Turquoise and purple plaid shirt

Please excuse the lengthy ramble in this post I wanted to document exactly what I did whilst making this shirt so I can recreate it again if needed - If you just want to see the finished product feel free to skip to the end now.

After so much time spent trying to play around with my own patterns I thought that it was time to try a store bought pattern again.  

On one of my many recent trips to the fabric store I found a stunning piece of fabric - I'm not sure what it's made out of but its a gauzy type fabric with a turquoise and purple plaid pattern. It's not the type of fabric I would normally buy or wear but I couldn't resist it.  

I was browsing in Savers (a thrift shop)  a couple of weeks later and found bundles of 4 sewing patterns for $1.45.  One of the bundles had New Look 6704 at the front.  

A button up blouse with front and back yoke and princess seams.  I immediately thought of the plaid fabric that was still sitting in my stash and figured that this would be a good pairing so splurged on the bundle (of course every other pattern in the bundle was an ugly 80s shapeless thing, but for $1.45 I'm not complaining).

My first step was to try and figure out what size to make.  This is by far my biggest problem with bought patterns - I have no idea what size I am.  So I got out my measuring tape and compared my measurements to the packet. 

Hips - this is the easiest one:

                        My measurment  - pattern measurement  - size

hips:                       41"                           42"                        18

hips:                       41"                           40"                        16

So I'm halfway between a size 16 and 18

Waist - this one is harder - where is my waist?  If I take it as the natural bend crease of my body I measure 35".  That point however is a good 3" above my belly button - at my belly button my  waist measurement is 40", and on the other side, 3" above my natural waist, just under my bust is 32".

                        My measurment  - pattern measurement  - size

Waist:                       32.5"                      32"                        18

Waist:                       35"                         34"                        20

Waist:                       40"                         37"                        22

So going by my waist at my natural crease I'm assuming a size 20 in the waist.

Bust - Well is this the hardest one:  I'm  38.5" full bust and 35.5" high bust.  

From what I've read New Look patterns are drafted for a B cup, basically a 2" difference between full and upper bust measurements.  For anyone over a B cup they say to use your upper bust measurement to determine your pattern size. 

                        My measurment  - pattern measurement  - size

high bust :               35.5"                       34"                        12

high bust :               35.5"                       36"                        14

full bust:                 38.5"                       38"                        16

full bust:                  22"                         42"                        20

My high bust measurement put me between a size 12 and 14. 

As a double check I measured across my back at the bust line and got 16.5".  If I use that measurement doubled plus 2" for a standard B cup that gives me 35".  This tells me that for the back pieces a size 12 or 14 is the way to go.

If I do a similar calculation for the front -  I Measure 22" across my bust from side to side. The pattern specifies that for a size 20 the bust measurement is 42".  If you assume the front is 2" longer than the back this would be 20" around the back and 22 around the front.  So by this calculation I can assume that I need a size 20 in the front bust area. 

Back Neck to Waist - The final measurement is back neck to waist:  

                                    My measurment  - pattern measurement  - size

back neck to waist:             14.25"                      16"                       10

So obviously my first alteration was to take out the length.  I took out a full 2" at the lengthen shorten line.

So this gives me cutting lines from the underarm down, but what size should I cut across the shoulders.  I think this is where I generally get into trouble. My sizes range from size 12 right through to 20.  Based on my high bust area we're looking at a size 12 or 14, but I went ahead and compared the pattern pieces with my sloper and even the size 10 was a lot wider than my sloper in the shoulder region.  Even taking into account the ease specified in the pattern I decided to go ahead and cut out size 10 in the shoulder region.

It says on the pattern that there should be approximately 14cm ease in the finished product.  Now when I hold a tape measure up to myself and add 14 cm that seems like an awful lot, especially for a what looks to me to be a pretty fitted blouse.  I decided however that I would  cut the pattern out to the sizes specified and take it in as required, easier than trying to add in fabric later.

Once all this was determined I went ahead and traced off the pattern and marked in the following grading.

                         for the back pieces                                                        front pieces

shoulders -              size 10                                                                         size 10

under the arms -      size 12                                                                         size 14  

bust level -              size 12                                                                          size 20

waist -                     size 20                                                                          size 20

hips -                       size 20                                                                          size 20

I cut out the fabric, making sure to line up the horizontal lines but not worrying too much about the vertical ones. I figured I would probably have to play around quite a bit with the vertical seams, I just tried to make sure everything was symmetrical.

I started sewing everything up with my machine stitch length set to 5 so it would be easy to take out.  The shirt went together quite easily.

When I tried on the shirt it looked pretty good, but was very loose. 14 cm ease is just too much for me. 

Across the shoulders the fit was fairly good, however is was just a bit too wide across the back.  I tried pinning out the excess in a center back seam but that pulled the whole shirt out of place so in the end I look 1/4" off the back arm scythe on the yoke, then 1/4" off each side of the center back panel.  

The sides definitely flared too much so I took them in making the side seams sit straight down the sides of my body.  

The final issue was the front princess seams - this area kicked out too much so the front did not sit nicely  so I took those seams in a bit too. 

After pinning out all the changes I went back to my pattern and marked up the  modifications that I wanted to make.   I then put the original pattern pieces over the new ones just to see what my size ended up....

                         center back         side back                   front side        front pieces

shoulders -              size 8                  8                               10                    10

under the arms -      size 8                 12                              14                    12 

bust level -              size 12                14                              16                    16

waist -                     size 16                16                              16                    20

hips -                       size 16                12                              16                    12

What a hodge Podge!

I then took the whole shirt apart and re-cut each piece to the new pattern and then basted it all together again, just to make sure.

As for the sleeves - I cut these to a size 10 but extended them out to the size 12 size at the back and to a size 13 at the front.  These fitted in beautifully.  The collar I cut to size 10 - I'm only just realising now that that is probably why the collar does not sit perfectly on the finished shirt  - I didn't account for that extra 1/2" I took out of the back shoulders.  The front facings were cut to size 10 with the same 2" length taken out.

Once I was happy It was time to sew it up properly.   I wanted to do French seams throughout this top as the fabric does fray quite a bit so it was at this point I was glad that this material was reversible.    I took the top apart back to the 6 main princess seams.  Whilst the princess seams were still basted together I went back and sewed each seam at 3/8".  I was then able to take out the basting stitches, trip the seam, turn it and sew the french seam at 1/4" - that means that I basically turned the piece inside out, but as I said, that's why I'm glad the material is reversible.

Each seam was then top-stitched (which means that I sewed every seam in this shirt at least 5 or 6 times - two basting, two seams for the french seam and a top stitch - no wonder this top took forever to make!)

 

I have to say I love the way the shirt looks from the back.  I think I got the fitting of the back just right which is nice.  

As you can see I cut both the front and back yoke pieces on the bias.   The pattern specified for it to be cut cross grain, but in this fabric there wasn't a lot of difference in the cross grain pattern so I decided to go for  bias.  I love how this looks on the back, however I'm not so sure with the front.  When you combine it with the front facings which are also on the bias, the pattern gets a little wild.  Maybe I could have done some better pattern matching between the front yoke and the facing, but that was just way too much like hard work.

As for the front - well it's a little boxy, but I think a lot of that comes from my shape not the shirt.  My lack of a waistline means everything is pretty boxy on me.  I could have taken this shirt in a lot more under the bust, however with all the plaid then not matching I thought it looked a bit crazy.

As I said the collar sits just a little weird which is probably due to the  extra length in it.

I didn't bother with buttons and button holes.  I have an irrational hatred of buttons - doing them up is a pain.  So instead I went with a star shaped dark purple snaps.  I put in 7 of them as I did not want any gaping. I contemplated just sewing the two placards together since I can actually slip it on over my head without undoing any of the snaps, but decided to go with the snaps in the end.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it - and I do think it'll get a lot of wear this summer - it's both comfortable and cool!  One problem though - without careful inspection I can barely tell which side is the right side and which is the wrong - It's almost reversible.

Summer Sandals

A couple of weeks ago we had a couple of days of unseasonably warm weather.  26C/70F in February - wooohooo have to love that.  The kids had a half day of school so I loaded the bikes into the back of the car to take them to the local bike path for the afternoon.  Since I was planning on roller blading after the kids I figured I would need to break out of the shorts (or the 3/4 length pants anyway) and then went searching for a pair of slip on shoes to wear with them.
Nothing.....nada...The last time I bought a pair of sandals was just after the birth of my daughter - 8 years ago.  Those sandals are officially worn out and I haven't found anything to replace them.  For the last couple of years I've made do with just a pair of cheap thongs/flip flops and all my homemade shoes, but nothing slip on.  So I finally decided it was time to do something about it.

The base of this shoe is 1/4" thick cork which I bought as cork sheets at the local hardware store.  I traced the shape I wanted onto the cork and then cut them out.

The leather I used as the base of the sandal was salvaged from my old lounge suite - I went through and cut off as much leather as I could before we threw it out.

I cut the leather about and inch wider than the cork on all sides.

The leather was then sewed around the cork.  For the front and back areas I hand sewed a running stitch  around the outer edge  and used that to gather the excess fabric before sewing across the cork to hold it all in place.

For the upper straps I found a piece of turquoise leather at Michaels.  I cut two straps 5/8" wide and 2 1/4" wide for each sandal.

with my foot on the sole I placed the straps over the top of my foot in the arrangement I wanted and used duct take to hold each strap in place.

 I then went back and hand stitched each strap in place along the edges.

To add a bit more bling to the sandals I used silver metallic string to  sew a couple of turquoise beads onto the straps.  The silver thread was also used to keep each strap in place with respect to each other.

 To finish the sole of the shoe I again used the rubber baseboard material I found at the hardware store,

I placed the upper shoe on top of the rubber and cut around it.

Then used rubber cement on both sides to glue the two pieces together.  Pegs were used to hold everything in place whilst the glue dried.

And we have a finished pair of sandals.  Well technically we only have one finished shoe at the moment.  I ran out of the rubber baseboard material before I could finish the second shoe but it will get done shortly. It looks like I have a little time on my hand - the weather turned cold again for one last attempt at winter.  Hopefully soon spring will start for real!

Marfy Inspired Shirt

 

One of the many sewing blogs that I've been reading lately is The Clothing Engineer.  A lot of her recent posts have been garments sewn from Marfy patterns.  Every time I see one of these I instantly fall in love.  The different seam lines, the colour patterns etc just really appeal to me.  What doesn't appeal is the fact that most of their patterns are dresses - and quite formal ones at that....I don't do dresses.

My life is very casual.  A night out at a restaurant with the family is about as formal as my life gets at this point in time.  Once a year a special dinner out for my anniversary - but really I don't have a lot of need for dresses - especially dressy dresses.  I therefore try very hard not to sew dressy dresses - the last thing I need a a closet full of dresses that have never been worn - so I generally try and stick to shirt, pants, coats etc.  So, as much as I love the look of some of the Marfy dresses I've always avoided buying them.

However I spent some time over the weekend planning what tops I want to sew for the summer.  As I was going through my fabric deciding what should be made up as what I found a lot of scraps of  knit fabric - not quite enough to make a full shirt, but not small enough pieces to throw out.   As I was thinking about what I could do with these fabric pieces I remembered Marfy 4009

How would this look as a knit shirt...I figured that there was only one way to find out.

I used my basic sloper again.  As the plan was to use a knit, in order to generate negative ease I did not add any seam allowances.  As I originally planned to make this top a sleeveless tank top I actually cut away the arm holes a little bit.  I then started sketching the seam lines as per the Marfy design.  Looking back at the Marfy sketch I didn't quite get the sweeping curves but otherwise I'm happy with the design.  I also lengthened one side of the lower hem to create an asymetrical hemline.

I cut the pattern along the seam lines drawn then cut out my material.  I ended up just using 2 of the knit fabrics, a blue and a green.

Sewing the seams actually worked more easily than I had expected, each seam went together nicely first time.  I machine basted each seam together before serging them.

Once the basic top was together I tried it on.  It was very tight so I let the side seams out as much as possible.  It's still a smidge too small but not unwearable. (incentive to lose some weight before summer?)  Unfortunately I didn't like the sleeveless look - it just looked unfinished and too much like an AFL jersey. So I went back and cut out two little cap sleeves.  As I had already cut the arm scythes away they look a little funny but there not much I can do about it now.

Next step was to create a facing for the neckline.  I drafted a front and back facing extending right out to the arm holes and down inch or so below the dip of the V.  Everything was going smoothly until I ran the front edge through the serer and ended up with a huge chunk taken out of the blue section in the front. Thankfully I had drafted the front V fairly high and was able to cut out the ruined section by lowering the V neck and rounding it a bit.  The only issue now is that the junction of blue and green section is no longer right at the tip of the V.

The facing was understitched and then stitched to the seam allowance of the arm seam to hold it on place.

Then all that was left was the finishing of the sleeves and the hem.  I was planning to do a nice finish so there was no top stitching but I got bored, so these hems are now simply turned under and stitched with the lightning stitch.  I had planned to at least do a double needle finish but broke my last double needle just after I started..stupid machine!

Final Verdict:  I like it and will wear it but it's not fantastic.   I love the idea of it and have shown myself that the Marfy designs that I love can be recreated in a way that I will wear them but this first attempt is a bit poor. I would love to try this again and fix those issues that this one has, maybe one day.

Finally Finished - Purple Wonka Jacket

And here's another coat that I've been working on for what seems like an age...

This project has been a real trial and has been put down and picked up a number of times.  The final result is pretty good, but not perfect (but what is) so I'm happy I persevered with it, but it caused me a lot of angst in the meantime.

So the first step in making this coat was the pattern.  I didn't want to use the same pattern as my previous coat - the green vinyl rain coat -  as I wasn't happy with how that turned out so that meant it was back to the drawing board.

I took my basic sloper and traced around it,   I then extended the pattern down over my waistline and hips so that I didn't have the same problem that I did on the green coat.  Finally I split the front and back pieces into two through the dart locations to create the princess seam lines that I love . I then took the coat pattern from my very first coat - Simplicity 1732 and laid that over the new pattern just to see how different the patterns were and to get an idea of how much ease I wanted to put onto my sloper and where.  Realistically the two patterns were very similar at this point - but it was now tailored to my actual dimensions.

With the two patterns overlays I traced the Simplicity pattern from the hip line down to ankle length - I love the flare of the original coat and wanted to duplicate this.    I also used the Simplicity pattern to modify my sleeve pattern into a two piece sleeve.  I must say this step took me forever! (I would have liked to just use the pattern pieces from simplicity but my arm scythe is a different length on my pattern, plus the simplicity pattern sleeve is puffed and I didn't want that detail on this coat).

Now for the final design details. Whilst browsing the internet I'd found the Waffle Patterns Peppernoot Coat pattern and fell in love with it - specifically the seaming across the back and the front shoulders so I wanted to copy this.  I traced the lines that I wanted onto my pattern and cut along those lines, then joined the front and back yoke sections at the shoulder to create one pattern piece for the yoke - In hind site this was a bad idea because that is the one area of this coat that just doesn't sit right, so I obviously did something wrong  - though I can't for the life of me figure out what....

My first step now was to make a muslin.  I had a small piece of material left over from making the coat for Kathy, that I probably wasn't going to use for anything else, so I decided to use that for my muslin as its about the same weight as the material that I would use for the final.  Because the piece of material I had was so small I had to cut each piece in two sections, above the waist and just a small section of below the waist.  I sewed it all together and with a few minor adjustments - especially in the sleeve - I had something I was happy with.

Now it was time to start cutting my real fabric.  A long time ago I found this piece of purple fake velvet with just an almost corduroy look and a subtle floral design all over that I really liked - Once again its an upholstery fabric, but that's never stopped me. 

I decided that I'd like to use that for this coat - however I only had 3 yards of it. I laid the material out on the kitchen floor and started playing around with the pattern pieces.  I finally found that if I cut about 3 inches off the bottom and about 1 inch off the length of the sleeves - and didn't worry about a facing for the time being - I could do it.....So I did.

I really wanted to showcase the back and shoulder seaming so I found some purple and pink trim at my local discount fabric shop and sewed that into the seams.  Each of the other seams was top stitched as well to try and really make them a feature.

To deal with the sleeves which were now just a smidge too short I found another purple upholstery velvet in a slightly different colour that I thought made a good contrast.  I cut  a 2 inch wide cuff out of this fabric. I finished off the ends of the cuff rather than joining it in the round, and with another piece of the trim used this cuff to finish the sleeve.  By finishing off the two ends of the cuff rather than joining them the cuff flares just slightly which I really liked the look of.

At this point I tried the coat on......and hit a stumbling block.  The coat looked more like a bathrobe than a coat.  I even posted pictures on the internet and asked the opinion of some internet strangers and the verdict was unanimous - bathrobe...

So I tried pinning it up to a 3/4 length and somehow that change of length took it from bathrobe....to smoking jacket.  It now reminded me a little of Willy Wonka's coat in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder's version of course).  That I can handle - and so I took the scissors to it and cut it off.  Rather than cutting it straight across though, I cut the front off a bit more than the back but you can't even tell in the final product.

Next step - lining.  My original plan for this coat was that it was going to be ultra warm coat for the middle of winter.  My original black and red coat was made from the outer upholstery fabric, satin lining and a fleece interlining and that's pretty toasty, but I was going to try for just a smidge more with this coat.  I went to the fabric store looking for options - I was thinking flannel backed satin with a fleece interlining but of course I couldn't buy that at the local store, and I have some irrational hatred of online shopping, so in the end I ended up with a basic satin, some warm and natural cotton batting and some insul-bright.  My plan was to quilt the warm and natural cotton to the back of the satin, then have the insul-bright as in interlining. 

Before cutting into my lining material I went back to my pattern and retraced the pattern without the yoke seaming.  I also cut the pattern off at the same level as my coat.  I cut out all three layers (satin lining, warm and natural cotton batting and insul-bright) then started quilting the cotton onto the satin.  That took a long time, but was strangely satisfying.  I did not plan out any quilting lines or anything - just made it up as I went along crossing diagonally across the piece, turning at each side and heading back in the opposite directions then back down the piece in the same way making a basic cross hatch pattern. 

I love the look of the final product - so much so that I contemplated throwing out the purple velvet coat and just making the lining the actual coat - maybe my next coat will have to be made from quilted satin...

The good thing about cutting off the bottom of the coat was that I now had material to make the facing for the coat.  I had to cut everything at a very weird angle just to get enough material but I figured it out, Each facing is in three pieces, but at least it's there.  Because all the pieces are cut in different directions the facing does not lie perfectly straight.

Next up was the interlining - made from the insul-bright fabric.  I wasn't sure how this would work, but I wanted to try it as I figured it would make the coat nice and wind proof.  I sewed it up to the same pattern as the lining and tried it on.  Of course it was too small.  

The insul-bright has no stretch at all, so whilst I can put it on, when I put it in between the other two layers it makes everything  just too constrictive.

It was at this point that I just threw the coat in a corner and walked away for a little while.....  

After taking some time off and not thinking about it at all for a while, finally it was about time to pull it out again.  The first thing I noticed when I tried the coat on again was the I still hadn't put any pockets in.  Now pockets are a must in coats as far as I'm concerned.  I knew I wanted pockets but I wasn't sure quite what type of pocket.  I tried a patch pocket but I didn't like it, I thought about a welt pocket, but I felt like it'd break up the line of the coat too much.  In the end I decided I'd just put in an inseam pocket.  Of course this meant unpicking not just the two seams, but the top stitching on those seams as well as the serging. The problem with inseam pockets was that there wasn't much room between the front seams and the front of the coat  in which the pocket bag could sit.  I thought about putting the pockets in the very side seams but it just felt all wrong when I tried it out.  So I just made the pocket bag as big as I could between the seam and the front of the coat and down as deep as I could.

 It took a bit of playing around with but I finally managed to get them in and sitting nicely, although I did have to go back and do a little hand stitching to stop them for bagging out.

Once again I was sick of the sight of the coat so it went back to its naughty corner for a while whilst I stewed over what else I had to do.  When I was finally ready to pick it up again I was ready to tackle the front opening and collar. This, unfortunately, did not work at all well.  My original plan for the front opening was to do a zipper with a placket over the top which I would then snap or button down. Because I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do when I started I cut one of the front pieces with an extra 4-5 inches of width at the center front, and the other with an extra 5/8 inch.  

After my initial coat fitting I found that I had too much extra room around my waist making the coat look shapeless.

So I'd gone back and taken in the front and the side seams a bit so it looked much better.    I then went and changed the lining pieces to match the new seams, however when I was cutting the lining/facing I cut it with just the basic 5/8" seam allowance along center front and no more.  Once the lining and the coat were put together I realised that I had taken too much out of the front and I could no longer get the coat closed around the waistline. On the main coat this wasn't a problem as I could just use some of the extra fabric I had left at center front to give me the extra width I needed but that left a very small gap between the edge of the facing  and the center zipper... So what does this have to do with the front placket - well after spending so much time playing around with where to place the zipper and putting the coat away for days on end, then picking it up and trying again - and getting fed up and putting it away....are you getting the drift, well I finally got fed up and decided to skip the placket all together and just leave the zipper exposed.  It made life so much easier.  

Somewhere in all this faffing around I also made the decision that I couldn't use the interlining - it just wasn't going to work, so I unpicked it all and took the interlining out. 

Once I removed the placket and the interlining things went more smoothly.  I finally got the front to sit properly - I realised that when I moved the center front zip to give my extra room around the waist I'd also moved it out all the way up the chest and it was now gaping around the neckline.  I finally moved the zipper back in to where it was meant to be on center line and the neckline was sitting nicely once more.

 

Last but not least was the collar. As I said at the beginning of this post, with the new yoke piece that I had cut the neckline never sat very nicely.  It felt like it was trying to crawl right up the back of my neck.  I ended up cutting the neckline out by about 1 inch at center back and the tapered the front to a V at the top of the zipper.   I had cut out a stand collar right back at the beginning of this process, the length of which was based on the original neckline.  By the time I had cut out the neckline the collar only went from one side to the other and did not come around to the front of the coat at all.  I planned many times to try and piece together a new collar from whatever pieces i had left over but in the end I quite liked the look of the half collar.  When it sits just right it actually makes are really nice shape - if I could just get it to sit perfectly right at all times I'd be happy.  As it stands at the moment I like it but there are still times when it feels like its trying to strangle me.  I may have to add just a touch more top stitching or something.

And now the coat was just about finished.  It just need the bottom hem and I had to do something with the sleeve lining hem.  To take care of the sleeve lining I went back to something I read ages ago - a tutorial to adding a cuff to the lining of the store bought jacket to make it warmer.  I quite liked that idea and decided to give it a try.  I ended up cutting 1 inch off the length of the sleeve lining, then cut a 2inch wide cuff out of black knit ribbing and sewed it on the bottom of the sleeve.  I acutally love this finish and it does seem to keep things nice and snug. I haven't attached the sleeve lining to the sleeve in any way, but I don't think it's necessary.

As for the bottom hem, I was over the whole thing by this time its it was done simply.  I turned the coat under 1/2 inch and stitched it down by machine, turned it under another 1/2 inch and hand sewed it.  

The lining - I hadn't cut it any shorter than the coat so I turned it up 5/8" and machine stitched, then turned it again by about 1inch and hand sewed it. 

Final verdict:  Still has a few issues with comfort around the neckline, but I wore it today and it was nice and snuggly warm so overall I'd say about a 7 out of 10.