Pattern Review Sewing Bee - Round 2

Well my Axel Rose Skirt made it through Round 1 of the Pattern Review Sewing Bee - so onto round 2 we go.  When the subject for round 2 was released I was quite apprehensive.  The brief was to make something with Fabulous Sleeves.

When I think sleeves I think of two things.  

1. Anne of Green Gables puffed sleeves (If you've ever read the book you'll know what I'm talking about). 

2. Flowing medieval bell type sleeves.  

As much as I love the flowing bell sleeves I’ve made them before and they are totally impractical in everyday life, they drag in your food, you can’t wash your hands properly, you can’t wear a jacket over the top of them…..so with my preference for making something that I would actually wear I ruled out bell sleeves.  

The Anne of Green Gables puffed sleeves were also ruled out – whilst I love a puffed sleeve I use a subdued version of them all the time, and if I were to go any bigger I would be pushing costume.  

So what does that leave me with?  To the internet!

I spent some time browsing the internet and found a number of different sleeve styles that I could see myself wearing everyday but that were still spectacular.  I ended up deciding on an origami pleated spiral sleeve.

The next question was how to make the spiral - there was no pattern for this sleeve - just the picture above.

I started by finding a good sleeve pattern.  I went with Burda Styles Asymmetrical Paneled Funnel-Neck Jacket 01/2015 #104A.  I liked this pattern because 1.  I know it fits, and 2 its a two piece sleeve pattern so I can use the outside piece to put the spiral and the inner piece will just stay the same.

I traced off a copy of the outer sleeve pattern piece, chose the spot on my upper arm where I wanted the center of the spiral to go and drew lines radiating out from this point where I wanted my pleats to go.  

My first attempt at making the spiral out of paper failed miserably.

Too many pleats, and when I opened it it was still a spiral, not possible to cut it out.  Back to the internet I went and this time I found a video of someone putting the spiral together - it was just a minute long video, no details but it was just enough to give me a basic idea of how it worked.  and I came up with a pattern.

Which when I opened it out looks like this.

OK so I now had a sleeve pattern, what was I going to put it on?   Because the sleeve I chose was quite structured I wanted a structured garment on which to mount it.  For me that means coat/jacket. 

I decided that since I was using the burda jacket sleeve pattern I may as well use the rest of the pattern too.  However  I didn’t want all the other seaming detail or the asymmetrical front,  as I thought this might detract from my sleeve detailing, so I spent quite some time manipulating the pattern.

I  took all the small pieces of pattern that make up the Burda jacket and joined them together to create a couple of larger pattern pieces.  I joined all the back pieces together to make a single on the fold pattern piece.  That meant I lost a little bit of shaping around the neckline but it wasn't as bad as I feared.   In the front I was able to cut it straight down the center line, and then extended that line out 5 cm to create a button band.  I combined the rest of the front pattern pieces creating a princess seam down the front for shaping.  During later fittings I found that I needed a couple of darts in the back so I decided to continue the  theme and turned the darts into a princess seam on the back as well.

I then extended all the pattern pieces to ankle length to create a long coat.

After so much pattern manipulation  the final product does not look very much like the original pattern, the only feature that remains is the Funnel-Neck.

Now that I had a pattern I had to find the fabric.

When I first started planning the project I envisioned it in an ombre fabric that I could used to show off the spiral detail in my sleeve, however  do you think I could find any ombre fabric in the stores?  of course not -You can never find something when you specifically go looking for it - or is that just me?

I tried taking a piece of cotton material from my stash and bleaching some of the colour out of one end, but that didn't work at all.  So then I thought about dying my own.   In my search for fabirc I had found a cotton shower curtain in Target that faded from white to teal so I grabbed a couple of those and a bottle of purple dye and dip dyed the white end of the fabric purple.  So now I had fabric that faded from purple to Teal.

It wasn't quite what I envisioned - it was a bit flat looking, but I cut out my sleeves,

and made up the coat - and hated it!  I asked my husband what he thought and he said it reminded him of a monks robes - yeah not really the look I was going for.

So back to the drawing board - and so plan B came into effect.  Same pattern different fabric.  

I went through my fabric stash to see what I could find and came up with a piece of old purple upholstery velvet.  I have no idea of the content of this material, though I’m pretty sure that it’s a polyester of some sort.  It has a short purple pile with a definite nap which I think works really well in the pleated spiral creating colour variations as the material changes direction.

I cut out my fabric for my spiral and then basted all the pleats in place joining the two ends to make a continuous circle of pleats.

I then went back and hand sewed each of the back side pleats to each other so that the whole thing would stay together when I took out the basting threads on the front.

Once I had my spiral I placed the original sleeve pattern over the top and cut it down to the size required.  Because the spiral did not reach the end of the sleeve I cut another piece of fabric to finish off the sleeve and pieced it onto the bottom of the spiral.

When I was sure I liked the spiral in the new fabric I went back to cut out the rest of the jacket.  The only problem was I only had a small amount of this fabric, 2 yards at the most, so I cut all my pattern pieces off at hip length again to allow me to get the rest of the jacket cut out.

The actual sewing was pretty straight forward.  Because I didn't want to press the fabric too much each seam was sewed and the seams hand pressed opened and then I top stitched each side of the seam catching the seam allowance in place. on each side of the seam.

The pattern that I created didn't have any pockets, but I knew that I was going to need pockets in any coat I made so I added a welt pocket angled between the front princess seam and the side seam.  The pocket bags were made from some purple satin from my stash.

To support the sleeve/shoulder area  I added a sleeve head made from two layers of warm and natural batting to both the lower and upper edges of the sleeve seam.

Once the outer shell was done I had to figure out how to line the jacket.  I knew that I wanted a contrast fabric that I could show off when the neckline is turned back and after searching through my stash found a beautiful piece of teal satin. It has a beautiful luster that matches the sheen on the velvet creating a very luxurious look.  Unfortunately there was not quite enough for the entire lining so the sleeves were lined using a plain black satin.

I used the same basic pattern pieces to create a lining for the jacket.  I created facings using the outer material along the front edges and the neck edge and understitched them in place.  The lining was then sewn to the facing easing the extra width across the back into the facing seam.

I hemmed the outer fabric of the jacket using bias hem tape and hand stitching. 

The lining was turned under twice and machine hemmed in place. 

At the cuff of the sleeve I turned under both the outer and lining fabrics and hand stitched them in place with the lining about 3/8” inside the sleeve.

I added 6 buttons and button holes down the front of the jacket. (I was worried about my machine handling button holes through two thick layers of fabric but it turns out I had no problems).

Finally I used a teal embroidery thread and a basic back stitch to stitch along the edges of each of the pleats in the sleeve.  As well as adding visual interest this also helps the sleeve keeps it’s shape.

My only real issue with the garment is the pocket placement.  When I created my pattern my jacket was a good 8cm longer than it finished up and the pockets were in a good place.  During construction I decided that the jacket looked better in a shorter length and so I cut about 5 cm off the bottom of the jacket before turning the hem up 3 cm.   Unfortunately this meant sacrificing pocket depth.  In order to keep as much usable pocket as possible I’ve tucked the pockets into the hem of the coat and sewn the hem to the inner layer of the pocket bag rather than to the coat itself, not a perfect solution, but better than no pocket.

I absolutely love these sleeves.  However I’m not sure how much use this jacket will get.  The fabric that I used for it is very thick and this means the jacket is heavy and feels a bit bulky to wear.   I tend to like my jackets to be interlined to make them warm enough for a New England winter or even fall (which is still winter according on my Australian blood), but due to the weight of the fabric I couldn’t do it for this jacket – we shall see how it stands up once the temperature drops.

It was really hard to get good photos of this jacket due to the dark colour - I've had to overexpose everything to show any details.  I knew when I chose this material that it that this would be a problem but I decided to go for it anyway.  It didn't help that the one day I had to take these photos was a dark rainy day either  I did the best I could.

So the bad news is this jacket did not get me through to round 3 of the Sewing Bee.  Oh well - onto the next contest - keep an eye out for my entry into the suit refashioners challenge!