KAF Look of the day

With  drastic temperature changes from morning to mid-day to evening,  frequent though brief showers and a nearly complete lack of any cover from fiercely bright sunlight between them, layering is the correct approach.

The long-sleeved tee is Jalie 2805, from a delicious blue-tan heathered stretch cotton from Emma One Sock; the slacks are my self-developed TNT, from a stretch cotton herringbone in very pale tan, an exact match to the local dried mud, accessorized with one of my keyhole silk chiffon scarves - wonderful for keeping the neck warm. Barbed and razor wire form a common thread in the local scenery.

The boots and coat were my big but essential purchases for this assignment.  The coat (though it has absurdly long sleeves) is roomy enough for a thick under layer and did a beautiful job doubling as a very warm blanket on the two long haul flights that got me here. 

 I'm standing in front of the Canadian memorial to our servicewomen and men, who lost their lives in the line of duty here.  The sculpture is an inukshuk.

Up, up and away!

The time has come....

...to put away...
...my sewing machines...
...my serger...
...my fabrics...
...my patterns...
...my Burda magazines...
...and return all my unconventional sewing aids (chopsticks, toothpics, the rolling pin, and the like) to their rightful place in the home...

Yesterday I made three workout tops. Today I pack. And tomorrow?



How did my self-clothed deployment project turn out?  With the exception of pj's and hats, I made pretty much everything on my list.  I BOUGHT only a suitably mud-coloured convertible winter/raincoat and one pair of gym shorts - but neither of these were on my list to begin with. 

I leave you with the trailer for Kandahar (2001), a superb Canadian-made movie that predates the current conflict, but instead shows an expat woman's perspective of her country after the Afghan-Soviet war. Highly, highly recommended.

Buttons can be beastly

Thanks to my recent push to finish the various and sundry shirts and jackets, I found myself facing 10+9+9+8+9+8 buttons to sew on.  Ummm... nope.  Mind-numbingly, tooth-achingly boring. In an instant I knew it wasn't going to happen.

My solution? I machine-sewed them on. All you need is a zig-zag foot and a cover plate for the teeth, and simple two-hole buttons. 

This worked like a charm and saved me time and sanity.  Perfectly?  Well, almost.  In my enthusiastic run to the finish I failed to align the second to last - I kid you not - button correctly - with the following result:

Arrrgh, right?  My crystal ball predicts a completely unnecessary unavoidable run to Fabricland in my near future.

As for the rest, I settled on one set of hammer-in-an-eyeblink jeans buttons (yea!), and one set of shanked metal ones.  I took my sweet time about it and sewed those 8 by hand.  Zen and the art of patient sewing!

Three button-down shirts

What I really love about my current wardrobe project is the opportunity to repeat a pattern until it's perfect.
Over the past week I applied myself to the McCall's 6035 shirt.  This is an armhole princess pattern with different pieces for A-B, C, and D bust sizes, and I was really looking forward to trying this canned approach to an FBA.

From the finished garment measurements, it was a toss up of either a 10D or a 12C.  They have almost identical bust measurements and only a little difference at the hip. Based on some of the previous comments I recalled from those of you that have already tackled this pattern and the climate I'm sewing for, I decided on the 12C.  Even if not sewing for an overheated environment,  and in this case overheated in so many different ways, I will always, always go for the looser fit - nothing says "trying too hard" than clothing that shows every lump and bump and undergarment line (yuck). I did stick to a 10 shoulder line and lowered the neckline to the 8.

You know what, I love it! Those deep princess lines I recall reading a few complaints about fit me to a T: they slide right over my BP.  It's a no-brainer that a lady with a smaller bust needs a shallow princess panel, and one with some frontal depth needs a deeper one.  Thank you, McCalls!

My first shirt, a wearable muslin made from a fairly coarse but wonderfully breathable navy-white-grey patterned cotton from the Fabric Flea Market, would've been perfect but for operator error.  The collar is not centred on the collar stand, and it's just obvious enough that I should (and will)  rip it out and re-insert (but not this month).  I also widened the back princess and side seams at the hem by 1/4", adding 2" to the overall hem.

As I was getting ready to cut my second iteration I remembered that patterns fit me much better when I shorten the back 1/2" between arm and waist. And what does that little adjustment do to the lower portion?  It flares the hem just so, which means I could've saved myself the trouble of widening the hem in the first iteration, because in the second shirt, it was not merely roomy enough, but plenty roomy.  But I don't mind. I plan on wearing them open over a tank top nine times out of ten, and I know they'll flap around me like the wings of an albatross regardless. 

In all three cases I made version C, the one with sporty rolled up sleeve and tabs to hold it up, but I lengthened the sleeve to full length (in case of being faced with a culturally-appropriate, overly modest setting) and also lengthened the tab to shoulder length, something I saw in a recent fashion show, and thought, cool -  a tab that's just a tad different! Each tab has two buttonholes and two buttons, one at the shoulder and the other at the bicep. The side benefit of this is I can lower the sleeve to not-quite-full-length, and button it into place with the upper buttonhole in the lower button.

They're not white.  They're very appropriate for the blue and olive and tan trousers I do have, however.

I have a little length of beautiful white linen, and another of a beautiful pale ice mint green linen that I'm just dying to transform into a couple of easy long sleeved tops, but I'm starting to suffer what I call "sewing brain freeze":  what to do, what to do, oh, which pattern?

Fleece in my comfort zone: Jalie 2795

Over the past couple of evenings I stretched myself, ;))), to make the Jalie 2795 fleece jacket (thanks, Kay!). Not counting the fleece interlining of my Dr. Zhivago greatcoat and some mitten-making games, this was my very first fleece garment. And the fleece was thick. Stretchy, yes, and very, very thick:

Forcing all these layers of the stuff under the needle was truly a stretch for me.  Huffing and puffing all the way.

I used size T, per my full bust; lengthened the body by 1.25" and shortened the sleeve by 3/4".  The nice soft thick fleece I sewed up yielded the desired cozy little topper.  So far so good.

However. This is a very body-conscious pattern:  the raglan armscye is very high - any higher and it would be cutting off circulation to my arms.  The sleeves are narrow, and the upper chest is pretty close to the body. I think it would work much better in a thin fleece, as a lightweight garment than an outerwear type jacket. In fact, that's sort of how it's portrayed on the envelope: a thin, lightweight topper. 

A comparison with my ancient and much loved fleece jacket from MEC (Mtn Equipment Coop) is instructive:

 They're about the same length and width at the hip but the red oldie is much roomier in the sleeve and chest area - precisely the spots I find constricting in the Jalie.

In the Jalie, the raglan seam is a good 2" shorter...

 ...  the chest is about 2" narrower on each side... (and, interestingly, the back is wider than the front - note the location of the side seam)

 ...while the lower sleeve is over an inch narrower near the wrist, and far more than that higher up.  It's a little shorter too, and the length is perfect.

I took a look at the pattern pieces with a view to revising the fit a little:

This is the back - CB on fold, with one of the two side back pieces (the side hasn't been lengthened on paper, but was cut longer).  Notice the princess seam does nothing to shape the back - it's strictly, um, decorative.  It's the same story with the front princess panels - in fact, the same pattern piece is used for the side front and side back.  And the sleeve? 

The sleeve is made of four pieces: upper centre, lower centre (cut on fold), and two sides, one of which is shown because both are cut from one pattern piece. But again, no shaping is added by these pieces.  Also the waistband is, unnecessarily, made so that it has side seams; it could so easily have been made out a single piece of fabric for a smoother fit over the hips.

I confess I find all this non-functional slicing and dicing objectionable.  It adds considerable construction time (especially if you're going to topstitch each seam), and decreases the comfort of the garment (due to all those unnecessary seams along the body and the very narrow sleeves).  I could understand if the jacket was shown attractively colour-blocked, giving the extra seaming aesthetic value. But the pattern envelope & instructions make no such suggestions. What really ups the irksomeness factor is that the seams in sleeve and body pattern pieces have no relevance to each other, as you see below:

See? the side sleeve and side princess seams don't match. To me, this looks downright ugly. Now how easy would it have been to raise that princess seam a little so it meets the sleeve seam?  Unsurprisingly, it's the same story at the back.  Picky, picky, picky, yes:  I like it not!!! 

But wait! There's nothing wrong with the jacket per se.  I love raglan sleeved jackets. And the non-functionality of the pattern pieces can be of advantage:  it's so very easy to combine them.  My second version of this jacket has a one-piece front, one-piece back, one-piece sleeve, and of course, a one-piece waistband. 

I simply lapped the bottoms of the princess seam and spread them ~1.5" at the top to create more ease in the chest, lowering the side piece to accomodate the curvature.  Similarly, I spread the sleeve pieces to match, giving them a little more width at the wrist as well (not shown). 



I moved the pocket to the side seam and curved it as above. This is less belly-bulking than the in-front kangaroo style of the original.

The result?  A jacket that's still fairly closely fitting, yet unconstricting in the slightest, and smoothly comfortable.

 I gave my first effort to an underage offspring with a 31.5" chest and a penchant for kangaroo pockets.