Projects in progress and finished

It seems I’m quite attracted to doing more difficult or time consuming projects in the past months. Do you remember the coat I was working on? It’s not finished yet but I did make some progress. I stopped working on it a few weeks ago because I was not completely happy with it. In the meantime I concluded that my choice for the pattern/fabric combination is not the best one. It’s a classic coat and the fabric isn’t. With hindsight I think a wider/shorter coat would have been more appropriate. Too late for that now. I intend to finish it, but it still could take me a while. I was not happy with the idea of flap pockets in this fabric (it is thick!) and even though I sewed them with lining fabric on one side, I decided to use in seam pockets. It still needs sleeve heads, lining, finishing of the vent….

 

  

In the Canterbury weekend I started working on a jacket with a quilted lining. It’s more or less in the same state as when I went home. There hasn’t been a lot of time for sewing this week. On this I still have a lot of hand sewing to do. Having black lining does not make that task easier in the days with short natural light.

Another project I worked on but haven’t shown yet is completed. A blouse from silk that I bought during a meetup with Nancy.

 

I can’t remember the last time I worked with such a slippery, thin fabric. I started out without any pre-treatment and got crazy. I bought a spray starch then and used that, hoping it would all wash out without visible effect. It did luckily. The inside are all French seams (take my word for it). The pattern looks a lot like a Knip Mode pattern I have with this neckline. Also StyleArc’s Brenda blouse has a neckine like this. I did not use a commercial pattern but drafted my own, like I did for a blouse earlier this year. For the interfacing I used the perfect interfacing from Pam, Pro Sheer elegance. Highly recommend that for a silk like this (not affiliated, just a happy customer).

There might be some easy sewing in the next week or so, I feel like some instant gratification projects and gradually tackle my more difficult projects I have around.

Enough for the moment, have a lovely weekend all, and a good “Sinterklaas” to my Dutch readers.

Slow progress

Making a coat is not a quick, instant gratification project. It’s more likely a project taking a few weeks. This of course depends of the amount of time you have for sewing in a day. During the week that is not too much for me, but I try to do a bit most days.

In the past weekend I basted all the seam lines, pinned the front, side and back together and decided on a bit more waist shaping.

The next step is interfacing the front and that’s mainly done now. I’m using methods from my favorite book on jacket construction (Tailoring, the classic guide to sewing the perfect jacket), which I wrote about a few times before. It describes the classic interfacing construction, the machine stitched variation and the fusible method. This time I opted for the second one, machine stitched interfacing. It also has a shoulder reinforcement. The shaping darts are pressed open and catch stitched to the interfacing. On the good side of the fabric only the straight stitches on the strips at the edges are visible. They are in the seam allowance though so won’t be visible later.

 

A few questions that were not answered yet (sorry, I’m not always good at answering in the comments, though of course I read them, will try to do better)

Where do I get my lingerie fabric and notions? Mostly from Kantje boord in Amsterdam. Another source is www.Merckwaerdigh.nl, an ebay store from a lady based in Rotterdam. My last bra (black and white) was made from one of her kits.

Do I know any courses to take (asked by Anna from Maastricht): I took courses in the past and have learned a lot by doing and experimenting. My courses were all in the Randstad, so no help to anyone living in Maastricht. There is a Dutch  lingerie forum you could ask for recommendations.

Which pattern did I use for my bra: The last one was a knock off, so no pattern used.

A facebook page was mentioned but I’m one of the few people that is not (yet?) on Facebook. There is only so much time in a day….

What is the fabric for the skirt? I don’t know the actual contents. There is certainly a man-made fibre in it. It feels like a viscose/cotton. Here is a detail picture.

Next project – a coat

After a lot of hesitation I decided a coat will be my next project. It’s not more complicated than a jacket, as one or two commenters said when I was deliberating what to sew two weeks ago, but it’s heavy, warm and still a lot of work. If I start it now, it will be ready by the time the weather calls for a warm coat. To be honest, I hope it’s ready and it will still take a while to wear it. I’ll be showing the steps I take (though not a tutorial) here, so if you feel like sewing a winter coat (Lilian?) perhaps you’re starting too. Sewing an hour or so each day will get it done….

This is the pattern, BurdaStyle 6845’. I’m using view A only shortened the pattern by 20 centimeters, which makes it about 10 centimeters longer than view B. Tonight I constructed the under collar, based on the instructions in Kenneth King’s course The fly front coat on Craftsy. I loved to watch this course. I will not make the coat of the class but Kenneth’s instructions can be applied to other coats as well and he’s always giving tips during construction.

My order of construction is perhaps strange, as I start with the collar which will be attached to the coat much later . This fabric is rather thick and I want to be sure that it works properly for what I want, which is the reason I started with the collar. Then I would know, prior to cutting the whole coat, how this fabric behaves and whether it would work for this pattern. I’m not short of fabric and I could choose another pattern if needed.

The under collar is interfaced with hair canvas, which is cut on the bias and stitched on the grain to the under collar. This pattern has a collar in two parts, so I applied the same technique to the small part that will be sewn to the neckline later. After sewing the seams the bulk is reduced at the crossing points and the seams are edgestitched. After stitching the hair canvas to the collar the seam allowances are cut off, which means no extra fabric/bulk.

Next step is construction of the upper collar and sew that to the under collar.