Things sewn in 2020: jackets

My love for sewing jackets, especially tailored jackets, continued this year despite having no real reason to wear one because I wasn't in the office for most of the year. I made 8 jackets last year, of which 5 are definitely corporate wear and 3 are more relaxed.

My most worn jackets last year are two bomber jackets both made from the same pattern but in very different fabrics. The first version is made from wool in black and white gingham, lined in black bemsilk lining. I didn't have any black ribbing, but used some black ponte fabric which has worked really well. The other version is made from a very lightweight cotton voile that I lined with a crisp cotton poplin not only to give it enough body but also to give some depth to the pale pink and pale green fern print. I used some grey ribbing from the stash. Both have been worn a lot last year and this year already (even the wool one because so far it's been a cold summer).

The pattern is from a 2014 Burda Easy magazine that I picked up at a Sydney Spoolettes fabric swap, and the pattern is indeed quite easy. Even the instructions for the welt pockets are pretty good for Burda.

My second favourite and semi-casual jacket is a linen kimono sleeved jacket made from a chartreuse heavy weight linen. This is made from a 2002 Burda magazine and I love the turned up cuffed sleeves and the slight stand up collar. I wore this a few times last year - both to the office with pants and casually with jeans.

My third favourite jacket made last year is a vibrant emerald green wool tweed jacket heavily inspired by a jacket that Peggy wore in Mad Men. I had no reason to make this other than I loved the fabric! But I will definitely wear it to work when things get back to normal. Again I used an older Burda pattern - 4/2014 #103 which I made no size modifications to despite using a firm woven fabric with no stretch even though the pattern calls for jersey or soft wool. I hand stitched the navy blue grosgrain ribbon around the collar which really hurt my fingers but it was worth it - I love the curved front hem and the neat fit from the princess seams. I plan a few more jackets from this pattern in the future.

Another work jacket that I made very early in the year and actually wore to the office a few times in February and early March is a blazer from Burda 9/2016 #108. I made this pattern a few years ago in a light pink soft wool crepe which I still wear frequently so I knew the pattern was good. This version is made in a teal heavy weight linen, lined in a glorious green silk. I made the matching pants that you can just see in this photo but they need some rework because they bag out quickly and get too big after about 2 hours of wear.

I have narrow shoulders and one of my obsessions is getting a neat fit around the shoulders - I'm always doing a narrow shoulder and a forward shoulder adjustment, and will re-sew a sleeve head multiple times until it's pucker free. So I don't know what I was thinking making a jacket with a quirky square sleeve head with a big pleat at the shoulder! I used a beautiful sage green wool suiting fabric that I picked up from a charity shop and thought it would look great in a fashion forward kind of way. Luckily I was able to re-cut the sleeve into a standard shape and resew it because it looked ridiculously pointy and just wrong. This is New Look 6013, and aside from those quirky sleeves it's a great looking jacket:

I do like jackets with a cool collar or some sort of design twist, and this asymmetrical wrap jacket from an old New Look 6619 pattern fit the bill perfectly. The front was actually meant to be asymmetrical - it just turned out that way when I positioned the button in the best place to fit my bust and shoulders! I actually prefer the way it looks like this. This is made from a white blue and pink tweed jacket, lined in a pale blue bemsilk from the stash (I was really big on using stash fabric last year).

 

Finally, my most recent and least favourite is a gorgeous fuchsia wool suiting that I tortured into a tailored jacket. The fabric is quite lightweight and drapey, which I picked because the collar of the jacket I tried to make is a scarf style in a shawl neckline. The pattern is Burda 7286 view A. Well that backfired because the collar would not properly at all when folded over on itself and I got so annoyed with it that I eventually ripped the collar off and made it a collarless jacket.

I even went to the effort of making welt pockets with flaps and a bound button hole, but this fabric just wasn't right for this style of jacket. I used light interfacing to block fuse the body pieces, but the more I steam pressed the jacket the more it bubbly and stretched out. It looks ok in photos, and while I probably won't wear it in person, someone clever on my IG suggested wearing it for video calls because the imperfections won't be noticeable! So that's my plan, because I don't want to waste this fabric.

 So I do have plans for a few more jackets this year, time will tell whether I get to actually wear them all in the office this year though!

Shoulders that will poke your eyes out: New Look 6013

One of the great things about sewing is that you're not limited to what's available in the shops - you can make what you want. One of the less great things is not finding out until after you've put in some time and effort that what you're making really isn't you!

I do like my work jackets to have a bit of interest about them - either a bright colour other than navy or black, or an interesting cut like a shawl collar rather than a standard notched collar. Which has led to my recently finished jacket - a shawl collar, a minty textured wool and formerly some crazy shoulders:

I say formerly because I ended up pulling off the crazy sleeves and re-sewed on some normal fitting sleeves which is what you seen in the photo. This is New Look 6013, a pattern that is now OOP. I made the dress once before in 2018 from a polka dot linen which I still wear thanks to it being not too fitted. 

 

The sleeve heads have an inverted pleat at the shoulder head which looks good on the model and on my dress form but just looked ridiculous on me. They shoulder head sticks out quite high above my natural shoulder level and to top it off the sleeves were quite wide and baggy too:

Instead I used a standard sleeve off another New Look pattern to cut out some normal sleeves to sew on. You can see the difference in shape in the photo below.

Even though the sleeve head of the new sleeve eased nicely into the shoulder seam, I can see there are terrible drag marks on the sleeves indicating that I need to reshape the shoulder slightly. Well I won't fix this, but it's good to know for the future.

For the back view instead of cutting on the fold I added a centre back seam so I could shape the seam better to suit my curves. This together with the princess seams means I got quite a nice fit in the back:

I made faux welt pockets because the jacket is so cropped it's unlikely I'll ever put my hands in them and the pocket bags would be so shallow anyway. The welts add a bit of interest to the front and even though I was worried they sit too close to the hemline I think overall they still looked balanced.

The final change I made to the pattern was to insert a lining. The pattern is meant to be an unlined jacket, but with several layers of interfacing in key places like the shoulder area, princess seams that need to be clipped to be pressed open and the messiness of welt pockets I think a lining is really necessary to cover up all that internal structure. Plus being a wool jacket it will wear better with a slippery lining.

This fabric was a total bargain - bought from the Sewing Basket charity fabric store earlier this year for a few dollars. When I spied this fabric in it's beautiful minty loveliness, I was reminded of one of my favourite costumes from the movie The Dressmaker:

All I need now is some cream wide leg pants and an awesome hat and I'll be set for a glamorous return to the office when it reopens! After all these months of casual wear whilst working from home I'm actually quite eager for a bit of dressing up on the few days a week that I'll be in the office.

So my final thoughts: if you like a bit of drama then I can highly recommend this pattern to you! The shawl collar is easy to construct, the princess seams make it easy to fit and overall it's quite a nice little jacket. If like me you prefer your clothes to be a bit more subdued, the sleeve is easily interchanged and you can still have a great jacket without the wow factor.

 

10th birthday dress: New Look 6960

We've just come home from a two week holiday to Hong Kong - boy was it cold there! Not snowing cold of course, but less than 10 degC which according to my relatives that live there is unusually cold for them. So even though I sewed the annual birthday dress for my daughter before we left and took it with me it was far too cold for her to wear there but it's much more suitable for home here in Sydney a week later:

I've made this dress before for Anna back in 2013 when she was only 3 years old and oh so cute:

This is New Look 6960, which is OOP and may be the last time I use this pattern. It only goes up to size 8 which still fits Anna because she is a bit of a bean pole, but it's not overly large on her. I guess I could grade it up, but with so many other patterns in my stash I probably won't.

For this dress I've used a Jennifer Bouron print on cotton bought from Nerida Hansen specially for this project - no stashing this fabric!

I used some yellow cotton from the stash for the contrasting colour to pick up on the yellow in the print as well as it being Anna's current favourite colour.

I like those gathered cap sleeves even though they stick out a bit in this fabric, but I do think there could be more fabric at the centre front there to make those gathers look a bit more obvious.

And now for a walk down memory lane! The previous birthday dresses:

New Look 6000 - dematernified*

*dematernified: the act of refashioning maternity clothes into normal sized clothes.

Cleaning up my sewing room recently I found many unfinished projects (aka UFOs) once again piling up in random places. Every few years I seem to go through a cycle where I try to either finish them off or cull them but I never get them all done and before I know it I've added way more to the pile! Well, here I go again.....

In my UFO pile I found a dress I made around 7 years ago when I was pregnant with my second child from New Look 6000 (an old favourite). I held onto it not because I was planning to have another child but because I made it from a good quality ponti knit which is hard to find and because this is a favourite dress pattern and it deserved to be worn for more than just a few months.

To turn it into a maternity version in the first place I simply made it a size larger, added extra length to the front and placed gathers on both side (see this post here). To de-maternify it, I unpicked all the pieces and simply cut out the pattern pieces in the right size - and then it sat in my UFO pile for the past few years. No good reason why - I was just clearly distracted by newer and shinier projects!

On a recent sewing weekend away with some sewing friends it took me about 2 hours to finally sew this dress and now I have a new dress just in time for the warmer weather we're having here in Sydney. Honestly, at the end of finishing each UFO I always wonder why I left it for so long!

There's not much to say about this dress - it's a very simple make but is really flattering which is why a bajillion seamstresses have made it and the pattern is still for sale over at Simplicity. I've made this version with cap sleeves because even though I love the elbow length sleeves with button tabs they are impossible to get into jacket sleeves and it's so cold in my office that I definitely need that.

I guess the most obvious difference is in the side view - no more preggo belly (just a mum tum though).

In the photo above I was only 21 weeks and I grew much larger so it was lucky that there was a lot of extra fabric in the front. Check out the photo below to see how much larger I got - this photo was 5 days before I gave birth to a 4.5kg (9lb 14oz) baby:

Finally how awesome is the necklace I'm wearing? It's from an Australian company called Ruby Olive and this plain black dress is just perfect for showing it off.

  

New Look 6000: revisiting an old favourite

My family finally moved into the new house we have just finished building about four weeks ago which I'm so happy about but boy do we have a lot of stuff! I keep opening boxes that have been in storage for the last 18 months and wonder why we kept this stuff, so I'm also having a major clean out and declutter at the same time. It's so tiring and draining moving and unpacking though - I've done hardly any sewing and definitely no blogging in that time which is so unlike me.

Unpacking some clothes that had been in storage to hang in my new walk in wardrobe (I love this the most I think) I came across this dress I made in eggplant purple ponti knit from New Look 6000 that I made way back in 2011 and realised I still love this style enough to not only keep it in my wardrobe but to also make another one. So here I present version 2 of New Look 6000:

image via simplicity.com

This version is made from a black and white plaid ponte knit that I bought online from fabric.com. It is a lot thinner and more plastic feeling than I expected from a fabric described as a ponte, but I guess that's the chance you take when buying online. I had to line this with a thin black knit fabric to make sure it wasn't transparent and give it enough body to stop it clinging.

I put quite a bit of effort in lining up those horizontal stripes across the side seams and the back zipper when cutting it out, and used a million pins and the walking foot on my sewing machine to sew them up. And they all lined up on the first attempt which was a huge relief because unpicking black thread on a black knit fabric would not be fun. 

Unfortunately I placed the widest black stripe across the widest part of my butt, and with the swayback adjustment and darts on the front view the vertical stripes are all over the place but overall I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out.

I sewed this dress last weekend at a three day sewing retreat I went on with my friends from the Australian Sewing Guild. I managed to finish six garments there which was great because I haven't set up my sewing room yet and have done hardly any sewing in the last month. But because I didn't have all my sewing equipment with me on the retreat I didn't have any interfacing to use in the collar and as a result the collar is a bit floppy and folds over on its self. I may fix this one day. Or I may not (I probably won't!).

I also left off the cuff on the sleeves and just extended the pattern slightly to make it a three quarter sleeve. I love the look of that cuff, but it's nearly impossible to get a jacket or cardigan over it and it's way too cold in my office not to wear another layer over the top.

And how cute is this sewing tape brooch? Another gem that I found recently when unpacking boxes - it was a gift from a friend many many years ago.

Overall I love this dress, and hopefully it won't be another 7 years before I make another version!

And now I'm off to unpack some more boxes. I'm looking forward to the day when all the cardboard boxes are out of the house, the landscaping outside is done and curtains have magically sewn themselves and appeared on my windows!

New Look 6013: dress for our never ending summer

So here we are at Easter at the beginning of April and it's still sweltering hot here in Sydney. For all of you in the northern hemisphere where it's still snowing I'm sure we share the same sentiments - enough of this extended weather patterns, it's time for a change in season!

But it has given me an opportunity to finish and wear another summer dress that I cut out at the beginning of the year but hadn't yet finished. I tend to cut out a lot of projects in batches to make the most of my sewing time, but the danger in that approach is that sometimes I don't get around to finishing them and they become UFOs.

Not this time though! This is New Look 6013, one of those wardrobe patterns with a few different garments in one. I bought this pattern from one of those marvellous Spotlight bargain sales mainly for the jacket because I love a shawl collar.

I hadn't really planned on making the dress because I have two other similar patterns (Burda 3/2009 #107 and Vogue 8319) which I made the Vogue dress way back in 2010 in this post. I loved that dress and only stopped wearing it because after many washes the fabric was very faded. I can't believe I made that dress eight years ago now - time does fly by!

I bought some cotton linen in a blue polka dot print from Spotlight during their January sale earlier this year and figured it was perfect for this pattern so I made it up anyway. It has turned out great, but it took quite a bit of fiddling around with the fit to get it right though. The neckline sat way lower than it looks in the photo pattern, the top of those vertical darts on the front sat closer to my waistline than my bust and the underarm seam was so low that my bra strap was visible. Not a good look.....

So I did a quick and a bit dodgy fix which worked out fine. While I was wearing the dress I lifted it up by the shoulder seams until the dress felt like it was in the right position but not too tight under the arms and basically pinned out a new shoulder seam. I sewed a new seam line almost 4cm lower than the original shoulder seam, so you can see how much excess space there is in that area.

I checked the pattern pieces to make sure I didn't cut out a larger size (it's a multi sized pattern) but I cut the right bits out so I can't explain it. Lifting it up at the shoulder seam also brought the hem up to the right spot for me so this fix sorted out a few problems. It still sits a bit low at the front and back neckline but it's not inappropriate so I can live with it.

Apart from that fitting issue it's a pretty straight forward pattern. The princess seams make it easy to get a nice fit through my sway back, and it has a vent to make it easy to walk in.

I've fully lined this in a thin cotton lawn in white because the polka dot fabric is a bit see through but it doesn't add any bulk to the dress. I haven't made this overly fitted like I usually do - I figured a good bit of ease is necessary for a summer dress and I knew this fabric would probably bag out a little anyway.

Whilst I like how this dress turned out in the end I'm not sure I'll make this pattern again, mainly because I prefer how the Vogue pattern that I made previously fits much better than this one. But with the high temps we're having at the moment it's just what I needed.