Monday, February 28, 2011

New project - wool suit

I am being a good girl and only using up my stash. I bought all those pieces of fabric on speculation, so it is only fair that I finally sew something with them. The difficulty is deciding what fabric will go with what pattern.
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First of all, I finished that striped shirt and it looks pretty good. I sewed down the facings with a single line of topstitching. I put it on the dress form for a photo before I realized that I should press the topstitching and buttonholes. You can see a little of the "puckering" caused by the topstitching in this photo but it disappeared after I ironed it.
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I got out a bunch of my "outfit" patterns, to ponder over and speculate what I would make with them. I'm going to a wedding at the end of May, and it would be fun to have a new dress and matching jacket. I have made the two Vogue patterns with the short jackets with the swing backs and I could definitely do them again. I haven't made the plaid outfit (V1132). I got that jacket pattern for the back on it too, having in mind my "Edwardian" (or maybe it is Victorian?) jacket that I was planning a couple of years ago.
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I have these long lengths of fabric in the pale pink with the same stuff in navy, and then there's the bright pink. I laid them out on my ironing board to think about them.
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Then I remembered this pale blue (ice blue) pure wool with a thin white stripe, that I had bought at Darrell's a few years ago. It was actually two remnants. I got some matching lining at the time and planned to make a suit out of it. It is nicer in real life, compared to this photo.
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I had thought I would use this jacket pattern that I have made a few jackets out of in the square bottomed, notched collar views, but only once in the rounded bottom view. The one I made in the rounded bottom view was this one:
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It is also pure wool with embroidery on it. Every time I wear it, I feel great and I get compliments. Of course, it is mostly the fabric and the colour, but I like the fit also. For some reason, even though it is virtually the same pattern as the square bottomed jacket, it works much better than the square jacket, in terms of the hem lying flat and the pockets working. It is very odd how that happens. I wonder if it was a fluke, that the red one works so nicely, but I am willing to gamble on the ice blue wool, and see how it turns out.

5 comments:

Marty said...

Your shirt doesn't look just pretty good, it looks marvelous!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your pictures of new shirt - I love it too. Looking forward to seeing your new projects. I love everything you sew and I am also happy that your health seems to be going well. Janine.

JuliaR said...

Thanks Marty!
And yes Janine, my health is great. I have some stupid hip bursitis that gets aggravated when I walk (which is, like, all the time!) but when Spring comes and I get back on my bike instead of all that walking, I am hoping it goes away. But I do yoga 3 times a week and am very limber despite the pain of the hip. I am determined to do some long distance cycling this summer too.

Emily said...

your stuff looks fab! I'm new to blogspot and I make patchwork blankets, pillowcases, anything really!! I'd love for you to check out my blog

http://cloudypatchwork.blogspot.com/

JuliaR said...

Thanks Emily! Welcome to my blog. Now I should go sew, I suppose!