Chasing Coco

After the multi-week project of fitting my muslin, I was ready to cut my fabric. My crazy expensive fabric that I can't get any more of unless I make a 10-hour drive to New York. Just a little intimidating. Part of what makes a nice jacket is matching the pattern of the fabric at the seams, this is also a big pain in the rear. If you're like me, after you were sewing for a while you really started to notice how little commercial clothing bothers to match patterns especially at the side seams and it started to annoy you. Since this is my first jacket to have this complicated of a design, when I was shopping for my fabric I tried to consider the pattern and how difficult it would be to match. A lot of boucle is plaid so there is both a vertical and a horizontal pattern to consider. I choose a fabric that was more of a tweedy look so the pattern is less obvious because there aren't stripes, so if I don't have an exact match it will be less noticeable. To begin, I str...

Thankfully, this project has coincided with a plan to go to New York to visit some friends because, honestly I don't know where else I would find boucle! Even online the pickings are slim, plus then you can't see it and touch it which makes such a difference. This was the first time I've been to New York since I began sewing so it was my first trip to Mood . It was, in a word, overwhelming. So many pretttttyyyy things! Fortunately I was on a time crunch and had to stick to my list or I might now be mortgaging my house to pay for my fabric binge. My boyfriend was also with me and looked all over the store for Swatch (the store pooch that occasionally appears on project runway) to no avail. He kept coming back to where I was to report "I found a water bowl but no dog" "I found a painting of Swatch but no dog." He was so disappointed! It was also busy! I thought people did not sew anymore?!? I recently asked at a chain store here in NC if they had b...

Apparently my last post was way too optimistic! I went to go see E for sewing class and we made a bunch of alterations to my muslin. See in the photo below the left side has been altered and the right side has only the first round of adjustments I made.  The front princess seams were tweaked several times, the upper part of the sleeve is being let out a little and a pretty major adjustment to the armhole. Armholes are tricky! If I was making this totally on my own I probably wouldn't have made so many changes, I think we be accustomed to buying semi-fitting commercial clothes that we don't really have any idea what really fits and looks good on us. If it fits around us and isn't 10 sizes too big we think it fits! E also helped me alter the pattern so I could have a button up cuff with a facing, rather than just turning up the end of the cuff. Much more Channel. To do this,  E measured up my arm how far I wanted the cuff to go and we have then added fabric that all...

It took me a while to get the muslin adjustments made, I was sick for a week and honestly, I just had more interesting sewing projects (instant gratification maxi skirt and finishing a pair of shorts that have taken forever that I want to wear before summer ends, which are finally done). Changes I made include: - letting out both sleeve seams (2 part sleeve) 1/4 in, resulting in 3/8 seam allowance - letting out side seams 1/4 in, resulting in 3/8 seam allowance I actually did not make as many changes as I originally thought , because I tried it on and it seemed like it might be big enough. I have sewing class tomorrow with E and I'll ask her opinion. Honestly, I really did not want to re-sew those pesky princess seams and if I let them all out 1/4, I think the jacket will be too big but maybe I'm wrong, I'll see what E has to say about it. Estimated total hours of work to this point (not including research): 3 - See more at: http://chasecoco.blogspot.com/2014/...

I am so pleased at how well my muslin has turned out! It also came together really quick, I hate doing muslins because I have this idea that they take so much time but really, it was like 1 evening of sewing with a little cutting the night before. Not too bad! I suppose it makes a difference when you don't have to do any of the facings, hemming or structural elements :-) Sorry the photo is kind of dark and I cropped it since my hair was a disaster! I had been planning to make the shorter length ( look C for my pattern ) but at some point doing the muslin I decided to cut the long length and see how it looked - that's why the back is longer. Now to the fitting and adjustments! 1) Neckline is way too high - I feel like an old lady so that's coming down. 2) Sleeves are a tad too small (thanks Mom for the fat arms!), letting those out 1/4 in on both seams (I have a two part sleeve) 3) the front and back of the jacket are ok in the muslin but once I get a thicker w...

I am curious how many of you out there proof your patterns before you make something? Until I started taking classes with E, I would just look at the measurements on the back and pick the most appropriate, cut it and sew it. That's what we're supposed to do right? Well, sort of. E suggests doing what she calls "proofing the pattern." Having now done it a few times, I can see that it does improve the results, you get a good feel for how much ease you have and if like me (ie practically everyone), you're sort of all over the measurements table, which size you should cut and where you might have to adjust. This is how I found out that, though I'm 5'7", very Germanic and often buy the "long" or "tall" size in commercial clothing, apparently I'm "petite." What?!? To proof your pattern, you want to measure on your body your various circumferences and the vertical distance from one horizontal measurement to the next (...

At this point, I have been thinking about and planning on making this jacket for a few months.I started by looking at examples of French jackets by channel, home sewists, other designers. For some examples for your own jacket, you can look here, here, here and here. I haven't bought any fabric yet! Do you believe that? Normally I have fabric, patterns and projects piled up way in advance! I'm hoping to make a trip to NYC to go to Mood and maybe some of the local shops and pick something out in person. I often buy fabric online, which is sometimes a disaster so in this case  as I will be spending a lot more on the fabric (I'm budgeting $200...but let's see how that goes!) I feel I need to make an in-person trip and frankly I haven't seen anything calling my name from my online browsing! I asked at a chain store I stopped at last night (I happened to drive by and they were having a sale!) and they did not even have any wool boucle. Eye roll . I wasn't surprised,...

About a year and a half ago, I took my first sewing class and after practicing making straight lines, I made a drawstring pouch. I fell in love! But I wanted to make clothes, not end up with 90 bags in the closet. I bought a sewing machine, and was rapidly taking sewing classes every weekend. Saying that I bit off more than I could chew, is something of an understatement...in the first few months, I took a "working with patterns" class and decided to make a dress with something like 14 pieces and that I wanted to put pipping on it. If you are new to sewing, the patterns they label as "easy" are NOT easy. I think they literally label everything that way. Eye roll. The working with patterns class was a 6 class series and I also worked on my project at home as much as possible. When it was done, it did not fit at all . I took an additional 2 open studio classes to get the thing to fit and cursed pipping every minute of every one of them, because it made adjusting ...