I failed at Christmas sewing this year, pretty badly. Aside from my grandma’s sweater, I made Osiris fleece pants, and that was all I had time for. But I did manage to order the Jalie onesie pattern, and find the right fleece. So work has begun on Tyo’s Pikachu Onesie.
Simplicity 2603
Three pattern pieces. That’s about right, I gotta say, for gift sewing. Well, any sewing, these days. I’m all about the quick reward.
This is a present for my grandma, who I actually SAW this Christmas. Well, this pre-Christmas. The idea came to me about two days before she arrived last week, just enough time to impulsively buy expensive fabric and (fortunately) dig out the pattern, which I haven’t used since I made my red cardi-wrap.
Stand by for rather more photos than something so simple and last-minute really deserves, especially when they’re all blurry nighttime iPhone photos. Quantity over quality?
Scrunchy
I made the version with the shorter drapes this time. It’s still pretty drapey. Also, doesn’t it go well with my fleece pants?
Front view. Dirty mirror. Ugh.
OK, sorry for the dirty mirror, but the shots Tyo took didn’t show the front very well.
Back view
I used the same small size I had already traced for myself, but I made a couple of adjustments to make it a bit more roomy, adding a bit at the back fold and along the sides and under the arms. In hindsight, I should’ve just added on the sides and under the arms, the extra width at the back just makes the shoulders too wide. In hindsight, that should’ve been obvious, but, y’know. I like to learn things the hard way. There’s a bit of excess ease in the sleeve cap, which I tried to ease in when I should’ve just trimmed it off. I don’t remember noticing that the last time, maybe because I was using a squishier sweater-knit. So the seam where the sleeve is set in is a bit stretched and bumpy. I am hoping it will settle in after a wash or two, but probably it won’t. Honestly, my Grandma has a full-blown dowager’s hump and extremely forward shoulders at this point, so really the shoulder-fit has plenty of other problems.
Swishy. With fleece pants.
The fabric is a heavy Ponti de Roma, the sort of thing I normally don’t buy unless it’s, oh, 70% off, but for Grandma I splurged, and I’m glad I did, as it’s wonderfully snugly yet smooth. I have this sinking feeling it will pill like crazy later on, but for now it’s lovely.
Side view, with drape
Did I mention most of the good shots were blurry?
Wings.
There’s still a fair bit of wing.
Shoulder seams.
Sewing ponti is about as easy as knit sewing gets. I did feed in some clear elastic into the seam along the shoulders and back of the neck, for added stability. Probably not necessary, but it won’t hurt, right?
The best knit-sewing cam on my White machine.
I sewed it on my White, since it has a few knit-specific stitches that Grandma’s Rocketeer doesn’t.
Twin needled hem on the sleeves
I didn’t finish the edge around the front and bottom of the sweater, but I did hem the ends of the sleeves. I used a twin needle for the first time in a long time, and tried out something I think I maybe got from Kadiddlehopper, which was the idea of using fleecy nylon thread in the bobbin for doing twin-needling. Apparently it is stretchier and reduces tunneling? Although I should probably have wound it by hand. Anyway, ponte is not a good place to test it, since it’s pretty much the only thing I’ve ever managed to hem with a twin-needle that didn’t tunnel like crazy.
inside of twin-needled hem.
But, the resulting hem is nice and stretchy, and I did a pretty good job of lining my stitching up with the edge of the folded-under part, if I do say so myself.
I was worried the sleeves (which I made to my length) would be a bit too long, but although Grandma isn’t as tall as she used to be, I don’t think arms shrink the same way, and the monkey-arms thing is a bit of a family condition. The sleeves are a little long on her, but really about where they fall on me.
Of course, any time I tried to get a picture of her wearing it, her hand was in front of the camera, so I don’t have any good pictures of it in action.
I have one last bit of Christmas sewing to finish, PJ pants for Osiris (they just need elastic and hems, but of course I can’t really work on them at our house 😛 and it’s hard to sneak over to his sister’s without him), and the kids are getting fleece fabrics and promises.* We’ve just about finished decorating the tree and wrapping presents. I may actually survive Christmas this year after all. Although I still didn’t send out cards…
*They got laptops earlier in the fall, “for school,” with the understanding that those counted for Christmas presents. So really, they’d better be cool with whatever they get.
Filed under Sewing
Never really a good idea. Nonetheless, I decided yesterday I should make a warm and snugly sweater for my grandma. It needs to be done by this weekend.
What last minute crazy Christmas stuff are you trying to cram in?
Oops!
I have a winter coat cut out that needs to be sewn. Syo needs some costuming made for a dance performance at the end of the month. And did I mention I’m working two (sometimes three) jobs right now? AND I need to get started on my Christmas sewing, if I’m actually going to do any. Which I want to. I have a whole post on that in drafts, alongside the post on the Vader Dress and a number of other things I haven’t managed to blog.
So what am I doing?
Vogue 1094
Making Vogue 1094. Because no reason, except that this border-embroidered mesh (which really wanted to be a sari in another life) demanded it. Because I need another fluffy fifties dress SOOO badly. (The poor 70s, they are getting so neglected. I actually had someone at work say to me that I had a 50s-vintage style going on, and I was all like, well, the 50s are fun but really the 70s has my heart, and then I took stock of what I’ve actually been WEARING, and, well…)
I’m probably going to use some of the rest of it to make a gathered drape around the top rather than do the folded bias bands the pattern calls for. I love the drapes (even if they are a little strangely-constructed) but really, with this fabric, how can you not use the lace, um, EVERYWHERE?
When I went to trace the pattern, I found myself boiling it down to a mere three of the Voguety-million pattern pieces. Bodice front, bodice back, and skirt. For the skirt, it calls for six identical, tapered panels. There is a separate piece for the skirt lining, but on comparison the only difference was length. I knew I wanted to use one wide, gathered rectangle to make the most of my embroidered mesh, so I only traced the one.
For under my mesh, I found a gorgeous, two-toned taffeta that is mostly black with just a hint of blue. I wasn’t sure about the blue with the black overlay, but in and of itself I liked it better than any of the five other black taffetas I looked at, and the part where it was 70% off an already reasonable price didn’t hurt, either. It is, by the way, the hardest fabric to pin through that I’ve ever met.
Bodice front
The construction described for this dress is, well, odd. There’s a lot of handwork, not surprising, and the lining is more of an underlining—which suits me fine, I suppose, but as I said, I’m not using the lining bodice pieces, which don’t extend into the shoulder region. Yeah, I don’t really get it either. Although I’d be curious to try, at some point, just to see what it turned out like. Just not with this particular fabric. For this make, the fabric is totally boss.
Before tracing the bodice pieces, I pulled out my pieces from Project Drop Waist to compare. I wound up shortening only at the waist, and adding a centre back seam to make my swayback adjustment. We’ll see how the shoulders end up fitting—it’s pretty hard to gauge in this style. Other than that, and a little side-seam twiddling, I don’t THINK I need to do much. I suppose we’ll see if it fits.
Yesterday, when Stylish and I got together for our weekly Jacket Makings session, she made fleece pants (one can never have too many) and I worked on this. Since I didn’t have anything over there good for marking darts on dark fabric, I mostly worked on the skirt. Yes, we had a largely jacket-free Jacket Makings day.
Skirt
I cut the skirt panels from the taffeta and sliced off one entire side of my 4.4m of lacy yardage. I shortened the skirt by 2″, which puts the hem more at my knee than below it—which is where I like it, although it may throw off the overall proportions of the dress. So be it. I also narrowed the bottom flare of the pattern piece just a smidgeon, because it was SO CLOSE to fitting double on my taffeta and it would save so much fabric. Not that I know what I’m going to do with an extra metre of blue-black taffeta, mind you.
Hem interior—braid on right, taffeta on left.
I also got the pattern-recommended 3.5 m of horsehair braid. Which brings me to my biggest irk so far. Recall that I shortened the pattern, and that I narrowed the skirt slightly, all of which would have narrowed the hem. I still wound up being short about 15″ of braid. ARGH! WTF? Should I have stretched the horsehair more? I know it’s flexible stuff, but somehow that seems like a bad idea. If I’d been at home, I probably would’ve had a remnant somewhere I could splice in, but as I was at Stylish’s, I didn’t, so I settled for splicing in a piece of the taffeta, cut on the bias. Probably some interfacing would’ve been helpful, but I was irate and didn’t think of it until just now when I was typing this. It doesn’t show on the outside, and I suspect that the small, slightly-more-flexible part of the hem won’t be at all noticeable once all the gathering is said and done, but still. I’m annoyed.
So the skirt is pretty much ready to be gathered on to the bodice, which leaves me with the scary part of the dress-making—the bodice. I guess I’d better go pull up my big girl panties and find my tracing wheel…
(And did I mention that there’s about three metres of the other edge of the mesh fabric, with the same lace border, left? can we say skirt?)
Filed under Sewing
My mother has struck again. It’s that murky stretch between my birthday and Christmas, so a present can be justified, right? Actually, it’s Stylish’s birthday today. She can’t have this one, although I might share…
The Body. With mop.
Anyway. My mom found it at a flea market. My mom informs me that it should be called “Judy,” but they have been calling it “The body.” I kinda like that.
It has the usual adjustments—bust, waist, hip, waist length. With a fair bit of twiddling, I was able to get them all where they should, perhaps, be. Note how the gap between the pieces goes from narrow at the top to wide at the waist to narrow again at the bottom. I still don’t think the details of the shape are terribly close.
The bust.
Especially the bust. That odd, pointy bust is, well, not anything like mine. Adding a bra helps.
With bra. No way on earth my hips do that flare.
The biggest thing that will bother me, I think, is that it doesn’t have a swayback. So my swayback adjustments will always look a bit odd.
Clothed
On the other hand, my clothes mostly (aside from the swayback) seem to fit her. I tried on the Star Wars dress, arguably the most precisely-fitted thing I own, and it worked quite well, although the photo turned out a bit blurry as the light in the multi-purpose room isn’t great.
It fits!
In other news, it’s Remembrance Day. Between this present and Stylish’s birthday, I don’t really feel like I’ve been properly observant; I didn’t even manage to get a poppy this year, which kills me. Anyway, in lieu of actually doing anything substantial, I’ll point you back to this post (scroll down to get to the Remembrance Day part), and just say: Lest We Forget.
And, thank you, Mom.
Filed under Sewing
Y’know, that slow bit after all the exciting stuff, only read by the true fans who love the characters more than they love good storytelling? That’s kinda how I feel posting this so long after Hallowe’en, when all the excitement, and even most of the candy, is long gone.
Regardless, because it’s my blog and I’ll blog late if want to ;), here’s some quick and not terribly organized glimpses of my Hallowe’en outfit. It’s not really a costume since I’m not actually anything in specific, but I still had a lot of fun making it and wearing it. Even if I did work the whole damn day AND evening so the only pictures I got were crappy bathroom mirror pics and staffroom selfies. I am obviously not a real “Millennial;” I suck at selfies.
Man I miss my basement-bedsheet-photo studio! These days even if I might have time to take some decent pics it’s a gamble whether I’ll even be able to FIND my tripod, and that doesn’t even address the complete lack of any thing approaching appropriate space in our current home.
You can’t have a circle skirt without a petticoat (ok, I can’t, anyway), so of course I had to make a crinoline. As it turned out, I had to make two—the neon green tulle one I made first was, unsurprisingly, woefully inadequate. So I pulled out the black crinoline fabric and ribbon I bought last spring to make a black petticoat, which worked really nicely, although I fear it’s more costume-grade pouf than everyday pouf. I may have to make another, not-so-fluffy one for every day wear. Which means I’ll have four crinolines to store. My husband may leave me, just so you know.
Also, no circle skirt is complete without horsehair braid. I covered the join in a scrap of my fashion fabric, which, if you can’t tell, was an awesomely over-the-top acid-green taffeta with black spiderweb flocking. Don’t ask me why it needed to be a circle skirt, but can you really imagine it being anything else? Short of a complete eighteenth-century ballgown, anyway. That would also be awesome.
I constructed my circle skirt EXACTLY the same as my old grey one, even using the same waist template from Elegant Musings. This is the facing for the slit I made for the not-invisible zipper.
Of course poodles are traditional for circle skirts, but this one had to have a spider. I wish I’d had enough of my green thread to go around the applique a second time so the black edges didn’t stick out—I wasn’t really thinking about that when I bought my thread and only got an itty bitty spool. I used a supplementary (acid-green) cord of embroidery floss under the zig-zag to give it a bit of dimension, and because, ah, the manual for the Rocketeer (on which I sewed all of this) suggested it. I love the little techniques old manuals suggest. Although somehow they never mention all the massive amounts of actual skill it takes to use most of these techniques. So, y’know, your black velour fabric doesn’t stick out on the wrong side of your zigzag.
I used a skirt hook and a thread-chain loop. We’ll pretend this was a couture touch, and not because I couldn’t find a bar to match my hook. It needs a second hook & bar, too… I confess day of I just used a safety pin. Do you see how wide that waistband is, by the way? I think it was around three inches, finished. Which pretty much brings the top of the waistband right to my underbust. Fortunately I’m fairly cylindrical in that area, so I can get away with a straight waistband rather than a contour one.
Because I’m bored of detail shots, here’s a slightly naughty pic of my layered petticoats. You can see clearly the sheer inadequacy of the green one (sheer… snork… see what I did there? hyuk, hyuk.), but the black filled it out nicely and the green was still a nice touch of colour.
And this eye-searing green is actually the little tank-top I made to wear under the black lace blouse. I used my brand-spanking-new walking foot to sew it, and while I don’t sew enough spandex to really compare, it sure handled it nicely. I didn’t get any actual shots of the tank-top, (I used my old pattern… the real miracle is actually that I FOUND all these old pattern pieces), without the ruching, of course, but it went together fairly nicely until I got to the straps. They are ugly. But I can always cut them off and do better at some point, I suppose, and they weren’t exactly a prominent part of the costume. I cut out bikini bottoms at the same time, should I someday wish to own an acid-green tankini.
I decided, rather belatedly, that what the ensemble really needed to finish it off was yarn falls. Pushes it a bit into anime territory? Anyway, it only took me three different yarn shops to find what I was looking for, which turns out to be 100% wool superwash, whatever that is. It certainly was warm, and the texture was great, although a bit fluffier would’ve been nice. These are ridiculously easy to make, just cut a bunch of lengths and tie them on to a hair elastic. I’ve been trying to look up the knot I use but I can’t seem to find it…
Oh, look, here you can actually see me edging the applique! (which I adhered with Steam-a-Seam, by the way) I forgot I took this one. I’m using the “Special Purpose Foot” on the Rocketeer, which has a little piping-hole. It seems like a really flimy, cheap little foot, but I guess it’s held up for fify-some years already, so it can’t be too bad. It worked fine, anyway.
The blouse was made out of a spiderweb lace. This pattern, McCall’s 6467 (view D), was not the best choice. WAY too many seams, all of which had to be finished super-neatly, in this soft, floppy, annoying-to-sew lace. Of all the frilly blouse patterns I possess, why did I pick this one? *headdesk.* To make it worse, the pattern had hella crazy ease and I did not want it to be a sack on me (the way it looks on the envelope model). I made the size 8, a full two sizes smaller than usual. I went a little easy on my usual bodice shortening because of this, but apparently not easy enough because I had to cut down under the armpits to make it fit. In the end it looked fine and the sizing was about right, but it really wasn’t the best pattern for the job. And did I mention that’s a lot of annoying seams to sew in an annoying fabric?
Ah, well. Deep breaths. A week later, it’s all water under the bridge, right? It was a really fun outfit when it was all put together, and I have at least a couple of pieces that will (maybe?) be useful in the future.
Hope you had a scary Hallowe’en!
Filed under Sewing
It seems to be the season, or perhaps I’ve just reached a certain age. Anyway, I had to make another baby thing. For those of you keeping track, that brings my total of baby clothes ever made up to three items, two of them in the last two weeks.
I had a baby shower to go to. It was Epona’s. Some of you may have picked up on the fact that she’s, well, a bit of a cowgirl (the bit where she wore cowboy boots with her wedding dress might’ve given it away). I try not to hold it against her. So, of course, I had to make something that no one else would possibly give her.
I made baby chaps.
Yup. I went there.
After I had thought of the idea, I went to the googles and found this tutorial, which was enough to get me started, anyway.
baby chaps diagram
I started with a baby pants pattern, since I didn’t have a pair of baby pants handy. It got me in the right scale ballpark, anyway (since obviously I no longer have any idea what size babies are, see my last post for evidence.) I wanted an outseam so I could add fringe to it; in hindsight I could’ve made the inseam on the fold and saved myself, oh, six inches or so of sewing. Anyway.
I chose for my fabric this browns stretch velour a friend of my mother’s gave me because she didn’t know what to do with it. Obviously I didn’t know either, as I’ve been sitting on it for a couple of years now, but it’s soft and cozy and the colour was reasonable for leather, so I think it may have found its true calling, presuming I need to make about fifty pairs of baby chaps. I made each leg lined, so they’re fuzzy on the inside, too. I used my new walking foot from Sew Classic, and while I didn’t do comparison samples without, it did a very nice job of feeding all the layers together, straining only little when I had four layers stacked to sew the outseams. I stitched the outseams so that the extra-wide seam allowance was on the outside, and then went to town snipping little fringes. They’re super cute now, although I won’t vouch for how they’ll hold up in the wash. Then I added the band at the top, with elastic (hopefully about the right size for a baby waist, I have no frickin’ clue at this point.), and made a belt buckle out of some silver lining left over from this vest. For the belt-buckle, I followed Sew A Straight Line’s tutorial pretty much exactly.
Baby big-ass belt buckle.
Then I sewed it on backwards. That is supposed to be a Z, not an angular S. And my latent dyslexia kicked in, so I didn’t even realize it until looking at photos after. Just shoot me now.
With fringe.
I actually thought the fringe turned out really well; I was not at all sure it would, and they looked pretty lame before I snipped it, but I think it worked great, maybe because there were four layers of fabric to snip.
Anyway, I think they went over well. There were plenty of onesies and blankies and even a full-blown diaper cake, but there was definitely only one pair of baby chaps.
Although, I have a sinking feeling I should probably get started on the next size up…
Filed under Sewing
In the spirit of “How much more shit can I possibly cram in,” I made a baby jacket.
Let’s back up a bit. Last winter my bestie, Ada, recipient of the gift Ruby Slip, had a baby girl. In the spring, Ada and her husband came back to Saskabush to spend six months of their parental leave around family. YAY! And I spent most of the last six months thinking that really I ought to make something for this adorable baby who is lucky enough to have one of the most wonderful people in the entire world for a mother. Of course, in my typical procrastinaty way, I didn’t make anything. I even missed my window of opportunity to make this pattern last summer:
Simplicity 3243 – Opportunity Lost
I know, pretty unforgivable. I had fabric picked out and everything.
Alas, like all good things, this idyll must come to an end. Ada and family are headed back to the balmy west coast, and I probably won’t see baby Q (and her delicious pudgy rolls) until after she’s walking. Maybe talking. Stupid distance.
Style 2170
So I got it into my head, a week ago, to finally make up Style 2170, the un-numbered coat version. I traced it out, which would’ve been incredibly easy except for some reason the envelope designers didn’t give that view a number, and while the individual pieces were marked “Coat,” the pattern overview really wasn’t very clear about which pieces were which. I ransacked the stash a bit for coating (something I am well supplied with), Kasha lining (mmmm, Kasha), and finally settled on a flannel I could sacrifice for underlining. Although it has pink teddy bears. We’ll come back to that.
Coat
Did you notice this pattern, too, is for a six month old? Yeah, real bright, Tanit. Q is nine months. She’s not exactly a wispy, waifly nine-month-old, either (see above about the rolls.) So I have a sinking feeling that this coat will probably fit for about a minute and a half. Ah, well. It’s the thought that counts, right?
Don’t answer that.
Collar. Perfect button.
I had hoped for two buttons for the closure (as per the drawing) but couldn’t find any pairs in stash that worked as well as this one perfect purple button. You can see I made no adjustments for turn of cloth when stitching the collar. I only had one afternoon to construct the whole thing, I wasn’t really thinking about fine tailoring.
Fold-over facings
The front and front yoke both have fold-over, cut on facings; this made for some nifty construction I don’t think I can explain without long diagrams, but was a pain in the butt when it came to adding the lining, since the original pattern wasn’t lined and when I went to sew in the sleeves, well, the front and back yoke were all sewn to each other. There was some seam-ripping and pouting. I wound up stitching the lining sleeve to the lining body by hand; technically it could’ve been done by machine, but the space was so small and fiddly. Baby clothes are pretty annoying that way, aren’t they? There was a fair bit of ease in the sleeve cap, as you can see; I didn’t really notice with the shell fabric, which eased gloriously.
Quilting for Q
I got it into my head, during the gap between cutting and actually sewing it up on Sunday, that I should quilt the back yoke. The thought process actually went: I want flannel interlining. Interlining is sometimes quilted to the linings. Think of those gorgeous quilted petticoats you like so much. I could totally do something like that! I should quilt a “Q” onto the back yoke! Then I tried to add a bunch of curly, floral bits. I’m not good at either quilting or embroidery, so I don’t think my results are terribly legible or lovely but, well, there is a Q there if you look closely. There are also some pink smudges, because when I washed the piece to get the little purple tracing-paper dots off, it appears the pink bears on the backing flannel bled. Aargh.
Lining and facings
I used featherstitch topstitching to attach the facing to the front lining.
The guts.
Here you can see those darn pink bears. This flannel had been pre-washed at lest twice, and it still bled. WTF? I cut the flannel 2 cm shorter than the lining, and then sewed the hems together (which took a lot of easing on a flared coat like this) and managed to sort-of get it to lie nicely once it was turned around. My coating fabric was really fray-prone, so I blockfused it to a knit interfacing , which made it lovely to work with, but I probably still should’ve serged the raw edges. I was assuming this was a poly coating, but maybe there’s some rayon or even wool in there; it sure pressed and eased beautifully. I love coating. I found a lavender lace hem tape in stash to cover my hem, though I picked a darker purple thread to sew it on, which doesn’t look terribly nice. It’s very tidy, though, at least.
that bit
I backed the purple button on the outside with this clear, boring button on the inside. I was looking for a cute purple one, but couldn’t find one that was small and flat enough.
Back view. Very boring.
I kind of wish I would’ve piped the lower yoke seam, as it’s a pretty feature and hardly shows. Or maybe I should’ve done the back yoke on the bias. Ah, well. What’s done is done.
Bonnet. Fail.
As you may have noticed, the pattern included an adorable bonnet. I was pretty excited about this, until I got it to this point, and looked at it, and realized that it was highly unlikely to actually fit, or cover anything enough to keep it warm if it did. So it went to the bottom of the queue and didn’t get finished. It would’ve been lovely, though.
Bonnet insides.
Don’t you love my featherstitch understitching?
I have to say, much as I don’t love making baby clothes (they have such funny squooshy bodies, regular clothes really don’t make much sense, and they grow too quickly), I sure do love making coats. I love working with the heavy fabrics, I love the way they ease and press and even the fiddly things like turn of cloth. This was a pleasure to make just for how the fabrics handled, and it was so much quicker than a full-sized coat would’ve been.
It fits! It fits it fits it fits! I added an inch to the sleeves when I made it, and they are a little long, and the shoulders are still a little wide as well. Silly over-sized baby clothes. The sleeves aren’t particularly wide, especially for chubby baby arms, but she’ll be able to wear it for a bit, anyway (and she’ll get a lot more wear out of it in warm Vancouver than she would here, that’s for sure.)
Also, Ada has promised pictures of the jacket being worn in its natural habitat. 🙂
Also, I’m apparently going to a baby shower on Sunday. Which means I may have to make more baby clothes. /sigh.
Filed under Sewing
… Is what Stylish wrote in big block letters across her calendar for last weekend. She is organized and actually keeps track of things like that on her calendar. I know, it’s a little creepy.
So, jackets. We planned to make these last year. How did that not happen, I ask you? Don’t answer. Anyway. Stylish had her pattern picked and fabric bought this time last year. Simplicity 2508 in a giant houndstooth check. Keep in mind this time last year she’d only made one garment, and I did the zipper for her. Ok, maybe a bit of working up to it was in order.
Anybody remember this pattern? Of So, Zo fame? That I muslined aeons ago? That I found the perfect fabric for and have been sitting on ever since?
Well, it’s cut now. I’m commited. I probably should’ve done another muslin to check my changes on the bodice, but there’s enough fabric left to re-cut it if I have to. But I’ve decided I need a windproof underlining for this wool (which is actually a knit) so I have to go pick up something thin and nylon-y. I’m making the loooooong view, A. Did you need to ask? Oh, and it’s really long. According to the pattern envelope, 57″ from the nape of the neck. I checked and even with the shortened bodice on mine, that’s still brushing the ground on me, and I’m 5′ 7″. It’s going to be AWESOME.
My Crafty sister-in-law came, too, but I didn’t get any photos (Stylish’s basement is many things, but photogenic is not really one of its talents). She’s making the same pattern as Stylish. Actually, the same view. It was really handy because she could just go down the list of pattern pieces Stylish had made and trace out the ones she needed in her size (that pattern is not the most clearly-labeled when it comes to figuring out which pattern pieces you need for which views, by the way.) Her fabric is a houndstooth, too, now that I think about it, although very different in style and scale, and she’s aiming for a fall coat, not the full winter deal. If anyone has any thoughts on FBA’ing this pattern, I’d love to hear them.
Stylish got her muslin, made in a sweater knit, almost done (still needs collar and cuffs). We had made a couple of adjustments to the pattern beforehand—she traced the size 12, grading out to a 14-equivalent below the waist, and add about 2″ to the sleeves (more may be needed), and then shortened the torso by 2″. Figuring that out for the raglan sleeves was kind of brain-wracking, and I’m still not entirely sure I got it right. Let’s just say I’m very glad I walked those raglan sleeve seams after I’d done all the alterations, because it took some serious fiddling to get them to line up. (Which makes me wonder if they matched in the original pattern, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.) All those changes were worth it, though, because when she put the coat on the waist was in exactly the right place, there was enough room for her hips (not any extra, mind you) and the sleeves were, well, almost long enough. All we did was tweak the shoulder width a wee bit, easy to do with a raglan (narrowing them), and taking in at the back a little bit. I was trying very, very hard not to take it in too much, at least on the pattern. The “muslin” may have a future life as a sweater (or perhaps a housecoat :P) for which it would be more flattering to take it in a bit more.
The next step is going to get a bit scary, though. The Simplicity coat doesn’t have separate pattern pieces for things like the lining and interfacing. I know how to adapt those pieces (thank you Sherry!) but how heavy duty do I want to get here? I don’t want to overwhelm either of them, but I also don’t want them to spend all this time and money on inferior jackets. And how do I break it to Stylish, for sure, that she’s going to have to do bound buttonholes on her fabric? Machine-stitched ones are SO not going to happen on her thick, spongy fabric. Crafty MIGHT be able to manage machine buttonholes, but that can be even more of a headache than bound buttonholes. /sigh.
I want to say that more Jacket Makings will be happening this weekend but, well, it’s the weekend before Hallowe’en. Both kids have costumes that need to be put together (if not exactly sewn) and I have a black crinoline to finish.
On the other hand, winter is definitely in the air over here. I really, really, really want a crazy-warm, long, heavy coat.
Filed under Sewing
Not awesome. Mrs. Church would send me straight back to Victorian sewing school. But it’s leap years beyond my last attempt. Sadly, it’s in the middle of a scrap with no practical purpose. /sigh 😉
Sewing is what I do when I'm cheating on all my other hobbies...
Tanit-Isis Sews 