The results are in from my Flickr group's first semi-official simul-sew, and they are so great. Check out these awesome turtles, made from the pattern in Amy Karol's Bend-the-Rules Sewing book:
(I took the liberty of labeling each one with the Flickr ID of its creator.)
It was so much fun to see how everyone's turtles came out, and to compare notes on our progress. There seemed to be a few themes in common in our notes, so I'll summarize some of the challenges we had making these turtles:
1. The Head. The pattern in the book calls for cutting out the head and sewing with a 1/4 inch seam allowance, but that makes the head too small. (The legs, in contrast, are sewn on the pattern line and then cut out, so you don't lose that 1/4 inch.) Most of us ended up figuring out some method of adding that 1/4 inch back into the pattern - for myself, I traced the pattern, then drew a line (combo of freehand and flexible ruler) 1/4 inch outside of that, using the inside line as my sewing line and the outside line as my cutting line.
2. The Tail. The pattern makes a teeny-tiny tail that is hard to turn, so people got creative with their tails. Some people made a bigger tail, some used a different material (like felt). Some (namely myself) just have a really small tail that is only half turned out. It's cute any way you do it.
3. The Darts. For those of us who are new to sewing and have never done darts before, it's unclear whether or not to cut along the dart line and the sew the darts together - which is what I would have done, had I not read otherwise on the Bend-the-Rules Sewing Flickr Group. For the record, you just match up the lines, sew them, and press that fabric to the side.
4. Attaching the Limbs and Head. A few of us (again, including me) had limbs that didn't get attached properly (I actually had to pull out the stitching along my head and one of my legs and reattach them). It's best if, when you pin the limbs down prior to sewing, you don't line the ends of the limbs up with the edge of the shell. Let them extend past the shell to make sure you don't miss them when you sew around the shell.
Did I miss anything? Simul-Sew Participants, feel free to chime in with your comments!
A couple more tips on this project: I found it helpful to do a lot of basting, for example when sewing the head top and bottoms together and when sewing the shell together. Although that last part was accidental - it's more that my first pass at sewing the shell was so bad, I had to redo it and rip out the original line of stitching. But it was so much easier the second time around that I wished I had basted it first for real.
And my final observation is that they are cute if you embroider smiles on them :)
Also, I used a patterned fabric for the tummy, which is in two pieces, meaning that I had to figure out how to align them to make the two halves match up. Maybe there's a better way, but this is how I did it.
First, I cut out the pattern piece for the left half of a shell. Then I pressed 1/4 inch along the straight right side, which will become the middle seam of my shell. I found another repeat of that section of the pattern and matched my cut piece to the fabric, keeping that 1/4 inch that I'd pressed turned under. When I had it all lined up, I flipped the shell half over to the right, using the middle seam as the axis, so the 1/4 inch that was folded under does not move. Now you should have your shell pattern wrong-side-up and unfolded along the pressed seam line. Then trace around that and cut it out. Now when you sew the two halves together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance, the pattern should match up:
Yeah, I know, I'm a bit off, but that's because I probably didn't manage an exact 1/4 inch seam allowance. I need to work on that.
Keep an eye out for future Simul-Sews, which I think will become a regular feature of my flickr group. We passed 50 members this weekend, so exciting! And they are from all over the world, which I love. So come join us at Learning to Sew!