Me Mad May – Week Two

Week two of Me-Made-May is over, and I exceeded my ’3 garment a work-week’ challenge — I wore me mades to work every day last week!

Monday I wore my floral Sorbetto with a suit, and since it was rainy and cool, I also wore my Robson Coat.

Tuesday was another dreary day, so I wore a hand knit scarf with a RTW corduroy jacket. This will likely be the last time I get to wear the jacket until fall, it’s too thick for warmer weather.

I was running late Wednesday morning, so here I am right before I rushed off to work with tailoring class supplies in tow. I wore a hand knit sweater with one of my favorite RTW dresses. (The sweater is pre-blog. I knit it with lace weight yarn –eep! I like the finer gauge, but it took a long time to finish.)

Thursday I wore my Mad Men Challenge dress.  Not sure about this cardigan with it.  I really need to find a few new cardigans.

Friday I wore my gray Licorice Dress.

This week’s Friday theme was to take a picture in your sewing/knitting/creative space.  This is my sewing room.  I love it and spend so much time in here!  It’s set up for functionality.  From my chair, almost everything I use/need is within a swivel.  Even the computer is close by.  It’s out of frame, to the right of the bookcase.

Then after work, I changed into some me made pjs, and did a little knitting in my other creative space:  the armchair in the living room.  (I’m working on my Audrey in Unst cardigan, which is getting close to being done.  It’s about time, I only started this like last year ago!)

Again, I didn’t wear anything me made this weekend.  What this year’s challenge has taught me is that I need to start sewing knits and make a few comfy casual things.  I did make two new tops (details later) and worked on the tailored jacket.  Here’s how it pretty much looks right now:

Extra points if you can spot the dog.

How is Me-Made-May going for you, if you are participating?

Me Made May – Week One Down

The first week of Me-Made-May is done, and I met my goal of sporting me-mades to work at least three times.
On Wednesday (The first day, you’ve seen this one before), I wore my red Sorbetto Top.

On Thursday, I wore my Blue Rose Truffle.

It was SO sunny Thursday morning, it was a shame to have to go to work!

Friday I wore my Licorice Dress.

Friday’s photo theme was water – so I posed by the “watering hole” in my kitchen.

I didn’t wear any me-mades today.  :(  I go for comfort on weekends and mostly wear knits and jeans (or pj’s!).  Since I haven’t learned how to make t-shirts yet, my me-made options are seriously lacking. I’m hoping to tackle learning to sew knits soon though!

Even though I didn’t wear any handmade garments today, I did work on one! I got behind in my tailoring class, so I’ve been catching up on my jacket. Been working on setting the collar.

I realized that I really needed a point pressure, for pressing the seams open around the collar. So I rummaged around the garage and made one!

It’s just two pieces of scrap wood, connected with two screws and sanded down. I will probably go back and sand down a point on one end. It’s a little on the small side, compared to the ones you can buy, but it worked fine for what I needed it to do today.  Gotta love cheap homemade sewing tools, right?!

Happy “Me Made May” Day

It’s the first day of May . . . and that means the first official day of Me Made May ’13!  My official pledge this year is:

I, MarrieB of http://www.purlsandpleats.wordpress.com, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavor to wear one handmade garment at least three days each work week for the duration of May 2013. I also endeavor to complete two new garments before May 31.

I had a blast doing this last year, so I’m looking forward to it again this year.  If you want to follow along on Flickr, the MMM ’13 group can be found here.

For my first me made outfit this year, I’m wearing my Red Colette Sorbetto top.

I’m so not a morning person, so working an early photo shoot into the routine is tough.  But  it’s all part of the MMM fun, right?  Anyway, not sure if I’ll do daily me made posts.  Instead, thinking of a weekly recap.

Good luck to everyone else who’s participating this year!  Have fun!

Completed: Sewaholic Robson Coat

I made a coat!  I can’t believe it, I made a coat!!  Here’s my version of the new Robson Coat pattern from Sewaholic Patterns.

Can you tell I’m excited about this project?!  And guess what . . . it wasn’t all that hard!  Tasia has drafted a fantastic pattern.  It has a lot of pieces, and I won’t lie, making this was time consuming.  But honestly, it was pretty easy.  Especially considering – it’s a coat!

The fabric I used is a 100% cotton twill.  So it will wrinkle, but I decided I can live with that.

It isn’t lined, so you use bias tape to finish all the seams.

And there are A LOT of seams, so you need a ton of bias tape!  I made my own with a gray, black and white animal print fabric.  It took a whole night of work to make enough, but the extra effort was worth it.  I just love how the animal print contrasts with the green fabric.  Here’s a closer look:

Tip:  I didn’t sew the bias tape the way the pattern instructions suggest.  (Which is to fold it over the seam allowance and sew)  Instead, I did what Lauren (Lladybird) did.  (check out her post – she’s got pics of this, and a fanstastic coat to boot!)  I sewed one side of the bias tape, then turned it over the seam allowance and top stitched it down.  It’s an extra step, but it’s actually a lot easier than trying to wrangle and sew the bias tape around a bulky seam allowance in one pass.

This coat is loaded with great details.  It’s got front storm flaps, with a button hidden underneath for when you want to close the coat all the way to the neck.

A back storm flap, with a button.  I sewed the animal print fabric on the underside of my flap, just for fun!

Epaulettes:

Sleeve Tabs:

Pocket welts:

Belt loops and tie belt:

Here’s how the insides look.  Front:

Back:

I cut the back neck facing from my animal print fabric, for a bit of contrast.

I also slip-stitched the back facing down, so that it wouldn’t flip up or flop around when I take the coat off.  (Bonus, the back storm flap hides the stitches!)

The sleeves were a little tricky for me, mostly due to inexperience.  (I think I’ve only done set in sleeves once, or twice.)  I started out by pinning the sleeves in and sewing, but kept getting puckers.  So I switched to basting them in my hand, and that worked a lot better for me.  They are sitting pretty smoothly now.

And I’m jazzed about how well the top stitching on the sleeve lines up with the stitching on the back flap.

Speaking of top stitching, this coat is loaded with it.  I was intimidated by this a first, because I’d only done it a couple times before.  Turns out, it wasn’t so hard.  Another TIP:  don’t look at the needle as you top stitch, and the stitches will stay straighter.  I have no idea why, but as soon as I’d look at the needle, things went off course!  Along those lines, buy extra thread if you make this.  You will need it.  (I used 2.5 of the small spools of Gutermann thread.  Or about 250 meters/275 yards.)

Oh the other thing about this coat . . . I didn’t make a muslin, and I think it fits pretty darn well.

The only alteration I made was to shorten it by about 4 inches.  I based my length off of another trench style coat I own.

When I make this again (and I totally want to, even if owning multiple trench coats is ridiculous) I will probably make the front flaps a smidge narrower.  They have a tendency to want to poof out.  I’d also take just a bit of flair out of the sides, along the princess seams.

Other changes I’d make are (1) cut the interfacing so that it doesn’t extend into the seam allowances around the collar.  I think this would help reduce bulk.  It’s another tip I’ve learned from my tailoring class, and (2) maybe underline the sleeves with lining fabric, to help the coat glide on and off easier.

All said and done, I am really proud of myself for making this coat.  A year ago I would have never imagined I could made outerwear!  I like how it fits.  I love the fabric and bias tape.  And it fills a gap in my wardrobe, I needed a lightweight coat for cool spring mornings/evenings.  Yes, I love my Robson Coat!

Go make one . . . you won’t regret it!

Details: Butterick 5032 (Mad Men Challenge Dress)

Here’s the inside story of my Mad Men Challenge dress.

The main fabric is a cotton/poly sateen.  I like it because it doesn’t wrinkle very badly.  But pressing was a pain!  To help minimize shine and the darts/seam allowances leaving imprints on the front, I used a silk organza press cloth and card stock.


If you don’t have a silk organza press cloth – get one, seriously!  It’s so great to be able to to see through the cloth when pressing.  (I bought a yard of silk organza, and cut myself a square from that.)

Pressing the belt for my Robson Coat…. More on that soon!

I learned the card stock trick in tailoring class.  If you sandwich strips of paper between your seam allowance/darts and main fabric, it prevents them from marking through on the front.  It’s fiddly to do at first, but gets easier with practice.

Anyway, enough about pressing . . . back to the dress . . .
One of my favorite details on this dress are the front pleats.  I was worried my fabric would be too heavy and stiff for them.  But a trip through the washer and dryer fixed that.  The heat from the dryer made the poly all soft and drapey.

The dress is fully lined with gray Bemberg lining.  I also finished the edges of my facings with bias strips I made from the lining.

And check out edges of the facings and the waist seam  - they match up almost perfectly!  This is probably the best I’ve done yet!  Ya, I know, I probably get too excited about these things that no one sees.  :)

Also added my ‘label’ and under-stitched the facings by hand.

I did another handpicked lapped zip.  (If you haven’t tried this yet, go watch Sunni’s free zipper tutorial on Craftsy.  It’s great!  She shows how to do a lapped zip on the machine, but you can easily adapt her method to do it by hand.  Instead of top stitching down the outside with your machine – hand sew that part with pick stitches.)

I’ve struggled to find the best way to finish the top of the zipper and the facing.   I messed with this for a long time, and while it could be less bulky, I think it hides the tab pretty well.

The pattern has a slit in the back.  Normally I would have changed it to a kick pleat, but decided to give the slit a try.  It turned out okay, but I like kick pleats better.

And check out my mitered corners on the inside of the slits.

On the hem, I tried something new.  The sateen puckered really bad when I tried to hem it by catching just a thread of fabric on the back side.  So I fused some weft interfacing along the hem line, and caught that instead of the fabric.  It solved the puckering problem.  Hopefully the fusing will hold up in the wash.

So there you have it, the insides of my Butterick 5032.  I like this pattern, it was easy to fit and easy to sew, making it a double-winner for me!  :)