Just a small note

Just to let anyone know who maybe curious about my absence, I have been quite ill for the last month. My thyroid tanked in a spectacular fashion leaving me utterly debilitated. It is unusual for someone of my age to have thyroid problems and so there have been some wrong decisions made in treatment, but finally i got to see a endocrinologist, and i seem to be on the mend. Hopefully i will be back to sewing in a week or two, the winter white jacket is haunting me.

Wardrobe Progress - Part ten

I feel like I haven't done one of these in ages, and I haven't. Hopefully I am now on a roll again and I will soon have eleven and twelve joining their mate. That is a very wintry wardrobe though I am going to have to do something about that soon

Outfit Four - Winter White Wool Gabardine Skirt

I have finished the final tweaks and now declare the skirt done! I am happy with it, I kind of think I am going to have to do something about the back vents, but more on that later. It is your classic pencil skirt; It has a waistband, it is slightly pegged, which on the mannequin makes it look like it has massive saddle bags, as lamented before this baby does not have back, and it hits at the knee. Really there isn't a lot to say, there are no amazing design features of fabulous embellishments to talk about but it is still, in my opinion a blimin' nice skirt which is going to fill it's mandate of being chic & comfortable and a perfect accompaniment to the jacket which is still on it's way.

After a good steam pressing and a couple of days hanging the darts fell into shape wonderfully. The gabardine is an odd fabric being both soft and stiff, resistant and mailable. I am also intrigued by the colour of the skirt in these photographs. The skirt is almost exactly the same colour as my door and so I hung a length of brown micro-suede that I had handy to act as contrast, and it has, oddly enough, drained the colour out of the skirt so the photographs show it as the colour I want it to be! So at least I will be able to pretend, whilst reviewing this post, that I do indeed have a winter white suit. Score!

My "perfect" zipper. I nearly had a heart attack after steaming the skirt, the zip had developed a bulge! Much frantic pressing and tugging and hanging later and it went back to its former smooth state. I assume that there was still a bit of 'shrink' left in the fabric ... grrr.

This is what I came up with at the top of the zipper. I know I had a perfectly fine loop but after seeing the diva's post I could not settle and had to go back and fix things. I did not do it exactly as the diva's proscribed as inserting the tab into the facing was just too heavy and I could not pull the zip completely too the top. Instead I made a buttonhole in the waistband, slipped the tab into the hole and hand stitched it securely on the inside. It's working great, nice and secure and firm so I dispensed with the hook and eye at the top of the zip. But that said I am not that happy with the way that the buttonhole looks (it has that dreaded home sewn fix-em-up look), so on the next skirt I will work on a better finish. Maybe I will cut the waistband with a facing and cut the facing to insert the tab. I will think about it. To be honest I am not thrilled with the waistband as a whole, as it did turn out too heavy. Next time I will use the underlining and the tailors canvas but leave out the knit interfacing, and, as noted, I will try the waistband with a facing instead of a turn-over. I prefer waistbands to facings but I am still working on getting things just right ...

I am really chuffed with the lining, it was a lot of work but for the finish it gives, and the visual satisfaction I get each time I pull the skirt out, it was totally worth it.

I used a quilting stitch on the seams and while it was a pain to do with the tissue paper and whatnot I do think it gave the seams and the lining as a whole a special look. I like it.

And now to the vents. They are not going to work how they are. I took out the pleat as they were not going to work that way either, but now we have this flappy flap thing and boy it likes to flap. It reminds me of the one and only time I made a wrap skirt where the opening was at the back. Every time I walked down the street I was in a constant state of anxiety that I was giving the locals a free show, there was a draft!. And that is how this skirt is. The vent is just too high, and too big and too ... flappy. But having completed the darn things twice already I am going to leave it for a bit, I don't need it until October, and if I do it now it will be a hurried fix (I know myself) which I will just have to pull apart at a later date anyway. Time to let the fevers cool before I attack it again.

It looks good and sits flat though not so much on the dummy as she has no bum, but it is just too high especially as there are two slits for the price of one.

And this is why I am hesitating; the smooth gleaming work of perfection that is the hem. I just cannot bring myself to pull that apart AGAIN! It is a beautiful hem, heavy and thick but smooth and sharp at the same time, if that makes any sense at all.

The binding on the lining hem is awesome. I guess it seems silly to spend so much time on something that few people but myself will ever see, but I am a person that likes secrets I guess. Those things that I know about and others don't ... yes I get the irony as I type this here ... I even get the same small thrill from the Hong Kong finish on the hem itself, lovely little details just for me.

The bound finish on the waistband looks clunky and is another thing I will refine on the next waistband I do. I do like the idea and it does remove one layer of fabric from the waistband edge which is quite noticeable. I just need to trim the size a bit I think, this time I simply covered the seam allowance without removing any of the width. Not a good idea.

And here are the hangers and their loops. The loops serve to hold the hanger down whilst I am wearing the skirt so I do not have them poking up out of the waistband annoyingly. It works, mostly.

And this is the jumper that I purchased from Wool Lovers. It is a beautiful fine lambswool and entirely the wrong colour. It's hard to tell with these washed out photographs but the suit is a brownish shade and the jumper is a true cream. Not a good fit. But not too worry the jumper will still get maximum wear as it is a handy style in a nice neutral and I have a silk skivvy and pot of dye on their way so hopefully I will get what I want for this suit after all.

And this is what I got when I put 'wool gabardine pencil skirt' into the interwebs. It is from J. Crew and cost $110.00 US, approximately $200.00 NZ. I paid the equivalent of $21.00 NZ per metre for the gabardine and used 1.2 metres in the skirt. Thus my sums lead me to a total $47.80 for the skirt. I did not include the cost of the lining as that has been sitting there for at least 5 years waiting to be used and the cream lining was an off cut from another project ... I believe that makes it free. I also did not include the cost of the pattern as that was a cast off from someone else that I snagged a few years ago. So the cost is the fabric, the underlining, the interfacing, the thread, including a spool of embroidery thread and the zip. Oh and mustn't forget the 60 cents for the button. A true bargain I say!

Even though I have finished the skirt it doesn't feel finished as I do not see it as an item on it's own, it belongs with the jacket. I have a couple more days left on the jacket. Hopefully the skivvy will turn up tomorrow so that I can get it finished and by the weekend Outfit Four will be truly done.

Section One - Special Item Two - Winter White/Ivory/Beige Wool Gabardine Jacket - Stage Four

Taken off the ironing board and this is what we have! It looks a bit odd with the one white and one black lapel but I ran out of tape; that will prove to be a bit of a theme on this jacket.

A day's sewing later and we have this. Looks pretty much the same as it did this morning doesn't it ...

... except it now has one of these! (A back)

... and also one of these! (A buttonhole - My Pfaff's keyhole buttonhole is a bit wonky but I find a bit of work with the shank of a button and it looks fine)

... and there is one of these percolating in the back room! (Under Collar)

... and one of these waiting in the wings to be called into service! (Facing and upper collar)

... as well as a pair of these lying in wait (Sleeves!)

... and that's not to mention this! (Back belt)

... last but not least we can't forget this. (the lining!)

Put together (even if it's just with a few pins) and we have this! There are a lot of exclamation points in this post for a reason!!!

And the back looks good too. The extra fabric at the shoulders is due to the shaped princess seams, and is not a problem on an actual human body and with shoulder pads. I am debating the shoulder pads to be honest as they do give a more boxy appearance to the jacket, which is ok but I am really liking the softer appearance. It has an almost Edwardian/first world war look to it. It would be easy enough to remove the extra space from the jacket body, what with all those seams and all, and from my pinning experiments the sleeves do not seem to have that much ease so I don't see that as a problem. So what do you think: shoulder pads or not?

Ok some details: I constructed the seams and darts in the same way that I have constructed them everywhere else, so not much to see here ....

Once all the construction was complete I cross stitched everything flat or to prevent it from flipping or rolling up. I even tacked down some of the seams just to hold them open. I do not think I have ever sewn a jacket that has no flat panels at all, everything is curved and shaped so that when things are joined all the pieces are pulled into a 3 dimensional shape. It is impossible to flatten this jacket ... weird, and it is going to be a dog to press ... yeah I know, I am really straining to find something to complain about on this one!

Well that is if I don't think about the buttonhole. I was going to do bound buttonholes on this jacket as it seems the ubiquitous couture feature but as I constructed things it became obvious to me that as a more masculine style of jacket it needed thread buttonholes, either machine or hand. When have you last seen a man's suit with bound buttonholes. But that has caused a a couple of problems; I have always disliked machine buttonholes on thicker fabrics, and I have never done a hand worked buttonhole and do not trust my skills in that area (turns out with good reason) with this jacket. Then I read a blog somewhere (I need to start recording these useful posts, I am still looking for the one on London shrinking) which made the obvious but oh so important observation that machine buttonholes do not work in these situations because of the seam pushing the balance out in a computerised machines calibration ... it sounded good so I applied the suggestion and stitched the buttonhole before stitching the seam. Of course this means I only get a buttonhole in one layer of fabric so what about the facing? Well I read in the Roberta Carr book that Chanel used to do hand worked buttonholes on the outside and then bind the inside as the back of the hand buttonholes don't look that flash ... well in my case the front side of the buttonhole doesn't look that flash (I used it to bind the buttonhole opening in the facing), but it is on the inside so I can stand it. I have quite a bit more practice before one of these adorns the outside of anything.

And it was at this point that I ran out of thread ... on good friday ... on Easter weekend ... where the haberdashery shop will not be open until tuesday ... sighs! To compensate for that disappointment I was a bit naughty and broke my own rules (finish each outfit before starting on the next) and cracked open Special Outfit # 2 ... but isn't this the most gorgeous fabric ever. It's a pre-prepared silk (I brought it like this) in the most glorious and unexpected colour scheme of maroon and copper ... in fact the picture below is almost exact. It has little circles of dark burgundy velvet and long bias strips of a copper coloured tartan stitched over the surface of the fabric. It is from David Mills fabrics in Pukekohe, and if it is not already clear I LOVE IT

This is what I plan to wear to the actual WOW (World of Wearable Art) show. Everyone that sees it says "I can see that in an awesome skirt", but I am planning a jacket with a dress in black silk crepe de chine from www.gorgeousfabrics.com. Did you know that crepe de chine means crepe from China in French? No, me either.

The question is what dress should I make the crepe de chine in. To the left is the jacket I plan, next is my initial idea the red slip dress, last is the vintage vogue dress pattern that I got last week and it suddenly struck me that if I make this out of the crepe the dress might get more use. What do you think? Any thoughts?

Anyway I know I am going to spend tomorrow controlling my urge to start on this one and trying to make myself do what I should be doing to fix the suit skirt.

Section One - Special Item Two - Winter White/Ivory/Beige Wool Gabardine Jacket - Stage Three

So we had a little misfortune and all the painstakingly precise photographs that I took of my method for sewing the pockets were "accidentally" erased off the computer, so we have these amateur blurry pictures to describe the process instead ... So what did I do? Oh yes I ended up removing the underlining from the fabric pieces as I decided it would ruin the pockets to have all that bulk around them, and I thought the easiest way to deal with that was remove everything (this unfortunately was a learning the hard way type situation ... but that's only two days of my time wasted, so oh well). Anyway, I cut a interfacing patch, pinking the edges and fused it to the wrong side of each pocket area, the usual thing. Then I marked the stitching line on the interfacing ... don't look too closely at that picture because I know one of those lines is the proper stitching line, which one might be up for debate though ... hehe. On one of the earlier pockets I forgot to sew the reinforcing line around the pocket before slashing it. It made a difference.

After slashing along one of the drawn lines (the right one I hope) I pressed the pocket open firmly. One thing of note is to make sure that the little V at the end is large enough I usually make it a little bigger then what is marked on the pattern as this can dictate how well your corners form up.

After pressing and machine stitching the pocket pieces I hand sew them together. To ensure that the pocket edges meet squarely I do this while the pieces are lying on a flat surface, it takes a little more fiddly effort but it also ensures that the pockets are as even as possible. I then do my over-kill thing and stitch back along the other side. I'm not sure that it is strictly necessary but I like a guarantee.

Roughly positioning the pocket pieces under the pocket opening and securing it with pins that are placed as far from the opening edge as possible is the next step. I position the pins this way so that I have room to fit a ruler under the edge of the opening ah-la the next picture ...

I hand stitch the pocket lips into the opening and yes I measure every stitch. On this pocket each lip is supposed to be 1/8th of an inch and when I push the needle up through the fabric it is as close as possible to that measurement. I then push the needle back through all thicknesses including the jacket, so I am basically using a modified pick stitch.

So here we have the pocket all pick stitched but not pressed.

That, however, is not the final step as I now machine sew the pocket into place. I know in couture clothing that hand-stitching is king because it is flexible and soft and makes everything easier to manipulate. I agree completely with all of those points, but in my opinion machine stitching has positive attributes also, namely a better straight edge and stronger finish.

So I combined what I believe is the best of both words and got what I think is a pretty awesome finish, even if I do say so myself. This method is particularly relevant with a difficult fabric like gabardine, especially one with a soft hand like this one. In a more obliging fabric I most probably would dispense with the hand picking step, simply tacking things together lightly, but I know that I would have been unhappy with the result this time if I had not bothered. When in doubt tack, or in this case, hand sew!

After removing the extra tacking thread and reinforced stitching we have this. Because this fabric is soft but also rather willful I also ran a hand stitch into each corner to hold them in place. It seems like a lot of work but I am happy happy happy with the result. Obviously we are not quite finished yet but all the hard stuff is done.

I just had to add the pocket bags themselves ... (things look a little wonky there but they aren't. The gabardine must have relaxed a little while I was taking the picture and folded forward).

.... and to sew them up into an actual pocket. Done. As you can see I clipped the underlining away from the seam allowance, again probably unnecessary but I like the way it looks. And I pinked the edge; it does do a good job on this fabric of preventing fraying without major problems of show through when pressing.

The next chore was reinstating all that underlining by hand. I had a picture but it was really blurry and thus a bit pointless but it was supposed to show everything in place and pressed. The underlining does make a real difference to the lie of the fabric, it is rather fabulous. I don't think it's too dramatic to say that it feels like I am sculpting the jacket as much as sewing it.

This photo shows the machine pad stitching that I have done on the lapel portion of the underlining (there is tailors canvas under the underlining). First I did a small satin stitch down the marked roll line, on this jacket the roll line is curved not straight, then I stitched wide zigzags, somewhat wonky in some areas but no one is going to notice are they?

Next I taped the roll line and the lapel and front edges with cotton tape. The tape should be under tension as you sew it by hand as it's use is to shape the fabric and in the lapel area so that it contures in a curve around my neck and over the bust before tucking in at the waist. Also down the front it has the job of pulling the front edge straight. It's a heavy load for one little piece of tape to handle, but hopefully it can deal.

The last thing I did last night was set the jacket piece out on the ironing board to set the lapel shape. In the books it tells you to fold a damp hand-towel under the lapel and leave it over night. I have found in the past that in a shaped jacket like this one, that leads to problems with the bust line. In addition a curved roll line can be ruined if it is not set right. Sounds dramatic but the first time I used this technique I made the error of not making the effort to set the roll line where it should sit, and the lapel continually fell forward even though I tried to reshape it properly later. How the way I do it differs is that I lay a dry folded towel under the lapel and a damp one over the top after I have moulded the fabric into shape. The dry towel prevents any hard creases in the lapel and the damp one adds necessary weight to hold things in place while it shape is set.

It seems a bit wrong to leave things there so here is a sneak peak of the first front I completed on Saturday.

Section One - Special Item Two - Winter White/Ivory/Beige Wool Gabardine Jacket - Stage Two

I decided to follow through with the making the lining first initiative even though I will not be using the lining as a muslin for the jacket. That said I followed the same basic order of business as sewing the skirt while constructing the decorated seams: Picture A. Finishing the seam edge with zigzag BEFORE stitching the seam. Picture B. Applying packing tissue paper strips on the back side of the seam. Picture C. Stitching the seam with a decorative stitch whilst stretching the seam apart so that the decorative stitch puckers as little as possible. Picture D. Then picking the tissue paper out of the seam and pressing, pressing pressing.

I think the finish though not ostentatious is rather groovy. I really am going to pay more attention to the lining in future. No more will they be the outer fabrics poor relation!

I decided that as this jacket has a certain masculine edge to it that I would add an internal pocket to the lining. That makes 5, count them 5 bound pockets in the jacket, I must be a tiger for punishment or something. I will show the details of sewing a bound pocket my way on the jacket. The lining fabric was a bit of a beast so not the best vehicle to show of the pocket, though ...

... I do like the way it looks in the end. Initially I did not add the button and loop but the lips of the pocket were stiff and liked to gape a little (more than my perfectionist soul could tolerate in any case).

I also did not particularly like how the back pleat looked either. I ummed and ahhed about how I was going to sort out the decorative stitching so everything looked symmetrical. My initial thoughts were to sew down the crease of the pleat ... i.e below ...

It didn't work and looked all wrong so I removed it and despite one of these things being not like the others I think it looks much better.

I only decorated the vertical seams so the waistline and shoulders are not stitched, but I think that looks right. It's funny but the stripped effect doesn't look as good to me as it did on the skirt. I think it is because it is more chopped about and the pieces do not meet evenly across the back. That said I do like the "effect" as it adds a bit of fun to a rather structured and "muscular" jacket. This jacket expects to be taken seriously, thank you.

The next section is the sleeves. I am not as pedantic with lining sleeves as I am with the actual jacket sleeves for two reasons; lining fabric does not ease, nor does it shrink when steamed so getting a perfect sleeve insertion is more or less impossible, and the second reason I will show you later ... Still I use the same method in both cases. I sew up the sleeve seams and for this lining also stitched each seam with the decorative stitch (not as easy as it sounds). After I had sewn the first seam and before I sewed the second I ran easing or gathering stitches in three rows around the sleeve head between the marks indicated on the pattern. At the peak of the sleeve head, also marked, I reduced the stitch length from 40 to 15 (this cannot be stitched per inch as I thought as in 40 there were a lot less stitches than there is at 15) and stitched 4 stitches to act as an anchor. Make sense? Well there is a blurry picture in the middle to clarify things ... hehe. Another tip is when I am starting to pull the ease up I insert a pin at the edge of the gathering stitches, pull up the threads and wind them around the pin to anchor them. This allows me to alter and adjust for a perfect fit whereas if I tied them off I would be stuck.

After I have the easing distributed as evenly as possible I then pin the sleeve into the armhole. On the actual fabric I would remove the sleeve before this point and steam and shape it over a sleeve ham to set the shape and loft and stuff. I always check things on the outside throughout this process as that will give you more information on how things will look and sit than just what you see on the inside.

Next? Tacking! And after I have tacked I check it on the outside. You can see there area couple of puckers here and there and I went in and tried to smooth them out with my fingers. There is no point trying to press them with the iron as that will just cause permanent creases.

And here we are all sewn up. And as you can see the sleeve head is smooth, shaped well and with a little bit of loft even in lining fabric!

At last we have a cleaned up sleeve. I have removed the gathering and tacking, finished the edges and everything is tidy, inside and out. At this point I press the seam to set everything so it looks a bit flatter but that is fine in the lining.

I always check the lay of the land in the front and the back sleeve, yes even in the lining. The way a sleeve lies indicates it's fit. It's fit indicates how it will react under stress. What will happen if I lift my arm? Can I stretch forward without ripping out the back of the sleeve. Will the sleeve ride smoothly over the lining or will there be twisting and bunching. It's worth the bother.

Groovy baby, the lining is finished and is now waiting to fulfil it's role in life of hiding the seams on a much more beautiful jacket than itself. It does not resent this lowly position because it knows that I have spent as much love and attention on it as I will on the real deal. Mostly. I know that the trend now is to line in silk and I may have been doing better service to all this effort if I had used it, but I can't quite grasp the idea of spending that much on a lining. I spend enough already thank you very much.