Grey summer suit - it's about time, you say?

Well, for heaven's sake, I wonder what took The Sewing Lawyer so long?  It may have been the intervening allure of Vogue 1250.  Or her week away on holidays.  Perhaps she was slightly discouraged by that mid-project anxiety which often strikes during a longer-term more-complicated sewing project about whether it would fit, or suit her, or be easy enough to wear to be a go-to outfit on hurried weekday mornings.  Or maybe it was just the summer heat and doldrums, of which there has been plenty.  Whatever the cause, the delay has been overcome.

The Sewing Lawyer is pleased to present to you ... (drumroll) ... her grey summer suit.

Happily, it does fit.  And it seems comfortable enough.  The jury is out on whether it will be easy to wear.

The last jacket that The Sewing Lawyer made with a peplum was definitely NOT easy to wear.

It was her attempt to fix the Hot Patterns jacket pattern known as the Metropolitan Jacket.  You can read the whole long, sad saga here (if you are a paying member of PatternReview).  She sweated and swore at that thing for what seemed like months.  Come to think of it, it  really was months, And then she hardly ever wore it.  Too fussy.  Not The Sewing Lawyer's style.  Or something.

It (and its matching skirt and pants) have been donated.  I hope someone is enjoying them.  A lot.

Back to Vogue 8718.  I feel cautiously optimistic about it.  It isn't gathered.  I like its lines.  I still really like the sleeves, which are sort of puffed but not at all in the same way as the HP jacket.  I think with time I can get over the fact that the fabric (very thin, hard surfaced wool suiting with a slight sheen) is really hard to press, so there are apparent wrinkles and puckers everywhere if you look really closely.  This is one of those problems that may well disappear in the closet, if given enough time.  (You know, those sewing flaws visible only to the creator...)

So... what else to tell you about this?  How about some more photos?

The princess seams of the skirt (which is the same as many other skirts in The Sewing Lawyer's closet, a true TNT pattern) are more or less in the right place in the front to flow on from the pleated peplum.  I notice that in the back, they are too widely-spaced.  Oh well.  As I showed you before, the major seams are edgestitched and topstitched because double lines of heavy topstitching thread are an interesting contrast to the extremely smooth fabric.  I think that was a good call.

The pattern called for four medium-sized (3/8", or 9mm) snaps to close the jacket.  I disagreed.  Snaps would be bumpy, and very visible on the underlap side when the jacket is not closed.  Covering them to make them less obvious would have made them prone to opening spontaneously. The jacket did not need a closure below the peplum seam (which is slightly above the natural waist).  So I sewed on three hooks, on the overlap side, and made thread bars for the underlap.  Here are some photos.

I am very happy with how this solution works.  The thread bars are worked with a sort of button hole stitch, over about 4 foundation stitches.  I used the heavy topstitching thread which is a good colour match.  The hooks are ugly but they are under the overlap side so cannot be seen.

As you can see (or not) in the photo below.

Other construction notes.

I found the sleeve hem opening was much too wide.  I narrowed the under-sleeve seam by approximately .75" (2 cm) on each of the front and back sleeve for a total narrowing of double that amount on each sleeve.  This is perfectly fine, and I don't think my arms are unnaturally slender.

I am really happy that I used stout ribbons to pleat the sleeves instead of following the pattern instructions, which were to sew the lining pieces to the upper sleeve before pleating, and then fasten the outer sleeve to the sleeve lining to create the pleats.  I just do not think that lining fabric is strong enough to support the sleeve pleats.  Plus, using a ribbon allows you to get the pleating right before the jacket is totally lined.

The only dedicated lining pieces are for the sleeves.  Otherwise, Vogue instructs to cut the lower and upper CF pieces as facings out of the fashion fabric (as you can see above), and the rest of the body pieces out of lining fabric.  In retrospect, I wish I had thought to make a CB piece with a lining pleat, and to add a touch of length to the lining, for ease purposes. As it is, I sewed the lining with slightly smaller seam allowances, and hand-felled the lining at the waist with a seam allowance of maybe 1.2cm (1/2") to give a bit of ease in the length.  Using the same pieces for lining risks having a lining that is too short/tight and will pull on the fashion fabric, disturbing the line of the garment.

The other truly weird thing about the Vogue instructions relate to the collar.   This is TMI unless you are puzzling through the pattern instructions, but I mention it here in case anyone out there in blogland is sewing this jacket.  They say to sew the facing/lining layer to the jacket body before the collar is sewn on i.e. leaving an opening for the collar, and then to sew the collar on with the outer SA pressed up to the inside, and to hand-fell the collar to the jacket side.  I could not for the life of me figure out why...  Too complicated and risks a truly Becky-Home-Ecky and bulky look.  I sewed the collar, ignoring the instructions to press the lower SA up on the outer collar layer.  I first topstitched the collar, and then attached it to the jacket shell before attaching the lining.  I finally sewed the facing/lining to the jacket/collar at CF/neck from one peplum seam to the other in one pass, enclosing the collar seam (which had to be trimmed). Just ignore Vogue.  Sorry I took no pictures of this.  If you have questions, ask in the comments and I'll do my best to explain further.

One more thing - I used a fusible tape to snug in the CF edge by maybe 1cm (3/8").  Even though the lower CF piece is more or less on grain, and the upper piece is fully fused, and even though I was reasonably careful with the iron, I found this edge stretched out when I was pressing the seam attaching the facing/lining to the jacket.  This was a little in-progress retrofit.

I do like the sleeves.  Very much.

The Sewing Lawyer has been on vacation

Which is why there have not been any posts for a little while.  So... what have I been doing?

Well, right after I made my second version of Vogue 1250 we departed for a week away, planned around an extended family celebration in the great urban agglomeration that vaguely surrounds the city of Toronto.

I'm happy to report that I survived the hottest July 21 on record in downtown Toronto - the actual temperature was 38C (just over 100F) and the humidex something like 51C (almost 124F).  It remained hot, but thankfully not that hot, while we attended the family event and during two days spent in the delightful tiny town of Jordan, which is in the heart of the main wine-producing region of Ontario.

Since this is a sewing blog you may not care much about The Sewing Lawyer's vacation, but let me just share with you one photo, which comes close to capturing how gorgeous this wine-producing part of the country is.  (What the photo misses is the country silence, the warm and pleasant breeze, and general feeling of goodwill instilled by being in good company in such a place.)

This was the view from up high on the Niagara escarpment at the lovely terrace of Vineland Estates Winery, where we enjoyed a delicious dinner.

OK, one more thing.

Excellent local wine.  Ahhhh.

Enough of that.

I did have some sewing-related touristical experiences.  In Toronto, I again visited Perfect Leather and bought some brick red lamb leather to make another jacket.

Toronto has realized that it ought to celebrate its different districts and there are a few pieces of public art in the area around Spadina and Queen, the heart of the garment district.

The thimble which sits on a pile of giant buttons at the corner of Richmond and Spadina is well-known.

A quick internet search informed me that this was created by Stephen Cruise, and was commissioned as a result of a City of Toronto juried public art selection process.  It dates to 1997 when street cars were reinstated on Spadina Avenue.

These two metal sculptures are located at a streetcar stop on Spadina in the heart of the "Fashion District".  

These are part of a series of sculptures at different intersections created by Randy & Berenicci.  According to the City of Toronto, the pieces "represent the people and events chronicled in existing public domain images that record the changes to the neighborhood throughout this century. The structures supporting the vignettes recreate the shape of the original Hydro poles, whose function to carry and transmit power and communications is maintained in a metaphorical sense, transmitting the history of the neighborhoods. Replacing the glass insulators of the original poles, overscale cast glass birds sit on various support struts, adding an element of three dimensionality and an air of whimsy."  Whew!  


The fact that Hamilton Ontario also has a little garment district is less well known.  It's on Ottawa Street, and I had a chance to visit en route to Jordan.  My semi-planned destination was Bra-Makers Supply, renowned purveyor of all things necessary for beautiful and supportive undergarments.  My visit was fast, since there was little on the premises that was of much interest to my husband.  Not having enough time to consider and reconsider what I was doing (my usual shopping pattern), I bought The Book (Beverley Johnson's Bra Maker's Manual), two patterns, a bra kit (all fabric and other materials needed for one bra), two additional findings kits, some spiral steel boning, and I forget what else.  Oh yeah, two pairs of foam cups.  I was fitted for these by Beverley herself, with 3 students taking the intensive 2-month course preparatory to opening their own custom bra businesses looking on.  Fastest fitting ever.

Fortunately for my husband, many of the more interesting stores on Ottawa Street seemed to be closed for vacation, but we discovered more garment/sewing themed art.

The artist is Daniel Davelaar and it's the result of another juried public art competition.  According to this site, the sculpture is 3m (10'-0") high and "draped in cloth in such a way as to recall classical Roman and Greek sculpture. It is ... carved from a single block of Mountain Rose Granite."  The dark parts are polished and the lighter drapery is left rougher so it looks completely different.  I love it!  







Back at home, I'm almost finished the jacket from Vogue 8718.  The only thing left to do is the front fastenings.  The pattern calls for 4 smallish snaps.  I don't like that idea - they would be kind of ugly if the jacket is not done up, and the size Vogue wants me to use (9mm or 3/8") seem all too likely to pop open at the slightest provocation.  I'm toying with the idea of using hooks on the overlap side and making thread loops (almost invisible) on the underside, but I haven't decided.  The overlap is very small (about 1.5" in total or 3cm) so buttons are really out of the question.  Anyone have other ideas?

Why I'm stuck

The AC works again, so on the weekend I got back to Vogue 8718.

The peplum, which you can see here, is self-lined.  This is because part of the underside of the peplum is visible at the lower edge, (though not in this picture, you can see it on the photo from the pattern envelope, and in the original Akris version, at this blog post).

Anyhow, I fretted over whether to interface or otherwise beef up the two layers of very thin wool that would make up the peplum.  I finally decided to use a firm silk organza underlining, attached to the right side pieces.

I KNEW that the organza was slightly off-grain and rippling but I deluded myself all through sewing the seams, sewing the layers together, pressing, and attaching the peplum to the jacket.

I KNEW IT.

Was it going to stop rippling through sheer force of my will?  Of course not.

Am I going to wear it like this?  Of course not.

Luckily, I didn't trim or clip or do anything except turn and press.

Hello, seam ripper?  Where are you, my friend?

<<< A short time later ... >>>

Starting again, The Sewing Lawyer cut a length of ribbon which is the full length of the upper sleeve seam of the lining, and another to match the lining's under sleeve seam.  On the ribbon, she marked the points from the lining pattern where the jacket sleeve would attach.  Then, she marked the points along the upper sleeve seam of the jacket where it will attach to the ribbon.  

That's better!  I still think the sleeve hem is too loose, but the folds seem to be falling properly now.

Here's what it looks like on the inside (just pinned) for your information.  I will hand-tack the ribbon starting at the neck along the shoulder until the two layers need to separate for the top fold, then at each of the four attachment points, and finally at the hem.  Under the arm, I'll attach at the under-arm seam, the four attachment points, and the hem.  

Onward!

Dratted knock-off

Last year, DIGS posted about these fantastic sleeves she had spotted on Style.com - part of the 2010 Akris resort collection.  (They are in #2, #8 and #12 in the slide show.)

This peachy jacket shows the detail best.

Vogue, approximately one year later, came out with their new wardrobe pattern, 8718.  Do you think it looks a little bit familiar?


Except that the Akris has a double collar, no waist seam and no front yoke, and the saddle shoulder seam is higher.  And the V neck is lower and narrower on the original.  And the sleeves are not quite as luxurious.  But close enough.

So I got the sleeves sewn enough to pin them into the intended soft pleats/folds.  I decided to tack the sleeve seams to a ribbon instead of tacking them directly to the lining fabric.  It's a good thing I did, since monkeying with the pleats after the jacket was lined would have been a royal pain.

This is, however, not quite the effect I had in mind.

What went wrong?  Well, first, I didn't anchor the top pleat as high as Vogue intended (due to my construction method, I missed that there should have been one higher fold).



I'll adjust that, but will also have to snug up the  lower sleeve which is so loose it's flapping.  Look at the Akris original.  That sleeve is snug enough around the model's forearm that if she pushed it up it would stay.  The sleeve is only slightly looser in the Vogue pattern photo.

Some slight deconstruction is in order.  Grrr.

======================================

PS:  I goofed.  See the next post for more information.

Curves

So sinuous, so ... difficult to sew.  The Sewing Lawyer should have whittled the standard 5/8" (1.5cm) seam allowances down to 1cm but instead, she carefully pinned, held her breath, and sewed.  (Why am I so enslaved to 5/8"?)

Afterwards, out came the trusted and well-used seam ripper.  An inch here, 3 cm there, resewn.  The last stubborn puckers eliminated (left back) through more ripping and hand basting before sewing again (3rd time).  The upper yoke seam allowance trimmed down to about 5mm so it will turn nicely back on itself.  This very thin fabric needs serious pressing because it has a tendency to pucker.  Thank heavens for the gravity feed steam iron and suck and blow ironing board.

Holding her breath again to topstitch.  Smooth and steady are the watchwords.  Geometric perfection is not required.  The Featherweight is perfect for this.

I thought heavy topstitching would be an interesting contrast with the very smooth fabric and the very curved seams.  Hope you agree.

In lieu of actual sewing results ...

The Sewing Lawyer will write instead about sewing process.

I have learned over the years to take my time in the preparation of my projects.  Before actually starting to sew Vogue 8718 and its coordinating skirt, I had to:

• Choose the fabric, including all the inner layers (lining, underlining, and interfacing).  I eventually decided to underling with white silk organza, even though I have some grey in stash, because the grey is a little too stiff and substantial for the tropical weight wool.  
• Prep the fabric.  This included steam shrinking/pressing the wool with my super-duper gravity feed iron, while checking and marking with safety pins all the little flaws.  I also had to iron the Bemberg lining and the silk organza, which had been sitting in a bin folded up for quite some time.  
• Cut all layers.  In this process I had to pay attention to the many jacket pieces which had to be cut x 4 (the peplum and front edge pieces are self-lined), which needed to be cut x 2 in the wool and x 2 in lining, and which had to be cut as well from interfacing.  I decided to underline all the body pieces that were not being interfaced with my chosen fusible, and to cut the sleeve underlining on the bias to avoid stiffness in the draped/pleated sleeves.  Other decisions (like whether to use the organza selvedge to stay the front edges or a fusible tape, and whether to use the slightly stiffer grey organza to underline the peplum as well) will be made as I go.  
• Go and buy grey thread.  I also bought a spool of matching topstitching thread because I think I want to topstitch at least some seams and/or edges, although I haven't quite decided 

Right now, I am at the stage of having pinned the organza underlining to the wool.  True confession time:  I am not going to hand-baste the organza to the wool along the seam line (!!) - I am going to machine-baste.  So far I am still of the view that life is too short for hand-basting and thread-tracing and the like.  I've had entirely acceptable results before without having resorted to these somewhat laborious techniques and I'm not convinced that the effort is worth the possibly-more-beautiful results.  Feel free to try to convince me otherwise...

Despite my unwillingness to go to the trouble of thread-tracing, I have (as you may be able to tell from some previous projects) come around to the view that an aversion to hand-sewing is not consistent with my objective of producing well-sewn and properly-finished clothing.  I took an on-line class from Susan Khalje last year through PatternReview.  It was just in time for to give me what I needed to know for making my not-necessarily-black-not-necessarily-a-dress cocktail outfit for last year's PR Weekend in Montreal.  

Two things of which I am now completely convinced re hand-sewing:  

• Waxing the thread makes it a far more enjoyable process.  Say goodbye to knots and tangles.  Waxed thread pulls smoothly through the fabric and is less likely to break or tie itself in knots while you are trying to work with it.  
• Using better quality needles will also make hand-sewing a better experience.  

And there is one thing I am not completely convinced of yet, but am working on:

• Using a thimble may make one a better hand-sewer.

Here's how to wax thread.  Cut some lengths of your chosen colour, about 40-50cm (15"-18") long.  Hold them firmly at one end, and pull them through a block of beeswax.  You can see I'm holding the thread against the wax block, and pulling down slightly as I pull the threads through.  Repeat a few times, to ensure that there is a more or less even amount of wax on all the threads for their entire length.

Then put the thread between two sheets of paper towel.  Go over the paper towel with a dry iron.  You'll see the shape of the threads on the outer sheet as the wax melts into the thread and onto the paper towel.  

Simple.  The result is a slightly stiff, strengthened and smooth length of thread.  It's easier to thread your needles with waxed thread, and generally easier to use.  

I splurged on some Japanese hand-sewing needles which I purchased from Susan Khalje.  They are pretty expensive if you measure by the pound but I figure one package will last years if not my lifetime. These needles are very fine but strong, with a tiny hole (good for hand-eye coordination) and they feel very luxurious somehow.  

The whole thimble thing still feels very awkward but I am going to persevere until I get the hang of it and it seems natural.  I was doing some hand-sewing recently without a thimble and managed to practically shred my fingers because the fine ends of the Japanese needles are quite pointy!  I do not think I could tolerate the standard closed-end thimble but in my sizeable thimble stash there was one little tailor's thimble with an open end which I like a lot better.  

Googling "tailor's thimble" reveals that they are available for sale in different sizes, and how to use one.  Based on the pictures on the English Cut, I clearly need to work on my technique.  

Cutting in tandem

Yes indeed, that grey Vogue 8718 jacket is cut out, along with a matching basic princess seam slightly-pegged pencil skirt which is another one of The Sewing Lawyer's TNT patterns created with Patternmaster Boutique.  It has already been the foundation of so many skirts (like the high-waisted black pencil skirt and its non-identical twin, but there are others from pre-blogging days).  It's such a workhorse of a pattern.

So many decisions need to be made when cutting.  One problem was that my fabric had flaws - little irregularities in the otherwise smooth slightly varied grey surface - which I had to cut around.  I located them all with safety pins so it is easy to tell where they are.  The pins make little bumps in the otherwise very smooth surface on my cutting table.

There are about a million little pieces in Vogue 8718, plus two over-sized ones.  Just have a look at this cutting diagram ...

On the bright side, this makes it really easy to avoid having the flaws show up anywhere important.

Many of the jacket pieces are cut x4, including the pieces at the front edge, and all the peplum pieces.  I'll hide a few of the little flaws in the peplum lining.  It'll be our little secret.

I made a muslin of size 10, which fit me almost perfectly.  I cut almost all of the muslin pieces out of the taken-apart muslin for a dress: Simplicity 2648 (the sleeveless view).  This illustrates that (apart from the sleeves) Vogue 8718 indeed takes very little fabric!

Speaking of the sleeves, have a look at the pattern for the back sleeve.  The corresponding lining piece is on top for comparison. The texture of the sleeve is created by tacking the two layers together at marked spots.

Another decision is which interfacing to use.  The Sewing Lawyer has a big fusible stash, picked up a few metres here and there at different stores when she finds a new type to try.  This is good and bad.  Good because of the variety; bad because she never knows exactly what type of interfacing she used when people ask.  "It's that slightly-lofty tiny-square interfacing that's good for lightweight fabric" or "It's that fuzzy non-woven with a shiny stripe in the length" doesn't convey as much useful information as, say, "It's Pam Erny's Pro-Weft in black".  (BTW I have ordered from Pam - very high quality and good prices.)

I generally audition interfacing by fusing medium sized pieces to scraps to get a sense of how the hand and drape of the fashion fabric will be affected.  I often use more than one type in a jacket.  In this jacket, I think I'll interface the shoulder area of the sleeves along with the fronts and the collar as Vogue instructs.

I've decided on the lining - a silvery-putty coloured Bemberg from stash.  However, still to determine is whether I will underline the jacket with silk organza.  I think it could help keep the sleeves from even thinking about collapsing.

So I cut out both patterns - Vogue 8718 and Simplicity 2648 - today.  The dress is one of the "Perfect Fit" patterns from Simplicity.  It boasts different cup sizes as well as "slim", "average" and "curvy" fit.  I am one of the lucky souls who wears a B cup so not having to do a FBA is my normal (don't hate me).  However, I was curious about the difference between the slim, average and curvy fit, because one of my standard alterations is to grade out two sizes (usually) at the hip.  It turns out that "curvy" is all about one's derrière, since only the back skirt pieces vary.  (If you also have a curvy lower front, there are princess seams to modify.)  The curvy back gives a finished hip measurement which is bigger than the average fit which in turn is bigger than the slim fit.  The pattern envelope says there is a .5" difference between the different pieces for the same size.  Also, the curvy back has 2 darts instead of one.  I cut the curvy back which is not bad once I lengthened the darts.

I haven't figured out yet if the fabric for my dress will look any good with the grey jacket-to-be.  It's a cotton & lycra from Fabricland, purchased a few years ago.   What do you think?

Detour

What words ended that last post?  Something about Vogue 8718?  Oh yeah...  Well I lied changed my mind.  Only for a minute, you understand.  It was just a detour.  I'm still heading there.  Um.  Very soon.  Like maybe later today.

In the meantime, I am not sure exactly why, I started auditioning blouse fabrics with the extremely lightweight wool I have earmarked for Vogue 8718.  It's grey.

A grey summer suit?

Yes, it's grey.

But it's from stash.

I am NOT shopping for yet more fabric.

For this.  (I made an exception for the buy-one-get-two-free Bemberg lining sale at Fabricland today ... and the black and light khaki coloured pantweight fabric for capris and/or summer-weight jeans on the same sale.)

And it's extremely lightweight.

And I don't want to use linen because I'm worried about those crazy sleeves wrinkling and not being able to do a darned thing about it.

It will be good in the warm parts of spring and fall too.

It's a good neutral.

It will go with lots of things.

So there.  I'm making a grey summer suit!

Soon.

In the meantime, I was auditioning blouse fabric and I came across this little piece of rayon crepe that I picked up for next to nothing a few years back at the Fabric Flea Market.  The print has a definite Japanese influence and the repeat is huge.  I loved the print with the grey suiting.  But I only had a little bit - not even the full width and less than 1 metre.  Hmmmm what could I get out of this tiny scrap?

Enter this pattern from the November, 2007 edition of Burda World of Fashion.

So simple.

Takes SO little fabric.

I was lucky too, because I could cut so as to spread the entire crazy motif pleasingly across the front.  The back is a little less pleasing.  Or maybe just more ordinary looking.

As you can see from the line drawing, the shaping is provided by tucks that release at top and bottom in the front.  The back has 2 vertical darts that release at the bottom in a similar way.  It's not exactly a ruffle.  It should function as a subtle echo of the not-exactly-ruffled peplum of the Vogue 8718 jacket.

If you should have this edition of WOF and think of making this, I warn you that the neckline is extremely wide/deep.  I added approximately 2.5cm on all neckline edges and it isn't exactly closed-in even now.

Also, that back zipper is necessary if you are not using a knit for this top.

Off I go to contemplate Vogue 8718.  Really.