Jacket

My closet is in such need of colors, so I am giving it some,, maroon...This jacket is from a knit top pattern, so I just added a little to the seems for it to go  over other clothes, I added a big book and eye at the neck for a closure.

The lace around the bottom and sleeves was done on my embroidery machine...the set is from From the needle of anne.  Called little laces 1...  This price is about 7 in long, so I used my Embird software and edited by putting 5 pieces in my 6x10 hoop, thus sewing out 5 pieces without re-hooping, after 2 hoopings, it was pretty much done.. I had to do a couple extra smaller pieces for the sleeves, but it worked well...

Simplicity 4954

Wow, been a while,  need to get better at posting...

Simplicity 4954,, view B,, modified...IMO, this jacket is a Chanel style,, and I want to eventually make a Chanel style jacket,,, so I started working with this pattern first... I have learned it is easier for me to adjust princess seams if they come from the shoulder instead of the armhole,,,

Fabric is linen,, unfortunately stretch linen,, I HATE stretch linen,, well for clothing is it Ok, depending on what you are using it for,, for  a jacket it  would be great to have the extra "give", but I wanted to line it,, and if you don't have lining that stretches,, that is defeating the whole purpose of the "give" of the main fabric,, so, you either have to find a lining that stretches as well, or treat the linen as a woven,, fortunately my lining had some stretch as well..

                                          I had to do I think a 3 in fba,,

 This is one of the most comfortable jackets I have made,, fully lined with voile,,  and a bagged lining,, I used to be really scared to bag a lining,, mainly because I just didn't understand the instructions,, then I found a great tutorial on Threads.com,, and now I will line all my jacket...well for the most part anyway.. haha...

Jacket

Ok, so its been a little longer than I expected,,, but here's the finished jacket..

Well, what can I say,, my Dh got me to laughing, and took the pic. and handed the camera back to me, laughing as he left,,,, after I looked at the pic,, I laughed to....

Jacket

I am starting on a jacket.. I had 1-1/2 yds of sweatshirt fleece that I have been wanting to make a jacket out of for some time,,, problem is,, none of my patterns call for less than 2 yards, so my dilemma how do I make it,, then I got to thinking, I can make a loose fitting top (tunic) out of 1-1/2 yds of material,, why not just use a knit top pattern for it,,, ssooo....the most important thing I knew to do was to make it a little bit bigger than the pattern, since this was quit possibly going to be worn over that shirt pattern,, I just had to figure how much to add and where,,,,

 I kept the neck the same,, I added 5/8in to the cf,, and cut that edge for the zipper,,, I added 1/2in to the shoulder and extended that to the armhole tapering down, and eventually cutting off 1/4 in at the side seam,, then extending the side seam 2 in,,,

I then did the same thing to the back...

Here is where not having enough material started to show,, I didn't have enough for the sleeves,, now looking at this pic, it looks like I have plenty, but that is because this is a 3/4 length sleeve pattern,, I needed it about 5 in longer..

I was going to sew stay tape into the shoulder, but couldn't find it, so I put clear elastic  in instead,, hmm that didn't work, so I had to find my stay tape,,,,

Much better...

So far, not bad,, a little big at the sides,

This is the the other place I ran out of material,, the collar, I had a piece of black material, the same kind,, so I just used it,, now I didn't have a pattern for the collar, so I decided to wing it,,, cringe,,, well, you do what you gotta do,,,so I cut a big rectangle,, the width of the neck line plus some, I wanted to make sure I had enough,, plus 7 in,, enough for the extra 4 in of zipper.. will post the finished jacket tomorrow....

The jacket from &^($%^%!!!!!

You know how sometimes you want to slip a project in while you are working on other things,, sometimes it works out,, sometimes it don't?  ha,, well this one didn't.. read on,,

Have you ever worked on a garment that seemed like it just wasn't meant to be,, well McCalls 5668 is it for me,, and it really ticks me off, cause I really liked this pattern,,, it looks so casual and easy,,, uhhhummm, right!!!

First of all, I HATE a pattern that the front princess seem go to the side of the bust... and the problem with getting pattenrs like this, is you don't realize this is  how it goes together till you get it home and open it up,,,, I think if I even get another one of these, I may just take it back,,, ok enough of that, onto the next problem,, 

Adjustments,,,I already know my shoulders are 41/2 in wide,, so I have to take the shouders in over an inch,, then I have to take the pricess seams (PS) in front and back at the arm hole,,  1/2 in in back and almost an inch in front,, now when i take up the PS in front, I forget that because this pattern has the seam to the side of the bust,, there are going to be some gathers in the front piece,, so the front piece it going to be a little longer than the side front,, #1 mistake...

Next alteration,, I need to add to the PS below the bust line down to the hem,, so I add at both the front,, (because I do need a little there) and at the side front seams.. #2 mistake,, I add too much..

. I usually do a sway back adjustment,, but this pattern has an optional belt that I likes,, so that would "supposedly take tare of the wrinkles in the lower back,,, heh,,,

It looks good, at first,, but,, the belt I realize it way too wide,, so need to narrow it by half,,,

Ok constrution time,, lets see what I have done,, taken in the shoulders, taken in the ps  at the front and back arm,, let out ps at the underbust,, made the belt narrower,, Oh and the biggest Pain in the BUTT,, that collar,, oh where did McCalls ever come up with an idea like that,, now other seamstress's may do good with this pattern,, NOT ME...... I never did get this collar figured out,, I just muddled trough it,, uuuhhgg,,,

Anyway,, I hadn't sewn the front together yet, had to take some off the front,, an inch at the hem, tapering  at the bust, so guess where mistake #3 came in at,, I cut off the side front,,not the center,,,

So at this point I am thinking can this jacket be saved?? I make the belt narrower, sew up the seams, everything but the sleeves ,, I get up to try it on,, and one of the belts get caught on something and tears it out of the seam,, buy this time I am thinking,, well you don't want to know what I am thinking at this point,, I put it on,, and realize,, as big as my waist is, I probably don't need a belt anyway,, BUT the waist is almost too small now,, WHAT,,,, I guess when I cut off that inch, i cut off too much,, so I decide that I am just going to put a hook and eye closure in,, that will be ok,,

So now its time for the sleeves,, they go together good,, I get ready to put them in,, you know how you normally have to gather the sleeves a little,, its called ease,,, this was the last straw,, I had to s-t-r-e-t-c-h- the sleeves to fit,,,, somehow I either had the armhole too big,, or the sleeves too small,,, I don't know,, but that was mistake #4 i think,, and that was it,, in the trash it went,, I was done,,,

So,, all the tops I had planned for Holly I decided were going to be put on hold,,, I needed something quick, easy,, fail proof,, if there is such a thing,, stay tooned...

Catching up..

Here are pix of the jackets..

This is the one the bride wore over her dress,, it is made out of satin, it doesn't look shiny because her dress wasn't very shiny like satin, so I turned the shiny side to the inside, then i lined it with voile..

   These are all the jackets,, the white on the bottom is the miniature bride...there are 4 silver/gray,, and 3 purple...

                                                           Wedding party....

Back to sewing again...

Actually I joined the JAM, (jacket a month) thread at Stitchers Guild,, and I must say the ladies over there have put out some really pretty jackets,,,


Ha ha, I was almost ready to post this and forgot that I didn't put the pattern  info on here, Burda 7634
Material used is  a light weight linen,, the lining is voile..

Well here is my 1st, I am a little behind as this is my first one,, but you know,,,

Ok all the good, bad, ugly, and whatever,,, I have leared a few things sewing this jacket,,

First off the alterations,, I am one of the unlucky ones that I have to make alterations to every stinking thing I make,, bleck....

sleves, I had to add 1/2 in to the width,,,

the side bodice, this was a little more tricky for me,, I am not real good at figuring out alterations yet,, but I  had to add over an inch to the width, then I had to bring the top,   down a half and inch,, you can see this better in the pic below,,

 Ok now for one of the lessons learned,, I have been seeing different sewing techniques on blogs for a while, so I decided I wanted to try one,, Hong Kong finish here I come,, it should have been here I go,, as in bye bye,,, first off,, I don't know if there is a way to do a HK finish on a princess seam,, if there is,, I didn't find it,, because it didn't work too well for me,,,see the wave,,, first off I forgot to pull the bias strip just  a little,, hence the ripple,, but second it isn't easy pulling a bias strip on the inside of a princess seam,,, keeping the seam flat,, so it doesn't ripple, sewing and ugh,, you get the idea,,

 So I had to go back re-sew it while it was pinned, well I didn't sew over the pins,, but darn near it,, then I ironed it good,, so now it looks like this,, not bad...

 Ok details on the HK finish,, you cut bias strips, I made mine 1 1/4 in wide,, you do not cut off the seam allowance of the garmet,,, you put the bias tape to what would be the right side of the seam allowance,, and sew a narrow seam, I think mine was just over 1/4 inch,, I just put the material under the edge of my pressure foot,,, and sewed,,

 Then you turn the bias strip to the back around the seam,,  (a HK finish basically finished a seam just like a serger,, but with a serger you are using thread,, ) and pin, above pic,, see where the pin is,, that is the seam for sewing the bias strip on,, then you do something called stitching in the ditch, basically sewing over the seam to sew on the bias stip,,( am i getting a little redundant here,, ok moving on,,,,

Ok on the back of that seam you have the excess, you trim that off as close to the seam as possible,,,

 Pic of finished jacket,, I must say I am still proud of it,, I have a TNT (tried and true) pattern now,, and that is a great thing,,

 More pix of the HK finish,, ok another thing learned,, HK finishes are a pain,, they are fairly easy,, but they take forever to do,, forever,,

Oh another pic of the princess seam,,,,

Update, on Burda 7634

Yes I am still working on it,, do you ever do anything where you feel like you bit off more than you could chew, or, had one of those, what was I thinking moments,, well this jacket is getting to be both of those,,, 1st,, the center front,, which was basically the only alteration I have done to this pattern,, BUT that was all I needed to send me over the edge,, until I realized that that alteration affected the armhole as well,, THAT is what done me in,, almost,, I can figure out bust adjustments faily well,, but armhole adjustments,, we are talking going to School to learn that,, eyeyey,, the 1st change to the CF was adding the inch ..that made the armhole a little low,, yes I know all I needed to do was to raise it,, well I have a problem with messing with amrholes,, I make them either too loose or too tight,, that was the issue here,, so i finally decide to raise it about an inch..

Well either my measurements were off or I adjusted too much, cause then it was too, see I told you,, so I just started cutting, 1/2 in at a time,, now what is so much fun about

doing "little bits" at a time,, is you tend to forget to ether write the adjustments down, or you forget how many you made and how much each time,, this was trial and error time, well I finally got everything figured out,, got the jacket shell assembled, started putting the lining on,, and had the biggest duh moment of all,,,, you don't make something out of stretch material only to line it with non-stretch material,,, &&)*&^(&*))*)*

SO, now I am either going to have to get some stetch lining or, just wear the jacket as is,, will let you know,,

Burda 7634

I have wanted to get a tried and true (TNT ) jacket for ages,,

I have tried jackets that are what I call "boxy", the only shaping they have is a bust dart, very loose, and baggy. That is ok, but I like something more fitted,, not really snug, not hanging on me either,, so, princes seams will work. Besides, I have a sway back, so I need seams in the back,, and with boxy designs the hem usually hits me right at the fullest part of the uhum,, butt..so difinitely princess seams,,,

So I have decided on Burda 7634, and I am making it out of a stretch hunter green suede.

BWOF jacket

My first BWOF pattern,, now what makes these patterns so different is you have to add seam allowances and hems,, and sometimes the instructions are a bit vague.. so it helps to have a little sewing experience to make them,,

Some embroidery I added to the front yoke

A closeup of how I had to pin the yoke to the hoop,, centering it up wasn't easy,,,,

Jacket

I sometime have a problem figuring out what to make next,, I have so much material to sew, I get overwhelmed,, so I decided to look through my closet and see what I lacked,, a white jacket,, here it is,, now this is a first for me,, this is a lined jacket,, it took some time,, but I am glad i did it,, I will probably make it again,, but without the gathers,, at least in the back,, it is a little big,, but very comfortable,,

Inside of back of jacket,, i had to take it up about an inch at the waist,, cut open the darts, trimed them and pressed flat,, and put a coverstitch hem in,,

Back of jacket,, now the pattern didn't call for darts,, but it just wasn't fitting right,, so i put it on my dress form, and just started pinning out the fullness,,, man i love my df.. it makes life sooo much easier,,, usually,,,,