Tag Archives: Jacket

(almost) zero waste jacket…

05/12/2021 3:19 pm \ 12 Comments \

Hello!

 

I’ve made a new thing… an “almost” zero waste jacket.  I’m pretty proud of this fact!  Ok, to be totally honest; I didn’t set out to make an almost zero waste jacket; I actually just set out to make a mere jacket.  This whole exercise turned into a case of sheer dog-at-a-bone stubbornness and a masochistic refusal to be beaten by my own plans…

Storytime; so, I had this lovely stuff and I wanted to make a jacket … It’s kinda hard to tell but there’s a little less than 1.5m of 106cm width fabric, folded lengthwise in the pic here.

I took out my first chosen paper pattern and laid it down onto the fabric; absolutely no way was it going to fit.  I got out another paper pattern from my stash, same story.  Damn!  I then searched through my entire collection of Burda magazines for a smallish, or at least cropped jacket; selected and traced out a pattern.  Laid it out on the fabric, hmmm, that didn’t fit either.  Searched for and selected yet another, even tinier, cropped jacket, and traced this out too.  Nope.  I felt like my fabric was gaslighting me! because it certainly “looked” like I could get a jacket out of it, but absolutely nothing was even close to fitting!

Ordinarily I might have given up and just gone for a skirt or something, in this case I was absolutely determined to make that jacket … why the stubborn insistence on a jacket, you might ask?  well, only that I had previously selected the fabric for my #use12 capsule wardrobe for this year, and this was earmarked to be a jacket.  I can’t have a capsule wardrobe without a jacket!  and of course I’ve already used all the other fabrics for other things, so this HAD TO WORK.

And it did, obviously, and I may be feeling just a wee bit smug about it!  I did a quick mud map of my design… in case anyone is interested.  F = fold, S = selvedge

You can see the back and two fronts to take up the entire width of the fabric, even so the width wasn’t enough to be comfortable over my hips, especially with the pockets I sorely wanted, so that is what the triangular “side gussets” are for.  These are stitched into the side seams.  I stitched all my seams at 6mm – also for minimum waste reasons! then overlocked all raw edges and faux-flatfelled the seams down.

The jacket length was determined by the length of a nice, heavy, open ended zip that I already had in my stash; its colour blended in nicely with my fabric which is partly why I chose it over buttons.  Also for the minimal streamlined look!  I don’t have any perfectly matching buttons, and I’m still on the buy-almost-nothing stint that I’ve been on most of the year.

The “front placket” sits underneath the zip inside the jacket, the “back neckline facing” was stitched together down the straight edge, and attached to the back lining.  I didn’t even have enough fabric to cut the under collar, so this is cut from brown cotton corduroy, leftover from these jeans.

No, it’s not ideal to have that different colour there, but I don’t think it’s too visible.  You can also see the corner of a patch pockets stitched to the lining there… there’s one on each side, just for extra, just in case.  You can never have too many pockets!

“Pocket welts” is self-explanatory, and “pocket facings” are stitched to the pocket bags at the opening so that this is the fabric you see when the pocket peeps open.  The inner pockets themselves are cut from the lining fabric.

The fabric.. oh btw, I bought it in Japan, in Stripe & Check in Tokyo during our last trip there… and posted about here.  It’s a beautiful, quick thick brushed cotton, almost like flannelette but more solid and “coat-like” in its weight and feel.  The colour!!  Isn’t it gorgeous?!  I’ve already mentally dubbed it my pickle jacket, for some reason…  🙂

The lining is from a pale green polyacetate that was already in my stash.  I cut it a tiny bit bigger than the pattern all the way around, and then widened the seams towards the edges so that they would fit at the sleeve hems and bottom hem, though there is a small tuck in the lining at each side seam of the hem. The lining is machine stitched to the neckline and zip tape, and hand stitched to the sleeve and bottom hems.  The hems themselves were also invisibly hand-stitched to the jacket.  The only thing I had to buy for this was some matching thread!

obligatory boastful pic of scraps…

I’ve got something to say about the collar and zip opening… so, when I had my Mundaring raincoat tested by all my lovely testers; one of them commented that the front opening was “off-centre”.  What that meant: was that while the zip is actually bang on centre front, it has a weather placket over the zip, and the opening edge of the placket is obviously not centre front, but a little off to the side.  It was planned that way, but her comments certainly gave me some pause, as though maybe it was perceived as “wrong”??  Well, it’s not, of course because coats have their openings situated in many different ways…  however, I’m mentioning it because with this coat I decided to make it so that the edge of the jacket opening was situated at the centre front.  It’s neither right or wrong either way, of course; and while the opening edge of this jacket is satisfactorily right boom in the middle, the zip is, by necessity, off centre underneath.  The collar comes up to the opening edge of the “uppermost” front, while falling short of the “underneath” front, if that makes sense.  It’s no big deal, of course, just thought I’d mention it.

This is the 11th thing in my #use12 from my stash, wardrobe capsule.  Only one thing to go! although, to be honest I’ve since added another piece to the collection actually, which I am making next before the real “final thing”, hehe.  So the project is now a use 13 really… All will become clear soon!  I’ve even started photographing my final mix-and-match of my capsule wardrobe for a final post on the project.  I’m so excited for it!

Oh, sincere apologies to Sanni, but I did some more baking this week from the cooking tree… I made these oreo macarons, using this recipe.  SO YUMMY!!  I don’t know how I’m going to stay away from them until the family gets some!

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Indian patchwork jacket

22/02/2021 2:11 pm \ 13 Comments \

So, I made a jacket! the beauty of which is all due to the magnificent fabric.  Which has been recycled, and recycled again.  To explain…

 

… so many years ago, like fairly early on in our marriage I think; we bought a patchwork wall hanging at one of those stores that sells all sorts of random imported things, I’m pretty sure it was in Margaret River actually.  Definitely somewhere down south anyway.  We had it hanging on the wall for years.  I’ve always loved the beauty in each of its amazing little patches, each one I imagined was once part of a much loved and cherished sari once upon a time.  Lots of the patches were very fragile and there were missing and broken beads and sequins, and worn frayed patches everywhere.  The patchwork pieces were united by a sort of “hank” of red thread that wound its way through the patches,  dividing and bordering them all.  The red hank was bound to the piece by a fairly roughly stitched length of black cord.  The wall hanging was backed with plain red cotton, and the same stuff bordered the piece as a whole, roughly and loosely stitched on in HUGE stitches.

Side note that adds nothing to the sewing story but says something about Australia; several times during its time on the wall I took it down for dusting, only to discover large spiders, and nests of spiders hiding behind it.  Such is life here!  I would brush it down outside into the garden – never kill a spider! spot clean any little eggs off, and hang it up again.

At some point I got a little tired of it, and took it down, folded it carefully and stuck it in the linen cupboard.  I thought I’d hang it up again someday, but never did.  Every time I sorted through the linen cupboard I’d think, hmmm maybe I’ll turn it into a little jacket one day, then would I re-fold it and stick it back in.

Anyway, obviously and anti-climactically; that day finally came!  I got a copy of the FibreMood Molly jacket pattern, a boxy little thing with patch pockets.  The instructions assume you’re making a double layered jacket with the potential to be reversible, with the edges bound with bias binding for a perfectly reversible finish.

It was actually touch and go as to whether the pattern was going to fit onto the patchwork piece! I printed out the pattern, and taped extra pages to the back centreline, and also traced out another front, sleeve and pocket piece each, so I could lay the pieces down onto the patchwork piece to be absolutely sure.  After I’d removed the red border from the outer edge, I just managed to squeeze the pattern pieces out, with literally nothing to spare between the pieces for the most part!  Honestly I couldn’t believe it… it was like it was meant to be!   I know I probably say that a lot, because a lot of the time I will not cut out a thing until I’ve found a piece of fabric for it where there are basically NO leftovers, but this was the tightest pattern layout I’ve had in a long time… almost like the patchwork piece was made specifically for this pattern!

Cutting out was quite a challenge too… lots of the sari pieces were SO fragile that they had been literally glued to a piece of cloth underneath, for stability I suppose.  Which made it unforgivingly stiff and inflexible in spots.  Also, I had to temporarily remove beads etc. from some of the more heavily beaded bits just so I could cut, and later seam, the jacket together.  I also removed all the beads from the seam allowances and saved them, to stitch on later and fill some of the barer gaps where beads had been lost over the years.

For the bias bound edging, I started by piecing as much of the red backing as I could for the edging, and managed to bind the top of the pockets with this.  Once I’d joined the jacket though and got to the stage of edging the sleeves and long edge of the jacket, I realised it was going to be absolutely impossible to get together enough red leftovers from the scraps to do these too… so I found a length of dark red poplin from my stash and used this instead.  I considered unpicking the red from the top of the pockets and using the dark red poplin to edge these too, but decided I liked it just the way it was!  Perfectly imperfect!

For closure… obviously buttonholes were a complete impossibility, so I settled upon snaps.  I kinda feel like these do look a little jarring and incongruous, but hey, they’re fine for the moment.  If I’m feeling enthusiastic one of these days I might just remove them and add some bias fabric loops and small unobtrusive buttons inside the bias bound edge, which would probably look nicer.

Once I’d finished the jacket, I hand stitched on all the beads and sequins that I’d managed to save.

I’m so glad I managed to make something with this piece after all, and something that I think shows off the unique beauty of these precious scraps once again!

   

Details:

Jacket, Fibre Mood Molly jacket
Dress; Named patterns Inari tee dress, white cotton, details here

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Mundaring raincoat

30/01/2021 11:56 pm \ 5 Comments \

Hurrah!  Cassie and I have finally finished making our newest pattern!  please give a warm welcome to the Mundaring raincoat pattern, currently for sale in our shop, the linky dink to which is over to the right in my sidebar there… or you can just click on the this pattern picture just to the right here.

So, the Mundaring is a pattern for a loose-fitting, below hip length raincoat with raglan sleeves, large front zippered pockets with inbuilt weather flaps, a back weather flap covering a hidden vent panel, roomy hood that can be tightened with a hood cord.  Closure is by an open ended zip, hidden underneath a front band.  The pattern includes separate pattern pieces for an optional lining with additional inner breast pocket, and an appendix with tips for weatherproofing the seams of your raincoat.

I know it’s taken me a long time to finally finish getting this together, I first made this design for myself back in 2012 when I made my blue raincoat…

this is actually a great little raincoat and I love it and still wear it!  Then I made a pink and blue colour blocked version for Cassie, improving on the design a little more.

Then I fine-tuned the design to be just about exactly what I wanted, albeit in unlined form, when I made my mustard one…

this is when I got actually got serious about turning it into a proper pattern and studying the grading criteria.  btw the mustard one has been a really great raincoat too, and I still wear this one when the colour of it is what an outfit requires  😉

In testing the design I’ve made multiple Mundarings since that time, several in each of the five sizes each… plus another “proper” one for Cassie in this chic, pale grey pleather.  And finally, the cheerful yellow one for myself, and then a lovely blue one for my sister-in-law S.

Doesn’t she look gorgeous?  I’m so grateful she agreed to be my model again!

Both my latest are made using a fabric called Oxford Waterproof that I bought from Remnant Warehouse.  btw, NO, I am not getting free fabric or recognition or anything for promoting it, and these are not affiliate links even, I bought this fabric and am recommending it because I am genuinely a fan and think it is the perfect fabric for my design!

My raincoat is this colour, the Gold colour-way, and S’s is the Royal colour-way.   I fully lined both these raincoats using matching polyactate lining fabric from Fabulous Fabrics, and both of them have white zips and white cords and cord stops, which I think looks really nice  🙂

I sealed the seams on both raincoats using this stuff…

I selected it because it is an adhesive sealant with high flexibility, and bonus that while comes out of the canister kind of cloudy it then dries to be quite translucent.  In my  opinion it’s absolutely perfect for this purpose!  I’ll update this post with the exact product as soon as I can, and am truthfully kicking myself right now I did not take a picture of the canister before (doh!)

The pattern is for sale in pdf form here… we are working on getting a paper pattern up and running, and will update the shop with a paper pattern once we’ve got all our ducks in a row vis a vis that.  But in the meantime… here is is!!  I’m so happy to finally have it out in the world!

Here are some of the specs!

Pockets?  Why, of course!

Details:

All raincoats; Carolyn & Cassie Mundaring raincoat pattern, in Oxford Waterproof from remnant warehouse
White tank top; my hand stitched Alabama Chanin tank top.. it was the first one I laid hands on in the drawer!
Jeans: Closet Core patterns Morgan boyfriend jeans, blogged here
White shoes; handmade by me, blogged here

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blue Blair jacket

22/04/2020 6:25 pm \ 10 Comments \

Hello!  I made a new thing.  It’s sort of a jacket, sort of a coat.  What’s the difference between those two things anyway, I wonder?  I always thought a jacket was short, like maybe no longer than hip length max, and a coat is longer, like anything past the hip.  This pattern is marketed as a jacket, but also as potentially a shirt-dress, and the two variations are called duster and blazer respectively; so I guess you can take your pick!  A multi-faceted design, to be sure!Whichever, it’s unlined so a very simple and quick thing to make as far as jackets go, and the boxy unfitted shape makes for an undemanding fitting process too.  Oh, maybe I should mention the name of the pattern; this is the new Blair jacket pattern by Homer and Howell, and I made the duster length.

I really enjoyed making this! you normally think of jackets/coats/dusters as being quite involved but this was really easy.  Even considering that I chose to bind all the raw edges inside with HongKong binding, which is a process that when you’re about to embark on it you think; oh this is going to take FOREVER… But since I figured the seam allowances were going to show every single time the coat blew open I wanted everything to look neat and tidy inside.  And whenever I do get going with HongKong seaming I invariably love it, end up thinking, oh this is FAB!! and why don’t I do this for ALL the things I make, hmmm??

My fabric is a wool-blend suiting that I’ve had in my stash for years and years; so long I cannot even remember who gave it to me.  Because, yes; it was donated to me from someone else’s stash once upon a time.  I think maybe my grandmother’s?  It’s beautiful quality, but I’d always shied away from using it because I thought the colour was absolutely terrible for me.

However right now I’m trying to be more resourceful and use le stash, stay in my house and avoid shopping as much as possible.  You know, isolation and all that … so decided what the heck.  That’s why dyes were invented, right?  I knew the fabric wasn’t 100%wool, but it was worth a try.  Sploonch! it went, straight into a navy blue dye-bath.

This actually worked out pretty well… it’s now a lovely shade of …  bruise?? ok maybe I’d describe it as smokey blue, or even light teal.. anyway it’s a richly smudge-y sort of a colour that I really like and a big improvement on the original light sky-blue.  For the HongKong seaming I used an olive green poplin from my stash too.

Buttons! well obviously I had nothing that matched in size or colour AT ALL and normally I’d pop off to the shops to search for something.  But see I’d made up my mind to work from my stash, and giving in on the buttons would be such a fail… so fresh on the heels of making my tea-cup for the bridal shower hat, I thought I’d try to make some from modelling clay.  I think they worked out really well!

I don’t think I’ll be tossing the coat in the washing machine any time soon, just in case, although I’m sure they would probably survive fine.  Maybe just a gentle hand-wash.  But look at them!  I LOVE them!  I especially love how slightly wonky they are.  Of course any and all wonkiness was completely intentional  😉

I’m just going to briefly mention the changes I made to the pattern:

I switched the orientation of the box pleat in the back to be an “innie” rather than an “outie”

I added a hanging loop inside the collar/yoke seam

I put in BIG inseam pockets into the side seams.  Yes, there are now pockets in the Blair pattern, but I was a tester for this pattern and they weren’t in the original design.  I NEED pockets in a coat! so I actually went in with the seam ripper and added some in after I’d finished the coat completely.

Here’s a little video on the making of this coat, now up on my YouTube channel… I’d like to say that the quality of my videos is improving, but I still haven’t worked out how to even add music.  I feel like such a youtube failure!  but it’s such a lot to even get this out.  I’m trying to improve!

Anyway, blogging/vlogging fails aside; the final verdict is that I’m going to love wearing this… coats are not an awfully common sight here in Perth, we’re so ridiculously casual here, to a fault! But I really love coats, both the making and the wearing of them; and I really love looking at pictures of Northern hemisphere bloggers wearing coats regularly that I’m going to just do it anyway.  This is one of those things that is kinda un-Perth, even though I’m deeply Perth in just about every way.  This is weird, but it’s just the way it is  🙂

     

Details:

Coat; the blair jacket pattern byHomer and Howells, in a wool mix suiting
Dress; the Cissy dress pattern by Homer and Howells in a rust coloured lace, underlined with pink/rust dyed cotton, details here
Tights; my own design, black stretch stuff, details here
Black shoes; my own design and made by me, details here
Floral dress; based upon Simplicity 8658, floral cotton gauze, details here
White shoes; designed and made by me, details here

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Sienna maker jacket

19/10/2019 12:15 pm \ 8 Comments \

Ok, hopping straight to the crux of things; I absolutely J’FREAKINADORE this jacket!!  This is the new Sienna maker jacket pattern from Closet Case patterns, and I was lucky enough to be chosen to test the pattern.  This is view B, made using a deep bottle green cotton twill bought at Potters Textiles.  I actually found this in the remnant bin, believe it or not… yeah, Potters often does really BIG remnants.

 

We’re not supposed to reveal our tester versions of a pattern until it has been released, but I simply just could not resist sneakily wearing it! and have been (im)patiently waiting until I could chat openly about it… in fact, I took it on holiday with me recently when I visited the USA with Yoshimi on our sort of sewing-tour, because I really really wanted to include it in my travel wardrobe.  Also, I knew that Heather, with a bit of luck, was actually going to release it right about the timing of our trip.  And she did! yay!  so I was able to indulge my love of it in full.

photo taken in San Francisco by Yoshimi

And I wore it, literally Every Single Day.  This thing could most probably walk itself around San Francisco and New York by now!

The design is fabulously comfy; loose and stylishly slouchy, just slightly oversized in a good way, with two piece sleeves, notched collar, and a veritable tonne of pocket real estate.  A small but nice detail is a handy hanging loop included in the pattern pieces and instructions.

The belt from views A and B is pretty cool, snaking through a neatly faced slit opening, before wrapping around your waist and attaching itself to a little tab on the side.

Above can be seen the paler olive green poplin I used to finish the raw edges inside in a bias bound finish.  I kinda wish I’d hunted out  deeper bottle green that would match more closely the colour of the jacket, but both Yoshimi and Cassie reckoned the paler colour looked really good, so I guess it’s ok then.  I bow down to better, more stylish opinions than my own.

I flat-felled the side seams, centre back seams and both sleeve seams; I chose to do both sleeve seams because I knew I’d be wearing the sleeves rolled up most of the time, and wanted it all to look nice on the outside.

In fact, the only spot where I used the overlocker was the armscye; I figured these would remain pretty much totally hidden, most of the time, so meh…

I love how neat and almost … ?military? the jacket appears when firmly belted…

… and I enjoy wearing it open too, with the belt tucked into a side pocket.

 

OR, you can wrap the belt around your back only, just to pull in the back pouffiness a little, and tie it to the tab.  I often find with a jacket that I develop a strong preference for either open or closed, however with this one I tried wearing it all different ways on different days, and really liked it equally worn any which way.

As mentioned, the pocket situation is pretty fabulous.  There are enough pockets in this thing to satisfy the most fanatical and ardent of pocket-lovers, honestly.  View B has two ginormous patch pockets on the hips, a small breast pocket pictured above, and a large inner breast pocket picture below too, nicely big enough for your passport, phone, bus/train pass; well just lots and lots of stuff really.

But wait! there’s more!!  The jacket also has two quirky little pockets on your sleeves!!   ok, so you’re probably not going to use these ones super frequently, but they are there!  I guess you could store an electronic pass in there, for one thing, so you only have to brush your arm up against the detector without getting it out.  And they look pretty cute!

For my buttons, well, I was on a use-up-the-stash mission in the lead-up to my holiday, since I knew I was going to blow that one right out of the water during our holiday! anyway, I had some old wool-covered buttons in my stash, long ago cut off an old cardigan, and I coloured them in with a felt-tip pen to blend in nicely with my green drill.

To be honest, I had actually wanted to make the long version of the jacket, however my piece only allowed me to cut this shorter version.  I was initially a little sad about that, however I’m so in love with the finished version I couldn’t possibly remain sad for long.  And I am still keen to make the longer version!  I don’t very often want make the two views of things straight away like that, so if that’s not true love, I don’t know what is!

Interesting factoid, well to me anyway; my Stylebook app tells me I’ve worn it 17 times already and I’ve only just blogged about it.  Unbelievable!!!

    Details:

in holiday photos, I am wearing my cockatoo top and skirt, details here
White sandshoes by Trenery,
Black booties by nylon, bought at Zomp boutique
Prada gold hand bag

other photos:

Mustard tee; the Nettie pattern by Closet Case patterns, mustard merino, details here
Skirt; Vogue 1247, in outback wife barkcloth, details here
Tights; self drafted from my custom-fit pattern details on how to make your own here
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, bought at Zomp boutique

photo taken in New York by Yoshimi

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jasika blazer

02/03/2019 3:44 pm \ 22 Comments \

Remember in my 2018 end of year round-up I mentioned briefly I had made a Big Thing?  Well this is it! A tailored blazer… this is the Jasika blazer, the newest design by Heather of Closet Case patterns.

Well, what a project!  I really really enjoyed making this; sinking my teeth into my most involved and meaty project in ages! since I’d pretty much fallen into the lackadaisical habit of quick and easy “ordinary” things for quite a long time prior.  I was very ready to take on something a bit more contemplative, careful and slow-fashion-y, and this was a really nice thing to ease back into that…  I’m so glad Heather asked me to test for her again!

The Jasika blazer is described as a classic tailored jacket, made utilising modern speed tailoring techniques, with fusible interfacing and minimal hand-stitching, but rest assured, purists!  there is still hand-stitching where it counts!   And I do really appreciate that the process for making this blazer is nicely catering to the modern-day maker that still wants to sew timeless classics for themselves but might be time poor, and so might prefer to do as much by machine as possible.

Materials: I used a length of lovely raspberry-rusty silk/wool tweed given to me by my friend L when she cleaned out her garage, and it was perfect for the job!  I love the luscious colour; I think it’s a good one for my colouring, and of course the texture is totally divine…   I lined with black polyacetate lining fabric, another longterm resident from my stash; and mostly used the tailor-made (ha!) interfacing/notions package that Heather is stocking specifically for this project.  This kit contains fusible woven and knit interfacing, horsehair canvas, padded sleeve heads and shoulder pads and cotton stay tape.  Boy, but this is a really fab little kit too and I SO appreciated this!  It’s not always that easy to get quality tailoring bits and pieces like this in Perth so it was just brilliant to have them at hand, to help me get a really nice finish to my blazer.  Because you really want this to turn out as good as you can get it; a tailored blazer is quite the time-consuming project and it would be nice for the materials to be worthy of your time!

I dithered on whether to use my own label, or the Me-Made from Closet Case patterns.  Cassie said why not use both, why not indeed…

I honestly can’t remember now whether I bought the perfectly matching button from Fabulous Fabrics or from Spotlight now.  I scouted through both shops, and bought candidates from both shops too! so much agonising!… and now its provenance is lost in the hazy mists of time…  I did really take my time with the buttonhole though, and made a mini double welt one, so as to match those pockets.

Oh! Pockets… I LOVE all the pockets in this blazer!  I jammed every single one of them into my blazer, in order to test all the pocket options for the pattern of course!  Not that I’m a complete pocket-whore or anything, o no!   There are three; a single welt breast pocket, a double welt hip pocket, and a double welt with flap hip pocket.  I’m actually toying with the idea of opening out the lining and adding an extra, internal welt pocket to the inside of the jacket too… but that will have to wait until I get a few more, ahem VIP’s; and by that I mean Very Important Projects, out of the way! #drowninginweddingsewing

We’re not supposed to reveal a project before the pattern’s been released, which is sometimes so hard to do…  I did however sneakily wear the blazer out for real, once, one coolish day (below).  Fortunately for me, it’s been quite summer-y and not conducive to blazer wearing, and I felt sorry for all the northern hemisphere testers  who have no doubt been dying to wear their splendid new blazers!  The pattern has been released just at the right time for us in the southern hemisphere, yay…  how often does that happen? not very often!  Though, it was 35C when I was taking all these photos… my husband thought I was bonkers putting on tights, boots, woolly top and blazer in this heat.  I was like, but it’s a winter thing, I have to look the part, even if I’m legit dying! Aah, the things we do…

Not only did I thoroughly enjoy making my new blazer, I’m really quite proud of how it turned out, and am very much going to enjoy wearing it too.  I might even be… dare I say it?  looking forward to winter??  Going too far??  maybe!!

    

Details:

Blazer; the Jasika blazer, Closet Case patterns, raspberry/rust will/wool tweed
Skirt; Vogue 1247, purple denim dyed brown, details here
Top; modified Nettie, Closet Case patterns, ivory wool/mix, details here
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, from Zomp boutique

White dress; the Inari by Named patterns, in white ultra-bobbly stuff, details here
Caramel leather sandals, from an op shop years ago

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floral trench coat

26/09/2018 8:54 pm \ 72 Comments \

I’ve made a new trench coat; a riotously floral-tastic, blowsy English rose of a trench coat.  As soon as I spotted this print I was smitten!  delightfully old-fashioned, vaguely reminiscent of Granny’s china cabinet and a wholly unabashed celebration of spring-time.  Because that’s what it finally is now… SPRING!!!

This very thing, by which I mean an over-the-top floral trench coat, is a thing I’ve had percolating in my mental wish-list for aaaages, ever since I first laid eyes on the floral trenches by Burberry from a few years back.  I originally bought this paler pink magnolias floral fabric to make the trench coat but got distracted and made that dress instead, obviously!  Anyway, a little after I finished that dress, I still really really wanted my imagined floral trench coat, so I bought some more floral sateen.  And I’ve finally made it!

Pattern; McCalls 5525 view E, the view with all the bells and whistles.  The only things I left off were the flap thingies over the pockets, because I didn’t have enough buttons for them!

Fabric; a floral cotton sateen, from Spotlight.  The trench is fully lined with pure white cotton poplin, also from Spotlight, and the buttons… the buttons! – are totally gorgeous vintage ones that I’ve had for about ten years.  I was actually the lucky person to get them in a Secret Santa pressie swap at a very early Burda sewing community meet-up, way back in 2010? I think?

I had only 11; they are a deep bottle green, possibly made from Bakelite or something very similar.  I’ve been looking out for yeeeeeers for the the perfect project for them and I thought this trench coat was it…  they are in fact a perfect colour match for the deep teal-y/ocean-green of the foliage in the print.  However! now they’re all stitched on, I’m not completely sure the fabric was the right choice for them after all? ahhhh, the agony of high, followed by unattained, hopes and expectations!  The thing is; the busy busy busy colourful print, while it is really gorgeous and I LOVE it! it really just swallows up the impact of those buttons and at any distance you can hardly see them on there at all.  They just disappear.  As in, buttons, what buttons? I can’t seen any glorious buttons!!  The fact that they are beautifully profiled, and slightly marbled, and vintage, well, you’d never know.  So, I’m just thinking, maybe? I should substitute them for some plain buttons, and save my exquisite vintage buttons for another project – another, different trench coat, something in a solid colour where the buttons can really be allowed to shine? Hmmm….

the one under the collar is not one of the original set, it’s a modern, plastic, flatter one…

Making a coat is always an activity that brings me huge amounts of joy and satisfaction, and this one did too, keeping me blissfully pottering away the whole time I was working on it. Constructing all the little bits and bobs that go into a trench coat, like the tabs, the collar, putting in the sleeves and bagging out a lining is enormously fulfilling to me, just about as enjoyable as any project I can think of.  I’m totally in zen mode, throughout.  As it happens, I’m perfectly happy with all the construction details of this one; all my seams and sleeve insertion and symmetry of the tabs and collar, the walking vent, topstitching, and the neatness of my buttonholes and all that jazz all worked out exactly as I hoped, and I’m very pleased with all this.

for some reason, this arrowhead tab on the collar stand is always an especially pleasing detail to me!

So that’s all super good and satisfactory.  However?!  I have to admit to a little frisson of disappointment at the halfway point of making this coat, at about the point when the body was together, and I slung it over Bessie and took a step back to have a first look… and, oh dear.  See, I had barely enough fabric to cut out my trench, and in fact several pieces are pieced together!  Which ones?  oooh, I’ll never tell!!!  See if you can see the seams!  But that’s not the problem here, after all, piecing is something I’ve done in a lot of garments because of lack of fabric and I’m perfectly ok with doing that when I have to….   The thing is, I really had to be clever about laying out the pattern pieces to have any hope at all of getting the coat cut out, and I did some very premature self back-patting when I managed to lay out the pieces.  Because the way the print has turned out on the finished coat is just not good.  Specifically; the front is quite a lot “busier” than the back, and I wish I could have been switched-on enough to see that while I was juggling those pattern pieces but sadly, I did not.  The front and the back are to my eye almost like two completely different coats, which is very sad-making (please excuse my little Evelyn Waugh-ism there…)

It’s definitely not as obvious when the coat is worn open, like this; which to be honest is how I was planning to wear  it most of the time anyway.

I can’t do anything about the unbalanced “busy-ness” of the print; but as far as the button issue goes, well I’m gonna wear it for a while and sleep on it, but button-switching may just happen sometime down the track.

I’ll just see how it goes for a while.  The coat is quite lovely to wear, and perfectly comfy, well-fitting, and I did pour myself into making it well.  Oh well.  I’ll give it a crack!  Quite often, early dissatisfactions I have with a project evaporate a little bit down the track when I look at it one day and kinda go, what was I worried about?   I adore the overall vibe of my trench coat, how it looks when worn both belted closed and open are both very pleasing to me, and as usual, wearing a coat always makes me feel amaaaaaazing, no matter what!  Sometimes, well, very occasionally really, I have a tiny little wish we lived in a climate which was more conducive to coats?  But not very often really.  Like, hardly ever, to be honest  😉  #devotedtotheaussiesummer

I am mostly planning to wear it casually and glamorously open, like I’m wearing it here with my white Inari tee dress, I’m actually rather thrilled at how super swish this combo looks, and feels!  I’m even thinking this could be my Christmas soiree outfit over the upcoming festive season?  Maybe!!

 

   

Details:

Coat; McCalls 5525, cotton sateen, lined with cotton poplin
Dress; Named patterns Inari tee dress, white stubby cotton, details here
Heels; Zomp, from Zomp boutique

also looks pretty good when accessorised with a dog… mmm?  sorry, I couldn’t resist roping her in for just one picture!

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a mustard raincoat, oh and a skirt too

31/07/2018 11:27 pm \ 14 Comments \

Hello!  I’ve made a new raincoat!

So, I’ve been wearing my pale pink Kelly anorak raincoat, made from a shower curtain, for several years now, it was undoubtedly my most worn garment of last year by a fair dinkum mile!  and it’s been such a trooper.  I love it so much, still!  However it is looking a wee bit shabby now… so I’ve been toying with the idea of a new raincoat for little while.  Getting nice waterproof fabric is quite a challenge in Perth, you come across it so rarely and I was wondering if I’d have to brave the scary gamble that is Buying Off the Internet.  Then I happened to be browsing in Homecraft Textiles during their yearly 50% off sale, and unearthed this gorgeously mustard-coloured waterproof fabric.  The colour was particularly exciting.  Something that actually suits me? that’s not black, or navy?!!!   Take my money!!!

Having said that… it’s not the most wonderful raincoat fabric in the world and I had struggles APLENTY  but more on that later.

Patterns!!  I loved the Kelly anorak pattern, and it did work really well for me as a raincoat, however I have this maybe erroneous belief that a raglan sleeve is better suited in a raincoat… I think that a rounded armscye seam could lend itself to a higher chance of leakage.  I could be totally wrong there though, but I just think it anyway.  I’ve been looking out for a good, raglan sleeved jacket pattern that would lend itself to being a good raincoat, but to no avail.  So I made my own pattern.  My previous, blue, raincoat was a pattern I’d worked out for myself; inspired by a cheapie old RTW one that I’d bought for Tim when he was a young ‘un, and which I’d inherited down the track as he grew out of it.  I devised some rather unusual pockets for it, and actually totally loved how they worked out.  I dug out the pattern, made the modifications to bring it into line with the shape I wanted for my new raincoat.  Everyone’s heard of the famous FBA… well I have no use for a full bust adjustment, but in a raincoat I could definitely use a FPA.  What is that? a Full Ponytail Adjustment, of course!!  I have pretty much never had a raincoat, rtw or me-made, with a hood that accommodated a ponytail comfortably.  The hood is always pulling back off your head and exposing your forehead, which is annoying.  I’m happy report that this hood is so far perfect!

I’d originally bought some soft tulle to line the raincoat.  I’d managed to get some soft netting to line my first, blue raincoat and it worked a treat, and I wanted something similar for this one.  But the tulle was horrible; just not soft enough and too scratchy against my sensitive snowflake skin after all, so I’d ended up ripping it out.  The raincoat is actually fine without a lining, because the inside of the mustard shell is a rather nice, soft woven stuff.

the white sports fabric seen in the pic is a ventilation panel, hidden underneath the upper back flap

The outside is laminated, actually the fabric could best be described as a lightweight, thinly laminated, woven cotton.  The plastic laminate was obviously downright hideous to sew.  For one thing, it had quite a sticky waxy coating on the laminate, which gummed up the needles, and the eye of the needle, making re-threading the needle a freakin’ NIGHTMARE.  I wiped the laminated surface with a lightly soapy solution before sewing, which did help a tiny bit, and occasionally wiped down the needle too, but it was still pretty bad.  When it came to top-stitching, well there was absolutely no way the laminated side up was going to move underneath the foot at all.  I cut strips of tissue paper to stitch over, and tore them away afterwards; fiddly, but not a difficult thing to do (above).

seam sealing, also a view of the fabric’s wrong side

Sealing the seams; I used a no-name seam sealer from BCF, a local boating camping and fishing store.  It’s supposed to be used for tents and sails I think, but it works beautifully for raincoats too!  I used a cheapie old paintbrush to work it into the stitch-holes, and seal everything thoroughly.  Since then, it’s been out in three very heavy downpours, and I’m happy to say has stood up to the task beautifully!  All the traumas, and it’s been worth it!  It’s early days, but I think I’ve found my new favourite wardrobe item!

Want to read all my tips for making a raincoat?  They can all be found in my original raincoat making post, here.

Oh, and I made a new little skirt too,  but it’s not nearly so exciting.   Well, I had a small piece of coffee-coloured, wide-wale cotton corduroy, leftover from when I made this dress, and when I was dyeing the fabric for my Sherlock Holmes jacket I’d also tossed in the coffee-coloured corduroy.  And it came out a nice shade of golden-mustard.  So I managed to squeeze out this little skirt.  It’s not made up to any real pattern really, I basically put an invisible zip at centre back, held the front and back up to myself and pinned the side seams and where I wanted darts.  Pretty lazy genius, huh?  It was a very small piece of fabric, and the resulting skirt was too short for a hem.  I edged the bottom edge with a chocolate linen bias-cut strip to finish, and the skirt is lined with pale golden polyacetate lining fabric, itself also leftover from something else, can’t remember what.

And that’s it… until next time!

Later edit: this skirt now has pockets!

Details:

Raincoat; my own pattern, made from thin, plastic-laminated cotton
Skirt; my own design, dyed cotton corduroy
Bobbly top (just above); Burdastyle 04/2014;111, details here
Tights; made by me, details here and my tute for making your own custom-fit tights pattern is here
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, from Zomp boutique

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