[Lightning McStitch]

I recently swore like a sailor while seeing a hoodie for the kid. The hood and shoulder were one pattern piece and required a ninety degree pivot at one point. Yet there were no pattern markings at all and determining where that pivot point was, and getting it all to work without puckers was very trying indeed.
Not s hard thing to do if the pattern is well designed and well marked.

Sewing tabs for hanging onto a 5×3 metre movie screen was difficult for fabric wrangling reasons.

Fitting things to me is always the most time consuming thing I do, but so far the effort, when made has been rewarded.

Repetition and tedium is probably my biggest challenge. I’m always happy to tackle something new!

[Tamara]

@enbee I have to be fast with my toddler. She can be easy going at times and at other times she is busy figuring out how to scale the safety fence, a chair, or me! This morning though, she was singing to herself in her part of the sewing room so I managed to get a bit done. Other than that my sewing is generally reserved for sleep times. At the moment it is not the case.

School holidays are supposed to be relaxing. This is where the big challenge/ things to conquer comes in. I have spent the best part of this week tracing and re tracing patterns to fit the always growing too fast teen who heads back to school on Monday. We are coming into winter so it is all about jeans, track pants and long sleeved shirts etc. the fitting part is quite an issue because she has legs for miles and not a lot of waist definition. I measured her at the beginning of March and again last week where she had a change in EVERY measurement! Too fast!

Pattern tracing and cutting is time consuming and so I have a pile of cut things and three days to sew them plus cut and see some more – because my box of laguna knit turned up this morning – again another challenge is waiting for anything to be walked across the desert to little ol’ me in the sticks.

And so today I have been sewing five pairs of track pants, three big and two teeny just to get them done!

I am hearing the fitting for myself statements and also the lovely fitted shirts that are needed – yes please!

[with love Heidi]

Where did you get your laguana jersey from? It’s my favorite knit material but I’ve only ordered it twice a few years ago. How expensive was the shipping?

I’m not sure what the most challenging thing I’ve made from a sewing perspective is but I third or fourth the fitting challenges! I’ve spent the last 3 days working on getting leggings to fit, the sewing cutting and sewing is over in 30 mins however probably 4 hours or more on fitting was exasperating!

I would love to see a fitted/semi fitted shirt, epically if it had a pop over type option and, I’ll dream here, cup sizing up to G cup. I love the look of the Gallery tunic but after snoop shopping with a friend this week I need fitting through the waist or it doesn’t work 🙁

I’ll keep thinking about my most challenging sewing project and the skills I would like to learn next.

[Liesl Gibson]

These are great answers! I hear you on the curtains, @justsewit and @enbee. I made sheer linen Roman shades for the living room in NYC a year or two ago and they were brutal. And I also hear you on the quilt, @rhythmtyagi. Your answers are all very interesting. Keep them coming!

[JEB O’Barr]

A pink satin strapless bombshell dress for my daughter’s pharmacy formal. She changed sizes after it was cut out, so I had to ease out the seams and a dart to make it work. It had boning, padding and stirred elastic insects. She was thrilled with the result, and the fact she wouldn’t be matching three other girls like the year before. I would also like a fitted shirt and jeans pattern.

[Nicole]

Much the same as @markjebobarrhotmail-com but it was a wedding dress and the bride was pregnant and her boobs were too big on the day!
I had to hand sew the dress to her bra.

It was a pretty embroidered voile and was all split by the end of the night.

My favourite sew was a Peacoat for my son, it was a big sew but not hard, just a lot of steps and really heavy.

I would adore a shirt pattern with a two piece collar and options to get a nice shoulder fit. I would buy it for Liesl’s FBA alone!

[jay_1965vw]

The most difficult (and most expensive, and most time consuming!) thing I’ve ever sewn was my wedding dress.
Slippery silk satin and lace that I took a lot of beads off and rebeaded the edges so it had a scalloped beaded edge all down the front.
I wanted it to be a thirties style bias cut, but discovered that bias cut doesn’t work well if your hips are bigger than your bust, so completely redesigned the pattern (fortunately I had enlisted the help of another pattern maker to help me do fittings!).
Oh, and hours of hand work on silk during summer without air-conditioning was another world of challenges!

What I want to work on next… will just have to wait until Dot is a bit bigger 🙂

[dubhels2003]

That dress just took my breath away, it’s exquisite.

I also suffer from the too-hippy-to-rock-a-bias-cut-frock syndrome so feeling your pain there.

[Tamara Hullender]

Now I am waiting impatiently for the Fall pattern release!
Thanks, @liesl for all you do to encourage sewists and to assist us in learning new skills.

[Frances Suzanne]

We agreed on this – Emily voted for the smocking on black velvet, and I chose the white coat. However, this heirloom creation was the most time consuming!

As far as what we would like to learn . . .
How to work well with (and feel confident using) a variety of fabrics – swimwear, knits, chiffon, crepe, leather, laminates, etc. and understanding how tension and pressure work together to give a clean, smooth finish. For the inside of the garment to look as good as the outside would be incredible!

Personally, I LOVE the hints listed throughout your patterns and feel like I need loads of them. For instance, there are lots of things I would like to perfect but feel like I need some hints as to how is best to accomplish a variety of tasks – sewing various zippers, button holes with interference (near a thick seam due to piping for instance), seam finishes, bound button holes to name just a few. We’ve also been itching to delve into swimwear but haven’t gotten up the nerve. Tackling a stand-up collar is something I’d like to attempt again too! As soon as I “Submit” this, I’m sure to think of 5 more :).

[EllenMCM]

The Sewaholic Granville women’s shirt.

I can’t actually say it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever sewn, because I’m not finished yet.

It’s been an epic journey in fitting, tweaking, adjusting, discoveries about the idiosyncracies of my armscye, and more tweaking and fitting.

It’s close to a year, now. I need to hem it and add buttonholes, and I’m terrified.

[Buratti]

With regards to sewing skills I am not sure I have sewn anything particularly difficult. Reading this thread has taught me that I am very cautious and that I only pick patterns strictly within my skills (e.g.Everyday skirt for me, Sketchbook shorts for the children)! In terms of sewing skills adding a zip to the Sketchbook shorts with your tutorial was probably the hardest thing I have sewn (it worked!). To echo some of the others though, it’s: making the time to sew; having a space set up (and child free!) to sew; finishing a started project; learning how to fit to my shape; learning to choose fabrics; finding fabrics in the first place. These are the things that I find hard!

[Nicole]

@Buratti made some good points. My youngest is not as easily amused as my older children were, so my sewing is back to only a couple of hours a day (but my house is sparkly and washing up to date as she likes to help with those)

I have a new ‘most difficult project’ a jacket I am making my son. I have already put in 9 hours and only 1/4 of the way through it.

Stunning wedding dress @jay_1965vw

[Sarvi]

I’ve been watching the progress of that coat with great fascination!

[jay_1965vw]

Thanks @dubhels2003 and @motherof5!

Can I add my dislike of sewing curtains too… We needed to blackout the curtains in the girls room last week as the light was keeping them both awake when it was bedtime. We bought some blackout lining and I just folded over the excess and clipped them onto the hooks with the curtains. No hems at all! Maybe sometime I’ll hem them properly… or leave it that way for the next tenant!!
It is making bedtime much easier though 🙂