Category Archives: Sewing

March 22, 2011 · 2:29 pm

Miscelania

Why yes, that is eight yards of jumbo piping...

My sewing machine is pretty basic, a three-and-a-half-year-old bottom end Janome; she’s mostly pretty reliable, if not terribly fancy, and at this point we pretty much understand each other.

But every once in a while, she really annoys me.

Today, it was the needle positioning. Now, I can adjust needle position to the left, but not to the right of centre. (It goes further right during a zig-zag, but there’s no option for me to set a straight stitch to the right).

This isn’t a problem in normal sewing, but every once in a while, just once in a while, it drives me batty.

Today was one of those days. I was making jumbo piping. Eight yards of jumbo piping.

Yes, my friends. I am undertaking … shudder… home-dec sewing.

And not even for my home. I’m making a custom cushion and cover for a friend’s window-seat. Technically this is an exchange of labour since she did a wonderful photo shoot for my kids before Christmas with her fantabulous DSLR (she’s one of those hobby photographers) that also gave my a chance to play with RAW images… soooooo fun…. ahem. Anyway, so I’m making her this cushion. Which I’ve been dawdling over for most of the month because, well, it’s home-dec sewing, and why would I do that when I could make whimsical costume jackets? But she came over for tea on the weekend and I wanted to have something to show her, so I spent some time Sunday morning cutting out rectangles… endless rectangles… and then I figured I should at least sew up the piping before I lose those long, skinny strips.

At this point I’ve made lots of little, garment-sized piping on my machine with nary a problem. But this jumbo, mega-sized piping is, well, a wee bit trickier. You see, it doesn’t slide under the “high” side of the zipper foot at all. It has to pass to the right of the whole zipper foot apparatus. And because I can’t adjust my needle position to the right, I could not run my stitching nearly as close to the cord as I would’ve liked. People, I have saggy piping.

Man, I love these dresses...

Grr.

Even more annoying, I know I’m going to have the exact same issue sewing it to the pillow cover itself. Grrr-grr.

Can’t I make something nice and easy, like a jacket?

Or how about another 70s maxi dress? This one arrived today, courtesy of the Cupcake Goddess’s pattern sale the other week. Num, num. It’s a misses’ size 10, which will be interesting—in the past I’ve usually used 12s and had to take them in a bit, but theoretically the 10 will be perfect in the bust. I’m particularly in love with the blue version, although the rational part of my mind is telling me that collar is a bad idea…

Today’s MMM picture

Boring!

is a particularly blah combination of repeat outfit (see day 6) with no hair/makeup.  I had hoped to make it through the month without a precise repeat, but I was too lazy to check this morning to see if I’d worn this exact shirt with these exact pants before, and now that I realize I have, I’m too lazy to change. Meh. I think I’ll be back to regular life tomorrow, though, so I’ll try and make more of an effort then…

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March 21, 2011 · 6:02 pm

Back to the beginning…

Early sewing efforts. Including pantaloons, T-tunics, leather breastplates and wooden swords.

I’ve mentioned before that, at the age of nine or so, I began my long and illustrious (snerk) sewing career on that most time-honoured of passtimes, making doll clothes.

Barbie clothes, actually.

Ok, clothes for Barbie’s friends, relations, little sisters, etc., mostly. As a non-blonde myself I took great pains to make sure my doll collection represented as much diversity of body shape and colouring as I could, given the medium (I was, however, a Barbie snob; no knock-off dolls allowed). Also finding a Ken doll that didn’t look doofy was a miracle, so when I did, I bought two.

And, when my father came up to visit us for Christmas and incidentally divest his

Soo styling. The bits on the right represented computer components for when I was feeling a bit sci-fi. Like the swirly keyboard?

basement of the horde of boxes I left there when we moved out of Saskatchewan, he brought the boxes containing the remnants of my childhood Barbie collection. So I took the opportunity to document, rather briefly, some relics of my first sewing adventures.

You may notice the lack of actual Barbies in any of these photos. This is because when my kids reached doll-playing age, I very cheerfully gave them the barbies. I’m not a collector. I loved Barbie because she was a blank slate, a vessel devoid of personality that could become any and everyone I desired. It wasn’t about preserving anything about the original doll, ever.

I wove those blue pieces on a home-made loom, too...

Of course, when you give a 15-year-old plastic doll to a three-year-old, well… let’s just say the attrition was fast and brutal. Necks are a particular area of weakness in these dolls (which mostly dated to the late 80s and early 90s)… it took Tyo only a few months to destroy most of them.

Ah, well. I always liked Skipper better, anyway.

The Barbie Library

Of course, clothes were only part of it. There were entire worlds to create. Computer components (see above), food (not pictured… it included beads for “fruit”, bits of shredded foam for bread and cheese, and little snippets of leather for dried meat…), and, of course, books.

Ok, Peter’s Ken dolls may be a bit better dressed…

but this is totally where it all began!

… why yes, I am a total dork. Don’t act surprised. 😉

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March 20, 2011 · 7:14 pm

Yet another knockoff…

Jacket!

Someday I’ll make something original. Sooner or later the universe is bound to get tired of throwing other peoples’ really cool ideas at me, right?

Hmm.

So, I feel a teensy bit guilty about this knockoff, because it’s inspired by this EvaDress pattern, and I really feel like I ought to support her and buy the pattern. But, I’m also a starving student… and I wanted to try some kind of jacket with my new basic princess-seam pattern… and, well, here I am. I’ll buy it someday, I promise. In my own defense, the actual construction of my jacket is almost completely different—the original is a cut-on kimono sleeve, as far as I can tell, while mine is a standard princess-seam jacket, cropped to underbust length, with a set-in sleeve.

Drapey 30s jacket

Drapey 30s jacket

Debi’s made a great version of this jacket. (And here she shows more of the construction, which highlights the many differences between the “real” version and mine). If I’m not mistaken, it’s also the one pictured on this Threads article, which I’ve been lusting after since this time last year. Can we say, yum?

It’s really a very basic idea—a scrunched, buttoned-on scarf over a basic cropped jacket, with cowl sleeves. Lauriana featured a version of the sleeves here, and there’s a description in Modern Pattern Drafting of how to draft it—really simple, actually. I kept my cowl fairly small, partly because I like the close-fitted sleeve and partly because I didn’t have a lot of fabric.

Really, hardly any fabric, barely a metre. I had wanted to make a circle skirt out of this fabric (I’ve been cherishing it, waiting for the perfect project, since last summer some time) but didn’t have enough.

Without scarf

To avoid trying to match plaids (across princess seams, no less!), I cut the side pieces on the bias, then interfaced. The interfacing is probably a bit heavier than would have been ideal on this very light, soft, loosely-woven plaid, but hopefully it won’t be a problem in this location. I do wish I’d been a little more precise matching up the plaid across my CF, as it’s a hair off, but ah well. Not visible behind the scarf anyway.

The jacket has no collar (just the scarf), which was fortunate given the fabric shortage and the need to reserve a fair bit for the scarf. The underside of the scarf is made of flannel, as well.

The Built by Wendy book suggests using 1/2″ seam allowances on straighter seams and 1/4″ on highly curved ones (like the princess seams and the neckline and armscye). I followed the advice, and I like it, but I wonder if for this fabric I shouldn’t’ve used wider ones, as it’s pretty loosely-woven and ravelly. Time will tell, I suppose.

Back view, with pleat

The bias sleeves are interesting. They tend to stretch and narrow, which works well with the style but could make getting a long-sleeved shirt on under them tricky. I also didn’t line the sleeves, as I was concerned with messing up the drape. The bodice is lined with some more bits of leftover silver Kasha from my Winter Coat. Someday I’ll run out of that… I’ve still got nearly a metre left, though!

I’m not 100% sure I handled the back pleat the best way possible. I made similar pleats in the lining and fashion fabric, meaning they’re both kind of occupying the same space. I wonder if it wouldn’t’ve been better to try to wrap the interior box pleat “around” the exterior one so they were folding the same way… anyway, it’s not too terrible, I think.

Scarf, lining, really bad buttonholes.

Nitty gritty details: the scarf is lined in black flannelette, as I didn’t have enough to make a wide enough scarf just out of the fashion fabric. As it is, I could’ve made it a bit narrower, and probably an inch or two longer… ah well. It’s pretty hard to get more than a general sense of this until the buttonholes are already in place, so such is life.

I piped both the inside of the facings and the neckline and front openings of the jacket. I like the piping around the facings, but perhaps a softer cord would be better next time… anyway, as is typical with coats and my sewing machine, the facings were too thick to work automatic buttonholes in, so the resulting buttonholes are as attrocious as you might expect. Ugh. The buttonholes on the scarf, on the other hand, worked out just fine… so look at those ones instead 😉

Piped facings

The facings were squeezed out of scraps (I didn’t actually think I’d have enough fabric for them) so are pretty narrow but worked out well enough. Note to self: remember to remove the back pleat when drafting the facings. And here I was trying to figure out how my neckline had stretched out so much…

Cowl sleeves: Bias sleeves are, well, interesting. They tend to grow (which is a good thing from my point of view) but also shrink width-wise. I will admit I took a couple of loose, surreptitious stitches inside the drape part to keep the folds in place. The cowl edge is finished with a fold-back facing, and the seams in the sleeves are finished with serging. I’m glad I didn’t try to line the sleeves, as it would’ve messed with the drape thoroughly, I think (at least with my lining and this particular fabric)

Button front

There are a LOT of buttons on this jacket. Well, eleven, in fact, and I have some extra little ones I might put on the sleeves, just for decoration. I had an assortment of black, white, and grey buttons of this same shape, in a couple of different sizes, from a thrift-store button baggie picked up a while back.  The arrangement I went with colour and size-wise is probably not optimal, but it was the best I could come up with given the limitations I had. They’re not overly visible when it’s worn, anyway. I’m actually really glad I was able to use them all together, and I like their shape—plain but distinctive—with this style.

Semi-glamour

This jacket really deserves a much more glamorous photo shoot, but this is the best I was able to muster up today, as I’m still sick (have been all weekend). It looks killer with the 70s dress, actually. I had been hoping it would work with my circle skirts, but I’m not loving the combination—too much going on both top and bottom; instead of the hourglass look I was hoping for, it just looks busy. This jacket really seems to stand out with a slim, sleek bottom half—coincidentally just like the dress it was originally paired with.

I think I am officially satisfied with my fitting of the cropped bodice version of the “Built By Wendy Fitted Jacket”. Next up—sleeves and collar :). I’m thinking I might try a little cropped jean-jacket to test out a two-piece sleeve.

Warning: I have a deep and long-suppressed passion for boleros and severely cropped jackets. You may get sick of this look… soon.

I don’t know if I’ll ever actually do any of the particular projects in the Built by Wendy Coats & Jackets book (well, maybe one or two…), but I am loving having the basic pattern blocks to play with. So many possibilities! I may not be quite up to drafting my own patterns from scratch, but I love messing the heck out of  an existing one :).

Oh, and you can see the full Flickr set, with even more photos, here.

In Me-Made March news,

I did actually manage a picture today! (I promise I’ve been wearing my usual me-mades, but being sick just drains me of the energy to run around, get cute pictures, and then do the little followups like making links for the construction posts. Bleh.

At least the inch of snow that was covering the deck this morning is gone…

Me-Made March, day 20

Is the equinox today or tomorrow? Either way, the days will soon be longer than the nights! Hooray!

 

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March 19, 2011 · 5:23 pm

A cute model…

…Makes up for many shortfalls.

Some people can just wear anything...

Should I feel guilt about convincing Syo that this totally crappy fabric was a good choice for the sweater-dress she wanted, based on the same pattern as this shirt? It’s (finally) almost all gone. Aside from my distaste for the fabric (and sewing it—it grows under the needle) the dress was really simple. The only tricky part was sewing an elastic into the neckline to keep it from becoming absolutely jumbo-esque. I had to pick out my first try because I hadn’t pulled the elastic taut enough. Argh. As with my sweater in this fabric, I ducked the aggravation of hemming by doing a half-ass lettuce hem, which is just a standard serged edge with the fabric pulled taut as it feeds through. Don’t look too closely at the strap placement or the straightness of the side-seams, but the sprout is happy, which is the main thing, right?

What I've been working on

My efforts towards drafting the Springy Coat pattern have led me astray. Or rather, I figured I should try a full jacket using my fitted pattern, so I’m in the process of working on this. I’d been hoping to have it finished today but that doesn’t seem likely at this point. I’m excited, though… 😉

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March 17, 2011 · 1:04 pm

The joy and pain of thrift store patterns

Thrift store buttons!

There’s been a bit of a sewing-type drought at my local Value Village for the last couple of months, so it was with some excitement that I realized there were actually fabrics on the rack this time, not just encroaching curtains, and even a few baggies of random zippers (expensive and not intriguing) and metal buttons (inexpensive and in sets still on their cards—yay!). Needless to say I walked out with the buttons. I managed to resist the fabrics, mostly due to excessive stashing last week.

Simplicity 8613, from 1978

There were also a few 70s patterns, in a misses’ 12, which is close enough to my size. I restrained myself, though, and just picked up the cutest one: isn’t this an adorable jacket? And look at that neat little waistband shaping on the skirt! Pattern includes jacket, skirt, and pants.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Buying thrift store patterns (as opposed to from a reputable second-hand pattern vendor) is an obvious crapshoot. No way are the employees going through every single envelope to make sure the pattern is complete, never mind in good condition—not when they’re selling for less than a buck apiece.

Yup, this adorable pattern is incomplete. Half the pants are missing, as is that cute little waistband detail, and the first page of the instructions.

Fortunately for me, all the pieces of the jacket (what really drew me to it) are there (uncut!), and the instruction page that is left is the one for the jacket as well. So tragedy is averted. Most of the skirt pattern is there, too, except for that cute waistband, which I guess will be good if I get the hankering for an a-line, mid-length skirt.

Well, it could happen…

So, at least at this point, tragedy has been averted. Not that I really needed another jacket to want to make up. But hey, I’m sure I have enough fabric!

In Me-Made March news,

a fairy boring (not to mention weird hair) day. Sorry, kittens (or, as Patty would say, platypuses), it can’t be circle skirts and fluffy shirts every day. On the upside, it’s sunny!

Me-Made March, day 17

The Frankenpattern shirt
Skinny Cargoes

Oh, and happy St. Patrick’s day, to all you who are out there getting soused in honour of it ;). Apparently they started the breathalyzer-stops here at six AM this morning…

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March 16, 2011 · 5:08 pm

Measuring Patterns

Pattern measuring---Click through for full-size image

Before I forget, thanks EVERYONE for your wonderful comments on my blogiversary yesterday. It made for a completely warm and fuzzy day (in between wrangling children, appointments, and driving clear across town six times… and mine is not a small town :P)

One of the most interesting things I learned asking my mom about home-sewing in her youth was that the rise of the muslin is a comparatively recent event. I’m sure fine couturiers have always been making them, but when my mom was learning to sew, they were considered a waste of time and—worse—fabric.

Sew and Save by Madeleine Hunt (published 1953) seems to agree—I don’t think there’s a single mention of making a test garment in the entire book, despite a lot of emphasis on fit (and minimizing figure flaws, can’t have our flaws showing, ladies, 😉 ). Instead, they measured.

And measured and measured and measured.

The book has twelve full pages dedicated to measuring patterns, going over every common type of pattern at the time—princess seams, kimono sleeves, gored skirts, sleeves. I’m too lazy to scan them all right now, so I’m just including the ones that are relevant to me right

Pattern measuring---Princess Seam; click through for full size image

now, as I sit here trying to fit Built by Wendy’s “Fitted Jacket” pattern to me: Measuring an armhole princess seam. Sorry for the poor look of the scans, the browser (or at least, the one I use) does a craptacular job of shrinking B&W scans. If you click through for the full-size version they look fine.

So I should probably back up a bit. I want to use Wendy’s “Fitted Jacket Pattern” as the basis for my Springy Coat, which it is more-or-less perfect for, but I’ve never made any of Wendy’s patterns before. Stage one, of course, is picking my size.

So, scanning through her sizing chart, I settled on XS. I know, smokin’ the crack. But the bust and hip measurements were both right. Shoulder and waist measurements are in the small-to-medium range (typical for me).

Built By Wendy Fitted Jacket pattern pieces

What I SHOULD have done was take out my handy-dandy tape measure and follow Madeleine Hunt’s advice (made extra-easy by the fact that the Wendy patterns don’t have seam-allowances.) It would have revealed to me that the 33″ bust and 26″ waist on the pattern chart is the actual size of the pattern pieces. As in, without wearing ease.

So, yeah, the pattern’s a mite small. I will throw up the initial muslin shots for your amusement. The top of the front is the only place where it closes. The rest varies from a wee bit too small to way too small (like 3″ too small at the waist).

Jacket bodice muslin, front view

The upper bust actually looks about right. Below there it gets… well, snug.

Muslin---side view

On the up side, the length of the armscye and the level of the waist (areas I often have to modify) feel about right. I’m a bit torn on the shoulders—I have a feeling they should be about 1.5cm wider, so that the seam falls about where the end of the seam-allowance is. I like where the princess seam falls, though.

Muslin---back view

The back fits fairly well, even with minimal swayback wrinkling (this won’t be an issue in my coat, but I imagine if I get this fitted I’ll want to use the pattern for other things, too. You may have noticed I have a thing for princess seams? The side-seam does tug to the back a little bit, although not much. I didn’t clip the seam-allowances at the underarm, which is contributing to the diagonal wrinkling on the side panels, as is my tugging on the front.

I now have two options, of course—start again with, say, a size S, or just grade up the pattern as traced. Since I’m happy with the lengths in this one, I’m tempted to just grade up–adding a slice of width to the CF and CB pieces could easily give me most of the width I need, both around and at the shoulders, and reducing the taper of the princess seams below the bust (equivalent of narrowing the dart there) can give me the rest. Also pulling out the big tissue sheets to trace is annoying.

So next step—sleeves. The sleeves as drafted are really slim, one piece with a symmetrical sleeve cap. I’d prefer an asymmetrical cap (I’m borderline on needing a forward shoulder adjustment) and a two piece. I’m torn on the slimness—I like the look and have pretty scrawny arms, but this is going to be a lined jacket, too. And yes, I have compared them to the sleeve I used for my winter coat (which is pretty darn slim) and it’s about 2″ narrower around.

… time to get measuring. 😉

In Me-Made March news,

I wore my fluttery cowl again, but it spent most of the day buried under the Kimono Lady Grey (boo hoo). It’s warm enough that I don’t really have an excuse for the wool pants, except that I wanted to make sure they got an airing this month.

 

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March 15, 2011 · 10:35 am

One year in Blogland

Happy Birthday, dear Blog!

Yup, the day is finally arrived! As I had alluded to last month, my blog is one year old today.

It’s a touch odd to go back and look at what I was doing this time last year; I don’t think I could have imagined how much my sewing would progress (particularly since I barely knew what I didn’t know…)

What I’ve done:

Sewing! While I’m still pretty haphazard about a lot of things, I have many, many more techniques under my belt. And I’ve made lots and lots of clothes, to the point where my me-made wardrobe is probably bigger than my RTW—certainly in my everyday clothes.

In particular, I’ve mastered (ok, attempted more than once:)

Fun projects

  • fly-front zippers
  • topstitching (and man were the first few attempts at this traumatizing!)
  • bound buttonholes
  • coat-making
  • pad-stitching and a few other tailoring techniques
  • my particular fitting issues (short upper body, swayback, long arms and legs)
  • linings
  • underlining and interlining
  • welt pockets (definitely not mastered, but at least attempted.)
  • knits! man I was scared of these…
  • interfacing
  • facings (and the nifty finishing-with-interfacing trick.
  • spending money on sewing: fabric, interfacing, notions, patterns… OK, maybe this isn’t a good thing to have mastered, but trying to sew without spending money on it really kinda sucks.
  • Stash. I definitely have a stash at this point. Not a humongous one, but not teeny-tiny, either. Confession: I love my stash. It gives me a warm feeling to have certain basic fabrics on hand, so that when/if the urge strikes I can whip up what I want on the spot.
  • I’ve had a lot of fun with photography, too (intermixed with plenty of boring, boring shots).

Quirky projects

What I haven’t done:

  • I haven’t done as much pattern-drafting as I had initially thought I would, although I have really enjoyed my forays into altering existing patterns.
  • invisible zippers
  • double-ended darts
  • lapped zippers
  • bagged lining
  • a little black dress. Everyone needs one, right?
  • most of these dresses.
  • mitred corners

Hmm, that list actually isn’t half-bad.

I’ll take this moment of navel-gazing to highlight a few things.

My first list of goals (some achieved, some not! 😉 )

My first posted project.

My first wadder! (well, my first blogged wadder)

My first wearable garment (for me, anyway)

My first comment

My “arrival” in the blogosphere. I really had no idea how to “promote” my blog, other than posting my projects

Plain projects

on Burdastyle and PatternReview. It wasn’t until I got that coveted link from the Selfish Seamstress back in August that I actually got a readership of more than a handful of people :). (To those of you who were there before—well, you just extra-rock!)

And lastly I’d like to thank you all, each and every one of you, who takes the time to stop here and poke through my ramblings. Your comments are one of the high points of my days, and the interaction, both here and on your own blogs, keeps me excited and motivated and itching to sew, design, create!

In celebration, I’m going to wear my circle-skirt/Ceylon blouse combo, despite the fact that I have nowhere to go except taking kids to the doctor’s office this afternoon:

Me Made March 15—one year of blogging!

All dressed up!

Ceylon Blouse
Casey Circle Skirt
Fluffy Petticoat
Oh, yeah, and a poorly-fitting knit tee underneath for warmth.

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March 14, 2011 · 6:29 pm

A springy little coat

Spring coat front

So I spent some time last night doodling. There was a lot of erasing, and a lot of other little doodles that fell by the wayside as this design emerged. But I think I’m happy with the details—I knew I wanted the empire waist and the princess seams and a thigh-length, but the rest was up in the air. I googled “empire waist coat” and looked through far too many inspiration options before I settled on the inverted box-pleats , high standing collar, and pleated cuffs.

I think I like the idea of the pleat at the upper CB, giving a bit more freedom of movement in what I want to be a fairly fitted garment. This is a spring coat—it won’t (in theory) need to accomodate the bulky sweaters of my winter coats.

So, all that remains is that piddly little problem of a pattern.

Erm.

Coat back

So I have two or three options, all of which promise to stretch my embryonic pattern-making skills to their limits. I have the Lady Grey pattern, which has the right seaming but the wrong kind of sleeve and the giant lapels; I have my Butterick winter coat pattern, which has the right sleeves (sorta) but shoulder rather than arm princess seams. Or, third option (and maybe the one I will go with), the princess-seam fitted jacket pattern from Built by Wendy coats and jackets. This has the right seams and the right sleeve, but I haven’t tried it before. Still, I have the book, I should use it, right?

Spring-coat, side

I’m assuming drafting an A-line skirt with a few pleats won’t be too terrible. Drafting the collar may be a bit more hit-and-miss, but should be good practice, right? 😉 …

The cuffs are stolen from (or at least inspired by) one of the variations on this pattern that my daughter didn’t choose for her version, though I think I will go with a box-pleat to match the rest of the coat.

I was debating a double-breasted front because, well, I love them, but this will be a spring coat and so often worn open, so I figured a single-breasted front would be better.

I’ve had this fabric probably since sometime last spring; it’s another thrift store mystery, a burlap-weave, quite crisp and rather scratchy. There’s also four or five metres of it, so if I really feel the need I can probably make a full muslin out of the fashion fabric (of course, if I don’t need to, I can make matching separates—it would make a fun skirt, or maybe even a shift-dress or something…

I took advantage of the weekend’s 50% off sale to pick up some Kasha lining for the coat—maybe a bit of overkill for the “spring” weight I’m going for, but I hate the thought of sewing with the regular linings. I still have to decide on underlining or not—I have a feeling it won’t be part of Sherry’s RTW techniques, but my fashion fabric, while heavy, is rather sheer due to its coarse weave. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself—first I need to pattern the dang thing.

I can do that in two weeks, right?

Also, whatever comes, don’t let me forget to add pockets!

Fabric! Right: lining; left: shell

In Me-Made March news,

the weather is gorgeous and I wore my Lady Grey! I was soo close to wearing a circle skirt out, but I just couldn’t commit to it at 6 in the morning (which felt like 5 since the time just changed… I could write a whole blog about how much I hate daylight savings time…)

Me-Made March, day 14

Czarina Coat (AKA Lady Grey)
JJ blouse
Long-sleeve T
Skinny jeans

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March 13, 2011 · 4:06 pm

Cowl Finale

Cowlneck the fourth

Well, for the moment. Like Steph, I think I’m done with this project. I’ve made four knit cowly tops this week, all but one of which are wearable. (And I have hopes of salvaging the fourth, possibly by stitching down the folds or something…)

This one was supposed to be the ultimate. And, to be honest, I think it looks kick-ass in the pictures. That is pretty much what I was going for.

The devil, as always, is in the details.

The biggest one, I think, is the most inevitable—the large cowl which permits those lovely underbust folds doesn’t, in fact, stay in place particularly well; any time I raise my arms or lean over, it comes untucked, creating a front that just looks, well, poofy. I have a feeling the original top would’ve had the same problem unless (as I half-suspect) the “underbust” folds in the photo are created by tugging down on the cowl, rather than falling naturally that way—in which case in the shirt as worn they wouldn’t even be there at all…

Completely my fault, on the other hand, are the hole I

A bit of a closer look

accidentally snipped in the front neckline while trimming the binding, the cowl facing that doesn’t fall nicely to the inside (I sewed it down a hair or two wrong on the inside), and the fact that the sleeves are sewed on with the wrong side of the fabric facing out. Fortunately the last is virtually undetectable—anyone looking that close is going to be much more struck by my wonky stitching. /sigh. I was trying to take my time with this last version, but I think my subconscious was against me.

For those of you who’ve been thoroughly confused with what I’ve been doing (and who’ve stuck with me despite it 😉 ) I made up a quick little diagram of the steps I took. The tricky part, again, is the details—how long and wide of a drape, how much to curl back the front pattern piece.

Pattern alteration---click image to see full size

And I think that’s enough of messing with cowls for, well, at least a couple of weeks…

After all, Sherry’s tailoring sewalong begins in just a few weeks, and I need to have a pattern of some kind ready for that. I think I’m going to try to create my own based on the Built By Wendy jacket book (which Ali just did a great overview of). I’m thinking princess-seamed bodice, empire waist with A-line below, thigh-length, maybe an inverted box pleat or two in the skirt portion… still haven’t decided on a collar or single- or double-breasted… anyway, I’m sure I’ll have a post on that in a day or two, anyway. But I will still have to muslin etc., and decide if I can make the sleeves two piece etc.

So much to sew, so little time… 😉

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March 12, 2011 · 6:27 pm

A qualified “meh”

Anthropologie knockoff v. 3

For this third iteration (see 1 and 2), I didn’t change much from the last; re-narrowed the neckline a wee bit, and lengthened the cowl portion so there would be more drape higher up.

This fabric is meh. The colour is drab,  it’s very, very thin, and worst of all it has very poor recovery; to get it to fit like anything other than a sack I took both sideseams in by over an inch. But it’s got great drape and cost about $1.50/m, which is about as good as it gets, at least around here.

For those of you who are insanely interested in the exact alterations, I think I’ve “curled back” the side seams/armscye too much. I needed to do it a bit more than in my first iteration to get the cowling to drape a little deeper, but not as much as I did. As usual, I overshot. I think there’s a sweet-spot somewhere between my pattern the first time and this iteration; mostly it looks good except that there’s some oddness in the folding of the pleats at the armpit; basically the first pleat is turning into a dart, which isn’t what I want. Solution? probably rotate the armscye back by the amount of that dart, and make up for the extra distance in cowl height.

Like my accessory?

Which sounds like gibberish typed out, but will hopefully remind me of what I’m trying to do… so I apologize to the rest of you for my opacity.

The other upside—this colour goes really well with my corset-waist circle skirt, which almost nothing else in my wardrobe does, and the corset-waist covers up the somewhat-more-meh lower portions of the top. Yay!

For honesty’s sake, I’ll include a shot of what I was wearing earlier in the day before I “finished” (for that unhemmed, threads hanging everwhere, value of finished)  the top. See? Not a good combo.

Previous outfit.

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