Burda 6426: chambray shirt

This pattern moved to the top of the to-sew list as soon as I saw Maggie's (@maggieelainediy) version on Instagram.  I'm glad she shared her version because the pattern envelope is not inspiring at all.

As a basic button-up shirt, it's perfectly fine.  But I would have not given this a second thought were it not for Maggie posting a few pictures of her shirt.

Oof.  Don't mind the collar and back photo.  It looks much better in person. =)

The fabric is cotton chambray from the stash.

I muslined a straight size 42 (16).  I didn't need an FBA, but I removed 1/2 inch above the bust and in the waist area on both the front and back.  I think this is an alteration I'll have to make with most Burda woven shirts.

To ensure the sleeve length remained the same, I removed 1/2 inch before and after the shoulder seam, tapering to nothing at the sleeve hem.

When I tried on the top, I was disappointed to see the shoulder seam was SOOOOOO long.  When I looked at the pattern envelope again, I noticed the shirt actually has dropped shoulder seams.  D'oh!  The line drawings don't accurately show this, though you can sort of see it in the printed top on the model.

I'm not too big on dropped-shoulders because the style makes it appear as if the shirt is falling off of me.  My fabric has nice drape, so it doesn't look too bad. 

Ruffles!  I love this little sleeve detail.

You're supposed to sew a buttonhole through multiple thicknesses on this tiny band.  Uh, no.  I opted to save my sanity and use snaps instead.

In all I like the shirt and will definitely wear it.  It's not a difficult pattern to sew and can be made rather quickly.  The dropped-shoulder has to grow on me, though.

This is the second top completed for my mini wardrobe plan:

Tops

• Jalie 3245 - black & beige distressed knit (done)
• Burda 6426 - grey cotton chambray (done)
• Burda 6456 - white cotton burnout (maybe)
• Burda 6425 - yellow rayon challis (next)

Bottoms

• Burda Style 4-2019-113 - black denim (done)
• McCall's 7906 - grey, white, yellow, black cotton (almost finished)

Jacket

• Kwik Sew 3558 (done)

Dresses 

• Simplicity 8907- grey & white linen
• McCall's 7465 - black and white striped rayon knit
• Simplicity 8834 - yellow tencel

I am really close to finishing McCall's 7906.  I realized late yesterday that the pockets are pressed and stitched in the wrong direction. *facepalm times 100*  I have to unpick the understitching and regular stitching to re-do this area.  

After this, I need to sew the buttonholes and hem.  More later!

L

The Outfit of Opposites

I call this the "outfit of opposites" because it illustrates the word 'opposite' in every sense. 

Old vs. New:  The jacket is Simplicity 2341 (OOP) and the skirt is McCall's 7253 (released this year).  

When this jacket first came out, I was unimpressed.  Though the pattern envelope leaves much to be desired, I bought it anyway because it had front and back shoulder princess seams.  I figured I could use better fabric and leave off the shoulder fins shown in view D.  This is an example of relying heavily on the line drawings and the Internets to bring out inspiration.

The skirt has pleats and can be sewn with or without a waistband.  Views A and E have contrast bands.  I just noticed that the zipper is placed at the center back.  I completely missed this while sewing and placed mine at the left side seam. 

I stayed away from pleated skirts for a very long time until I saw people with a similar shape sew and wear them.  So I gave this pattern a try and happy with the look.

Structured vs. Free-flowing:  The jacket has very defined lines by nature of its military style.  I used metal buttons on the front panel and denim topstitching thread along the princess seams, collar, and hem.

 (hmm...need to resew that third button on the right (facing) side)

The skirt, by contrast, has eight pleats that give it lots of volume and flow.  I roll-hemmed the skirt because hemming this joint any other way gave me fits!  More on that in a moment.

Stash vs. New Purchase:  The denim is from the stash and the animal print cotton voile is not.  I bought the voile with the intention of making a pleated skirt and to pair with this jacket.  I had an image in my mind and am happy to see that it worked.

Lined vs. Unlined:  After making the Jamie Christina coat, I had NO desire to line another jacket.  

 (poly fleece sleeve head)

The skirt, however, is flat-lined.  The voile is very sheer and definitely needed lining.  Again, more on that in a moment.

Neat vs. Hot Mess:  The jacket looks as good on the inside as it does on the outside.  I used my serger to finish the princess seams together before topstitching and used the serger to finish the raw edges for the side and shoulder seams.

The skirt, on the other hand, is a mess!  At some point, I lost track of which way I pressed the pleats, so they're going in all kinds of directions on the inside.  Fortunately, it's not too obvious from the right side.

So about flat-lining and the rolled hem...

Usually I cut my skirt linings the same length as the skirt and then hem the lining after I've hemmed the skirt.  It's not convention, but it works for me.   While I LOVE flat-lining, I ran into an issue with how to hem the skirt and lining.  

In flat-lining, the garment and lining are treated as one unit once attached.  Since the width of the skirt at the hem is SUPER wide and my lining shifted during sewing, it was nearly impossible to turn up the hem and blindstitch.  IMPOSSIBLE.  After stitching and unstitching many times, I gave up and rolled hem the skirt and lining separately.

 SMH

It is not pretty at all!  There has got to be a better way to do this.  I'm thinking that if I intend to flat-line, then I should cut and hem the lining first and then proceed as normal.  That way, the lining is finished before the side seams are sewn.  Hmm.  

***

Sewing/Fitting the Jacket:  I started with a size 16 jacket after comparing it to other princess seam patterns I sewed.  I made a 1" swayback adjustment and added 0.5" to the bust area tapering to nothing above and below curve.  I did not make a muslin.

Everything else was pretty straight forward - except for the front button panels.  The instructions have you cut only two pair of panels (one for each side) and stitch them to the front.  There is no mention of how to finish the edges or if they are to be turned under or remain raw.

I did my own thing.  I cut fusible interfacing using the same pattern pieces.  Then I stitched the interfacing to the panels, right sides together, using a 1/4" seam allowance. 

After trimming the seam allowance, I clipped the curved area, turned the facing to the inside, and pressed into place - taking care to roll the interfacing to the underside.

Doing it this way ensures that the panel is interfaced and the raw edges are finished.

The sleeves are freakishly long.  I guess the line drawing shows this, but still.  I didn't expect them to be this long.  After pinning the length I wanted, I lopped off 1.5" from the bottom and then sewed a 1.5" hem.

I didn't include the front zippered pockets or the back tab.  I cut and sewed the tab, but didn't like how it looked.

I sewed the buttons to the front before attaching the facing so that my stitches didn't show.

Sewing/Fitting the Skirt:  I sewed a straight 16 - my usual size in McCall's.  At first I sewed the pleats smaller than the pattern since I wasn't sure how it would fit at the waist.  I didn't need the extra width and stitched everything as designed.  I didn't a full seat adjustment nor did I make a muslin.

The waist is finished with 1.5"-wide petersham.

Wut?  That's TWO garments in a row that were made without a muslin.  Somebody call a paramedic.

***

I am really happy with how everything turned out - messy insides and all.  I was concerned that the military jacket looked out of proportion lengthwise with the skirt.  I wore it on Tuesday and got several compliments.  I felt good and ultimately didn't care about the proportions. =)

I paired the skirt with three other tops and think they're all fine.  Here they are for comparison:

 left:  Kwik Sew 3558 (denim jacket)

center:  New Look 6704 (chambray shirt)

right:  Simplicity 2341

I can see another version of both patterns in the future.  I'm thinking of making the skirt in a light-to-medium weight wool woven for fall and maybe another view of the jacket in something equally fall-appropriate.

***

Up next:  Burda 6769 and planning for fall.

I've had this on my radar for a while. After seeing Nakisha's version last month, I moved it to the 'want to sew now' list.  I'm almost finished and hope to post a review soon.

I'm pulling fabrics and finding fabrics to begin sewing for fall.  Waaah!  Summer...don't go!

L

Edited to add:  Thank you for responding to my question about Instagram versus blogging.  I like using both mediums and will likely continue doing so.  My blogging has fallen off substantially for a number of reasons (some sewing-related, some not).  I was wondering if it had to do with my activity on Insta and if others were experiencing the same.  The general consensus is that people like reading blogs for information about projects; so do I.  I enjoy reading details about what worked and what didn't and largely speed past the 'here's what I made' posts that give no information.   I hope to be better at blogging so that I can contribute to what I like to the community that I like. =)

BWOF 9-2006-104 (trench coat): Complete

The coat is done!  Though it took a lot of movement from the universe to make this happen, it is finally completed.  

Fabric & Notions

• 3 yards of cotton navy twill (stash; Fabric Mart)
• 3 yards of plaid silk broadcloth (stash; Fabric Mart)
• 1 package of red piping (stash; source unknown)
• fusible interfacing (Mood NYC)
• navy mottled buttons (Wawak)
• navy mottled belt buckle (Mood NYC)
• short piece of twill tape to use for hanging
• bias cut fleece strips for sleeve heads
• muslin for back stay
• 80/12 universal needle (for shell)
• 70/10 microtex needle (for lining)
• regular sewing and serger thread

Size and Pattern Alterations:  I traced and cut a straight size 44 for my muslin.  I compared the pieces to another shoulder princess seamed coat (Indygo Junction 740) and was happy to see that not many changes were needed.  I used 5/8" seam allowances all around.  I sewed 3/4" seams at the start of the shoulder princess seam on both the front and back as a cheater narrow-shoulder adjustment.  Then, I tapered to 5/8" above the bust and 1/2" at the bust for a little extra room.

I did a 1" swayback adjustment by removing the length completely in the waist area and adding the amount to the hem.  This way, the side back seam lengths remained the same.

I took out a 1" wedge below the neckline; the muslin showed a bit of bunching in this area.

I also shortened the sleeves 3 inches (1.5 inches in two places).

I did not add a hem allowance since the "unfinished" length was slightly longer than what I wanted.

Instructions:  My brain was no match for this Burda word salad.  In addition to the instructions being sparse and confusing, you are to jump back and forth to other views for different parts.  Yeah no.  To construct the majority of the coat, I used the instructions for McCall's 5525.   To make the inseam pockets and pocket flaps, I used the ironically less confusing word salad from Burda 8-2009-107. 

Construction:  Sewing the shell was pretty straight forward; it's cotton after all.  The fabric was easy to work with and pressed beautifully.  The lining, on the other hand, was a pain in the ass.  Me and slippery fabrics just don't get along; plus the lining is a plaid.  It's an even plaid, but still.  Even though I pinned carefully and sewed slowly, I only managed to marginally match the plaid.  Using a walking foot made it WORSE! 

I brought this on my self.  =)  I had to have THIS lining with THIS fabric come hell or high water.  Yeah well, it was hell on high water, but I made it work.

Front/Front Facing Problem:  As many suggested and as I suspected, the lengths of the front and front facing were off.  Somehow, the front was 1/4 to 1/2 an inch longer than the facing.  This minute amount caused the massive amount of pulling.  I must have erred in tracing/measuring - despite checking my work twice.  Oh well.  

Kenneth D. King fixed it by taking a deeper hem and trimming the excess.  He also corrected the pattern by creating new stitching lines on both the facing and front.  The fix resulted in the coat being shorter, but it at least it's not pulling wildly like before.  I was ready to send this coat to a watery death in the Detroit River.  

I had the coat professionally pressed by my dry cleaner.   

Other:  I removed the sleeve loops because they were way too close to the hem.  If I make this pattern again, I will move the placement lines up 1.5 to 2 inches so that they're more proportionally positioned.

I added some red piping between the facing and lining because why not?  I did this on my last two coats and really like it.

The one thing I'm bummed about is the wrinkling along the bust curve.  

I picked and restitched this area a couple of times and steam-pressed it over and over.  Of course it's on the side that's not covered by the flap.  o_O  If I had enough fabric, I would have recut the side front panel and sewed it again.  Oh well.

I used navy mottled buttons in two sizes (large for the front and small for the epaulettes and belt loops).  It was surprisingly difficult to find a navy mottled belt buckle.  Thank you Mood!

Conclusion:  I am very happy with coat.  It will serve as a great transition between seasons or whatever we call the days between hot and arctic in Michigan.

As for the pattern, this was my trial run for my super warm tundra-life winter coat.  I don't know if I will use this pattern for that.  Even though Kenneth fixed the length issue, I don't want to run into the same problem again.  Maybe I'll make a muslin of the front with facing just to be sure it works.  I plan to go all-in (pad stitching, hair canvas, interlining) with the coat and want to make sure everything is sound first.

Up next:  Probably another coat or two.  And maybe some more pants.  I still haven't given up on Starting from Scratch.  I'm in turtle mode for a while.

Until next time, peace!

L

Going to Need A LOT of Magic Closet

So.  Much.  Magic.  Closet.  I'm talking Narnia here.

Sigh.

I separated the lining from the facing two inches up from the hem and still cannot get rid of the horrible pulling.  The right side (shown above) is not nearly as bad as the left side.  The lining is no longer attached to the hem and is left to hang loose.

I've made three lined coats and three lined jackets.  I've never seen anything like this before.

It seems as if the front is longer than the front facing.  When I pulled up the front and pinned it, the pulling somewhat disappeared.

I carefully measured every seam line on the front, front facing, and lining and found one discrepancy of 1/2".  Everything else was pretty close with a margin of error of 1/8" - surely not enough to cause this much trouble.  Right?

I didn't use steam when fusing the interfacing, so I don't think shrinkage is the culprit.  Plus, interfacing is fused to both the front and front facing.  If the interfacing is to blame, it seems like both pieces would suffer the same fate.

The coat fabric was pre-washed, dried, and steam pressed prior to cutting the pattern.  My wool jackets were only steam pressed and the other three coats weren't pretreated at all.  This problem is a mystery.

So off to the magic closet it goes.  After some considerable time off from this coat, I'll go back and reattach the facing-lining unit by taking out that excess fabric near the collar.

I momentarily considered removing the lining completely and replacing it with some Ambiance rayon.  But, I'm not comfortable with discarding this lining...yet.  It matches the vision in my head and I can't shake that image.

Oh well.  

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.  I've started working on fall clothes since that seems to be lacking right now.

Until next time, peace!

L

Simplicity 2365, View B (tunic)

This is my second attempt at this pattern since first trying it in 2011.  Despite it being too big in many places, it was reasonably wearable with a belt.  However, I sent this off to Wadderville because I could not get the collar stand to work.  The left side (facing) looks good, but the right side is all kinds of wrong.

I decided to give it another try, but opted for a bias-bound neckline instead.  More details below.

Fabric & Notions:

• 2 yards of cotton voile
• polyester thread
• self-fabric bias tape
• 70/10 Microtex sharp needle 
• size 4.0 stretch twin needle (it's what I had on hand)
• pintuck foot
• serrated tracing wheel and wax tracing paper 

Machine Settings:

• pintucks: 2.5 length, 2.5 width
• seams:  2.5 length, 2.5 width
• topstitching:  3.0 length, 2.5 width
• tension:  4.0

Fitting & Alterations:

Originally I started with an 18 but that proved to be way too big.  So, I sized down to a 16 on the front and about a 14 across the back. 

Back
To compensate for the decrease in width across the back created by using a smaller size, I made a 5/8" broad back adjustment.     
 

Front
I lowered the bust fullness 1.25" (on both the side front and center front pieces).  I also made a similar width adjustment (as in the broad back) on the side front pattern piece. This adjustment adds extra width at bust level and slightly raises the armhole. I did not do a traditional FBA.

Sleeves
I can't remember the size I used for the sleeves, but I do remember shaving off a bit from the sleeve seam (not cap) to match the adjustments made at the side seams.

One thing to note is that the sleeve cap in view B has gathers and a pouf.  The print hides this detail on the front of the pattern envelope, but the line drawing shows it very clearly.  If you're not a fan of the pouf, I would suggest removing some height from the sleeve cap before cutting the fabric.

Neckline
I took off 1/2" from the neckline so that the bias binding didn't creep around my neck.

Construction:

Pintucks

I don't even remember why I bought a pintuck foot, though it definitely came in handy for this project.  The instructions have you mark the lines for the pintucks, "pick up the fabric" and press to one side, then stitch the tuck in place. You have to do this for each pintuck and these tucks aren't that wide.  Ummmmmmm...no!

Why do all of that work when a pintuck foot does it for you? =)  Coupling the foot with a twin needle tucks the fabric while simultaneously securing it with the zigzag stitch underneath.  The video on this site shows the creation of a pintuck in action.  Like the video shows, I also pressed my pintucks in one direction - in this case, away from the center front.

Even though I didn't follow the pattern instructions, I didn't lose much width across the front by making the pintucks this way.

Note:  Since I hadn't used a twin needle in a while, I had to consult my machine's manual to remind myself how to set it up.  The manual said to orient the second spool of thread so that the thread fell over the top.  This created all kinds of problems!  I had thread nests, skipped stitches, and broken threads.  When I flipped the spool so that the thread was underneath, everything sewed like normal.  I don't know if my manual has an error or not.  If you encounter problems with the twin needle, try not following your machine's instructions!

Self-bias Neckline

Collar stands are still a work in progress for me (see above hot mess).  When I saw Belinda's version of this top, I knew I wanted to copy her idea.  Thanks Belinda!  It was the perfect solution to a problem that still needs fixing.

I made continuous bias binding using this tutorial.  I've seen many different methods on making continuous bias strips, but this one has NEVER failed me.  I can get between 6 and 8 yards of bias binding out of a single fat quarter using this method.  And as a bonus, mastering the technique doesn't even take that much practice!  I was able to successfully make the binding on my very first try. 

French Seams
I sewed all seams (except the sleeves) with a french seam.  My fabric is very thin and would have probably puckered if I tried to serge-finish the edges.  I found that using a small Microtex needle helped to keep the stitches nice and smooth.  In finishing the armhole seams, I sewed the seam first and serged them together.  I don't notice any puckering in this area.

Narrow Hem on Sleeves
Because I was so focused on binding the neckline, I used the remaining fabric to create the bias strips and neglected to cut out the sleeve band.  So my sleeves are much shorter than intended.  To finish the hem, I sewed a very narrow 1/2" hem by folding under 1/4" twice and topstitching.

Conclusion:

This is a good pattern with generous ease and a few different design possibilities.  It's great for warmer weather and is quick to sew.  I don't know that I'll sew it again any time soon, but it's definitely in the sewing rolodex if I want to revisit it again.

Here the top is accompanied by OOP Vogue 7880 (pattern photo credit:  Judith of Made by J).

Here the top is tucked in and paired with Vogue 8426.

Up next:  I'm working on styling my stash as inspired by the sensational SarahLiz.  This sew along couldn't be more perfectly timed.  I am focused on sewing small spring/summer capsules, busting the stash, and knocking off snoop-shopped looks.

Back in January, I made the following pledge:

"I, Lynn of You sew girl!, commit to using at least 12 pieces of stash fabric in 2013. I also commit to using at least 10 patterns from the stash. Stash includes any fabric or patterns on hand prior to the date of this pledge, 15 Jan 2013."

The Jalie jeans and Simplicity tunic count as two pieces of stash fabric sewn.  I won't count the patterns used because I've attempted them before.

I may be a little slow to blog over the next few days as my rusty desktop is finally showing its age.  Upgrades aren't even affecting it anymore, so after 10 years of faithful computing, I think it's time to put it down.  =)

Until next time, peace!

L