She has been doing very well, and has a couple of new items. We purchased a length of pre-smocked material from Hancock's, and she used that and some pretty green ribbon to make a summer shirt.
She also dug through the scrap box and found a length of jersey left from a dress I made, and made view C of Simplicity 4076.
She also adores polka dots, so I let her buy some sale corduroy to make a simple elastic-waist skirt. No pattern necessary, just a hem and a casing.
Speaking of polka dots, she is currently working on McCall 5627 view C in a polka dot and turquoise contrast.
This one is taking quite a bit longer to finish because we are at the place now in her learning where she needs to learn to do without me standing over her shoulder. Since she now has to decipher pattern instructions, and find the matching notches on her own without me pointing it out, it has slowed her down considerably. We have also had new learning experiences, like how to clean the iron after you iron the wrong side of fusible interfacing (waxed paper. Run the iron over some waxed paper. It will slide just fine after that).
While she has been sewing on her own projects, that gave me some time to complete some projects that I had been working on, including a coat that I was making for my grandmother.
My grandmother asked if I would make her an unlined, wool flannel coat for spring. She didn't want a lining because she wanted it to be fairly lightweight.
When I was a kid, I always remembered my grandmother as a really classy dresser. Since she has gotten older and her health has deteriorated, her clothing options are more in the range of sweatshirts and slacks. So, I wanted to make something that was more like those pretty shirts and pantsuits that she wore when I was little. Because it had a bit of a 60's vibe to it, I picked Vogue 8123, view C.
She selected the fancy button, but since she has a bit of trouble with arthritis in her hands (she has completely quit sewing and crocheting now), I used a very large snap to close the coat, and sewed the button on the outside of the collar. Because the button very clearly has a vertical axis to it, and the collar makes a bit of a vee when it is closed, I sewed the button on while the coat was on the dressform. That way, I could insure that the vertical axis was actually vertical, rather than thrown off by being aligned with the collar.
Since she has specifically requested no lining, I wanted to do something to neaten the seams, so I used a remnant of silk twill from another project to make bias strips and did Hong Kong seams inside. I cut the binding 1 1/2 inches wide, and probably should have made it a touch wider. It was a bit difficult to work with because of the thickness of the wool; which of course I neglected to take into account!
While I like the style of the jacket, I do have a bit of a problem with the Vogue "Very Easy" patterns. Sometimes I think that they skip over some very important construction steps for the sake of maintaining the "very easy" aspect of the pattern. For example, they direct you to use fusible interfacing on the collar, however with the stand-up collar, it needs much more support than that. I used Hymo and attached it with pad stitching instead. This gives the collar much-needed body, much more than simple fusible would provide. I wouldn't mind so much, but there is no way to get the collar to resemble the drawing if you don't assemble it right! I know that it is important to have "very easy" patterns for beginners, but wouldn't it potentially frustrate a beginner if their finished products consistently came out looking differently from the illustrations? So wouldn't it be better to actually include instructions that will allow you to make the jacket look like the illustration? Or, don't include the upright collar as an option. The standard collars will look fine without Hymo.
Next up, I am back to sewing for myself. Currently on the cutting table I have Butterick 4985, Butterick 4924, another version of McCall 5591, and Vogue 1051.
5 comments:
All of your niece's tops and skirt are so darn cute! How lucky she is to be learning to sew at her age - I wish I had! Can't wait to see future projects.
It is so sweet of you to sew for others. That jacket is absolutely gorgeous. It's beautiful inside and out.
Everything has turned out so well! Your niece looks very pleased and I'm sure your grandmother will treasure her coat. Nice job! I wish I could be that productive!
The coat looks SOOO good! Great job!
Everything looks great - the outfits your niece has made look fantastic and I really love the coat for you Grandmother. I am in the process of making an unlined jacket and used the Hong Kong finish too so was very interested to see how nicely your's turned out.
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