Tag Archives: Hoodie

Blue-grey hoodie

10/09/2012 6:51 am \ 33 Comments \

I have made a hoodie; this one for Sam.  
Sam is my quiet one; he never asks for anything, on the contrary he will firmly and testily deny that he ever needs new clothes or any new belongings at all.  But one of the fabrics in my stash was this beautifully soft jersey; a very fine quality knit in a shade of cool grey/blue that I think really is perfect for Sam’s fair colouring.  So I set about making him something new anyway.
The fabric is part of a fabulous stash I bought at the Morrison remnants sale.  This particular “remnant” was about 5-6m and cost $15.  I know, right?!  That Morrison yearly sale is well worth checking out!!

For a pattern, I used the same old hoodie of Craig’s that I used to draft his new hoodie, altered slightly to custom fit Sam.  Namely, I narrowed the body and shoulders, and raised the height of the hood.  The hood on the original Tshirt is a bit short, not really sized to be actually worn comfortably over a man’s head.  However I know Sam probably will want to wear it up every once in a while, so made it a touch taller than the original.
kbenco and Rachel both expressed an interest in seeing more specifics of that interesting combined collar/hoodie, thank you for the request, ladies!  So I took a few snaps to illustrate how it all goes together…

The hood is composed of two shapes; a hood piece cut less wide than normal, and a U-shaped collar piece, slightly wider at the bottom of the U than at the edges, that forms a combined hood edging and collar.

Sew the two hood pieces right sides together just like normal.

 Sew the two short ends of the U-shape together, right sides together, on each piece.

Lay these two pieces together, right sides together, and sew together around the entire inner shorter edge of the curve.  Turn out and press.  One layer is the outer collar; the other the facing.

Measure and mark for the holes for the drawstring in the collar; mine are situated 1cm below the lowest point of the inner curve, and 12cm apart.

You can make life easy for yourself and hammer in some eyelets, but if you are me and like to make challenges for yourself where none need exist; embroider some nice little eyelets using embroidery thread…
Only in the outer collar layer of course!  snip a tiny X for the drawstring hole.  Leave the inner (facing) layer un-snipped!!
With a double strand of embroidery thread, sew a running stitch circle around the snipped X

Back where you started, commence embroidering tight blanket stitches, situated hard up against each other, around the hole.  When completed, run the thread around underneath the stitching at the back to finish off.

From now on treat both collar layers as one; lay the right side of the collar piece against the right side of the hoodie piece, lining up the top centre seams and ensuring the hood edges join at equidistant points from the centre front of the collar piece.  Stitch together, and press.
Again treating both collar layers as one; lay the completed hood right sides together against the neckline of the top, ensuring centre fronts align and the hood seam is in the exact centre back.  Stitch together and press.

The drawstring is simply a 1m long, skinny strip of the fabric, with the long raw ends folded in on themselves, and topstitched down from the centre out to each end with a wide zig-zag stitch.  The original had fancy cover-stitching to finish it off, not having a cover-stitch machine this is my best it’ll-do.  And a perfectly fine and dandy option too, in my opinion!  Thread it through the collar and up around the hood edging with a safety pin, and tie each end off with a little knot to stop it slipping back through the hole.

The hoodie has a kangaroo pocket and a wide self-band at the lower edge.  The sleeves are hemmed using a twin needle.

Once it was finished and Sam put it on; he quietly, briefly, but spontaneously, mentioned that he liked it.  I count that as a fairly enthusiastic expression of approval of the new hoodie.

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A Man-hoodie

17/08/2012 1:57 am \ 32 Comments \

I sew mostly for myself 🙂  Now my children are all grown up they select and buy their own clothes, of course.  It’s a rare occasion for anyone to make a request  🙁 although I do so love it when they do.
My husband also doesn’t ever ask for very much for himself either, so when he does then I pay attention because I know it is because he really really wants it.
He had a favourite RTW Tshirt hoodie thing, and he wanted one to replace it.  The new one had to be as close to the old one as humanly possible, please.  The old one was thin and brittle from washing and all stretched out and sad, and had some stains on it since as it was truly his favourite favourite Tshirt of all time, he has worn it for everything, including the day he applied wood stain to a set of jarrah chairs.  Woops!  And there were holes too.
Finding the perfect fabric for Craig’s Tshirt has become something of a quest over the past few months.  Seriously, I have searched and searched, and so has he.  In the meantime the old Tshirt got even more truly horrible….
When we were in Europe and visiting the occasional fabric store together, I set him the task of finding fabric for his shirt.  Have you ever asked a non-sewing person to choose a fabric for some garment?  It is at these times that one starts to realise that one has actually learnt some fundamentally important things after years of sewing after all… like that a knit is a knit and that a woven is not going to ever do the job of a knit, no matter how gorgeous it is.  He had a thing for the lovely pin-striped linens in Milan and kept choosing these as the fabric for his new Tshirt.  I explained the difference, and sent him back off to look for cotton jersey knits.  He would come back, triumphantly bearing another bolt of pin-striped linen.  Sigh.
I think we had both started to wonder if I would ever make the Tshirt, when I spotted it.  In Spotlight, of all places.  The perfect fabric.  Really nice quality cotton jersey, in a nice manly pinstripe, in nice manly shades of charcoal and black.  Sheer unadulterated perfection!  I couldn’t believe my luck and I reacted like a frog’s tongue to a passing fly…  pow! the fabric was snatched up and clutched in a death grip to my chest and I rushed straight over to the cutting counter (maniacal witch-cackle mentally sounding in my head)
I drafted a pattern by laying down the old Tshirt and drawing around it.
It does have a pretty cool hood actually… I was intrigued when I inspected it closely and pretty excited to see it drawn out flat.  The hoodie has three pieces; the conventional two “hoodie” pieces cut somewhat shallower than normal, and another self-faced front piece shaped like the letter “U”, that becomes a sort of casing/collar on the front.  I really like this feature, and will probably use it over again.  There are two little holes in it for the drawstring, and I finished the edges of each hole with miniature blanket stitches, having newly re-discovered my latent embroidery skills, hehe  🙂

The self fabric spaghetti drawstring is a long strip of fabric; I folded the two long sides in evenly as I was going along, guiding it through the machine on zig-zag stitch.  The fabric wanted to curl in on itself anyway.

There is a kangaroo pocket on the front, and a deep “Metalicus” band around the lower edge.  The sleeve hems are finished with my twin needle.  I stabilised the shoulder seams with strips of Seams Great (thank you velosewer!) and double stitched the neckline seam down to the back for stability and to lessen the chances of the back neckline stretching out.
Now the favourite old Tshirt looks tired and bagged-out and kinda disgusting compared to the svelte new one in nice new firm fabric!  

the clone and the clone-ee

He is very happy with the new shirt, therefore I am very happy too!

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Red Riding Hood

13/08/2012 5:17 am \ 23 Comments \

…along with requisite “wolf” hehehe.
This is the latest in my attempts to make usable things out of things not being used….
I pulled out of my bag of toss-outs this oversized cotton cardigan along with another old Tshirt tossed out by Tim.  I’ve struggled with this cardigan… the cheerful warm tomato-red colour is a plus but the boxy shape and massive size has always been a problem.  Since day dot, really…  I bought it in 2001; my first mail order purchase whilst we were living in the US.  I was a mail order newbie, and just assumed naively that a small/medium would probably be my size.  When it arrived: well, it was ridiculously big!
Lesson learned!  Incidentally, the lesson ultimately learned was “don’t buy mail order, ever”… but that’s a whole other story  😉

Anyhoo I did not think or know at the time how I could go about returning stuff… so it stayed.  The armpits hung down below my bust level and I had to wrap it half again around my body and tie a belt over, to keep even halfway warm in it.  Stylish, not.  It’s basically been in the camping/washing the car and/or the dog in category since new, and then migrated to my re-fashioning bag at least a year ago.
Using my own trusty custom fit Tshirt pattern as a guide; I cut up the cardigan, re-sized the pieces and sewed it all together again: only keeping the shoulder seams of the cardigan intact, since they were already nicely re-inforced.  Also I kept the neckline band and the wrist bands untouched and intact, and the lower band is also original although taken in with the side seams. When refashioning something new outa something old, it is a good idea to keep and incorporate into the finished garment as many of the factory finishes as possible; it ends up looking a lot more professional and pulled together.  Plus makes it a heckuvalot easier.
I’m slightly obsessed with hoodies lately.  Hood = cool, right?  Right!
The red Tshirt was getting pretty fragile and the fabric was not going to hold up to anything heavy duty, but since a hood is something that just hangs there decoratively most of the time and is not “worn” very much, so I thought the fabric might hold up to the task.
Now my hood pattern from KwikSew 3667 is drafted to fit a crew neck, and my cardigan has a deep V neck.  But it is pretty easy to add on an extra wedge section while cutting out, so the hood will fit onto the V neckline…

I overlocked the lower edge of my hood and simply stitched in the ditch along the outside of the cardigan.

I removed the original buttons off the cardigan (green plastic, which I never really liked either) and sewed in a matching red open-ended zip.
I did have fancy plans to sew on a few decorative pockets cut from the Tshirt also, but after a coupla attempts I had to concede defeat; the Tshirt fabric was really too fragile and they looked muchos hideous.  So the cardigan remains pocket-less.  🙁
Yah, so hopefully the hood might hold up for a while yet.  We shall see.  To be honest, I’m still not head over heels in love with this thing, despite its cool new hood.  Y’know how sometimes something just doesn’t push your buttons, even though it ticks all the right boxes?  It’s “my” colour, it’s got a hood, it fits nicely (now).  It’s got a hood.  Did I mention the hood?  Hoods are cool.  I kinda love the hood.
Well, I guess I’ll look a tad more stylin’ around the campfire than I was before.
I’m counting this one a minor league win.

Details:
Hoodie; my own design, with modified hood from KwikSew 3667, made from an oversized old cardigan and an old tshirt
Tshirt; charcoal and black striped cotton jersey, details here
Skirt;  charcoal stretch jersey, details here
Scarf; details here
Tights; voodoo
Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

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New-Old Hoodie

27/07/2012 12:11 am \ 44 Comments \

There is something exhilarating about transforming textiles otherwise destined for the ragbag into something fabulous … enter exhibit A: the new/old deconstructed hoodie that I have made for myself.  I was inspired by a really cute little thing that Cassie brought back home from her trip over east recently; an “all about eve” jacket with a vest of distressed denim, fleece sleeves and hood.  Of course I eyed it up and unlike a “normal” woman who upon falling in love with a garment would just seek out and buy one for herself; my immediate reaction was to commence plotting how I could create something myself…  mwahaha.  I emptied out the huge bag of crappy old clothes potential refashioning material that I have in my laundry, and selected an old pair of cords; very worn, but in a yummy colour and one of Tim’s old white long-sleeved Tshirts.  

The verdict?  I am pretty thrilled!  I love the deconstructed, already-worn-in, sporty-cool vibe of this funny little piece, and I’m also chuffed that I got to use this favourite-coloured corduroy fabric again!

All the boring nitty gritty of the construction details are below; if you are interested  🙂

Details:
Hoodie; my own design (see below), made from an old pair of corduroy jeans and an old white Tshirt
Jeans; Burda 7863 modified, purple stretch denim, details here
Tshirt; self-drafted and overdyed cotton jersey, details here
Socks; not seen, but hand-knitted by me!  🙂
Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

My old jeans were quite worn, with a few holes and the corduroy pile was drastically worn away in some areas, but I kept them because I really really love the sludgy colour of the brown-on-blue pile.  Very very moi, yes?  Luckily they were big enough that I managed to cut my bodice pieces from the two legs of the jeans, only having to lay the wide front pieces over an inner leg seam, and ensuring to have the corduroy pile all running “down” the jacket pieces.  This felt like an achievement in itself!  I unpicked the waistband and re-used it upside down as the waistband on the new jacket, keeping the jeans button and buttonhole; and also the belt loops which were re-sewed back up onto the body of the jacket.  

The waistband was not going to be long enough to go around the new waistband of my jacket, so I cut it in half and inserted a filler bit.  I took the opportunity here to also insert in a little self-belt to nip in the back waist; with a brass buckle than I had kept from an old belt.  The “filler” piece is cut against the grain compared to the waistband for two reasons: firstly I had very limited fabric and this was pretty much the only option! but also because I think it is often better for a filler piece to look obviously different from the pieces around it, and not to try too hard to blend in, which can look shonky if it is not completely seamless.  Does that make sense?  (hope so  :))  )

The pockets and pocket flaps from the seat of the jeans were removed, re-sized and sewed on the front of the jacket as breast pockets; with the existing press-studs on each still in place and doing the same job they were originally.  I sewed welt hip pockets into the front of the jacket, for visual interest as well as for function; I’ve noticed how jeans jackets are often chocka with interesting details and bits and pieces.  For the pocket bags inside, I managed to re-use the internal brown cotton pocket bags from the front hip pockets in the jeans.

The white Tshirt is one Tim used to wear as a thermal layer under other shirts, and apart from a few small avoidable holes and being a bit mis-shapen it was otherwise in reasonable nick.  It suffered a minor laundry incident a few years ago when a red sock snuck into a load of whites; and everything came out of the washing machine a perfectly luvverly shade of pink!  Fortunately Tim is not the sort of guy whose masculinity is threatened by a pink Tshirt and he continued to wear it.  The pink eventually washed out over the years to off-white, and now you could barely tell its little “accident”  🙂
The hood pieces were cut from the body of the Tshirt, using the hood pattern piece from KwikSew 3667, and the sleeves were pretty much unaltered and used as is.  I cut them inside the armscye seam, and overlocked around the raw edge.  I finished the armscyes of the jacket with a bias cut strip of polycotton, and sewed the sleeves just inside this, for a clean finished look on both outside and inside.

The hood was sewn to the neckline of the jacket and the raw edges enclosed in a strip of bias cut polycotton, topstitched down on the outside of the jacket.

I was extremely fortunate to find buttons in my stash that were a very good match for the press studs and jeans button, so I re-used these.  If old clothes are destined for the ragpile I always keep the buttons and anything else that might be useful down the track; a frugal habit that pays off time and time again in my sewing.  This is a habit that goes back generations in my family!

Some more info re the pattern, since I often blithely state that “my pattern is self-drafted”.  It has occurred to me that people might like a bit more info here in case you wish to re-produce the same thing: I checked out the general shapes used in RTW jeans jackets and used my Pattern Magic sloper to help re-create the same shapes.  This jacket is my first try-out to see how my pattern fitted me, and I am very happy with the fit and the style, although I might introduce a few little variations on future versions  (naturally  🙂  )
My advice to anyone considering self-drafting? get yourself a Pattern Magic book and work through a few of the exercises as I have; these books are absolutely blinkin’ fantastic for teaching one about self-drafting and manipulating fabric and pattern pieces and shapes to get different effects.  I am no longer frightened of playing about with shapes and moving, altering and grouping together body shaping features such as darts, tucks, gathering and pleats to transform a 2D piece of fabric into a 3D sculpture that will fit my 3D body.  Or even not to “fit” my body, but to do some whimsically artistic thing just to look cool… these books are worth their weight in gold!

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Raincoat the Second

09/07/2012 12:13 pm \ 46 Comments \

Ta da!  please allow me to present the raincoat that I have made for Cassie.
It is made using the same self-drafted pattern I used for my own raincoat, with just a few minor fitting adjustments.  All the details are identical to my own coat; the seams in the shell are French seams, waterproofed with Seam Grip, and the coat is fully lined with soft and lightweight white polyester net.
Cassie chose the colour herself and I am happy with the knowledge that she is unlikely to get run over crossing the road whilst wearing this  😉

I ran into a snag buying the pink fabric, that fortuitously turned into a stroke of brilliant good fortune: previously when buying the royal blue fabric for my own raincoat I had bought 3m to ensure I had plenty to play with, since there is nothing worse than running out of fabric halfway through a project, no?  It turned out 3m was plenty, in fact it was way more than plenty and I ended up with an annoyingly large leftover piece.  This is a pain, because I am really trying to rid my life of leftovers.  Especially icky nylon leftovers which have a very small desirability in my wardrobe.  So when I went in to buy the nylon for Cassie’s raincoat I asked for 2m of pink, and was mildly horrified when the roll only had 1.4m left on it.  But the cunning stash-busting part of my brain instantly saw a beautiful possibility….  a quick consultation with Cassie, who cheerfully agreed that yes, a wide blue stripe did indeed sound very nice (phew!) and I went home with the 1.4m of pink, joyful that I was going to be gainfully using up the rest of that blue nylon after all… and so quickly after it had joined the stash too!  (air fist punch) Yeeah!

Of course it was not all beer and skittles from then on; I did have to conjure up a bit of pattern placement magic, and do various mental calculations for various stripe scenarios, and there is one short extra piecing seam in the blue under one sleeve, but I did manage to squeak the raincoat out of my pieces of royal blue and pink successfully.  I’m pleased to report that the final scrap count is almost non-existent too (‘nother air fist punch).

There was a hiccup; the making of this second raincoat did not go as smoothly as the first.  You know how the second time you do a thing everything is supposed to go much much quicker and easier?
Well, no.

Halfway through, my ironing cloth slipped a bit and I managed to iron a hole in one almost-completed front.  It was a very small hole, but it was.  An.  Unmistakeable.  HOLE!  When I saw this; steam started to emit from the ol’ ears and I had to walk away to calm down for a few hours.
Once I had regained some composure, I returned to the coat and thought about possibilities.  Y’know when life gives you lemons there is always a silver lining, or something or another, yeah?  And I surprised myself with my own ingenuity by coming up with the idea of a little pocket for her iPod.  Where the offending hole was, there is now a welt, covering a little internal pocket.  It closes with a little mini-strip of velcro, with enough room at the top for the headphone cord to come out.  And fortuitously, the welt is in the perfect position where its vertical opening is covered by the zip placket when the zip is closed, improving waterproof-ability.  Yowza!  It’s like I planned it all along!!

Below left; I made the welt as small as I could that could still fit the iPod sliding in sideways, the pocket bag hangs below and to the side… Below right; I stitched the top of the pocket bag to the lining to help reduce the drag effect of having the pocket bag off to the side of its opening.  Fortunately, iPods are very lightweight!

I am happy now.
And y’know what?  I am even more ecstatically happy that none of my boys wants or needs a raincoat, and that this is the end of raincoats.  At least for now.  I’m raincoat-ed out.  I want to make something fun and easy and selfishly frivolous now!
Later, fellow self-fashionistas!

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Operation Raincoat

01/07/2012 12:38 am \ 50 Comments \

Warning: distinctly un-humble and boastful post to follow…
I have made this; my first ever raincoat…  :0 and I am thrilled!!!!! with how it turned out!
Making a raincoat is one of the scary things I have always wondered was too hard for me, whether the technicalities were beyond me.  Now I have successfully made one I feel like I have achieved another small step toward having an entirely me-made wardrobe.

Thank you so much to all who left a comment regarding good quality raincoat fabric sources  🙂
I checked each and every one of your recommendations.
I found extremely helpful this article written by Caroline, the link sent to me by bloodsweatshoptears.  Caroline wrote about making a waterproof cycling jacket and included bundles of relevant and very interesting information for the outdoor-gear sewing newbie like myself.  And the jacket she made is so awesomely fantastic and inspiring…  
Caroline’s article included a link to another very very informative article on how to choose rainwear, which I read and reread.  This article really helped me to honestly assess what I actually wanted from my raincoat… which was: another raincoat almost exactly like my old one!

I had bought my previous old raincoat at Kmart for our eldest son Tim when he was about ten years old.  After he had worn it for a coupla years I had to buy him a new official school uniform one, so his old navy blue one became mine.  I have worn it and worn it pretty solidly every rainy winter’s day since … and Tim is now 22 years old, so you can see the old raincoat has done very good service!  The only reason I am replacing it is because it is finally starting to fall apart….  so, I did a close inspection of the old one to work out what to copy and what I could improve.  And this is what I did, and have learnt…

I used my old raincoat to help me draft a new pattern: I didn’t have to chop it up to do this, but this would be an excellent plan for someone who hasn’t done much self-drafting.  It has raglan sleeves, a hood and a high, inner collar.  I incorporated a few, very minor, fitting alterations and small design improvements at this stage.
I decided my raincoat doesn’t need to keep me warm, just dry; so: waterproof, non-breathable fabric, something like nylon ripstop would be the best.  I knew from my old one that this kind of fabric does keep one plenty warm enough in our climate already.
I wanted a full lining in my new raincoat.  My husband’s raincoat has a polyester net lining; something akin to the fabric school sports shirts are made of; that is smooth and comfortable and very nice against the skin.  I added this to my shopping list.

Now, I am sure everyone is dying to know where I bought this awesomely gorgeous fabric (hehe, kidding!) 
Well: I browsed the online fabric stores, and had even bookmarked a few and was pretty much all set to BUY, when, like, the next day, I happened to be passing Spotlight and thought it would be worth going in to check out the separating zips.  Well, you never know whether the ones you are buying online are dearer than Spotlight, and I’ve always found their zips, while not plentifully stocked, to be very reasonably priced.  And while I was there, I idly checked out the fabrics; and hey, whaddyaknow? Nylon ripstop!  The colour selection was not huge, but it was definitely cheaper than any I had seen online, so I picked up some royal blue plus a glow-in-the-dark green for trim, just for fun.  Polyester net?  They didn’t have exactly the same sort that was in my husband’s raincoat, but they did have some that seemed pretty good, so I picked that up too…  Velcro? check!  Zips? check!  Cording and cord-stops? check and check!  Spotlight is a much maligned store, and frequently by me, too  🙂 but I have to eat my words now since they had almost everything I needed!  The only thing they did not have was some of that marvellous Seam Grip I have read about to waterproof my seams… but I recalled reading that its primary use is in tents and camping stuff, and barely 50m away from the front door of my Spotlight is a BCF store (Boating Camping and Fishing); practically next door.  So I popped in, and yes of course they had Seam Grip.  I promptly bought some.  I was all set!!
The nylon ripstop can be cut just with ordinary household scissors, so I did not blunt my good dressmaking shears on it… bonus!

One can’t use pins willynilly since it has to be waterproof!  But when necessary I pinned within the seam allowances.
Not for looks (since the raincoat is fully lined) but for extra waterproofing, I sewed all the seams as French seams; bar some of the internal pocket seams which are inside the coat and so are not a waterproofing issue.  

I ironed the seam allowances “up”, against gravity (another waterproofing tip) before topstitching in place.

Seam Grip is messy stuff.  Apparently it is the best product around for this job, but check out the fine print; it contains toluene.  This is nasty… back in the dark ages when I was an analytical chemist I would have only opened a bottle of this substance in a fume-cupoboard.  Not having access to a fume cupboard anymore, I worked outside and used disposable rubber gloves.  I cloaked Bessie in plastic bags to protect her (not that she is susceptible to carcinogens….) and draped and pegged my half-finished coat inside out to do the seam sealing.  

I left it to cure for 12 hours, and kept on going out regularly to pull apart the bits like the underarms, that were sticking to themselves; to ensure nothing became permanently glued together.  Even when fully set I have found the Seam Grip has a tendency to stick to itself.  Having the lining in has alleviated the problem somewhat, but not completely.  I sure hope it de-stickifies eventually  :S

Ventilation: meaning, an aperture for one’s body heat to escape outside; is a must in waterproof non-breathable garments.  So I copied a feature from my old raincoat and hammered in two eyelets under each of the arms, at the back.  These, as well as the eyelets in the hood for the cording (pictured below), are each re-inforced on the inside with an extra four layers of self-fabric, for strength.

Quick and simple velcro-lined tabs to tighten the wrists.  I’ve used something like these on my old raincoat for the last dozen or so years: so they’re second nature to me and I am accustomed to them, so I copied them exactly for my new one.  No need to re-invent the wheel, right?

Waterproof pockets; an essential.  These have a full-width flap that is an extension of the upper front, covering a zippable pouch that is an extension of the lower front.  These are similar in design to the ones on my old raincoat; I simply extended them so they are much wider, thus eliminating seams.  In fact, at the sides they extend out to and in to, the side seams and the front placket.  Less stitching therefore simpler to construct and finish off, and you get wider pockets!  What’s not to love about that?  (I can do a tute on these pockets, if anyone is interested.  I’m frankly a bit terrified of doing tutes now, but I am pretty chuffed with how they turned out, so please let me know, ok?   🙂  )

This has been a fun learning curve.
Of course, eagle-eyed Perth readers will instantly see that I could not possibly have taken these photos during the last 4 days, since it has been unrelentingly sunny.  Truth: I raced out to take these during some early morning showers last Wednesday, but have been too apathetic to even look at my photos since then, let alone write up this post.  But anyway, here we are.  And I am sure we will get more rain soon.  Hopefully.
And yes, flushed with my own sewing success, another raincoat is already in the pipeline, this one for Cassie….  😉  stay tuned!

Details:
Raincoat; self-drafted, with the help of an old one, nylon ripstop with polyester net lining
Skirt; Vogue 1247 lengthened and lined, red cotton velveteen ombre dyed brown, details here and my review of this pattern here
Leggings; self-drafted, red cotton jersey, details here
Boots; Andrea and Joen, from Uggies in Dunsborough (now renamed Eco-boutique)

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Peekaboo in blue

08/03/2012 3:51 pm \ 31 Comments \

New top, woot!
Its real name is a mystery to me, but the word peekaboo just pops irresistably into my head every single time I look at it so there it is!  This is the project on p20 of Pattern Magic 3, by Tomoko Nakamichi.  As far as wearability goes, this is probably one of the better projects in the book, and ditto for the ease of construction.  Super easy!
In hood down mode this appears not unlike an ordinary little Tshirt, plain-ish but with a just-interesting-enough little variation to redeem it from being outright featureless and boring.  The incorporated hoodie thingie (that’s a technical sartorial term there) looks a bit like a backward cowl neck when it is flipped down like above….  it’s actually quite cute, yes?
Hood up… well, okaaay.  Quirky, yes.   A bit noice, unusual, different.  Definitely funky.  Wearable? Hmmm, borderline, methinks…  🙂
But hood down? yes, I likey!
I used a length of jersey in a lovely shade of deep royal blue, part of the bundle of fabrics given to me by my friend C from her late mother’s stash.  It is quite thick and sturdy stuff, so I am really looking forward to wearing this more as we head into the cooler days of autumn.
I attached a folded band to finish the armholes and the neckline, a technique I think of as the Metalicus finish since they use it extensively on all their pieces and is where I first noticed it.  The lower hemline is turned up once and slip-stitched in place.
I’m very happy with this funky, slightly sporty addition to my wardrobe.  The concept of the design is totally to my taste; unique and simple, but with a twist!
Oh, and I’ve updated things on the blog a bit; now all my projects from each the Pattern Magic books have been gathered into sets, and can be viewed by clicking on the picture of that book in my sidebar over there.  They’re a bit jumbled up right now, as I am still working out how to order the pictures in those albums….  that’s a work in progress!
Later peops!

Details:
Top; from Pattern Magic 3, by Tomoko Nakamichi, made from royal blue jersey
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen, my review of this pattern here

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Army style jacket, with detachable (faux) fur-lined hood

07/07/2011 11:22 am \ 32 Comments \

I mentioned some time ago my new army/military style jacket; finished way back in March, well, here it is!
When we were in Tokyo I saw all ages and both sexes, everywhere, sporting big khaki army type jackets.  All with military details, lots of pockets, cinched in waist belts and sometimes with fur-lined hoods, and I just fell in love with them and decided I just had to have my own.  They just looked so big and comfy and cosy looking, and the girls (and boys) wearing them looked so warm not to mention so so so too-cooool-for-school; casually and bulkily stylish…  I’m sure a lot of the ones I saw were real army jackets, possibly from army disposal stores or secondhand stores, but naturally with my DIY aesthetic I was always going to try to make my own… 😀
Of course what I wasn’t taking into account was that it doesn’t really get all that cold here and especially for the hoodie part of it!  I expect I will wear it without the hood for most of the time… but it was still fun to have a go at making a furry hood, and it just might come in handy for some mornings, and if we ever go down to the country.

Details:
Jacket; Burdastyle 05-2010-127 with my own modifications, khaki ripstop cotton and grey marle fleece lining
Skirt; Vogue 7303, olive green corduroy, to see this little skirt styled in 6 different ways go here
Top and tights; Metalicus
Socks, handknit by me, details here
Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

Dressmaking details; if you want to know…
I used Burdastyle 05/2010, pattern 127 as a starting point, and as usual made a few modifications to get the army-style I envisioned, but as the bones of the jacket are essentially the same I think I can dare to write a review for this pattern??  I used ripstop cotton in khaki, a wonderful fabric both tough and hardwearing and so so so perfect for an army style jacket!  I have also made this and this from the exact same fabric, so I guess it is obvious I love it…!  I’d better not buy any more, hmmm?  The lining is a pale grey marle fleece, and the faux fur is… well, faux fur.  I think from memory, it was labelled silver fox.  All the materials are from Spotlight.
The modifications I made:
Lengthened the jacket by oooh, roughly 7cm? and also slightly enlarged (length-wise) and slightly lowered the lower front pockets.  I chose to enlarge these because I thought the original smaller ones would not have the right proportions on the lengthened jacket…
I drafted a completely different collar, a sorta slightly curved rectangle, because I wanted more of a wide standup collar than the little fold-down one in the pattern…

My sleeves are not vented or cuffed, and have a tab with snap closure, for more of a military-looking effect.
I did not incorporate buttons and buttonholes at the front as stipulated in the pattern, but instead inserted an open-ended zip, again inspired by the styling of army jackets I’ve seen around
My jacket is fully lined, with grey fleece (for warmth, and also to enhance that bulky look an army jacket is supposed to have)  as it turns out it is very warm!  I did not hem the lining, but enclosed the flat raw edges inside the sleeve and lower hems of the jacket.  The fleece was partly leftover from this project, I had to buy a bit more.

I added a tab at the lower edge, and another tab at the neck edge; both features I mentally noted from the army jackets I saw in Tokyo.  These both have snap closure.
The self-fabric belt is interfaced with the thickest, heaviest-duty iron-on interfacing I could find, and the buckle and eyelets were from Spotlight, like everything else.

I made a detachable, (faux) fur-edged hood.  For this, I used a modified version of the hood from KwikSew 3667, with the lower edge cut flatter and a bit narrower to fit in with the neckline of my jacket.  It is also lined with fleece, and has buttonholes sewn in the bottom edge, which correspond with the buttons that I sewed inside the collar edge.  I realise the fur-edged hood is probably kinda silly in this climate, but I think it looks kinda cool, and it just may come in useful one day?

My review of this pattern, if you’re interested…

Pattern Description:
Unstructured long-sleeved jacket; with two piece sleeves with vents and buttoned cuffs, front buttons and buttonband, epaulettes, four flapped patch pockets at the front, belt loops at waist level for the self-fabric belt and a short, buttoned collar.
Pattern Sizing:
36-44.  I made a 38
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you had finished sewing it?
In essence, yes.  I made a few modifications.
Were the instructions easy to follow?
Yes.  I did some steps differently and in a different order, to accommodate my modifications…
What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
I like everything about this pattern!  The basic bones of the pattern are great; being unstructured it is therefore very easy to fit, to put together and also easy to incorporate your own alterations.  The fun is in adding your own details.
Fabric Used:
Ripstop cotton, and fully lined with cotton/polyester fleece.  A strip of faux fur (silver fox) to edge the hood
Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
Lengthened the jacket by about 7cm? and also slightly enlarged (length-wise) and slightly lowered the lower front pockets.  I chose to enlarge these not because I thought they were too small but because I thought the originals would not have the right proportions once I had lengthened the jacket…
Drafted a different, slightly curved rectangular collar, because I wanted a higher standup collar than the little fold down one in the pattern
Inserted tabs with snap closure in the top and bottom of the front edges
Instead of the front buttonband and buttons, extended the front opening edges slightly so I could insert an open-ended zip
Fully lined the jacket in a polyester cotton fleece
Added a hood, also fully lined with fleece, and edged in faux fur.  This has 4 buttonholes on the lower edge, and attaches to 4 buttons sewn around the neckline, inside of the collar
Left off the sleeve vent and cuffs, instead inserted tabs with snap closure inside the lower end of the sleeve seam, sewed the sleeves closed to the end and hemmed over the raw edges of the lining.  The lower hem of the jacket also encloses the raw edge of the jacket lining inside
Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
I would definitely recommend this to others!  I might sew it again, if I need another jacket like this.
Conclusion:
This pattern was one of the first to catch my eye in this magazine, and I always had a mind to make it.  After visiting Tokyo, and being totally inspired by the cool cool army/military style jackets I saw worn over there, I realised this was the perfect pattern I could adapt quite easily to get that style of jacket.  And I’m totally happy with how it turned out; even if the hood is not super appropriate for our climate I still love it, and am very pleased with the smart styling and warmth of the jacket even sans hood.  The waist belt is a nice finishing touch, although I am very glad I lengthened the jacket as I think the belt would have looked a bit funny on the shorter length.

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