tailoring Archives - Page 2 of 2

Taking an Instagram poll! Should I make the Named Yona Coat or Vogue 1365? I'm torn between the two, like the styling of both. Would be made out of eggplant purple cashmere wool. #instapoll #coatproject #sewing #tailoring

It’s the middle of January, so I suppose it’s time to get cranking on what I’m calling “The Great Coat Project of 2015,” or, my attempt to make a tailored winter coat this year. Prior to starting, I made a quick tailored blazer that boosted my confidence in my tailoring skillz (which you may have seen on Instagram, photos to come), so I’m ready to go!

Of course, I got cold-feet initially – there’s so many variables to take into consideration when launching into a major project like a coat: what kind of fiber/weave/weight of fabric to use, combinations of interfacing to get the right support and drape, should I underline or interline (can’t do both!), how to make the coat warm without adding bulk, hand-tailoring vs fusible tailoring…I could go on. There were quite a few nights recently where I was up to the wee hours of the morning researching and reading and making myself dizzy with the knowledge and contradicting opinions of those who have prior experience making coats. And of course, I doubted my choice in pattern selection at the last minute and put up a poll on Instagram and Twitter last weekend on which coat I should make.

Vogue 1365, on right above, won the poll on Twitter. The Named Patterns Yona coat, on left, won on Instagram. Since I originally planned on making the Vogue coat, I went ahead and cut out the muslin this week to see what the fit was like – if it was bad, I could always use Yona as my backup plan.

To sum up my Vogue 1365 fitting-experience: I’m making the Yona coat now.

Doesn’t look too bad, right? I’m not standing up straight, so the fronts aren’t lined up correctly. Holy lapel action, Batman! Those are some statement lapels, amiright?

Not too crazy from the side either…

I think the back is ok, too. Setting the sleeves in would alleviate some of the bagginess around the armholes, I wasn’t too concerned with it.

Seriously, I could fit my lunch in here.

So here’s where it gets good…my friends, this coat is drafted with 10 inches of ease in the bust. After doing some extensive research on coat ease (on one of those recent late nights I referred to), 10″ is standard ease for a loose-fitting coat and is calculated to fit over a jacket and a blouse (here’s a great post on Sewingplum about layering ease for BMV patterns). However, on the model on the pattern envelope and also in the article “Secure a Coat Lining” from the December 2014 issue of Threads, this coat has much more of a semi-fitted look. I cut a straight 10 for this coat, which is typical of what size I make for Vogue patterns, so I figured I would just go down a size in the chest and grade out at the hips – no big deal.

HOWEVER – observe the following photo illustrating where the real issues with this coat lie:

In order to get this coat to fit correctly, there needs to be some major overhauling of the entire front. The bust point is two inches below my actual bust point – I run into this problem from time to time, but never to this dramatic effect! The waistline is almost down to the top of my hip bones by my belly-button. Fixing the waist would be no problem, since I could just adjust along the “lengthen or shorten here” line on the pattern, but altering the pattern to raise the bust to the correct level would affect: the front, front facing, length of the lapel and lapel facing, side front, armhole, and all three parts of the three-piece sleeve. Maybe even the collar, too.

It was at this point that I threw my hands up in the air and said, “fuggedaboutit!” There’s already going to be so much labor put into constructing the coat, since I decided to hand-tailor this project, that I couldn’t really bother/deal/didn’t want to go through with the pain of redrafting half a coat to get it to fit me correctly. Hmm, is there a reason I couldn’t find a single person on the internet that made this coat pattern?

Additionally, the side seams irritated me. No, this is not an error – the side seams are really supposed to hang like that, I checked the line art and it shows the side seams curving towards the back (the front is cut much wider than the back). In my opinion, even though this is an intentional part of the design, it just looks bad – one of the hallmarks of a well-tailored coat is a side seam that hangs perpendicular to the floor, and I want my coat to look well-tailored.

I love the style of this coat, but I’m quitting while I’m still ahead and moving on to the Yona Coat – this is why we make muslins to test-drive patterns before cutting into our nice fashion fabric! Yesterday evening, I made a muslin of the Yona pattern and the fit is absolutely perfect – more to come on that, I can’t wait to share!

Are you making a coat this winter? Sew along with me! Use #coatproject2015 on Instagram to tag your progress so we can all see what you’re working on!

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You guys – I reached the finish line! Seriously, this is the most time-consuming, difficult garment I’ve made in my sewing career. But I did it!

Pattern: Anise by Colette Patterns
Fabric: main – wool from Metro Textiles in NYC; lining – stretch poly charmeuse from Fabric Place Basement
Size: 4 graded to a 6 at the hips

Shirt: Scout tee variation, unblogged
Jeans: Levi’s
Sneakers: Reebok

I want to thank everyone for their kind words and helpful comments as I struggled over the last month to make this. Don’t get me wrong – I loved learning about the tailoring process, and I can’t wait to sew more tailored projects, but this pattern just didn’t work for me. When I posted my last update on the jacket, I was actually 95% of the way done and too far beyond going back to fix some things that you all suggested, but they’re definitely worth exploring for my next go-round with tailoring.

So yes, this jacket isn’t perfect – but at this point, it really doesn’t matter to me. I made a freaking tailored jacket, with welt pockets to boot! I know my mistakes will be evident to experienced sewists looking at these photos, but I’m going to wear this jacket with pride, knowing that I learned soooo much doing this.

1. I Have Narrow Shoulders – This is something I should have remembered from all of the blazers my Mom made for me for my first job. She had to alter each pattern because the shoulder seams came way past where the shoulder seam needed to be. This wasn’t evident when I made my muslin, but going back to try it on again, I could baaaarely see it. Which also brings me to another learning – make my muslin in the same fabric weight as the final garment. I’m sure if I had, the fit issue would have been more evident in a heavier weight fabric than light, flimsy cotton.

Having said all of that, I explored how to make my own shoulder pads, drafted sleeve heads for my jacket, and studied different kinds of shoulder pads for different types of garments (definitely need to give raglan shaped pads a try). Maybe if I didn’t have this fit problem, I wouldn’t have learned all of these tidbits of knowledge.

Also, I could not for the life of me figure out why there was so much ease in the front of my sleeve cap. No, it wasn’t inserted backwards. I’m just…perplexed, and it’s not as smooth as I’d like.

2. Stretch Fabric Isn’t a Great Idea For a Lining – but this one sure looks pretty! The color is why I picked it, which is kind of silly, I know. I thought the stretch would be an added bonus to give my jacket more movement and ease in the inside, but it ended up being more of a pain to cut out and stitch properly without getting runs in the weave. It was anything but fun when it came to setting the sleeves in by hand, yuck!

However, this lining is an improvement over my original intended lining – a light gold acetate. Acetate is a terrible idea for a jacket lining: it shows water marks and sweat stains (not good for my armpits, no way), doesn’t breathe well at all, and shouldn’t be used for garments with lots of wear. I plan on wearing this jacket a lot, so no dice with the acetate. I know poly isn’t a whole lot better in terms of breathability, but it was in my budget for this project.

3. Press, Press, Press – I originally thought I did a great job taking my time when it came to pressing, really taking my time and pressing every seam like The Pressinatrix recommends, but I guess this jacket could have used a little more based on the above photo. Having the right tools is imperative as well, I’m so glad I asked for pressing tools like a seam roll, clapper, and a tailor board last year for my birthday – they made getting to every area I needed to steam a lot easier.

4. Creativity Is My Friend – you may have noticed in an earlier photo that I have snaps on the inside of my jacket. This wasn’t the original plan, I had every intention of making buttonholes on my Mom’s wonderful Bernina (the automatic buttonhole feature is killer) when I was visiting a few weeks ago. However, the bulk at the edge of my jacket front threw off the calculations of the machine and I ended up with some wonky looking, uneven buttonholes that wouldn’t pass muster. That’s when the light bulb went off in my head that I could use snaps instead to close the jacket, and my Mom suggested covering the snaps in a coordinating lining fabric. Problem solved, and a new technique under my belt.

5. Perfectionism Is My Enemy – I was really close to not even finishing this jacket when I realized the problem with the shoulders, and the fact that how I made my welt pockets caused the front to pull. There were tears, I threw the jacket in the corner, and I didn’t touch the project for over a week. I wanted everything about this jacket to be crisp and perfect, I wanted people to ask me where I bought my jacket – I didn’t want it to look “home-made.” But in the course of trying to achieve something “perfect” looking, I realized I needed to cut myself some slack – this was my first ever tailoring project. How could my expectations be set so high for something I’ve never done? I trudged on with the shoulder pads, the lining, the hand hemming. There was way too much time invested in this project to give up – I steadily worked on this for a month, and to not have anything to show for all of that time would be sad. From here on out, I need to chill and just enjoy the process of making clothes, and not get all hung up on details that will probably be evident to only me.

I’m so glad I didn’t let my perfectionist tendencies when it comes to sewing prevent me from finishing this jacket! I wore it for the first time this past weekend, and it may be my last until fall since the weather is finally getting warm in Boston. I never thought I would sew a project like this, let alone enjoy something that seemed so tedious to me like tailoring. But now that I’ve taken my first step with this project, I’m determined to master the skills it takes to tailor well.

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Things have been quiet here for the last week, mainly because I hit a major roadblock with my Anise Jacket, and there’s nothing I could do to fix it. After getting over my initial disappointment, I picked it up and decided to sally forth – I’ve spent so much time on this, it would be a shame to not finish it regardless of the fact that it…doesn’t fit correctly.

Here, I’ll show you.

It’s those damn shoulders. And I should have known better, based on when my Mom made blazers for me a few years ago.

I just got out of the shower and my hair was wet in these pictures…

The shoulders of the jacket are too wide for my shoulders, which is why I’m getting a dent right below my shoulder pad…sigh. When my Mom made blazers for me before, she adjusted the shoulders in since the sleeve seams were waaaay past where they need to fall on me. I didn’t really notice this in my muslin, and when I tried it on again it was so slight and looked ok in the lighter weight fabric. The effect is now emphasized in the heavier weight wool.

I tried using a 1/2″ shoulder pad instead of the 1/4″ pad, to see if it would help eliminate the dent, and it only made the dent more pronounced.

Oh, and I could never figure out that stupid ease in the front of the sleeve head. Why in the world is there that much ease??? Ease like that should be in the back on the sleeve, not the front. And yes, this is inserted correctly.

It looks even worse when I bend my arm, you can really see the shoulder pad.

Same results on the other sleeve, too.

I think this pulling is the result of something that happened when I sewed the welt pocket, don’t think I can fix it either.

Well, I learned a lot from making this jacket, and it’s by no means perfect. There was a quote I saw somewhere recently that said “perfectionism is a disease,” and I have to agree – I was getting so hung up on having everything look just right, and I freaked out when I couldn’t get the sleeves to hang correctly.. As much as I’d like for this to look flawless, it’s my first tailored jacket and my skills will only get better the more I continue to practice and make more jackets/blazers/coats. So for now, I’m finishing up this jacket and will wear it proudly when it’s finished.

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What I learned last week: I really love tailoring. Never thought that I would! I like fast, simple, quick, easy, instantly-gratifying projects with not a lot of fitting, and it’s not often that I work on something for more than a week. I think that’s part of the reason why I put off making this jacket for over a year – Chris bought me this pattern for Christmas 2012 and I bought the fabric shortly thereafter, but looking at all the steps and hand-sewing, I just didn’t want to devote the time to it that I knew I needed to.

But I can really, honestly say that I’m enjoying the entire process so far. Even cutting out the fabric I didn’t mind as much as I usually do (my hands said otherwise)! It took about two nights to cut out everything since I needed to cut out the wool, the lining, the underlining, and the interfacing, plus fuse the interfacing and sew the underling to the wool. Whew! That definitely would have been too much in one night for me to accomplish.

I’ve been reading a lot about the proper way to press while sewing, because after all, pressing IS sewing – The Pressinatrix has some great tips on tools and pressing techniques for sewing with all types of fabrics. Since I’m doing soft tailoring on this jacket, I’ve found that I’m spending just as much time at my ironing board that I am at my sewing machine. My trusty little Black ‘N Decker iron is holding up just fine, and I’m so glad I asked for pressing tools last year for my birthday, they’re really making the difference.

Enough chatter, onto the photos!

Shhhh, excuse my dirty mirror!

I love how this is turning out. I hand-basted everything yesterday afternoon while re-watching season 3 of Game of Thrones – it was a rainy, miserable day and was the perfect excuse to be a bump on the couch. But a productive bump!

I still need to press the edges of the collar and jacket fronts, but I was amazed at how the basting really made everything look so nice. And I figured if I need to hand-baste with silk thread, it might as well be a fun, contrasting color!

The collar is looking good. I was worried about how it would turn out: I fused the interfacing to the collar piece instead of the undercollar. Whoops!! When I went back to Joann Fabrics, they were all sold out of fusible weft interfacing. The solution was to use my leftover interfacing to creatively fuse together a big enough piece to cover the undercollar – problem solved! The collar may be a little stiffer and more structured than it’s supposed to be, since the entire collar is now interfaced, but I’m ok with how it’s behaving. And it seems to be rolling under ok as well.

So far, I’ve worked on this jacket for five days – I’m right on track! Now, to hunt down the perfect buttons…

Do you enjoy tailoring? Any good book recommendations on the topic?

So It Begins – The Great Coat Project of 2015

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Finished Project: Anise Jacket [Colette Patterns]

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8 Days to Anise: Well, Not Really…

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8 Days to Anise: Days 3-5

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