Tricked! Things Are Not Always As They Appear

There’s been some discussion about the appropriateness of honesty and critique of sewn garments shown on the internet. My position is that photos and even eyeballing from a distance IRL (in real life) cannot show the salient points needed in the analysis of anyone’s garment making efforts. Here’s a story to illuminate my point:

Sunday evening Husband and I took the Dog for a walk at the local woodland lake park. It was around 6pm and the woods were damp from a light drizzle and beginning to get dark.

Then, something came into view that shattered that dusky softness.

(Please indulge me: I didn’t have my camera with me so I returned the next morning to get documentation to share this story. The light was that of the impending dark so you will have to imagine that night is falling.)

The woods were lush as we walked along the trail

when we were startled to see a Mourning Dove in an odd position and motionless on a low tree branch

By its position I thought the Dove seemed in serious distress and I didn’t want to cause it further angst by getting too close

My eyes couldn’t make out why there was a red spot on its neck so I got this close and stood completely still. A healthy dove doesn’t have red spots on its neck. I could only think that it was wounded by gunshot or had a parasite or had suffered a viral attack of some kind. Bird virus? Oh NO!

Husband and the Dog went to get the car and see if they could find a Park Attendant to help and I stood, silent and keeping my distance, waiting to see if the bird changed positions. Nothing happened for 20 minutes or so but finally my team members returned without finding anyone in authority that might have a way to handle a diseased or injured animal.

We got a bit closer from the opposite side

and finally our eyes were able to pick out the hanger eyelet on the top

Yup, it was a decoy! I had been carefully guarding a DECOY. What I had thought was possibly part of an injury was simply some leaf litter that had fallen onto the red spot

We’re not hunters; we hardly expected a plastic bird clipped to a tree branch

We laughed and laughed, so relieved that we were not watching a Mourning Dove die in the woods.

You can imagine that I was very glad Husband had not found a park employee to drag back to see my humiliation!

So, jumping in to make an analysis of the proper fit or hang or suitability of a garment is something I would really, really hesitate to do. It’s been definitely proved to me that my eyes can’t be trusted to discern an ultimate reality. I certainly wouldn’t want something I said, rightly or wrongly, to adversely affect the future work of any anyone.

I’d love to hear what you all have to say!

Overalls for Her Jalie 972 and Jeans Rivet Setting Tute Improvement

This pattern has cutting lines for 32 different sizes for each pattern piece. That’s a lot of lines! This time I laid a sheet of tracing paper on top of the fabric, laid the pattern piece on top of the tracing paper and used a solid tracing wheel to mark the lines directly onto the wrong side of the fabric. My measurements fell between the largest “regular” size and the plus sized. I cut the regular size and can wear regular pants, leggings, and a sweater under them anyway.

There are some problems with this pattern or maybe with the pattern cuter but the cut fabric matched up with each pattern piece. So here’s what to watch out for:

Straps are not the correct angle to lie flat in the back when worn. Even the instruction drawing shows them crossing over each other. I didn’t discover the problem until I had done all the double top stitching and was not going to pick all those stitches to make the correction.

I took a tuck and then put a rivet in each corner. I also had to narrow the straps (yes I did unpick two rows of top stitching for that) and cut off 8 inches of length.

Pocket piece is not wide enough to allow proper installation of button band. This is a crucial 5/8″ of fabric but I managed to squeeze through the construction by triple step stitching the edges and turning just once.

Add at least 5/8″ to the outer edge of the pocket and pocket facing. It will save a bunch of time in construction.

The next time saver is a big one and so simple and logical I can’t believe I didn’t find this in any of the two How-To-Use Jean Rivets tutorials published by Fehrtrade or TaylorTailor Oddly enough both of these tutorials were published on the same day May 15, 2011. I found that interesting. Wonder what was going on there?

But here’s the deal:

Rivets nails should be trimmed down after inserting into hole

if the thickness of the fabric doesn’t require the full length of the nail. Sooooo simple. It allows you to see how much you need to trim and since the nail hasn’t been crimped and it sharp point removed it slips right through the pre-made hole.

See that ragged edge?

It catches on on the fabric threads and takes forever to get pushed through

Even with the pointed head left in tack threads can be split and cause a few troubles

but the point takes much less time to insert. I got my rivets years ago from the nice man at Castbullet. I see that TaylorTailor also sells them and in more colors

As I was working with this fabric I’ve had for years and had always planned to use for overalls, I was wondering why I’d put this gorgeous twill aside for work pants. The answer came as I was applying the rivets to the side tool pocket

and found this

It is clearly abraded and marked and must have been there when I received the fabric. I zigzagged over the edges and applied a patch.

Another odd thing about this pattern is that there are no reinforcement suggested for the location of the buttons or buttonholes. I put them in without adding anything since I wasn’t going to do the ripping needed to add in a backing material.

The pattern has you “tack” over all the stress points but I only used them on the faux fly area

and used the rivets where there would be real stress.

I am glad this pair is done. I compared the pattern pieces with the other two patterns I have in the stash and they are similar in shape. I hope the instructions are better. We’ll see.

Gratuitous Dog Bomb

Finished Anorak -Onion 1045-

You may note that the hem does not contain elastic as I planned to do per the pattern suggestions. It is serged, turned and top stitched. I figured I’m round enough from the back view without elastic to emphasize it

I have finally figured out Flikr and WordPress.com. I changed my WordPress password a number of weeks ago and apparently just now Flikr has figured that out. It wanted my attention!

As an admin and member of The Sewing Divas on WordPress.com I’ve seen thousands of spam attacks attached to the photos uploaded into the WordPress.com media library. I am now deleting all my Stitchery photos from that library, I don’t want that happening here in my little blog! Sorry for all the computer whining, I have spent too many years fixing computer stuff on the job to put up with it on something I do for fun!

Burda Magazine 2006/08 #128 Faux Peplum Jacket

The jacket is finished and the pants are in-process.

I am trying to decide how much more energy I really want to put into this fabric. It is a stretch wool, plain weave, slightly brushed on the side I put to the public, but lacking the weight and body of a true gabardine. Below you’ll see lots of different colors but it’s actually gray with a slight greenish caste to it. I do need a better camera, don’t you think?

Here’s the jacket last night after a fresh pressing and before topstitching: Right Sleeve

Here’s the same sleeve today after wearing for an hour:

And here’s the Left sleeve, freshly pressed:

and after an hour’s wearing:

This pattern is a plus-sized pattern. I cut to fit my bust waist and hip measurements. I did not suspect the extreme width of the shoulders and didn’t even try to measure myself through the back and shoulders. I should have!

And I could have, had I brought this little gem into The Stitchery! Check this out: Cochenille.com here in US is marketing the Hurth Measuring Tool designed by Ursula Hurth, owner of Home Atelier in Germany. In early February Mz Hurth’s website also listed the Tool on her “Zubehör” page but I don’t see it there now. Perhaps my European readers might contact the Home Atelier to see if she intends to offer it again. There’s a handy dandy PDF at Cochenille that shows how it is used here: RulerHowTo

The pattern instructs that the peplum is lined in self fabric with no call for interfacing or lining. I didn’t follow the pattern instructions since they really didn’t apply to the garment I was building.

I lined the whole body with fleece-backed satin for warmth and a pleat for wearability mid back and the sleeves are lined with bemburg.

The sleeves were 17″ wide at the underarm and the back and shoulders so extremely broad that I decided to try to correct the armscye and sleeves after the bodice had been constructed. That’s new territory for me. I thought that making 2 piece sleeves out of the 1 piece pattern would also help the fit.

I dove into these murky waters with the Threads Magazine vol. 38, article Drafting a Two-piece Jacket Sleeve From a One-piece Pattern, by Margaret Komives, published in the Dec 1991-Jan 1992 issue on page 38. Many bloggers over the past decade have recreated her instructions on their blogs and you can find them by using a search engine so I’ll not recreate it here. (I think only one blogger actually credited Mz Komives with the technique.)

After carefully following the instructions I created a muslin for the sleeve out of a polyester knit pin stripe fabric from a Michael’s Fabrics bundle (the stripes are handy for checking the grain lines) and inserted the basted muslin it into the armscye. It seemed to fit just fine but the whole unit was still too large and the under arm was cut too deeply. I found myself forced to take in the back at the side seams on the jacket shell and lining, which created even more extra ease in the sleeve pattern.

I reshaped the bodice armscye to reflect my more narrow shoulders and back which resulted in removing up to an inch of bodice armscye as I cut away the upper front and back. And now I found that I could insert the sleeve, just barely. I further deepened the curvature of the front sleeve but then was at a loss as to how to proceed with narrowing the back of the sleeve.

I see on my pattern pieces that I toyed with the idea of removing more sleeve width through the upper and under sleeves pieces but then changed my mind, fearful that I would be unable to raise my arms after all this cutting and snipping. I didn’t want to chop-chop myself into a worse situation than I already faced!

So I inserted the sleeve using a loosely woven wool bias strip to gather the sleeve cap. I inserted a sleeve head. the whole sleeve itself was already interlined with Pro-Weft Supreme so I didn’t add another piece of interfacing. Perhaps I should have? Anyway, shoulder pads inserted, I machine bagged the sleeve lining into the lining bodice, leaving open 10″ on the front sleeve lining of each sleeve so I could turn the garment enough to machine stitch. Topstitched, pressed, sewed button and wore.

Do you see how the collar stands away from the neck? There should have been a better result since I had cut the under collar a full 1/8″ smaller on all outside edges and used armo to create the collar stand inside this one piece collar. It rolled nicely before insertion into the neckline.

Or perhaps my neck is somehow not thick enough? Hardly!!!

I do think this pattern was drafted for a much larger person and poorly graded down to size 48 in Burda sizing. I can think of no other explanation for the oddness of the upper body drafting. I didn’t alter the waist and hips at all, just the shoulders and armscye.

Ah well, much as I would have preferred a more fine piece of tailoring, I like this jacket. I love the look of the collar turned up with a scarf wrapped around like in the second picture above. It’s a warm and utilitarian jacket and I’m really really glad it is finally finished!

Shirred Turtleneck CJ #226

Finished this last night, cut the same sizes, 14 on top and 16 through the hips, as the gray non-stretch 2×2 rib I showed you last weekend. I shortened the sleeves one inch this time around.

The fabric makes all the difference in the world in this pattern. This time I used a Malden Mills 2 way athletic stretch fabric and it is much tighter than I usually wear my clothes. I’ll have to get used to the feel of it. I think this fast and easy top will look good under a jacket or coat.

Jalie 2319 – This Is Not My Vest

That’s right, I’m wearing someone else’s clothes. It’s made by me, of an unlined Malden Mills fleeced back sweater knit.

OK, it’s not really all that exciting, it’s for my husband to wear at work this winter. He broke the zipper on the one I made for him two years ago and put in his order for a repair or replacement.

Here’s the original. I’m warning you it’s an ugly truth: the man wears his vest when he’s gluing, silk-screening, painting, sanding, finishing and wood machining. I’m pretty pleased with how well the fabric performed under all that hard work.

He likes having no extra bulk but a warm body so we left off the sleeves. This wasn’t news: I had made a vest in 2004 using the same fabric in a heather green and reviewed it at Pattern Review.

The old cambric blue color was a much better match to the sawdust than this new black will be. I predict a disaster but all the blue stash has been pressed into service as floating row covers for this winter’s garden. He should have placed his order earlier, right? But he looks good in black.

We added more taper to the hip than his first vest, and cut 1.25″ off the width of the shoulders, tapering around the armscye to .625″ under the arm. I had raised the underarm point but ended up cutting that off after fitting. He loves his new vest.

A bit of construction details:

The zipper is stitched in at .25″ from the teeth, turned and then stitched at the edge of the tape to hold it down. The added lower band was stitched on, hand tacked and then rather than turn under the lower raw edge I used 2 rows of triple stitch coverstitch to seal the raw edge and hold everything in place. Inside stitching

Outside stitching

This added on band is neat. We shortened it this year to tighten it up around the hip and eased in the back. I added .5″ to the depth of the band but I need to add maybe another .5″ to the depth of it (depending on the length of the zipper to be used) so I wouldn’t have to slightly stretch the front body. But I got the job done and the collar meets up rather nicely, if I may say so myself.

(Photo settings lightened for detail)

I serged the side seams and shoulder seams and zigzagged them down toward the back. I used the serger to cut off the excess fabric and finish the raw edge around the armscye

and used the triple coverstitch to tack all that down at about .625″ from the turned edge.

The collar on the first vest had a tendency to flip up so I cut the under collar .25″ smaller on the outside and front edges. With this thick fabric I could have taken even more off the edge.

Jalie 2319 is no longer offered on the Jalie website but I believe Pattern Review might still have some available

KwikSew 2740 OOP

Turtlenecks. I love them for layering in the winter and KS 2740 has been my go-to pattern. I wanted one made of the sleeve fabric of the Vogue 8778 tunic that just came off the sewing machine.

Just as I went to take these shots a ferocious wind storm blew up and my camera decided to FAIL at point and shoot.

OK, multiple shots later and let’s pretend it’s an “art shoot” for now. I’ll have to relearn all the manual settings (ha)

KwikSew 2740 is another pattern that has had a long life and I see that it is no longer listed in the active patterns at the KwikSew.McCalls.com website but is still offered for sale by other resellers and ebay. It’s worth chasing down for close fitting turtleneck tops.