Total Pageviews

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Vogue 7468 continued

The first wearable muslin of the Claire Schaffer pants is almost complete. I ended up putting a 1/2 inch dart in the center back to take out excess in the waist. The back pantleg is not balanced on the bottom. Not sure if that's the patterns fault or my fault because I traced it while fitting it. The closure and the hem needs to be put in. They are very comfortable to wear around and look nice (except for the twisted leg). The balancing of the twisted leg should fix it.

ASG had their annual yard sale last weekend. I went to work late and did some serious damage there. A piece of silk jacket weight fabric, wool poly blend (turquoise), black/brown, wool/rayon blend and some linen came home with me as well as the Judy Barlap Japanese Tailoring tapes and a couple of miscellanous pieces of fabric. All for about $32.

I have to figure out how I want to pretreat the gray tropical wool. I may put it into the washing machine on the hand wash cycle.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

New work slacks

I'm currently beginning work on Claire Schaffer's pleated pant. My changes to the pattern so far include: grading the pattern up to a size 24, lengthening the leg at the knee by 1 1/2 inches, lengthening the back torso at the waist by 1/2 inch, changing the "j" crotch to an "l" crotch, extending the back crotch point by 1 inch and adding 1 1/2 inches to the front side waist tapering nothing to the hip point. Also I moved the darts out from the middle of the front so that they started at 4 1/2 inches from the center front and reversed them. It made the front hang much better.

The muslin was made up from an old bedsheet. Adding the 1 1/2 inches to the front side waist got rid of many of the fitting problems in the back. The next version is in the works. My first wearable muslin will be out of a black poly rayon twill from Fashion Fabrics Club that I'm not particularly fond of. It just doesn't have much body to it and it seems to fade and look old quite rapidly. If this works out, I have a couple of pieces of tropical wool waiting in the wings.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

The silk campshirts are done

I have two new washable silk shirts to wear to work. I'd like to get some more silk shirting from Michael Levine's in L.A. and make some long sleeved shirts. They are really comfortable to wear. The ironing is a PITA.

I'm starting to work on a Claire Schaffer pleated pant pattern. he first draft is done. I graded the pattern up one size to a 24. The legs seem to run short. I added 1 1/2 inches in length at the knee, and 1/2 inch at the center back of the pant. Also added about 1/2 inch to the back crotch extension, a 1 1/2 inch sliver at the front waist grading down to nothing by the hip. Moved the pleats over to 4.5 inches from the center front. The bedsheet version seemed to hang fairly straight after these changes. Now for a poly rayon version.