The Jacket Sewalong

Well, I've joined the jacket sewalong hosted by Sherry (see the button in the side bar for the link)- and this oldish dog is looking forward to learning some new tricks.

I have been hunting for a while for the right pattern - I learned a long time ago that I only like to wear stretch on the top and will only wear a jacket if it is required out of doors to keep me warm while walking somewhere. For this reason, it had to be a warm but casual affair.

The fabric was some vintage wool I scored off Trade-me (NZ's ebay) - I was so paranoid about it having moth holes I asked the seller twice to check for them! No worries, he said, it's been stored in moth balls for the past 50 years.




He was not wrong. When it first arrived it stank so badly I had to store it in an isolation unit - a plastic box far away from anything else. Then I read up about how to get rid of the smell of moth balls. I read somewhere that sunlight and a fresh breeze will do the trick. They don't. I then decided to throw it through the washing machine with some wool wash and on a wool cycle. I figured if the fabric was too delicate for the washing machine it was too delicate for me.

After the first wash and line dry it smelled a lot better. I then threw it in a second time and after that it now just smells a little like soured perfume.

The fabric is so unusual - beautiful colours that you could not find now.

For the pattern, by a twist of fate, I ended up choosing the Jorinde pattern from the BurdaStyle downloadable section. It is free, which warmed the cockles of my thrifty heart.

The model picture I find a little curious - exactly why is she hovering in the doorway of the men's toilets? Or is it a gentleman's club? Either way, hanging round a men's only area wearing velvet and cheap lace gives the impression she might be on the job, if you know what I mean.



(Karin, did you notice the blue button - they repeated it in the sleeve buttons and the same colour is in the lining, I'm really liking that surprise of the offbeat colour)

It also has the worst instructions ever, straight from google translate. There is a lot of talk about piping and piping straps. I think they mean welt pockets, but since there are no directions for cutting welt strips anywhere on the pattern that's just an educated guess.

I spent Saturday night piecing the paper together and then cutting out the pieces - because of the paper I can't tissue fit it, so I cut and pinned a quick muslin.

It was an enjoyable evening's work because I could do it in front of the TV - which I never normally watch- and found the Aussie programme " the farmer wants a wife" strangely compelling. It is a reality show following 6 farmers whose rural location and social isolation makes it difficult for them to find a partner. The reality show sets them up on a whole lot of dates, and they have to choose one to partner up with. Although I find myself wishing the men the best of luck, I want to shout at the women, "don't go there! you do not want to spend your life in the middle of nowhere where you have nothing in common with any of the people you never get to see!"

(if anyone reading this lives in a farming district in Australia, tell me, is it as lonely and tough for the women as I fear?)

So now I'm ready to sewalong, but because of my advanced rated jacket with front pockets set into piping straps I think it may well turn into a swear-a-long.

The dress that decided itself.

I bought this fabric at the Zambesi sale last year - I had 5 minutes to grab some stuff as I was parked on restricted parking and I had no way of paying for the ticket. There were some beautiful fabrics there, and I wish I'd had a chance to fully acquaint myself with them. I would have come back with many new friends.

As it was I had time for this this fabric, a wool remnant, and some beautiful lining fabric. The fabric was sold to me by the designer for Zambesi herself so I had a chance to ask her what they used it for - a pencil skirt, apparently, but she also suggested it would look good as a simple sheath or shift dress.

Front:



Back:



I immediately thought of this pattern (Burda 05-2010-108) and it was like it just wanted to be made this way. I found myself going down to the Bernina shop to buy the zip, and hunting down the pattern before I'd even consciously decided to make it. I read in the New Scientist recently that before we consciously tell our bodies to do something, a brain signal has already been sent to the appropriate limb. In other words, we decide something and then we have the conscious thought, and this dress was an embodiment of that principle.

This dress was made to wear out to dinner this week. Our Thursday night supper club is going posh this week to celebrate a birthday, and I thought it would be good to wear something simple, but with pedigree.

Now if I could get a bag and shoes with some pedigree we'd be sorted - I once dated a guy who sold very expensive jewellery to the Parnell set. He told me never judge a woman's financial status by her clothes - the money was always in her accessories.

The denim dress.

I am fond of a good denim dress. With the stiff fabric they tend not to cling and who can argue with their wash'n'wear laundry 'tude.

As soon as I saw this design in Ottobre (02-2011-14) I knew I would be making it in denim but had to cast around for a sleeve option - it's a little past sleeveless season now (for those who need to know, I subbed in Burda 05-2010- 112).

Just one word of warning about this dress - I am short and I lengthened it 4 cms. It is still above my knee. That's totally OK for someone who likes to show their thigh spread when they sit down, or who enjoys flashing the playground with their underpants when they bend over. Not so great for those more modesty inclined -henceforth I believe some dreaded mamma leggings will be out in force.

At any rate, I still love this dress, and see myself making it a few times over, although slightly longer.

Vintage buttons on the front:



Left off the breast pockets and eventually the hip pockets will have buttons too but it may take a while to find a compatible button:



Front view:



Back view:



.. and many thanks to gMarie for my Stylish blogger award!

(Aucklanders may be interested to know that I purchased this denim at Global Fabrics but I see that Nick's has just got it in for $4 a metre)

The strands of life

Simplicity 2403

I've been thinking a lot this last week about the stands of life - when I bought this fabric, I bought it solely because it reminded me of the colour my hair used to be. I then teamed it with some fur on the collar to what my hair is becoming.

Another reason I thought about the strands of life is how sometimes echos from the past can come into the present. One of the women I started my very first craft club with died in the Canterbury quake. This was more than 20 years ago, and I may never have even thought of her again had her death not been the result of such a catastrophic event. We worked together in a resort town, in the far backwaters of the South Island, and we were both working our student vacation cleaning hotel rooms. We were immediately set apart from the rest of the staff because we were students - further aggravated by the fact we didn't drink and were saving all our money! If word had got around that we also met to sew patchwork, do embroidery and knit we would have been mocked out of town.

I spent a year of my life in Christchurch and ended up in Auckland through the twists and turns of fate that all of us encounter in our lives - a decision to go here, do this work, date this person and marry that one. We are often blissfully unaware of what might have happened on the road not taken, the precariousness of life sheltered from us.

Such were the thoughts going through my head as I was making this dress, thinking about the things that have happened in my life from when my hair was one colour and what it is becoming as it changes to the next.

The other thing about it that reminds me a bit of life's journey is the huge number of mistakes, false steps, unpicking and recutting I had to do on it. Let me list them for you here

- recut front facing (forgot to lengthen after FBA)]
- sewed collar stand and collar and made a dreadful job of it, unpicked whole thing
- recut collar stand, threw out old collar and decided to use fur instead,
- recut and sewed new collar.
- recut front waistband - forgot that a 2 inch FBA is only for one side so had to add 4 inches to waist, grrr.
- let out one set of front pleats because miscalculated the difference between the top and bottom
- resewed invisible zipper as had twisted one side round the wrong way. grrr.
- recut one sleeve, lost it somewhere
- resewed one sleeve, put it in inside out
- ran out of thread and had to finish with black
- stuffed up the buttonholes, mercifully hidden by the buttons

Well, as you know, we do have to suffer for our art.

I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to wash the dress because the fur collar is attached, but then I though, "hey, it's BROWN, not like anyone's going to know."

I am in two minds about the fate of this dress - as is, I can tell you it does not look good. I am tossing up whether to literally cut my losses and severe it at the bodice to make a plain skirt or just to donate the whole thing to the Sally Army. At this stage I'm probably leaning towards the former so I can reuse the cute leather buttons.

Well, after all that work and all that frustration, a wadder.



That, as they say, is life.

Pillows

It is impossible to write this post without mentioning the Canterbury earthquake - the loss and trauma of the event has rocked the country. Still up here where I live, it could be another world - life carries on as usual and yet for so many life will never be the same again. My thoughts are with all effected.

I have to admit I was somewhat preoccupied by the events of this week and other personal disappointments which meant sewing wise it was not a particularly productive week. I managed to crank out two pillows and you would think I was making a wedding dress of silk chiffon with all the headache it caused me. Over pillows. Yes, pillows. (the piping, getting the measurements right, the single lapped zippers etc)

Pillow inners from the Sally Army, fabric from the Red Cross and zippers from St Vincent de Paul. That makes the whole thing not just thrifted, but worthily thrifted.

A little embroidery stitching..




I have never shown these pillows on the blog, but they are also wholesome charity shop creations. I used an old blanket and various bric a brac picked up on my op shop travels - a framed embroidered picture, now framed with piping, a piece of fillet crochet, some old buttons, some scraps of upholstery fabric.



Accumluating these 'treasures' takes a lot of rummaging. For every successful trip to the op shop, I would leave 5 times empty handed. It also takes a bit of faith - can this 65 cm red jacket zipper really be used somehow, somewhere - after all, I don't want to turn my own home into a vestibule for the detritus that lines most charity shops.

And yes, the things I end up with are absolute bargains. Each pillow cost $4 to make (US $3) and there will be enough fabric leftover to make a couple of shopping bags which I'll probably stash away as gifts to give my son's teachers at preschool. Last year I gave them each a box of chocolates and a card that read, "here's 2 kgs for Christmas."

My obsession with thrifting bargains is in part genetic but also I must confess I love the thrill of the chase - the opportunity to realise something quite new and unexpected from such unpromising beginnings. It's a lot of fun, even when you do end up unpicking and resewing over a stupid zipper.

The pea pod linen purse

It was my mother in law's birthday recently and I made her a bag. I am feeling very virtuous about this, and I have a little fantasy that she may say proudly to her friends, "oh you like it? my daughter in law made it for me, so sweet. Does your daughter make anything for you? No? Never mind, I'm sure she's a lovely person anyway" (my own mother at this point may be saying, 'hey then where's MY bag).

Like most fantasies it is probably far removed from reality, probably about as far from reality as the deep darkest depths of the wardrobe where this little bag will end up.

At least it was fun to make. I used this free pattern from Ottobre and lined it with fabric given to me by my mother in law (which was the inspiration for this piece.)





And would you believe it, but I actually purchased the proper interfacing and bought proper linen for the outer. For once I didn't swap out for something cheaper, so the whole thing came in around $40 (US $30).

There are 2 myths about homemade bags that I immediately wish to dispel: that they are cheap to make (see above) and that they are quick to whip up. This bag, with its 4 pockets and padding and bias tape finish took as long to make as a pair of jeans. What's more it was even harder as the base is very hard to manipulate through the machine.

Surprising isn't it? Homemade bags just look like they should be cheap'n'easy.

This blog post wouldn't be complete without the compulsory scowl shot, but actually I want to show you the proportions against a human body because although it's called a purse, it must be one designed for Imelda Marcos and several pairs of shoes.



Let me now talk a little about fabric graffiti as several of you expressed interest in this idea. It is not my idea at all, I got it from a book I am reading called "Alchemy arts" - here on the front cover you can see her taking to her petticoat with a felt tip. (She's putting BIRDS on it pa ha ha aaaaaahhh).



I had to google around to find the setting instructions. The general consensus is to heat treat the pen first (good dry press on the hottest temperature your fabric will tolerate) then soak in a solution 1 litre of water to 1/2 cup salt. Some recipes also include 1 cup of white vinegar.

After the first wash, it looks pretty good. There is some bleeding in some places, minor only, so my guess is that the heat setting part of the process is crucial to the overall 'take' of the pen.

And now I am going to confess something to you, this skirt is going to the deepest darkest depths of my wardrobe, because I don't like it.

Strange isn't it? Things that should work, don't, things that shouldn't work, do. A pencil skirt should work, sausage dogs having fun are my favourite motif. It should all work, but it doesn't. I don't regret for a second giving it a go though, that's the only way to know for sure. What's more you never know where this experiment might lead.

Put a dog on it*

I am really enjoying my subscription to La Mia Boutique. I haven't been able to sew much from it yet, because of the seasonal differences, but the patterns are both simple and unusual, a combination that I really enjoy.

As part of my month of "make do and mend" - I decided to use up some scraps to make a test garment for LMB 12-2010-18.




The lovely thing about a test garment is you can test all kinds of things, so I thought why not try out some fabric graffiti?

Fabric graffiti is where you take your trusty sharpy and have some fun doodling on the fabric. To permanently set the sharpie thereafter, you need to heat set it with a hot dry iron, then soak in a salt solution, then forever after wash in cold water.

I decided I would go with my favourite motif: the fun loving daschund, here involved in some smelling activity, some of it more savoury than others.





I wore this out this morning and received no comments either good or bad, which probably reflects my feelings on it. Truth be told it was fun to do, but I would probably have preferred the skirt left plain. The effect is a little over the top for me, I prefer things to be subtlety silly.

At any rate, making the skirt from scraps has enabled me to assess it as a pattern and it has great promise.





This skirt will be back in my wardrobe soon, in something more sedate.

*the title of this post refers to this fantastic youtube clip (thank you Amy for telling me about it!)