I have a complicated relationship with distressed denim. Like most teens in the 90s, one of my main goals in life was to shred my jeans—or at least bust through the knees. However, the romance of the tattered denim faded pretty abruptly when I had to start buying my own jeans—I wanted those to last as long as possible! So I avoided the pre-tattered distressed looks as much as I could. I’ll put my own holes in them, thanks.
I don’t generally try to distress my homemade jeans for the same reason, and I’ve complained loud and long about being unable to find hole-free jeans for my children. But the one thing I do miss about storebought jeans is the complicated wash and fading, even though I also think it’s environmentally questionable.
I went with unfinished, frayed hems.
So I was both fascinated and repulsed by this pre-shredded denim fabric when it came into my Fabricland three or four years ago, part of one of the random groups of jobber fabric they would get in. I couldn’t decide if I loved or hated it… anyway, in the end I settled on the side of love. But it’s still ridiculous. Someone went to the trouble of weaving this perfectly good denim, and then scraped, bleached, and shredded holes in little lines all the way along, until the sturdy, serviceable cloth is almost a kind of lace.
Everyone else seemed to think the fabric was a bit too weird. It sat, and sat, and sat. And then one day I got to work and the entire group had been shunted into the bargain centre. So I bought the whole bolt, and the idea of making the weird, impractical stuff into an equally dramatic McCall’s M6800, began to tickle the back of my brain shortly thereafter.
Fast forward to about a month ago, just after making the Kilt Jacket, when I had a weird little lull before I could start working on class samples. And for some reason the tickle to make something completely irrelevant, impractical, and unnecessary overwhelmed me. I guess I was a little late to #sewfrosting?
Anyway, having made this jacket twice before, the fitting was largely sorted out. Which left the matter of which options I was going to use, as this pattern has many. I decided to try mashing the wide-lapel view with the hood. I love it when a hood runs right into a fold-back lapel. I wasn’t actually sure this was the right way to achieve the look, but it seems to work. I added about two inches to the front of the already-voluminous hood to extend it onto the lapels, reshaped the lapel neckline into a smooth curve rather than the angle for the notch collar, and I did wind up trimming about 1/2″ off each lapel to get them to line up with the hood.
For construction, I used the same method as my first version, a combination of bound seams and topstitching. With all the little frayed holes, this fabric is fairly delicate, and I wanted lots of reinforcement on the seams. I used some grey-blue gauzy cotton, left over from this dress. Maybe not the sturdiest choice I could’ve made, but I think it worked out. I skipped the facings, too, opting for a binding folded to the inside for this part too.
However, Hong Kong binding plus double topstitching does not make for a quick project. I also didn’t go full bore, and had to occasionally interrupt… anyway. It developed slowly.
But, it’s finally finished. Or, maybe finished isn’t quite the right word. In temporary equilibrium? Because this piece calls out for distressing. I’m almost tempted to go at it theatre-style, get some patina going. Failing that, the shredded fabric is more-or-less guaranteed to begin failing sooner rather than later.
I’m already planning visible mending, layering, patching. I don’t really think this jacket is done.
I think maybe it’s ready to start becoming. Obsolescence is a part of the plan.
If you read any of my posts from January, you probably noticed me whining about this jacket in the background. Well, it’s done! And you can read the full whinge over on 
In March I’m teaching a class on the 
I’m generally a big proponent of tracing when it comes to expensive indie patterns, but I find the SOI patterns really hard to trace. The Betty didn’t have different line styles for the different sizes, which made it hard to pick out the right size, and this one had different line styles, but some of them were really faint, with tiny and spaced out dots, including the size 12 I was tracing for the lower half. Also there’s more notches than you can shake a stick at, and I always miss notches when I trace. So I cut. Based on the Betty, I cut a size 10 for the shoulders and bust and a size 12 for the waist and hip. I didn’t do a petite alteration, but I did add a small swayback adjustment, by shortening the back piece at the waistline and taking a wedge out of the side piece, since the pattern has princess seams but no side seams.
I tend to like a lot of ease in the hips, so I kinda wish I had gone up another size there. As is, I let out the side back princess seams as much as possible–you can’t adjust the front princess seams because there are pockets in this area (yay pockets), but the back is where I really need the room anyway.
But something is off with the back armscye. The sleeve cap is tall and narrow, which alarmed me a bit, and it definitely works well if I keep my arms down but doesn’t allow a lot of motion. And moving my arms to the front the littlest bit pulls mightily across the back. Fortunately this cotton has quite a bit of give, but it feels like I need a bit of a forward-shoulder adjustment—it’s tight across the back if I try to move my arms forward, but roomy across the chest. Weird because that’s not something I’ve ever needed. Possibly I could let out the seam at the back armscye a wee bit…
I did raise the underarm a tiny bit, which I almost always do, and that helps with the mobility a bit, but I’m just not totally sold on that armscye. And I’ll definitely be checking back measurements when we do the class.
All in all, though, it’s pretty cute.
There. There it is. Do you see? How in the HELL did I not check, when I went to cut it out, which way the print was facing? Of all the STUPID… anyway, I can’t go on or this blog will descend into a string of profanity I’ll probably regret releasing onto the internet.
On a happier note, the invisible zipper and the facing attachment fully by machine went smooth as butter. After all these years I still think of 
After the protracted trauma of the suit jacket (post still to come), I needed something fast and satisfying. And fortunately (?) I had another deadline just around the corner—a baby shower for one of my old Fabricland colleagues.
And when I figured out the scrap of fabric left over from my 
A hunt through the thread stash didn’t turn up any topstitching thread a good colour, but apparently I do have a 500-m spool of dusty pink regular thread. Don’t ask me why. (It’s not even one of the many spools of dodgy ancient inherited thread!) So I fiddled with my Elna and managed to slightly lengthen the triple-stitch setting, and voila! This is when the Elna’s ridiculous speed really comes in handy—even doing triple-stitch, it moves along at a great clip and doesn’t make me want to stab something. The only downside is the limited needle position control, which makes fine-tuning your topstitching distances tricky. I did all the topstitching with a 1/4″ foot, which was not bad but my edgestitching is a little more wobbly than I’d like. All in all, though, everything went well, except that every once in a while the Elna bobbin seems to start catching on something and then everything snarls up and you have to rethread the whole damn thing.
I haven’t made a lot of overalls. Actually, this might be the first time I’ve ever made overalls. Anyway, I found myself a lot more reliant on the sketchy Burda instructions than I like to be. There’s some weird stuff around the hip closures. In particular, some of the pattern pieces didn’t have their names marked on them, just numbers, and the instructions didn’t always reference the number. And there are quite a few little rectangles and almost-rectangles that were tricky to differentiate. And I would’ve liked some indication of when to finish seams, from time to time. But on the whole it all went together fairly well.
Things got a bit more off-road when it came to the hardware. My hardware stash is not nearly as vast as my fabric stash, and it’s actually getting a bit depleted at this point. I wanted heavy-duty snaps for the waistband and lighter ones for the rest of the closure. The pattern called for some cute little alligator-type clips for the straps, which I did not have, nor was I willing to venture out into our current blizzard to see what I could obtain locally. So I opted for D-rings and more snaps. Sturdy, but maybe a bit bulky, especially since I wanted the straps to be adjustable so I included extra back-snaps.
My stash of heavy-duty snaps came mostly from a thrift store acquisition of vintage snaps that have some cool colours—including three with a dusty pink finish that was perfect with my topstitching! Except that I only had three. And this vintage set was missing the back most pieces, which means I have to use extra snap fronts on the backs, too. Probably nice against baby skin, but it means I’m going to have a lot of extra snap middles when I’m done. I used lighter-weight snaps for the rest of the side closures, and added rivets at the pocket corners. That was probably the most annoying part, as there was something like 12 layers of fabric at the pocket corners. My silver rivet posts actually weren’t long enough, and I had to swap them out for longer black ones on the inside. Not visible, happily, unlike the mishmash of snap colours. I’m mostly just happy I managed to use those pink snaps, though.
There are a couple of other little details I meant to add but didn’t. I had some pink grosgrain to make a little tab sticking out of a pocket, and a teeny D-ring hanging from below one of the useless belt-loops would’ve been adorable… but I didn’t remember, and the cute factor is pretty high, anyway. So we’ll call it good, and hopefully baby Tessa (or at least, her mother) will find them as adorable as I do. I’m really excited about this baby shower, as I’m pretty sure most every gift will be hand-made. It should be great!
Back around Christmas, Jalie patterns released a free, boxy sweater pattern, the 
I thought that a soft, grey, drapey version of Yoko might be perfect for an almost-young-lady, a little sophisticated and a lot comfy. Assuming, anyway, that she didn’t hate turtlenecks.
It was super simple to sew, once I figured out that half the sleeve wasn’t missing (the sleeve “cap” isn’t—it’s completely flat!)
And it was just as drapey and suave as I had hoped, but maybe a bit plain. So I sacrificed one of my precious hoarded lace appliqués, picked up during the last, desperate discount days at Fabricland, and stitched them on the back as angel-wings. That little act of hand-sewing approximately tripled the time it took to make the sweater, but I think it was well worth it. Fyon loves the sweater (or at least that’s what she said), and I think it’s adorable on her, except I didn’t manage to get a picture. But, y’know. You can trust me.
I’m in the throes of a Big Project (TM) that is eating my brain and possibly driving me crazy. Did I mention making a suit jacket for my uncle? Yes? I wish I hadn’t. Anyway, I’m not quite ready to dive into that pile of angst yet, but suffice it to say, I needed a break from it.
Wait, I hadn’t mentioned my pouf! After 
I cut out and sewed up a quick pair of 
And then, after some pleasant digging through my freshly re-ordered bins, I whipped up a second 
This particular piece had large yellow hand-writing at one end (fortunately on the wrong side) and a linear flaw in the jacquard all down one side, not to mention being cut wildly off grain. The fabric itself is nothing special, either, highly synthetic and pretty much guaranteed to snag almost instantly. But, very pretty.
I’m sad (but not surprised) to report that, while very pretty and comfy, it’s definitely not as warm as my wool version. But it was simple and reliable and quick, which is everything the ongoing project is not, and sometimes a dose of simple is exactly what you need.
Happy Sunday!
A few years ago in my town, something began showing up among the stylish and hipster in the city: 
Finally, in the last days of 2019, whilst procrastinating from another project, I decided to trial the concept. A look through my pattern database turned up three good candidates—I don’t have a lot of wrap skirt patterns since it’s not a style I favour usually. Of course it wouldn’t be hard to hack an ordinary skirt pattern, but less work is less work.
In the end I went with Simplicity 7497, for its narrow skirt, low fabric requirements and larger size (and the parts where one of the other patterns is MIA, very upsetting, and the other had been cut off at the knee length view).
the fabric is a polyester coating that I really don’t care for, but it’s essentially the same stuff as my Red Lace coat is made of, and I didn’t want to waste any of my precious wool on a project that might be a total waste of time.
I was originally planning to interline with flannel, but the only flannel I had enough of that I was prepared to sacrifice was one my daughter came in and dibsed for PJs while I was midway through ironing it. In the end I went with fabric from a rather ugly rayon bedsheet, which was almost as slithery as my evilly beautiful polyester lining (a remnant from a 
Now if it will just stop melting long enough for me to test out its final form. Thanks, climate change.
I’m not the biggest fan of fashion trends, in general, but when the trend of the moment happens to overlap with your innate preferences… well, you just gotta run with it, right? Which is how I feel about velvet right now.
I used Butterick 6031 again. I’m trying to do a count in my head and I think I’ve made the slip or cami a total of six times. Well, seven now. I’ve made the briefs a couple of times, too, but I’m not as wild about them.
For this version, I went very pared down. I didn’t want to mix flimsy stretch lace with the heftier velvet. So I went with FOE for the top edge and straps, and I lengthened the skirt three inches. I’ll probably shave an inch or so off of that, though, it’s a little long now.
I used my usual 5/8″ FOE (which finishes at about 1/4″) and I think I maybe should’ve gone with the 1″ that finishes at about 1/2″ for a heftier look, but it didn’t even occur to me. I use the 5/8″ for just about everything, and I’m making a pretty good dent in that giant 100-yard spool I got a few years ago.
The whole thing took about half an hour, including cutting out. It helps that the pattern was in my quick-access drawer and that I used the same black thread that was already on the machines.
Now obviously a velvet slip is not very effective as a slip per se, but it’s a pretty awesome nightie. Especially when it has matching velvet stockings. Presumably a robe would complete the set but I’m not much of a robe person… we’ll see. For now—back to the Christmas presents!
I was a good girl this weekend and finished off the onesie for my younger niece. I did the one for her older sister last week, so those two major Xmas projects are done.
Let’s back up a little. I’ve been a bit obsessed with velvet this year. I mean, i always like velvet AND it’s on trend, so it’s like the double-bounce of fashion trends. Plus a semi-local maker, 
The pattern, as usual, is the Dreamstress’s Rosalie Stockings. I thought I might need to add width since stretch velvet isn’t as stretchy as a lot of the fabrics I would use for stockings, but a test revealed it was fine, so I made them as is.
What stretch velvet is a little lacking in is lengthwise stretch, so they weren’t very tall, only just over my knees. That’s fine, I added a cuff at the top—which made a handy place to attach some gripper elastic without it being as obvious as if it’s right at the top.
They aren’t quite as comfortable as they would be without the gripper elastic, but the annoyance of falling-down stockings is even worse. And while I do mean to make myself a garter belt at some point, I haven’t made it yet.
A long time ago, when I was new to sewing and really excited about coats (I made at least five that first year), I bought quite a lot of this pretty purple bouclé, more or less with my children in mind.
Anyway, amongst the Simplicity and Advance and mail-order Marian Matin Patterns were a few more idiosyncratic bits. Pattern pieces traced out on newsprint, old flyers, and even some old government land-grant paperwork. (I showed that one to my co-worker, she said, oh, I know what land that was!)
And one stuffed in this envelope that had something to do with an old water heater, for a child’s coat, traced out on a brown paper so heavy it might as well be oaktag.
For the previous two coats I used an ivory Kasha lining, but if I have any of this left in stash I can’t find it at the moment. I could, however, find a nice big chunk of this dark purple. It seemed like a nice option for a slightly more grown up little coat.
This is where production really slowed down. I’m not going to say I put a TON of thought into the design, but I did have to stop and think about what I wanted to do where—which areas were going to be standard quilted, which ones were going to be free-motion quilted. FMQ is not my strong suit, but it’s the most fun there is in quilting, IMO, and it is well suited to creating the motifs I wanted.
As with the last coat, I went with ocean imagery, as I knew this would tickle my friend and her husband’s fancy (and let’s face it, this is really about pleasing the parents, not the kids.) I wish my line-echoing was not so terrible, but it’s fairly fun doing it, at least.
And I quilted. And I quilted. And I sewed a couple of bits together, and I quilted some more. I’m glad I was able to get the waves mostly looking ok.
This fancy fish doesn’t really look like a proper wild sea creature.
I was going for eel, but I ended up somewhere near Loch Ness Monster, I think. Oh well. In hindsight I should’ve done a killer whale, for these west coast people, but I wasn’t sure my skills would’ve been sufficient to keep it distinct from, say, the shark. The art of the possible, right?
Other than that, the construction was pretty unremarkable. All of my fabric was blockfused, so I forgot to add more interfacing to the facings, so they’re a little floppy. The buttons are a little boring, but they’re vintage and, more importantly, from stash.
I hand-stitched the hem, the pockets, and the inside opening of the bound buttonholes. The latter, especially, took forever but it’s much less terrifying than trying to mark and machine squares and hope that they’re in the right place.
I haven’t said much about the capelet as there isn’t much to say—it’s part of the pattern and cute, one piece fitted with darts at the shoulders. It plus the hood, which is gathered to fit, made for some seriously bulky seams at the neck, and I have never been so happy with my Janome as the way it chugged through them effortlessly. There was much, much grading of those seams.
At the end of the day, there are some rough spots, but I’m pretty satisfied, and I know Ada is over the moon. I just hope it fits, or will fit fairly soon.
It wasn’t a speedy make, but it was fun to pick it up when I wasn’t sure what else to work on, and then put it down again when I needed to ponder something. And it’s done, with plenty of time to ship it out there for Christmas!
Tanit-Isis Sews 