A month of months

I bought this pattern in high school. While I really, really like this now, I would have LOVED it then. I originally wanted to make it in a sky blue cotton velveteen. I don't remember why I didn't make it then; maybe I was intimidated by the addition of boning, or maybe it was my short attention span. I have it now!





This is a really good basic bodice pattern, as reviewer Sorrel Smith said over at The Great Pattern Review. Would I make it again? Possibly, using it as a jumping off point. It would probably look good with lapels. I would also need to make the neck a smaller diameter. I didn't compensate for that when I added width to the center fronts.



It is also a surprisingly handy little jacket. It is an unexpectedly warm, light layer and perfect for spring. I can't really wear it over anything other than a t-shirt anyway. the sleeves really are quite tight. I think the jacket would hang better through the back if the sleeves hung on my arms properly.



So no bike riding or harp playing in this thing, or anything that requires me to move my arms forward and bend them.



* Click on any picture to see it bigger.
** Past Patterns has a note on their website for #902: This pattern is currently being updated and so it is listed out of stock. Not sure what's being updated - it seems fine to me.

Fabric: Cotton/acetate faille, possibly from Schoolhouse Fabrics (I still miss that place)
Cost: ?  Maybe $12 for the one piece of lining I needed and thread?
Time: Too. Much. Hand sewing. 3/24 dyed fabric, 3/30, 31 alter pattern and cut and muslin, 4/2 almost killed myself with my iron, 4/3 new iron, 4/5,6 sewed and found I needed buttons and sleeve lining, 4/10 fabric store, 4/11 organized button stash and found buttons!, 4/12 -15, 18, 26-30, 5/2-6 sewed, 5/8 finished! Conservatively, probably a total of about 34 hours.

ETA: My mom refers to the tails as "butt flaps" and I kind of can't not call them that now.

All the pieces of this jacket are underlined, which meant hand-basting around all the edges of all the pieces. If there is a next time, I would probably line it, as well or instead, because the seam edges are also supposed to be overcast by hand. Well, I can tell you I gave up on that pretty quick and got out the serger. And even that was too much sewing.

The fronts and back are made separately, and before sewn together, the buttons are attached to the tails.


And so begins the saga of the buttons.*

I would like to be an organized person. Some things are well organized, like my sock drawer. Other things are not, like almost every single sewing thing I own. I think I mentioned in a previous post I finally organized my fabric. It is nice.

This jacket requires 33 buttons for the size I made. Covered buttons would look nice, right? I looked in my covered button box and had one package of 5/8" size. So I would need 28. Ugh. Do I order in bulk and get way too many? Do I try to find that many in the fabric store and pay way too much?

I dithered for almost a week.

Then I got a wild hair to organize my three boxes of closures, including the one that contained that one package of buttons. In addition to covered buttons of various sizes, I have pearl snaps, grommets (eyelets), a bunch of vintage self-covered belt kits that I picked up every time I went to a now-defunct craft thrift store, and ... a bunch of covered button kits that I picked up every time I went to a now-defunct craft thrift store.

People, I had 32 buttons total.

Aaaargh!

But wait! gorthx to the rescue with the last remaining button!

But wait! Some packages said 5/8" and some said 9/16". Now I had to figure out how to disperse them so the size difference would not be noticeable. Twelve for the tails, six for the sleeves, and 17 for the front.

Yeah, that doesn't add up to 33. I made the above pictured twelve for the tails, realized I only needed ten, then lost track of which size I made. So measured them, and all the buttons were 9/16", even the ones marked 5/8". *shrug*

I made the buttons at each stage instead of making them all at once, so stay tuned for more button content.

* You can click on the top pic to watch a gif. Who knew you could make animations in gimp.

This fabric was originally on the back of a velvet biscuit quilt I made in the 90s, was bubble gum pink, and was going to be turned into a muslin for tuxedo blazer.

I took apart the quilt a few years ago because it was Time, and kept the backing. I have no idea why I decided to put a bright pink cotton/acetate faille on the back of a heavy velvet quilt. It always slid off my bed within a matter of minutes leaving me freezing.

There were two pieces each about 2.5 yds long and 35" wide. I had drafted a tuxedo jacket pattern that I wanted to muslin, and thought a fancy, shiny fabric might be nice if the muslin turned out to be wearable.

However, not pink. So I got out the dye. Again. I thought I'd try black, knowing that cotton dye would probably only work on the cotton fibers, but hoping for the best.

What I got was so much better!


It came out a beautiful antique lilac color! The cotton is definitely black, but the pink in the acetate just got toned down a bit. Combined they are a color that is an exact match for the Coats and Clark thread color "Light Vintage Purple".

Well, it was mostly that color.

This is why it's important to prewash your fabric before dyeing. I'm going to say this is a bird shape, but it also looks weirdly lewd to me. I washed the fabric with synthrapol, twice, and the water was lifetime-smoker-yellow both times. *shudder*

I do, however, really really like the more subtle gradients of color that occurred in the rest of the fabric. So much! I think it adds to the antique look of it.  I decided this special fabric needed to be a much more special jacket than my original plan.

Enter the Victorian equestrienne bodice that I've been wanting to make since high school.


Stay tuned for more...

*click on any picture to see it bigger.

My cousin was cleaning out her vintage pattern collection and sent them to me!

McCalls is finally hopping on the vintage bandwagon, which is great, because they have a long and consistent history of putting out lovely patterns since... the 20s? earlier? up through the 90s, when they did something weird to their sizing. Anyway, I use a lot of vintage McCalls patterns so I was excited by their announcement of their "Archive Collection".  The first two they've released are from 1933 and can be combined to make a suit, or an outfit.  I like that they are basic pieces you could totally use for everyday wear (but I do hope they release some of their fancier designs at some point!).

There's a blouse and jacket 6995.


The line drawing isn't too impressive, but again, these are good basic pieces.

The skirt 6993 is a little more interesting. What looks like a standard pleated skirt:

Has great waist details!

And then there's a sweet little skirt with a belt. This could be great for showing off a vintage buckle.


These older skirts are so flattering - they always seem to just hang better, and I hope McCall's has managed to keep that feature and they continue to release some great vintage designs from their vast catalog.

These fabrics:

Make this top:
I finished this Simplicity 1891 blouse a while ago, but with a cotton broadcloth underlining that was way too stiff. I decided to reline it with silk charmeuse, since I was able to find the right color. However, that meant trying to take apart something made from silk chiffon, hand basting the shifty layers together, and sewing it back up on the (hopefully) original stitching lines. That were shifting all over the place. Then there were the buttonholes. Ugh. I hand stitched them with regular thread, and that didn't work. I tried one on the machine, and that didn't work either. Then I hand stitched them with embroidery thread and that worked, although I hope no one ever examines them up close.


And with that, I think my spring collection from 2010 is finally done. Yay, me?

    
Top: 1st glove
Bottom: 2nd glove

So these aren't as polished-looking as I'd like, but much better than the machine sewn gloves. By far.

Original gloves + 1/2"

I think that has to do mostly with having a better pattern. I took apart some vintage gloves that I loved and wore to death and made a pattern. That way, the pattern already had all my finger... quirks molded in.  Except for the quirk that my palms are a size medium and my fingers are an extra 1/2 inch longer. Or, as I found out after making them, my thumbs and pinkies are only 1/2" longer, my other fingers are 5/8" longer. Geez.

I also left the fourchettes in a "V" shape because I didn't think the grain of the stretchy fabric would make that much of a difference (It would if it was really stripey, but the bias in between the fingers might also look pretty cool.) The original fourchettes were stitched into a V after construction, which in hindsight, would make them easier to stitch.

Top: Sulky Cotton "Petite"
Middle: DMC Perle Cotton No 8
Bottom: Original (cotton?) thread

I managed to salvage a goodly length of the original thread used to sew the gloves. It appeared to be either cotton or silk, although since "100% cotton" was written/stamped on the inside of the gloves, I'm assuming it's cotton. And no, I'm not going to light anything on fire, thank you. (Which reminds me, I need to check and make sure my fire extinguisher is still pressurized.) The original gloves were sewn with a double length of thread.

At the fabric store, I chose two threads that appeared to have the same kind of twist as the original, and one to match and one lighter weight. I sewed the left-hand glove with the perle cotton, which was a bit too much of a pull to get it through the thinner fabric. The right-hand glove got the Sulky Cotton treatment, and it was much easier to pull the threads through.

My next project will be to try these with actual heavy-weight ponte knit and see if the edges look more finished and less ravely.

Do any of you know a source for 100% ponte knit? My google-fu turned up nothing - the places that say they have 100% cotton ponte in the search results, don't.

The last and most recent project is another skirt based on the skirt Flora wore in "Cold Comfort Farm".


I drafted a version of it a few years ago, couldn't find the pattern recently, so drafted what I hope will be a basic A-line skirt block THAT I WILL KEEP AND NOT LOSE, and added a pleat in both the front and center back seams. This is also the skirt I croquised and subsequently realized the 50s skirt I wanted to make actually needed to be this pleated skirt. Alas, I did not have enough fabric for pockets.

Aaaand after cutting it out noticed holes right down the front - hard to notice on a double layer of fabric. I don't know if they've been there the whole time, or developed because the fabric has been undiscovered in my stash for so long. But I fixed them with a few little squares of fusible knit interfacing.




The pleats are handy both for striding towards a camera while looking grim, and riding a bike while looking like a dork (I'm assuming).


I may need to adjust the block for a swayback, or simply stand up straight.
And since the fabric has a subtle blue pinstripe, it will be a good match for this sweater: