A Cautionary Tale

I was so excited to finish my bloomers-in-progress last night--I bound the leg placket, stitched the gusset, gathered the leg opening and attached the cuff--and then I held them up in front of me and realized what I had done.

Ten points if you can spot the mistake.  In the end, nobody's going to see them but me--I wear them under my skirts in the winter to keep warm--so unless the reversed fastening is uncomfortable, I may just leave it this way.  Changing it means picking out all those stitches (including the gusset, ugh) and I'm not sure I want to go to all that trouble.  I just can't imagine how I finished the entire cuff without noticing.  

In other news, I got a roll of Kraft paper as big as my head!

It's strong but light and somewhat see-through, so hopefully it will streamline my pattern drafting process.  The roll came in a box twice its size and was so heavy I had actual trouble getting it up the stairs on my own.

I'm also working on a short coat/heavy jacket with a hood--more news on that later.

Drafting Cigarette Pants, Part 2

What I was fitting and re-fitting last week wasn't a pattern--it was a block, without seam allowance, hem allowance, pockets, etc.  Now, I do have a trouser block in my repertoire already.  But it's designed for wide-legged pants, and slimming down the leg is such a major alteration (requiring lots of changes to the hip, crotch, and inseam area) that there's a risk it wouldn't work out immediately.  So I thought it was much safer to work out a new block for slim fit pants, get the fit just right, and then use that block to trace off a pattern for cigarette pants.  That way I'll have the block handy if I ever make another version of these pants in the future--say, with a different pocket style, or a back yoke, or pleats instead of darts.  It's much easier to make changes to a pattern before the seam allowances have been added on (trust me, I know from experience).

I perforate the block, old school style, at any point that needs to be transferred onto the pattern (and ultimately to the fabric)--dart points, grain lines, and horizontal balance lines.  I've also perforated here along the back crotch seam because I added a 3/4" back extension, a common feature in men's tailoring that allows for alterations in case of weight gain (basically just a tuck of extra fabric along the back seam).  With pants this tight, I definitely want to have the option of letting them out a little in future.

In the pattern stage, I also add any fancy details that affect the shape of the pants, as well as allowances for sewing.  For these pants, I want a nearly-horizontal trouser pocket (like the pocket on a pair of jeans), so I've cut away a bit of the front upper hip and made pocket bag and pocket facing patterns to fit.  Then I connect the dots to transfer all the lines to the pattern, trace a 1/2" seam allowance in marker, and cut it out!  The perforations are handy for checking grain lines and marking dart points right onto the fabric with chalk or tailor's tacks.

Then it's finally (FINALLY) time to cut the fabric.  I have juuuuust enough of this herringbone wool flannel to fit the pattern pieces on grain, thank goodness.  I made a jumper dress out of it two years ago that has worn like iron and goes with everything, so I wanted to get an equally useful garment out of what was left.  It's excellent fabric--not the kind of thing you experiment on.

The other reason I spent so much time fitting the muslin is that I'm planning to flat-line the pants--that is, sew the outer fabric and underlining wrong sides together around the edge of each pattern piece, resulting in an interior seam that looks a little like a Hong Kong finish.  There's a great tutorial here on Cashmerette, and I'll post a few pictures next time to show what it looks like on a heavier fabric.  It's a good clean finish, but you have to be sure of your fit before you start because it's not easy to make alterations once the underlining is attached.

With a complicated project like this, I'm careful not to rush it--drafting, cutting, sewing, and hand-finishing all happen on separate days and usually take more than one sitting to complete.  If I go too fast I'm sure to cut something wrong (and I almost did today--forgot to allow for hem allowance on the back leg--but I caught the mistake just as I was putting scissors to cloth and just freehanded it).  Better to slow down and enjoy the ride.

Drafting Cigarette Pants

Cigarette pants!  I need some.  More to the point, I want to take on the challenge of drafting them.

I've been piecing my muslins from a bunch of 1/2-3/4 yard cuts my friend's roommate left behind when she moved (apparently she did some kind of theatrical sewing)--it's mostly muslin but some of it might have been pillowcases at one time.  I made sure to match the grainlines on each piece, which makes a HUGE difference in how the garment hangs.  (Dear self five years ago, it does so matter, I'm sorry, you were wrong.)

I usually cut a paper pattern with no seam allowances, and trace around it right onto the fabric.  I know some people thread-trace the grainlines and horizontal fitting lines but I don't have the patience for that--I just use whichever marker comes to hand first, which today was pink.

 I left the legs relatively roomy, planning to do most of the slimming down in the muslin stage rather than on paper.  I'd like to test a theory I've been developing over the course of the drafting process, which is that my legs exit my pelvis in an inward direction rather than vertically, and so--theoretically--I should need a slightly bias (angled inward) trouser leg, rather than a perfectly on-grain one.  The successful pants I've made in the past have always been full enough that I had room to move regardless, but the more ease you take away, the more accurate your draft has to be, and I'm hoping this new angle will solve some of the weird inexplicable wrinkles I always notice near the crotch when my legs are closed.  You can see it in the first muslin:

Drag lines...

...no drag lines!  I don't intend to stand like a sailor at all times though so I need to fix this problem.

For the second muslin, I hinged out the inseam at a wider angle (technique helpfully illustrated at #2 here), a couple of inches out at the hem tapering to nothing at the fork.  I also gave the inner thigh portion of the inseam a slight convex curve, which hopefully will relieve strain on the fabric in that area and keep the pants from wearing out quite as quickly (that's the first place my pants always get holes).  First impressions are good:

There's some wrinkling around the crotch, but well within acceptable levels IMO.  Grain lines and side seams are approximately perpendicular to the floor, nothing's obviously out of whack--there's a little too much room from the knee down but we're going to do something about that now.

First I tried pinning out a vertical dart along the crease line (center grainline), tapering to nothing at the knee:

That did not work.  It was weird.  As soon as I took a step, the leg started twisting inward from the knee down, a problem I had with the last pair of jeans I made and never figured out.  I still don't understand what caused it, but it was immediately obvious that no matter how big my calves are, the solution is not to make the front narrower than the back.

Second, I tried pinning out the excess along the outer seam, which I suspected was going to be the best solution (and a test of my inward-angled-leg theory).  And it worked!  It worked so much!

I got a little overzealous and pinned out too much at first, but once I let the pins out slightly into a more gentle taper, it was perfect.  Minimal twisting, and comfortable!  I like to wear a muslin around the house for a while before I make a final decision, just to make sure I can, like, bend over to get into the dishwasher, or curl up sideways on the couch and watch TV.  And I can!  The final fabric is going to be a woolen with a bit of give to it and stretch silk underlining, so these should be very comfortable when they're all done.

This Is a Persistent Worry

Double-checking for the 20th time to make sure I don't end up with two left sleeves.

What I'm Working On

I made the braided rag rug for our new apartment in Chicago (a year ago now!), from scraps I had lying around and some pieces of quilting cotton that I think came from a garage sale.  There are pieces of this dress, this apron, and the polka dot lining from this jacket that never was.  It's just a coiled braid, pottery style, with each coil stitched to the one before in a spiral and then the whole thing hand-sewn to a felt backing.  Not fancy but satisfying to make and a nice place to sit when I'm cutting out pattern pieces.

This shirt pattern is copied from a men's Gap shirt that I found in a thrift store and liked the fit of.  The original was short-sleeved and this white version has long sleeves, so I drafted a placket and cuff.  This will be my second time ever making a shirt-sleeve placket (I did a couple of practice runs yesterday before I cut everything out).  I've made quite a few short-sleeve men's shirts, though, so the whole collar-and-stand-and-yoke-and-flat-fell-seams thing is old hat by now.  The process is almost zen at this point--no fitting, no wrestling with fussy fabric, very little handwork, just long easy seams and crisp topstitching.  And I look sharp in them when they're finished.

For my fellow shirtmakers, here's a list of the resources I always turn to when I start a new project:

• This sleeve placket tutorial from Off the Cuff, a custom shirtmaker's blog.  I love advice from the professionals--I would never have thought to finger press but it's easier and more effective than heat-pressing on tiny fiddly seams.
• Four Square Walls' guide to sewing collar stands.  She offers it as an alternative to the standard method suggested on most sewing patterns; it's the only one I've ever tried, and it works for me.
• Peter's Men's Shirt Sewalong on Male Pattern Boldness.  I usually end up reading this in full before I start a new shirt, as a refresher course and a guide to construction order.
• And, if you can find it, the book Shirtmaking by David Page Coffin.  It's the definitive text for good reason.  

If you've missed me, you can see my Me-Made-May photos for this year at my Flickr page--mostly selfies in the full-length mirror in my department at work.  How has everyone been?  Happy sewing?

Shirtmaking--It's More Difficult Than You Might Imagine--& Some Gender Thoughts

I have a full pattern for what I am calling The 40s Blouse (for lack of a better name)!  Do you know how many pieces go into a men's-style tailored shirt?  A lot!  Is the answer!  I've got a back body, front body, collar, facing, yoke, and sleeve.  (I hit a bit of a roadblock when I ran out of fabric for the outer yoke--whoops--next time I will definitely buy more than a yard and a half!)

The thing is, I started this project without any real idea how a women's tailored blouse is put together.  The RTW shirts that Dear Partner and I own haven't been very helpful, since we shop at the decidedly low end of the spectrum and our clothes take all kinds of labor-saving shortcuts that (David Page Coffin claims) are big no-nos in bespoke tailoring.  I decided to construct mine much like a men's casual shirt--without a collar stand--which my Reader's Digest guide says is done with a facing.  What?

Drafting The Sweetheart Dress: in Pictures

The first step--the one not pictured here--is drafting the pattern itself.  I use Dress Pattern Designing by Natalie Bray (which you'll hear more about in coming days I'm sure), along with a tall stack of newspaper, a sharp pencil, felt-tip pen, measuring tape, and a battered green ruler.  This system has always served me well.

Next: a muslin!  I leave the seam allowances off the pattern, trace each piece onto the fabric (an old polyester sheet from the Salvation Army) in black pen, and then cut an inch outside the tracing.  That way I have a neat seam-line when I go to assemble the muslin (as Tasia recommends but less work).