The Five month Dior-style jacket and the 5 hour Jaile scarf-collar top plus giveaway

I started this jacket way back in Feburary and have been plugging away steadily at my sewing class since then, hence why I am posting something which is very unseasonable at the moment.  This is my second version of Gertie's New Look jacket from her Book for Better Sewing. 

 

I love the fit and the shape of this jacket.  It really extenuates the waist.  Here it is worn with a fuller skirt (again from Gertie's book).

I am probably more likely to wear it for work with a slimmer skirt (yes, a very sensible look because I have a rather sensible job!).  Here it is with my adapted Mabel skirt

 

You can probably see the detail better here.  There is a big shawl collar, which is only at the front, there is no collar at the back at all which is rather unusual.  You can see the waist shaping here.  This is achieved by darting and an under-peplum.

 

The fabric is melton wool from the Cloth House.  I wouldn't use it again because it is just too firm and so difficult to work with plus at the moment it feels stiff to wear, on the other hand it has taken the shaping really well. I will definitely make this jacket again (and possibly in black) but perhaps use a good quality wool crepe.

The back view.  You can see there is actually quite a bit of fabric in the back, it isn't a close fit, but this does make it more comfortable to wear.

 
Here is a photo of the guts.  I used fusible heavy interfacing.

 
You can see the inner-peplum here.  Lots of darts to give extra structure.

I made bound button holes, they are rather too thick, so I will work on that in future.

I lined the jacket with satin.

I'm wearing the jacket with my new blouse.  This is Jalie 2921 scarf-collar top.  I love this pattern.  I made it previously in a thicker jersey, but this is gorgeous silk jersey and I absolutely love it.  It feels great to wear and was reasonably easy to cut and sew with care.  Now this is where I am jealous of you guys in the USA.  I couldn't find silk jersey anywhere in the UK under £100, and so I'm afraid I bought it from Mood.  It wasn't cheap but worth the cost and you could probably squeeze this top out of a generous metre.  What was even dearer are the shipping costs and then you have to add the £19 inport duty!  It's a good job I like it.  I also bought 1 1/2 metres of black.  I would love more of the colours but it's just too extravagant to repeat!  So lucky you in the USA.    The fabric has just the right stretch and feels really luxurious.

As I said I love this pattern.  It took me just under 5 hours to make and that included all the seams being French seamed (including the sleeve insertion).  I think the collar is very clever (the first time it took me a while to work out).  You roll up the back and front pieces into the collar.

You then sew the collar together, with the rest of the blouse inside, and pull it all out through a 1" gap!  I know amazing and it gives the inside such a clean look.

 

Inside of collar.

 

 

 
I'm going to make another one from the black silk jersey.  If I want to try an actual bow I will need to make the tie longer as it is a bit bunched at the moment.

On a non-sewing front Dan, Gemma and I went to see Elton John who was appearing in Kendal!  Direct from Las Vegas to Kendal.  It was a great show, though being outside pretty cold.

One of the more unusual opportunities I have at work is to see lots of lovely wild animals and this little family of ducklings won the award for cuteness this week.

Finally, I'm incredibly pleased to have more than 100 followers on Bloglovin, thanks so much and to celebrate I'm having 3 give-aways over the next 3 posts.  The first is a copy of the new Great British Sewing Bee book, because of postage I'm afraid I'm only offering this one to UK followers (but the next 2 pattern packages will be for everyone).  So if you would like to win this just leave a comment below (it's a long story how I ended up with more than one copy myself).  I'll close this draw on Monday 6th July.

The plum pudding skirt; a dior inspired suit

I can't believe I haven't blogged for a month for all sorts of reasons, but back now and here is a brief round-up. I completed a skirt to match my Dior jacket,  worn here with my new Faux fur collar from Joules, snuggly!

The fabric is boiled wool, and believe it or not the most expensive fabric I have used so far.  It also stretched like mad even though I used stay stitching.  The pattern is the 6 panel skirt from Gertie's New Book of Better Sewing blogged about here, and pictured below.

Check out my bling too a 1950s Christmas broach which I bought from America on Etsy.

 

The skirt is lovely to wear and very warm, especially as I fully lined it, just the thing for winter weather.  I love this skirt pattern it's so flattering and will definitely make more.  So far this is my favourite outfit  I have made and I have already worn it quite a bit to work!  Very brave.

I've been busy completing a cardigan, a hat, another cocktail dress and almost completed a jumper, so pretty busy and future posts will cover these.

I had a lovely two week holiday just at home.   It started with the staff Christmas party, yes that is me being wrapped as a parcel in the middle (wearing my handmade Vogue cocktail dress - they had great difficulty trying to wrap my puffy petticoat).

We all enjoyed our Christmas: the dogs sported bandanas for the day (can you tell there were treats just above).

There has also been some ridiculous dressing up of dogs (can I point out this is not something we usually do!).

The cats loved the wrapping paper ..

Dan made all the Christmas lunch (Quorn in case you are wondering as we are all vegetarians) including yummy    squash tartlets.

The weather was actually good for a while so we had a lovely walk

The sun didn't last though and 10 minutes after this we were absolutely lashed by hail.


I turned 58 on December 29th, with lovely wrapped parcels ....

... a trip to Lancaster Antique Centre and tea and cakes of course

Traditionally we go to the cinema on my birthday evening, but a dearth of good films meant we stayed in and watched Star Trek into Darkness which I had seen but thoroughly enjoyed.

Obviously I am now well back into work and busy; this week I have been on radio Cumbria talking about New Year's resolutions (no I haven't made any), been to a Burns' night, unfortunately vegetarian haggis is not my kind of thing but the Crannach was yummy.

After all this I'm ready for a quiet weekend with plans for some blouse sewing and jumper knitting.  So till the next time (and not a month away) enjoy your weekend and week.

Plum Anna dress

I held off blogging this week in the hope I could photograph my finished dress on, but due to the absence of my photographer (Dan) and lack of ability to work out the self-timer function on my camera I'm afraid I'll have to make due with shots on my dummy.  Anyway here it is my finished Anna Dress

 

It does look better on, but as you can probably tell it fits like a glove.   No opportunity for any large meals in here!

 
I was really chuffed with the invisible zip, which you can hardly see at all.

 
A shot of the inside, the bodice has a facing rather than being lined.

 

 

 For the hem, I just turned under a 1/2 inch hem.

Overall the pattern is pretty straightforward.   It is Handmade by London's Anna Pattern.  I cut a size 12 which is my usual bought dress size, but it could probably do with a little more ease.   I didn't make any other changes   The instructions are really clear and comprehensive, and with a cotton fabric I think it would be pretty straightforward.  However, this  fabric wasn't easy to sew, its silk satin charmeuse.  I bought 3 metres for £21 and I have at least a metre left to make a blouse.  It feels gorgeous, but as you can guess slipped around a lot!  So although the dress isn't my usual style I do like it and it should be quite versatile.

I've also been making bound button holes on the New Look jacket I'm making.  I enjoyed making these, quite therapeutic.

 
I followed Gertie's instructions and the pattern for the jacket is also from the book.

 

 
Can't believe I didn't photograph the finished button holes, but I will show them when the jacket is completed, I'm quite excited with it so far.

Like a lot of the country Cumbria is raining nearly every day, but when we did get some sun over half term (one day) it was lovely.

 

 

 

 

I just had three days off at half term and didn't really do much other than some sewing, knitting and watching a few films etc.  Lets hope we get a lot more cold but sunny days!

Gertie's new look dior skirt

So here is the first result of my teal love, the first half of my new look suit taken from Gertie's new book for better sewing.  I made her 6 gored skirt with a few changes, mainly removing the scallop top and adding a waist band with some heavy duty lining.  You can see the fabric is satin backed crepe.

(Excuse poor quality photos, attempts to use self-timer weren't very successful and Dan is still away).  Anyway here it is without petticoat and lovely fit and very easy to wear.

 

 

 

and with a full petticoat .... a little bit of frenchy feel perhaps (sorry reduced to photos in the mirror now!)



 

 

 

 

 

... and finally this is the jacket which I will be making to go with it ....

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and here's a shot with the muslin body to give you an idea how it will look (I'm making mine in wool plaid).

 

 

I love the pattern though I was put off by having to trace it off, I get a bit confused when there are lots of lines to choose from.  (Just as an aside Gertie now has a New Look outfit pattern for Butterick and it's great, what a jacket

 

 

 

If you haven't checked out Gertie's blog I've found it very informative. 

 

So I love this skirt, it's very wearable and I actually wore it to work today.  You might be forgiven for thinking this make went all according to plan .... not so.  First in an attempt to up my game with finish I thought I would purchase an invisible zipper foot.  I bought a proper Janome one (a whole £18).  What a disaster it was incredibly difficult to go over the top of the zip, and then it sort of shredded the right side of the zip which I then had to take out.  I returned to my ordinary zipper foot and sort of cobbled it together.  Then without really thinking things through I made quite a deep hem and thought it would look lovely trimmed with satin bias tape.  I never even thought about what would happen to the substantial amount of material at the hem edge!  I spent ages, sewing the bias by hand and then hemming by hand and it was only when I got to the last little bit that I found lots of material with nowhere to go creating a sort of wave effect!

 

 

So about 4 hours work just got chopped off and I ended up with less than a 1" hem which I overlocked, and is more effective. 

 

 

 

The other tip is that with a wide skirt like this you must let it hand for a least a day before turning up because it stretches differently in different areas.

 

Teal garment no 2 is on my needles and should be ready next week.  Here's a preview.

 

 

 

I've had other things to enjoy this week, a lovely Skype call with Dan and Gemma who are having  a great time in Malawi.  Apparently most of there work this week has been dressing foot wounds and leg ulcers .... doesn't sound awfully romantic for a honeymoon, but once a week they go to a posh hotel to get internet access and sit round the pool with a beach to die for!  Downton Abbey is back (though it was all a bit gloomy) and  finally how could you not smile at this wonderful crochet bike in my local wool shop window.