My Jean Jacket

I've wanted jean jacket for years, but they never, ever, EVER came in my size. (Don't ask what it is cause I'm not gonna tell.) Then finally I find a pattern company that has patterns for really nice clothes in my size and, lo and behold, they have a pattern for a jean jacket!! PSYCH!!! And one of the great things about making clothes for myself, I get to pick the fabric AND I get to add design elements that I want. So I picked a nice stretch denim in a small stripe pattern. It's charcoal, jade green, and burgundy stripes.

I'm making this jacket for an Apparel Construction class I'm taking.

I was a good girl and I bought 5 yards which was more than I needed. Then I washed fabric because one should always prepare a fabric in the way it will be cleaned when the garment is made. (Jean Jacket, denim, wash in hot.) I knew it would shrink because it's mostly cotton, but I thought it would only shrink in the length. Wrong!! The width shrank, too, and a 60 inch width ended up a 55 inch width. I ended up with not quite enough to get all the pieces cut out. So I thought I'd order more, but when I went to order it they were sold out. Bummer!!

In the meantime I decided I wanted to line the jacket even though it didn't call for a lining. I wanted to have a fabric that was slick enough that the jacket would slide on easily over clothes that weren't so slick, and that could add a little extra warmth. I expect to wear this jacket in the winter. So GG, my instructor,  suggested something she's used before: flannel backed satin. Really?? Never heard of it before. It's a blend of 80% polyester and 20% cotton. I ended having to go to Topeka to get it, though.  I wanted purple, or even lavender, but they didn't have enough on the bolts, so I settled for fuchsia. Fuchsia?????? Yes, fuchsia! I thought it would look great. Besides, it's only a lining. It's not like people are intentionally going to see it.

In the meantime, I asked GG for a suggestions concerning my problem with the main fabric. She didn't have one right away, but thought about it throughout class. Later, when I was at the ironing board, she came over and handed me a piece of fabric to see if it would go with the denim. It did! Cool! But was there any more, that was the question. It ended up that the piece of fabric was a scrap another student had thrown into one of the many scrap drawers we have in the classroom and there wasn't any more. What there was of it was not enough for my needs. Hmmm, back to the drawing board, so to speak.

Since my class only meets on Fridays for about 6 hours, I had a lot of time to consider my options. I thought that the piece GG had found would have been great. It was a sueded micro-fiber fabric and I loved the feel of it. It was a napped fabric that didn't seem to have a direction to the nap. Perfect!! I knew I wouldn't find anything on the internet that would get to me in time for class. So I decided to go over to Hancock Fabrics to see what they had and I dragged my fiance with me for a second opinion. I found this really nice eggplant colored micro-fiber suede and it went really well with the denim fabric.

So I used the suede for the collar, the cuffs, the yoke across the back, the belted waist, and the pocket flaps. A couple of things I wanted that the pattern doesn't have are tabs at the waistband to adjust the length of the waistband, and lower pockets. In the lining I added a pocket inside the left side so I have someplace to put my phone, and whatever.

I don't have progress pics because I'm mostly making the jacket at school. It would be kind of awkward to take pics every time I finished a step in the process. That and everyone in class would keep asking what I was doing.  So I will post a pic of the finished product as soon as I'm done. It's due Friday, 16 Nov so, luckily, you won't have to wait long.

Wedding Costumes, Part 2

Okay, so in our last segment I just needed to serge the Şalvar pieces and put them together. The serging was pretty straightforward. No curves, no odd angles, just straight edges to sew. Excellent!

For those that have never seen, much less used a serger machine before, immediately to the right of the presser foot is a very sharp cutting blade that trims off excess fabric and/or threads from the garment pieces to give them a finished edge. Garment pieces can also be sewn together on the serger. Look at the seams of any garment you've bought from the store. Knit garments especially. All the stitching you see on the seam edges is done with an Overlock machine that is known commonly to home sewers as a Serger. These machines have been a Godsend to the home sewer. (I hate that specific Heteronym!) They allow the home sewer to make a garment that looks just as professionally made as anything produce at a fashion couture house. Though you have to be a bit careful when sewing with a serger if you've never done so before. I suggest practicing using some scrap fabric to get the hang of the machine before serging your actual garment pieces. I think one of  the reasons the machine is called a Serger is because it can Surge ahead of you if you aren't paying attention. But I digress.

So then I sewed the Şalvar together. First had to make sure I got the cut edges in the correct order. I separated the pieces and then opened them up. I had cut the pieces on the fold so I now had 2 big garment pieces cut straight along the bottom and top edges, and cut at an odd angle along both sides. If you look back down to Wedding Costumes, Part 1, you'll see what I mean. Putting the Right sides of the fabric together, I stitched both the pieces together along the upper angle cut.

 Then it was time to stitch the legs together. Because of the of angle of the edges, stitching the legs together required a stop in the middle where the crotch came together. I stitched all the way to the middle of the crotch seam, back-stitched a few stitches, made sure the needle was down in the middle of the seam, lifted the presser foot and turned the fabric to the new angle. When I started stitching again I made a few stitches, back-stitched back to the crotch seam, and then continued going forward along the seam to the end. Pretty straightforward, to those of us who sew on a regular basis. Though some are probably asking, "Why the extra backstitching?" Well, crotch seams are notorious for ripping out, especially in those garments not made very well. (I hesitate to use the word Cheap, but inexpensive clothes are made cheaply.) I just don't want DF's backside to come out at the wedding.

So next I stitched up the hem of the pants. All I did was a simple 1/2 inch hem. Because of the angle of the leg seam, I needed to let out the seam a little bit. Because there is a wide enough opening to accommodate DF's foot, I don't need to worry to much about seam coming apart. Also I did some additional back-stitching to insure the seam wouldn't seperate. I then just topstitched the hem in place.

I'm just glad I'm not making this costume for a historical reenactment because I would probably be laughed off the premises.   Historical reenactors are sticklers for accuracy.

The next-to-the-last thing to do on the Şalvar is the waistband. When I was looking at pictures of actual garments of the time period online I noticed that the waistband was just some other bit of fabric added to the top. It didn't have to match the garment fabric. Cool! While I like the fabric I chose, it would been too bulky for a waistband with a drawstring. So I chose a piece of scrap fabric I had that was the right length to fit the waist of the Şalvar. I cut it to a width of 4 inches to allow for seam allowances, serged the edges, and stitched it in place along one side after making sure to fold over the ends 1/2 inch. I did not stitch down the ends which I realize, in hindsight, would have made for a neater edge. But I can always do that by hand.

So with the waistband partially sewed on, time to finish it. Press the waistband so that the seam allowance is up on the waistband. Then fold the waistband down to cover the seam allowance and making sure the waistband edge is at least 1/4 inch past the seam allowance. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when I sew, so I decided to stitch-in-the-ditch, sewing from the right side very closely along the seam line. It's hard to do well and even the most experienced sewer will mess up once in a while.  Good thing this waistband will be under the rest of DF's costume so it doesn't have to be 100% perfect. Thank goodness!

The last thing I need to do is get them on DF again so I can mark the placement of the buttons and loops at the ankles. I'll be making matching buttons and stitching a line of thin elastic loops at the hem of the Şalvar to peg them. It was the fashion of the time, though probably not with elastic button loops.

Normally I'd have a picture of the finished garment, but I'm going to wait till I have everything done and DF gets to model. Hope you don't mind the wait.

My sewing room disappeared!

Sometime late last fall we were informed that D's 1st hubby and daughter were going to need a place to live because they were being evicted from their apartment. D & the ex-hubby moved into this apartment 17 years ago and has been the only home their daughter has ever known. Why were they being evicted??  The usual; non-payment or late-payment of rent.

To be fair, this was not entirely ex-hubby's fault.  A year ago, the local cable/internet company he worked for was sold and the new company decided to do away with the local call/help center and either move the employees to their other call centers in North Dakota or Georgia. All the employees were given the option of moving or being let go.  Ex-hubby decided he didn't want to uproot their daughter just as she was entering high school so he was let go. So he was released from work in May of 2011. But this is a College Town and August is the busiest month for landlords and utility providers. In fact almost every lease or rental agreement in town goes from Aug 1st to Jul 31st. So the company did ask him back for the summer to help facilitate the orders for the July move-out and the August move-in! But unfortunately in June he was not employed and didn't have his unemployment fully set-up yet so he got a little behind on his rent. Funny thing, when one gets behind on paying the rent it's very hard to catch-up.  He did start getting unemployment regularly, but it was too little too late. By then the wheels for their eviction were already in motion. The end result was that my sewing room became his bedroom, and my sewing room ended up being one corner of the front room. (In our house the living room is called the front room because we call the family room in the addition the living room.)

NOTE: Our house is a ranch style (very popular here in Kansas) that originally had the usual living room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a bath. Then sometime after it was built a family room, laundry room and a 4th bedroom were added. One of the 3 original bedrooms was my sewing room and the additional 4th was a catchall room. 

So, I lost my sewing room and I have to say that I'm not very pleased. But what am I going to do?  We can't just throw the ex-hubby and daughter out just so I can have my sewing room back. D would have my head on a pike if I so much as thought about kicking them out. So I'll have to live with the situation and make adjustments.

The biggest adjustment I'm having to make is going from a nice 12'x12' room with a closet to hang clothing projects and a door I can close to keep out the 3 cats who would insist on using my worktable as a bed (or worse, having our one UN-neutered male come in and spray). I could just leave a project on my table, close the door, and walk away.

Now I have a 6'x6' space (and that's just a guess on size) in an open room with no closet (except for the front hall closet) and no door to close off said cats. This means I've had to invest in some plastic totes to put the fabric when I'm not working on something. I still need to get smaller bins (with lids.. maybe) to put projects in progress. And I also need shelving to put the bins on, something the cats won't climb up on (yeah, good luck with that). I'm also trying to keep my area organized so I can find things. It doesn't help that in the last 3 months since ex-hubby and daughter moved in the whole house has become even more disorganized than before and my little area has become the favorite dumping ground for a whole bunch of stuff - some mine, some other people's.

I wonder if Shoji screens would work to close off my area a little bit.... don't know if the cats would try to climb them, but it would be worth a try. What's the worst that could happen?? They climb the screen and cause it to fall??? Maybe... But with any luck that would scared them enough that they wouldn't want to do it again. Worth a shot. Maybe if I can find something like this so it could be a multi-tasker. Nah!! It's just take up too much room, and I have so little to spare. I mentioned the screens to D and she thought that because the cover was fabric that the cats would claw their way through, but I don't know. Maybe......... Maybe not... But it's something to look into.

Our local Hobby Lobby store has plain screens with artificial rice paper coverings so they feel more sturdy than if they were made with real rice paper. And they stand directly on the floor - no legs - so it should (notice I said "should?") keep the cats from crawling underneath the bottom.

Oh well, I'll come up with something. In the meantime I'll have to bear with the hassle of not having my sewing room. If we owned this house and had enough money to built something, I'd put up a shed in the back yard and make it into my sewing room.  Now that would be cool!! Something to keep in mind for when we move back to Upstate NY!!

Wedding Costumes, Part 1

For those that don't know, one of my bestest friends in the entire known universe is getting married in April.... to my ex-husband.  Okay, most people would be really ticked off at this, but not me.  Not only will I be there with bells on (literally), but I will also be officiating.  And who will be my date, you may ask???  Silly people!  Her ex-husband, of course!  (He's otherwise known as my fiancé.)

The wedding has been postponed more times than.... well... I can't think of an appropriate analogy, but it's been postponed a lot.  At least 5 times, maybe more.  This time, however, it's almost set in concrete in the sense that nothing is ever really set until it happens.  But everything feels right about this date so we're all pretty sure it's happening this time.

Because this wedding will be a costumed affair I am in the process of making the costumes for my fiancé and me.  In looking for a suitable costume for my DF I looked for something that would not be too terribly outrageous and for something that would be comfortable.  I mean if one is going to all the trouble of making a costume for someone else one should make sure the person will be able to have an enjoyable time while they wear the costume.  One doesn't want one's hard work relegated to the back of the closet like some tacky bridesmaids dress. Right?

So this is the costume I found for my DF.  It's this pattern, the Ottoman Turkish Man #405, I found at the Reconstructing History website.  It's a great site with lots of historic patterns you won't find anywhere else.  This pattern has all the clothing elements.  I'll just have to get another one of their patterns for the turban.  As for the shoes, that's another story.  I'll have to search for those.  And sizing may be a problem because DF does not know his shoe size.  Wha???  What's up with that??  Every other man I know knows his shoe size, but not DF.  But then again he doesn't know what size clothing he wears either.  The man's a certified genus when it comes to mathematics and D&D type gaming, but when it comes to practical matters he's not all that swift.  But you gotta love him because he is so lovable.

But I digress.  I had been putting things off long enough; it was time to start working on DF's costume.  Sunday I started tracing the pieces onto pattern paper.  Because the pattern itself has multi-sized pieces as well as some that have several different cutting lines, it was much easier to just copy all the pieces out in the proper size and in the proper shapes so that I could reuse the pattern for someone else of a different in the future.

You can see the multiple markings in these pictures for the Şalvar or pants.  The ones at left are for the waist measurements.  It took me a bit to realize they were for the waist and not overall size.  Şalvar are a loose fitting garment at the waist and thighs then taper down to a fitted ankle.  Traditionally they are held up with a drawstring at the waist, but I'm going to include elastic, too.  I love the comfort of elastic in the waistband, but I still prefer to have that added insurance of the drawstring to make sure my skirts stay up.  And no, the Ottoman Turks did not wear "harem pants," those didn't come around until much later in Turkish history.

The picture on the right shows 3 different cutting lines
for the Şalvar; every day, formal, and ceremonial. It's kind of hard to tell which line is which.  The dashed line farthest to right is the one for everyday wear, the other dashed line to the left is for ceremonial wear, and the solid line in the middle is for formal wear.  DF & I decided that the formal wear would be most appropriate.  I didn't take a picture of the bottom of the leg, but the formal style doesn't bag as much at the ankle.  I'll still have to figure out how to get the bottom to be snug to his ankle, but I have a little time for now. I'm thinking fabric buttons and thin black elastic loops but I'm going to have to mull it over for a while.

The costumes I'm making is a style from the 16th century.  Like I said I copied the patterns to make them easier to use. This is a not very good picture of my pattern piece for the Şalvar pinned onto the fabric.  Since it was all straight lines it wasn't too difficult to trace.  All I had to do was mark the points of each angle, position my straight edge at the marks, hold down the straight edge so it wouldn't move, and draw.

When drawing patterns, I like to use mechanical pencils.  This is because the width of the pencil mark is always the same.  I find using a wooden pencil that needs to be sharpened causes varying widths of line as the pencil is worn down.  Wide lines can add extra fabric to the piece being cut.  A variance of only 1/8th of an inch may not seem like a lot, but add that to seven other fabric edges and you will have added a 1-inch to a garment with only 4 seams.  So when I draw patterns I do so with my straight edge facing the outer edge of the pattern so that pencil line is on the outside of the pattern.  This way I cut along the edge of the pattern when I cut them out and I know I won't have any variances when cutting the fabric.

Speaking of fabric.  I found this gorgeous olive green cotton damask decorating fabric at my local Hancock Fabrics  for only $7 a yard.  It's upholstery fabric so it's heavy enough to wear as pants yet still light weight enough to keep my DF from sweating his fanny off (something I have to keep in mind because he perspires more than my ex ever did).  Yes, the damask pattern is of flowers, and no, DF doesn't care.  He's not to terribly concerned about what the macho guys would consider girly stuff.  And having a flowered damask fabric for pants would have those type of guys running screaming for the nearest sports bar or man cave to get their manly mojo back.  My DF is secure enough in who he is to let me put him in almost anything.  So far I think he's only drawn the line at wool, but I could be wrong.

So now I have the Şalvar cut out.  At the moment they are waiting for a turn at the serger because this fabric ravels like crazy.  You can kind of see some raveling along the bottom edge. 

As you can probably see, this fabric had an obvious direction because of the damask pattern so I could not just fold the fabric in half and cut both legs at the same time.  Nope, I had to cut each individually, though when I cut out the first leg I put it on top of the fabric to be cut and pinned them all together.  This way when I cut out the second leg I could be sure they matched.  There have been times when I did not pin the pieces like I did and ended up with one piece cut wrong.  But that was many years ago.  This is part of the reason I will only do cutting and sewing when I'm fully rested and wide awake.

I just realized that I could have cut the length of fabric needed for one leg, stacked it on the rest of the fabric and then I could have cut them at the same time.  What was that I said about being rested and awake??  I'm tired, about to go to bed, and now I think of that?!?!  Oh, well.

Next is the serger, then I put them together and figure out the hem and waistband.  To put an extra bit of fabric at the waist for the elastic and drawstring or not?  That is the question.  And so the adventure continues.  Alla prossima!!