The navy wool, finally

So while I was musing about expensive fabric, I hauled some plain beige corduroy out of my stash to make a plain long skirt for winter. After I cut out the skirt, I saw I had enough for something else and managed to fit a shrunken jacket with only 3/4 sleeves on it and presto - I have a new jacket!

It is so cute! Even the puckers that come from making flat fells are cute. And it has an already-lived-in look about it, in a good way. I just finished making this pattern in yet another shade of beige/brown but it had full length sleeves and different lapels. Anyway, what was I going to do with the left-over corduroy when this pattern fit on it so nicely? I don't know how much wear I will get out of it in the winter because of the shorter sleeves but I am loving it for spring and fall. As with the beautiful beige wool plaid, the shirt colours that work the best with it seem to be ice cream or sherbet colours. That's why I pulled a peachy turtleneck onto my dummy (for whom I still do not have a name with which I am comfortable) to take the photo.


I have decided to take the bus downtown tomorrow to get the buttons for this jacket.

Darrell's has the most wonderful selection of buttons you don't find elsewhere and since I got the fabric at his place, I am sure I will find something really nice for the jacket. I have put the line of basting back in to the fronts, to cure the curling problem. After I press the front several more times, the problem will be fixed. But since I asked the question last time, and since I put the basting back in, I realize that it has to be the darts on the front that causes the curling. Heather (in comments from the last post) wondered about the interfacing. I only interface the facings, which are half the size of the fronts. Because the front has a vertical dart in it, I don't put interfacing on it. And because the front piece is large (all the way to the underarm seam) I don't interface it. And because iron-on interfacing can tend to bubble, I don't put it on the front where it would show more than on just the lapels (the only part of the facing that shows).


I have made this jacket quite a few times and it has curled every time. I blamed myself each time and vowed to do something different the next time but still it curled. I therefore have concluded it is the pattern and the way the darts work on the front that causes the problem and not me. I can eventually make it work but this latest issue has prompted me to rethink which pattern I am going to use for the navy wool.

Here's a reminder of how beautiful this navy wool is. I got it several years ago from Darrell's. It is "designer wool" and I am pretty sure he said it was Chanel. Nothing to do with the Chanel jacket I eventually want to make out of the raw silk but actually designed by the House of Chanel. Or something like that - correct me if I am wrong please Darrell!

I looked at three different patterns, two of which I still have never made.

McCall's 2923 has got a nice mid-hip length and curved lines but I don't like the collar for this wool.

Butterick 6342 is almost the same but longer and they made it out of a very three dimensional wooly fabric which is encouraging. But because of the collar, I'm not going to use it.

I settled on a tried and true pattern, McCall's 4154. I didn't originally consider this pattern because of the (long) length of the shorter jacket. I thought such classic wool and colour should have a classic length jacket. But now I think I will dare to be a little different. This jacket fits me beautifully so I am just going to go for it. Of course, I am making the thigh length jacket, not the knee length coat! The last time I made this jacket I was having sewing machine issues that were making me crazy and maybe I got gun-shy about the pattern just because of that. Who knows? In any event, I have ironed the wool yet again and am ready to start laying the patterns out.

Plaid wool suit - jacket

Now I have to get buttons. I see in the photo that I didn't press the near sleeve very well but the sleeves, they are hemmed and everything is completed except for buttons. I took the basting out down the fronts and sure enough, the lower edge has curled up to the inside slightly. I am still puzzled by why this happens, especially because I know the facing/lining is not smaller or shorter than the front. I can sort of "fix" it by pulling the jacket up at the shoulders so maybe it is a function of not using shoulder pads? But I don't think so. In spite of this one thing (that happens on all the jackets in this pattern), the jacket fits beautifully and part of that is because of the fabric. It never once gave me a hard time while I sewed with it and now it deserves lovely, special buttons.

Next, I think I will finally cut out the navy designer wool. I have hopes that it will be like making sure the bus comes by lighting a cigarette. If I make the navy suit, I will get a call for a job interview.

The plaid wool suit, continued

So it's still coming along nicely. The front is folded with the "wrong" side over the other - the buttons will go on the left, not the right - because of the angle I was photographing it from. I put a line of basting down each front because the front always curls up and to the inside for no good reason and while it awaits the next steps, the fabric can learn to lie flat the way I want it to. Also, the stance in the picture is higher that it will be (I think) when the buttons are on.

Interesting aside: I just looked up "stance" in the online dictionaries and none of them include this use, which is where the jacket comes to a closure at the top. But I hear them use it all the time on "What Not To Wear".

I also want to comment on the vivid blue and pink showing under the jacket. Although they are "okay", I think I will wear shirts in "ice cream colours" with this jacket. Especially as it reminds me of butterscotch ice cream. Mmm, ice cream.

So here's the way I'm doing the vent on this pattern these days. I want the lining to be as free of the skirt as possible but I don't want it to show at the vent. I fold back the flaps on the lining vent and sew down the one that won't be tucked under the skirt vent.

Then I tuck the one side of the lining under where I am going to sew down the vent on the skirt. I make sure it is loose down the middle back seam, so it won't pull up on the back. Then I pin down the vent.

After I pin the vent into position, I baste it. If you look closely, you can see a line of turquoise thread which is the basting. Then I sew it down from the right side or outside of the skirt.

And here is the skirt, finished. The whole back centre needs pressing again but once it has been steamed and clappered, you won't even notice the vent. I hung it using clothes pins so it would lie flat for the photograph.

More of the plaid but the other suit gets buttons

I managed to make it to the store (I actually walked one way and it only took me 30 minutes from the Loblaws at Baseline and Woodroffe - I took the bus back) and I got button forms to cover for the light brown suit I made some time ago.

Mum, you were right! The covered buttons look great. I wore this outfit to teach that morning. You may notice some shiny seam binding peeking out of the sleeve. For some weird reason, the sleeves weren't very long and in order to get a hem without folding the fabric over twice, I used seam binding. Not thinking about how it might show. But, I don't think it looks that bad.

In the meantime, I sewed on the sleeves to the lining and the jacket in the wool plaid. Here's how I do sleeves - with tons of pins and no basting.

Then I sew a second line of stitching at 4/8 of an inch (the seam is at 5/8) and trim the excess away. This shot shows the lining sleeve attached and the wrong side of the fabric.

When you push the sleeve flat against the body of the jacket, you can see that the stripes line up.

When the jacket is resting on the dummy, it looks like the stripes are a little low and out of alignment but I think this won't show or matter when the jacket is in motion being worn. THEN I stupidly did not pay attention to what I was doing and sewed the jacket lining to the jacket at the collar with the right side against the wrong side! Then I had to pick out all the stitches without ripping any fibre on the fabric, including the tiny stitches I take at corners so they won't fray when I clip them. All I can say is thank goodness I noticed before I did more than the collar or before I trimmed the seam. Then I went and had a drink.

Plaid wool suit - skirt

I decided to work on the skirt next, as it was draped over my ironing board and it seemed a logical thing to do. I also decided to put skirt hangers inside the facing, to give me the option of hanging it that way, as opposed to using clothes pins on the wire hanger. I take a 12 inch length of seam binding and fold it in half lengthwise and sew down the length of it, just to make it thinner and stronger. Then I cut that in half, making two 6 inch pieces.

I take one of those 6 inch pieces and fold it in half to make a 3 inch loop and sew the raw ends (using a zigzag stitch) to the facing that has not yet been tacked down to the skirt.

I position the loop slightly to one side of the seam because when I tack down the facing, I "stitch in the ditch" of the seam from the right side of the skirt and I don't want to catch the loop in that stitching.

By the way, here's what that "darts converted to ease" looks like when it has been understitched and pressed. That is the back of the skirt on the left (the dart is a deeper dart and so the gathers are more pronounced). It's a softer look but since I wear shirt tails out these days, you don't really see it anyway.

Here's the skirt hanging by the loops. Wrinkles tend to form where the skirt does not lie flat (down those folds that are forming diagonally across the front) and so I will probably have to iron it before I wear it. But I am often ironing things anyway, as my closet is crammed and things wrinkle in there despite being hung up carefully.

Plaid wool suit

I often just pin a zipper in and then sew it without basting but with this very nice fabric I decided to baste as well. I even basted both sides down from the top, as opposed to basting down one side and up the other, to keep the sides as even as possible. I pinned the zipper down the stitching line and then basted down the outside edge of the zipper tape, so I wouldn't machine stitch into the basting thread. That just makes it difficult to pick the basting thread out afterwards.

Once the zipper was in, I basted the lining to the skirt (wrong sides together) and started pinning the facings on. I prefer converting darts to ease, depending on the fabric and this skirt was no exception. This was how much fabric I had to ease in to the facing.

I take up tiny bumps of fabric with each pin I put in, in a much longer space than would have been occupied by the dart.

Once I have slowly sewed over all those pins, trimmed the seam and given it a first press, this is what it looks like on the outside. I still have to understitch the facing and then give it a final press.

I decided I would make patch pockets for this jacket. The pattern calls for them as an option and the plaid is "informal" (compared to a pinstripe, say). I like having pockets although I rarely put anything in them because it ruins the line of the jacket. I matched the front edge of the pocket with the plaid because of the dart that goes up the middle of the front piece.

I wrote earlier that I had matched the vertical lines in the plaid at the shoulder - this is it.

This is what it looks like sewn and pressed.

It's looking good so far! All the plaids are matching well.

You can see under the arm that I chose to match the plaids at the top, because they can't be matched at both the top and the bottom of the underarm seam. Hopefully, the sleeves will also line up with the horizontal stripes when I sew them in.

Plaid wool suit

I have been sewing more than blogging so this may be a little long.
Okay, when I left off, I was still cutting. And I hadn't cut out the skirt. Although I am cutting each piece individually to make sure all the lines line up, the front of the skirt is cut on the fold and I decided to cut the back of the skirt in one swoop too. So I had to make sure all the lines lined up.

If you look at where the plaid lines up at the selvage, you'll see that the horizontal lines (unfortunately for reference, they are vertical in the photo) skew off to one side.

I had to make sure the lines in both directions matched so I started at the fold and turned back the upper part of the fabric and put pins in where the lines converged.

Then I folded the fabric onto itself and put pins in so I could take out the pins that were causing bumps from the other side. That's hard to describe! The above photo shows my slow progress toward the selvage in the middle, making sure that the lines all line up. The lump in the fabric is caused by the pins I put in when the fabric was folded back.
Anyway, I was successful in lining up all the lines for the skirt, and you'll see that later when I sew the pieces together.

I knew the lining would be quite transparent due to its colour and so I'm being careful about making sure notches are trimmed off and such. But after all, it IS the inside of the jacket and not too many people will see it. Speaking of finishing, I am zigzagging all the vertical edges on the skirt because, although it will be lined, the lining will not be attached to the hem and I don't want the skirt fabric to fray and hang down later. I have pinked all the edges of the lining pieces so I am not worried about them unravelling.

I worked hard to make sure that the plaid lined up and this is the back two pieces, sewed together.

Here is the back with the side back and I made sure they matched up where the sleeve will be inset and not so much along the bottom.

Here is the same piece from the right side and you can see how the plaid lines up near the armhole.

I was happy when I ironed open one of the seams on one of the sleeves (they are 2 piece sleeves) and saw that the plaid matched.

Then I was disappointed to discover that the other sleeve didn't match as much. I know, it's under the arm anyway but I worked at it and it should have matched!

Plaid wool suit

The New Year. When I went back to my sewing room after making the GOLD top (which was successful and comfortable, if also very very GOLD), I pulled out all kinds of remnants, none of which inspired me to make more of the cap-sleeved top. So I put them all away and ironed the beautiful beige plaid wool I got from Darrell's. It feels wonderful too.

As usual with really nice fabric but mostly because I want to match the plaid lines, I am cutting out each piece individually. Also, with each pattern piece, I line up the straight-of-grain arrows very carefully and then decide where I want the darker plaid lines, both vertically and horizontally.

Once I get one piece cut out and all the dots marked, I unpin it and lay it right side down so all the plaid lines line up exactly before cutting out its mirror image piece. I have examined this fabric minutely and it appears to be identical on the right and wrong sides, so I am being careful to mark each piece to indicate which was the "right" and which was the "wrong" sides.

I started with the large front piece and then I lined up the plaid lines and the notches for the side back piece. I want the plaid lines to match horizontally at the underarm seam, where the front piece is sewed to the side back piece.

This just shows a little closer what the lining up of notches looks like. Don't forget that you can always click on the photo and see it larger at Flickr.

This is the back piece, which I am lining up with the notches on the other side of the side back piece. What I forgot to show was how I also lined up the notches on the top of the shoulder with the back and front pieces, so the plaid lines will match vertically as well as horizontally. You'll see that as I start sewing the pieces together. Right now, I am still cutting and I haven't even got to the skirt!