Provencal fabrics

Here are the fabrics I bought in Arles.

I bought about 2 meters of each except for the small prints on the right - the ones that coordinate with the stripes on the right. I bought 4 meters of those because I had in mind that I might make placements and napkins with them and so I needed two sides to the mats and napkins to match one of the sides. The four fabrics on the right strike me as essentially Provencal, with their patterns and rich colours.

I also bought all of the fabrics except the two on the left at one shop in Arles and they cost 9 Euros per meter. I bought the two on the left at the Saturday market in Arles for 6 and 7 Euros per meter and they seem a little less substantial than the slightly more expensive ones. Also, I bought them first, before I went to the one shop. I am pleased with them but I could have bought more, I am sure. I think I got a little less of the market fabric so I got about 19 meters in all.

To answer Heather's question from the previous comments, I carried them home in our back packs! We are allowed 12 kilos for one carry-on piece of luggage and when I left Canada, mine weighed 7 kilos and Peter's weighed 8. When we came back, they each weighed almost 10 kilos but we were still under the limit. Amazing what you can do when you find a laundromat and do two washes in two weeks. Of course, in most of the photos of me in France I am wearing the same yellow jacket! But you can't have everything. The weather was quite nice, even if it did rain a little here and there and it was warmer than it is at home right now. We went down to 3C last night and are only getting up to about 17C today, but in Provence, it was over 20C every day.

After I spent so much at the fabric store, I saw the woman who cut my fabric put a wrapped thing into the bag as a bonus or treat but I didn't think to look at it until I got home. It is a ceramic "cigale" or cicada, which has become a symbol of Provence. You see them everywhere and they are quite attractive, even if they are insects. The thing is, I can't figure out what function mine may have.

It is hollow and fairly large but it doesn't stand up on its end.

Underneath, there is another small hole as well as the large one where the "mouth" would be and it is unglazed on the "belly". So if anyone knows, let me know!

Other than place mats, I really haven't thought what I might make with all this fabric. Most of the things already made up were household items and not clothing. There were some very cute little girls' dresses made with this fabric but no clothes for grown-ups, except for the cowboy shirts. Apparently, the Gardians of the Camargue wear shirts made from these prints, although I didn't see any actually being worn while I was on a "safari" there. So I am planning to wash and dry it and hang it over the railing along with the red linen I got as a present, and try to think what shall I do with it all.

I'm back!

Great time! Will expound on the subject over at my other blog, some time soon. In the meantime, I learned some more (clothing) lessons on travelling and will write about them somewhere.
Here are some outfits (there may be notes on them over at Flickr, if you want to click on them and go there):

The yellow jacket and brown skirt. Great skirt pattern, very comfortable and only blows up in a very strong wind, like we had that day in Avignon.

The red polyester jacket and print skirt (same pattern as the brown one). The only bit of polyester I took with me (other than convertible MEC pants) but it never wrinkles and looks good.

The yellow jacket with the red print skirt. The skirt has some yellow in it and I thought they went well together. I think I might be adjusting my bra. :)

The same yellow jacket with the other print skirt. It brightened up a rainy day. The reason I am speaking with these nice Parisiennes is because the one nearest me has an 8 week old chocolate Labrador puppy. She was so soft! The dog, I mean.

The brown safari jacket, standing in front of Provencal fabrics. I got a few yards at this market but then I got 16 yards at a store later. Pix of those soon!

Ready to rock 'n roll (almost)

I'll wear this on the plane with pants, I think. Warmer on the legs than a skirt. Now to pack!

Brown outfit done!

Whew!

I have to cut the buttonholes open and sew on the buttons but I have time to do that tomorrow morning. The skirt I finished earlier today. So my brown outfit can go travelling with me! I bought this fabric for the colour and because it was a substantial cotton with a touch of Lycra but with its peached finish, I am surprised how much like faux suede it looks. It's my neutral with all the bright colours I am planning to pack. Of course, once I start packing and see how little space I have, things may change.

Peter came home as I was toiling away and snapped this photo for me. Why is my face always so red? Anyway, I was putting the pocket flaps on. I think it's an optical illusion that the jacket looks so long, but time will tell. The skirt is about half done. I may get this finished yet!

The brown outfit

I'm doing my assembly line kind of sewing, where I pin together as many things as possible and then run them all through at once, so I don't even cut the threads between pieces until they're all sewed. Once I amass a pile of sewed pieces that need ironing before I can attach them to other pieces, then I turn them if they need turning right side out and iron them all at once too. So far I have done the four pockets, their flaps, the collar, the front facings and four tiny darts in the jacket fronts. I could have done the sleeve vents but I forgot. No time for pix! But later, maybe.

Yellow jacket finished!

Well, I guess it's like watching water boil. Nothing happens for the longest time and then suddenly, there it is!

I am happy with how it turned out, collar issues notwithstanding. I had to whip-stitch where the collar joins the body to cover up the "issues" but I can't even see it now. The sleeves are about 1/2 inch too long but so what, it's a casual jacket.

Now I have cut out the brown fabric. I am making the safari jacket with 4 pockets and long sleeves but no belt, and the flippy summer skirt that I have made several times now. I won't have to wear a slip with the skirt as the cotton is quite substantial. I think it's good that it also has a little bit of Lycra in it too. If I can get these made by Monday, I'll take them on the trip!

Yellow jacket

I am not making much progress!

Here, I have put the sleeves on. Now I have also added the cuffs. But when I went to put the collar on, I didn't read the instructions and did it "my way" instead and now I am having issues with the front bands. Argh. More sewing, less talking!

Yellow jacket

I am working away on the yellow jacket but on Friday, I wore the reversible coat I made a while back. I haven't worn it since I made it because it was too tight (it looks like it fit in the original pictures but it really was too tight)! Since I have been working out however, it now fits. Peter snapped this photo on Friday after work. The background is just the small mall near where we live and he chose it because the red complimented the coat.

I wanted to try to get an accurate photo of the colour of the yellow and realized that it is a little lemony and makes my mouth pucker but what the heck - I like bright. These are swatches from the two skirts I will wear with it.

I put this photo in because when I sewed the top of the pockets, I continued sewing a line of stitching all around where I would fold the raw edges in, to make it easier to fold accurately.

Finally, this is about the best colour representation so far. It may be a tad warm. I have the sleeves on and now have to do the cuffs, collar and front bands and the buttons last.

S.W.A.P. for a trip

I'm going on a 2 week trip to France in a warm month (i.e. soon) and all I'm taking is a 35 litre MEC backpack as carry-on (it's under travel packs called "the Shuttle" if the link doesn't work). I'm also allowed a purse type object and will take that too but most everything has to fit in the backpack. All winter long, when I walk everywhere because I don't ride my bike in the snow, I carry a smaller (about 25 litre) MEC book backpack (they don't have them any more I guess - I couldn't find the one I use on the site) so I prefer a backpack, am used to one and think they really work for carrying things. I carry groceries home nearly every day in it and sometimes have crammed as much as 10 kilos in there. Clothes and shoes won't weigh as much as bags of milk so I am not concerned about the weight in the pack on my trip. But now I am starting to consider what I should put in there. Of course, I can always wear five layers of clothing on the plane and kind of cheat a little that way. And I may buy an umbrella there. But we went for a bike trip for two weeks last August and carried everything in two panniers so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to do this.

Of course, all this planning is making me think about coordinating clothes and how, while I certainly do have some (okay, lots), I would like to have some more that coordinate well.

I have been buying some new patterns lately and have been looking for "the perfect jacket". I still have not found that one yet but I have been wanting to make different variations on my standard jean jacket pattern that I love but admit that it is a little boxy. I found these two, unlined jacket patterns and got them with no particular fabric in mind. The Butterick 4741 is more of a jean-type jacket, with the pockets and bands and such. I am planning to make view D (the red one on the envelope) for the trip. The Vogue 8208 is sort of a safari jacket and I think I will make it in the long sleeves but I am not sure I need the belt.

I have been thinking about what main colour I should have on the trip and since I like bright colours and have bright colours, I am thinking I will go with a red/yellow combination. Red will include pink and orange too so it's all warm colours. Here are some existing skirts and jackets. I have a red and an orange jacket and three printed skirts in those tones. And I have a yellow and pink shirt. I put the beige corduroy outfit I made recently on the bed as a neutral.

Then I put away the print skirts and placed three solid colour skirts I have had for years with the same jackets and shirts. I think I like a few prints in with the mix - all those solids are too much.

My idea when I went shopping today was to get two pieces of complimentary twill - one in a print and one in a solid, in warm colours. Unfortunately, I couldn't find such things and so I ended up buying two solids. That yellow is warmer - not so green as in the photo, and the brown is a warm fawn colour. I plan on making the Butterick jean-type jacket in the yellow twill. It is too sheer (yellow is like that) to make a skirt unless I line it so I just got enough for a jacket. The brown twill has 3% Spandex and is thicker with a nice peached finish and I plan to make the safari jacket and an unlined skirt out of it.

So now I am really SWAP - Sewing With A Purpose. Head down and nose to the feed dogs and go. I am rehearsing the phrase: "Je l'ai cousu."

Silk suit finished!

It only took me another 5 days! Please pardon the model in the pix - they were taken at 6:30 am with no make-up. Zzz.

First: the buttonholes.
I realized, especially after thinking about what Lorna wrote about taking a lesson for bound buttonholes, that I was not making "real" bound buttonholes. I made real ones on my faux fur winter coat. You make the tiny welts and turn the welt fabric to the inside of the jacket front, which is inside where the interfacing is, between the front and the facing. Then you finish the buttonhole on the facing in a similar way and bind them together. I sewed the "welts" to my silk jacket, sewing through all layers at once and turning the welts to the inside but where they showed on the facing. The above photo shows one finished buttonhole at the top, from the outside. The second buttonhole has the welt fabric zigzaged to it from the outside. There is a line of basting in dark green thread running down the middle of the welt area. That's where I cut the buttonhole open.

I know I showed this before but here is the buttonhole from the inside - the facing side. I have tucked under the raw edge on the short sides of the "welt" and pinned them down.

Here, I have sewed the fold on the short ends down to the jacket facing. On your right side, I left the needle in to show the scale and the stitches. The stitches are very small but not invisible. But the silk fabric is very forgiving and doesn't show all sorts of insults. Then I had to tuck under the raw edges on the long sides of the "welt" and sew them down too. You can click on these pix and make them larger at Flickr for detail.

Here it is on Rose last night. I am having an "issue" at the moment with the top button area not wanting to lie flat. I am not sure I will want to button it all the way up to the neck but I should press that and maybe it will work better.

I decided to model it with a yellow t-shirt because, a) I haven't decided what shirt to wear as it is only -2C out there right now and b) the yellow suited the pink because if it's warm background - it is not a blue-pink.

Here it is all buttoned up with the top button "issue".

And here she is with the top button undone. Whew. I guess I should make the satin blouse next but I haven't decided.

One finished buttonhole

I know what's holding me back - fear of doing the wrong thing. Because I haven't done this before, I'm not sure where I'm going. But I do know that once I've made a buttonhole, it's there forever.

Here I am, laying out the jacket and thinking it should have only four buttons down the front and not the five I have put on previous jackets. The buttons are larger and the buttonholes will be more prominent so it may be too much to put all five buttons on. And no, I'm not doing this because I made one of them too dark - I can easily go get some more button forms to remedy that.

So I made the first buttonhole at the neck. And it looks good on the outside! But if I don't always button the jacket up to the neck, you are mostly going to see the inside of it...

... which looks huge, at least to me. I am thinking about running a bit of zigzag machine stitching around the buttonhole from the inside, knowing it will hardly show on the outside because of the type of fabric this is. The machine stitching will make the buttonhole sturdier and may cover up some of that floral fabric. Other than this issue, I have tried on the jacket and it fits nicely and feels even better, so I am pleased with it and I suppose I shouldn't worry about 4 buttonholes or 5.

The sample buttonholes

I don't know where the time goes. But I went to the store on Thursday and got button forms to make the covered buttons. I had one at home and got a package of 4, as I needed 5. Then I went and covered them and...

I made one button dark red to see what it would look like, thinking I could take it apart once I made it. Wrong! You can't get these things apart without wrecking them!

So, I either need to go get some more forms, or I could use the dark button at the very top at the neck. I probably wouldn't button the jacket all the way up to the neck much, and if I did, it would be okay if the button at the top was different from the other four. But you really can't put the dark button in the middle. That's my rationale and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, I can just get another set of forms the next time I am at the store.

I took a scrap of fabric and ironed interfacing to the wrong side of it and then folded it over to make two layers. That's what the front of the jacket is like, with the front and the facing. Then I took a piece of the floral fabric and sewed it to the right side of the jacket scrap, trying to stay in a straight line with the weave of the fabric. That's hard to do on both sides. I used a zigzag stitch and went around where the buttonhole will be. Then I sliced open the buttonhole and put a button halfway through for a visual.

I turned the scrap over and pulled the floral fabric through the buttonhole to the other side - what will be the inside of the facing on the jacket. I played around with tucking under the tiny folds of floral fabric in preparation for hand stitching them to the facing. That's going to be a fiddly job! I think when I'm done hand sewing, I will reinforce it with machine sewing. I am lucky and can do that with this fabric because it is loosely woven and stitching just doesn't show on it.

Here's what it will sort of look like from the right side or outside of the jacket. I haven't sewed the facing side. The buttonhole looks like a tiny welt pocket. Now to actually DO it.

Raw silk suit almost finished

Almost there! This is the point where I start thinking about the next project and if I didn't have my Rule, I'd end up with UFOs all over the place.

Here, I've pinned the jacket shut to simulate buttons. Everything is done except for the sleeve hems. Peter thought I might want to put seam binding along the bottoms of the sleeves and I plan to pin some there to see what it looks like. He may be right. You might notice that I have put a row of pins down the fronts, to hold the fabric up and keep it from buckling at the bottom edge. I may take a few loose stitches in the shoulders to prevent this from happening in the finished jacket.

The skirt is complete. I decided to cut a few pieces of bias from the satin and finish the skirt hem in it. I sewed the satin on by machine to the raw edge of the hem and then I folded the other raw edge under and hand sewed the hem to the skirt. And no one will ever see this.

Back to finishing the inside of the hem on the jacket. Before I could sew down the lining to the hem, I wanted to finish that tiny bit of raw fabric at the bottom edge of the facing. The Threads magazine suggests putting a bit of bias tape on it and in this photo, I have pinned the tape to the edge. I sewed it to the edge by machine before folding it over to encase the raw edge of the facing. By machine sewing, I also was able to catch the end of the piping cord in the stitching, thus anchoring it even more than I had already.

Then I folded the tape around the edge of the facing and tucked the end under and sewed it down by hand. You might want to make this photo larger to see the detail. For someone who is picky about finishing the insides of her garments, even this may be a bit much for me for future jackets. The piping is nice but I wonder if it's worth it, especially with the fuss at the bottom because f the fold in the lining for ease. If I do this again, I may have to eliminate that fold. But I like the bit of bias over the raw edge.

Here is the jacket on Rose, inside-out. The lining hem is pinned up to the jacket hem. I suppose it looks a little more relaxed, now that I've sewed it but I'm not convinced the piping is worth the trouble.

I think the jacket does need more of the piping fabric as an accent on the exterior. That's why I'm going to test it around the bottom edge of the sleeves when I hem them, and that's why I'm going to use it on the buttonholes. I can't use my automatic buttonholer anyway, because of the thick piping at the front edge of the jacket. So I'm going to do some machine zigzaging to make the fabric sturdy and then do a bound buttonhole with the floral fabric. And then I am going to make fairly large covered buttons using the floral fabric to cover them! I can't imagine this jacket with any other buttons - plastic, pink, gold or whatever. I think they have to be covered in the floral. So that's next, after I make the trek to Fabricland for the button forms.

Piping between the facing and the lining

Happy Easter all. It is nothing like Spring out there right now, at -11C or 13F. Brr! The sun is nice and bright, so at least there's that.

To put piping between the facing and the lining, I am using instructions from the March 2006 Number 123 issue of Threads Magazine (pages 77-80). You can go to www.threadsmagazine.com and look for specific issues but instead of giving you the article, they ask you to buy that issue. As it turns out, it's not too complicated but I had to make modifications and there was some confusion until I actually was turning the fabric in my hands. But I wouldn't have had the idea to do this if it weren't for Threads Magazine.

I'm putting these photos here so you can get the idea about how the magazine did the tutorial but you can't read what is written there so I don't think I'm violating copyright.

Here's what the jacket looks like at the moment. All the pieces are now together and I have even put the pockets on. I haven't quite finished the internal piping at the bottom but that's because I haven't sewed the hem which has to be done first.

Back to the beginning. First I had to attach the piping to the raw edge of the facing. That was pretty straightforward and I left a fair bit (about 2 inches from near the top of the jacket hem) at the bottom in case I needed it. I am also using a thinner cord for the piping. It is about a third of the thickness of the exterior piping cord.

The article suggests leaving the facing free at the bottom by a couple of inches and I have done that. And don't forget that you are only going to sew the piping to the lining and so you will keep the hems free.

Once I had the piping sewn on to the facing, I draped the jacket over Rose and draped the lining over it too. The lining in the photo just confuses things, sorry. But what I find interesting was how different the piping is, depending on what diagonal I cut it on. In the photo, the right side is dark pink and the left side is totally pale. There is a bit of this unevenness of colour around the collar - one side is slightly darker than the other - but I am glad that this amount of contrast is now on the inside of the jacket. I think I planned it that way. :)

Once the piping was on, I pinned and then sewed the lining to the facing. I had already assembled the lining with the sleeves and everything so it was just a matter of sewing it to the facing which was pretty straightforward.

I didn't sew the lining all the way to the bottom of the hem. In a regular lining, you are supposed to leave the bottom 6 inches free and sew it down later by hand. This is where the modifications and some confusion came in. In the Threads model, there does not appear to be that extra fold of fabric in the lining at the bottom. Because I had not modified my pattern, I still had the fold of fabric (for ease) that most lined jackets have and now I had to figure out what to do with it.

I fiddled around with keeping the fold free and sewing down to where I would be hand stitching the lining to the jacket but then I caught the very bottom of the lining in the machine stitching and realized that it wouldn't work that way and had to rip it out.

I left the lining sewed down to very near where the lining hem will be, but not to the very bottom. Then, I bent the piping off to the side, along the line of where I will be hand sewing and machine stitched it into place. I like the sturdiness of machine stitching, especially on loosely woven fabrics, and I wanted to also make sure the piping cord was well anchored by stitching.

Here, I've pinned the lining to where I will be sewing it and you can see how the fold will work now (at least, I can). This is where I realized that I cannot finish it yet until I have sewing the jacket hem, which has to be done by hand.

So the bottom edge of the piping is on hold while I finish the jacket hem. And then I will also show what the Threads magazine suggested for the tiny raw edge of the hem. Assuming it all falls into place!