The "old fashioned" way to finish up these buttonholes without using the fusible Steam-a-Seam 2 is to invisibly stitch the facing to the outer fabric around the buttonhole by hand.

Fabulous array of techniques and craftsmanship. This should be the picture next to the dictionary entry for Creativity. But OMG, what an ugly garment! LOL It makes me think of Sully in Monsters, Inc. on date night. I loved the series of articles. Thank you, Mr. King.

The title of the article says "drawstring placement" and really only addresses that one issue. It doesn't go into how to actually add a drawstring to a pattern that didn't have one to start with. I have added drawstrings to a few patterns and also readymade garments and each one is a bit different. For placement, you can also put on the garment, tie something around your waist, blouse it up as much as you want and mark where the tie hits the garment with chalk or pins. This is actully more work than measuring and marking the pattern but the only way to go if you are adding a drawstring to an existing garment. And, yes, this will shorten the final length of the garment. The actual casing is usually just top stitched into place.
If you put the casing on the inside, you will have to either cinch and tie it on the inside (hidden when you button the garment) or make openings for the cord ends to emerge. You could also sew the casing on the outside, making it a design feature, and have the cord ends come out on the outside of the garment. You can also run elastic through the casing. Adjust the tightness before you stitch the ends of the elastic at the ends of the casing.
The button to "anchor" the drawstring is there to keep the garment front from gaping under the drawstring when it is cinched to one's waist.
If your garment has no opening (pull over the head) you can still add a drawstring with the cord ends emerging from buttonholes or grommets on the outside. They can emerge at center front, off to the side, center back, etc. - whereever you like. It would help to reinforce the area under the buttonholes or grommets to keep them from raveling out.
It's not so hard, I promise!

I recently used a similar technique on a short sleeved shirt I bought. The sleeves stuck out too far for my taste so I made a tuck, like the one showed here, and sewed a spare button on top to hold it down. Since it is a short sleeved, cotton shirt I just pressed the tuck and didn't edge stitch it or make a buttonhole. Just a Q & D alteration.

For Lauriesannie, it appears that the facing shown in the construction photos has been lined with a sheer fabric like organza.

I think when Sarah says "Twist the pieced fabric to continue the dropped piecing progression." it means to coil the pieced strip into a tube, like wrapping it around your arm, and then pin the long, continuous seam and sew it. It would be like wrapping a ribbon around your arm and seaming the edges together to form a tube.

What a great technique! I would never have thought to build the backing, row by row, with ribbon. I would have attempted to sew the stips of hair to a solid piece of fabric and I'm sure I would have had trouble with it bunching and puckering. I've made wigs for dolls and have had trouble with this but now I see that the whole back of the doll's head could be made out of the ribbon-and-hair fabric. Very cool. Thanks!

About 15 years ago I made a polyurethane foam dress form that has held up extremely well. With the help of my husband, I tape-fitted a large plastic bag to cover my torso and neck. We then covered it with gauze-and-plaster bandages used for setting broken bones. (Purchased at a surgical supply store.) They were easy to use - dip in a pan of water for a few seconds and then apply. We applied the strips in a similar way to the duct tape described here, going diagonally from under-bust to shoulder, horizontally around waist and hips, etc. Then let the plaster set. This was the hard part as the plaster gets hot as it sets. I stood in front of a fan! We cut the mold down both sides under the arms using a thin saw. Since it is not flexible, a single cut down the back would have cracked the plaster getting it off. I pulled the plastic bag out of the mold (comes out easily) and filled some of the rough places on the inside with some more plaster to smooth it out. We then duct taped the sides of the mold together, trimmed the bottom and arm openings flat, put cardboard ovals in the arm openings and plywood in the bottom, secured with more tape. Then we mixed up the two-part polyurethane filler and quickly poured it in the neck opening. It expands into the whole form and out the top. After it set, we trimmed off the excess foam with a saw, opened the mold and removed the foam form. It needed a little sanding. We then mounted it on an old music stand base, attaching it to the plywood bottom. The stand is adjustable and is set to my height. I made a cotton/spandex cover for it with center front and back seams that I lined up with the centers of the form and then marked the waistline with fabric marker. I made a pin cushion to mount on top of the neck which covers the raw foam. I can pin into it as the foam holds pins quite well. I gained some weight and all I had to do was remove the cover and pad the form a bit with batting. I can also put a bra on it for further shaping. It's wonderful for fitting; it shows how my shoulders slope (slightly different from each other!), it shows how garments gap at the back of my neck. It's great for pin-fitting patterns as I can pin them right to the form, lining them up with the center lines. It was well worth the effort.

The name "sewing bird" comes from the shape of some of the third hand devices made in Victorian times. The holding part was shaped like a bird. It had a clamp that would attach to a table edge with the bird perched on top. You would clip the bird's beak onto your needlework to hold it as the "third hand" leaving your hands free to do the work.

I learned from my grandmother to measure yards of fabric by stretching the selvedge edge from my fingertips to my nose - that is one yard. She used it as an estimate but I measured and I actually measure exactly 36" from pinched finger and thumb to my nose.

Thank you, Vicky, for your help posting my photos. Who would have guessed that they were too SMALL! Now they are a little blurry, but not too bad. Thanks.

Cathy

I've been trying to upload my pictures but it keeps telling me that they're too big. But they are much smaller than the limits - 178x352 and only 20KB. They are jpeg images. Am I doing something wrong?

Cathy