Sigrid - sewing projects

A picture heavy post, as I’ve included pictures on me and on the dressform, to show the comparison for this once. A few pictures on the end conclude the details on the construction of this jacket. The jacket is finished and I’m so happy with it. The style is very much me, the fit is good and I really enjoyed sewing it. Nothing more to wish for? There is one little thing that’s not quite correct, but I won’t tell!The front, the extra shoulder interfacing of hair canvas really ensures that the fabric doesn’t collapse between shoulder and bust. My fabric was very flexible, and I think it was the right thing to do.At the back I took a bit out of the shoulder, to remove the extra pleat I often have there. The solution was in the book Fit for real people and I want to thank Nancy K for pointing me to this solution.In the sleeves I used a sleevehead and thin shoulder pads.To finish the posts on the jacket the last details on construction for those interested. I didn’t make a separate lining…

It was a lovely long weekend here, with gorgeous weather. Had the weather been worse the jacket would probably have been finished by now, but we took the opportunity to go cycling and enjoy the weather in the garden. A few answers to questions or comments to a few previous posts:Faye asked whether the tailoring board is the june tailorboard. Yes it is, and I’ve used it a few times now in constructing the jacket, and I’m sooo happy with it.Ann-Marie asked about extra costs involved in importing from the USA: yes there are extra costs involved for customs and VAT (BTW). As I said: I could’t find a European source for this, but still think that all together it’s value for money.Then there were several questions on the dressform: I made it in a workshop, so I don’t have the instructions how to do it, we followed the instructors guidance. The bottom is wood with a piece of pvc pipe in it. The stand was ready for us, we didn’t make it.The workshop was on 3 Saturday mornings, 2 of these were…

You had a little sneak peak last week: I have made a dressform to my own measurements. It was done in a group of 4 ladies and we helped eachother with the process of making a copy of your body. A few impressions of the construction.First I was wrapped in adhesive paper. This was cut at the back and glued together again. Then it was made more sturdy by adding more adhesive paper on the inside.After drying it was coated with a first layer of fiberfill. The outer layer is a stretch veloursThe result after adding the bottom and putting it on a stand. On top is a pincushion. I’m convinced it will help me with fitting issues. It was pretty confrontating to see your own body copied with all its particulars, but it’s just the way I am, nothing to do about that.

Just have to show a picture of the notched collar. Earlier this year I tried the method that is described in Threads when Nancy K wrote about that article. Now I’ve used the method in a real jacket and I’m quite pleased. I made a few pictures of construction that I’ve not uploaded yet, not too sure you can see much on them. Working with a mostly black fabric is not too easy for pictures.

You’re being quite unanimous in your answers whether you like the posts on plans and details. I was thinking I might be repeating myself, i showed how I make a jacket earlier on, but it has been awhile. As to plans: I have a lot of plans, quite a few (coordinating!) fabrics that I want to sew some clothes from and techniques I want to try. I’ll do a post on my plans when my jacket is finished, but my experience is that most plans for a sequence of garments somehow are left somewhere in the middle.More detail shots of the jacket then. I made single welt pockets and was inspired by the book Cool couture by Kenneth King (so envious of those of you who attended the PR weekend and had a chance to do some embellishment with his guidance). I used a combination of two types of pockets that he described. Basically it comes down to  make sure the seam of the side of the welt is transferred to the back of the welt.  I’m not writing a complete tutorial (( do highly recommend buying the book) but …

I took some time this afternoon to work on the jacket. When I bought the fabric, the lady of the shop showed me a picture of a jacket with the edges only serged and obviously not very structured on the inside. She said this was a good fabric to make such a jacket. Apart from the serged edges (not my style) initially I thought I would make it not very structured, but I changed my mind and it will be a tailored, linen jacket. Though I use some shortcuts in tailoring, like I usually do.As I told in my previous post I interfaced the whole jacket, and treated the interfaced pattern pieces as “the fabric”, therefor I used extra interfacing where I would do that in a non-interfaced fabric.The result on the inside: a back stay of silk organza.I sewed a shoulder stay of hair canvas to the fusible interfacing, and cut the interfacing on the roll line and took off 3 mm at the body part (as described in the book Tailoring). The hair canvas is not fusible, this was a solution to that “problem”.The…

Ladies, you are so right about leaving the darts in. A jacket with more shape suits me much better, nor do I want to go for an 80’s style! Karin quoted Vibeke “darts are our friends”, and Vibeke, you’re right. Not much progress to show. I interfaced the fabric with Pam’s Pro sheer Elegance fusible interfacing and made a trial single welt pocket. That is what I think I will use as pockets, I don’t want a zipper or patch pockets, like the variations of Burda show. I did sew the darts and think that it will be a more tailored jacket than I originally thought it would be.Recently I bought two pressing tools, and I’m quite happy with them. The tailor board from Nancy’s notions which arrived within 10 days, very quick! (I could not find an equivalent in Europe). I also bought a press roll. Both are good extra tools, as you know half of the time spent on sewing a garment is time spent pressing parts of it. Finally there are a bit more flowers in our (small) garden. My son was experimenting w…

That’s how it feels to me. Next is a jacket from a Burda from 2000 (too lazy to check the month now). I was looking for a pattern I remembered for a jacket in one of the old issues I have, but that appeared not to be what I was looking for, but I found this pattern instead.The fabric is linen, it has a stripe in the length which doesn't show well in the picture, along with an abstract flower woven in.The muslin on my “dressform to be”, more on that later, it’s sturdy enough now to be used for the first time, though it’s not finished yet. I traced a size 40, did a proper FBA as described in the book Fit for real people and took in the center back seam a bit at the wiast. I tapered down a size larger in the hip area, but need more space there.Trying the muslin on myself showed a strange fold in the sleeve, but I checked it with the sleeve pattern of one of my favorite jackets (Burda too) and it’s practically the same.I’d like a bit casual jacket and consider taking the vertical dart…

Thank you all for your kind comments on my dress. It really was a special project to work on. And in answer to a comment from Cidell, I don’t think American church services are very different from here, the wedding I attended was in an Armenian (not American) church. This means that it has more old catholic traditions like the eastern part of Europe. Last week I made this Knip mode blouse from the March issue (no. 107), mostly a simple summer blouse. Hope the weather will get better, till now it’s been too cold here to wear a top with short sleeves. The uneven plaids gave me difficulties. You might know I’m the matchy-matchy type when sewing with plaids or stripes. On the other hand I didn’t want to spend a day on the cutting of this top, so I did my best not to match all. I started matching the darker lines, but then decided against it and made the white parts match. In the end the result is that though I tried not to match, a few lines almost match, which to me means “not cut right”…

Of course I still owe you a few pictures of me actually wearing the dress. After hemming the dress on the evening before leaving there was no time left to make pictures then. We attended a wedding in Paris and as it was a school holiday last week, we stayed a few days. Awefully cold in Paris at the beginning of the week. It was the first time we were in Paris with our children, so we did more “obligatory” sight seeing. I would have liked to go to the Yves Saint Laurent exibition, but didn’t make it. Another time, another exhibition….The dress I combined with black. There was an Armenian church ceremony in the afternoon and I was unsure whether bare arms would be appropriate so I borrowed a black beaded shawl from a friend. The beads took up the color of the silk of the dress and was a good combination with black shoes and purse.

This is a picture from the day of the wedding. The zipper is not perfect in the top, which is mainly due to the fact that the zipper had a larger hard plastic…