This is the real joy of sewing: garments that fit, rather than close enough. Is usually make dresses and tops, so I'm familiar with what I need to do, but the bottom half is fairly uncharted for me.
I've cut out size 16 of B6655. The pattern says it has a waist circumference of 31.5″. To fit a body waist measurement of 30″. Firstly, I prefer my waist bands snugger than that anyway. That will just fall down to where my body is 31.5″. Which is the next problem. Because no part of my body has a circumference of 31.5″.
My waist measurement is 35″. But that's not the whole story. My back waist is quite small, so the gaping waistbands on shop bought trousers tell me. But two children and a love of chocolate mean my front waist is a bit bigger. I like measuring an existing skirt that fits to find what measurement would be best. I don't have a knit skirt at the moment, so I used the tip from Iconic Patterns again and pinned my fabric around my waist. 33″ it is then.
I'm a little nervous that with stabilising etc that might be too snug. It's 2″ negative ease. I might make bigger seam allowances as an insurance policy.
I'm going to leave the back alone. It has a centre back seam I can take in if necessary. My measurement (33) take the pattern circumference (31.5) gives me 1.5″. So I want to add 3/4″ to my front pattern piece. I also need to add. More fabric in the front between my waist and hips. I found this fab tutorial by Maria Denmark on the By Hand London blog that I used to do this.
It's probably best to go and look at that tutorial, because I tried to make a short cut by tissue fitting rather than making a muslin. And of course, why try a new technique on a straight skirt when you can do it on one with interesting design seams that have the shaping in them. I got around this by pinning the bits together and working as if they were one. All my changes happened on the central piece.
The step where you slash across the front and just see where it falls doesn't quite work when you are holding a bit of tissue paper up against yourself, and I got cross with it and decided that what I've done will do, but I'm not sure if it will fit. I carried on anyway. I might have enough fabric for a take 2.
That slash that opens up to the waist you see up there, I closed to leave an additional 3/4″ at the waist seam, that's the extra I worked out I need earlier. Closing in the slash made my piece not quite flat, but it's knit so I don't think it will matter. If it were a wider wedge, or woven fabric, I'd make it a dart.
And then transferred all those changes to the lining and facing pieces. Finally ready to cut out! This is why nothing is a quick pattern for me.
Woo, the postman has just arrived with the thread to finish my woodland stroll cape. I'll be back later.
Posted with BlogsyKnit skirt Chapter 2: which size?
Well, that's the question, is it? Which one of those four lines on the pattern will give me the end result I want? I can't just take three into to changing room and see which one works, and I'm certainly not going to make one, and think “Oh, it's too small. I'll try the next size up” (more like leave the offending item languishing in the corner of the sewing room, never to touch the pattern again).
Time for the tape measure. The fullest part of my seat measures 42″. According to the pattern envelope that makes me a size 18. My waist isn't, but I'll worry about that later. So, size 18, lets get the scissors out.
Nope. It took me many years and garments for the penny to drop, but many patterns, particularly the “big 4” have more ease (extra room for movement and the look of the thing) in their pattern than I like. Fortunately most patterns have the actual garment measurement somewhere. The nice ones put it on the envelope, but you can usually find it on the pattern piece if not. If it's not there, the hip point usually is, and you can get the tape measure out and measure on paper pattern much fabric there is around the hip. Don't forget that you don't want to include the seam allowance. My pattern had the garment measurement on the pattern.
45.5″. So that's 3.5″ of ease. That seems like a lot to me. The pattern is meant for wovens, and ponte has more give, so I don't think I'll need that much. I'm not sure I'd need that much for wovens. But what I want to know, is how much? I googled, hoping the blogosphere would provide the magic number. Instead I found this post on the Iconic Patterns blog. Why didn't I think of that?
I wonder if the size 16 hip circumference would work? So I measured 43.5″ on my ponte and held it around my hips. Yep, that should about do. It pulls in a bit under my tummy, but again, that's a fitting issue I'll deal with later.
Yay, size 16, lets get the scissors. No again. The earlier reports long abandoned blog posts here bang on about Swedish tracing paper. I'm still a fan. I'm going to do some fitting adjustments that are new to me, and with Swedish tracing paper I won't have ruined my paper pattern if I completely cock it up. Yes, I did buy one pattern three times before I realised this. And if I want to use the pattern again, and have changed size, or need different adjustments, I can. Swedish tracing paper is also great for tissue fitting, because if I can avoid making a toile/muslin I will.
I often do some basic adjustments while tracing. For example, I want a 17″ skirt length, and the pattern is for 21″. I'll trace the bottom edge 4″ higher. The distance between my waist and hip is pretty standard, so no alteration here, but when I'm making a top I'll often do the short waist adjustment at the tracing stage. Also, I must remember to take off the seam allowance at the centre back, since I'm taking that seam out. Actually, there's shaping in that seam, it gets to stay.
Oh, and I need to trace off view A front and back too, since that will be my lining.
Coming up next, trying to figure out what to do about fitting my tummy and waist.
If this is chapter one, then the prologue is that for ages I've wanted a black skirt to cover my bum when I want to wear leggings and a shirt, but the shirt just isn't quite long enough to wear with leggings alone. Yep, I'm in the leggings are not pants camp. I bought Butterick 5566 for this at least a couple of years ago, and some black ponte last year some time.
I'm going to use view E.
I want the skirt to be as comfortable as the rest of the outfit, hence going for knit. I've gone for ponte, because it's fairly stable, while still being soft and stretchy. I find it much easier to cut out and sew, and hopefully it will keep its shape.
You might have noticed B5566 is for woven fabric. I was originally going to make it as is, zip and all, as the ponte is fairly stable. Then I got my fabric out and I think it will be stretchy enough to be zip less, so I'll take out the centre back seam (I can always put in a side zip if necessary) and make the facing an elastic casing. I'll probably also line it with some tricot, to stop the skirt sticking to leggings issue. I usually wear a half slip, but it will be nice not have to bother.
Now to sort out what size to make, and then how to make that fit. That might be a whole new post of its own.
Me Made May: Week 1 ish
I’ve been wearing some things I made. I may even have learnt a little about what I like in a garment. I really thought I’d be wearing sewn dresses, but it’s been a bit chilly so it’s been more like woolly jumpers.
2 May was a lazy day lounging around at home. I tried to make some jersey trousers last year for days like this. Trouser fitting and me have never got on, and trying to tissue fit knit fabric turned out to be a laughable idea. The end result: my me made things were some knitted socks.
3 May was still cold, so cowl necked aran weight knitwear today. Short sleeved, in a concession to spring. It’s a stocking stitch version of Lawrence.
This jumper is definitely an Autumn/Spring item. Short sleeves is just too cold in winter, but it doesn’t take much to be too hot, which is not warm enough for no jumper at all. But when it’s Goldilocks weather (not too hot and not too cold) for this jumper it gets a lot of wear.
4 May we went for a walk, so out came a short dress to wear with leggings, and thick hand knit welly socks.
A little too short to be comfortable really, I would only wear it with extra thick tights or leggings. I’m not sure why I decided to take a whole 8″ off the pattern length. It’s McCalls “perfect knit dress” M5974. I do need to do a sway back adjustment on this if I make it again. And there is no reason why I couldn’t sew a little tuck across the back.
And to keep my neck warm a very loud scarf. Definitely out of my comfort zone with this colour, but I think it’s ok? Maybe?
5 May I was at work, so you get a selfie of me in my me made surgical hat.
6 May I still hadn’t warmed up from being out in a windy field the evening before, so coat and a crocheted scarf.
7 May was coat weather again, but hidden underneath was my new favourite skirt, recycled from a pair of wide leg trousers found in a charity shop. It’s McCall’s basic straight skirt (3830) with added lining and at 19″ length. The perfect length for me I’ve decided. Doesn’t feel too short when I sit down, nor too long when I stand up. The four year old was on photography duty again today. Not his best work.
8 May, no photos, but the skirt from yesterday and the cowl neck jumper again.
9 May another lounging day, and with my newly service sewing machine, I completely resewed my stretch trousers. They are M6571, view D; this time two sizes smaller, with the small front darts where I’d had none before, and let out the centre front seam a little in the middle (tapering to no extra fabric at waist and crotch). Too small now, but wearable with a suitable for leggings (i.e. butt covering length) top. I’ve never made a successful pair of trousers before, but I think I might be close with these if I made the next size up.
Yeah, think I should stick to skirts and dresses.
10 May: My first version of the McCalls perfect knit dress last seen in black cotton knit. This is a lighter viscose, and a much longer skirt. The neck is a bit open due to messing up the neck line the first time around and having to cut it off. Also this was before I discovered I should do a 1cm slope shoulder adjustment as a matter of course. I think with some bra holding clips to hold it on my shoulder ( not that it shifts that much, just enough to show straps), it will be fine. And looking at this unflattering photo, a chunky necklace might be a good idea.
I do love this print. And that’s my Cassidy cardigan, with a collar instead of a hood. I wear this a lot.
11 May: Today I haven’t worn any me made garments, but soon I will snuggle under this me made blanket.
Me Made May
Since I got back into garment making, and started using the wonderful resource that is other sewers' blogs, I've seen a bit about Me Made May. This year, I'm joining in. If you're still thinking “Me Made May?”, have a look here, on the “So, Zo” blog.
I haven't actually posted my pledge yet, but I'm aiming to wear some of my more neglected me made items, well as those already in regular rotation, and try work out what does and doesn't make for a successful garment for me. Better head over there and comment now.
It might be may May, but it's gone a bit chilly here. Just as well in a way, because I only just finished my winter coat last week. Still in the process of writing it up, if you want details. It's Vogue 8346. The weather gave me a chance to wear that this morning walking to school.
The littlest Tiger took some photos with my phone on the way home. Hopefully I'll get photo storage issues sorted out soon and better photos will follow.
I'm also wearing a me made scarf/shawlette, Damask.
Underneath, which you can't see is my Cassidy cardigan which no doubt you'll see more of because I seem to wear it at least every second day, if not more.
Finally, some me made mittens wore worn today, if not by me.
Sleeves
Right, where was I? I hadn't forgotten about this, just busy off getting a new job, and starting to plan relocation, so not much time for sewing. Sleeves.
Last minute, I had a change of heart about sleeves. All that work tailoring the front, shoulders, collar, and lapels, only to add straight sleeves? My cursory research on adapting sleeves to be tailored indicated it would e a whole lot of work. Luckily for me, my runner up in the “what coat should I make” pattern, and one that I also purchased was McCalls 6800. This has two piece tailored sleeves, and I figured being from the same pattern family would hopefully be drafted from the same basic shape.
The size 16 from M6800 had the same bicep circumference as the size 14 from V8346 (which was my starting point), so I went with that. Placing the two pieces together, the armscye line seemed the same so I went with it.
Because I had added in an extra 1cm at my side seams, I added an extra 1cm at the back seam at the armscye, tapering to nothing at the elbow.
For all my careful muslin making at earlier stages, I pretty much just with this and hoped it would work. I didn't have enough fabric for new pieces, so cut the upper arm out of the existing already cut sleeve pieces, and new under arm pieces. This left the upper arm a bit short on the hem, and I Hope I would either need to shorten the sleeve, or could get away with a shallower hem.
The photo shows the quite substantial change in shape, and it really made a difference to the finished coat.
Once they were set in, using a bias strip of hair canvas to both ease the sleeve cap and pad it (as per my for this project, the Tailoring book), I measured the sleeves to 1″ beyond my wrist one, and found I could lop an inch off the bottom. Yes, I had got very bored of muslin making by the time I got to the sleeves.
While I'm on the subject of sleeves, I'm going to talk about lining them here. “The Book” suggested inserting sleeve linings by machine by seeming the bottom edge together, pushing the lining inside and then hand stitching the armscye. It also suggests cutting the lining piece the same length as the garment piece, and adding an extra cm at the underarm.
I did this and had linings that kept wanting to poke out (and yes I did chop off the same amount I decided to chop off the outer). At this stage I wasn't going to restitch the armscye seam, so I snipped the lining close to where I stitched the hems together, chopped off and inch altogether of lining and handstitched it to my already handstitched in three goes with hair canvas hems. This is an awful lot of hand stitching for a machine tailored coat, and next time I will: 1. Make sure the lining is shorter than the sleeve, and 2. Insert the lining to the body lining by machine and handstitched the hem in place after. Or maybe follow one of the many tutorials in garment origami to bag the whole thing including the sleeve hems by machine.
Red Nose Cakes
Hungry? Here's the recipe for some quick vegan cakes. Makes 12 little cupcakes.
Ingredients
- 75g raspberry jam
- 50g (3 tbsp) vegetable oil
- 100 ml almond or other milk substitute
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
- 125g self raising flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
For the icing
- 100g icing sugar
- 2 tbsp raspberry jam
- 1tbsp margarine
And 12 glacé cherry halves to decorate.
Here's what to do:
Preheat a fanforce oven to 160C. Place 12 cupcake cases in your bun tray.
In a bowl weigh out the wet ingredients (I zero the scales after each addition and weigh everything, even the milk. It saves washing measuring cups). Mix well.
Seive in the flour and baking powder. Gently fold in until combined. Unless your sous-chef is a four year old, in which case stir vigorously.
Divide mixture into the 12 cupcake cases, and bake for 15 minutes. Ice when cool.
For the icing, mix all the icing ingredients together. I dollop it on and spread it with a knife. Feel free to mess about with piping if you want to. There's a bit too much icing here for the cakes, to my taste, so the rest went on rich tea biscuits.
Add the red noses, and enjoy!
Pocketses
My relationship is improving with inseam pockets. The less said about the ones on my Tiramisu the better. I made habotai silk inseam pockets in a cotton poplin dress and they're not too bad. I'm actually pretty pleased with the ones I've just done in my coat.
When I first saw this pattern had inseam pockets, I wondered about doing an alternative, or perhaps an alternative way of doing them. I have a skirt I bought from Gap with great hidden pockets. Close examination revealed they weren't inseam pockets at all, but vertical welt pockets hidden inside a pleat. Clever, but not what I needed.
So what's wrong with inseam pockets anyway? Well, 1: They are gapey little sods, supposedly invisible in a seam but actually shouting, hey, look at this lining, and ruining the line of the skirt; And 2. To get the seam to lie properly, you have to clip that back seam right up to the stitching. This always seems to be asking for trouble to me. This coat has loads of clipping in the seam allowance to make it lie flat, but not right up to the stitching line.
What did I do this time? Firstly I decided not to use my lining fabric. It's bright teal and the outer fabric is mostly black. No margin for error with that, and slippery viscose might not be the easiest to work with. Apparently there is actual pocketing fabric, for hard wearing but not too heavyweight pockets, but I used some black cotton lawn I had in my leftovers pile.
I was thinking about the anatomy of an inseam pocket, and thought there is no reason to have to clip that back seam. If you don't catch the back seam allowance in the pocket bag seam, it won't have to go forward of the seam for the length of the pocket, and so no clipping will be necessary. Not only did I avoid the clipping, but it also meant I could press my outer fabric seam open all the way over the pocket, eliminating bulk. Luckily I didn't have to think any more about the finer details, as someone already has. There's a great tutorial over at Inseam Studios showing very clearly exactly how to do it.
I more or less followed that tutorial, with a couple of little differences. Firstly I put some stay tape on when I stitched the front of the pocket to the front of the coat. I stretched the tape so it was about 1/4″ or 6mm shorter than the seam. Hopefully this will help the dreaded gaping.
And after attaching the pocket pieces to the coat, I understitched each seam. Hopefully this gives even less chance of the pocket bag peaking out.
Using a blind hemmer is my favourite way of understitching.
The rest all went according to the directions. At the end I basted the pocket shut before pressing. I considered doing bar tacks at the top and bottom of the pocket, but didn't want to mess it up at this point.
Look!
There's a pocket in there.
Hopefully the pocket bag will stay hiding in the dark.
Adventures in Interfacing
Yeah,yeah interfacing. That funny sort of plasticy but not plastic mushed together fibres with sticky bits you fuse onto your fabric, curse when you remember after the ironing that you should have cut off the seams allowances, and then carry on. There are bits of your pattern that say cut them in interfacing as well as fabric.
Um, no. Not for tailoring. That funny stiff stuff that actually stinks like a billy goat when you steam press it. Yep, hair canvas most definitely has real goat hair in it. Thankfully once it's dry it doesn't smell anymore. Actually you can still use fusibles, but probably not the same as the ones I was talking about above. I got as far as “fusibles don't adhere well to textured fabrics” in my research, and decided to go the whole hog (goat?) with sew in.
Also in tailoring, the interfacings aren't just the same as the facings. They extend beyond the facing, and provide stability to the shoulder and upper back area as well. Thanks, “Tailoring” (I'm really fighting the habit of Harvard referencing here). I was a bit flummoxed about what to do with my princess seams and separate lapel piece for a while, but decided to go with separate interfacing for each bit. Following the directions in the book it was quite straight forward to draft them out. I'll know for sure how straight forward it was when I see if they actually work.
I decided to go for machine sewn, rather than hand sewn. It is, after all, March already. My new walking foot was invaluable for this. I have problems with my top bit of fabric creeping at the best of times, but no problems at all with this, and I've used the walking foot throughout.
And in other specialised equipment news, I have a clapper. Or some bits of wooden railway and masking tape. Whichever, it worked.
Look! A shaped under collar! Well, I was impressed, everyone else in my household was distinctly underwhelmed. Modelled here by Humpty Dumpty Ham.
That's the texture I wasn't going to try to put fusible interfacing on.
And here's all the front facings ready to go. I only got as far as basting the fabric onto the lapels tonight.
Actual sewing of real fabric may happen tomorrow. For the back stay, I'm going to use Gertie's tip and sew the back pieces together first and use those to trace off the back stay.
Pretty much a whole days work, but hopefully for a much better result than five minutes with an iron.
A tailored coat
This is a project that has been rumbling along for a while. A bit before Christmas I was looking for a new coat. Nothing off the peg fit very well, so I began to think about making one… Then I found the perfect fabric online… Oh no, here we go.
Now a few months later I have purchased “Tailoring: The classic guide to sewing the perfect jacket” by Creative Publishing, “Fit for Real People” by Pati Palmer and Marta Alto, and cheered on by the LSG Sewing Circle on Ravelry, have finally finished my muslin and cut out my outer fabric. I'm sure they'll be relieved to see me resurrecting my blog for this. Mainly I'm resurrecting my blog because I've learnt so much I want to put it down somewhere for next time (might have already purchased fabric, lining and pattern for another coat).
Tailoring is a whole new adventure and my vocabulary now includes things like “hair canvas” (fairly heavy sew in interfacing that actually has goat hair in it), “clapper” (big wooden block thingy for setting seams), and “pad stitch” (for attaching interfacing).
So what is this amazing coat? I'm making Vogue 8346, view B, the red one below.
Here's my fabric, in the process of being cut out.
I've got a teal viscose for the lining.
Things I've learnt so far:
- Take the wool to the dry cleaners to preshrink. They can faff about steaming 4m of 150cm wide heavy cloth for you.
- Pin the paper/carbon paper/pattern sandwich together first, and a tracing wheel makes surprisingly good, easy to interpret lines.
- Micropore tape is great for doing paper pattern adjustments.
- When doing an FBA on a princess seam drop the bust point first.
- I need a little sway back adjustment, and it's effect on fit is amazing.
- Fit for Real People is well worth the investment.
- as is Tailoring: The classic guide to the perfect jacket.
- I grudgingly admit a muslin/toile is well worth the effort. I would have wasted a lot of expensive fabric otherwise.
- Using leftover quilting cotton rather than leftover polyester thread for basting makes life much easier.
- Muslin in the US is what this Brit/Australian calls calico.
- I haven't sewed a stitch and its Spring tomorrow. Oops.
Right, I have hair canvas to preshrink, linen tape to do likewise, and a mountain of ironing that has been building up while I have been playing with the fit of this coat.
woollytiger 