53: wide neck off the shoulder over top

This is another version of Bursdatyle 01/2016I  which I made twice before here 24: Red lace hoody - Burdastyle 01/2016 and black faux leather leggings and here 15: Burda style 01/2016 hoody
I started making this just after Christmas. Originally I cut a lining since the fabric is very loosely woven and tends to stretch so I thought it would wear better and last longer if lined it. I did not want to lose the loose weave feel by using interfacing all over the pieces which I think was my only other option. I have actually seen blogs where people use starch to stabilise delicate fabrics. I have never done that but with hind-sight maybe it is what I should have done with this fabric. Anyway, I actually cut this top out with the hood which ended up being attached to the pixie dress here:

52: Pixie festival dress from fabric scraps

When I started to construct this the neck edge stretched so much the hood would not line up where it was meant to. This was despite my following the pattern and gathering the neck. The lining of course did not stretch and the outer did so everything just went wrong. In the end I took the hood off, removed all lining and undid the front and back top neck gathers. Then I simply added a ribbed crew neck and serged everything. The cuffs are also ribbed. I was not sure if this would work to save this top or if I would have to cut the pieces again into some other kind of top but in the end I have ended up with a very wide neck on/off the shoulder top which is ideal at this time of year to wear over other clothing like a light weight cardigan or jacket.

I did not hem as such but just serged the edges.  I really like the fabric since it has a lovely drape but possibly would have worked best as "arab" style square scarves though how many of them I would want I do not know. A wrap could also have been a good option. I suspect these garments will not last that long due to the dropped stitch frayed effect which runs right through the fabric in the stripes. In the meantime I shall just enjoy wearing them as much as I can knowing at the least I managed to salvedge my disasters into two reasonably wearable garments. I still have enough of this fabric left for something else too but I have yet to decide what to do with the rest of it.

Thanks for reading

Bracken

#MMMay16, 11/05/16, Day 11

Wore my leggings here: 02/05/2016 Me-Made-May Day 2 with up-cycled camo jacket detailed here:#MMMay16, 10/05/16, Day 10 and my red lacey Burdastyle oversized hoody here: 24: Red lace hoody - Burdastyle 01/2016 and black faux leather leggings

Not the best picture of me!

I have also realised I have not counted either my black leggings or these side panel leggings in my clothing count so need some better photos to add these!

Thanks for visiting

Bracken

30: Summer coat

 There are several objectives behind this make.

• I have decided if I am going to keep on blogging I need to be more part of the sewing community and less a lone sewist. 
• I wanted to take part in the April challenge with The Monthly Stitch.

The problem is I hate wearing florals so what can I do?

• I have already defined my need to be more authentic in my clothing makes so that I actually want to wear the stuff I am making. 
• Lastly, I want to make a coat for spring/summer. 

I have loads of upholstery fabric in my stash. Some is very heavy weight but others are lighter weight resembling cottons and silks. Most of the pieces I do not know the fibre content though. Lots of upholstery fabric is based on floral designs when you look at it closely so I can use this and take part in the challenge. Then,  I went through all my huge pattern collection only to decide I do not have enough of the fabric I want to use for any of the patterns so I decided to keep it really simple and self draft. I have made this style of coat several times before so although I am not the best sewist around I am resonably confident I can pull this off.

My outside fabric is a silk like brocade ( I think that is how it would be described) in a dark mustard with burgundy and forest green spots woven through it:

  

I cut the main fabric into rectangles and decided I want the coat as long as possible - like a duster coat but no back slits since I am not actually a cowboy so will not be using this on a horse! 

I folded the fabric piece in half and then in half again giving four thicknesses with the selvedges together. If this is then cut down the side where there is NO OPEN EDGES this gives me the two front pieces and one back piece. I made the front pieces slightly wider so there are cut on front facings.

Here you can see where the neck is and the shoulders are shaped. The neck is the bigger shaping at the bottom!

Now I needed to make a decision because if I want a hood, and I do, I cannot get both the hood and sleeves from what I have left of this fabric so what to do to make this work? I decided as follows:

I cut a reasonable hood from the Burda style 01/2016 oversized hoody pattern. Having made this pattern several times now I know the hood is a reasonable size. I hate jackets with small hoods because I like to be able to use them when it rains - which is pretty often in the UK. This left me a piece of fabric for the sleeves below:

That did not quite leave me enough fabric for sleeves  (all that was left is shown above) and it makes little difference whether I follow the grain of fabric and use the narrow bit, or go against the grain and use the wide bit. I held the fabric both ways and then made the decision to break all rules ( well this IS my design after all so there are NO RULES) and cut the sleeve bits as wide as posible which means against the grain. Next, I have this faux suede in turquoise which kind of co-ordinates so I cut two traingles from this to make the sleeves the right size.

These are my sleeves:

I cut the mustard spot fabric double so I have a centre fold and the suede single so I will have a seam underneath the sleeve and another seam where the suede joins the brocade.

 

This leaves me with two smallish bits of fabric that can maybe become patch pockets so I keep them safe till I decide what exactly to use them for.

 Now for the lining:

This is my floral bit: Its a sort of gold shimmery fabric with a print that looks like embroidery in a floral design. I think it will make a nice lining as well as make the coat reasonably warm without being too heavy. I cut identical parts for the front and back and the hood but when it came to the sleeves I have again run out of fabric. Or I do but really was hoping to make a matching skirt so I have reserved a small piece for this. I was hoping though have enough to make turn back cuffs in the floral fabric to take advantage of the loveliness of my fabric then I can co-ordinate it all together. However when I measured I did not have enough without considerably narrowing my sleeves so I had to abandon that idea and just go with normal sleeves.  I do not think it will really matter that much and I would rather have the matching skirt. So because of keeping this small piece for a skirt I am now going to use regular pale green lining fabric for the sleeves since there is really no need for my sleeve lining to match the reast of the coat lining where it will not be seen. So I am going to cheat a bit here. I do need to line my sleeves because my fake suede has a kind of PVC backing which I think is probably waterproof but will not be nice to wear next to my skin.

So having cut everything out I got to sewing up. First the shoulders which I added some top stitching to. Partly to strengthen them but also as decoration. Once the front and back were together I hung onto Harriet ( my dressform) and decided I had cut my neck far too wide. To remedy this I added a back pleat. Maybe should have ironed it! It looked fine at that time but read on. Then I sewed up the back of the hood and did the same with the lining. Then I pinned the hood and hood lining onto the main body fabric. I pinned these in place  and decided where I want to put my button holes which I am going to use for my pull-cord on my hood.

 Not quite even on each side of the pleat!

I have never used my automatic buttonhole foot before so this next bit was a big learning curve. I did several test buttonholes then went for it.


Sadly one of them is slightly off-centre which won't matter but the other is incomplete. I do not know why but it is. I will repair by hand at the end rather than try to redo it. I have no more of either my lining or main fabric for a second hood so this I will have to live with. I doubt it will be noticeable to anyone but me anyway.

Not enough fabric for the turn-back cuffs - see below!

Next sewed up my sleeves so that each sleeve has three panels and is the right shape. At this point I got into trouble. The first sleeve went together fine. No problems whatsoever. The second sleeve was a complete pig and I really do not know why. The fake suede which has a PVC backing decided to ruffle up every time I tried to sew it. I wondered if the fake suede has a direction and had I cut it the opposite way but it did not seem to have and I do not know if I cut it differently. Bearing in mind it is similar to fake leather ( or real leather ) I really do not want to sew and then unpick and re-sew too much. As it happens the stitches I unpicked do not really show on the right side but I wonder about how the fabric will wear having been sewed and unpicked several times. Anyway, having re-sewed several times and tried tissue paper which did not work and changed the tension which did not work, I eventually got it sewed up. I have about 20m of this suede so perhaps I should buy a teflon coated presser foot. Or maybe I should just sell it on Ebay! Anyway after finally getting the sleeves sew together I cut the lining for the sleeves since now I finally have what I hope to be the complete sleeve shapes. 

Then inserted the sleeves onto the shoulders of the main front/back piece. I hung the whole thing back onto Harriet and checked it looked reasonably OK. 

I think it could be wearable. I sewed up sleeve and the side seams and then the sleeve lining seams. Then I attempted to try on to check the sleeve lengths and cut the edge off the sleeve linings to shorted them a bit so they will be inside and not seen. I attached the sleeve lining to the edge of each sleeve and put the whole thing back on Harriet inside out.

 I pinned the sleeve linings to check they would ( hopefully!) go in OK.

Then I sewed up the front and back lining pieces and zigzagged to stop them fraying since this fabric frayed lots.

The main body fabric I skipped zigzagging since I decided it will not be seen and I really do not think this is going to be a heirloom jacket and I want to complete the challenge. I know its a total cheat/bodge.............whatever! Anyway I did zigzag the lining. I am now wondering if my machine may have a problem too since when zigzagging it is skipping stitches but I will just have to wait and see on that score. Eventually, having re-started and re-set my machine I got the zigzagging done. This model re-sets itself each time you turn off and on which is very handy if you have been playing around with the tension. I pinned the lining on top of the main body on Harriet and had to add a centre back pleat here as well. At this point I tried on and showed to my partner who said my (outside - mustard dotty fabric) back pleat looked a bit funny. I was worrying the extra fabric in the lining would make the whole back stick out weird but apparently that is not the problem. So now I did not know what to do next.

 This back pleat on the lining is inverted to the main body bit and I think it looks better.

I am now considering un-doing my original back pleat and hood and re-doing it the other way round. Maybe sew it down so it meets the waist? I am never sure what is an inverted pleat or what isn't but either way I think if I invert the type of pleat I have made, it might look better. The lining back pleat does look better I think than the main body back pleat. Could be the fabric though?

TO BE CONTINUED:

Thanks for reading,
Bracken

15: Burda style 01/2016 hoody

I just wanted to make this as soon as I saw it. 

 

After the disaster that was my Red Dress;  13: Red dress or long top

I decided first of all I had better to make a muslin. The muslin on this occasion is wearable in its own rite since I do not want to waste my precious fabric. This fabric is a stretch ( I think with Lycra) polyester type fabric with a vague small ribbing. It is not really my first fabric choice for this top but if you read about my Red Dress disaster I really need to try to not waste fabric. Actually my red dress may yet be rescued but I decided to have a rest from it and go back to it later so this is the current project. The design has three variants and I will probably eventually make them all because I love this top especially with leggings or narrow jeans when I am feeling fat and want a cover-up that is also comfortable. It also goes well with my January fitness aims.

 

So I am using a very cheap but quite good  quality and reasonably heavy weight fabric which cost me just 99p for about 6m so even if it all goes wrong then I am wasting very little. 

This top is has bat wing type sleeves which are three quarter. You can sort of see on this photo. I need to train my partner in photography and myself as well. When I started this blogging I had no idea how many photos I would end up taking. Honestly I take far more than end up on here. Anyway back to the sewing. My sleeve bands are probably a bit longer than the above sketches because when making the bands for the wrists I did not double them over as I am sure you are meant to do but instead just hemmed the edge making for a slightly longer sleeve. Mind you I cut them exactly as the magazine tells you and unusually for me they fitted exactly. Its something you always wish for but for me at least rarely happens.

I had some problems with the magazine directions for the front and back gathers as well. The directions say to secure with tape. Well I used bias binding and did not like it so then serged over it cutting it off completely but it looked awful so I then took it appart ( despite my hatred of unpicking serged stitches!) and redid it the Burda way.

I also HATE the way Burda tells you to do the front pocket. Maybe its the fabric I used but I suspect not. I just do not like the way it hangs. You are told to sew it on to the hem band. Finish the hem band and then turn the pocket to the right side. Despite my trimming as much excess fabric off the inside as I could, which definitley helped, I do not like the way you get a thick inside seam on the pocket which makes the whole pocket stick out from the front. The seam simply does not want to sit flat. You can just about see it in the photos above and below. Just ignore my stupid facial expression. I was telling my partner to hurry up and take the shot.

 

My partner describes this hoody as my "hag hoody". You can see why on the next pictures:

Infact I can almost see an old lady or old man gathering wood in the forest in mediaeval times with this particular garment.

Anyway despite his comments I believe this hoody is going to be a favourite in my wardobe so now I intend to make another as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end. I know this was quite a long post. I hope you enjoyed it and see you again soon.
Bracken