I'm back!

I seem to have taken the entire summer off and more. Good for me! You can check out a bit of a holiday we had in New York State, if you are interested, at my Flickr site here. I taught at Algonquin College all summer too, but they didn't ask me back for the Fall semester. Then, I got the brainstorm that everything in my life had been leading me to study philosophy, so I signed up for two undergrad courses in philosophy at Carleton University! I've been biking over to the campus every day, Monday through Thursday, 8 kms each way, and reading and reading and reading. I love it. Anyway, my "Rule" prevented me from starting a new sewing project, so I had to finish that raw silk jacket I last blogged about in May. So I did. Where I left off was with a problem of a sagging hem. Because of the method of construction suggested in the pattern, I didn't sew the hem up first and just attached the lining hem to the jacket fabric hem and this was the result. I had to go in and sew up the hem - attach it to the body of the jacket. Thankfully, this fabric is so loose and coarsely woven that I was able to stitch it up and have the stitches blend in with the fabric. Then I saw that the raw edge of the front facing was going to unravel even if I sewed it down, so I decided to attach a wee bit of bias made from lining fabric. I folded the bias around the raw edge and folded under the ends and sewed the whole thing down. I'm aware that only I will see this or even know about it but it makes me satisfied to know that it has been done right. I also pick stitched all around the neck edge, to keep the lining from rolling out and give a nice, flat finish. Here it is! Very plain in terms of construction, because the fabric is so busy, especially with that gold thread. Because the fabric is so loosely woven, I had to think more than twice about how I would do the buttonholes. I ended up using a broad zigzag machine stitch all around where the hole was going to be, to secure all the loose weave and reinforce the fabric. Both the jacket and the facing fabric have iron-on interfacing backing them all along the front. Then, I cut open a buttonhole and stitched all around the edges with a small blanket stitch. If you click on this photo and go to Flickr and make it as big as possible, you can see that detail. I got some cheap but interesting buttons. I did my usual comparison method of choosing - you pick one button, then choose another and toss the one you like least. Keep doing that until you settle on one. The buttonholes are large enough that I could go get some different buttons and substitute them. Next, I have a simple vest that I am tossing together, made from a remnant bit of orange wool. I have come to terms with the fact that I really like to wear vests and I am not going to worry about what others may think. Vests are a small bit of extra warmth and they can dress up a casual outfit. The more I have, the better!