Short Sleeve Summer Jacket and a happy self drafted skirt!

The design for this jacket was born from this lovely unique fabric that I ordered from Emma One Sock. I was only able to get my hands on 2 yards and there was no more available. In my head I had envisioned myself wearing this lovely French style jacket with a collar and long sleeves and maybe some extra left over to accent a skirt.

My final designs!

Well, 2 yards was just not enough to envision this look. So I had to come up with a different design.

What could I do? I started with doing some very focused research on Pinterest. (I don't use Pinterest that often because I find that it's a bit like going down a rabbit hole!!) I came up with several design options that could possibly work. 1- I could stay with my original length jacket and just do short sleeves and no collar at all. 2- I could do a crop jacket with sleeves with maybe enough for a collar. 3- I could do just a shorter length jacket (not cropped) with fancy short sleeves and maybe enough for a collar. Lucky for me that this fabric was almost a full 60 inches wide and since my pattern is a princess seam jacket there are more options in how to place your pattern pieces, more options for puzzling the layout.

My final decision was to make the design from my master jacket pattern by shortening the length by 2 inches so it would hit more at the high hip area. (This is the exact same master pattern that I used for my French jacket) I decided to shorten the sleeves and change them from 3-piece sleeves to 2-piece sleeves plus a design element. The last change was to change the neckline shape and possibly add a neckline. I decided up front that I would wait to decide what to do with the collar until after I had the main jacket constructed.

My design process consisted of me making up a new muslin of my master jacket pattern with the shorter length first with no sleeves. Since I have lost weight and have been exercising more my body is still slowly changing shape and I wanted to make sure  the fit was perfect. I made some slight changes to the upper side front and added in a front waist dart in the side front piece to give it more shaping.

Mock up of my master jacket in a shorter length plus 2 different sleeve options.

Next part in the design process was to develop a short sleeve 2-piece pattern. I did this by taping my 3-piece sleeve pattern together on my work table at the seam lines and redrawing it using my underarm notch as one seam and the shoulder notch as the second seam (this was an existing seam in my pattern) and picked an arbitrary length. I mocked this sleeve up and basted it into my jacket and made any necessary changes to length, width, etc..

With a good 2 piece short sleeve I then mocked up 2 more sleeve designs. One was a gathered poof at the hem and the second is a bell like shape from the bicep line down. This bell like shape was inspired from an old Vogue pattern in my pattern collection. I bought this pattern just because I liked the sleeves and here was my chance to incorporate a similar design.

With the full mock up in hand I was headed to Baltimore to take Design 1 class from Sarah Veblen. My good friend, Wendy- The Couture Counsellor, and I shared a day before the class of private time with Sarah. This was one of the muslins that I brought with me, I also brought my lovely jacket fabric, underlining choice and buttons with me. I wanted to be able to discuss the entire jacket that I had in mind not just the actual muslin.

Some top the considerations that I wanted to discuss with Sarah was thoughts in sleeve design with consideration to the fabric, construction considerations with the thought that this short sleeve jacket is meant to be worn always closed, more as a top in contrast to a traditional jacket. It was also going to be worn in the warmer portions of the year. 

The mock up of the jacket with the different sleeves was so much fun to make! With input from Sarah, I made the decision to use the gathered bell sleeve and she made some minor fitting changes to my armhole and sleeve to make the fit cleaner. 

Jacket construction in progress!

The final jacket is underlined in an imperial batiste purchased from Farmhouse Fabrics. The seams were all machine stitched and then finished with the serger. Due to the softness of the fabric I needed a good facing to support the upper side front and keep it from collapsing. (After discussion with Sarah the decision has been made to make a permanent change to my jacket constructions by always adding in an organza chest plate to that area to keep it from collapsing into that hollow area) In the case of this jacket I made a full facing that I developed by overlapping my front and side front pieces at the upper fronts and drawing a single facing. This facing was then serge finished into the armhole, worked like a charm!!

Jacket inside out on my dressform showing the underlining, facings, bias binding on hem.

For the facings and the under collar I used a small scale cotton print that coordinated with the large scale print that I used for the skirt. More on the skirt later!

Detail photo of the inside of the sleeve and showing how I attached the facings to the front armhole and back shoulder.

Once the main jacket was constructed, I worked on designing a collar using the techniques I learned in the Suzy Furer Patternmaking + Design: Collars and Closures Craftsy Class. I decided on a partial roll collar and after 3 muslins I settled on the final one. The roll in the back is higher and it comes around to the front and lays almost flat. I left a small space in the center front so that it would frame the perfect vintage yellow 1920's Czech glass buttons from my button collection. 

Top shows the final collar and my decision to have the stripe of the fabric go towards horizontal at the front. I felt this gave the collar dimension and set it apart from the front of the jacket. The bottom photos show the collar in the muslin stage and sleeve detail.

With the collar completed I moved onto the final step of making a final decision on the center front closure. I decided for using only 3 buttons with the bottom one at my center bust and then evenly spaced going up. Above and below the buttons are sewn in plastic snaps to keep the jacket closed. 

Detail photos of the three buttonholes and the clear large plastic snaps used to hold the jacket fully closed.

I am so very pleased with the final product!!

The skirt was self drafted from my master straight skirt pattern. I really honed in on my skirt shape and design from my sketching tools. First,I sketched out my jacket on my croquis to the correct proportions.

Sketch of my jacket

Next step was to sketch out several different skirt designs on separate pieces of tracing paper so that I could play around with overlaying them on the jacket to see not only what I liked most but also what would be most appropriate for the occasion that I was making it for. My ultimate decision was to make the center design an a-line skirt. I also plan on making a pencil skirt in a dark grey wool so that the ensemble can be worn as a work appropriate suit.

Sketch of 3 skirt designs. Princess line pencil, A-Line and 6 gored skirt.

 The skirt has 4 panels and all four seams are angled out in a soft curve to give some soft volume in a-line 'flip' type design. There is a full lining, 3 waist darts on each side back and 2 on each side front, an invisible center back zipper and some added elastic in the 2 inch wide waistband for stability and comfort. 

Here you can see me auditioning the fabric on the dress form and close ups of the jacket fashion fabric and the options for facing and undercollar fabrics.

The fabric for this skirt was actually from my collection of high quality quilting cottons that I purchased several years ago when the local quilting shop went out of business. I had this 2 1/2 yard piece of a larger stylized flower head print and the smaller cuts of coordinating prints to play with that I used in the jacket construction. 

The final look was perfect for my granddaughters baptism and second birthday! I also recently wore this outfit to the ASG national Conference in Indianapolis. This is a most comfortable and stylish outfit to wear! 

The final outfit and being worn at the church for Princess Victoria's baptism.

June 2016 Sarah Veblen 3-day Choose Your Own Focus Workshop

This was my second second 3-day Choose Your Own Focus Workshop this year! (You can read about the first one I attended back in February here). We are very lucky that Sarah Veblen is coming on a semi-regular basis to teach in Chicago! You can see Sarah's full schedule on her website under the Teaching Tab.

Everyone hard at work!

Sarah demonstrating walking a sleeve pattern.

This workshop was full with 6 participants. 2 from downtown Chicago, Myself, from the Chicago suburbs, 1 from Milwaukee, 1 from Ohio and 1 all the way from Alaska! It was so great to meet new people and make new friends with others that share this sewing passion!

Hi!

This workshop I concentrated on skirts, a new dress and in-seam pants pockets. I also brought 2 shirt projects that are in progress to work on in-between time with Sarah.

New Dress; This dress is inspired by Vogue 1404 by Ralph Rucci
I did actually start with the pattern as a base to try it out. I made it up in a muslin for when I had some time with Sarah back in May. The dress has been completely re-designed. Some of this was for fitting purposes and some was purely for design purposes.After that meeting I left with a crazy looking muslin with sharpie marker lines drawn all over for design changes and pins everywhere and extra pieces of muslin stuck on. This was a super challenge for me on the patterning side of things.There are 6 inset corners in the dress front plus the neckline corners. For this workshop, I made all the pattern changes (some were creating completely new pattern pieces and some were changing existing pattern pieces) and constructed a new muslin. I will do a full blog post once I complete the dress.
In this workshop, Sarah helped me to tweak the armhole, upper side front piece, neckline, drape a cap sleeve and determine a good finished length. I was able to make all of these changes, mock up the changes and create a final full pattern with facings for my new dress. We also discussed different fabric types and changing it from a summer to a winter dress with 3/4 or long sleeves. 

Mirror selfie to help me determine the neckline. I find if i can look in the mirror and then refer back to the picture a couple of times it helps me to determine if its something I really like.

New Dress! The final garment will be 4 about 4 inches longer with a band at the bottom!

2 options of cap sleeves. left is on the straight of grain, right is one the bias grain. The bias grain sleeve is much nicer to my eyes!

Skirts, skirts, skirts! I left the workshop with a completed skirt and patterns for 3 skirt types. Straight skirt, A-Line 4 panel skirt and a princess line pegged pencil skirt.
Prior to the workshop I self drafted a straight skirt and used my Master pants pattern as a guideline for the waist, darts and a jumping off point for the hips. The darts weren't quite right and had to be re-draped on my body to make them fit the best. Overall, it was a successful start to a straight skirt design. YIPEE!

From this straight skirt, I designed an A-line with a slight flare at the bottom and a pegged princess line pencil skirt. We even took the time to make sure that the princess seams line up with the princess seams on my master jacket pattern. 

Me in the completed jacket and freshly designed and constructed A-line skirt!

With the A-line pattern in hand I constructed a new skirt. I really wanted a new skirt to go with The jacket that I designed and constructed for Princess Victoria's baptism. I just happened to have 3 yards of this lovely cotton print in my fabric collection. I also used several coordinating prints for the facings and undercollar on the jacket. Sarah gave me some pointers while I was finishing my center back seam after putting on the invisible zipper. Sometimes I get a little bump or pimple area just below the invisible zipper in that slightly tricky area where you sew the seam to match the zipper insertion. Following her steps the seam came out spot on and perfect the first time! 

My last project for the workshop was the tailored in-seam pocket. I really like the tailored look of a nice inseam pocket and wanted to play with the possibility of incorporating it into my pants. I used David Page Coffin's book Making Trousers for Men and Women. I found the directions for the inseam pocket a little challenging to follow. I had to read and re-read the instructions a good 5 or 6 times before I could figure it out and once or twice I just tried what I though he was saying and hoped it would become clear as I was sewing it! I made a bunch of clarifying notes in my book so that if/when I go back to try it again it will make better sense to me... hopefully. In the end the pocket was a failure. The construction came out just fine but the style of pocket and where it hits on my hip just gave us all a good chuckle!! It is a possibility to be used on an A-line skirt. However, there are easier ways to make an inseam pocket that are less tailored that would suit my purposes. I found this to be a very interesting exercise!

Photos of the tailored inseam pocket and why it will not work on my body! Too much of a hip curve for the pocket to lay nicely.

To complete this exercise I cut out pieces in muslin and scraps that I could play with and not worry about messing up my good pants fabric.I can now check tailored in-seam pockets of my list of pocket choices for pants and move on to trying other styles like slash and welt pockets.

As a group, we also learned about drafting parallel darts. This was fascinating to me for 2 reasons. One due to my shape of very forward breasts, I have a large dart intake and in some fabrics this produces that point and not the very smooth curve in the fabric that I desire. The second reason is that I really love the design aspects that come into play!

Another workshop participant was working on a darted shirt pattern and she also had a very large dart intake. Sarah used this opportunity to show any who wanted to learn the process of taking that single dart and turning it into 2 parallel darts. 

Drafting parallel darts via Sarah Veblen method!

The basic process was actually quite logical once shown. A line is drawn down either side of the outside dart legs anywhere from 1/4 to 1.2 inch depending on how far apart you want the darts to be. Remove the dart intake, then cut down these lines and over to but not through the dart end. Slide the 2 lines together and the remaining openings are the your new darts intakes split into 2! From here you can decide if you want the dart intakes to be even, or have one larger/longer/shorter than the other. so very cool!!

This was a VERY Successful workshop for me! 

I have signed up for the 4 month Mentorship program with Sarah Veblen starting in July and am very excited to see how much I learn and grow!

Happy Sewing!

At the church with Princess Victoria prior to her baptism!

Halloween Custume 2009 Part Three: the Final Outcome

I am ready for the party! Third time was the charm in making this 50's poodle skirt. The new fabric that I bought was a linen like fabric that I found on sale at JoAnn's. The waistband has no elastic and no gathering so the effect is much slimmer than heavy felt gathered at the waist!
I also made a slight change to the crinoline... shortening by about 10 inches.

Below are pictures of the final costume. I'll have to play dress up for my husband so he can take some pictures before the Halloween Party. Stay tuned!

The final product :)

This time I could cut the fabric out on my cutting table instead of the den floor!

Zipper and button tab detail.

Poodle detail, used fake curly fur.

Shortened crinoline

Ribbon for my hair and bobby socks.

Part UFO, Part new, ALL nice!

This jacket part of this ensemble was another UFO that I finished up. Of all things all it needed was to have the sleeve linings finished...

wool blend fashion fabric with iron on interfacing all over and a fun lining.

I recently wore the jacket on a trip and was doing some shopping at the Pittsburgh Airport while waiting for a flight delay. (this airport basically has a full mall in it!) the Tie rack was having a blow out sale on all woman's scarves and as I was browsing the store manager came up to me and gave me such wonderful compliments on my 'Chanel' look. I was thrilled :)

The top and skirt is a new project that I whipped up from New Look 6735.

I like this pattern, easy to work with and since it is for knits I can whip it up on my serger in no time! The only thing that I will try changing the next time I make it is removing the back seam. It is only slightly shaped and I don't think it is needed on this style shirt.

The belt was from my stash, I actually bought it quite a few years ago to be used with a pirate Halloween costume.

Nice looking outfit! Great for travel and meeting with customers.

This project is from a larger project idea that I had to put together several separates that I could use while traveling for work. I often have to travel several days in a row and I often try to coordinate my color palate and style so that I can minimize my accessories and still look good! (and keep the suitcase lighter!)

My color/texture/fabric palate to work with

Project bin

I first assembled my fabrics at various lengths. I buy fabric because I like it and have a rough idea how much yardage I need for different pieces and then figure out a pattern later. The color palate I went with here is teals and browns. I also like to use a 'project' basket where I pull all the necessary items from the various places in my sewing room and put them all in one place. I find this makes it easier for me when working on the project, I don't get myself distracted looking for things.

I have several more pieces that I am planning to add to the collection. A dress, a pair of knit pants and a short sleeved shirt. So far I am quite happy with how it has turned out.