Ways to wear a lavender blazer.

Once spring comes, that is.

Here are some looks I put together on Polyvore using items similar to (or in some cases, the same as) things in my closet.

Wow, that was SO much easier than putting it all on and taking pictures!!

ETA:  Since publishing this post, I've created even more sets!  You can see them on Pinterest here, or on Polyvore here.

A Tale of Two Blazers: A Comparison Between M6172 and S2446

Well, hello there!

Since my last post, I've been busy making 2 blazers.  My friend Shar jokingly told me that I'm on the "Blazer a Month" program after I shared my sewing plans with her, and she's not far wrong!  I've got several more planned.  Although I'm not quite sure I need a dozen in my closet - that's probably overkill for a housewife!  But they are just so darn fun to make - most of the time.

I started the new year with a second, and very successful, version of McCall's 6172.  This second blazer was hand-tailored.  Gosh, was that a blast!  (Obviously, you have to love hand stitching to find that fun, which I do.)  And the result was a jacket that is so perfectly molded to my body, it just feels like a dream every time I slip it on.  I posted several pictures in-progress on Instagram, as well as pictures of the finished jacket.  Alas, although I've worn it a few times, I have yet to remember to take a picture of myself wearing it!  One of these days . . .

This month, I moved on to Simplicity 2446, one of the Amazing Fit patterns.  Back in September, when I was getting ready for Bourbon and Blazers, I pulled out all my blazer patterns - I've accumulated quite a few thanks to those $1 pattern sales.  After perusing all of them, I narrowed my choices down to M6172 and S2446.  Style-wise, they're pretty similar.  I ended up starting with the McCall's pattern, mostly because it uses the Palmer-Pletsch fitting method with which I'm already very familiar. 

But I wanted to try them both, so I kept the Simplicity pattern out.  And in December, I ended up buying 2 kits for this blazer from Craftsy, for a whopping $25 each.  A pretty good deal, as the kit contains the pattern, the outer fabric and the lining.  I purchased the lavender kit still available here, and the navy blue shown in the pictures.  I resolved that these 2 would be my February and March blazers this year.

. . . (cue ominous music) . . .

I finished up my lavender blazer the other day, and while it's OK, it is nowhere near as fabulous nor as comfortable as my McCall's blazers.  This pattern just doesn't work for me, and I won't likely be making it again.  It confused me, honestly, because just about every review I've seen of this pattern has been overwhelmingly positive.  Maybe I'm just nitpicking?  But I figure:  I have a pattern that is perfect for me, so I really don't need to settle for second best.  I tried it; it's OK; I'll wear it.  But I won't love it like I do my McCall's blazers.

All the while I was making this blazer, I kept thinking that in my book the McCall's is a far superior pattern.  I decided to do a little comparison in case anyone was interested in the difference between the two.  I realize that my tailoring audience is probably pretty small, so if you have no interest in this sort of thing, you may stop reading now (if you haven't already).

Here's a table I made of the key aspects of each pattern:

Let's look at them in depth, shall we?

Fitting helps

If you've read any of the Palmer-Pletsch books and used those fitting methods, M6172 will be very familiar.  The first couple pages are a distilled version of all the adjustments you might need to make on this blazer.  You start with a tissue fitting, and then work your way through all the adjustments one by one; most of these are slash-and-spread adjustments.

The fitting method for S2446 is, for the most part, to take in or let out the princess seams.  There is a table to help you determine which cup size you need, and the side front piece comes in A, B, C and D cups.  All other adjustments are made to the 1" seam allowances on the vertical seams.

If your adjustments are mostly to the circumference of a garment, this is probably enough.  My personal adjustments are trickier though.  Because of my sway back and low round back, I ended up having to convert the center back from "cut on fold" to a seam.  I was able to adjust for my broad back along the back princess seam, but I felt that this doesn't give me as good a fit as the usual slash-and-spread I do. 

bust adjustment from M6172

I think that for anyone needing a small- or full bust adjustment, the McCall's pattern offers more precision, because it uses a slash-and-spread (or tuck) adjustment for the bust in addition to the princess seam.  I ended up using the B cup side front on the Simplicity pattern, but had to redraw the bust curve because it was too high for me.

Construction

If you think you might want to try out traditional tailoring, I'd recommend the McCall's pattern.  The instructions are for a traditionally inserted lining, which involves plenty of hand-stitching.  I didn't feel the instructions were enough though, either with the RTW version of my first blazer or the hand-tailoring of my second blazer - I spent a lot of time referring to my tailoring book and the Craftsy class on tailoring for both garments.  But I didn't feel the instructions for the bagged lining on the Simplicity pattern were clear at all.  And honestly, by the time I got to that point I was really ready to be done with this jacket so I didn't get out my book on lining to help figure it out - I just reverted to doing it by hand, which is default for me.

I was really surprised that although I'd made two blazers previously, I found the construction of the Simplicity blazer quite difficult.  Part of it was those 1" seam allowances.  After my tissue fitting, I went back and re-traced all my pieces so that everything had consistent 5/8" allowances.  But I also felt the instructions were hard to understand and follow; some of the terminology is different from what I'm used to, and the sewing instructions are interrupted with fitting instructions throughout.  On the McCall's pattern, all the fitting is on the first couple pages; after that, it's all construction.

The Simplicity jacket was rendered even more difficult by the fact that some of the notches didn't match up.  The most egregious error was the fact that the seam which attaches the under sleeve to the upper sleeve doesn't match up at all at the armhole - I ended up having to trim some away.

The markings on the Simplicity pattern are minimal - no roll lines for either collar or lapel.  If you wanted to hand tailor this jacket, you'd have to add those in yourself.  The lack of these markings left me unsure where to fold back my lapel when the jacket was done.

For me, probably the biggest strike against the Simplicity pattern is the sleeve caps.  The shape of the cap is tall and thin compared to the McCall's pattern; this gives the sleeve too much ease to go into the armscye nicely.  I'm pretty good at setting in sleeves, but this one was ridiculously hard.  I spent close to 3 hours just attaching the sleeves, and they're still not ideal.  Because of the extra ease, the sleeve sits up off the shoulder a bit - not a look I'm fond of.  And there was so much excess fabric in the seam allowance, I ended up having to notch it so my shoulder wouldn't look lumpy on the outside.

Sticky-uppy sleeve at shoulder.  Yuck.

Here's a picture comparing the sleeve caps of M6172 (on bottom) and S2446 (on top).  The pattern pieces are not aligned, so that you can see how much more extreme the curve of the Simplicity piece is.

Details

The Simplicity pattern does include sleeve vents, although as written, they are not functional.  Neither are those cute flap pockets - they're not pockets at all, just flaps sewn to the front of the blazer!  Call me a stickler, but even though I don't use the welt pockets on my McCall's blazers (they're still tacked shut!), if I'm going to the trouble of making a blazer, it needs to have the proper finishes.  There are in-seam pockets on the longer version of the Simplicity pattern, and I think they're pretty cute; however, the reviews I read did say they are too small to be useful.  I made the short version of the jacket, and because I didn't want fake flaps, I left pockets off altogether.

I did make the sleeve vents on my Simplicity blazer, and although they cannot be opened, they are cute.  I chose not to add that detail to my McCall's blazers because I usually find the buttons to be bothersome when I'm sitting with my hands or arms on a table or when putting on my winter coat over the blazer.  But since they were already included on the Simplicity pattern and I'd never done it before, I gave it a go.  This part of the pattern is quite nicely drafted, I think - it includes an angled cut to make a miter which I think is pretty foolproof.

At first glance, these two blazers look almost identical, save for slightly different lapel shapes.  However, I think the difference between shoulder princess and armhole princess seams may be important to fitting.  I'm planning on researching that a bit, because I had much better luck with the latter.

Conclusion

Well, I think my preference is clear!  I know a lot of folks have had great success with S2446.  Alas, I am not one of those people.  I'll be using my McCall's pattern on the navy blue kit next month.

That said, I love the color of the Simplicity blazer.  I really bought it to use as a muslin for this pattern, but discovered that I can make lots of nice outfits with it!  Lavender goes with a lot of colors - who knew?   So I will be wearing this one this spring.

Have any of you used either (or both) of these patterns?  Do you have any information to add to this review?  I'd be very curious to hear others' experiences with these.

Two Shirts with Yellow

Hi kids!

I'm a little under the weather today - I think I've got a cold coming on.  But had a very productive sewing weekend, so I decided to get over myself and take some pictures while the sun is out.

I've been on a mini-mission to go back and adjust some of my favorite patterns, now that I have a slightly better handle on fitting.  One of these I mentioned last week in my plans for this month:  the Archer shirt.  I promised I'd only make a couple adjustments, but in the end, I did just one:  the forward shoulder adjustment.  After wearing one of my Archers last week, I felt that this was the one adjustment I needed above all others.  (Of course, I'd already adjusted the button spacing and graded out two sizes at the hip in my previous version, and I kept those adjustments.)  And I'm so glad I stopped there - I'm declaring this adjusted pattern perfect now.  I'm so happy with how the fit turned out:  it's comfortable and slightly slouchy, and the forward shoulder adjustment took care of the twisting of the sleeves I was getting, as well as the tendency of the shirt to drift toward the back.  Now that I've got this pattern the way I want it, I'm going to be making LOTS more of these.

Normally I wear shirts like this with the sleeves rolled up, but I'd done such a nice job ironing it, I didn't want to get it all wrinkly! 

You can see here that I've still got a tiny bit of pooling in the lower back, but it was interesting to me that the forward shoulder adjustment seemed to take some of it away with no swayback adjustment.  I think for the future I won't bother with the swayback - as I said, I like it now how it is, sort of slouchy.

One of the reasons I'd put off adjusting this pattern for a while is that the instructions in Fit for Real People didn't make a lot of sense to me.  The book recommends just moving the notch for the shoulder forward on your yoke piece.  On me, the yoke didn't even extend up and over the top of my shoulder, so I wasn't sure how well that would work.  I also wasn't looking forward to removing the seam allowance from the front of the sleeve and adding it to the back.  I stewed on it for a while, and googled around for some other methods.  I landed on this forward shoulder adjustment from Heather B, which also didn't make much sense to me - it seemed like it would angle the yoke forward too much, western-shirt style.  But I decided to give it a go, and it really worked well.  Also from Heather B, I learned this sleeve cap slide, so I was able to avoid the dreaded seam-allowance removal+addition.  So thanks, Heather B!

Here's a better look at the shirt itself - how lovely is this fabric?  I got it probably a year and a half ago from Fishman's, one of my local fabric stores.  It's a super-soft cotton lawn.  It just feels amazing against the skin.  And although it's grey, it's a very soft blue-grey, broken up by the light mustard yellow.  I just love it.

Encouraged by my Saturday success, yesterday I decided to do the same forward shoulder and sleeve cap adjustments on another old favorite, the Lisette Continental blouse (Simplicity 2059).  I've made this top three times before, and I wear all three of them often.  Again, a loose, slouchy, smock-like design - the type of top I reach for when I want to be cute but comfy.  My three older tops fit pretty well, but had the same problem of drifting toward the back, inching up my neck.  I'm happy to report that this adjustment has taken care of that, so this is another pattern I'll likely be making up again.

I found it very interesting  to see how the shoulder seam looks on the hanger:

It looks like it angles severely toward the front, but on my body, it exactly follows the line of my shoulder.  BTW:  on both these shirts I did a 1/2" forward adjustment.

This top was also made with a piece of fabric from Fishman's - a lovely remnant, bought at the same time as the fabric above.  It's a subtle plaid of the palest grey and almost acid yellow, another very soft cotton but slightly heavier than the Archer fabric.  Such a pleasure to wear. 

I didn't have enough of this piece to worry about matching the plaid, but it came out alright, and it's so subtle anyway that it doesn't really matter that it's not perfect.

Remember when I was talking about how I hang my mending on my dresser to get myself to do it?  Well, here's a little secret:  I also hang my most recent makes there, so I can admire them for a few days before they go into the closet :-)  I added a pretty vintage scarf in similar colors to the Continental blouse.

Do you guys admire your recent makes for a while before putting them into the closet?  I thought about wearing one of these today, but I have some messy work to do, so I'll just have to keep popping in to look at them.

Two more knit dresses.

When I showed you my Pucci Swirls dress a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that it was my practice run for a couple dresses I wanted to make for the spring.  Last week I made them both up on the same day, production-line style. 

I learned my lesson from the Pucci Swirls dress re: having the print straight at the hem as well as meeting at the sides.  So this time, before I even got started, I traced the front and back pieces again then taped them along the center to the original pieces to get a full pattern piece.  I'm glad I decided to do it that way instead of flipping the half piece:  it allowed me to see exactly what the whole front or back would look like.  I have a little bit of trouble visualizing that from just a half piece.

These two dresses were made from fabrics I bought on sale at Girl Charlee in the fall.  All winter, I daydreamed about making them up and wearing them in the spring.  But our winter was longer than usual, and I wasn't able to get enthused about actually making them until last week.  I'm so glad I got them done though, because now it's full-on spring, and I'm wearing dress #1 today!

Neon stripes!  Yowza!  When I bought these sandals, I thought they were really bright orange - but they pale next to the insanely bright orange in this dress!

You can see that I got the hem in line with the stripe, but it wasn't easy - the fabric was a little skewed.  Also, the hemline of this dress is slightly curved, which makes things a little harder with stripes! I made sure to match the stripes at the side seams:

And did the zigzag hem again:

The only problem I had is that as I was getting ready to put on my neck binding, I discovered a tiny hole in the fabric in the upper back :-(  This has happened to me more than once with knit fabrics.  Fortunately, the hole was quite small, so I popped on some fusible tricot inside.  I'm hoping it holds - I'd really hate for this dress to get ruined quickly.  These colors make me happy.

I saved the best for last.  Here is my new favorite dress for spring:

I. Love. This. Dress.  This is my #1 favorite fabric I have ever bought from Girl Charlee.  Stripes AND flowers - what's not to love?!  This one is also on the heavier side, so this dress feels a little more substantial than the others.

These stripes are so irregular that I didn't even bother trying to match them at the sides:

But I don't think it takes away from the dress.  There's a lot going on here!  When I bought the fabric, I thought the stripes were navy, but I think they're actually black.  I don't mind though - that expands the possibilities of things to wear with the dress.

I love this pattern so much, and I'm finding myself reaching for these dresses when I get dressed.  I'm planning on going through my shrinking stash to see if I have anything appropriate for another.  But first I've got some gift sewing to do :-)

Shifty

Hey look!  I made a dress!  It's not a Laurel, but it sure looks like one, doesn't it?

This is Simplicity 2054, which I've made twice before.  (post here)  A super simple knit shift.  I wanted to make up a few of these for spring, and decided to start with the fabric I liked least - you know, just in case.  But it turns out, I really like it! 

This is fabric from Girl Charlee, of course.  It's called "Pucci Swirls' - about as close as I'll ever get to anything Pucci!  I tried to link it up for you guys, but it looks like it's no longer available.  It's been several months since I bought it.

When I made the dress on Monday, I took special care to center the print and make sure it fell straight vertically.  I even made sure the design was centered on my binding.

And I matched the horizontal lines at the sides as best I could:

Here's my "come hither" look, trying to show you the side seam:

As you've probably noticed though, the print does not line up horizontally at the hemline.  I was going to blame that on the design being printed off-grain, but I think the truth is that despite all my apparent care, I did cut the dress on the fold.  I really should have cut it flat.  I guess I'd better keep that in mind for the next two, which are both going to be made from striped fabric.

But no matter - I still like it, and it's fine for me as an easy dress to knock around in.  The fabric is really soft, so it's very comfy.  I did a 2" hem with a zigzag; I like the extra weight the wider hem gives and will do that on my next two dresses as well, if the prints don't show through the fabric too much.

Have any of you tried this pattern?  What do you think of it?

You win some, you lose some.

I think I mentioned a while ago that I made myself a nice sewing to-do list for spring.  I've already referred to it several times and I feel like it's been helping me stay a little more focused.  All the items on the list were garments for spring and summer, with the exception of one leftover winter project, Simplicity 2451, view C.  Yes, the skirt everyone has made except me.

I was dying to make this skirt in the fall, but somehow didn't get around to it.  My grand plan was to knock out a muslin, and then make the real deal in one of the Anna Maria Horner velveteens I'd bought.  I wasn't super crazy about the fabric I got for the muslin, but sometimes I think that's a good thing - there's no great sense of loss if it doesn't work out. (Queue eery foreshadowing music.)

I started having problems as soon as I traced the pattern:  I originally traced a size 12 (for my waist size) and didn't grade out at the hips, thinking the pleats would give me the ease I need there.  Once my pieces were all traced though, I thought, "That looks awfully small."  I took some measurements of the pattern; the waist added up to 27".  But it looked so small. 

So I decided to measure my waist.  And this is when I discovered that my waist is no longer the 27" I've been sewing for, but now 28"!  Ah, middle age.  You really throw a kink into the works.

Back to the drawing board.  I traced out the next size up . . . and then it just sat.  For a couple of months.  I just couldn't get inspired to sew it, as much as I loved the design.  But it really bugged me - do you guys get bugged by "unfinished business" like that?  So the other day I decided to just knuckle down and sew the darned thing.

I was slightly more enthused when I found a piece of silk in my scraps that made a nice match for the facings:

But obviously not enthused enough to change to matching thread on either my serger or my sewing machine.  Making the vent was fun and easy, and I'm happy with how that turned out, although if I were doing it for real, I'd be much neater in sewing back the edges inside:

Things were going along pretty smoothly for the most part, except for my continued dislike of the fabric, which emits a strong and unpleasant petroleum odor when pressed.  Yuck.

I decided it might not be a bad idea to try the thing on before installing the zipper and waistband facing.  And that's when everything ground to a screeching halt.

WOW!  This is NOT a good style for my body shape!  Aside from being too large (really? after all that business with measuring the pattern?!  You're killing me, Simplicity!) I'd forgotten that pleats in the abdominal region and low-curved skirt yokes are not my friends.  Now, if I'd taken a few minutes before even buying the pattern to think back to the 1990s, I'd have remembered this.  Those of you who are old enough might remember pleat-front chinos, the slightly dressier sister of the Mom Jean.  Yeah, it's that bad.

(Insert harp arpeggio and flashback montage here.)

This style made me look so much wider and pouchier than I really am.  Now, before any of you comment that I'm being too hard on myself, let me reiterate that I'm quite happy with my body!  And I've learned over the years what styles work for me and which ones don't.  There's a reason I wear flat-front pants and a-line or dirndl skirts.   I ought to have remembered that in this case, but I got distracted by how cute it looks on all the other (less curvy) bloggers who have made it.

So this one is going straight into the Goodwill pile, unfinished.  And the pattern will be useful for a swap or something in the future - this view was the only one I really liked.

Have any of you ever done this?  Made something totally unsuitable for you just because it looked good on somebody else?  It's a good lesson to me to think a little more deeply about this in the future!

Testing, testing . . .

For a long time, I've been thinking of drafting the Renfrew t-shirt into a tee dress;  I'd planned on using the skirt portion of the Mission Maxi to just extend the top.  But then a couple weeks ago I came across this pattern at the sale at JoAnn's:

Simplicity 2054

And I thought, "For $2, why should I re-invent the wheel?"

Last weekend I had time to trace it out and make up my first version.  Looking at the finished measurements, I decided to go with a size 12 for the bust and size 14 in the hips.  Although my body measurements put me in a size 10 at the bust, I felt there might not be enough ease the way the pattern was drafted, and I wanted a looser fit there.

The design is a very basic shift-style tee dress, with three sleeve variations and an optional cowl.  I went with the elbow-length sleeves as these are generally the most practical for me.

For my test run, I used a cotton/lycra faux-ikat jersey I'd gotten from Girl Charlee a few months ago.  It was a piece of fabric I was disappointed with once I saw the real thing, so there was no risk if the dress didn't work out!  I sewed it almost entirely on my serger, only using my sewing machine for the hems, which I did with a zigzag stitch.

The pattern instructs you to sew the sleeve and side seams and then set in the sleeves, but I chose to sew the sleeve heads into the armscye flat and then do one long seam from the hem edge of the sleeve to the bottom of the skirt.  I think this was easier with knit fabric and didn't seem to affect the fit of the sleeve cap.

But, my first dress came out too big.  This is partly because I wasn't really paying close attention, and sewed the seams with a 3/8" rather than a 5/8" seam allowance!  When I tried it on, it was so loose I realized what I'd done, and went back and redid the armscye seam.  After which, I realized I should have stuck with the size 10 bust after all!  Here's the first, fixed dress:

I'm not sure if it comes through in this picture, but there is a lot of extra room and fabric under the arm.  However, I ended up really liking the fabric - it has a really nice heft and drape, and I don't even mind the print so much now.  Hubby really liked this dress - go figure!

The next day, I decided to try it again, so I redrew my pattern pieces down to the size 10 for the bust, shoulders, sleeves and waist, leaving everything beneath the waist as it was.  This time I used the fabric I really wanted to make this dress in, a charcoal grey argyle print, also from Girl Charlee.  I did everything the same, this time remembering to use 5/8" seam allowances, and got a result I'm really happy with:

Hubby likes this one even better!

Much better fit!  And soooooo comfy!  I'm planning a slew of these dresses!

Here are some comparison photos between the first dress and the second:

Less excess under the arm.

Much better fit at the shoulders.

From the back.  I could probably use a tiny swayback adjustment here.

I haven't seen a whole lot of renditions of this pattern out there in blogland, but I think it's a really great basic, wearable piece that can serve as a template for all kinds of variations.  I'm already thinking of adding some ruching to the sleeves of the white one.

And I've already ordered some more fabric to make a few for spring . . .