Amazing turnaround

My shoulder width fix (removing about 1.5cm or 5/8" of width from the front armscye and slightly less in back, tapering to nothing at the bottom of the armhole) worked brilliantly. So much so that I was able to convince myself to spend an entire day of my long weekend in my sewing room and to push through to the finish.

And as these things often turn out, after so many days of serious doubt and funk, I love my new coat!

So here it is.

Look! It fits me in the shoulders!

The pattern didn't suggest a belt with this view, but I thought its plainness would be improved by one. I briefly considered making the buckled straps for the sleeves but managed to come to my senses quite quickly.

As you can see, there is a single button in view at the neck. There are four more concealed behind a fly front opening.


I used some gaily printed cotton shirting or quilting cotton from stash for lining, in keeping with my goal of not buying any more fabric. The sleeves are lined with Bemberg so that the coat will ease over whatever I'm wearing underneath it.

All's well that ends well! I'm going to use the rest of the cotton to make the top from Vogue 7440.

Frustration on several fronts

Sewing

I made Vogue 2449 before, and still wear the resulting trench coat, so I didn't see a need for a muslin.

I should have thought about the very different qualities of my fabric then (soft, limp) and now (stiff).

Right sleeve is pinned further in,
left sleeve still needs to be removed 

Stiff fabric that's coated on the reverse with a waterproof membrane of some kind. It's the very devil to sew without puckers. This is the only similar quality between fabric then and fabric now.

So anyway I had not realized how very wide this coat is across the front in the shoulder area, and how extended the shoulders. This became painfully obvious, once I sewed in the sleeves. In a softer fabric and a double breasted trench it didn't matter too much but there is no place to hide with a light coloured stiff coat front.

Yes of course I edge stitched the sleeve cap before I tried it on!

So I am spending some quality time with my seam ripper today. I think I'll move the sleeve seam in 5/8" (1.5cm) at the shoulder point and in the front bodice, leaving the underarm the same. The side benefit is that the little bit of ease in the sleeve cap (which was pretty difficult to deal with) will be taken up by the slight extra length of the revised seam line.

Machine Knitting

I bought a cone of rather lovely creamy yellow silk yarn, intending to use my Passap knitting machine to make a summer top out of it.

But it breaks. It is a noile silk that has no bounce (softness, stretch) whatsoever. When it's tensioned, its relatively short fibres just don't hold I guess.

I tried a different knitting machine. Same thing.

It's really thin and will take a very long time to hand knit.

Sigh.

But have a look at this terminally cute little sweater!

The knitting was surprisingly easy on my LK100 bulky machine. The collar was hand knit. In the time it took me to sew up the seams I could have made another back, I think.

Hand Knitting

So, this hand knitted cotton top was unforgivably biased. Some yarn just does that. I wore it a few times but its twistiness really bothered me. So much that I knew I wouldn't be reaching for it.

Don't know why this is sideways

The nice thing about failed knitting projects is that you can recover the materials and reuse them just as if they were brand new.

It doesn't take very long to un-knit a top, using a swift and yarn winder.

I started a new one in a lace pattern. For some reason, lace patterns can eliminate bias. Look how square the swatch is!

The pattern is Feather Pullover. You knit it top down, increasing within a modified version of the lace. So far my impression is that this is a great pattern; really well written and thorough.

Oh yeah, that coat?

Remember this post?

Well.

Not a trench

Not full length.

V2449

Not a Burda pattern (I'm using Vogue 2449, view E).

Not finished.

But it is robin's egg blue.




A sewer is always entitled to change her mind, right?