Sunday, December 31, 2017

Last garment made for 2017-McCall's 7636

I finally finished McCall's 7636. My plans to finish this pattern during the Christmas holidays did not happen.  I got close but so much was going on that week that I found less time to be in the sewing room.

I was bound and determined to finish this for this holiday weekend and yeah! it is done.

Let me say that I found this pattern to be well drafted and the instructions were great.  The pattern is real loose and it is important to pay attention to the finished measurements on the pattern pieces.  The shoulders are wide and somewhat dropped; I reduced the width of the shoulders by 5/8 and probably could have reduced by 3/4.

My double knit fabric was one with a coating on the front that gave it a faux leather or scuba knit feel. I used a larger size needle to sew this and glad I did.  At times I was sewing through several layers of fabric, lining fabric, zippers, piping, etc.

I highly recommend this pattern to those with more sewing skills than a beginner.

Here are photos of the completed jacket.  It was nice to end the year with this pattern and project.  I still plan to make more jackets and a hoodie in the near future.









I want to thank all of you who have stopped by to read my blog.  I appreciate comments and feedback.  I wish you a Happy and Healthy New Year.  There are some upcoming changes to my life in 2018 that I am excited as well as anxious about.  I will share more about this in my post for 2018.

Be safe if out for the New Year's Eve parties !





Sunday, December 17, 2017

Catching up on M7636

Making slow but steady progress with M7636.  This is a challenging project and I am taking my time to make sure that it goes together well. 

I am excited that I have finally completed the jacket unit and now ready for the lining unit to be stitched and attached.   Here are a few shots of the WIP.

Front view with zipper and piping basted to front.  It will be appropriately stitched when the lining and facing is attached.

A closer look of the zipper and piping.  You really can't see the piping.  The zipper teeth are placed over the piping edge, so when stitched the piping will be a design element of the jacket closure

This gives you an idea of what it will look like after sewn.  Still hard to see the piping because of the black zipper.

Both sleeves are attached now.  The piping is basted to the arm hole before inserting the sleeve. After sleeve is attached, then you topstitch around the sleeve area.  This was challenging for me, a lot of manipulating the piping and making sure when you attach the sleeve that it butts up to the piping edge. 

And finally the back view.  Let me say that the pattern is described as loose fitting and it is.  When I tried it on over my PJ's, it felt very large.  The shoulders are very wide and I may add shoulder pads.  I reduced the width of the shoulders before cutting out.  When you look closely at the pattern envelope, you can see that the shoulders are wide on the model as well.  Glad I cut some of the width off prior to sewing.  I think when lining is added it will take up some of the fullness.  I still may need to take deeper side seams as well as in the sleeve width.

Next steps:

  1. Sew the front facing to front lining piece
  2. Sew back facing to back lining piece
  3. Attach front and back lining pieces
  4. Attach lining unit to jacket at front edge and neck area.
  5. Try on for further fit tweaks and consider adding shoulder pads.
  6. Baste sleeve to lining sleeves at edge and make pleats ( I think this will be challenging)
  7. Add knit cuff to sleeve edge.
  8. Try on again to be sure sleeves are right length, etc.
  9. Turn up hem, insert elastic into resulting casing
  10. Jump for joy that it is complete!



Saturday, December 09, 2017

New Look 6469

I finally got an opportunity to wear my new dress New Look 6469 earlier this week as the weather turned cold enough to wear.

I took these photos right before leaving for work and used my iPad to take them.  The background colors are not real conducive to showing off this dress and I played with editing as best I could.

I wore this with tights and my camel suede colored booties, only I left my feet out of the shots.

Back of the dress!  The dress calls for a zipper.  I interfaced the back seam edges for the zipper insertion.  This worked well.  I used Design Plus Stay Tape for this.

Here is the side view
This is a high low hem.  To be perfectly honest, I did not recall using the low hem back piece.  When I put it on to wear that day and I saw how the back hung, I thought it might have to do with snug bust. The pattern indicates that it is close fitting in the shoulder/chest/bust area.  It does not really pull in that area so I have decided this is definitely the high/low hem back piece.

Here are some things I will adjust for the next version.

  • the front neck neckline comes up to high and needs curving out more, no matter what neckline you choose.
  • the shoulder dart needs to be moved more to the front and so the dress will not pull back on me as it did while wearing
  • add a little to the bust area, 1/2 inch.
  • fullness is a lot with this swing dress and I t believe I could take it in a little more from waist to hemline.
Let me say that I love this brushed poly knit fabric.  It was a breeze to cut out and sew.It is from Cali Fabrics.   I used 1 inch double sided stay tape that I purchased from Pamela's Patterns.  (I am not an affiliate)  This is great stuff as you can cut the width to less than an inch, it fuses well with dry iron and pulling off the back paper is fairly easy.  I just turned up the hem on sleeves and dress, pressed with steam.  It made using the coverstitch machine easy to hem and get a good looking hem stitch with no puckers. (Sorry I did not take a picture of that.)

I will sew this again.

Sunday, December 03, 2017

My New Project

Friday evening I took the time to begin the layout of fabric and pattern. In an earlier post I reported that I wanted to begin sewing some jackets. I have not made any jackets in over a year, though I did attempt a McCall's bomber jacket pattern that did not go well. That one went to the wadder basket.

The pattern that I'm using now for this project is is another McCall pattern; this one has set in sleeves with pleating at the bottom edge of the sleeve. It also has a casing and you insert 2 inch elastic.

I had planned to cut out more of the fabric than what I did on Friday evening on Saturday. However I woke up Saturday morning not feeling very well, experiencing a migraine type headache. This morning feeling much better I tackled cutting out this pattern. This pattern has a lining, a two-piece sleeve with pleating at's hemline before cuff is attached. There's a lot of pattern pieces to cut out. I used my Olfa  60 MM rotary cutter. Many sewist use rotary cutters to cut out fabric and pattern, and I decided I wanted to work on improving my skills in using this rotary cutter.

The jacket fabric, the lining fabric and the collar and cuff fabric all from my stash. The jacket fabric is a leftover from a project several years ago and was purchased from Gorgeous Fabrics. This is a double knit fabric and it has a slight coating feel which makes it challenging to find the right needle to sew with. I tested this this morning, I will actually be sewing with a jean and denim needle. 

The black lining fabric is from Schoolhouse Fabrics in Floyd, Virginia. The cuff and collar fabric are from Fabric Mart purchased close to a year ago when they were having sale on tubular ribbed knit.

Whether I get to sew or not today will depend on my grocery shopping chores for today. More updates will follow.

August Sewing Simplicity 7295

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