Blogger probs

I dont know if anyone else is having these problems but I cant comment on anyone else blog at the moment and my followers have dissapperared . Any hints out there people . I am getting pretty fed up with this at the moment.

vogue 8522

I decided to make something for myself as the weather here in Melbourne is VERY cold at the moment and I was feeling pretty "old hat" This jacket is very simple to make and uses only 1.5 meters of 1540 wide fabric. I had a lovely peach tweed in my stash and I bought the green tweed at The Fabric Store in Brunswick street Fitzroy . They were both expensive but as the jacket is so economical on fabric I feel fine about that!! I made View B and lengthened it by 7 cm as I am very long waisted. I did this by following the curve around the fron and adding on to thewbottom. This worked very well and was very simple . I followed the pattern directions except that because I made thes jackets in a loose weave and I wanted them to feel more like sweaters than a tailored jacket, I elected to support the shell fabric( which I thought might bag with wear) by quilting it to the lining  in the Chanel manner . This worked very well and allows the fabric to mould nicely around the body below the bust. To do this I made up the shell and the lining , attached the collar to the shell and then bagged on the lining . I left a gap in the bottom back to turn it right way out . When it was right way out I hand stitched the sleeve edges to the lining edges and closed up the turning opening . I then matched the side and centre back seams of the lining and the shell . I stiched them together" in the ditch"  using a walking foot so as to avoid slippage between the two layers .The stitching started about 2.5 cm from the neckline and stopped the same distance from the hem . I then repeated this proces five times across the back and 3 times on each front with a 6 cm gap between each row of stitching. On th outside these rows of stitching disappear into the weave of the tweed. The closure for each jacket is a lining covered snap .The T shirt undere the green jacket is my personal pattern made by copying a well fitting RTW one . It is made in a fine Merino wool jersey

Pleather Biker Jacket Kwik Sew

Oh boy , I really didnt know what I was getting into when signing up to sew this jacket . Its the Kwik Sew Biker jacketkwik Sew 3764 . Making it in wool would have been a piece of cake but in pleather with a fake fiur facing and collar not quite so easy. The jacket pattern  isnt lined and I have decided that it needs a lining.

The biggest issues with pleather are that it cant be pinned except in the seam allowance and that sewing with anything other than a walking foot is impossible .I found out later in the process that a teflon foot is also good and solved the problem of inserting zippers which a biker jacket has in profusion ! The other issue is that for all intents and purposes it cant be ironed.

All the zipper openings for the pockets and sleeve vents are faced with lining fabric and then the zips are placed inside the box shoped openings . Because ironing isnt an option I needed to control these facings with understitching which isnt alluded to in the pattern. I sewed the zip tapes onto the facing using my teflon foot and then used strips of Tear Away stabilizer under my zipper foot to top stitch the zips in place from the outside using my zipper foot. . This worked quite well but.I later decided that I wasnt happy with this and actually used strips of pleather bought by the meter to cover up this stitching and top stitched again using the teflon foot and was able to actually do this the width of the foot away from the zipper opening . This meant that my stitching was much better quality.

Peter's Dressing Gown.

My dear brother is having a special birthday and this is my 3rd attempt to make him a dressing gown!!!

The first attempt got hijacked by DH who needed a warm gown desperately , The 2nd was way too short in the arms and looked absolutely hilarious on him when I presented it to him at Christmas time !! The third attempt is made of a fine wool suiting , is lined in black polyester duchess satin and trimmed with a black and white polyester brocade . The fabrics are a mixture of stash and the brocade was found especially for the purpose as I wanted  to achieve a masculine but luxurious look. I used a polyester lining as it needs to be strong . Nobody in that house hold will be able to repair it should things wear . I figured that polyester was going to wear better than silk . It was horrible to sew though . I felt I was battling it rather than sewing it. I made the dressing gown fully lined with the bagging out method , turning the gown to the right side through a gap in the sleeve lining. The hem  and sleeve  hems are  suspended by the lining. I haven't done this before so it was an interesting exercise.

Simons Coat

I have been following Sherry's blog mailto:Pattern~Sissors~Cloth@blogspot.com  with great interest . Sherry is teaching us how to make a quality ready to wear style coat using only machine sewing in the way a manufacturer would . If you haven't been to this blog I urge you to go , its one of the best on the net.
I started making Simon's Coat a few weeks before Sherry started her coat sew along so I didn't follow her direction exactly . Simon was very keen to get his coat ASAP as the weather is cooling rapidly here in Melbourne.


I used Burda 8275 an out of print (just) overcoat pattern in 2 lengths. I made the coat out of a Cashmere Wool from Davisha Textiles in Richmond Melbourne , The lining is a bemberg acetate stripe also from Davisha.
This is a really good pattern with clear instructions and really good drafting . I also used the Singer Book of Tailoring to assist me with things that the pattern didn't cover.

I fused the entire front , upper sleeve,hems and around the vent and at the sleeve hemline. I used a lighter interfacing on the facing and collar pieces. The photo above shows the pocket stay  I made out of silk organza and used to support the welt and flap pocket by suspending it from the armscye .

 The pockets are made of lining on the inside so they are nice and silky to the touch but are encased in tough linen to enable them to take the stress of big teenage hands, mobile phones and whatever else will end up in these pockets.
I made a few practise pockets before launching into the coat ones . I made them using different methods I had learnt using bias fabric for the welts but in the end came back to using the method described in the pattern as it worked best with the rally thick wool coating I was working with .These welts are quite wide and cut on the straight grain. I lined the pocket flap with lining but I think would fuse it with more than one layer of interfacing next time as it isnt as heavy as I would like and sort of disappears inside the pocket a bit.
Lastly to add a bit of fun I piped the lining coat seam with bright blue satin and added a bright blue welted inside pocket . Simon is very happy with his coat and has ordered a pin stripe suit!!!!!!  I think that may be project for the very distant future

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Back again !

Well I have actaully been sewing alot but just havent got myself organized to edit and post about it.I am making an overcoat for DS Simon and using Sherrie's  fantastic tutorial help at "Pattern Sissors Cloth" to help me . I am also making some cloths for me as its getting cooler and I need some practical easy to wear clothes which let me do my job as a physiotherapsit without too much constraint but also look ok.
Glamour Puss Dress is fully fitted and ready to roll and will be the next thing to sew after I have made my brother a dressing gown for his significant birthday in late May. This will be my 3 rd attempt over 3 years ( a story in itself) and so has to be done !! I am having a nice break over Easter and the week after so will have a lovely time doing some sewing.Keep a watch out for a rush of productivity when it comes to posts.

Irons

I have been reading with interest the posts here and there about irons . I have always had reasonable irons which cost over $ 100.00 but never seen the need to spend more until the 4 th iron in about 6 years bit the dust. I found myself marching into Harvey Norman and then found myself at home with a TEFAL iron which has a separate boiler . WOW what a difference . The burst of steam under pressure is FANTASTIC for fusing and just for pressing . I doubt I will ever go back to a "normal" iron.