McCall 5466, Pleat Neck Dress: Buyer Beware

This is another project, like the Vogue 7898 mock wrap asymmetric hem dress, that I made back in October for my Germany trip. I am really liking the whole pleated neck detail thing that is so popular in the pattern books right now. I can't say I've actually seen it on the street or in store windows, but it's cute enough that I think it will catch on eventually.

This project was extremely frustrating. It is certainly an argument for muslining because I put a lot of work into a project that ended up being almost too uncomfortable to wear because of the draft of the armscye and sleeves.

The first challenge was lining. This being a Big 3 pattern, as is typical it did not provide for lining. Since I was making this in a wool (from The Carol Collection, of course!) it really needed to be lined for comfort, not to mention it just makes things nicer all around.

I first tried morphing the facing and the bodice pattern pieces into a non-pleat bodice to stabilize the neckline. However, when I put the unpleated bodice lining together it was way too tight and it was clear I wouldn't be able to skip the pleated parts of the neckline in the lining. So that was a couple hours down the tube. I ended up just cutting the bodice pattern out of lining fabric. Unfortunately, even with understitching the lining peeks out a little bit at the neckline.



After this it was the cutting layout. You can see here that I altered the pattern by narrowing the front dart for a small bust adjustment and shortening the skirt about an inch on the lengthen/shorten line. I am short, but most of my shortness is in my legs and I generally don't need to shorten above the waist. To match the plaids, I cut the fronts and backs along the same axes, and lined up notches across from one another. Because the skirt has pleats and therefore the top and bottom plaids couldn't match entirely, I decided to match up the vertical plaids at the centers front and back instead of sides front and back.

The next step was the pockets. This has hip pockets on the skirt; I liked the look but worried about the danger of them billowing out and widening my hips. I used cording slightly shorter than the length of the pocket and used the feed dogs the ease the pockets into it. This worked very well and the pockets are firm and secure.

Now was the actual sewing. Believe it or not I actually hand basted the side seams to get the plaids to match up, which they do, beautifully.

The back skirt pleats turned out to be awful over my large booty; you can see here that they pretty much stuck straight out. I closed up the bottoms of the pleats to make them into darts, and they lay well on the final product.

This dress took me a several weekends worth of sewing to finish because of all the effort I put into it. I was concerned about the fit of the armscye during construction, but foolishly assumed this problem would somehow take care of itself when the dress was all put together. Foolish, foolish assumption. I have an exquisitely constructed dress in which I can barely move (this is after going back in and sewing everything on the very edge of the seam allowances to give me more room). The photo at right illustrates the limited range of motions of my arms, and every time I try to lift something I feel like the seams are going to split. It is a huge disappointment after all that work. I can only wear it on days I know I won't be doing anything strenuous (which, let's face it, is most days, but it's hard to get in and out of so my two-a-days at the gym are a disincentive to wearing it to work).

Armscyes are so much trouble. Some, like this, are way too tight. I have a small frame and though I work out and am toned I don't think my shoulders and arms are abnormally large--or even necessarily as large as the average size. And then there are ones like the Tippi Hedren dress that are way too large. I really don't get it.

I'm not going to give up on this style, as there are a lot of other options. I bought Simplicity 2846 as a replacement for this pattern; it has raglan sleeves so I figure it will give a little more ease of movement. Though I bought Simplicity 2724 for the shirtdress view (I have been shopping stash for a while to figure out what to make it out of) it also has a pleat neck bodice view. And BWOF gave us one in a knit in 12-2008-113.

All photos of this project are here and the pattern review is here.

Inauguration Coat: Keeping Warm

Although I hoped for this coat to be cute, what it most definitely needed to be was warm. I realized this when I wore my green coat to Philly when I went with Cidell to meet up with Karen, Connie, E, and Elaray in November and FROZE. Now, granted, Philly in November is at least as cold as and possibly colder than it ever gets in DC but OMG. I might as well have been wearing a swimsuit for how warm the coat was keeping me. When planning the green coat I had intended to interline it; even bought the fleece. But I changed my mind because I figured that a wool cashmere blend fulled a bit in the washer and dryer would keep me warm. Ha! Now of course it would have been easier just to add an interlining to the green coat, but why do that when I can make a whole new coat? Especially as I had also realized that the green coat's light color is a weakness in addition to being a great feature; it shows every speck of dirt.

On that very trip to Philly during which I froze, I was seduced by the purple wool at Jomar (as Karen recalled!) and found the matching lining. The wool was in the remnants at $4/yd, and the lining was also $4/yd as I recall, which is rich living at Jomar but it was the piece that I loved so it was worth the "high" price. I assumed it was poly, but when I got it home it turned out to be rayon so that was handy. As with the green coating, I washed the purple to full it as much as I could. It turned out to have some kind of HORRIBLE HORRIBLE sizing on it that smelled absolutely dreadful. It took a couple more washings to get it out and the hand changed completely to be very floppy and blanket-like, which was unfortunate but I probably would have gotten cancer had I worn it with whatever that god-awful toxic sizing was still in it so oh well.

My corduroy jacket is way warmer than it has any right to be, and I can only assume that it's due to the fleece lining, which is looking pretty pilled and ratty but I love the coat so much I can't give it up. So I knew I'd have to use that fleece I bought for the green coat to interline this one. This is just regular Joann fleece; not any kind of special microfleece or lining fleece or flannel-backed fleece or whatever. Yes, it's bulky, but this is a winter coat we're talking about here. I'm ok with bulky in a winter coat.

The first thing I did on this coat was to cut out and construct the fleece interlining. Again I piggybacked on Melissa's coat-making experience. One of the things she did was trim off all the seam allowances on her interlining pieces and hand-sew them to the seam allowances of the coat to reduce bulk. Now, that is too extreme for me, but I took away the lesson about reducing bulk and constructed it on the serger. Which is also just fun. And then the serger scraps made excellent stuffing for the top half of the paper tape double I'm working on. It was a total win-win situation. I was wearing it around after it was done and it was so warm! I knew I'd made the right call.



After the outer shell of the coat was constructed, I hung it inside out on my dress form and hand-tacked the interlining at key points: neck, shoulder, in the back above the inverted pleat, underarm, at the top and bottom seams at the end of the sleeve, and a couple points along the front. I had fused the front along the facing line with a heavy interfacing and tacked the interlining only to the interfacing. I am hoping that it won't eventually pull the interfacing off, but I have left the lining hem free of the coat hem so I can always go up into the guts of the coat and fix things.

I already talked about my fleece pocket lining on the pocket post. The pockets are so warm for putting my hands in!

Another thing I had learned from my corduroy jacket and green coat is that I wanted the sleeves to be long, at least down to my knuckles. On both of the previous projects the sleeves end right at my wrist, and this is just not long enough for a coat! I was particularly frustrated with myself at the green coat because I had already made the cordouroy jacket and knew I wanted longer sleeves, and yet somehow even though I cut them super long on the green coat they still ended up short. Argh! This was my do-over. I cut the sleeves as long as I could, but because I had bought the fabric as a remnant I didn't have quite enough of it. I arranged my cutting layout so that I would have two pieces left over large enough to add sleeve extensions.

Then I hit upon doing the sleeve extensions in the contrast fabric I used for the facings. Nice. OK, so the sleeves were going to be long enough, but how to make them warm enough? Fleece cuffs! Now this was a delicate operation. I had cut the sleeves of the interlining off a little above the cuff line and then made little fleece cuffs. I *should* have slipped them on before bagging the sleeve linings but of course I didn't, so I had to unpick the stitching, slip the cuffs on and then rebag. Next step was to mark the hem crease in the sleeves. That done I pulled the bagged sleeves back out, pushed the fleece cuffs down to meet the marked crease, pinned in place, pushed the bagged sleeves back out, and topstitched the cuffs in place.

Of course, I later realized I hadn't got either sleeve's hem right and the sleeves were hanging all awkwardly. So I had to unpick my topstitching and do the whole thing over again. Grumble grumble. The pics were taken first time around so you can't see that when I went back in I interfaced along the cuff fold line, which gave me a much crisper edge. This time I put in four rows of topstitching and they are really cute *and* add some structure so the sleeve hems aren't all floppy. All this annoying work with the bagging and the unbagging and the pulling the bagged sleeves in and out and in and out (I felt like it was Thanksgiving and I was spending hours and hours with my hands up a turkey's bum, even though I'm a vegetarian and have never done this) was totally, totally worth it. I am so glad I finally got the sleeve length right and the fleece cuffs keep the cold air from rushing in past my gloves.

You can see the length of the sleeves in this picture:



All photos are here.

Already discussed:
pockets

Still to come:
Aesthetics
Overall Review

Podcast!

Cidell and I were both home long enough to record a podcast! We discuss the January and February issues of BWOF--February just arrived in our mailboxes yesterday. Are we not punctual? We also talk about our current projects and our current mantras.

You can play it below, visit our Podbean channel or download us on iTunes.

If you go to either of those, please let me know what photo shows up. I've tried to upload a photo of me and Cidell but it's not showing up for me.

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Inauguration Coat: Pockets

Although I was doing this coat on a very tight schedule, I wanted to make sure I was putting in all the features I wanted and that I was doing them well. "On time, no defects: pick one" was not in my vocabulary for this project, unlike my general attitude!

Patrones has drafted the pattern with a single welt pocket on the center front piece of this princess seam coat, with the pocket placed about one inch from the seamline of center front and side front. Although I finally learned a double welt pocket last year for my green coat I have not yet tried the single welt. Admittedly, this had a bit to do with my reluctance, but honestly I really didn't see the point in creating a weak spot in your fabric by putting in a welt pocket a mere inch from a seam. It seemed much more logical (as well as easier) to put it in at the seam. However, since I wanted this to be nice I decided to put it in as a faux single welt pocket.

First step was to deal with the pattern. Patrones is generally well drafted, but I don't know what was up with the drafting for the pocket and welt. I'm sorry the image at left is so dark (click to enlarge) but on the far left is the finished welt. It is about 2 1/2 inches longer than the drafted welt (center). The length of the drafted welt was problem #1. I have small hands, but even I would have had a hard time getting my hand into a pocket that narrow, much less while wearing gloves. Then there was the issue of the pocket opening length versus the welt length. I just don't get how they were supposed to match up! I also found the pocket a bit too small for my taste. I want to be able to put my hands all the way into the pockets to keep warm, and keep gloves and kleenex and emergency chocolate in them too.




So I re-drafted the pocket to be wider and longer, with an opening that actually matched my longer re-drafted welt. After recutting the welt and the pocket back and the pocket front yet again I was finally ready to start putting this thing together!


I had to meditate upon the construction a little bit to think about how to layer the welt and the pocket pieces and which direction all the seams would be pressed to minimize bulk. The biggest bulk issue was the (faux) welt itself, but I realized if I sewed it to the center front piece, when it was folded over the side front piece and topstitched in place the seam allowance would automatically face toward center front where it was supposed to. I wouldn't have to try to iron it into a different direction than the business end of the welt.

OK, here goes nothing! The first thing I did was carefully, carefully mark the position of the welts on the center front pieces so the pockets would end up parallel to one another. Then I basted the welts in place. Next step was to pin the lining half of the pocket over this, marking the start/stop points of the seamline 1/4 inch from the ends of the welts. As you can see, I had interfaced the lining bits of my pocket. My lining fabric was a slippery, unstable rayon and since the pockets are going to get a lot of wear I wanted to reinforce them.

Next step was to sew the fashion fabric halves of the pockets to the side fronts, after, again, very carefully marking their placement. Because of my limited fabric I used my contrast navy wool instead of the purple wool. When I made my Butterick 4665 corduroy jacket I reinforced the seam along the pocket line with selvage strips to keep it from bagging out. That coat is still going strong and the pockets look great, though I almost always walk with my hands in them. While I figured that the welt would protect the front piece, to keep the side front from stretching along the pocket seam I stitched twill tape along the pocket.

After all this, all that was left was to sew the front seam, stopping at that marking 1/4 inch in on the welts, and then sewing the pocket bags together. I topstitched the welts upper and lower edges of the welts onto the side fronts to keep them in place.

Well, almost all that was left. I did not participate in the Great Coat Sew Along (blog now open to the public!) because it's just not in my personality to spread a project over months. Four days for a coat is extreme even for me, but a few weeks is more apt. Although I have tremendous admirations for sewists who do perfect, exquisite, ornate tailoring work, it just ain't me. However, I was able to piggyback a bit on all the knowledge shared in the blog (before it was public) through Melissa Fehr's blogging about her warm winter coat.

One of the things she mentioned was pulling the pocket bags to the inside of her interlining. Making sure pockets are interlined sounded brilliant to me. I definitely planned to interline my coat (more on that later) but to be absolutely sure my pockets would be as warm as possible, the last step was to hand sew a fleece interlining to the lining side of the pocket (this is the side that faces outward).

Having worn the coat now for a week I am thrilled with these pockets. They look cute, they are capacious (I was carrying a mini-pack of kleenex in one earlier in the week when I had a cold) but not cavernous (I can reach the bottom), they are sturdy, and they are warm. You really can't ask for more! Once I decided to add the contrast bits to the coat so the facing would make sense I had a little moment of wondering whether I should have made the welts in navy, but I think purple was definitely the better choice. Navy welts would have been too cutesy.

But of course pockets for your hands are not enough in a coat! I wanted to put pockets in the lining. My standard for the size and capacity was that if I wear this coat on a trip somewhere I want to be able to keep my passport, extra credit card, camera, and miscellaneous other small items in them. I did two pockets. On the left side is a zippered welt pocket, and on the right a patch pocket (made of two interfaced layers of lining). Now that I know how to make a welt pocket, a zippered welt is a cinch, and I think it looks great. Melissa and I were again in sync on this because I put my bright green zipper in before she showed off the colored zippers in her faux fur jacket.

Here I am, demonstrating the in-seam pockets:



Still to come
-Keeping Warm
-Aesthetics
-Overall Review

You can check out all the photos of this project, Patrones 272-37, here.

Worn Out Sweater to Hat

So this sweater came not from a thrift store but from my closet. I got it three or four years ago from H&M, an angora and nylon blend. I loved the color and the fuzziness and wore it absolutely to death. Finally this year I had to acknowledge that it was pilled beyond wear, but I still wasn't ready to give it up. I decided it was perfect for a hat. I washed it in hot and dried it in the dryer to tighten up the weave. The "before" pic on the right was taken *after* that step--I wasn't wearing it around with my belly showing.

Book Review

Cidell gave me the book Saturday Night Hat on extended loan when I first become obsessed with hats on the condition that I review it, so here goes.

The first thing you have to do is not hate the author. If her introduction is to be believed, she was one year out of college and unemployed and stopped into a fancy boutique wearing one of her hats. By the end of the month, Barney's had placed an order for her line. She talks a fair amount in the book about how she could neeeeevvvver have a real job like a regular person. While I don't (necessarily) begrudge her success at the age of 22 or whatever, I find the whole "I'm so special and artistic! I can't live like the rest of you peons!" thing pretty irritating.

But the point of the book is not Eugenia Kim (luckily), the point of the book is hat projects. The focus of the book is mostly sewn hats, with some projects that are just embellishing a purchased hat; there is no information on blocking. There are patterns for a nice variety of projects--cocktail hat, baseball cap, engineer cap, sun hat, cloche, and newsboy plus instructions for drafting your own beret and pillbox. In addition, there are embellishment projects for pre-made cloches and fedoras.

A weakness in the instructions is her information on how to size for your head. Rather than, say, shrink or enlarge the pattern on a copy machine in proportion to the difference between the pattern (drafted for a women's medium 23" head) and your own size or use other pattern-scaling methods, she tells you to make the project as is and then use an iron to steam shrink or stretch the finished product. Huh? I find it much easier to do some simple math--my 21.5 inch head is 93% of a medium 23 inch head (21.5 divided by 23), so I copied the pattern on a copy machine at 93%.

Many of her decoration ideas are very clever and the instructions are well-detailed with accompanying illustrations. There is also some basic information on things like the type of feathers used in millinery and other supplies. In enjoyed reading the book and I'm sure the ideas will be percolating in my brain for a while.

This Project

So, I had this sweater. It wanted to be a hat. What kind of hat? Although I am way, way late to the party (3 or 4 years) I really liked the newsboy hat project. After I made the hat I started paying more attention on the street and while the newsboy may or may not be out of high fashion, it is still going strong in street fashion so I don't feel out of place wearing my hat.

The instructions in the book are pretty good, though they result in a pretty unfinished interior, which is not generally my style. You make the crown and the lining and then sew them to the band as one. The raw edge of the bill is added to the mix. The whole mess is covered with grosgrain ribbon. I wasn't in the mood to figure out a neater way to finish all this (which would be to hand sew the lining down over the seam) so I just followed the instructions.

She recommends buckram or cardboard to reinforce the brim, but I used my standby shaper, plastic needlepoint canvas. I placed the pattern underneath the canvas; luckily the pattern has both a cutting line and a seam line marked. I traced along the seam line using a highlighter, cut out the brim, and covered the edges with duct tape to soften them as seen at left. I should have blunted the corners, and will probably need to open out the seam the cut them off at some point. Next time, though, I'll probably use a couple layers of buckram so the bill can be curved more. Cardboard is just asking for trouble because the hat will be ruined the first time it gets wet.

This hat is very fun on the inside. When thinking about linings I decided one of my tie silks from Fabric Mart that I split with Cidell (they still have some tie silk bundles) would be perfect. Silk is quite warm, and I wanted this to be a functional hat. It is also pretty and easy on the hair. I used the leftovers of some colorful ribbon to line the hat band. Indeed, this turned out to be much warmer than I expected and I've worn it on very cold days with no trouble.

Although I'm not sure this hat is *quite* the fashionable shape, I really like it. As shown on the on the model in the book it is perfect, but if you really look at the picture you see the hat is only barely sitting on the top of her head, and that's the only reason the crown poofs out as it does. When pulled over the ears (necessary for warmth!), it's not as full and almost has a rasta hat vibe. Of course, the difference in texture between my sweater and a traditional tweedy wool has something to do with it as well. Next time, though, I will try to build in a little more fullness. I have seen a few berets that are basically a newsboy without a brim and would like to try that--I don't usually wear hats with brims unless I need sun protection because I am so short that I can't see anything out from under them!

All photos are here and the pattern review is here. This will be my entry in the Reconstruction/Recycling/Refashion Contest on PR--I was eager to do the project but I made myself wait until January 1 so I'd be eligible to enter! I will write more about the coat, but I had to do this review before the end of the month to enter the contest.