considering sleeves and shoulders

This is not a post about fitting shoulders. I've been telling myself to write that one for months now because it's such an under-exposed issue in the general debate about fitting. But it will have to wait a bit longer.

I'd like to thank everyone who commented on yesterday's post (and if you didn't but have an opinion to share, please add the comment there anyway. I always read new comments to old posts, and I'm definately still interested). My boyfriend had a look at the muslin as well and he decided he liked those sleeves on me. 'Crazy, but you' was his comment. Or at least, something along those lines. Usually, I can trust his opinion.

I also had another look at those A/W 09/10 Balmain shoulders I mentioned yesterday. This is what those looked like.

Although in construction they are likely to be quite similar to my sleeve, the effect is rather different. Where I have narrowed the shoulder where the sleeve band is wider, these seem to built up and out from the 'usual' armscye. Their effect is purely power-woman, mine is (if I may say so) an odd blend between that and vaguely neo-victorian.

With that remark, I wanted to add a picture of a historical leg-o-mutton sleeve, but I won't because most of those were also 'built out' over the side of the shoulder to a serious extent.

I have to say I'm less worried now about having my jacket look too much like last year's runway fashion. I will still do some fine-tuning, but I'm definately leaning towards going with the crazy sleeve.

PS. In other news: It seems that Carolyn couldn't curb her enthousiasm ;-) and made a muslin-version of her gloves already... I'm looking forward to seeing her pictures of it tomorrow. If I'm no longer up for the finer points of pattern manipulation tonight, I may just try and catch up with her. And, as promissed, I will take pictures as I go along and tell you about it.

Darci, it's great you want to join in, I really hope you're not feeling put off by this chaotic start.

Back in the game: another jacket muslin

Well... What to say about this one? I would really like your opinion this time. I think the jacket body is about right by now. But, this is a muslin with the styling in place. And that's where I need your opinion: completely mental or kind of cool?

There is some strange pulling of the sleeve at the front. I know why and I will fix it, so please ignore that. I'm not so sure what to think about this look. Before, I liked the banded sleeve, but I felt it could be pushed a bit further. So I did.

This result does look a bit like those Balmain sleeves from winter 2009, which makes me wonder whether it looks too much like some fashionable one-day fly.

I also went with a peaked lapel because it's the sharper look, which I thought would go better with the crazy shoulder than it's tamer cousin. I did take out a little dart on the fold line before drafting the collar and that seems to have worked. And I added back vents.

The pocket flaps are just pinned-on bits of fabric now but I plan to make bound pockets with flaps, using the usual jacket trick of cutting the bit below the pocket on the center front (hard to explain that properly, I'll record the process for you later).

Some random remarks...

I didn't get much further on my jacket pattern this weekend, although I did transfer the changes, made in the last muslin, to the pattern and (I hope) fixed the back. If my fix works, I may even try to do the same on the already completed jackets.

On Saturday, I did next to nothing hoping this would encourage my cold to be over a bit quicker. On Sunday, it seemed my plan had worked. I did the pattern alterations, E. and I cleaned the house and then we went shopping for new glasses. For both of us. I've worn my current glasses for over four years and now, I can't wait to get the new ones. In two weeks time...

So, there was not a lot of time left for sewing.

There are more reasons why my personal sewing time is more limited than it used to be.

1. I'm now teaching. M and I teach a beginner's sewing class at a local highschool. And it's popular. We've got two classes of two full hours each. about 20 students of 12 to 18 years old. To keep them motivated, we allow our students to pick the pattern and fabric they want, as long as it's fairly easy. Which forces us to really stay on top of things because most students are doing different things. We also teach them how to make simple alterations and decorations to customize a given pattern. Some are learning quickly and all are enjoying themselves. And I'm starting to get sufficiently used to teaching to enjoy it as well.

2. I've got another assignment. A friend asked me to make her a jacket. She's a lovely lady with a great figure but her shoulders are too wide for a RTW fit. And she noticed this. How could I say no?

All this doesn't mean I give up on sewing for myself or resign myself to simple projects. Oh no. I just think those newly acquired will all have to hibernate (hmm, that's sleeping through the winter, any clue about how to make up a term meaning to sleep through the summer) in the stash for half a year. It will be the suit, and then on to spring/summer sewing.

And, somewhere in the middle of whatever else I'll be working on, there will be this.

A few months ago Carolyn bought a similar pattern and wrote about it on her blog. I left a comment explaining how I had been given this one, V8311, over a year before and how I felt I needed some extra motivation to actually make it. I suggested a (mini) sew-along. By now, the wheather in her part of the world is cooling down enough to start considering gloves. And, of course, over here I could still do with some thin ones.

So, there will be a sew-along of sorts. Carolyn's pattern is not exactly the same but I expect the basics to be similar. My pattern is for unlined gloves, to be sewn by machine from fabric with some stretch. I have never tried anything like this before and will document the progress step-by-step. Glove-making is a complete first for me as well, so I hope we can all learn as we go along.

If you feel like joining, just say so in the comments!

Ladies' jackets in history, part 1

After all the posts about the jacket I want to make, I thought I'd try and put the garment in its rightful place in fashion history.

My dictionary (the Oxford guide to the English language, to be precise) defines a 'jacket' as 'a short coat usually reaching to the hips; outer covering'.

Going by that definition (which seems true enough anyway. Although, now that I think about it, it would, to me, also have made sense to make a distinction between jackets and coats in terms of thickness) jacket for men have been around since the late Middle Ages. And indeed, most fashion histories will describe it that way. The men's jacket we still know today has changed surprisingly little since the Victorian era. The jackets which became wardrobe staples back then, were, in themselves, merely much more sober versions of coats and jackets which had been around for much longer.

I don't think it would come as a surprise to anyone that jackets entered the lady's wardrobe as practical pieces 'borrowed' from menswear. Mostly, these were for riding or travelling.

Interestingly, women would have these items made by male tailors, who, after all, specialised in making this kind of item, while their dresses were made by female dressmakers. This distinction, although without its clear-cut gender separation, continues until this day in the workshops of traditional couture houses where the 'ateliers' are divided into 'flou' (=dressmaking) and 'tailleur' (=tailoring).

Victorian fashion sometimes flirted with elements borrowed from menswear and the separation of bodice and skirt in fashionable dress must have made this easier. Edwardian fashion pushed this a little further, with some ladies wearing actual dark suits with shirts and stock collars as day wear. However, the silhouet remained highly feminine until after the First World War.

The roaring twenties brought a new kind of woman. A woman who wasn't afraid to show her legs, to smoke, to laugh in public and who was, in many countries, now getting more rights as in individual and a citizen. She didn't just wear flapper dresses. She would also wear suits, though still with skirts.

Just look at the lady in the center of this picture.

Doesn't that look a lot like a smoking?

The 1930's with their return to a more traditional feminine silhouet, saw another kind of ladies' suit become a daywear staple. Just look at the lady on the right: it's a suit but it has a defined waist and a long sleek skirt.

At the same time, this lady shocked many with this her look.

This is Marlene Dietrich. Of course, she's famous for wearing suits. This is a typical men's style, clearly tailored to fit her perfectly. The funny thing is, I knew the story better than the picture. When I was looking for pictures for this post, and came across this one, it surprised me how much woman this lady was. I guess (even though I'm not that interested in the whole celebrity-culture and I work with real women's sizes and shapes) I'm so used to the view of super-skinny celebrities that I subconsciously assumed that this movie-star in her suit would look more like the woman in the Helmut Newton picture.

I really like Dietrich's suit. What I hope to make in the coming weeks should end up looking pretty much like it. I believe it's still a timeless piece, even after 80 years.

I think this is a good point to end this post. I'll be back later with the jackets of the 1940's and onwards.

I hope to make some progress on my jacket this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the time for it. I've had a nasty cold all week and I've been very busy with work.

Next muslin!

Thank you so much for your comments on the jacket progress so far! Sherry, you mentioned the overall balance... Yeah, I noticed that seemed a bit 'off'. And I'm trying to fix it.

The book I started out with, however, wasn't Winifred Aldrich's. I'm mostly using that for details. The block came from my Dutch pattern making book, 'Grondvormen'. Which is great in that it's a very in-depth method and great for creating an understanding into how patterns work but less than great in that it was written in the mid-80's and can to have ease to match. It certainly did in the jacket block.

For this next muslin, I've gone back to the block. If I am to take width out of the tops of the side seams, it will affect to armscye, so I thought I'd better sort that out without have any fancy sleeves in place. I also wasn't to happy about all kind of details of the collar and hem shaping. And, many most of all, I want the block to work. I want to be able to use it as a base for any future jackets.

I've also switched to another muslin-making material. This was some cheap fabric which has a hand similar to real muslin. Probably better than the very soft flannel.

I think improvement has been made. I want to see if I can sort out that dent in the upper back and I will lower the armscye by 0.5 cm because it feels just a bit snug. Other than that, it will be all about the styling.

At least, that's what I was thinking, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Oh, and one other question for the fellow pattern makers out there: if I try to make a deep neckline to my jacket, like I've pinned it in this picture, it seems like the upper front looses some of it's integrity. Which, in a way, makes sense because it's no longer held in place that much. And yet, there are many examples, both in patterns and in RTW, of such deep necklines. Is something which will sort itself out with the added shape of the collar? Or with the use of the appropriate stabilizers on both collar and jacket front? Or is there some kind of fix? Which is not in the books but gets passed on in the trade?

Jacket muslin, next stage

I'm not numbering the muslins for this jacket anymore. I cut the block, without collar or any other styling, twice but did any number of small alterations to each of them before making the next. What I showed you here before was the second one, but before I changed that. The fact that the fabric I used for the muslins ifrather soft and sticks to all my clothes doesn't help matters.

I did the necessary alterations to the block after that muslin. Mostly some fur

ther tweeking at the shoulder and a small swayback adjustment (I often find these to be over-used in the sewing blogoshere. They come up a lot and in many cases I think the real problem is the waist length. But I drafted this thing to my waist length... It was also just sticking to my skirt pretty badly in that picture, so quite a bit of the bundling was down to that. I overlooking one thing though: wearing heels changes your posture. It causes or increases swayback effects. And I would like to wear heels with my suit).

Then, I started drafting a collar. And I shaped the bottom edge. And adepted that hard-won shoulder shape. I wanted to try out a banded sleeve head. So, in this muslin, there's one normal sleeve with a shoulder pad and the other has the banded sleeve. I shortened the shoulder a bit for that.

And then the fretting began all over again. I had just about convinced myself that it would be OK and the strange bagginess at the chest would sort itself out in the end-product by the use of the appropriate stiffeners. And then, I took pictures to post here. Eew... I's so not there yet!

I tried something I don't do often when drafting (usually, I stubbornly decide that curves are always good and ignore the fact that all RTW and purchased patterns have 'flatter' shapes): I tried measuring my muslin against the orange jacket. And what did I find out? The muslin was a lot wider in chest. About 6 cm, to be precise. Which is an insane amount, equivalent to one and a half dress size... The hip were a little bit bigger, which I need them to be and the waist as about the same. I've roughly pinned the excess and it seems to work. Now, I just have to try and make that work with the sleeves....

Oh, and I did notice I've been too careful with the swayback adjustment, there will be a bit more of that too.

By the time I figured out all of that, it was already getting a bit dark, so you will get to see yet another version of this muslin later.

Fabric, or admitting to stash building

Every now and then, I make the resolution not to buy any new fabric until I've deminished my stash a bit. And many of my creations are from stash, so that should work well, shouldn't it...

Well, not quite. I'm just not in the habit of mentioning every fabric purchase here. Of course, there are always those projects which require not-in-stash types of fabric. Those purchases, I think, are perfectly excusable.

And then, there fabric-buying like this. Which has nothing to do with what I need for any project currently in preparation and everything with how I buy fabric.

You may have noticed frequent mention of sales and the market when I write about my fabric. And there's the reason. I really only buy at the fabric store when there's a sale on (very specific things like swimsuit lycra excluded). And then, I go for fabrics I know I love and will eventually use. Nice wools, mostly.

At the market, it's a different game. There's a lot of really nasty synthetic fabric but, if you can find those specific bolts among all the others, there are loads of nice, good quality cottons (knit and woven, printed and plain) some decent viscose/rayon and blends and in winter even some proper wool suiting and coating fabrics. Over time, I've become a master at spotting a bargain and I have my stash to proove it. To my defence, there's one big drawback about shopping for fabric at the market: when it's gone, it's gone. Many sellers buy up left-overs, so, quite often, there's just one bolt any given fabric.

Which is why I bought the pale blue/grey wool coating on the right. I don't really need a new coat and I still have black wool for one. But this funny colour might just work on me and it was only 2 euros a meter... I bought 2 meters at first. When I got home, I draped it over my shoulders and played around with it in front of the mirror. And decided this would be a great fabric for that New Look-alike coat I still secretly want. For which I would need more fabric. So, because it was still there, I bought another 2 meters.

The other fabric in this picture is a first for me. I bought it at the same stall where I get my vintage gloves, handbags and the occasional silk shirt. This time, they had hardly any clothing at all and piles of fabric. There were great 60's and 70's prints but unfortunately those were all on 60's and 70's synthetics. So I didn't buy any of those.

The blue fabric is not something I would usually go for but it's a very soft and drapey cotton/viscose blend (I think) and that old-fashioned print could be fun. It's a small piece, but it should be enough for a short-sleeved blouse.

The beige is felted wool. A classic fabric and colour for a coat. It's just enough for a simple coat and the colour should work for me if I make a design which doesn't put the fabric right next to my face.

The grey with stripes is wool too. Almost 5 meters of only about 90 cm wide. Those stripes are wide along one edge, and every new set of them is narrower, ending in a one coloured pinstripe. It is interesting but will take some time and imagination to become a piece of clothing.

These three fabrics cost me the grand total of 4 euros.

It is rather likely that all the wools will spend the summer in the stash but is that necessarily a bad thing? And they all have colour as well!