Pattern Giveaway DELAYED

My dear readers, I'm terribly sorry about this. I got carried away in yesterday's thrifted pattern post by announcing the giveaway earlier than planned, and not thinking about the fact that I have an important job interview tomorrow morning that I needed to get ready for today.

Including hemming the dress I plan to wear to it.

So, if you'll please forgive me, I'll be doing the giveaway TOMORROW. Definitely for sure this time!

Thrifted Patterns: The fugly, and some pretties too!

Tanit-Isis showed off some of her thrifted pattern finds from this summer, both good and bad (although I don't think her bad were too terrible), when she asked:

Tell me about the stupidest pattern-impulse-purchase you’ve ever made.

Well now, instead of telling, I thought I'd show you. And sadly, this isn't even all of them, or even the worst, just the ones I had handy on Flickr from one single thrift shopping trip. I have no idea what I was thinking. Please don't judge me too harshly.

Okay, I kind of like the bodice of Simplicity 9224, and I think it could be pretty if made up well. Still, I have no idea why I bought these two.

In my defense, I've been seeing variations of the New Look 6484 in modern patterns (Vogue 8711 and New Look 6969 - the latter of which might actually be the same pattern, recycled), but that doesn't mean it'd actually work for me.

The sweatshirt will be made up for my Mom as she likes these types of tops. Well, she will if I lengthen it. Maybe.

Okay, generic robe pattern is generic. I have nothing to say about the Style pattern. I just don't know. I'll be over here, hanging my head.

Speaking of thrifted patterns, I found about a half dozen patterns from the 50's and 60's at a garage sale yesterday. I know that your confidence in my pattern choices are probably a little shaky right now, but there are some lovely patterns in there, especially the dresses. Sadly, they are too small for me (size 10-12, bust size 32). Dammit. SO, stop on by tomorrow, because I'm going to give these lovelies away!

Corduroy Jacket - Buttons!

I wish I could show you guys my progress on this jacket, but I'm using a different computer that won't let me do the simplest things, and I'm tired of wasting time trying to figure this out.

But I can upload and post (I hope) one picture, so I'm showing you the buttons I picked for this jacket. Don't they look like little crystal bowls? They're actually plastic, but you wouldn't know it. Seriously, these buttons make me happy, especially against this jacket, and that's the best part.

I can't wait to wear this jacket!

Corduroy Fall Jacket - Welt Pockets

After a bit of humming and hawing (and procrastinating), I decided to go ahead with making welt pockets on my corduroy fall jacket. This was mostly because I'd like functional pockets on my jackets, but also because I've been shying away from trying out new techniques, and I need to get over that.

I'm glad I did, because welt pockets aren't nearly as intimidating as I thought!

First off, I did a practice run with some scrap denim. I spent all afternoon yesterday trying to figure out what my sewing books were trying to tell me. I finally went with instructions in the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing, a book I picked up at Value Village one day and has proven to be invaluable so far. Look how my trial run turned out!

It's not perfect, and I didn't bother stitching down the sides of the welt, but overall I think it turned out pretty good.

I did learn two very valuable lessons that made doing the practice run well worth it.

#1: My lining fabric is a pain to work with! I sort of knew this going in though. Sewing the first box around the welt opening proved this; look at how the fabric warped.

And it sort of got worse from there. This fabric is so lightweight and difficult to stitch, especially by machine. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle putting together the lining of the jacket, but I suppose it'll be another learning experience. For the pocket, though, I decided to replace it with another fabric I had kicking around. More on that later.

#2: The other valuable lesson I learned with this practice run was about pocket dimensions. The RD-CGtS said to choose your pocket depth, then add 1.5 inches to one pocket and 0.5 inches to the other one.

Uh, yeah no that didn't work. I think this problem arose because my welt wound up 2x the size of the one in the book, but they didn't actually give you any starting dimensions. If I'd thought about it some more, I probably wouldn't figured this out on my own, but oh well. That's what muslins are for!

My starting dimensions included a 1 inch welt flap (plus seam allowance), and a 1 inch high (by 5 inch wide) welt opening.

The advantage of doing this trial run was I could play with placement on my jacket front. Since the original pattern only had you attaching a fake pocket flap, the marked placement wasn't right. Keeping the pocket depth in mind, I decided to lower the welt pocket 1 inch from the original flap markings.

I got a little focused while working on the first real pocket on my jacket, and forgot to take pictures. Here's the finished pocket!

Once again, not quite perfect; you can see that the left side pulls down a bit. I suspect that if I'd used a cotton instead of a ...shiny slippery poly-something-or-other fabric, it might not slide down so easily. Overall though, I'm super pleased. My first real welt pocket!

I was skeptical about making the pockets at first, and I wondered if I was wasting my time yesterday. Those doubts are gone, because these pockets will totally be worth the time!

Corduroy Fall Jacket - Alterations and Cutting

So in my last post, I told you all about the fabulous thrifty fabric I picked up for tops and trousers, and also about my plans to start perfecting a muslin of trousers. Then mentioned that I'd probably wind up making a jacket instead.

I was right.

Honestly, I tried to make myself start my first trouser muslin, but the suddenly cooler weather inspired me to work on a jacket that's been teasing me of late, and the poor (terrifying) trousers lost the battle. But it's fine because I really need a new fall jacket!

I'm working on Simplicity 3628 from the Threads Magazine collection. I decided on version B with the cuffs. However, I'm not making the horrid fake pocket flaps, because fake pocket flaps, and also because I technically didn't have enough fabric; something had to give and it wasn't going to be the sleeves.

Although now I'm considering making welt pockets. Heidi Ho's review over at PR influenced me, as she had welt pockets on her gorgeous jacket. Now I just need to practice making them.

I'm making it out of a 1.85 m length of navy blue fine wale corduroy, found at Value Village a couple months ago for ~$4. Sadly, it was a bit too short, but a creative layout meant I got nearly everything cut out, and there was no loss in the silly fake pocket flaps. The lining is this taupe-brown striped...thing that I found at Fabricland in the clearance area for ~$3/m. Was originally priced over $20/m, so I'm guessing it's a pretty decent material. It's soft and silky, so I'm also guessing it'll be a pain in the you know what to sew.

Theoretically I cut a size 16, but then graded to a size 18 below the waist, and cut size 18 sleeves. Then I had to add some width to the armhole to account for the added width on the sleeves, but since I cut the shoulder seams at size 16, I reduced the top of the sleeves to size 16. I probably could've just eased it into the armhole, but the corduroy is pretty stiff, so I figured I'd try reducing the bulk. Honestly, I should just say that I cut a size 18, because there's not much left of it at size 16.

Here's the body pieces, with my adjustments. I'm not sure if it was needed or not, but I chose to do the 1 inch Misses Petite adjustments that Simplicity included on the pattern pieces. Hope that doesn't bite me in the butt in the end.

Everything is now cut out and ready to be sewn up. But I've been uh...sipping on one too many amarettos, so I think I should leave the sewing for tomorrow. Things are getting pleasantly fuzzy, and I already forgot to reduce the length of the lining pieces by 1 inch already, so it's probably time for bed before I make a mistake I can't easily fix. ^__^

Good night, all you lovely sewists!