Monday, December 27, 2010

Moving along...

Hmm, what do we have here?

This, my friends, is a bit of progress. Above we see the fabric for the coat/jacket/whateverthehell being preshrunk in the December sun. Let's not look back and find out when the coat was begun, agreed? Thank you.

And below we see what happens when I have many days off in a row. More progress! This is the Bella pants pattern from the Burda Style website. I am hoping they will be as awesome as I envision. We shall see.

No fabric picked out yet, just the muslin. I think these will probably executed in a black wool crepe, or maybe a dark gray tweed if I can find a cool one. If you peruse the finished projects gallery at the bottom of the Burda page, you'll see that people have done cool things with the pocket linings. I might do a contrasty thing there, who knows? I do think, though, that people seem to be fighting the high-waistedness of these. Perhaps I'll take them it a bit more matador-ish direction and make them mega-uber-high-waisted.

Here we have a close-up of the muslin I'll be making the mock-up out of (which, incidentally, was stained red in one of my washing oopsies I am infamous for). See those little green tufts?

Those are called speed tailor tacks, a version of the tailor tack I learned about in this book. Tailor tacks are used as little flags that mark things from the paper pattern like alignment marks, or where darts begin and end, etc. Normally I would make these marks with chalk or a disappearing ink pen, and have a minor coronary trying to get the ink/chalk out of the fabric even though it should have just disappeared/brushed off as promised. Stupid.

This is my first time trying tailor tacks out. In the speed version, you use regular embroidery floss and just make a little stitch, leaving an inch of floss at the beginning and end, as seen above. Then, after you've cut out your pattern pieces, you pull the fabric apart, as below:

And give it a little snip, which leaves you with a tuft in both layers of fabric, marking your mark:
Very nice, yes? Of course, I could've just used a marker and let it bleed through to the other side since this is just a mockup, but this was actually relatively quick... once I had found where my darning needle was hiding, and located my embroidery floss, and hunted down my little scissors, and talked on the phone a bit, and checked Facebook, and ate some Christmas leftovers, and cleaned up the box of pins I knocked off the table while angling to snip a tack.

See why this is taking a while?

The coat stays as is for now. I am afraid of a phenomenon I've heard of referred to as "over fitting." Not exactly sure what this is, but it certainly sounds like something I would do. I think I'm going to leave the mock-up the way it is and proceed with additional fitting in the actual garment, once I've cut it and assembled it from the final cloth. After all, it's my first friggin' coat and the perfectionist paralysis must cease at some point. Yes? Yes.

In other news, I still have made no inroads with the sloper. It makes me nervous. I know this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I am having a hard time coercing Mr. Dude into finding the time to assist me in fitting it. I haven't yet figured out how to reach completely around to the center of my own back in any sort of practical way, so I still require his assistance. Dammit.

I'm off to put together the pants muslins and we'll see what happens.

Or maybe I'll go eat a leftover tamale first...

Word,
Ms. May




3 comments:

  1. Yes! I want those pants too. Maybe I'll be inspired to get my sewing machine fixed.

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  2. They are turning out really well... more photos when I get back from L.A.!

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