Warm Coat Part 2

Last week, I was describing the coat I'm making for a winter trip to Baltimore.   Here's the coat, all complete and ready to go.

The coat has a lining of ripstop nylon to help it be windproof.  Fleece may be a very cozy fabric, but a strong wind will go right through it.

The coat is double breasted; there's a lot of overlap between the two front pieces.  There's a hidden button closure on the inside flap of the front.  It's exactly underneath the decorative button on the front.  

This coat also features a notched collar.  These are a bit tricky to get right, but fortunately, fleece is a very forgiving fabric.  If it was made from wool, then a steam iron can be used to make wool do just about anything.

Come back next week and see the project I've been working on for months.  It got invited to a major academic math meeting, which is why I'm headed north in the winter!

Warm Coat

I'm headed to Baltimore in January to show off one of my sewing projects.  You'll get to see that and the process of making it soon.  I know just how nasty Maryland can get in the winter and I need a warmer coat.  I have this lovely purple boiled wool sitting in my closet, earmarked for a warm winter coat.  I thought I even had a a pattern picked out, McCall 6800, the one I used to make this coat.  There's just one snag -- the sleeves.  After careful measurements, it turns out the sleeves aren't big enough.  That's not a problem with the green coat, where the fabric is a stretchy fleece, but with the wool it would be. This green coat looks warm, but it has the problem that neither the outer fabric nor the lining is particularly windproof.  It's great on a still night, but get a breeze and a windchill and it's not so warm.

It's certainly possible to modify a lot in a pattern, but my experience is that making two piece sleeves wider is pretty tricky and I certainly don't want to ruin the the wool.  It was time to start over and get a new plan.

I found this pattern, Vogue 9289.  (Fortunately, Vogue patterns were on sale that day.)  It's got two piece sleeves that are cut quite a bit wider. 

This sort of pattern isn't very efficient on the fabric, so there wasn't enough of the wool to make this work.  My local fabric store had literally no heavy, windproof fabric that I liked.   But, fleece was on sale.  I reasoned that maybe if the lining was windproof, the result would be reasonably warm.  (Yes, I know you loose some of the insulating properties of the fleece by doing it this way.)  

I picked an astronomical print for the coat.  It's got lots of planets and spiral galaxies -- perfect for someone like me!

For the lining, I chose ripstop nylon, a thin but very windproof fabric for the lining.  It's used for back packing tents and sometimes windbreakers, but I've never seen it used as a lining before.


Just cutting out the coat was a challenge.  Because the side front and side and back pieces are so wide, the fabric could not be folded and cut.  It had to be laid out on the floor and each piece individually cut.  I had just enough room in my living room to make this work.

Come back next week and see how it turned out!

Looks Like a Leather Jacket

It looks like a leather jacket, but it isn't!  It's made from a scuba knit that I bought at Walmart.  This relatively new fabric is a heavy knit, something like a lightweight neoprene in weight and drape, hence the name scuba knit.  Compared to leather, this fabric is quite a bit cheaper and has a nice stretch to it.  It's likely not as durable as leather and I certainly wouldn't choose to wear it as personal protection on a motorcycle!

I started with Kwik Sew 3764.  There's two versions of this jacket, one with all the fancy zippers and features and a more stripped down version.  I made the fancier one.

In addition to the the asymmetric zippered front, the jacket features zippered pockets.  The zippers are exposed and part of the look, so I used shiny brass zippers to extenuate them.  Lining up a bunch of black fabric was a bit of a challenge.  I found that adding extra light at the ironing board was very helpful.

 The sleeves also have zippered gaskets at the bottom.This is the first time I've tried this technique.  It's easier than it looks.  The fabric on the inside is a separate piece.

The jacket also has epaulets.  These are not sewn into the neck seam, but are sewn on separately afterwards.  With many layers of heavy fabric, even my sewing machine was finding it tough going.  I ended up sewing them on by hand.  I needed to get out the really big needles, the ones for sewing sails.

Here's the finished project.  It's a nice addition to my look.

Come back next week for a new project!

Long Sleeve Knit Shirt

I've been looking at shirts that work with mid-rise pants, the kind that seem so popular in stores.  As everyone else has already figured out, they don't work well with shirts that are supposed to be tucked in.  So, much of my winter wardrobe is in need of changes.  T For fabric, I choose a cotton-polyester interlock.  This fabric is easy to work with, durable, and warm for winter wear.

 The usual sort of very loose tops don't appeal to me much.  I can see why y'all wear them, but it's not my style and it doesn't look good on me either.   I went looking for some other sort of solution and found Kwik-Sew 4216.  This looked like an interesting compromise between a fairly fitted top and one that would work with the despised mid-rise pants.  It has a fairly fitted top, a waist seam at the true waist and a peplum.

The pattern envelope show tops in interesting prints, but I chose a plain solid fabric, perfect for embellishment.  A shirt neckline is a perfect place to add embellishment, in this case machine embroidery with a pattern from Embroidery Library called Celtic Diamonds neckline. I used the V- neck version.

It's important to get the embroidery lined up just right.  Using a template, a 100% scale version of the design on paper helps a lot.  As you can see, I did the embroidery before sewing the shirt together.

The peplum offered some other options for embellishment.  The asymmetric hemline is one of the attractions of the shirt, so why not emphasize it?  This simple built in decorative stitch did the trick.

How did the shirt turn out?  It does work quite well with the mid-rise pants and gives me some wardrobe options.  I wish I'd cut it to a smaller size, however.  It worked well enough I might give this pattern another spin later.  It has a short sleeve version, which could work well for a summer shirt.

Come back next week and see what sewing happened at my house over the holiday weekend!

Jacket, Part 2

Last week, I talked about the first work on a new jacket.  This week, I'll show you how it turned out.

 At the end of last week's post, I had basted together the shell of the jacket and found that it fit.  I also decided that it was too plain, so I'd planned to add metallic rick rack.

The next step of the project was to completely take the jacket apart, then reassemble it with proper seams.

After that, I added the rickrack around the edges of the jacket and also around the bottoms of the sleeves.  This has to be added before the lining is attached.  Normally, trim is attached with a thread that matches the trim.  I have some metallic embroidery thread nearly the same color as the rick rack.

While using this thread made the stitching nearly invisible, sewing through the trim tended to shred the thread.  I had to stop and fix problems with the thread many times.

The next step is to construct the lining.  I was planning on using a very standard lining material for the jacket, but decided that something with some stretch would be better.  I had this heavy weight, stretch material left over from another project and constructed the lining from it.

After sewing together the lining and jacket at the front and neck, all that was left was a lot of handwork with hems and of course, adding the button.

Now I have a sharp looking jacket that's surprisingly heavy, mostly due to the lining.  This will be just the thing for those blustery days to come.

Come back next week and find out what's up for Halloween.  No ghouls here, just a cute costume for a little girl.

Jacket, Part 1

It's September and time to start thinking about clothes for cooler weather.  A great transition piece is a simple jacket.  I was thinking of something a bit dressier than my fleece jackets from my Fun With Fleece project.

I chose Butterick 6493 for the pattern.  This unusual jacket has raglan sleeves and princess seams.  The idea was that this combination would make fitting the jacket easier.  It's also got separate pattern pieces for people with different cup sizes, which is a real plus for those of us who are a bit more flat chested than average.

I chose a peacock blue stretch denim for the jacket.  This material is very easy to work with, as I found out with a previous project.  It's also not particularly expensive, which is a real plus when you aren't completely sure how something is going to work out.

After making a bunch of measurements, I decided to make only minor modifications to the pattern, shortening it a bit at the waist.

Now it is time to lay out the pattern.  I noticed that the fabric was only 57" wide, not 60" and has wide selvages, too.  I decided to buy a little extra fabric.  Good choice, as it turned out.

This jacket requires both interfacing and a lining.  The lining is a standard lining fabric.  For the fusible interfacing, I chose this knit product.  It's great for suiting.

The interfacing pieces are first cut with the pattern, then trimmed by 1/2", so that they are just inside the seam lines.  Here's the piece, just ready to fuse.

The pattern has a loop and button closure.  That gets started early in the construction process, too.  It will end up in the seam between the jacket and the lining and be in the right place at the end.

I wasn't really sure if I had the pattern sorted out, so I decided to baste the jacket together instead of doing all the seams the right way.  Normally, you wouldn't include the sleeves, but with this design the shoulder seams are on the sleeves, so all of the jacket pieces needed to be included.

I do my basting with contrasting color thread, to make it easier to remove.  It's a great way to use up odd bobbins of thread.

Now the jacket is basted and except for extra long sleeves, it fits.  The problem is that it seems to be excessively plain.  There's a lot of ways to deal with that problem, including embroidery, but for this project, I think some metallic rick rack will dress it up nicely.

I chose the rick rack because it does a really nice job of following curves, more than a lot of other trims.  I want it to follow the neckline, front, and hem.  That's a lot of curves.

Come back next week to find out how this project turns out!  There's lots more projects on my list, including something for Halloween.

Fun with Fleece Part 6

With temperatures warming a bit, it's time to think of transitional clothes for those cooler than average (or warmer than average, for northerners) days.

This final installment in the Fun with Fleece series features a sporty jacket that's a long way from fleece's origins as an active wear fabric.  It has facings, a real collar, and button closures.  It's made from the out of print, but still available Simplicity 4032.   This pattern was specifically made for fleece and takes advantage of it's no fray property on the collar and front band.   Yes, that collar is a double layer of fleece, not sewn together at the outer edge for a unique look.

I embellished the sleeves with designs from Embroidery Library with a tropical feel.  One has hummingbirds, the other parrots. 

The designs aren't identical, but they have the same theme and feel.  I also used common thread colors where possible and chose the thread for both designs at the same time.  The result is a delightful jacket suitable for a lot of occasions and the unpredictable spring weather.

Come back next week for more Fun with a Sewing Machine!

Fun with Fleece Part 5

It's March, so it's still cold in northern parts of the county, but the flowers are coming out in the South and Southwest.

 For those of you up north, it's time for a fun, flowery scarf to anticipate the coming season.   This simple fleece scarf is enhanced with fleece flowers.

There's lots of hand work making and attaching the flowers, but the hard work of doing all the cutting could be made a lot easier by using a cutter like the Cricut Maker.

Doesn't the fleece flower remind you just a bit of this camellia?

Came back next week for more fun with fleece!

Fun with Fleece Part 2

It's definitely winter now, even here in the Tennessee Valley.  It's a great time for a fun, warm, and cozy coat.

I liked McCalls's 6800.   This pattern calls for wool coating material or something similar.  Fabric like that is not only quite expensive, it's a bit excessive for the fairly mild winters of northern Alabama.  I elected instead to use fleece.  Since fleece has mild tendency to stretch, I used a completely non-stretchy lining fabric, polyester satin, to help the coat maintain it's shape.

The particular version of the coat I made has an asymmetric hemline, a lot longer in the back than in the front.  That let's the lining show when you wear the coat, so I choose a purple lining, just for a fun flash of color as I walk.  I also found that the shape of the hem made getting in and out of cars while wearing the coat a whole lot easier.

 Winter can be a rather dreary season, so why not brighten up winter clothing with some cheerful embroidery?  I chose some Hungarian style florals from Embroidery Library.    The purple from the lining even appears in the design, although it's not prominent.

The skirt of the coat is quite full and the hem quite long, giving me space for lots or repetitions of the design.  Usually, I try to embroider pieces before sewing them together, but that wasn't possible for this design.  The entire body of the coat has to be assembled before the embroidery along the hem was done so that the designs could be evenly spaced.  Many of them are embroidered over a seam.

Smaller elements from the design along the hem brighten the lapel and the bottoms of the sleeves.

Come back next week for a Christmas themed project!

Mastering the Continuous Lap

The continuous lap is the most common way of finishing a vent on a long sleeve shirt with traditional cuffs.  There are a few tricks to getting it right and that's what this blog post is all about.

To begin, cut the continuous lap just a little longer than the pattern calls for.

The exact length required depends on the length of the vent.  If you cut the vent just a little longer than the pattern calls for, the continuous lap will be too short, which is a mess.  With a longer lap, you can just cut off any excess at the end.  Since this is a small pattern piece, finding a little extra room to make it 1" longer is usually no big deal.

Step 1 is to cut the vent, using the traced pattern markings.  For best results, the cut needs to be straight and correctly oriented, no big deal if the traced markings are right.

Step 2 is to pin the lap to the vent.  It's important to put the RIGHT side of the vent fabric next to the WRONG side of the sleeve.  Yes, this is very different from the usual right sides together.  The seam will be 1/4" on the lap and 1/4" on the sleeve at the ends of the vent, tapering to almost nothing (1/16" or so) at the center.

Here's what the seem should look like when sewn:

Be careful that the seam is still on the fabric at the top of the vent and that there are no tucks or creases.

Turn the lap to the right side of the sleeve and press.  Also press in a 1/4 hem in the continuous lap on the side where it isn't yet sewn.

Pin the lap on the right side of the sleeve, tucking the hem and the first seam into the lap.  Be sure that the edge of the lap is 1/16" to 1/8" beyond the original seam.  The idea is that the first and second seams should be on top of each other.

Sew the second seam of the lap right on top of the first.  Be very careful to catch the top of the vent in the lap and to not have tucks or creases in the top.  Yes, it's possible to make this happen.

As the last step, pin the side of the lap away from the sleeve seam under the sleeve.  You are now ready to sew up the sleeve and attach the cuff.

Come back next Saturday for more fun with a sewing machine!