A sunny day means project photos!

Here in rainy Portland, you have to seize the opportunity when the weather turns nice. I photographed some projects, rather hurriedly, and a stripey French beret is the first in four - you can head over to ravelry to read more, or you can check out photos of it in flickr.

The second oldest project is the Asian dress I revamped into a jacket.  Prior to this winter, I got a sudden desire to have a quilted lounging jacket to hang around the house in as a change from fleece.

I may have had this in the back of my mind.

You may recall that I've been deconstructing RTW garments in order to find out how they're made and learn techniques to make my stuff look more professionally made.  Enter the giant, sort-of-cheongsam that would definitely have enough fabric to make a jacket I found while thrifting.  Of course, as usual, I forgot to take before pictures. *sigh*

It was floor length, zipped up the back, and had a placket on the front that closed with frogs. And surprisingly tiny sleeves.  It was shaped with two vertical darts in the back, and two darts in the front of the kind that start down at the waist and curve up to the bust point. I can't remember what they're called (is there a special name for those?), but they're the ones on every '70s Simplicity dress pattern ever.

Every. Pattern.

I kept the basic bodice shape, closed up the back seam, and opened the front.  I completely changed the sleeves: I wanted long bell-shaped sleeves and used the instructions found on VintageSewing.info from the book Modern Pattern Design by Harriet Peppin c. 1942 for Bishop Sleeve or Peasant Type Sleeve. (Sadly, that website is no longer being kept up, however you can see it in its entirety by using the Wayback Machine.)

I also wanted it quilted and I thought silk batting would be appropriate.  There are so many types of batting available these days - bamboo, wool, silk, etc.  I also didn't have a bouncy foot for my machine (I never did figure out if it's actually a quilting or darning foot, but it does bounce) to do stippling, so gorthx graciously allowed me to use her machine.  I can't say I like machine embroidery any more than hand embroidery, but I like the result.  The embroidery also drew the fabric up quite a bit, so the entire thing ended up a bit smaller and the darts now point to ... destinations unknown.  I lined it with a simple cotton from the indoor outside sale (don't ask).

Every once in while I manage to take a decent photo.

Lots and lots of random stitching. Lots.

The rest of the photos can be found in my flickr set.