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Saturday, November 24, 2007

The jacket. Last Post on the subject.

Well the jacket is finished. It has been a great learning project for me. I genuinely believe the next jacket will be wearable, but this one just doesn't quite make it. DH likes it, but I don't feel comfortable wearing it out in public. The sleeve caps still have a little too much ease, the collar is a little lopsided and the bottom front sags. I will definitely make this jacket out of a better fabric.

I've also signed up for Shannon Gifford's stitch and flip jacket class. I'm looking forward to that.

In the meantime, I'm working on a jumper. I know, I know. I'm too old to wear jumpers.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

The jacket is in serious danger of becoming a ufo. It's hanging in the closet. All that really needs to be done is completing the attachment of the lining to the sleeves and hem, and putting in buttons and buttonholes. I'm still waffling about working on the sleeves a tad bit.

In the meantime, it's time to start working on fall pants. The first prototype has been put together and it had twisted legs. That's an easy fix. Otherwise they don't look bad at all. It's amazing what a quarter inch on one side of the bottom of a pant leg will do.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

It's a wadder

I've been working on the @@#$%%&& jacket forever. Someone said (I believe it was Gigi) that life is too short to work with inferior products. They are sooooo right.


Cheap fusible and cheap poly rayon that was probably mismarked ends up being a jacket that will not take a smooth curved edge. It could be worse. It's hanging in the back of the closet. However, the fit is great and it looks good on me. I believe that it can properly be made out of a nice woven natural fiber fabric.

I have a couple of pieces of silk and a couple of pieces of wool. It will not be made out of a poly rayon.

It's a wadder

I've been working on the @@#$%%&& jacket forever. Someone said (I believe it was Gigi) that life is too short to work with inferior products. They are sooooo right.


Cheap fusible and cheap poly rayon that was probably mismarked ends up being a jacket that will not take a smooth curved edge. It could be worse. It's hanging in the back of the closet. I believe that it can properly be made out of a nice woven natural fiber fabric.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

The fashion fabric has been cut out and the outer part is fused with fusible interfacing and sewn together. The lining pattern has to still be modified and cut out. The fabric is a pale buttery yellow poly rayon from fashionfabricsclub.com that was originally purchased for pants.

The lining is a pale yellow poly lining material from Jennys. All they have is poly lining, but they do have every color there is. I'm still on the hunt for buttons.

The fitting modifications that were made to the pattern ended up being:

Start at the shoulders with a size 14.
Graduate to between a 16 and 18 at the high bust level, size 20 at the waist and add 3 to 4 inches to the hip measurement.

Also lengthened the jacket by 1 1/2 inches and shortened the sleeve by 5/8 inch. Did a full bust adjustment. (Who'd have thought!!) Performed a dowager's hump alteration in the upper back. The FBA and dowager's hump adustment will be the key alterations on all future patterns. It made the back lay down like it's supposed to and the shoulders of the garment sit where they are supposed to sit.

I think the hips are a bit narrow on this pattern because if one compares my hip measurements to the Vogue hip measurements, only two inches should have been needed.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Took a dart out of the center back neck and put it into the seam. It removed some of the wrinkles in the back. Also I think it needs to be lengthened by a couple of inches. As it stands, the jacket will cut across my widest spot and emphasizes my pearishness. Without the hem turned up, it's a nice looking jacket, so I think I will just redraft an additional hem on the bottom of the jacket pieces. It will be ready to go I think. Now to just decide what fabric to use.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Well, I'm on the third muslin. I think it's getting better. I went down to a 14 in the shoulders, 18 in the armsceye and bust with a FBA. Also did a dowager's hump alteration. This has made a huge difference.

The sleeves and back are still waaay to tight. According to Allyne Bane's Tailoring, the tightness in the back is caused by not enough ease in the bicep. You are supposed to have 2 to 3 inches of ease in the bicep of a jacket. I had only 1 inch. The shoulders were still too long and back too wide (and tight). Added a half inch on the top and bottom of the sleeve, trimmed the shoulder down by 1/2 inch and put new (bigger) sleeves in. The fit is much much better. We're getting somewhere. Also had to add 3 inches to the hipline.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

I've posted a few pictures of a first draft and a second draft of Vogue 2957. They are on my picturetrail account under mastdenman.

picturetrail



In the first muslin, I narrowed the shoulders a little an created a back neckdart. I also squared off the shoulders and graded the bottom portion up a couple of sized. The sleeves ended up being very tight and the bodice portion was very snug too. It hung up on my bum. The back shoulder seemed to be a little too square so I took a tuck out of the back armscye running to the neckline. Also graded the bodice and arms up a size and dropped the armhole about 3/8 of an inch. Made a swayback adjustment.

Redrew the pattern pieces and made draft 2. The jacket went on much more smoothly. I could barely get the first one on. The sleeves are a little short and wide in the sleeve cap, but otherwise look fine. Will need just a little adjustment. It is still too tight over the mid-back. I have a distinctive baby dowager's hump beginning. The fabric has a fold from the upper mid back to the side waist. The bust looks a little tight like a tiny FBA might be needed. There is a pull from the front shoulder to center between the bust. I slashed the back horizontally from arm to arm and will add a little vertical length. I'm taking a little tuck around the middle from front side waist to back side waist and maybe a little more out of the center back to make up for the added fabric in the upper middle.

Friday, July 6, 2007

I am working on Vogue 2957. One muslin is partly completed. It is a little too tight. I think that if I draft one size larger it will fit nicely. The sleeves and the armsceye are too tight. There are wrinkles curving around the bottom of the armpit and the bicep is snug too.

It looks like it will be a nice stylish jacket to wear to work. It fits well through the shoulders. It doesn't hang over. It has a nice collar and lapel.

Monday, July 2, 2007

I finished the new linen pants. I needed a medium brown pant to finish up the summer work wardrobe. Next will be the chinos. I can't decide whether to cut those out first or to work on some summer tees for around the house. It's starting to get really really warm during the day and I need sleeveless or nearly sleeveles tees. I guess I need to post pictures of the new linen pants. They turned out very good because they don't have much in the way of drag lines.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Opening post

This is my first post to talk about my sewing and fabric habit. I thought about creating one on my godaddy account, but if you use up too much bandwidth they will charge you for it. Eeek. So here I am. It's rather bare right now. No links or anything.

I have been regularly surfing fabric shops on the internet and drooling over some of the really nice knits that are available. I'm really trying to cut back on internet fabric purchases, especially since a few pieces of pant weight fabric did not turn out to be so great. In fact, I tossed two projects over it and got rid of a third piece of fabric. Soooo, I went over to Jenny's to pick up some waistband elastic for some elastic waist linen pants for work. She is really upgrading her store. I'm seeing a few new things every time I go in, like today I saw some Amy Butler style fabrics and some lacy elastic. I also got my waistband elastic and three pieces of tshirt knit from the flatfold department. One is a 60's style print with the pink and green and brown flowers, one is a Japanese style pastel print and the third one is a blue toile on white background. I need some experimental type sewing fabric.