Red wool coat

How did it get to be the last day of September?

One thing I don't often mention is the prep work for starting a project. I have never used this pattern before so I like to read the instructions first. Then I have to cut apart all the pattern pieces and see which ones I need to use. I double-check them with the list shown above.

The only garment in this pattern is the coat (some have all sorts of things like pants and skirts and things) but there are some variations. I'll be using all the big pattern pieces but maybe not all of the small ones. Once I have the pieces separated, I iron them flat.

I am going to make the long sleeves with 6 buttons on the front (view C) but I want to make the slash/welt pockets (views A and B), not the patch pockets. I also like the detail of the band around the sleeve but it is only on the short sleeve and the 3/4 sleeve.

When you look at the instructions for the sleeve band, you see it is only decorative and not functional. Interestingly, it is made from three pieces of fabric so that the seaming becomes part of the decorative design. I have been debating with myself if I want to use the print lining I got for the backing of the sleeve bands and I haven't finished that debate yet. I lean toward NOT doing it, just because I am not familiar with this pattern and there may be a good reason not to use lining fabric to back the band.

I have got enough fabric that I could make them both ways and see which looked better. You can see that the band gets sewn to the sleeve and the button is just for show. But I like the way it looks on the photo and in the drawings so I think I will make bands and then decide as I go along, whether I will attach them to the sleeve. They get sewn into a seam but I could still pick them out later if I don't like them.

Here I have laid out all the pieces and pinned them, except for the bands. I am going to use Mum's old electric scissors to cut this coat out. I keep forgetting I have electric scissors and while I may not use them for delicate stuff, they should be perfect for this sort of wool.

Finishing things up and a new jacket

I am making progress! I have made a pot of blueberry tea to have while I blog. Then I have to study some for this test I am taking on Monday. It may lead to a job as an adjudicator at a tribunal so keep your fingers crossed. Then I will finally have somewhere other than school whence I can wear all my fancy duds! (Hmm, that doesn't look right but my understanding is that "whence" means "to where" so it should be correct.) I'll alternate between studying and sewing to keep fresh at both.

First I took a photo of the two tops I finished. I haven't worn them yet but I have worn the cream silk one I made three times now! It works beautifully under a suit jacket and I can get warm at the front of the class without dying from dehydration.

I finally sewed a buttonhole on that checked jacket and finished it with the large, slightly sparkly gold button that won the contest. There is a sparkly gold thread that runs through the brown stripes in the check and I think the button goes well with the whole thing. Not having worn this yet, I will reserve judgment on the total effect.

I finished the wool skirt. As usual, I converted darts to ease - those are the wrinkles you see pinned into the skirt as it is attached to the facing. I also basted the lining to the skirt around the top before sewing it all to the facing. That's that line of stitching you see showing on the lining.

Because this is such nice fabric and I want the skirt to look polished, I sewed seam binding to the raw edge of the hem and hand sewed the hem up. The lining hem has not been sewed yet - that's the raw pinked edge you see.

Because the skirt is surprisingly heavy, I sewed hangar tabs to the facing. It makes the skirt hang like this and I have to iron it the morning I want to wear it, to get those drape marks out.

But if I hang it with clothespins like this, it falls off the hangar after a while.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about my old LL Bean barn jacket. I have had this great coat for over 15 years now and I used to wash it whenever the dog put her muddy paws on it so it got washed often. Now it has frayed around the pockets (which are lined at the edge with dark green corduroy),

and it has frayed on the sleeves where I used to turn up the cuffs, which are also lined at the bottom edge with the corduroy. I still think I can get some wear out of it so I am wondering if I should get some gimp or other braid and sew it over the broken bits?

That said, my next project is a new, cool weather jacket. I thought this pattern was so cute, but of course, I cannot imagine making a jacket that you wear outside in anything other than full length sleeves! Maybe someone meant for this jacket to be worn walking around the mall but if I was inside, it would be too hot and when I am outside, I want proper sleeves. So I am going to make it in the full sleeve but with the slash pocket of the other views (A and B). I have not decided on the buttons but I think I will be going for 6 of them, not 4, for better control in the wind. It is certainly not a jacket I would wear when it's minus 10C but I think with the right layers and accessories, I could wear it to minus 5C. I'll let you know later.

When you wear some kind of outer garment 9 months of the year, you want a selection and you want one of them to be red. I have some "boiled wool" in a nice bright red here, although I think it is mixed with some nylon. For a change, I didn't pre-wash it and so once a year, I will have to dry clean this. I think I was afraid the fabric would shrivel into weirdness so I decided to go for dry cleaning later. I also got some "fashion polyester" for the lining. Instead of getting "regular" lining, I saw this fun polka dot stuff on sale and thought it would be cute whenever I took the jacket off. I have not made this pattern before so I suppose I am risking a bit here but it is a coat and so it won't be fitted too closely and I think I can get away with not making a muslin - which I never make anyway. If it doesn't work for me, some lucky Sally Ann client will get a unique jacket!

Silk tops and wool skirt

Ten days since my last post. Hmm. I've been busy! But I haven't even finished those tops. So back to where I left off...

That silk I bought on sale was so narrow (how narrow was it?) that I had to cheat to get the tops cut out. I had only bought a metre of each colour, thinking that was enough. As you can see in this layout photo, there was no way I could get both the front and the back cut out on a fold. I thought I could fold each selvage into the middle and do it that way but it was just too narrow.

Even though I put the back seam right on the selvages, the sides overlapped by a few millimetres and I had to make them with a 3/8 seam allowance. Talk about cutting it close.

Here is the blue top, inside out, with the back up. You can see I didn't need to finish the centre back seam because the selvages are already finished. I zigzagged the other seams and trimmed them, although they are not trimmed yet in this photo.

Here I am, ironing the neck facing on the ham. It really is easier on something like a neckline or shoulder, to use the ham, instead of trying to iron it on a flat board. In this photo, I have already understitched the facing and all I need to do now, is iron it folded under.

Here's the ham from another angle. After this, I stitched the facing down to the shoulder seam by machine stitching in the ditch of the shoulder seam from the outside of the garment.

That was the end of the machine sewing. From here, to finish the tops, I have to hand stitch the hems. They are pinned up and ready to go. I generally save my hand sewing for sitting in front of the tv. These tops look awfully shiny and that pink one is very pink, but when I wear them, it will only be under jackets so all you will see is a little bit of the top at the neck.

Because I only have hand sewing left, I am not breaking My Rule by starting a new project upstairs in my sewing room! This is the beautiful wool I got at Darrell's sale. He only had the oatmeal colour left at the sale and I kicked myself when I discovered he had had two other colours - blue and green - as they would have made perfect, all-purpose serviceable skirts. Oh well.

I am making my tried and true, no-waistband, knee-length skirt with a small vent in the back. It will go with everything this Winter!

Votes are in!

I got 16 votes, including one on Flickr. I thank you all for spending the time to look at these things! My husband says that the pictures don't really show how the buttons look but they are the best I can do. If I count his vote, I have 17 in total.

I got 5 for the small gold spiral. I got 3 for the brown plastic one. And I got 8 for the large gold one. I was leaning toward the large gold one all along, and in fact, when I was thinking buttons, before I even pulled them out of my stash, I thought of it as an option. I was concerned that it would be too sparkly and when I looked at the three finalists over and over, I started leaning toward the smaller gold spiral. It blends right into the jacket fabric, which is both good and bad, depending on the look you want to achieve. I also had a vote for doing the snap and no buttonhole thing but it is a little fiddly to be doing and undoing snaps and I am not a fan of fiddly. Form should follow function!

I am therefore going to make a large buttonhole, the size of the big gold one and sew on the big gold button. Then, if I have doubts or get weird looks, I can hand stitch the end of the buttonhole closed and take off the large button and go for a smaller one. How's that?

In the meantime, I have started back to work and am scrambling to finish the little silk tops for under jackets. I wore the embroidered linen to my first classes yesterday and felt very cute. :) But no one commented on it. :( I wore the cream silk top too. It was a hot day and although the college is sort of air conditioned, because I was not told my first class was in a different room, I had to sprint around the campus and was sweating freely by the time I found my proper classroom. I was glad I had on light and natural fabrics! Tomorrow is also supposed to be hot so I am thinking I will wear one of the new silk tops under a light cotton jacket with the shorter, "extra" navy linen skirt (that I got out of the left-over linen). We'll see.