GAAAAGGGHHH...

I have been sewing - but not much posting! I made a start on Burda 113 from the 8/2009 edition in some lovely silk. I have so far almost finished the top half - I used some of the gorgeous cerise silk I got on Goldhawk Road a few weeks ago. Frustratingly though, I must have added on too much seam allowance at the bottom of the back, because after sewing the side seams I realised that there is too much fabric i the back armhole - you might just be able to see from the pic how there is too much floatiness going on in the back of the sleeves? Also, again, REALLY frustratingly, I must have done something wrong on the ruched front self facing because it wasn't long enough to actually make a self facing for the inside front, so the seam is on the neckline. For some stupid reason, I sewed this with a zig zag stitch, which you can see peeking through the fabric.

So annoyed. Basically something must have went awry when I was copying the pattern.

Not sure the best way to fix this stuff - for the front perhaps I unpick the zig zag seam, and maybe sew another bit of the cerise silk long enough to fold to the inside and make the self facing? Notice how from the front the bottom edge is curved - I think it is supposed to be straight so maybe I have more fabric I can pull up and wrap over to form the self facing...? Another issue I think is that the silk is heavy so it pulls the inside lining up where the self facing is supposed to be (does that make sense?) - maybe once the lining is sewed at the waist it will be a bit better.

For the sleeve, think I am going to have to unpick the side seams and sew them again. Annoying. Any other ideas?? Have to say, totally NOT loving the brevity of the Burda instructions... next project is going to be from a PROPER PATTERN with, like, PAGES of instructions....

BTW, apart from these miscellaneous disasters, this silk is a JOY to sew with. So heavy and feels so lovely!

Now to find my seam ripper.....

The second sleeve

The second sleeve for my jacket (I haven't named this one yet - I'm thinking Polly.. Polly the Practice!) I did at home. As I had more time, I thought I'd give the gathering technique a bash. SO I first sewed two lines of gathering stitches (see right) around the cap of the sleeve. Then I pinned the sleeve into the armhole matching the notches at the top and bottom. I gathered the threads in two halves, on each side of the top pin. One side was fine, but the other side was really stiff (maybe the two rows of gathering stitches were a little close together at some point) which made it hard to spread out the ease equally and in the right places. Once I'd gathered the threads enough to fit the sleeve to the armhole, I pinned it all together, ready for sewing.

I actually found it really hard to sew this, going around in a circle not being able to see... I wasn't a massive fan of the gathering stitch method... I found it really hard to sew the gathering without getting little folds in the seam. I think I should have sewn the two rows of gathering stitches further apart and then sewn it properly between the two lines of gathering - something our teacher did in sewing class which worked really well...

Once I'd clipped the curves and turned it the right way out, given it an iron and hemmed the peplum, it looked pretty cool! And it does fit really quite well. You can see the little tucks resulting from the dodgy gathering on the left sleeve (right as you look from the front) and also where I managed to cock up sewing on the pocket flaps... woops. I think I might put little patch pockets on the front - I always think those fake flaps look a little weird on their own. The pointy shape of the pocket flaps is echoed in the cuff of the sleeves though you can't see the cuffs very well in the pictures. As I say, I reckon they'd look much better as three quarter length sleeves...

So because I've been so slow in class, I have a LOT of homework this week. I have to cut out the pattern (other than the sleeves which I will adjust and cut in class with the benefit of our lovely teacher's expertise) in the outer fabric and the lining, and I also need to get some interlining I think (our teacher said this - I assume she means interlining as opposed to interfacing?!)... next work looks as if it could be horrific at work so this could be pretty tough!

Lapel horror

So today in sewing class I actually started sewing. Wow. Imagine the excitement! I didn't make all that much progress in class as we were watching lots of demonstrations on how to fit a dress and how to ease and gather - our teacher makes it look so easy!

Given how long everything seems to take me, I thought I'd do a little extra at home this weekend. The pic at the top right shows where I'm up to so far - the bodice with lapels completed (though the side seams aren't stitched yet, I have just pinned them together for size), beautifully modelled by dearest Maud. Though the point of making the toile is to fit the garment, I am also sort of using mine as a test run for things I've never done before (including sleeves, lapels, collars, the list is endless). Apparently for a fitting toile you don't usually cut out or sew the facings, but given how complicated the instructions seemed for this jacket (for a beginner like me anyway) I thought I'd cut out and sew the facings outside of class (though not any lining). The facings on this jacket make up the backof the lapels. Constructing them was really tricky - I don't think I transferred the pattern markings very clearly and also the instructions were really hard to follow. The picture to the left with the 'd'oh!' button shows my first attempt. The pic to my right is my second attempt, which is a little better but still not perfect. I am also worried that when I make it in the fabric fabric - which will undoubtedly be heavier than the calico(!) - it will come out even more bunchy... I think I will do this part in class so I can get the benefit of our fantastic teacher!

Has anyone got any tips on how to sew these types of lapel neatly so that everything matches?!

Admin top

So I have finally managed to do some sewing this week, and have started putting together the top for work from the Burda pattern I talked about in my earlier post. I've called it 'Admin' as I reckon this one will be confined to wear in the office. So the fabric I'm making this from is a sort of creased stretchy crepe - the photo here isn't great but you can probably see it looks all wavy, sort of like stone. It has a LOT of stretch widthways (from selvedge to selvedge - is that widthways?!) and not much lengthways, which has made it really awkward to mark, cut pin and sew (more on that in a second). I have been using a lot of pins...

The pattern is made of four basic pieces - front (cut on the fold), back left, back right and a bit for the collar. The first thing to do was to sew the shoulder seams (ie front to back right and front to back left), which I did on my machine and then neatened the edges with my overlocker.

I should have thought ahead that of course the stretchiness of the fabric would likely mean some adjustments to the settings on the overlocker... after I'd done the first shoulder I realised, and twiddled one of the knobs on the side to try and stop it stretching the fabric out so much. You can see the first seam at the bottom of the pic, and the second at the top. The second seam is far from perfect but much better than the first. Practice makes perfect I guess! Once I'd done the shoulder seams, I neatened to edges of each centre back pieces and then sewed them together, pressing the seams open. The next tricky bit was the collar - mainly because of the floppy fabric.... it has rouleaux loops to fasten at the back and pinning and stitching those was really hard. It also requires hand finishing - the collar piece is an oblong folded over, with the rouleaux loops sandwiched between the short ends, and the inside of the collar stitched to the seam line of the front side of the fold (does that make sense?!). Anyway, I've pinned that and the hand sewing shall have to wait for another day...

I'll post more pictures when I'm done :-)