Blue is the colour of the future

Other than a couple of seemingly trivial but very necessary projects such as warm fleece pillowcases for my  bald and thus perpetually cold head, I haven't sewn for myself since before I deployed to Kabul nearly a year ago.  Since my return, all my can-do efforts have been directed at others: home, family, friends, certainly not at me.  Why?  well, pardon the black humour, but dead people don't need new clothes; sewing for me struck me as the worst kind of wasted effort in a race against time.  Yet here I am, nearly six months since the Big C entered my home, and not only am I still standing, but doing pretty well it seems, and beginning to feel hopeful.  So when I was left with a sizable remnant of midnight blue cotton velvet left over from making a Christmas gift dressing gown for my eldest, I thought:  why not make something for myself?  A velvet jacket, wouldn't it be lovely?  Maybe I'll even get to wear it, who knows?   

I had to add another metre to what I already had, and buy a few buttons and some fabric dye for the lining, so I'm counting this one as a $15 jacket.  

My idea was a shawl or tuxedo collar jacket; I thought that a shawl collar would go nicely with the softness of the velvet, and be very feminine in a structured way.  I spent a little time browsing the web for inspiration, and settled on this Alexander McQueen blue velvet blazer. 

Not that I intended to copy it slavishly, definitely not, but it gave me ideas for a few extra touches I wanted my jacket to have so it could rise above the pattern I picked. 

And the pattern? New Look 6013.   Cute, I thought, with the single button just holding together the dropped angled fronts.  One thing I wasn't crazy about was the shoulder-pleated single piece sleeve:  first, it seemed to widen the shoulder area and I already have pretty broad shoulders as it is, and secondly the pleating could turn into a general fail with a thick fabric like velvet. I also don't think a stovepipe sleeve is the greatest idea in a structured, lined jacket.  So I substituted a two piece sleeve from McCall's 5395, though any other two piece sleeve you might have on hand would presumably work just as well. I'd used M5395 a few times already in some unlined summer jackets, so I knew it fit my arm just fine.  Below, you see the two patterns I put together for this project lying on the dark blue cotton velvet fabric I used.  The M5395, btw, is so out of print it doesn't even appear on McCall's web page.  Pity!  It's a great pattern:  the two front darts give an amazing fit to well endowed but small-waisted figures.  

Blue cotton velvet jacket:  New Look 6013 body, McCall's 5395 sleeves

The NL pattern is unlined, but since cotton is so grabby I knew this one would need to be lined.  Using the back pattern piece, I made a back neck facing and a back lining with a 1" pleat pattern pieces, and those, combined with the side fronts and side backs, gave me the lining. 

Per the A.McQ. inspiration, I notched the pattern up a bit with the following additions:  single-welt chest pocket; angled double-welt flap pockets at the hip; and vented sleeves with working buttonholes and buttons. And, of course, a lining, which is absent in the NL pattern. 

Speaking of the lining:  I had a substantial length of rayon (according to my burn test) lining from who knows where - its origins lost in the sands of time - but still a beautiful beefy twill weave rayon, much nicer than your run of the mill Bemberg (apologies to B....).  Only my piece was a nothing to look at light greyish beige: yuck!  So I dyed it.  

The dyeing exercise was quite the learning experience.  I started with a Jacquard acid dye that is completely unsuited for cellulose based fabrics. Of course it didn't take - but I twigged onto that early enough, ie., before pouring the dye solution away, that I could grab a bit of winter-white silk and dye that instead.  I then used Dylon dye on the rayon.  It took, though not as strongly as I'd hoped, and instead of a deep violet gave me a kind of pinkish periwinkle.  Still a nice contrasty match for my midnight blue velvet.

Left:  rayon lining dyed with Dylon Intense Violet.
Right:  silk jacquard dyed with Jacquard Acid dye, Sapphire Blue.
Original fabrics on the bottom, dyed on the top.

Those stage-setting steps put me well on the way to construction.  Which I'll cover in my next post.  :)

All they want for Christmas

....is my two latest creations.

And they are:  two more velvet robes!

Yea!  Robe giving is a tradition in my family, and it makes me very happy to continue it.  In the past, they were always crafted by my dear mom. She has gifted me at least two over the years - a red one when I was a teenager, and later a dark midnight blue one, and has made pastel beauties for other members of the family at least as many times if not many more.

This year marks a reversal of roles as well as a passing of the torch, for these newest two are destined for both my mom and my daughter:  we are the perfect mitochondrial trifecta!

A better rendition of the purple, but the blue is a bit darker in reality.

Mom gets royal blue, her preferred robe colour;  daughter gets royal purple, to complement her green-eyed blonde beauty.   I know they'll be thrilled, because both mentioned just in passing (hah!) that they need warm winter robes.

I used the same pattern I developed and showed earlier this year, with added side seam pockets, which I had omitted in the robes I made for my two guys and me.

The side seam pocket sits just below the belt loop, which is attached last of all.

This time, I also interfaced the belts, which I hadn't done before, as my son had mentioned that he found his belt a bit too floppy.

What makes this garment such a snap to make is that cotton velvet tears like a dream.  If you've never done it, you'd never believe how fast and efficient it is to rip this pattern into the needed sections.  No pattern needed, just a few measurements, a 5-6" saucer, and some chalk.  Ripping judiciously - in a careful sequence - allows for a nice long one piece belt and an almost-one piece front band with no seam at CB neckline.  In actuality, the front band is pieced at about knee level on the underlap (for women, the left) side, so it's always invisible.

For those of you interested in making your own, here are some construction details:
Fabric width = 105 to 110 cm
Garment width = 75 cm  (lying flat) for a nice luxurious one size fits all robe with plenty of modesty-preserving overlap in the front.
Front band & belt width = about 15 cm (flat, unsewn); about 6 cm finished width.

Finished width of front facing

Below, my little cartoon of the finished kimono or yukata inspired robe:

Order of construction destruction ;)
1. Rip one end of the fabric for a nice straight edge.  Watch the velvet fur fly as you do it!

2.  Decide on finished length (L) and add about 7 cm to that, which will be a 6 cm hem fold plus 1 cm SA.

3. Make a fold in your fabric with the WRONG sides together, at the L+7cm distance from the ripped edge, and lay the folded FF flat on a table, with the remainder (~ 2.6 m) underneath, and the excess puddled on a chair. For my two ladies, who are somewhat shorter than I, I wanted a 133 cm long, ankle-length garment, so I made a fold in my 4 m length of fabric at the 140 cm mark.  The short upper layer will become the front, while the lower layer will be the back plus sleeves, pockets, and remnants.

4. On the ripped edge, chalk-mark the exact centre of the FF width, and make two marks 15 cm away from the selvage edges.

5.  31 cm from the fold, make a chalk mark on each selvage.  They mark the lower cutting edges of the sleeves, which are 30 cm wide, with a 1 cm SA.  Make a short, 5 cm or so, cut through BOTH layers of the FF perpendicular to the edge, and place your 4 or 5" clean saucer upside down approximately where the sleeve and the side of the garment would meet if you were going to sew them in a continuous curve.

6.  On the bottom edge of the upper layer, make a small cut at each of the marks you made 15 cm from the sides (selvages), and rip this up to the saucer, proceeding slowly when you get close.  Connect the sleeve cut to the side rip by cutting a smooth curve around the saucer, through BOTH layers of the fabric.

7. Set aside the long narrow piece you just ripped/cut.  Now you have the lower layer peeking out, with the sleeve+curve already cut, needing to remove the 15 cm width along the side of what will be the garment's back. Rip the rest of that away all the way to the FF's other end that's lying puddled on the chair.  These nice long, loooong pieces, one from each side of the lower layer, will be the belt and (most of the) front band.

8.  When you've done that on both sides, you can rip off the lower layer to match the bottom (hem) edge of the top layer.   From the remnant, prepare two sleeve rectangles (62 x 44 cm each, I rip a 62 x 88 piece and then rip that in half...) ....

Each sleeve facing is made from a rectangle 62 x 44 cm

....and four pocket rectangles (about 25 x 15 cm).  NB the little notch cut away at the lower side seam edge of each pocket rectangle, to allow the lower part to hang loose, per diagram below:

Pocket rectangle:  the side seam edge is at left.  I drew the pocket shape after the pocket pieces were attached and matched, and then sewed from the sleeve to hem in one continuous seam, going around the pocket along my sketch line.  

9.  Mark both the lower and upper layers's side edges 17 cm below the sleeve's lower edge, and pin the pocket rectangles to the front & back sides (right sides together, we all know that), with the upper edge of each rectangle at the 17 cm mark.  This is why it's helpful to have the wrong sides together:  you can attach these pieces with only minimal disturbance of the fabric.

10. Almost done!   Starting at the centre mark at the hem edge of the upper layer, rip that AAALLLL the way up to the fold.  On the inside of the back, mark CB about 5 cm below the fold - it's important to do that, so you can later attach the hanging loop at exactly CB.   Then realign the ripped edges. On the folded edge, mark the neckline at about 7.5 cm from the CF.  From each neckline mark, draw a diagonal line to CF about 26 cm below the fold, and cut along that line.  Connect the two diagonal cuts below the fold by cutting a  shallow back neckline curve.

That's it!  That's all the main pieces of the kimono-yukata-inspired dressing gown.  This quick approach to creating the pattern pieces is the key, I'm convinced, to the fact that I was able to make both robes in just ONE day, the FF having been already pre-washed (on hot) and dried (also on hot, the cotton setting) the previous evening.

In terms of assembly, I find it easiest to sew the pocket to side seam first (to be able to remove the pins).  I then press the bottom hems of the two front halves, making sure with a ruler that they are exactly the same depth at CF, and construct the front band (remembering to place the seam of the pieced bit on the lower left side for women, on the lower right for men). To me, it's just so much easier to handle that sequence of very long pinning, sewing, basting the underside so it laps over just a little, about 3 or 4 mm, and then stitching in the ditch to secure it, while the front of the garment can be unfolded into a continuous length, instead of when it's already locked in shape by the side seams.  Remember to prepare and pin in place the hanging loop inside the neckline CB before basting and stitching in the ditch!

After the front band is done, I attach the sleeve rectangles to the sleeve edges, and sew each sleeve-upper side-pocket-lower side seam in one go.

The pocket is edge-finished with a zig-zag, which is much easier around these tight curves than with a serger, and trimmed afterwards. 

Then it's just a matter of folding under and finishing the sleeves, completing the bottom hem and belt, and attaching the belt loops. And vacuuming up the masses of velvet fluffs.

If you're still with me after all of the above.... I just want to close by saying that a walking foot and basting are invaluable to a well finished product made out of this fabric, as velvet has a tendency to slide something awful.  But the result is.....  

....yummy!