UFO progress!

I am delighted. I was able to pick up The White Jacket again which had been a most aggravating unfinished object for several years.  I started numbering my projects when I began to seriously sew again a few years back.  This is project number S9!  That's how long ago this is.

This is how far I got today after some pressing and general fiddling about:

I 'only' need to do body and sleeve hems now

The photo below showed (half of) the stage I was at which gave me so much trouble.  I had followed the pattern quite faithfully and found that the shoulders are much too wide on me.  I thought it was going to be such a long-winded and time-consuming endeavour to unpick the sleeveheads and move them inwards by a good centimeter.

Until I started the first one. I took the shoulder on the left in and the right shoulder is the 'before' picture. Isn't that a huge difference?  The sleeve just dips off the shoulder on the right and makes the jacket look very home made. That one centimeter (or so) pulls the whole jacket off whack.

I literally cannot believe how little time it took to remedy the situation.  That should be a lesson to me to stop putting things off for so very long!

I had some other concerns that caused the delay. The jacket was supposed to have a lovely contrast material overlay of lace or similar on the lapels. See pattern:

I had decided against the mock pocket opening fairly early on - I didn't think that they would look good on my bigger figure and wouldn't add that much anyway.

But I was quite keen on those lapels.  They are the reason why I picked this pattern.  Even though I didn't want to include the other design feature (those black pocket borders) and also lengthened the sleeves.  These three quarter sleeves just look odd to me.

 

I had such a tough time trying to decide what contrast material to use.  None of the lace I either had or looked to buy was right.  Then I considered various ribbons and braids, some of these I bought (see the photo above), I just couldn't get all that enthusiastic about any of them.

I think I wanted a lace very close to that on the pattern envelope (how unimaginative is that?) but couldn't find it.

Encouraged by our upcoming UFO planning sewalong I was thinking about the whole project early in the morning when I had lots of time and no pressure to be anywhere.  It's very freeing: you know that you don't have to jump up and act on any sewing decision then and there, and it's just a lovely, relaxing time to think things through.

Not for the first time, this turned out to be a very useful exercise for me.  I visualised the steps I would carry out to get the lapels looking the way I want: to cut the lower layer smaller than the upper so the stitching line would not show up. Same thing for attaching the lapels to the front side seams: I would need to pay attention to the turn of cloth space needed and it all felt like a lot of fiddling around.

Plus I hadn't even washed my sample with the ribbon sewn on!  I would have been extremely annoyed with myself if any of the black colour had come off onto the lovely white jacket if I hadn't washed it.

So I finally had a very clear thought: I have masses of sewing projects that I started, it will feel incredibly good to get some of them completed and I have to admit to myself that I will not be able to finish this jacket any time soon if I have to faff about with it for much longer.  Plus: how much do I like these lapels when I think about the bother of getting them done?

Answer: not all that much.

So leave them off.  What a relief!  It was the best decision I could have made.  If I do ever want a jacket that has lapel lace overlays then I can start another project as soon as I have a lace I want to use.  And then maybe I won't use this odd pattern that has lapels as separate pieces.

I might write about this element of the pattern another time because it seems odd to me for lapels to be separate to the front jacket pieces. The whole stitching technique described in the instructions doesn't feel very promising - there is a lot that could go wrong.  But as I said I might write about this another time and can then include a photo of the instructions that make it clearer what they are asking for.


In danger of this post becoming too long yet again.  I can't help myself, I just attached straps to a tote bag that is taking much, much longer than I had hoped.  Here it is:

I "just" need to add lining to the inside so the black bottom doesn't catch too much dust and debris. The corner seams would just be dust traps.

I've done a sewing bee!

Well I did. I made this skirt in a Sunday morning - and to be honest I'm not quite sure how I managed to finish it within a relatively short amount of time.

I am always amazed at the short time available to the candidates on the Great British Sewing Bee and that most of them rise to the challenge - it would take me at least three times as long.  I really don't understand how you can anything in a few hours.

The back needs to be a touch longer when I make another one like this

But this time I actually started: picked the fabric, adapted a skirt pattern that fits me by making it the length I wanted, cut out, sewed together, inserted the zip (not necessarily in that order) and did the other bits: hemming, putting a facing in.

And it came together really well!

I thought I might have to cut out the pieces while overlocking them but the fabric turned out not to fray much like the crazy fraying fabric that I used for another, slightly longer skirt.  It went well.

The only thing that didn't go so well is that even though I stuck a pin in the length of the skirt back panel to one side of the centre vent, checked it twice to make sure the other side would be the same length... I still managed to get them different lengths. By a few millimeters so it's quite a bit off.

Not really sure how that happened.

I also need to let out the hem towards the side seam, it's just a bit crooked, which is again rather strange, but because I can do these things at the next sewing meeting I'll leave them until then.

Apart from that it's finished.  And yes, it's not lined which definitely accounts for the fact that I got this done in a morning. With lining, all bets would have been off!

What helped was that I knew the order I wanted to sew this in, and that this order suits me. I knew what needed doing and didn't have to figure things out in the middle - but the one thing that helped me the most: I didn't stop.

Which sounds obvious but it isn't to me - I often stop right in the middle because I have to figure out a complicated bit, or I feel that my focus and concentration have taken a break, so I stop to not mess up. I reckon that's a good thing but I could be getting back to it quicker than I do.

Let's take now: I got quite far with a long silver boucle skirt and could be sewing the lining hem, but I set it aside and I'm typing this instead.  That's my problem: I always find something else to do that's also worthwhile.

Oh well...

Ghastly fitting issues

Argh!  Sometimes fitting issues can really drive you round the bend, utterly, stark raving bonkers mad!

Why won't this body block fit better on me?  How comes I keep changing the slope of the shoulder when they clearly don't fit well, and the change is even more wrong than before?

Ah!  There is an answer in store.

Here's a photo, of me in a jumper I knitted:

I saw this and thought to myself: oh, rounded upper back...

Did that sink in?  Did that mean anything to me?  Did that lead me to any kind of 'Oh my gosh, that's it!' insight?

No, of course not.

It should have done.

I have a lovely body block drawn to my very own measurements.  There are small darts at about the mid shoulder in the back piece.  To my utter shame I have to admit that I kept looking at that itty bitty tiny little dart and decided: oh, I don't need that!

And off it went. Suppressed, removed from each and every single pattern I draw from this body block and unfortunately also suppressed from my consciousness.

Well!

It really ought to have told me something when changing the slope of the shoulder just doesn't produce the desired result (because it takes from both back and front, probably in equal measure).  A dart starting at the middle of the back shoulder and going down sits at 90 degrees angle to that alteration - of course it's going to produce a different outome!

Duh. Now why didn't I think of this earlier?  This whole threedimensionality business that bodies are subject to seems to be a really complicated affair.

There really is nothing better than having a friend take lots of photos of you in the offending garment: from the front, from the back, about three snapshots from the side: the side of a garment can sometimes not be clearly seen with the arm hanging down (1), so arm forward (2) gives a different view than arm back (3). So that's five pics.

You might want some more detailed shots that are closer up.

Pinching excessive fabric out and photographing the before and after can also be very helpful.

Get yourself those photos (making sure the lighting is suitable), study them!  And think about where the fitting issues might come from.  Some of the time my first inclination (change the shoulder slope) only serves to complicate the issue because it tries to solve a problem that wasn't there (like sloping shoulders. I hope we can agree that my shoulders do not slope to a pronounced extent?).

I would love to hear about insights you might have had that turned out really useful. Has something like this happened to you?  At least hard-won insights do tend to stick around longer, that's an advantage!

Amazing what you get done when...

Isn't it amazing what you get done when you're supposed to be doing something else and can't bring yourself to get stuck into that something else?

That's what it's like for me right now. Sewing is so much more fun than job hunting. So I am sewing. It is comforting to know that this activity is productive: I see a tangible result and that's very confidence building.

Most times I've been doing something else rather than sewing - perhaps I'm intimidated by it?  It could be because sewing seems so much work, or because I worry that I am not going to sew well enough... I'm not completely sure why I'm not finding it easier to knuckle down to.

- -

It is vitally important to me to get stuck into sewing projects to try and diminish my massive stash at least a little bit. So when a friend mentioned wanting to make an A-line skirt with pockets I had a project idea shoot through my head that seemed strangely fully formed.

A flared skirt with huge patch pockets on it. Love the idea, and it seemed very do-able (spoiler: I think it even was).  I preferred to draw my own pattern so I can avoid all those soul-destroying attempts at fitting and pattern adjustments. I'd rather start from scratch and know that the measurement is correct.

I established the different hip and waist measurements for front and back because I want my side seams to sit at my side and nowhere else. My front panels are a bit bigger than the back panels.

I'm glad to say that the skirt looks like a good fit even though I plain forgot to work the back darts into the pattern pieces - I can probably get away with that.

I did some lovely patch pockets with strips of light-weight interfacing ironed next to the three seams and then I found that these big pockets throw out the lovely flare of the skirt and I prefer it without them. I have some fabric left, maybe I'll use them in some other way in future.

The fabric is a funnily bouncy fibre, very thin and light-weight but surprisingly drapey. It sews up wonderfully well, I am really impressed. There are very thin and strong black warp fibres and softer silvery grey weft strands. I don't remember what the fibres are. I got it from Fabrics Galore on Lavender Hill in London (has there every been a better address for a fabric shop?). Their labels stated the fibre, I should have written it down! Or taken a photo...

I've done quite well so far. Except for attaching the lining inside out (I did French seam so I won't be tempted to re-do this). I need to hem the lining and then continue thinking about what I'll do for the closure. I attached two facings so could do buttons or hooks and eyes. I would prefer something unobtrusive.

I decided against a zip (even an invisible one) because I may want to take the skirt in a bit in future. It'll be easier to move buttons or hooks than a zip.

What do you think?