Jacket Prep Work

I 've made some progress with the Vogue 8692 jacket. I've made up my muslin and made changes to the pocket pattern pieces that were incorrectly printed. If you're interested the changes are up on Vogue Patterns' Facebook page.

Even if you're not interested in this pattern, you should still take a peak at their Facebook page. They share the work of bloggers like you and me and you'll see many familiar faces and their beautiful Vogue creations.

I just muslined the back, front and sides and tested for fit through my middle. It seems to fit okay!! Any comments?

The other big job was to prep the wool crepe fabric. I have 3.5 yards of 62 inch wide fabric, enough for the jacket and a skirt. The piece is way too big for me to be considering hand washing and flat drying, I'm just not equipped to deal with that. I could've taken it to the dry cleaners, but that will be expensive (I'd rather spend the cash on fabric). So I found another method on Carolyn's Blog Diary of a Sewing Fanatic, she calls it the "Steam the heck out of it" method. As she herself says, this is a REALLY time consuming method. I've been at it all day and haven't finished half yet. It involves using a damp press cloth and lots of steam and yes, pressing the crap out of it. I'm using a 20 by 12 inch piece of lightweight muslin press cloth and it covers the width of the fabric 3 times, but only 2 lengths of the press cloth fit on the ironing board, so I have to wait a while in between, because I can't move the wet fabric. So I don't know if you know what I'm getting at, kind of hard to explain, but it comes down to a LONG TIME. I've at least gotten to catch up on my PVRed shows while I stand there and press and I've been doing housework and blog reading and other stuff while I wait for the wool to dry a bit, before repositioning on the board and continuing the process.

Tonight Canada is playing Russia in the World Junior Hockey Championships Gold Medal Game, so I'm watching that while pressing and writing here while waiting. I'm really hoping to be done by tomorrow morning, as I absolutely have to tear myself away and go out to lunch with my husband. He's been home all week and has wanted to go out to lunch every day, but I've been so engrossed in my sewing that I've nixed the idea each time. So when I agreed to go tomorrow, he called some friends to join us, so I couldn't back out again. At least it's Indian food, which is my absolute favourite. I've been lucky all week, my husband has been around to deal with taking kids to school and back and I've been sewing or doing sewing related reading all week. ABSOLUTE BLISS!!! I think I need a bumper sticker for my car, "I'd rather be sewing!!" Can you get those? I'm happy, I'm on a roll, stay tuned for another update soon.

12 Jackets in 12 Months

There is a sew-along going on over at Stitchers Guild, where the goal is to make 12 jackets in 12 months. I posted there back in December with a rough plan and thought I'd make my intentions known here too.

Usually at this time of year I would be obsessing over the SWAP contest (also at Stitcher's Guild), but decided to skip the stress this year and do something a little more relaxed. You say 12 jackets in 12 months is relaxed?? Not totally, but it is only a sew-along and no pressure to actually sew up 12 pieces. I thought I'd use the spirit of the sew-along as motivation to finish up some half sewn up jackets and coats in my UFO pile and make much needed cover-ups in my wardrobe. Since the rules of the sew-along are pretty flexible, I can count structured jackets, coats and casual unlined jackets and even cardigan type knit jackets.  If I take into account all the UFO's or previously planned pieces for which I have fabric all ready and waiting, I have 7 projects. I'm sure I'll have other patterns and fabric jumping out and inspiring me too, so whatever works out is great by me. My other goal with the sew-along is to stretch my skills, which is also the theme of this year's SWAP, I want to use techniques I haven't used before and to this end my first major project will be Vogue 8692, Claire Shaeffer's Custom Couture Collection jacket pattern.

An added bonus of using this pattern is that Ann Rowley, a moderator over at Stitcher's Guild, has made up an amazing photo tutorial of her progress through this pattern. It is found here. There is also an abundance of discussion about the pattern at Stitcher's Guild, so it will make the attempt of this advanced skill pattern a little easier. I hope!!

I purchased a beautiful navy wool crepe from Denver Fabrics. Ann also used a wool crepe, so I'll follow her recommendations to which interfacing etc to use. I'm using a grey silk charmeuse, which I got when our local Fabricland closed, for the lining.

I was supposed to get the muslin done today as my kids went back to school and I'd have some uninterrupted time available. But alas!! My eldest son was excited about seeing his friends and was wide awake at 3am and never managed to get back to sleep and kept waking me every hour with some request. So I used my quiet time today to nap, I'll need it, he'll probably come home a tired wreck and be as cranky as a constipated bear.

So I'll post more progress at a later stage. Oh and I also cut out a casual unlined jacket in a very drapey khaki coloured fabric, so that will be whipped up too...at some stage soon anyway.