sewn to the seat sides and back, holding all those loops and straps in place, I then got the straight front strip of bias tape pinned and sewn, including the center strap.  I left some extra length on the ends to fold under to help with a more finished look.  I didn't leave one side quite as long as I should have, but it was good enough.

After finessing applying the bias tape, I went around the whole length of it one last time, and declared it done.  However, when I started to put it on the stroller, I discovered that I'd managed to miss altogether one end of one of the loops that hold the back on the stroller.  Bummer!  But it was an easy fix.  I just sewed one of those manual bar tack stitches to make the loop, even though it wasn't nicely hidden under the bias tape edging.

And then it really was done!  I had successfully reverse engineered a sewing project! How exciting!  And I only had about a dollar in the whole project, thanks to my friend's gifting to me earlier in the week!  And I think I like it even better than the original!

I'm saving the original pieces, adding them to the patterns box.  I have a feeling I'll be making another seat for this stroller in the future, assuming they don't manage to break the stroller frame first!

Play Clothes--McCalls 6022, size 3T--Top D

Wow, it's really amazing going back and doing another one of the same shirt I did before.  This one came out SO much better than the last one, or at least I sure felt like I've come a long way since the last one!  

So, this time I was using up some more remnants I picked up at JoAnn's.  I had some mottled lavender fabric, and I still had some lavender polka dot fabric left from another set of play clothes I'd made.  I also had some white rick rack that I didn't use for a different project.  I still had the paper pattern pieces I'd made, so I was able to save time on that step.  :)

I decided to try my rotary cutter and mat on this project.  My verdict:  I don't really know that I prefer them for this type of job.  I expect they're great for quilting pieces and things like that.  I'm not sure I like them for cutting out garment pieces.  I'll give them another try or two and then decide whether/how to use them.  

Okay so, some improvements I was able to do this time around:

First, I remembered to make a tag in advance and sew it into the shirt.  Yea, me!  Sometimes it's the little things that seem like a huge accomplishment!)

Next, I understood and I think properly did the understitching and the slip stitching on the yoke this time around.  I understitched the facing neck edge of the yoke to the trimmed seam of the yoke.  And this time around I really "got" slipstitching the yoke facing just at the sewn edge of the gathered seam of the bodice.  It all came out nice and clean and finished looking!  I won't say it looks "professional" yet, because it doesn't, but I "get" it now!  And I will improve my technique with time and practice.

Setting in the sleeves is still the most annoying part, but this time around I'm confident that I actually had the back of the sleeves attached at the back of the bodice and the front of the sleeves at the front of the bodice.  On the ladybug shirt, I'm really not sure that I had that right.  I really don't know which side of that shirt is even the front!  But on this shirt I marked the back with a pin, and then with the tag, and then then paid attention to front/back when setting the sleeves.  Fundamentals matter!

Lastly, after slipstitching the yoke, I understood how to slipstitch the ends of the rick rack together where they met at the seams.  I'm MUCH happier with my rick rack job this time around compared to the first rick rack I sewed on the jammies or even the ladybug shirt.  

It's so encouraging to see progress and learning, and to have some cute finished projects!  I'm totally still just a beginning, but it's fascinating how it builds and builds and builds.  I stand in awe of the truly great seamstresses and tailors!

Men's Vest--Simplicity 2346, size 38--and My First Buttonholes!

FiddleBoyBlue has been wanting me to make him a vest.  A while back, he helped pick out a pattern.  I learned one sewing lesson after we got home from purchasing that pattern--check to see that you got the right size!  But since I only paid $0.99 for the pattern anyway, I just kept the extra-large size, and then was able to go back and get the correct size for another $0.99.  Someday, I expect I'll be able to use the bigger pattern for someone else.

I have a hard time picking fabrics, so I got my sweetie to come along with me one day to look for a variety of fabrics for a variety of projects.  What we did find was a wonderful fall weight wool suiting fabric that looked just like something FiddleBoyBlue would like for his vest, and it was on clearance!  Bonus!  Then my sweetie and I looked around for a lining fabric.  Initially we looked at off white, boring fabrics, but then I saw some black fabric with cards all over it, and that got me inspired.  We began looking for a fabric that would totally "fit" FBB's personality, and ultimately settled on a hunter's camouflage fabric, a knock-off of Mossy Oak (they had Mossy Oak too, but the colors of the knock off worked a lot better with the brown wool that we picked).  When we got home and showed the fabrics to FBB he loved them!

The fabrics sat around for a while, but a week or two ago I did get them washed and dried, prepped for getting around to making the vest.  Originally the plan was to have it made in time for a wedding the end of May, but just yesterday FBB decided that he REALLY wanted it made in time for a cast party he was going to today.  All righty, then!  I told him it probably would NOT get done in time, but I'd start working on it, and we'd see how far we could get  One concern I had was that I'd never done buttonholes before and I would have to be figuring that out to get the vest finished.  But with him floating on high hopes, I pulled out the tape measured and determined he had about a 37" chest.  We considered making a size 40 vest for some room to grow (after all, he is still only 15) but ultimately we decided we really should do the 38.

I tasked FBB with getting some printer paper patterns made from the tissue paper pattern pieces.  We then made a trek to the local Hobby Lobby to pick up a few notions--thread to match, buttons to match, and D-rings for the little belt strips on the back of the vest.  While we were there, I picked up a few more $0.99 McCalls patterns (score!) and a couple remnants, and FBB got some new bandanas, including a dark scab-red one that he thought would like great tied around the neck of a white long sleeve shirt worn with his new vest.

After dinner, once all the little people were asleep in bed, we got to work on cutting out the fabric pieces.  We had to remake a couple printer paper pieces that were a bit shorter than they were supposed to be, but other than that, everything went very smoothly.  While we were cutting the fabric, we were pre-shrinking the fusible interfacing and left that to dry.  By the time we were done cutting out the fabric, I was beat and called it a night.

A couple or three weeks ago, when my sweetie and I were shopping for the fabric, I also picked up a rotary cutter and a cutting mat.  They were not only on sale, but I also had a coupon for additional $$ off.  I didn't use them on cutting out FBB's vest, though, because I didn't want to "practice" on his much-anticipated vest.  I'll try them with the next project though!

So, this morning, after getting the interfacing cut, I began work on sewing the vest.  It wasn't long before FBB was out of bed and hovering!  Over the course of the morning, he had many "aha" moments as I was figuring out what to do and getting it done.  Really, sewing it up wasn't all that hard. FBB said to not know how to sew, I sure looked like I knew what I was doing!  I laughed, said thanks, and I think proved more than once that I still had to THINK really hard and read and re-read (and re-read again, and think some more) to understand sometimes the directions.  However, not once did I have to research anything on youtube with this project!  That's pretty amazing!

So, I ironed the fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the front vest where the buttons and button holes would end up.  Then I did the stay-stitching around the neckline.  Next I worked on the pocket, and explained to FBB about the "facing" at the open edge of the pocket.

Next I worked on making and attaching the belts to the back piece of the vest.  Using a chop stick made it very easy to turn the belt pieces inside out, so I added that chop stick to my new sewing tackle box.  (Oh yeah--I got a pink and green sewing tackle box too, when we got the fabric and rotary cutter stuff).  My only complaint with how the belts come out is that the wool fabric is kind of slippery and so they don't stay especially taught when fastened through the D-rings.  However, they're good enough.  FBB wasn't sure he wanted to add the belts, but I think after the fact that he's glad we did.  They do look nice.

Once the belts were attached, it was time to seam the front pieces to the back piece at the shoulders, and then to repeat for the lining fabric pieces.  Then I pinned the lining to the outer pieces, right sides together, and seamed around all the edges except for the side edges, which stayed open.  After trimming the seams and corners to reduce bulk, I turned the vest inside out, pulling the front pieces through the shoulders and out the side back.  It sounds tricky, but really wasn't hard at all.

The trickiest part was probably the next step--attaching the front pieces to the back at the sides and closing the side seams.  I pinned the outer vest fabrics together, right sides together, working through the side opening between the outer fabric and liner fabric pieces.  I continued to pin at least an inch above and below the outer fabric such that I was then pinning the lining fabric together.  Then I seamed that together through the opening.  It's hard to explain, and I had to read it quite a few times, look at the picture quite a few times, think really hard, and read and look again, and then it finally clicked.  After seaming that, I needed to slip stitch the rest of the opening in the lining fabric together.  However, I was more than ready for a bite to eat and a break on my eyeballs (they ain't what they used to be!).  I handed the needle and thread to FBB and HE did the slip stitching to close it up, and he did a good job too.  He's done some stitching work with some of the leather work he's done out in the shed.  He'd have been doing even more (besides just hovering and getting in the way sometimes!), except he had this party deadline of 1:30pm.  He continued to stay hopeful that we were actually going to get it done in time for him to wear to the party, but I again warned him that I had to figure out how to do buttonholes.

Well, after my short break and FBB getting the slip stitching done, I pulled out the owner's manual for my sewing machine and began to try to figure which buttonhole to do and just how to do it.  I had several choices, including a medium duty buttonhole, and key hole buttonhole, and a heavy duty buttonhole.  The medium duty used foot C but the key hole and the heavy duty used an automatic sensor buttonhole foot that came with my machine.  I decided to give the automatic buttonhole foot a try.  After all, "automatic" had to be pretty easy, right?

After attaching the foot, I measured the button on the little gauge on the front of the machine.  My 3/4" button measured to be 18mm, so I punched that in to the machine.  The owner's manual said that lining the edge of the fabric up with the middle red line on the left side of the foot would provide a 5/8" distance for the buttonhole edge, so I gave that a try on a scrap of the wool fabric, first trying the key hole and then the heavy duty.  I noticed that they were not the same distance from the edge of the fabric, so I tried again and got the same results.  When FBB saw the two different types of buttonholes, he decidedly preferred the squarer heavy duty buttonhole. so that's what we went with.

I marked the front of the vest using some straight pins to show where the buttonholes were to line up.  I also measured how far they should be from the edge of the fabric according to the pattern.  The distance was 3/4", so I tried another practice buttonhole on the scrap, and determined that if I put the edge of the fabric at the far end of the foot, it would give me a distance of exactly 3/4" to the beginning of the buttonhole.  So, with FBB and my sweetie watching, I decided to make it official--I was either going to make a beautiful buttonhole, or screw up the vest!  Much to my great amazement and delight, adding the buttonholes was an absolute piece of cake!  The machine just did it, lickety split, no problems at all! How amazing is that?  I really like my sewing machine!  There was only one thing left to do to finish those easy, lovely buttonholes, and that was to actually put the holes in them.  I grabbed the seam ripper that came with my machine and poked it through the buttonhole, inside the stitching, up near the right hand side, and then just gently pushed the seam ripper across the buttonhole towards the left.  Presto!  A complete and beautiful buttonhole!

Well, at this point, the vest was all but done.  All that was left was adding the buttons themselves.  We lined up the front pieces and marked with a few straight pins where the buttons should be attached.  We both read the instructions on how to sew on a 4-hole button.  Fascinated that there were specific button-sewing directional, I decided to look it up in my DK Sewing Book too and compare instructions.  The only difference was the DK book had you sew an "x" on through the four holes instead of a couple parallel stitches, though I'm not sure it really matters.  You do the sewing over top of a toothpick to make some extra space to form a shank of thread to be the right distance to lay correctly through the fabric layers of the buttonhole.  How cool is that?  It's discovering little things like that that can be so fascinating!

Anyway, at this point, It was time to leave for the party.  We'd essentially gotten the vest done in time, but it still lacked the buttons.  I handed the vest to FBB, along with a needle, the bobbin from the machine with the matching thread on it, and the buttons, and told him to take it with him and finish it there.  He thought that was a pretty cool idea!  (How many teenage boys do you know who would enjoy sewing buttons onto a vest at a party? lol!)  And so, by the end of the party, FBB was dressed in his white button-down, his dark red bandana, and his dapper new vest, looking pretty HOT (literally--it's a wool vest with a fairly heavy liner, and it was in the mid-80s outside!).  He didn't have it on for long at all before commenting that it was indeed hot to wear, but he loves it so much he was keeping it on anyway (except for when the party was doing ultimate frisbee outside!).  Now he's going to be wanting to get some summer weight fabrics and make another vest (or two or three or four).  He's going to be a vest junky, but they really are "him."  I'm so glad he likes it!  Now, maybe HE can make the next one!