Just in time for spring

I’ve finished my coat. And just in time for the warm weather we’re expecting this weekend. Yes, I do want credit for the change in weather – I’m positive it’s entirely due to me making a coat in the last four days.

I’m mostly pleased with the coat. The wool is amazing and the lining is wonderful. I was looking at the inside of a dress coat I have from Ann Taylor and one Kent has from Banana Republic and I have to say, the linings on both those coats is clearly thinner and inferior to the stuff I used in my coat this week.

I am undecided if I like how bathrobe-y it is. I am considering putting buttons on the front and just embracing the straight, no shape nature of the coat. Fortunately I don’t need to make that decision just yet.

I will say that my back vent is not a thing of beauty. I need someone to hold my hand and walk me through that process with really clear directions and lots of patience. I got it done but I’ll never brag about it.

I’ve got one more wool item to sew before spring officially arrives. I had enough of the windowpane plaid left over to cut out a skirt so that’s next. Then I’m moving on to fabric suitable for warmer weather.

Without the sash and in front
of the little bit of remaining snow

Showing off the lining -- but not the vent

Excuse the goofy expression, Kent
made me giggle. Here it is with the sash.

Two out of three pumpkin heads agree

Adding pumpkin to their food is helping with the weight control:

This is GREAT progress. Between the Science Diet Lite (thank you, Jeanne!) and the pumpkin, they are drifting down to good, healthy weights.

Mostly fussy and unadorned

Last December, I read this article about jewelry and about what styles we each like – the author has pulled together what she calls a sort of Myers-Briggs profile, only for jewelry. Based on the article, I’m fairly fussy and fully unadorned. In fact, I think my fussiness comes from how unadorned I prefer to be. That’s not to say I don’t like jewelry or don’t wear it because that’s not the case. It’s more that the jewelry I do wear is more pared down, and generally simpler. You would never call my jewelry blingy, although I do appreciate bling – on others.

The same thing can be said about my clothing. I’ve finally realized that what draws me to a particular piece of clothing is not so much the design but the fabric. I’ve bought some really not so great pieces, all because I love the fabric so much.

I got this material from Fabric Mart probably two years ago from the first year we belonged to Julie’s Picks. What I like about Julie’s Picks is that I can not only see the fabric but touch it. This is a Marc Jacobs brushed wool and it’s black with an almost twilight/cobalt blue pattern to it. It feels absolutely amazing.

At first, I thought I would make this Marcy Tilton coat. But take a look at it – there are a lot of fairly blingy features in this coat and I know myself. I’d feel really weird wearing something with all those design features, or else I’d leave out most of them. Then I found this Vogue coat – perfect for me. All I needed was coat lining and courage. The coat lining was easy – I got it from the Chicago Vogue Fabric Store (whatever did we do before the Internet?).

La Sewista just finished making an amazing cashmere coat. She made a comment about the pattern she chose – she said it was rather like a bathrobe. Well her pattern isn’t exactly the same as mine but it’s pretty darn close. And I can make a bathrobe, I've done it before several times. So I found my courage.

I cut it out yesterday using my painfully dull scissors. The wool is really thick and it was difficult to cut, and my scissors didn’t help. I tried my Fiskars and they were wretched. So I turned to the scissors you see here. The ones on the left are a pair of Wiss scissors I bought when I was 19. They cost $30 which was a lot of money for me then, and they’ve been worth it. But that was – yikes – 1979 and they need to be sharpened. The pair on the right are made by Marks and are from my grandmother. They also need to be sharpened. But I got through the ordeal, not without some swearing I will confess. And today I started sewing.

I’m about halfway done and so far, it’s going well. My secret hope is that I finish the coat and warm weather magically arrives and I don’t need it again until next November. Hey, a girl can dream.

Better late than never, also I have long arms

Nearly two years ago, I won some fabric from Carolyn, who writes the blog Diary of a Sewing Fanatic. This contest happened as I was in the middle of interviewing for new jobs, most of which weren’t in the Boston area where we lived at the time. Shortly after the fabric arrived, I accepted a job offer in the Kansas City area. Things were super crazy for quite a while as we packed, sold our place in Boston and moved halfway across the country. I have to confess, I sort of forgot about the fabric in the hectic activities that followed.

About eight months after moving here, we bought this house and got all moved in a year ago. One of the nicest things about this house is that we can use our dining room as a wonderful sewing space. We put our dining table up on risers so we don’t have to hunch over to cut out patterns, and we have room for both sewing machines, our serger and our ironing board. But even with this great space for sewing I still neglected the fabric.

Partly that’s because work was insane but partly it was because I found myself really intimidated by the one-way plaid. I know myself, I would go nuts if I didn’t get the plaid lined up right, and at the time I didn’t have the mental energy to even begin to think about it. Plus I wasn’t sure what to make with it.

Then I got that lovely fabric I mentioned a few posts ago, the wool/cashmere blend, and I realized I also still had this fabric and both needed and wanted to make it into something. I decided to make Burda 7183, even though I knew the style might not be all that flattering on me. It’s basically a box with sleeves and I’m not a box, I’m an X or hourglass. Still, I thought it had possibilities.

Take a look at the information Burda provides for selecting your size. Notice all the places to measure? I found this so helpful in figuring out what size to cut– and do you see the arm length measurement (#6)? Well my arms are actually 24 ½ inches long! So I guess I need to give New Look a pass on arm length – the arm length issue is mine, not theirs. As made, this jacket is right between a 12 and 14. If I’d cut the sleeve length for those sizes, I’d have had problems. This Burda jacket is described as having 7/8 length sleeves, so I ended up adding nearly three inches. I didn’t want 7/8 sleeves, not in winter and not out of this fabric.

The red arrow points to the slightly snarky comment that “all Burda patterns are prepared with ease appropriate for style in question.” Forget about getting five and a half inches of ease in your jacket! Heck no, this jacket – at least on me – is closer to the three inches that I’ve heard tossed around as a good measurement.

Anyway, this project ended up being harder than it needed to be and mostly that was because of me. I ripped out seams several times when the plaid didn’t line up perfectly and even still, one seam doesn’t match perfectly. It’s pretty good though. The zipper really gave me fits. Burda says you can shorten a zipper like this by pulling out the teeth . . . um no. At least not when it’s a plastic piece of crap like what I was able to find. Maybe if I had had a zipper with metal teeth it would have been easier.

Now if you want to see fantastic use of the same exact material, you should go read Sew Melodic’s blog post here. In a very odd coincidence, we were both making something from the same fabric. Hers is amazing, and while I can aspire to sew like she does, chances are I’ll need to stick with the easier, less demanding patterns – like this one.

Matches across the center zipper

Slight mismatch :(

Perfect match!

Success!

The report is in: the jeans fit although they are (thankfully) trending toward the tight side. So he's got a pair he can wear for now and I'm on the hunt for some lighter-weight denim for another pair in the next size up. Whoohoo!

Tiny jeans

You may recall that I had offered to sew some pants for the middle grandchild, the one who’s got no butt so he wanders around the house either pantless or clutching his pants at the back of his waist to keep them up. I sewed the shorts as a test for fit, and they were mostly fine as done. The elastic was a little too tight, but otherwise they fit him. Fixing the elastic will be really easy.

Having that feedback on fit meant I could get a pair of proper pants sewed up for the little guy. Here they are:

As with the shorts, these are mock front fly and the button is purely for looks. I changed up the pockets so they look more like proper jeans, top stitched some of the details, and also used a fun lining on both the casing and the pockets. Overall I’m pleased with how they turned out and I hope they fit him well.

Close call

The best fabric store in Kansas City – and by best, I’m talking about quality of fabrics, not the cheapest price – is closing at the end of this week. Kaplan’s has always had extremely nice, high end designer fabrics; you didn’t go there for a bargain, you went there when you wanted exceptionally special fabric. Kent and I dropped by two weeks ago before we left on vacation and picked up some really amazing pieces. The one you see on the left is a wool and I believe cashmere blend. Even half off, it was expensive. Whatever I make needs to work well with the fabric and also fit me. I should also mention that I’ve only got 1 and ¾ yards of the fabric so there’s not a lot to work with.

For this fabric, I didn’t want a lot of seaming or fussy details, so I chose New Look 6012, view B (it's on the left in the picture at the bottom of this post). I made a couple of decisions that have ended up saving me much heartache and disaster with my beautiful fabric. First, I decided I would line the jacket since wool is itchy to me. Second, I double checked all measurements including the amount of ease, and also compared the new pattern with another, similar New Look jacket pattern (6082, second from the left) I’ve made before. With sewing patterns, sizes are governed strictly by measurements. For most sewing patterns, I measure between a 14 and 16 depending on how close fitting the garment is. Based on the measurement comparisons and the amount of ease listed on this pattern, I didn’t cut my normal 14, I cut a 12. Finally, I sewed up the lining before I did anything else.

The tent on the table

I am so glad I did all that. This thing is enormous on me. It’s not just a little bit big, it’s a tent. And the sleeves are too short, like by five inches or so and that’s before any hemming.

And that brings me to the point of this post. I realize I am no expert sewist. I have a lot to learn especially about fitting and adjustments. But I don’t think this pattern issue is because of me. I’ve made New Look jackets (from 6082, and 6028) and while they aren't huge, the sleeves for both jackets are pretty short. I had put the blame on me, even though I have normal arms but now after making this third New Look jacket, I don’t think that I screwed up. And I’m not the only one to notice these kinds of issues – recently two other bloggers who are amazing and expert sewers blogged about pattern issues and the stupidly large amount of ease built into most patterns. (Wearing ease is the minimum amount of ease needed for comfort and it's added to your measurements; design ease is above and beyond wearing ease.)

So now I’ve got an unwearable lining and still need to find a jacket patterns for my lovely wool/cashmere blend. I think I will give Burda 7183 a try. I’ve only made a couple of their patterns but I love how many more measuring points they give so you can adjust your pattern to really fit your body. Based on my unwearable lining experience, you’d better believe I’ll make a lining from this pattern first.

Maybe it's New Look?