UFO Watch 2008: Burping Up Slugs

So, you know that scene in the first Harry Potter movie where Ron is burping up slugs and Hagrid tells him, "Better out that in"? And Ron says, "It's horrible" with the most pitiful expression? Finishing this dress was like burping up slugs: totally grim and unpleasant, and yet I felt helpless to just stop and chuck it in the trash. I felt like there was a virtue to perseverance. I think the end result is totally wearable (though by no means perfect). By the time Spring rolls around, I'm hoping this dress doesn't make me think of slugs at all.


Item: Butterick 3078 wrap dress

Stage: This had once been sewn, with the result that it looked like the "before" picture above. Obviously, that was never ever going to be wearable in a million years. For last January's UFO contest I took it apart. It stayed that way for a year, and when I picked it back up it was in pieces.



Reason Abandoned: This is possibly the worst pattern ever drafted. It was ugly in the first place (see pattern photo at right), what with that hideous bagging at the waist. But the pattern exceeded (deceeded?) even the terrible drawing. It was like they gave a blindfolded child a crayon and used the resulting crude outline of a wrap dress as the pattern. When it came out of the box looking like the before picture above, I knew it was going to need so much work to be wearable that I totally lost interest.

Time as a UFO: Three years. Two years sewn, one year in pieces, all three kicking around on my craft room floor. I gotta give props--that is some durable polyester right there. It was unwrinkled and unharmed by three years of walking on it.

Time to complete: Around 6 hours.

Work done to complete:

-Shortened the front shoulder by about an inch at the shoulder and two inches at the neck. This created fitting wrinkles radiating diagonally from the shoulder and downward toward the bust. I don't care.

-Sewed the seams with a 3/8" seam allowance.

-Put it on Violet, my dressform, and cut it apart at the waist. I just eyeballed it.

-Took two inches off the bottom of the bodice front at the waist. This makes a total of four inches of length removed from the wrap. It does not gape.

-Bound the raw edges of the bodice and the right half of the skirt (the half that shows). I cut the blue crepe into strips four inches wide, folded in half, sewed right sides and raw edges together, then turned to the inside and hand-sewed in place.

-For the tie, cut the blue crepe 10 inches wide and two 45" lengths, sewed together (I would later unpick the center seam so the left side/underlayer of the skirt's tie could come out through it at CB), made a tube, turned.

-Sewed the bodice to the tie/tube.

-Made a skirt extension for the underlap, sewed to skirt, sewed skirt to tie/tube.

-Set in sleeves. This was originally supposed to have long sleeves to be an early spring dress, but it didn't look good. I kept shortening the sleeves until they were OK. I still didn't like them because the fit of the sleeve was too close to look good--not uncomfortably tight, just unattractive--and they needed *something* to deal with that. I bound the hems and that added the needed something.

-Hemmed.

If you're interested, you can read more about this project in the PR review or browse through the photo album.

Green Coat: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

I already exhaustively catalogued the emotional issues surrounding the green coat, now it's time for the nitty gritty.

The Good

This jacket has really exceptional design. Now, I'm not talking about the style here, although that is fun and a little different than anything else on the market. I'm talking about the actual pattern draft. Sewing it is a treasure hunt, searching for the next really cool bit of design. I was truly humbled by the skill and ingenuity of the drafter, and I felt like it was really a sewist's pattern--the result is great, but it's the almost invisible features that keep you interested.

This was exemplified most by the sleeves and the collar area.

The three piece sleeve is just ingenious. It is the hybrid love child of a raglan and a set-in. The movement ease comes from the design--there was no easing involved, which was a big part of why I chose it. Easing heavy fabric is painful, and even with three pressing hams to choose from I knew I wasn't going to get a good eased sleeve cap.

It's sewn in using an alternate in-the-flat construction (I have recently been converted to inserting sleeves in the flat). You sew the middle sleeve to the back sleeve, then sew the front and back sleeve units to the garment, and last sew the shoulder and front/middle sleeve seam as one. Very clever and very much easier to construct in heavy wool than a traditional sleeve.

The collar area also has a lot of moving parts that add up to a really interesting design.


This was a little confounding at first. I couldn't get the pieces to fit together. The back facing was the problem. I hate facings and haven't used one in so long that I had to call Cidell and make sure that the narrow part of the facing goes around the neck. She said yes. But it wasn't working. I turned the facing upside down and everything went together. There was no indication in the instructions or on the pattern (such as through the use of seam numbers) that this was correct, but Melissa at Fehr Trade reached the same conclusion in a different BWOF jacket so at least I am in rareified company!

I was nervous about doing both parts of the collarstand in the heavy wool--it was a thick fabric for such small pieces--but in the end decided using lining for one of them wouldn't look right. It turned out not to be as difficult to wrangle the fabric as I feared, and when it was done I saw the cool disappearing collarstand effect that gives a nice collar roll in back (after I hand sewed in the ditch between the collars as shown at right) while maintaining the tidy little 60s collar look in front.


The Bad

Other than not understanding some of the instructions, I only had one beef with this pattern. There was some sort of issue with the sleeve draft. You know how when a knit shirt gets stretched out by a hanger and has a weird bubble on your upper arm a couple inches below the shoulder? It looked exactly like that about three inches down from the shoulder at the front/middle sleeve seam. I kept flattening the curve more and more; in the end I think I flattened it about half an inch and I think I still see a bit of a phantom pooch.


The Ugly

The ugly is all me. I couldn't get the back point straight and centered.


I ripped it out a couple of times but that was the closest I came. I ended sewing one leg of the point by machine and the other by hand because I couldn't even get the machine to go in there. Check out how many layers I was working through there! I clipped the point of the upper back all the way to the stitch line, but it still didn't give me enough room to get it right. I am sure a more skilled and patient sewist could have done it, so I'll call it what's slapdash about this project.


Making it Mine

I had to add some little touches to make this coat mine. And what's more me than pink? Rather than the depressing lining I originally chose, I ended up with a bright pink paisley poly print from Joann.


I used it for my pocket welts, and wanted to bring it into the rest of the coat somehow. I found a place for it on the back belt, cutting it about 1/2 inch wider than the coating so it would roll out over the seam allowances. Then I got the idea to add a sleeve belt, as I wanted to do something fun with the sleeves and I like sleeve belts on RTW coats. But I was in sort of a quandary. I knew I was going to use my Pacific Trimmings closures instead of buttons, so I didn't want to introduce buttons on the sleeve belts. But how to make sleeve belts without buttons? By sewing the ends into seams. I debated which seams to use for the sleeve belts and finally decided only to do little ones over the middle sleeve. It's an unusual look but I think it works. I also brought the lining fabric near the face by cutting the undercollar of it.


If you just can't get enough of my endless prattling about this coat, you can check out the review. If you just like pretty pictures, you can visit the photo album.

Too Good to Use

So to my mind there are two types of Too Good to Use fabric:

1) My poor skill level is not capable of executing a project worthy of the fabric.

Which is silly, of course. It's an inanimate object, and the money I earned at my real job was certainly worthy of buying it. But I'm not going to pretend there aren't any Too Good to Use fabrics of this nature in my stash.

2) The platonic ideal perfect project for this fabric has not been located in any fashion style thus far conceived by (wo)man.

This one is probably worse for me than #1. I've gotten better about cutting into good fabrics by repeating to myself until I don't quite believe it but can at least repeat it that the fabric is more expensive to me sitting in stash than it is in even a less-than-exquisite-and-haute-couture garment.

The second one is more tricky. You can't accuse yourself of low self-esteem with that one, thus bullying your low-self-esteem-and-easily-bullied self into using it. You're not opposed on principle to using the fabric. It's just a matter of finding the right project.

Thus it was with this green wool and cashmere coating I purchased from FFC in July of 2006. It wasn't quite the right fabric for me in the first place. I was rather new to the world of online fabric shopping (oh to be young and innocent again), and when I saw wool/cashmere coating for $12/yd I felt that I should buy it right away before they noticed they were selling wool/cashmere coating for $12/yd. I was legitimately in need of a new winter coat, my old one being a camel colored wool/poly blend that was on its last legs, filthy with shredded lining that surely could not last me another winter.

It arrived. It was a lovely fabric, just not *quite* my color. To match the color, I chose a lining I was so not excited about because I thought it would "match better" and "be more proper." The colors are close to my colors, but just dark enough that I find them somber and depressing. (All is not lost, Cidell saw this poly crepe in my stash and loved it, so it will go to a good home.)

I had just discovered the fitting joys of princess seams. Though I had been sewing for most of my life at that point, discovering Pattern Review profoundly affected my skills in all areas; I finally realized that I was going to have to do something about patterns not fitting rather than trying them over and over out of the envelope and being disappointed every time, so I wanted a coat with princess seams. I got Butterick 4665 and dreamed.

That winter I wore the filthy, disgusting, worn-out camel-colored poly blend coat.

The next winter (the winter we're currently experiencing) I wore the filthy, disgusting, worn-out camel-colored poly blend coat until December when I was finally grossed out enough to muslin Butterick 4665 in a wearable cordouroy with fleece lining. In the interim, I had of course sewn dozens and dozens of items of clothing I have to literally shove onto the rack of my closet, while one of the very few items of clothing of which I was in actual need remained in the flat-fold stage. The cordouroy jacket was surprisingly warm, and took me all the way down to freezing point, at which point it kind of peters out.

While I liked Butterick 4665, the sleeve cap ease is disastrous. I had a hard enough time easing cordouroy; I knew that even with my now *three* pressing hams I'd never get a good sleeve head in the wool. Also, it was a little boring.

At PR Weekend I fell in love with Vogue 8307, and even went so far as to get it for my free Vogue pattern. But then I thought that it really needed to be in a dark color and wouldn't work in my light green.

Ugh. So, at this point I had been talking myself out of making a much-needed coat for a year and a half and finally over the weekend I decided the end of the Wool Contest was the kick in the butt I needed to just MAKE the thing. Any coat would be better than none!

I looked through my designer inspiration folder and found this Giambatista Valli babydoll coat and decided to just go with that as my starting point. I could easily cut a yoke into one of the patterns I already had, but then would find myself with the same gathering/easing problem I had feared with the sleevehead. Also, this above-bust babydoll style works great in a cropped jacket, but the proportions wouldn't work in a hip-length coat.




Keeping the style in mind, I tried to figure out how to translate it to a longer coat based on the patterns I had in my home. I went through all my Burdas (I love having a BWOF collection!) and found #115 in the 8/2007 issue. I have plans to make this as a cropped jacket for a kind of silly 60s outfit but it wasn't until I saw it with new eyes that I saw its possibility for a coat.

A decision had been made. I would be paralyzed no more. While the pattern doesn't translate perfectly as a long coat in a heavy wool the point is...it's done.


That Too Good to Use Fabric? It's not so high and mighty anymore. Now it's just keeping me warm.

UFO Watch 2008: Cowl/Funnel Neck Tank

Item: Simplicity 3830 cowl/funnel neck tank

Stage: Technically the side seams were sewn, but not securely (see difficulties with sewing). So basically everything.

Reason Abandoned: This was probably my most legitimately abandoned project. This poly knit is damn near impossible to sew. I couldn't get my machine to leave a stitch in it to save my life, no matter what kind of needle I used. It was too hard to pierce the fabric with a hand-needle to complete it manually. I finally gave up in disgust.

Time as a UFO: Approaching three years. I know I started it before I joined Pattern Review, which was May of 2006. After joining PR I attempted a project in a similar horrible knit and again couldn't get my machine to lay down a stitch. Some helpful sewists recommended a stretch needle (I was using a ballpoint, which wasn't working) and it was like magic! Once I actually acquired stretch needles I have no excuse for not picking this back up.

Time to complete: About 30 minutes.

Work done to complete: Resewed the side seams; sewed the shoulders; attached the collar; hemmed the bottom, armscyes, and neck edge; hand-tacked the collar down at CF, CB, and shoulders.

Welterweight

My sewing resolution list changes very little from year to year, and one of its perpetual chestnuts is:

-learn welt pockets.

I can now officially cross that off the list.

-learn welt pockets.

Over the years I have read many, many tutorials, instructions, musings, directions, philosophizings, and all manner of writings on welt pockets but I could never make heads or tails of it. One of my big problems in sewing is that I do *not* have a 3D mind. I am a verbal person; I think in script, not pictures. Trying to mentally put together a three dimensional object makes my head explode. When I'm trying to figure out a construction problem I have to cut out little paper shapes to make sense of things.

But somehow, someway, all that reading and thinking about welts finally sunk in and a few weeks ago I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep and thinking about sewing (of course) and suddenly it seemed that they made sense. It seemed so simple and obvious, in fact. You sew the welt to the fashion fabric right sides together, clip, and then turn the welt through your clip and it's done. I was excited but cautious--could it really be so easy?

I didn't have any reason to try it out until this weekend when I finally made the coat I've been needing for a while. I could either put pockets in the side seams, or I could try my hand at welt pockets. If you, too, are struggling with the welt, hopefully this will be a cumulative entry in your quest to *get* it. I certainly would not have done it had not many, many before me helped me out.

First I decided to practice. And what to my wondering eyes should appear? Welts! For reals! I did several to make sure I had the technique down and then I was ready (scared, but ready) to put them into the coat.

My technique for the combo welt/pocket piece is non-standard and a round pocket is nicer, but for my first attempt I really was not in the mood to be fussy about the pocket shape.

First I fused heavy interfacing over the welt line on the wrong side of the coat and the welt.

Next step was the first place I got stuck. I had marked the stitch lines on the welt and the location on the wrong side of the coat. I couldn't see both of these sets of markings at once. Even transferring the location line to the right side of the coat wouldn't have done me any good because my welt fabric wasn't transparent. I thought and thought about how to deal with this and finally realized that I actually didn't need to mark the stitch lines on the welt, the only important line was the placement line. All I needed to do with pin the welt so that the two interfaced bits were approximately on top of each other, and the pocket was facing the direction it would eventually want to face (i.e., angled down and toward the front). Remember, right sides together!


With the pinning over with, I still wasn't quite sure how to mark the stitch lines. Then I hit upon hand basting. I am not one to baste anything, ever, and I am *definitely* not one to hand baste. But in this instance, it was the best solution--and of course it took less two minutes. I did the hand basting exactly over the placement line. Now it was easy to see where to put the stitch lines.


I ran the inside of the foot along the baste line for the first leg, and then I turned it around ran the outside of the foot along the first set of stitching to get a 1/4 inch width between my stitch lines. I was very careful to make the lines exactly the same size; at the end where I turned around I was able to see what I was doing, for the other end I marked the stopping point with chalk. All the tutorials I read emphasized the importance of having identical lines.


Next you take your scissors to your project. This is the moment of truth. I started at the center and slashed down to each end, clipping a triangle at the outer edges. The legs of my triangles go exactly all the way to the ends of my stitch lines. It's important to clip as close to the stitch lines as possible.

Now open out your slashed line and sew the two layers of your triangle together. None of the tutorials I read were very clear on how deep you need to sew within the triangle. I figured it was safest to sort of close up the two stitch lines. To do this I moved my needle one click to the left so I could get deeper into the triangle. After doing that stitch line, I did a tight narrow zigzag on closer to the point of the triangle to make it as secure as possible.


Now you turn your welt to the inside (unfortunately, I didn't think to get a picture of that, and this was the biggest hurdle I had in visualizing the process). Smooth the welt over the slit seam allowances and pin in place. I stitched in the ditch to keep my slippery poly welt from moving around. This was my first time to use a blind hem foot to stich in the ditch.


Next, fold the pocket in half and sew all around.


Voila! A welt pocket!



And now that welt pockets are crossed off, can a fly front be far behind? (Answer: Yes. Very far.)