Mother-of-the-groom - that's me!

In between working on THE DRESS, I've also been making the dress I will wear to the wedding. It's my version of an OOP Vogue pattern designed by the late Patricia Jeanne Keay. 

I first saw this dress in 2010 in a Threads Magazine article. A version of that article (written by the designer) is on her website. The full article is on the magazine's website, if you have access to it. 

I instantly thought that the pictured celadon green linen dress was just about the most beautiful creation I had ever seen. Those embellishments! So unique.

Anyhow I didn't forget about the dress and when I saw this Vogue pattern published seven years later, I bought it instantly. But it has been languishing in my collection unused since then, waiting for a suitable occasion.

I decided that my son's wedding would qualify, so I got it out and did a muslin. The pattern has lining pieces that end in a level hem (at a high mini-skirt level) and I used them to check the fit. 

I found that the pattern, unlike the red version on the pattern envelope, but very much like the green version in the article, had an extremely wide and open neckline, with the shoulder "straps" set so wide that they would be of no use in actually holding the dress on the wearer's body. It was far too wide and open to fit me properly, or to be comfortable. 

I was able to adjust the front and back neck by different amounts to fix this problem. I took the back in more because it was generally too wide to fit me properly. The front only needed the neckline adjusted. 

Here's a snap of the adjusted pattern pieces. 

You can see the deeper "dart" reducing the overall width of the upper back piece on the left. 

I bought linen from Core Fabrics, plus matching Bemberg lining, and I'm very impressed with the quality of both. 

Looking at the photo of the back, I could have narrowed the back bodice a bit more, but it is OK.

This adjustment slightly changed the angle where the shoulder "straps" would attach. I had to further adjust this a tiny bit in the back. 

I'm calling them "straps" because they are way more interesting than the usual 2 dimensional strap found in a pattern. 

The bias piece (see photo at left) is sewn into a tube and then pleats are formed at different angles in the front and back. The result is a nicely 3D piece that cups the top of the shoulder. 

With my adjustments to narrow the neckline, the dress will be securely bra friendly. Win!

The other change I made to the pattern was to line the flounce, which Vogue instructs to leave unlined. I think the lining adds the right weight to the piece, which might have been flimsy in comparison to the rest of the dress. The upper part of the dress is lined with a mini-length version of the dress pieces. It also has a facing for the upper edges, which is applied to the top of the lining pieces. I found this a bit surprising, but it works.

I had lengthened the flounce slightly (about 2.5 cm) and cut the flounce lining a tiny bit shorter. Then I seamed the flounce lining to the flounce at the hem, and attached the upper edge at the dress/flounce seam by hand. This makes for a very smooth and completely invisible hem. 

Finally, you ask, what about the bodice embellishment? Isn't this the most important and interesting part of the entire garment?

Why yes of course it is! The Threads article focuses on how to make the skinny bias tendrils and make them curl, and to sew the 3D leaves/petals. I was interested to see that the pattern has a good amount of detail on this too, and in fact the pattern pieces for the leaves were slightly simplified. 

Kay's secret to sewing the tubes and turning them right side out is:

(1) To ensure the correct tube dimension, don't focus on the seam allowance width while sewing. Pay attention instead to the width of the tube itself. Simple but critical. 

(2) After sewing the seam use your serger to beef up the seam allowance with a narrow 3 thread stitch.

(3) Fasten the end of a good length of very strong thread to the seam allowance at one end of the tube piece with a secure knot. 

(4) Thread a darning needle with the other end of the thread and draw it through the tube.

(5) Pull on the thread while helping the end of the tube where the knot is tied to fold inside. Keep pulling gently until the knotted end appears at the other end of the tube. 

No further corsage needed!

Wedding prep - second instalment

So I made the "practice" dress based on my adjusted pattern. Short story - it needed a bit of adjustment, but basically worked very well.

The fabric is rayon challis. The "real" dress would be made from a silk/rayon blend that's very drapey, with a lining that was at that time still undetermined. We had bought some china silk in a rosy red, but also white cotton. 

Future DIL didn't want the crossover bodice of the original pattern so I adjusted the bodice to have two draped halves that would meet just above the underbust band, with a V shaped panel behind. 

It was a challenge to figure out the draped piece. I based it on the original pattern but adjusted it to remove the shoulder seam gathers as well as for the altered bodice configuration. 

The pattern has a princess seamed bodice under the draped front. In fact, it called for two layers under the draping - one is a base for the draping and the other is lining. I decided to use just one layer of fabric under the draped front, but made it as lining, that is with the wrong sides together.

I cut this under-bodice out of stretch knit on the theory that this, coupled with the draping, would adjust for bust expansion, if needed. 

I didn't have to change these pieces too much - the CF pieces only had to be altered to change the angle of the front neck.

I puzzled for far too long over construction steps. It's hard when nobody has figured this out for you ahead of time! I ended up finishing the bodice front neck and arm edges and attaching the V panel (which I figured might need adjustment) with hand stitching. I stupidly attached the back skirt panels to the back bodice and waistband before I attached the front bodice to the back, but I was smart enough to realize I had to wait to insert the zipper until after I sewed the shoulder seams (topology!). I hoped at the time to remember not to do the same with the real dress). 

As you can see in the above photos, the draped front was a bit too long (better than too short!) for the princess seamed bodice pieces once pleated into place. The excess was trimmed off later. 

The hugely expanded skirt front was pleated into the lower edge of the underbust band to match (sort of) the pleated bodice. I made the front of the underbust band into a casing for some elastic in case needed for future sizing issues. 

Also to assist in adjustments later, if needed, I did the side seams last. 

We hadn't seen the happy couple for a few weeks and things had evidently progressed by early May - the bump was a bit more than I was expecting for that point, to be honest. Luckily, there was still plenty of room in the front of the dress for further expansion, so it was all good.

We found that the V panel was too wide and too high. Thanks to my forward planning, it was easy to unpick and adjust. 

I did the hem while they waited, and waited, and waited! Yikes, the skirt hem is LONG (no extra cm were added below hip level). With the practice dress approved and delivered, I could move on to the real thing. 

To be continued ...

Well this is a surprise!

NB - posting was delayed while matters continued. Stay tuned for additional instalments!

My dear son is in a long-term relationship with a wonderful young woman - like, they have been living together for 10 years. Until recently, there was no talk of marriage, though their friends were happily walking down the aisle (or equivalent) and even producing babies. 

So we were of course delighted when they told us that they planned to marry this year. My future daughter in law broached, very timidly, the subject of me possibly sewing her wedding dress but initially I declined. Mostly, I thought it would be hard to sew such an important dress. I had reasons. She lives a 5 hour drive away, which would make fitting/consultations difficult. She isn't a sewer and hasn't routinely had anyone sew for her so conversations about garment style (patterns) divorced from a specific fabrication thereof are difficult. We don't speak the same language re garments. Mostly, getting it wrong would be horrific! 

She didn't argue with me, and very kindly invited me, along with her mother, to come wedding dress shopping. We did, soon after Christmas. We saw some things that looked promising but no decisions were made.

Weeks later, I asked if she had ended up buying any of the dresses we had seen. I was surprised to get no response. A few weeks after that, my son spilled the beans. She had bought a dress, but it wasn't going to fit, because she is also EXPECTING! Holy cow! All the family things are happening all at once, all of a sudden!

In this new circumstance, despite the dress issue being even more fraught, because SIZE and SHAPE are only to be guessed at months ahead, I offered to make the dress. Yikes! (Yes, I may be an idiot.)

My first task was to pad my dress form to get the approximately correct bust and upper body dimensions based on measurements taken at about 12 weeks. I have my fingers crossed that the bust will be close in size to this until the very end of pregnancy (after the wedding!). 

I found a quilt at the thrift store and draped a muslin cover (notice the separating zipper so I could get it on and off). I briefly thought of also padding for a baby bump but decided it would be unnecessary as well as kind of difficult to get right.

I started draping the fabric and got a positive reaction to this:

I bought this pattern to use as a base, although it will obviously require modification. 

As of mid-April, I was mulling over how much width and length I would need to add for the expanding belly. I decided to make the waistband narrower by about 5.5 cm so it would sit higher on the body. I also decided to build in stretch in the front (stretch fabric base and elastic in the waistband). A draping experiment using a pillow as simulation suggested I would need about 4 cm more length at CF in the skirt, plus the removed length from the original waistband - in total about 10 cm. Plus about 2 cm at CF to bring the line of the bodice up at the very centre. Fingers crossed!

Re the width, I measured the skirt front of a Burda Magazine maternity evening dress. It was 80 cm wide! I thought that might be excessive (?) so added "only" to make it about 74 cm. 

Thus, I got an adjusted pattern. Next step would be to cut out my muslin, which I had billed as a "practice dress". Wish me luck. 

Best sweater so far!

Why am I so happy with this sweater? Let me count the ways. 

1. It's cozy and warm.
2. I love the cables. 
3. It's better than the photo I used as inspiration.
4. It's exactly the size I wanted it to be.
5. Technically, I did a good job.

Proof of magenta threads!

Why is it cozy and warm? 

Because I used aran-weight yarn that's a blend of 50% wool and 50% alpaca. It's loosely spun, heathered yarn in a luscious turquoise that's threaded with magenta (which only becomes visible in bright light). 

This yarn came from my stash. My Ravelry notes indicate it was a birthday present from my husband, which means it was thrifted. It's Estelle Yarns Ultra Wool. Ravelry says this was a limited run that ceased production in 2010. Too bad, it's beautiful yarn!

What about those cables? How is it better than the inspiration?

My inspiration photo came from an ad. This is an extremely cheap acrylic number. While the look of it appeals to me, anything I made would be nicer than the original. The elements it had to include were - it had to be a bit oversized, have a deeply cabled yoke, and have cables that continued up into a high and otherwise ribbed collar. 

Some investigation revealed that the cables in the inspiration sweater were probably 5x5, which would be hard for me to knit on a knitting machine. This is because the needles are fixed in position and so you can't, as in hand knitting, squish the stitches together to cross a big number of them. There are ways to do it, but they are a little complicated. Plus, I lacked the tools (transfer tools with more than 3 prongs) to accomplish a 5x5 cable. So I looked elsewhere for a cable pattern I could use. 

I decided to knit a pattern of 3x3 cables. The chart came from the Harmony Guide to Machine Knitting Stitches, a great resource. 

I really like the bumpiness of this cable pattern. My yarn has great stitch definition, and I think the finished cables look even better than the photo in the Harmony Guide. 

This chart works because it creates an allover cabled texture that could continue up into the high neck. I realized I could place the cables so that I had 4 columns of cables (24 stitches in total) with 2 on either side of centre. These 4 columns line up to look (sort of) like braids, as in the inspiration sweater.

What about sizing?

Just slightly oversized - that was my goal. I made a sweater last year that fit just right. I seem not to have blogged about it (my bad). Here is a photo. (More details on my Ravelry project page.)

This sweater was knitted from yarn that was just a bit lighter in weight than the Estelle Ultra Wool, but it's still fairly thick. Its shape is super basic - it's a gansey. The front and back are rectangular and the sleeves have a very shallow cap. I added a gusset under the arm for better fit and comfort. 

Nevertheless it has a fairly deep round front neckline, which works well on me because I have a forward neck. 

I designed this sweater in Garment Designer, so I had the pattern pieces. All I had to do was adjust for a different gauge. 

Here's a photo of the 2 sweaters - they are almost exactly the same size! 

Last but not least - the technical details

I knitted swatches of stockinette, ribbing and the cables. The gauges for each were different. 

The difference between the stockinette and the cables was dramatic. I knit the cables at a bigger stitch size to make it easier to cross the stitches, but still, in order to have no difference in width between the cabled yoke and the rest of the front, I had to add 20 stitches across the front! I did this increase using a garter bar, which allowed me to take all the stitches off the needles and put them back in a different, more spread out configuration. 

The added stitches are completely invisible in the finished piece, which is, as intended, completely straight up the sides. 

I also had to calculate the length of the yoke using the cable specific gauge. I made a separate pattern piece in Garment Designer just for the yoke. 

Because the gauges were so different, I decided not to do shaping for the neckline or shoulders on the machine. This was because shaping would interfere with the cabling and so I would end up with a lot of uncabled stockinette, including all those extra stitches. They would flare out, probably in an unattractive way. 

To avoid flaring in the neck and shoulder areas, I decided (first time ever) to use a cut and sew technique. I took the centre 24 stitches off on waste yarn, and knitted the cabled pattern straight up on either side of these stitches to the length needed for the highest part of the shoulder. 

Then I rehung the centre 24 stitches and continued the cable pattern up for the high neck. I added a stitch on either side for seaming. 

I then used thread basting to identify the lines for the shoulder slope and side neck shaping. I ran 2 lines of straight stitch along the basting to secure the knitting. 

The back of the collar is knitted in rib, which has (luckily) a similar row gauge to the cables. I figured out the number of ribs I needed to get a piece that would be 85% the length of the neckline, minus the centre 24 stitches. The rectangular piece was knitted with open stitches at the top and bottom, as I had decided to attach it to the neckline with hand stitches, and wanted flexibility to rip back a row if needed to make the upper edges of the back collar even with those of the ribbed portion. 

At left, the collar was sewn on. That orange yarn is the waste yarn that secures the top and bottom loops. 

I didn't cut anything until after I had attached the back and front at the shoulders, and attached the back collar. 

I decided to further secure the cut edge by encasing it in bias strips of tricot (similar to Seams Great) from my extensive sewing stash. the tricot on one side using a zig zag stitch, then cut ... very carefully ... before encasing the narrow edge in the tricot with another line of stitching. It isn't particularly beautiful on the inside, but it works and I think it is secure. 

The hand-stitched collar looks pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself. 

I used a backstitch. It looks like a line of purl bumps.

In the end, the back and front of the collar were just the right heights, and I did a similar back stitch finish on the open loops at the top of the collar, all the way around. 

The back hem is a bit longer than the front, and there's a little slit at the side seam. 

The only thing I'm not 100% satisfied with is that the top edge of the cables at the collar curls a bit. I will live with that for a bit before deciding whether it needs fixing. 

Ridiculous pants (and matching jacket!)

 Without further ado, here are the pants I made to go with my garden camo jacket.

They may never be seen in combination again, so enjoy!

Fly front - with snap!

This is yet another iteration of the Shop Pants from Open Studio Patterns. I mean, once you adjust a pattern to fit, why not make it to death?

There are lots of details, but they are totally invisible.

Topstitching!

Pockets!

Fly front!

As the linen fabric is a bit scratchy and underlining helps with wrinkling, I underlined the main body pieces with the cotton lining fabric from the original curtains. I also used the cotton for the pocket bags and to face the  waistband.

They look good with this extremely monochromatic top. Which was the entire plan. 

I continue to tweak the pattern. After assembling, I scooped the crotch a bit for more sitting room (maybe 1cm). I also added fusible stay tape on the upper edge of the waistband to shorten the upper edge (eased waistband as I was fusing) because it needed to be a bit more curved than it was. 

I didn't adjust the upper edge of the front and back pieces but I think I could handle a tiny bit more height in the centre back. Like maybe .5cm.

I didn't do any further adjustments to the paper pattern. (Hope I remember to check this before making again...)

At the waist, I installed a snap closure (because I could not make a buttonhole with the available machinery in the thickness of this waistband). 

I used a green plastic snap leftover from when my son (now mid-30s) was a toddler. They go in with the red tool as pictured in the following photos. (This is 100% written about so I will be able to refer back the next time I get a hankering to put one of these snaps onto a garment. My blog is my external memory.)

The first step is to punch a tiny hole in the overlap and underlap in the correct places. I marked a point on the outside of the waistband (overlap) with a marking pencil, then punched a hole in that layer. Holding the waistband closed as it would be when worn (zip up), I punched the underlap layer through the hole in the overlap layer. I have a Dritz snap plier tool, which didn't work directly with these snaps (different brand). However, it works fine for hole punching!

At left are the tools and instructions that came with the snaps. 

To apply these snaps you need to hammer the bits together on a firm surface. You don't want rebound and you want to use a decently heavy hammer. No messing about!

To apply the the visible part, place the plastic button face down in the little cup. Put the RIGHT SIDE of the overlap side of the garment against it so that the centre of the button, which pokes up a tiny bit, is visible through the little hole previously punched in the correct place.

Then place the socket (female part of snap) over it, so it is centred.

Place the pointy bit of the red tool into the socket. It will snap down into the hole.

Give the assembly a good few whacks with the hammer. 

For the underlap side, reverse the round disc so the flat part faces up and put the tall part down on it.

Put the WRONG SIDE of the underlap down so the tall part (post) pokes through the previously punched hole. 

Put the male bit of the snap (the stud - truly the technical term!) overtop the post and press down. It will sort of snap onto the post. 

Take the cup end of the red tool and place over the stud. 

Give it a good few whacks. 

Done!

 

Its curtains! (again)

Different ones though. This fabric came from an IKEA curtain panel (Syssan), 55% linen, 45% cotton. A thrift store purchase, naturally. When my husband texted me a photo with a question mark, I responded "buy!".

So the scale of the print is a bit larger and more random than I had gleaned from the photo, but what the heck? I wanted a jean jacket, and that is what I made.

This is the Atenas pattern from Itch to Stitch. It's a classic style, but I think the shape of it is better than the standard boxy jacket. It has a nice amount of waist shaping and comes with cup sizes! So it's quite feminine, considering the style's tough guy roots. 

When I laid the fabric out, I gave no thought at all to trying to match the print. I just placed the many smallish pieces where they seemed to go, and cut them out. So it's interesting that the large leaf shape ended up straddling a seam on my upper chest. Luckily, it's not too "bulls-eye!"

The pattern has all the jean jacket bells and whistles, including chest and welt pockets (both or either of which can be omitted), buttoned chest flaps, two piece sleeves, waistband with (optional) button tabs, potential for flat-felled seams, and miles of topstitching. I made working pockets but omitted the button tabs. The seams in my jacket are faux flat-felled, stitched down with 2 parallel lines of topstitching, which I think is more attractive than a single line.  

It calls for no-sew jeans buttons (10 without the waistband tabs, 14! if you include the tabs). I only installed 9, having omitted the top buttonhole, as there is no way I'd ever do this up all the way to the collar.

This pattern has nice drafting details, like a separate piece for the bias under collar so the upper collar is a smidge bigger and folds over perfectly. The upper front is nicely shaped (cup sizes!). Everything went together really well, and I even followed the instructions. 

The fit is good with a simple shortening of the sleeves (standard adjustment for me) and grading from size 2 (above waist) to 4 at the hip. 

Things I will try to remember if I make this again (a distinct possibility):

I could stand another cm or so in the hip - the waistband is slightly eased so I could just lengthen the pattern piece without any other adjustments. The pattern says to pick the smaller size if you are between sizes, which I did. It could be a bit too snug depending on what I wear under it. Maybe not much, this version (summer camo). But if I did a denim one, I might want to wear it with sweaters. 

The centre front is a folded edge, which feels a little bit insubstantial given all the other hefty seams. It's interfaced of course, but could use more support (maybe some fusible tape?). A seam at CF would add a lot of bulk unless I made a facing piece for the entire front (the yoke seam carries through to the foldover facing as drafted). 

I should really have made faux chest pockets  (there is no way I'll ever use these). However, enjoy this photo of my hand in the lower welt pocket. 

Taking on a technical challenge - Tide Loop Top knitted by machine

At left, my latest machine knitting project. This is a mostly self drafted top that is based on a hand knitting pattern that references the ripples left in wet sand by departing waves.

At right is the inspiration, the Tide Loop Top pattern by Other Loops. 

But I wanted to make it by machine, to use different yarn and to reimagine the shape.

The original pattern called for two yarns to be knitted together - one alpaca, the other a blend of linen and cotton. I chose a mystery cone of yarn from stash, which I think is cotton. It wanted to be knit at a much smaller gauge (30s x 41r in 10cm) than the pattern called for (24s x 32r), but it was more or less the colour of sand. 

I completely redesigned the shape of the top. The original has a deep scoop at the back and is quite high in the front. Mine has a reasonable scoop at front and is quite high in the back.  

I used the pattern (sort of), knitting size XL to get a circumference approximating size S. But above the armholes, I made up the shaping as well as the patterning. 

My edges are also different from the pattern. It called for a sewn hem and I did ribbing. It called for the neck and armhole openings to be finished with 3 rows of stockinette that would roll towards the RS. I finished these edges with iCord, knitted by machine.

Knitting it took a while (read on to understand why) but I am super satisfied with this project!

What was the technical challenge?

The defining characteristic of the fabric of the Tide Loop Top is the uneven horizontal stripes of reverse knitting, creating irregular textured stripes or ripples. In this top, most of the stitches have their purl side facing out, but the recessed stripes are the opposite (knit side facing). This apparently simple texture is quite hard to create on a knitting machine. Purls have to become knits, but not an entire row at a time. And the patterning is quite irregular across the rows as well as between the rows of recessed stripes. The in and out texture combined with the irregularity means that this is the hardest type of fabric to knit on a domestic knitting machine.*

The U100E is a tool that helps make this type of texture. It is a transfer carriage. All it does is move stitches from needles on one bed of the machine to needles on the opposite bed. Once moved, the (formerly) "knit" stitch can be worked as a "purl" or vice versa.

It works with Passap knitting machines. It didn't come with my machine, and I no longer remember where/how I purchased it or, for that matter, how long it had sat on a shelf. I had bought it, but I had never used it.

In more detail (possibly TLDR, you can skip to the next section if you want)

The Passap is a "true" double bed knitting machine, which means it has two functionally identical beds of needles that sit at a fixed angle. Each bed is equipped with almost 200 latch hook needles. 

The beds are oriented as in this diagram.

Because the hooks of the needles on one bed face in the opposite direction from those on the other, stitches made on one bed are the physical reverse of the stitches made on the other. One side makes the knits and the other side makes the purls. 

On a double bed machine, you can use needles on two beds (as in the diagram) to knit a tube - first the machine knits all the needles on one bed and then it knits all the needles on the other bed, and then it repeats. This is the same as knitting in the round in hand knitting. 

Or you can use both beds at the same time to make a ribbed fabric. This involves knitting a few stitches on one bed and then a few on the other and repeating so that the yarn zigs and zags between the two beds along a single row. You can do the same thing with hand knitting needles. There will be some knits, and then some purls, and some more knits and purls along the knitted piece. 

When knitting by hand, it's quite easy to make fabric that isn't ribbing, but has a texture created by both knits and purls in a single row. You can work either a knit or a purl into any stitch along the needle. You can do this either in the round, or when turning the knitting between rows. Garter stitch is made with only the knit stitch, but when you turn the knitting and work knitted stitches on the back side of the fabric, you are always working a knit stitch into a purl stitch (the back of a knit stitch).  

Making some knit/some purl fabric (other than ribbing, which lines the knits and purls up vertically) is not at all straightforward on a machine. You need a mechanism for transforming a stitch (physically turning it around so what was front is back, or vice versa). This can be done completely manually - unravel the knit stitches that you want to be purls, hook them up backwards and rehang. Or you can use a double eye transfer tool to switch stitches, one by one, from one bed to the other. 

If you want to knit garter stitch (knit rows and purl rows alternate) you can use a garter bar to flip the fabric, physically, before knitting every single row. Other, more complex types of patterning can be done automatically with a garter carriage (only Brother machines). Or, if you have a Passap, you can use the U100E to transfer all the stitches in a row to the opposite bed, or just some of them.

For all readers

This knitting project provided a perfect opportunity to finally learn how to use my U100E. 

This wasn't entirely smooth, at first. The U100E initiates a physical process requiring some pressure and determination. There are a series of steps that had to be completed in order to do the transfer. There were a series of things that could go wrong. It liked me when I approached the task with confidence. Even pressure, proper alignment of the beds and assertive movement of the carriage from side to side, and the U100E would bend to my will. Any hesitation, and I, or the stitches, or the needles themselves, could be lost. After the transfer was complete, I had to make sure that all empty needles were removed from working position. Then I had to remember to actually knit a row before setting up for the next one. 

My swatch (at right, especially the first bit at the bottom) looked pretty bad. 

But it turns out that repetition does eventually turn into knowledge and/or skill. I dropped fewer stitches, had to un-knit fewer rows, and generally got a better result as I continued to use the U100E. 

At the end of the day, I have a nice tank top with an interesting texture. 

* Of course, there are knitting machines used by manufacturers that have automated knitting for this type of thing. They are far out of reach, price wise, of the average hobby knitter. 

A retired lawyer's dress ensemble

As a retired person, I'm still trying to figure out what my new "look" is. For years, it was tailored. Suits, separates, dresses and coordinating jackets. Now it's ... what? Comfy clothes? Well yes, but I don't want this to be obvious. For years, at least since the pandemic, I've been trending to "secret pajamas". More stretch, more function, less structure. But I still like a well-constructed outfit. 

Enter my new dress and "jacket" ensemble, my latest foray into non-tailored separates.

This is the new Jenna shirt from Closet Core, coupled with the Rova dress from Jalie. 

As you know, if you are a regular reader, I've made a few big shirts recently. I think these function really well as jackets in warmer weather. Something to ward off the chill in an air conditioned interior, or on a patio on a cooler evening. 

However, I hadn't loved the patterns I had tried. The Phen shirt is deeply unsatisfactory on a number of levels even though I still love some of its details. The Olya shirt is no better, from a pattern drafting perspective. Don't get me wrong. I wear the garments I made from these patterns. They work (the Olya more so than the Phen, which is just awkward) for the wearable jacket stand-in ward-off-the-chill purpose. But I didn't love sewing them.

Enter Jenna. This is just a breath of fresh air after the mannered or even contorted drafts of the other patterns. It is a standard shirt. But it is a "big" shirt. It is wider and longer than a standard tailored shirt. It has a lovely collar with stand (2 piece) that fits really well. The pattern has a separate under collar piece, and the seam allowances for these small pieces is reduced to 1 cm. The method for constructing the collar is really good! I appreciate the attention to detail that has gone into these decisions.

The shirt has deep shirt tails with a little triangle of reinforcement. It has a placket that looks really professional. It's all provided for in this pattern. I actually shortened the shirt by 5cm and think I could have reduced the length even more without losing the "big shirt" vibe.

I made this shirt from linen - actually a remnant from another sewer that I acquired for a measly $10 (CAD) at the Fabric Flea Market in May. It has an interesting and very irregular stripe with build in texture. I was delighted when I discovered a coordinating remnant in my own stash of yellow linen - from a dress I probably made in about 2005. There was enough of this plainer weave to make the Rova dress (with pockets) and to use for the details in my shirt (including the under collar, collar stands, plackets and yoke lining).

And enough left over for the Rova too, even though I almost screwed it up!

Rova has a pocketed and non-pocketed view, as well as a tunic length. The pieces required for the pocketed skirt are the front skirt (with pocket cut-out), the back skirt and the tunic length FRONT pieces (with and without the cut out). Well, after a glass of wine, I cut out the tunic length of the back, which is narrower than the front. 

Further (also after the aforementioned glass of wine) I realized I needed to cut a back seam due to lack of fabric and that I could put the seam along the selvedge, but failed to notice that the selvedge was MUCH wider than the seam allowance I was adding. 

Oops! I did not have extra fabric to re-cut for either mistake. 

I was able to finesse the pocket issue by splitting my too-narrow pocket piece in the middle and sewing two vertical seams that split the kangaroo pocket (as designed) into two still very large pockets. Honestly, this is probably an improvement, from a functional perspective.

Betcha can't see it...

I fixed the too-narrow back by cutting a strip that sits between the front and back skirt pieces at the side seam. I can now (a couple of weeks later) barely remember this fix, which is really quite invisible. As you can (or may not be able to) see at right.

The Rova, like most Jalie patterns, is carefully drafted with great details and finishes supplied in the instructions. In the case of this dress, you finish the neck and armhole edges with self fabric bias strips. The pattern includes a piece for cutting the bias and tells you precisely how long each piece should be. No guessing; it turns out perfect!

Finally, in keeping with the fact that everything else in this outfit is a remnant, I knitted a length of i-cord using left-over yarn from this knitting project instead of using purchased cord or sewing a fabric belt. A deep stash is truly a wondrous thing! I only had to buy the pattern and some buttons for the shirt. 

The completed Olya Shirt - along with some more observations about the drafting and instructions

 

Aaaaand here it is. 

Disclaimer - the shirt might look better if I had chosen a drapier fabric, perhaps linen. This is fairly stiff chambray from deep stash (chosen to test the pattern and not because I love it) and I doubt it's pure cotton. However, this fabric, being less forgiving, highlights some features (issues) of this pattern arising from the unusual draft.

I could also probably have chosen nicer buttons in a better colour but ... stash. I have a million of these. 

So let's talk about these features.

After I let loose my frustrations regarding the pockets, I moved on to the "interesting" task of assembling the sleeve/yoke/body combination. 

The back pattern pieces (yoke and lower back) look about how you'd expect for any shirt pattern. However, the lower front and yoke/sleeve combo do not.

You can see how the yoke piece and lower front join up above the pockets. And that inside corner? Well, it wraps around the shoulder seam and armscye edge of the back yoke piece. And then, the sleeve does a bit more wrapping under the arm until the pointy bit at the top in this image joins along the veeerrrrry tiny armscye curve of the lower front and then operates as a continuation of that yoke seam. It extends right to the shirt cuff. 

So there are a couple of tricky bits of sewing associated with this. The first is joining the inner corner of the yoke/sleeve piece to the outer corner of the back yoke. 

I have joined this type of seam many times in my sewing career. In fact, there was the same type of inside outside corner in the dart of one of the first dresses I ever made. 

Until now, the instructions I've seen go like this: 1. Sew a line of stay stitches just inside the seam line (on the piece with the inner corner) for a few cm either side of the corner. 2. Clip from the inner corner up to the pivot point of the stitching, but without cutting the thread. 3. Line up the pieces with the edges even. Sew along the seam line, pivoting at the corner. 

Sometimes, especially if the inner corner is sharper than 90 degrees, you are told to reinforce this with a tiny square of bias cut fabric. Here is a Style Arc tutorial adopting this method and one from Threads Magazine. 

A key element is that during sewing, the stay-stitched inner corner is on top so you can see what you're doing. I usually put a pin at the pivot point and sew (carefully) right to the pin before removing it and (with needle down) turning the corner. Or you can do this in two passes, as Kenneth King instructed for Threads Magazine.

Cranky old lady warning!

I do not understand why the Paper Theory abandoned this tried/true approach in their instructions for the Olya Shirt.  

They tell you instead to sew this seam without any form of stabilization for the inner corner. Moreover, they think you ought to sew it with the yoke (outer corner) on top. Sew merrily along until you get to the (concealed) pivot point. Then, with needle down, "rotate the whole garment until the next seam is lined up in front of the presser foot in the correct position to sew. You will then need to cut a small slash line from the inside of the bottom corner. Don't cut it right to the needle, stop about 1-2 mm away from the needle."

The photo is from Paper Theory's sew along tutorial.

No thank you. The likelihood of sewing in a hard little pleat or (worse) leaving a small hole at this critical point is far too high. 

The other "interesting" bit in the Olya pattern is its very small (really vestigial) front armscye. This is a truly atypical underarm/armscye. 

In a typical garment (illustrated at left) the lower front armscye and the lower back armscye may look a bit different but they each feature a right angle corner at the side seam. Once the seam is sewn, there is a smooth continuous curve under the arm. 

Then the armscye continues its curve up towards the shoulder. In the front, the inset of the armscye recognizes that your arms take up space at the side of your body, typically more space in the front than the back. Moreover, they move most naturally forward. So the inward curve of the front armscye lets your arms move naturally while you are wearing the garment. 

In the Olya, the lower back armscye looks pretty normal. 

However, the armscye in the lower front is a really tiny and barely curved indent. It looks nothing like the back. When you sew the side seams, the front armscye is so minimal that it practically disappears. Where there would usually be a somewhat horizontal curve under the arm in a typical garment, in the Olya there is an acute angled corner. 

In the photo at left, the lower front pattern piece is sitting on top of the lower back. The front armscye is barely there.

Initially I thought it would be impossible to sew these two pieces together to produce any kind of armscye that would work. The front armscye curve is so shallow that it's less than the 1cm seam allowance in depth. In other words, if you ran the side seam straight up from the bottom of this curve, you would still be sewing on the fabric of the front yoke. 

I went to the trouble of drawing the seam lines on both pieces and measuring the length of the entire armscye seam and comparing it to the length of the sleeve cap seam from the pivot point. They matched, so I proceeded, suspending judgment.

At right is a photo of the two pattern pieces with the side seams aligned, on top of the actual shirt body after the side seams were sewn. 

See what I mean about an acute corner under the arm?

To sew the sleeve around that corner without puckering was not easy. If memory serves, I did a line of stay stitching along the armscye and then I needed to clip into the bottom of the underarm "curve" near the side seam to facilitate sewing the relatively much shallower curve of the sleeve. 

The last thing to do in assembling the shirt body is to sew the rest of the yoke/sleeve seam. 

The lengths of these pieces matched (thankfully) but the front yoke/sleeve nevertheless seems to me to have too much fabric relative to the back. Have a look at these photos of the shirt when it is spread flat on the floor.

This first picture is lined up just like the line drawings in the pattern. The front yoke is perfectly flat. The lower back sleeve wraps up under the armscye to the lower edge of the perfectly on-grain edge of the front yoke/sleeve piece. 

But notice where the side seam is. It has wrapped around to the front of the shirt. The line drawing does not show this happening. Presumably, the illustration is meant to show the shirt folded flat along the side seam.

If I reconfigure the shirt so it is folded along the side seam, see what happens in the front yoke? It bubbles. It will not lie flat. This seems to me to demonstrate that the upper front of this shirt body/sleeve is actually wider than the back. 

Which would be exactly opposite to the usual human body (anyway, mine), which needs more width in the back than the front (because arms typically sit forward of the midline and mostly move forward).  

Maybe the pattern could be adjusted so that the front yoke/sleeve seam would be shorter than the back sleeve seam. Or maybe there could be some kind of fisheye dart that would remove fabric in a vertical line from the point of my shoulder down to the bottom of the front armscye. 

OH WAIT! That would start to look like a conventional sleeve/armscye combination. Which would kind of miss the apparent point of the Olya Shirt pattern.

Which brings me to the question. So Olya, what about the fit? 

Well, it's a baggy shirt. Which is as advertised. I will probably wear it open most of the time, as an overshirt. 

It looks OK. I like the collar. The cuffs/plackets turned out well. The length is right.

But there's definitely extra fabric in the front sleeve/shoulder area. It generates diagonal folds in the sleeves. Even when I am sort of trying to hold my arm out straight and slightly back I can't really get the yoke to lie flat.

The sleeves are too long for me, but this is normal. I can roll them up, and probably will. I could shorten them, if there's to be a next time. 

The back looks like a normal loose fitting shirt. 

By the way, I sized down and made the smallest size (6) even though my bust is closer to the body measurements for size 8 and my hips are closer to size 10. 

The final verdict is that I do not love the Olya Shirt anywhere near as much as some others apparently do. It is merely OK. Too bad.