Saturday, April 14, 2012

Some Progress

The air smells of flowers and the weather has been mostly warm and sunny for the last few days – perfect gardening weather! So that’s what we’ve been doing. And I currently smell of eau d’dead fishies thanks to giving my little plantlings a boost of fish fertiliser. Yum. Garden beds are looking good after a layer of compost and manure. Now I just need to plant a few things in them as soon as the babies are hardened off enough to handle being outside at night. Oh, and the peas are coming up! At least they were until I covered them up again with compost. Plus we had rhubarb sauce mixed with yoghurt on the pancakes this morning. Deelish.

I finally set up the tripod to take a couple of photos of my latest finished sewing project. Unfortunately it was a bad hair day so I chopped off my head! Don’t worry – you aren’t missing anything.

Black Fleece Jacket

FleeceJacket frontFleeceJacket back Date:  April 2012

Pattern:  McCall’s 5714 (2008, OOP), View E.

M5714M5714e line frontM5714e line back

Fabric:  polar fleece, black, 66” W x 2 metres (plus 1 metre left), spent at least 10 years marinating in the stash. Bodice lining and inseam pockets: waffle-textured knit, 100% polyester, black, recent purchase from Dressew (more left for something else too).

Notions:  Sewing thread, 2 giant black snaps.

Modifications:  Many! Cut shoulders and neckline in size 12, adjusted for round shoulders, did a 1” FBA adding side and under-bust darts, added an extra 1/2” to the whole bodice length (beyond the FBA). Back bodice needed a shoulder dart for rounded back. Cut skirt section 1” wider than size 18 plus folded the facings narrower. Added inseam pockets. Took some of the fullness out of the top of the sleeve and lengthened them by 3” to full length.

Comments:  I’m not sure this jacket was worth all the work I put into it! It’s neither particularly warm nor particularly flattering and I can’t get much more than a t-shirt underneath. On the other hand, I may have increased the back width a little more than I should so it’s a wee bit baggier than I’d like. I have no idea whether or not this fleece will last without major pilling either. It remains to be seen how much wear I get out of this jacket. However I adore the collar! And the monster snaps:

FleeceJacket snap det

They’re over an inch wide and are really easy to handle. In this photo you can also see the textured knit I used for the bodice lining (including the back which wasn’t in the original instructions). Contrary to my initial fears I had no problems with the thick seams and the sewing was actually pretty uneventful.

My next sewing project is coming along. I only have maybe one more sewing session to finish up. To recap, I dug out an old OLD! project that’s been lurking in my drawer for eons. The pattern is from 1994:

V8913

Vogue 8913 and purchased in 1995 according to a faded receipt inside. I had cut View A out in a size 12:

V8913a_linefront   V8913a_lineback

Might be considered a size 12 but the thing was huge! However I loved the fabric so much that it survived a number of purges over the next 17 years:

Oatmeal linen blend

There’s some linen content in there but I have no idea what else. Luckily I hadn’t sewn any seams at all yet so I had a relatively easy time redesigning the shirt. I completed sewing the front pleated section right down to the buttons and buttonholes and inserted it in the main front piece. It was not easy sewing and the way the things were drafted made it worse than it should have been. The tucks and pleats were a PITA to figure out. And who just leaves the inside seams raw? (I serged them!) I also sewed the yoke and yoke facing to the back. Then I laid them out and used my dartless block to re-cut the shoulders and sides down to a more reasonable size:

Shirt body recut

You can see how much fabric I took off because I didn’t want the dated drop-shoulders. Then I did a similar re-cutting on the sleeves:

Shirt sleeve recut

This brings them down to 3/4 length to be gathered into a narrow cuff (the wider bottom piece). I also cut down the band collar to match the 1” width of the cuffs. I’m not too sure whether I’ll keep the lengths of the body pieces where the back is several inches longer than the front but I’ll decide when I get the side seams sewn and the sleeves in. The collar is on and so far it’s looking good. At least a lot better than the original! And hopefully it will finally actually see the light of day on my body instead of the inside of my sewing drawer.

2 comments:

Dixie said...

Cute jacket! I like that asymmetrical collar. The shirt is going to be nice, too, I'm sure. You've put a lot of work into constructing it and recutting it, and I know your efforts will pay off. Looking forward to seeing it finished!

Louisa said...

Thanks for your encouragement, Dixie!