Miss Celie's Pants

I’ve been calling this teal beauty a jacket… maybe because it’s lightweight so I don’t think “coat”.  But, it seems to clearly be a coat pattern. Discuss.

As you see, I finished my spring jacket from the February 2011 issue of Burda! We were at my inlaws on Maryland’s Easter Shore for Passover and got to snap a few photos on the water.

I really wanted to try and push my skills and make a jacket with a bit more technique and time. So, this one took me a solid six weeks of work with many fidly bits.

This pattern tops out at 44 so I needed to grade out to about a 50 in the lower thigh. I also made a FBA, a swayback adjustment and added almost 2″ in width to the sleeves / bicep. I pretreated the fabric by sewing a mesh bag and washing in the washing machine.

When I teach, I talk about when and why you would use Hong Kong or bias bound seams. I also do demos of flat fell seams and blind hemming But, I didn’t really have a good garment to show it off in. Now, I do! And, now I understand why garments with these techniques cost twice as much as they absolutely take twice as long!

Interior details…

I used fusible interfacing on the center front, collar and pocket flaps. I do not have any interfacing in the chest, back, or hems. There are places where you can see the chest collapses a bit. But, I did not want to make a tailored spring / rain jacket and I wanted to leave it unlined to show off the reverse of this bonded fabric.

If you have this fabric, do not use fusible woven. Way too stiff. A nice weft fusible is the way to go. Press with a press cloth because the fabric shines on the non stripe side. And, don’t use too much heat or steam. The fabric is easily overworked and misshapen and the fabric will separate. If it does separate or crease, heat it back up, and press it back to gather with a clapper — leaving it in place until it cools.

Sleeve insertion.

Well, that’s a tale of two cities! The (my) right sleeve was set with tie interfacing in the ‘tailored’ method. The cap pops and I had minimal issues setting it in. The fabric doesn’t have a great deal of ease and is like working with leather.

The (my) left sleeve was set the traditional method and I’d broken a sweat by the time I was done. Either way, puckers sewn in to the fabric DO NOT PRESS OUT. Same with the bust darts. You can’t press shaping into them. So, I have perky darts due to the fabric and a collapsed cap on this side.

And, now I think because of the tie interfacing I probably cannot machine wash this coat .

There is a small drafting error with the coat collar in pattern 2-2011 #125. The collar stand and collar are too short by about 1.5″. It works out fine for me because I have a short neck and don’t like getting my foundation on my clothes. It just doesn’t meet closer to the middle as it shows in the line drawing.

I mitered the back hem inside and  used a 2.5″ turn up. I wish it was 1.5″ to 2″. I think it would have been easier to have a nice hem. Not that the bottom is rounded. But, the fabric doesn’t ease well. I ended up making a blind hem on my blind stitch machine using nylon thread. While I only use this machine a few times a year I am always super pleased with the results.

The only thing I REALLY wish I’d done is remembered this comment from Marcy when I finished my Cascade Duffle coat. The bottom fronts don’t meet the way I’d like.  This is for a couple of reasons I think….

1. I make a too long a FBA at 1.5″. I need more width than length and forgot or don’t trust myself. So I end up with jackets, coats and dresses too long at center front

2.)  If I’d read Marcy’s comment or remembered, I would have tried to cut the CF a little off grain to have the flaps meet better. I did add a covered snap. Let’s see how much I use it! Um, also — there’s a reason garments have snaps here and not buttons. ASK ME HOW I KNOW. 

All that said, I think I don’t mind that much. Only in the light of posting it on the internet for all to see do I feeI must confess my crimes. I’ve wanted to make this pattern since it came out SEVEN YEARS AGO. The fabric has been in my stash for TEN YEARS. I really needed a spring coat to wear that wasn’t a totally casual item. And, I worked harder on this with finishing techniques than I may have on anything else. So, I will wear it for the six weeks a year it’s weather appropriate here in the Mid Atlantic!

Have I told you about my insane outerwear stash? Yeah? Ok. So, as you’ve heard I’m trying to sew it down. I’d like to make four outwear pieces in 2018. I need a rain parka, an unstructured coat for bulky clothes, a slightly dressy spring jacket and a long winter coat for businessy stuff.

If this kind of prep work is boring, skip to the end and maybe help me with a few questions, thanks!

This is the start of my slightly dressy spring jacket, Burdastyle 2-2011-125. I’m using a 10 years old Burberry rain coating that I actually got from Marji in a trade when she started her de-stashing ages ago. I made a red trench coat a few years ago that just wasn’t right from the same fabric (rereading the post it sounds like it was too big. And, honestly, looking at it with hindsight, it probably would have been fine then and great now. But, I gave it away).

The fabric was sold at G-Street (when they were still great), Denver Fabrics and Michael’s in Baltimore. Look at some of the glorious colors I found at G Street back then! I now obviously wish I’d bought it in black, lavender AND baby blue. If anyone has more of this fabric they’d like to unload, holler at me, please

Alterations:

Started with a size 44 based on my upper chest measurement of 40″ and made a 1.5″ FBA based on my F/G cup. I graded up to a around a 50 at my lower thigh (this is outside the Burda range for this pattern).

Interestingly, this looooong waist dart ends at the bust point (I double checked where Burda’s BP is — 12 7/8″ for this size). Which also places that pocket right on top of my bust. So, I’ll probably lower the welt pocket a bit.

Widened the sleeve by 3″. Holy skinny sleeve, Burda! I learned my lesson from my Cascade Duffle Coat and didn’t skimp in increasing the bicep width. Since this is for spring, I need to be able to wear it over a sweater.

I made a swayback adjustment of 3/4″.

I’m not making a muslin. So, I’m going to sew this with 1″ allowances so I have room to play with the fit.

Here’s what I’m not sure about:

The pattern calls for interfacing in all the usual places. And, normally, when I do tailoring I’d interface the entire front, do a chest shield, a back stay, etc. This fabric is two layers of thin cotton with a sandwich of plastic in between. My gut says I don’t need to interface. And, if I did, I’d just add to the center front (1),  collar, under collar and collar stand (7 thru 10). What do you think?

I don’t really want to line this either. I’m just going to line the sleeves and use flat fell seams throughout. Which also adds to my desire to NOT interface heavily (of course if you all tell me to interface, I can make a half lining).

Second question, back in 2008 I washed two pieces of this fabric. One came out totally fine and the other separated into two different pieces (hence how I know what’s in between the two layers). I was APOPLECTIC.  I had a top loader back then and now I have a front loader with a ‘hand wash’ cycle. Should I risk pre-treating it at home? Or just live with a dry clean only garment that will always be dirty?

UPDATE: Thanks, y’all! I sewed up a mesh bag with zipper, tossed in the fabric and washed it on gentle this morning upon suggestions below. It didn’t separate! So, it’s now line drying (I’m never going to run this through the dryer) and will see how presses with a warm iron after work this evening.

So, deep thoughts on interfacing and pre-treating are welcome!

 

**This post is a repost of my original entry. Due to some technical difficulties, I lost a year’s worth of blog posts. I will be adding photos in due time.

Last project of 2017 methinks! Fitting that it’s my favorite person’s Hanukkah gift!

Jordan showed me the tweed Shinola Varsity jacket below a month ago and said how much he liked it. It was $500 — which I actually don’t think is too much to pay for US made product (I mean, it’s what I would charge AT LEAST). But, about $400 more than I would pay if I made it for him.

He picked out his own fabric from Fabricmart and I settled on the September 2013 #134 Burdastyle varsity jacket.

At first I was like, that’s not a varsity jacket!  Where are the leather sleeves? It has a zipper not snaps! But, once I sewed the muslin I saw why they said varsity vs aviator or bomber. The sleeves are dropped like a varsity jacket and it’s much longer in the torso (and my boy has a short torso).

I decided to make a muslin because I’ve only made him one semi-fitted outerwear garments (this Hot Patterns jacket from three years ago) and am I glad I did. I HATE HATE HATED the shoulders on this. Those folds at the armscye made me want to scream.

Blech. Look how long the shoulders are!  Looking at the original photo on the model I can see that they are long/ wide. But, this looked sloppy to me. And, I wanted a more fitted aviator style (in truth, maybe I should have gone with this Burdastyle from 12/2015 #125).

The first thing I did was narrow the shoulder sleeve by 1″ making it more an extended shoulder rather than dropped. The nice thing about using this thick old blanket for the muslin is I could really get a sense of how the fabric would work in wool.

Than, taking advice from Instagram, I saw Jordan has sloped shoulders. I really think he has overdeveloped traps with short shoulders rather than technically sloped. But, semantics.

Jordan’s chest is 44″ which puts him in a Burdastyle men’s 56. His shoulders are 6.25″ long and his waist was between the 50/52 size (I went with 52).  I also shortened the jacket by two inches in the second muslin (I just made edits to the first muslin).

Here’s the back now with the shortened shoulder and a 1/2″ adjustment for sloped shoulders. I figured out his shoulder drop by using my level and comparing his drop to that of the pattern. I felt rather clever for having thought of that and it worked! Those horrible folds are mostly gone and the shoulder seam is sitting now where it should. Thanks smarter people than me on Instagram!

The jacket is lined in flannel back satin. And, I used stay tape at the shoulders. The original jacket has quilted satin for the lining. I kind of wish I had done this to increase the temperature range for wearing the jacket. But, then again, I’m okay with the flannel back satin and tweed combo.

The ribbing is from Neotrims Etsy shop based in the UK. I LOVED the selection there. This ribbing​ is mostly wool with lots of bounce. But, you could certainly find some at Pacific Trim or any one of the NY trim stores (I thought briefly about making the ribbing but was running out of time to have this ready for Hanukkah). I did end up taking two inches out of the collar pattern so it would snug up against his neck. And, I see that the collar isn’t 100%. But, it’s good enough.  Oh, I also had to shorten the sleeves by 3″.

The welt pockets were sewn using a technique from Kenneth King’s Cool Couture. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to wrap my mind around the technique and THREE samples before I got the hang of it. But, once I did I saw how elegant a technique it was. He has a class on pockets that covers this technique on Craftsy if you’re interested.

The pocket bags themselves are a little small I think. Just big enough for a phone really. But, not quite large enough for jamming your hands into for warmth.

Isn’t he the cutest? Like for real. THE CUTEST.

He told me these are the best looking sleeves he’s had in a garment (they are always too long or too short). Plus, he usually has things taken in a bit at the waist. I don’t know that I would ever try and sew for him as a surprise either. It was much less stressful to try it on as I went — just like I would for myself. That’s all! He’s happy with his jacket. I felt like a magician! He saw something he wanted and I was actually able to make it!