Jeans!

Well I have a total of one pair of pants in my wardrobe that actually fit at the moment so it was time for a new pair of jeans.



I found a great piece of fabric last time I was at the discount fabric store.  A really dark denim, heavy weight but with lots of stretch....and at $1.99/yard how could I go wrong.....Well I almost did.  After cutting my fabric out I realised that I hadn't actually washed the fabric first, now I've been caught out before with things shrinking during the first wash, so rather than risk it I went ahead and washed all my cut out pieces, which resulted is some frayed edges, but at least I was sure that they would fit in the end.

I used the pattern that I created for my last pair of Jeans as a starting point.  For this new version I cut them out with an extra 1/2 inch at each side seam.  I lowered the front rise about an inch and the back rise about 1/2 inch.

I started sewing with the two back pockets.  I wanted some pretty top stitching like you find on store bought jeans so I set my normal machine up with purple thread and my "new" old machine (that I was given by one of the ladies at my Thursday knitting group) with silver metallic thread and stitched my design with a combination of the two threads.



I then sewed a backing of random cotton onto the back of the pockets to finish off the inside, before sewing them onto the back of the Jeans.

I did a  full fly install into the front of the jeans which actually tuned out very nicely - except that after a couple of washes some of the top stitching is starting to come out.















I added pockets in the front, again top stitched with a combination of the purple and metallic silver thread.



and lined with a piece of scrap cotton from my stash.



I basted together the side and inner seams and that's when I got stuck.  The pants were so close, but there were definite wrinkles under the butt that no matter what I tried I could not get rid of.


The pants got put to the side a couple of times whilst I tried to figure out how to get them to work....but in the end I decided close enough is good enough and just went ahead.  I ended up letting out the inseam at the back of the crotch and taking it in at the front and that helped somewhat, as did a bit of trimming around the knees....  but some of those butt wrinkles still remain.



I need to add quite a bit of length the the bottom of the crotch curve next time...

I added a yolk to the back as it was riding down a bit as I walked upstairs, and then the waistband.  And for the final fitting I added 1.5" wide elastic to the waistband....yep I like my jeans to come with elasticated waists.....My problem is that my waist is the same size as my hips so my pants are always either falling off, or really digging in around the waist - hence elastic is my friend.

The hems I just ended up turning up the minimum, I think next time I need to add some length to my pattern, these work fine with my soft soled shoes but anything with an actual sole they could be a bit short....good thing I don't do heels!






Overall they're not bad, but they're not fantastic either.  I think I see a pants sloper in my near future,

A Patchwork Coat

For about 5 years now I've been volunteering down at our local seniors center driving meals on wheels.  After many comments on how much they love my work, last spring one of my clients asked if I would be willing to make a coat for her.  She had a picture from a magazine of a coat that she loved and wanted to know whether I could make her something similar.

Of course I said yes.  A few things got in the way and we had to wait a while before we got started, but finally yesterday I delivered her the finished product.

The first step to creating the garment was finding the right pattern.  I printed out many different options for patterns for her to chose from, but none of them were perfect.  None that is till I raided my mums pattern stash.  In there I found Butterick Pattern 5944.

View B was almost exactly what Kathy and I were looking for, The only modifications I had to make were to add pockets and a lining.

Then it was shopping time.  The coat in the original picture was a patchwork of three different materials. a green fabric with red flowers and patterns, Another more olive green with gold patterning and a contrasting turquoise blue material.  Kathy and I decided that we would try and stick with this colour palette of red, green, gold and blue as much as possible.

A trip to my local discount place  found me a couple of materials that I thought might work.  The first was a heavy weight cotton material with a neutral background colour, covered in flowers in shades of red, purple, orange, blues and greens.

One of the things I  loved about this materials was that it was reversible, with the back side being the same flower pattern in shades of  blues and golds/browns. A perfectly coordinating fabric combination.

I then found a another piece of fabric with a blue,  green and gold swirl pattern to tie it all together.

Thankfully Kathy loved my selections so we were good to go.

I started by making a muslin.  I used some horrible grey green heavy cotton material that I had bought on sale for exactly that purpose and made up a straight size 18.  After the first fitting we decided 18 was just a smidge too wide across the shoulders and a smidge too small across the hips.  I modified the pattern accordingly to fit and I was ready to get started on the real thing.

I took my pattern pieces, traced them onto a new piece of paper, and then started dividing them up into squares to create the patchwork pattern.   In the end I ended up with a 4 x 1 block down each front, and a 4 x 3 block across the back, then divided the sleeve into three equal pieces.  I allocated a material type to each piece using trial and error, trying to get an even spread of the three different fabrics.

For the front  I cut the pattern along the seam lines and retraced the pattern pieces adding seam allowances where necessary.  I then used these new pattern pieces to cut out my fabric and sewed the three pieces together to make each front section.

 For the back I cut blocks of the fabrics to the height required and an even width, then patchworked the pieces together.  I then laid the pattern over the new piece of fabric I created and cut it out.

The sleeves were done in a similar manner with the fabric cut into blocks of the right height, patchworked together, then cut to the pattern.

Once I had all the main pieces cut out the coat itself came together very easily however, as the material was quite heavy each seam needed to be pounded with a hammer and ironed with a very heavy hand after being sewed, the coat ended up taking quite a bit longer than I had expected.

The only issue that arose during the construction of the coat was that  I was planning on putting the pockets into one of the seams across the front of the coat, however due to the size of the patchwork this would have meant the pocket was either too low down or too high up.  So in the end I decided that I would have to do welt pockets.

Now I have never done a welt pocket before so I was a bit intimidated, but I figured at least if I ruined it I could easily take out that piece of patchwork and replace it.  Still, I did do a trial on a piece of scrap fabric first before cutting into the real coat.  I went back to the trusty internet and looked up a tutorial for welt pockets and found one that I was able to follow along easily.  Good old craftsy to the rescue.  In the end my first pocket turned out pretty good, and my second one worked fantastically.  I was pretty impressed with my first welt pockets.

Can you even see it - it blends right in!

The collar (and undercollar) were cut from one of the main coat materials.  I was planning on adding interfacing to one of the collar pieces but in my hurry to get the coat complete I forgot, so there is no interfacing at all used in the coat.  Thankfully the fabric itself is stiff enough that I don't think it's a huge problem.

One thing that Kathy was worried about was whether or not she would need shoulder pads in this coat.  When we tried on the muslin I could see that she did have very sloped shoulders so once I sewed in the sleeves I decided to add some additional padding.  I was doing some internet research on sleeve heads, trying to decide whether I needed one in this coat or not when I came upon Gertie's blog post about sleeve heads.  The way she had inserted hers, like chest support, actually seemed to be what I wanted so I played around with doing something similar.  I first tried sewing two layers of my coat fabric together and shaping around the arm hole, but that got a bit bulky, so in the end I ended up using a couple of scraps of fleece that I had lying around and pretty much copying Gertie's method.
I didn't get any photos of this from the inside but I think it looks pretty good from the outside, fits nicely across the chest and shoulders.

Next step was to tackle the lining.  I found a beautiful grey/blue shimmery crepe like fabric that matched beautifully. The back and sleeves were cut using the same pattern pieces as the coat.  For the front sections I retraced the original pattern, adding in my fitting adjustments and then I cut it in a straight line about 4 inches from the front edge and added seam allowances to both pieces.  The front half of this piece was used to cut the facing out of one of my main materials and the rest was the front lining.

One of Kathy's requests for this coat was to have an inside zippered pocket where she could store her wallet, so the next step was to insert a pocket into the lining.  After my success with my welt pockets I think I got a little cocky and did this one without the benefit of a tutorial.  It didn't work quite so well...still it's not terrible so I decided to accept it and move on.

The final step was to attach the lining to the coat.  It took some fiddling around get the bottom seam to sit nicely, especially around those side slits, but after much playing it was done.

And onto the hand sewing.  I was able to find this beautiful sequined red lace in just the colour I wanted and I hand sewed it onto the coat up one front edge, around the collar and back down the other front edge.  Another piece was sewed around each cuff.

The buttons are actually turquoise beads and the button loops, in a red material to match the lace, were sewed in between the coat and the front facing.

 

And just a few photos of me modelling the coat before handing it over, it was a bit big on me.

Three Days, Three shirts

Well after my confessions on Sunday about all my unfinished projects I was feeling very yuck.  I hate having things hanging over my head.  So I decided that this week was going to be finishing week.

I started Monday morning with the green shirt.  There was nothing technically wrong with it - it was just way too big so I figured that should be an easy fix - right???? wrong.  5 hours of sewing later I finally ended up with a finished project.  Its not fantastic, but its a wearable shirt so I'm happy.

So how did I do it.  I started by taking my sloper pattern and extending it down to shirt length.  This is where I encountered my first problem.  Figuring out how to take the dart out of the pattern.  I'm not 100% sure I did it right, but it seems to work.  I originally left the armhole as per the pattern and then pivoted the pattern around the dart point to figure out the new side seam, but this created too much length between the armhole and the waist, so in the end I kept the front line of the pattern in place and pivoted around the dart point, essentially elongating the armhole to account for the extra fabric required for my bust.  This seemed to work.

I then took the green shirt apart, laid it all out flat again and laid the new pattern pieces over them.

As I expected the arm hole was much too far out, and the sides of the top were a good 1-2 inches off too wide too, and that's without taking the negative ease that this fabric needs into account.  To account for the stretch of the fabric I moved the pattern over towards the center 1/2 in (essentially taking 1" fabric out of the center and back of the top), then re-cut the fabric to the sloper pattern.

I was then ready to start sewing.  Since I wasn't entirely sure how the pattern would work I sewed the whole thing together using the basting stitch to start with, and I'm glad I did, as I had to take it apart and make adjustments a few more times before I was happy, but finally I said OK, took the whole thing apart one last time and sewed it together using the correct stitches.  As I said 5 hours later I had a top that I could probably buy in a store for $15, nothing special,

I will admit here and now that my finishing on this top is not the greatest, by the time I got to the finishing stages I was so over it and just wanted it done.

One thing that I did do however, which I have never tried before, was add some tape along the shoulder seams to stop the top from stretching out.

Unfortunately I didn't think about doing this till the top was finished so it's a bit tacked on, it also means that the shoulders no longer sit beautifully flat when I'm wearing it.  But despite everything I have now been wearing this shirt for the last two days straight (hence the stain in the middle of the shirt already, please excuse that). It's beautifully comfortable, warm and snuggly so I'm happy.

On Tuesday I decided to tackle the orange shirt/dress.  This went a lot more smoothly thankfully.  I decided straight off the bat that I didn't like it as a dress, and it'd probably never get worn as a dress so my first action was to chop 16 inches off the bottom.

I then added a facing around the neckline.  This is where I spent most of my time and I was trying to decide whether to leave the neckline plain, or if I wanted to do something fancy.  I played around with adding a small draped cowl, piping etc, but in the end went with the plain facing.   I sewed the facing on, turned it over and top stitched it down and I still wasn't overly happy, so I went back with my twin needle and added a line of double stitches about 1.5 inches away from the neckline and this finished it beautifully.

After finishing the neckline I started looking at the bottom of the shirt.  again I played around with a couple of different options.  first I tried leaving it tunic length and leaving a split up with sides, and even doing a high low hem, but in the end I decided on ruching the two side seams creating a nice curve around the front and back.

Last but not least was the grey and white top.  After going out and buying a new underlay fabric, this time with stretch, I decided I wanted to give the shirt one last go with the original two materials.  I re-sewed the front and back together with both fabrics, using 1/4" seam allowance rather than the 5/8in (again using a basting stitch so I could easily rescue it if it didn't work).  I tried it on and it seemed to fit fine, wasn't too constricting, so I went and added in one sleeve (I used the 1/4" seam allowance to sew the sleeve together, but the full 5/8" to sew the sleeve into the top).  Again it seemed to be fine with that little bit of extra wiggle room, so I tried the final sleeve as well.  Yep - it works.  Unfortunately I then had to go and take it all apart again so I could sew it up properly using the right stitches.

            

Adding the collar turned out to be a bit trickier though.  I tried it first with the fleece and the grey and white material layered together, but first it was way too thick, and second without the stretch it wasn't going to work, so I broke out the new material I bought, a plain grey knit fabric.  Its much thinner than the fleece and has the required stretch so it worked beautifully.  I had a few problems getting the stripes to sit nicely at the bottom of the V neck - next time I think I'll go for a scoop neck if I'm using a striped fabric.

And last of all came the band around the bottom.  Again I used the grey knit fabric to line my grey and white stripes.  When I tried it on it was too long, right down past my bum, so I had to take the band off, cut a good 3" off the bottom and reattach.  a good thing I was still basting on first before doing the final sew.

I was happy that I managed to get most of my stripes to line up pretty well,  Its a bit off near the top of the shoulder, but everywhere else was pretty good.

Realistically the amount of time it took me to sew this shirt was very short, but since I basted and tried on after every single seam it ended up taking quite some time to finish.  The final product is probably more sweater than shirt, but that's OK, just this morning my 6 year old son asked why I wore my purple sweater every single day and I realsied that yes I really only have one around the house day to day sweater, so at least now I have two.

Unfinished Projects? Why yes I do have a few!

So I haven't posted much lately and there is a reason for that....The last couple of weeks have been some of the most frustrating I've ever had from a sewing point of view.  I've started not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 projects in that last few weeks and not one of them has been finished for one reason or another.

I decided that I should probably document some of my issues, and then hopefully I can document my fixes if and when they happen so that next time I encounter these problems I have some idea of what I'm doing.

Project 1 - The Coat

It all started with the coat muslin.  I've got a couple of coats in conception phase in my mind. The coat I made last year I love but I wanted to make a few modifications before starting the new coat.

I made myself a coat last year, straight off of Simplicity Pattern 1732

 

Now whilst I absolutely love this coat it does have a few issues.


The old coat is a bit too wide across the shoulders at the back leading to some bunching

And it also has a few design elements that I don't want on the new coats. Things such as the puffed sleeves. the huge lapels, and finally when its cut off at the 3/4 length as I want my next coat to be, its a bit too flared.

So my plan was to trace the existing pattern pieces onto new paper, then modify it using the sloper that I made earlier.  I did this and made up a muslin. After much tweaking and many many many modifications I ended up with this...

(please excuse the hair that really needs to be re-dyed and the ugly muslin material - not my most flattering photos)

The front it pretty much shapeless, the back is ok, but the sleeves are two different patterns and neither or them fit or hang nicely and are both too tight around my arm.

 I spent hours and hours trying to get this pattern to work, mainly working with the arm scythe and sleeve.  In the end I decided to just throw it out and start all over again,

I decided to go right back to the beginning and  create a new sloper.  This time however, when measuring for my sloper I was able to use my new dressform.

A couple of months ago I decided that I would love a dress form, with all the sewing I do it would really come in handy.  But I didn't want to hand over lots of money just to find that I couldn't adjust it to my dimensions - which is a definite possibility given my proportions. So after searching the internet for many hours I found a do it yourself solution using duct tape.  I wasn't sure how well it would work, so rather than jump straight in I decided to try it out on my kids first.

                        My Daughter                                                                                                                 My Son

I know that these forms will probably only last for a month or so the way they're growing, but it was still fun, and it'll be fun to look back on just how small they are in later years.

Once I had the trials under my belt I went ahead and tried it on myself.  Unfortunately this one didn't work quite so well, but what did I expect when I had a 6 and a 7 year old doing most of the work.  From the bust down the form is good, because I was able to do most of it myself, however over the shoulders and across the back, where L did most of the work, it did not come out quite so well, Since across the shoulders and around the arm holes is the area that I have the most problems with, this was very disappointing. In the end however the form was able to be of some use.  I was able to use it when measuring for my new sloper.  Since I was able to draw marks all over it and they didn't move, it allowed me to get much more accurate measurements which in turn made for a much better sloper.

 

It's still not perfect, but its a lot better!

At this point however I stalled.  After all the work I had put into it I'm a bit afraid to try modifying the sloper into the coat pattern.  My original coat pattern is princess seams and I'm still trying to figure out if I want to stay with this or if I go for a darted coat pattern.  and once again indecision leads to inaction and the whole project had been thrown in the too hard pile in the corner.

Project 2 - the Orange Dress/Top

So in the mean time I decided to try something a little simpler.  I found an orange/black knit fabric during one of my many trips to the fabric store, and I couldn't resist it.  I was originally thinking about making a top from this material, then I found this free Dress Pattern from So Sew Easy and decided I would like to try it out.  This actually worked out quite well.  I lengthened the sleeves to full length since I've never been a fan of 3/4 length sleeves and cut out the smallest size along the top edges and the largest size down the side seams to allow me to adjust it as required.  It did require a little rework along the side seams, letting it out in a few places and taking it in a few others, Whislt the fit ended up OK, the style is not right for me - shows off my big belly, and the fabric choice was also pretty bad.  This fabric is just too much as a dress,especially a long sleeve, long dress (which is what the dress ended up as on me when cut out to the pattern).

So the plan here is to cut it off and go back to either a tunic length or a top.  Still trying to decide which, and until I do this one is still in the too hard pile in the corner.

Project 3 - The Grey Top

On one of my many trips to the fabric store I found this great piece of grey and white stripe, loosly knit fabric.  Its very pretty but very stretchy so I found some great grey fleecy fabric to go  underneath it.

Both fabrics layered together

I was a bit jaded after all my failures so I thought that I should go back to a real pattern this time around. I went through my patterns and found one that I liked. Simplicity 5133.

I decided on view 2 with the V neck and the bottom band, but again lengthening the sleeves to full length.

I cut out the fleecy material first.  Based on my measurements I was between a 14 and 16 around the bust, well above an 18 at the waist and below a 10 for length.  I chose size 14 as I figured that the bust was the most important fit in this pattern,....and because my mum had already cut the pattern out to a size 14 (Ok so I'ma bit lazy at times).  I sewed the shoulders together and then machine basted the sleeves in.  I tried this on and it seemed to be going well so I went ahead and cut out the grey and white fabric.  I got it all cut out, re-sewed the shoulder seams with both fabrics, re-basted in one sleeve and pinned the side and sleeve seams and tried it on......it was at this point that I realised that the fleecy grey material I had chosen had no stretch whatsoever...... The whole thing was just too tight.

The plan now is to buy a new under material and try this again.  I figure I can  re-cut the existing fleecy material into a coat for one of the kids.

But in the mean time - into the pile on the corner this goes.

Project 4 - the Green Top

I still wanted to make the simplicity top - and I had a piece of material that I bought back in Australia that I wanted to make into a top so I started over again.  This time I made sure that I tested the stretch of the fabric against the pattern and it looked right so I cut it out - again using the size 14.  I sewed the shoulder seams together, then pinned the sleeves in and the side seams together and tried it on.....

This time the pattern is way to big!  I can't win.  The shoulders are way too wide and the whole thing looks like a tent.  I took it off and re-pinned it an extra inch on each side seam plus and an inch down the front and back and it started to look like its supposed to.

I think with this one I'm going to try and re-cut it using my sloper since I don't want to have a seam right down the middle of it and it was nice and long to start with.  but in the meantime - to the corner it goes.

This is getting depressing