Operation winter coat - fabric prep

As I had some lovely (and more expensive than usual) fabrics for this coat, I wanted to treat them right. Since I asked for a lot of advice and googled a fair bit, I thought my findings might be useful to others.

Starting with the outer fabric which is a wool blend - 90% wool, 10% poly. This is a good combination for me as I am sensitive to 100% wool  A lot of people can get away with wool in a coat as it doesn't sit against the skin but I particularly dislike it against my neck and this coat has a collar so wool blend it was. 

After a lot of googling I found 3 main methods for pre shrinking wool. First is taking to the dry cleaners.  Easy but pricy so not for me. Second is steaming with the iron (as Tasia did here). Simple but time consuming. Thirdly is this method outlined by Pam from Off the Cuff (this is a link to her new blog but her old one here is a treasure trove of tips, especially for shirtmaking).  To save you a click, you wet large towels with hot water and put in the tumble dryer with your dry yardage. That's it!

I was concerned about trying this with my whole yardage so I tumble dried a swatch first for the recommended 40 minutes.  There was no obvious change to the look of the fabric so I put the whole yardage in the dryer with 2 damp (wrung out as much as possible) bath towels. It worked perfectly - but if you do this be careful taking it out of the machine as it was still boiling hot! A quick press later and my wool was ready to go.

The lining is viscose acetate.  I had planned to wash as normal but when the fabric arrived it had a dry clean only sticker on the tissue it was wrapped in. I considered not prewashing as I plan to dryclean the finished garment but advice from the lovely Claire Louise from the Thrifty Stitcher that it's really important to pre wash linings as even a bit of sweat can cause shrinkage.  So I decided to put in in a delicate wash and it came out fine. Another great tip from Claire Louise was to iron it damp to get the creases out properly. This worked brilliantly and not sure why I haven't tried it before!

This just left the interfacing. I ordered Speed Tailoring from Gill Arnold on the advice of Anne from Mercury Handmade and it came with really detailed instructions on how to pre shrink,  which I have never done with fusible interfacing before. I soaked it in hand hot water for 20 minutes, rolled it up in a towel to take out excess water and hung up to dry. When applying, Gill recommends a steam shrink, where you place the interfacing on top of the fabric and steam from a couple of inches away, smooth out fabric and interfacing and then press using a press cloth to adhere.  This method worked really well and the interfacing is really lovely stuff.  It stabilises without stiffening and adhered perfectly and easily to the fabric.

Hopefully some of these tips might help if you are making a coat in future!

Operation winter coat is go!

I may not have been blogging too much due to work and general life busy-ness, but I have been sewing and planning quite a bit!

The big project I am working on is a winter coat.

I was looking for a fairly simple shape with a collar and some waist shaping and I picked up this great 1960s pattern on Etsy:

It has lovely princess seams running to the waist with welt pockets at the bottom, bound buttonholes and is fully lined.

I knew I was going to have to buy fabric online for it as my local fabric shop just doesn't stock great quality coating. The fabric I used for my Anise really hasn't held up well which is frustrating when you think of all the work that goes into a coat (especially one with welt pockets and bound buttonholes!). After much perusing of online fabric shops (it's a dirty job...) I ordered a stack of swatches from Stone Fabrics. They have a great selection of coatings and I have read good things about their quality. You have to call up and order but they were very helpful and got my order out really quickly - they're not paying me to recommend them BTW, I just like to give praise where it's due!

I ordered this wool mix coating (90% wool but not scratchy - 100% wool rarely works on my skin). A good tip I found was to keep rubbing the swatches together over a few days to see how they might hold up to wear. I actually rejected my original choice after it went a bit fluffy when I did this so hopefully I have chosen one that will wear well!

The lining is also from Stone Fabrics and it's viscose acetate in a beautiful peacock blue - the picture really does not do the colour justice.

As ever, I asked for advice on twitter for interfacing and the ever helpful Anne from Mercury Handmade recommended Speed Tailoring from Gill Arnold as she uses it in all her coats. This stuff is ideal for stabilising an open weave and is beautifully soft.

For buttons, I bought huge 1960s style ones from John  Lewis. I hope they don't look stupidly big on as I'll have to do the bound buttonholes first!

I think you'll be getting quite a lot of in progress posts on this as coats take such a long time. Wish me luck!

The Route 66 Flora

Awesome print matching on front seam not clear but it's in the middle of the green lozenge!

 
So I really should have taken pics of this dress in a desert or at least somewhere more urban than a bluebell wood, but needs must!  I called it the Route 66 dress as the print reminsd me of rear view mirrors in old American cars, like in Thelma and Louise.

This is my second version of the By Hand London Flora dress, with the first version (with the tank bodice) blogged here.

I have seen a lot of people complaining about the bodice coming up very big on this but I didn't find it too bad - maybe I am bigger than I think I am!  I lengthened the bodice by 2.5", lowered the bust darts by 1" and did my ususal 1/2" FBA.  I wasn't sure whether it was going to gape or not based on the muslin, but it did so I tacked the crossover point down flat.  The skirt is lengthened by 2" as per my previous post. I could take the side seams in a bit but it's comfortable for a big dinner!

The fabric is an african wax print which I bought from Middlesex Textiles.  I have been loving wax prints for a while now and seeing Chinelo on the Sewing Bee every week with gorgeous prints definitely inspired this dress!  I usually find it difficult to find them in colours that I would wear, as they are often very warm tones.  But Middlesex Textiles has quite a few in blues, pinks and purples.  All the wax prints come in 6m lengths (a helpful twitter person told me that this is the length needed to create the traditional african dresses and headgear these fabrics are often used for), so the prices are pretty reasonable.  I think this one was £16 for 6m, so under £3 a metre. I've seen different weights (base fabrics?) for wax prints.  This is like a traditional cotton but I have seen ones that are smoother, more like a lawn.  You do need to beware of width though - the fabrics are narrow, like quilting cotton. 

What centre back seam?

 This meant I had to add a seam down the front  of the skirt.  I made a big attempt at pattern matching on the skirt and don't think I did too badly - it's only slightly off at the zip, but not enough to unpick (and a good invisible zip insertion does not get unpicked, amirite?).  Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the pattern matching on the bodice though.  The pattern isn't symmetrical, and does have a right way up (the lozenges - is that the right word? - are wider at the top so I couldn't cut upside down).  I went for a line of green lozenges running down the straps, but perhaps I should have tried to match the yellow one at centre front?

The bodice is lined in black cotton lawn.

I really like this dress - it's pretty much as I envisaged it in my head.  It will work in the summer with bare legs and sandals or pumps and for cooler weather with tights (c'mon summer, bored now! There was a massive thunderstorm happening overhead while these were being taken). I am going to make a lace version for an evening event coming up and wondered if anyone could help me get rid of those wrinkles at the front crossover piece?  Would I just shave a little bit off the top of the front wrap pieces below the centre front? Or is the bodice just a little bit too roomy? Or are those wrinkles just part of the style of a wrap?

Any advice appreciated as usual!

Wardrobe Architect Week 10 - The Capsule Palette

I have especially loved the colour challenges on Wardrobe Architect.  I find colour much easier to define than shape or silhouette.  The week's challenge was to narrow down our overall palettes into what we will focus on this season (Spring/ Summer for me).  You can read the post on the Colette blog here.

Based on my palettes, which I blogged about here and here, these are my chosen colours:

Neutrals:

I have bought quite a few fabrics with navy backgrounds recently so this works really well!

Nearly Neutrals:

These are no brainers for me - I have lots of both in my wardrobe and the red fits in well with my recently completed Mad Men dress.  It made me feel so happy when I was making it too - proof that colour really does lift your mood!

Statement colours:

No surprises here for me - lots of blues and turquoises with purple thrown in to shake it up a bit!


So here's my Spring/ Summer Palette - I would say it's pretty true to my wardrobe and my usual palette for the summer.  I'm also glad to say that most of my stash fits in well with it!

Sorry about the terrible graphics!  I really need to improve in that area - can anyone recommend a course or some online tutorials for a non-arty person like me?  What software do you use?


Have you done a colour palette for the season? Link me up in the comments!

Catching up on Wardrobe Architect - weeks 7 and 8

I have been slacking on Wardrobe Architect for a couple of weeks - I was struggling to find time to blog about the tasks although I did think about them.  For the sake of completism (is that a real word?) here you go!

Week 7 - Exploring Solids and Prints

We had to think about what percentage of our wardrobe is solid vs prints and what prints are we drawn to.

I found this quite easy!  Like lots of people when they start sewing, I was totally drawn to all the fabulous prints and *whisper* quilting cottons.  They are so fun and eyecatching in the fabric shop, much more so than bolts of plain colours.  And then I realised I had made lovely items but they didn't go with each other or anything else in my wardrobe.  So in preparation for Me Made May last year, I made a conscious decision to sew plain colours.

Almost all of my bottom half garments are plains - I don't wear printed trousers ever.  I have a couple of printed circle skirts, but the rest are plain.  I have quite a few pairs of jeans, a lot of skirts and am sorely in need of trousers.

For tops, my woven tops are probably 50/50 printed and plain.  The plain ones are all in fairly bright colours.  For knit tops, most are plain (possibly to do with the difficulty I find in getting nice patterned knits).

Dresses are tougher to categorise.  I have quite a lot of knit dresses in plain colours (see above re patterned knits).  My woven dresses are 50/50 solids and prints.  The solids tend to have details - piping or collars or buttons.  The prints tend to be fairly simple shapes with flared/ circle skirts.

I see stripes, gingham and polkadots as plains.  I love them all!  I tend to prefer large scale prints , especially florals, watercoloury abstracts and of course novelty prints (which I tend to try and limit myself on as I know I wear them less - but, y'know #sewdollyclackett and all that!).  I do wear small scale floral prints (like my Alma blouse) but only as tops.  A whole dress in a tiny floral would be too cute for me - I'm too tall for it!

Week 8 - Hair, MakeUp and Beauty

As regular readers will know, I recently had my hair chopped into a jaw length bob and I am totally in love with it!  I have never really liked my hair - it's never gone into the styles I have wanted.  Basically it does its own thing, and my new hair cut works with that!  My new cut saves a lot of washing/ combing time and adds a little bit of drying/ styling time but it is ace.  I need to find the time to play about with it, but I am hoping it might be able to be styled into more vintage looks with some blow drying for special occasions.  I also think it will cut down to the army of hair products in my bathroom!

I totally love beauty products and always have a lot of lotions and potions.  I am a dedicated cleanse/tone/moisturise person and never ever go to bed with make up on, even when drunk!  Once every couple of weeks I try to find time for a mini facial where I cleanse with a hot cloth method, exfoliate, put on a face mask and facial oil.  I don't buy pricy products but I have quite a lot of them.

My make up routine is quick and easy (5 minutes tops) and totally based around my skin.  As a spotty teenager (with spots that unfortunately lasted into my twenties) I got obsessed with foundations etc.  I don't like to look as though I have a lot of base on but I have to have something.  I use a primer (currently in love with Garnier Perfect Blur - you have to try it!), then a lightweight liquid foundation in winter or a BB cream in summer.  Concealer stick on any spots and around my nose and under eye bag cream (I have terrible dark circles!).  I use a cream blusher as I don't normally use powder so don't like a powdery finish on cheeks only.  Everything else is based on things to stop me looking tired.  Benefit LemonAid cream on eyelids and EyeBright pencil under eyes before smudging on black kohl pencil.  I never go out without mascara and always black.  I rarely wear eyeshadow or lipstick.  If I wear lipstick it is usually a fairly neutral gloss.  It doesn't vary much if I am going out - probably just another coat of mascara.

I have an obsession with Jo Malone Vetyver perfume and it is the only thing I wear currently.  It's quite different - spicy and clean and not at all sweet.  I like the idea of having a signature scent and this is the closest I have come to the right one!  I try not to use other strong smelling products so that they don't clash.

I am feeling the need to change this routine up a bit.  Maybe I should get a bit more adventurous.  I may try a few new lipsticks this weekend! Must be the new hairdo...