It's alive!

It's been exactly a year since I last posted about my adventures in French jacket sewing. Last Easter I started making a trim and from there it was one step forward, two steps back.

When I started this project back in 2014 (!) I was still recovering from a back injury and was rather limited in my choice of exercise. My return to the gym apparently resulted in losing some inches, so when I finally unboxed the ufo jacket and tried it on it was too big. The muslin had been taken apart to be used as the pattern, making it impossible to go back and come up with an action plan for adjustments based on that muslin. Time out.
Life happened and sewing was on the back burner for the rest of spring and summer. By the time I was ready for a more involved project autumn had arrived and the jacket ended up hibernating in the box. Again.

Last month, when I was spring cleaning the sewing room, I stumbled upon the box of doom. I tried the jacket on, still too big. Fix it or dump it?
I decided to give it one last chance. After all the time and energy spent on this project the least I could do was finish it, practice a few new techniques and enjoy hand sewing that fabulous lining!

First I opened up the sleeve seams and took out 4,5 cm of the circumference. It was a tricky job to remove the almost invisible stitches that disappeared into the boucle. Of course the fabric was fraying like crazy, making unpicking a slow and challenging process, but it was well worth the effort. The sleeves look much better now. I also made minor adjustments at the bodice seams from the waist down.

After adding the hooks and eyes I was able to check the fit once more. Still a little roomy at the hips. Not sure if it's worth opening up the seams again, there's always the risk of making things worse by over working those fraying parts! In an ideal situation I would also take out some width at the high bust and shoulder but at this stage I don't think it's wise to mess with the crossing princess seams and shoulder seams. 

What's left to do: 

- close the lining at the armholes

- add the trim

- close the front and neckline

- hem the sleeves

- sew the lining to the hem, on bodice and sleeves

- add the chain

It's all hand sewing. Perfect job for a cold and rainy long weekend.

Happy Easter!

French jacket: the trim

This is the rough version of what will probably become the trim of my jacket. In my previous post I described how I wanted the vibrant colours of the lining to become part of the trim. I spent most of the long Easter weekend hand sewing and testing several ideas.

I started with a lightweight navy ribbon.

I used a chalk pencil and a quilters ruler to mark every half inch.

Using the narrowest satin ribbon (3 mm wide) I then made tiny stitches on the marks. This was a very slow process, as the ribbon had to be pulled through with extreme care to prevent damaging the base ribbon.

After many hours of peaceful stitching with nothing but the sound of singing birds in the garden to distract me, I finished all 4 meters.

The leftover lining, two strips of 2.25 m by 7 cm wide, didn't give me much to play with. I sewed tiny tubes and turned them right side out.

Together it looked like this:

Obviously I have to polish it up a bit. Some of the stitches got twisted during the threading process and in other parts the seam of the silk isn't in the right spot yet. I will go back and make it decent later on. I'm happy with the outcome. It's lightweight, flexible and will add a colourful touch to this summer jacket!
I'm taking a step back from the trim to pick up working on the sleeves.

Final decisions, like will I keep it straight and graphic, or add a more fancy effect,

whether I'll add fringe, and if so, how wide, straight of grain or cut on the bias, it can all be decided later. For now I'm happy with the options.

Back to more thread tracing and quilting!

The continuing story of a French jacket

Fifteen months ago I took a break from working on my French jacket. It was meant to be a spring/summer jacket and once I had missed the time slot other sewing projects seemed more urgent. The jacket was carefully packed away in a box, together with thread, chain and every bit of leftover fabric. I hoped to pick it up again last March, but by then coral coat fabric had taken over my sewing room. Fast forward one year and the French jacket is back on top of my sewing list!

This is where I left it. Bodice seams were closed, sleeves cut and ready to be constructed. Once that's done it will be time to make a few design choices. I'm considering several neckline options and I'm still not sure whether I want patch pockets or not. Whenever I'm thinking about the different options I feel like I can't choose properly without envisioning the overall picture. And for that I definitely need to decide on the trim.

The jacket may have been out of sight for fifteen months, it was often on my mind. I experimented with the selvedges, used different fibers for crochet and visited haberdashery shops during the quest for the perfect trim. Wherever I went, from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht to Liege, Edinburgh, Prague and Bratislava, I always had a quilted square of boucle in my handbag. No luck. Navy looked boring, white was either too white or too yellow-ish, mixing navy and white resulted in a overly classic look. If only I had enough fabric left to make fringe!

The more I thought about it, the more I realised I'm probably more in love with the lining than with the main fabric. And then I remembered the Chanel ensemble I admired two years ago at an exhibition in The Hague.

What if  I incorporated a tiny strip of that colourful lining in a trim? My fabric isn't as loosely woven as the example fabric, maybe layering will work?

Since last week my options doubled. Can you believe my luck when I unexpectedly stumbled upon a bolt of the same boucle? I had last seen that fabric for sale in 2014 and back then it sold out fast. I quickly bought enough to start experimenting with fringing bias strips as well!

Lots of things to try out during the upcoming long weekend!

French jacket: the final preparations

A year ago I was ready to start a French jacket. At least, that's what I thought. Finished my muslin, bought fabric, lining and thread and with some relatively quiet weeks at work ahead I was all set to join the sewalong. Uh oh. By the time I got to the second blogpost I found out I needed silk organza, silk basting thread and a walking foot. My usual fabric suppliers gave me the side eye when I asked for such fancy stuff. Silk what?? 

The age of my good old sewing machine, anno 1987, complicated the search for a walking foot. Never mind, I had to wait anyway for my basting silk to arrive from Japan and the silk organza from Hong Kong. In the meantime I tracked down an old school walking foot. It came at the price of two new sewing machines at Ikea. Eeek! I'm happy to report though it's worth every penny. 

The magic time slot passed and the project was put in a box. Pandora's box ready to be opened when I had lots and lots of sewing time. When pigs fly.

In short that's why I'm working on a summer jacket now. Because I discovered there's never a right time for such a big project. And if there's never a right time, there's also never a wrong time! At least that's what I keep telling myself. Don't laugh. 

Next I made a muslin, but forgot to take pictures of me wearing it. This is rapidly turning into a real success story ;) I tweaked the muslin and then took it apart. After removing the seam allowances the muslin was used as working pattern.

As I was cutting a single layer I needed the biggest working space I could think of: the garden table.

With a forecast of heavy showers my time outside was limited. To be continued!

French jacket, design choices

 Aren't those French jackets Chanel-inspired and thus boxy and square, with high rounded necklines and made from pastel coloured tweed? Boxy jackets don't look good on my curvy frame, high necklines are to be avoided at all costs and I don't do pastels. It's no surprise that when I visited the Chanel exhibition in The Hague the overall look of a lot of the garments on display did not really appeal to me. Of course I admired the details, the beautiful fabrics and the stunning techniques. I just could not picture myself wearing the 1960s iconic jackets.

We followed the exhibition's timeline and when we reached the Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel collections the look and feel of the jackets definitely changed. Especially the yellow 'Scuba' jacket from the 1991 spring/summer collection caught my attention. Not because of the colour, or the sequins. This jacket had a v-neck, a zipper, it was a bit longer, had a sleeker outline and waist definition!

Or how about this cropped jacket?

Finally the penny dropped. It was never my intention to knock off an existing jacket. All I wanted was to learn some new techniques and create a soft tailored, comfortable jacket in beautiful fabrics. The only way to go was by choosing a pattern with the right style lines for me.  A pattern however that would have to meet the needs for making a quilted jacket. 

Bouclé or tweed are the most suitable fabrics for making a couture cardigan jacket. The lining is quilted to the fashion fabric and you need texture and loft to hide the quilting lines on the outside. Working with a textured fabric means you don't want to work with darts because they may end up bulky. Princess seams, and especially princess seams ending at the shoulder, are the best to create shaping in a French jacket. I own lots of beautiful jacket patterns but most of them had design details like yokes or double darts in front and back that made them useless for this project. Guess what I ended up with: V7975. Quelle surprise!

After mixing up all views I'll make the longer jacket with abutting front edges and bracelet length sleeves. I redrafted the neckline to a v-neck.

I found my fabrics at Harry's Stoffen in Enschede, The Netherlands. The cotton bouclé is very soft and the lining is so beautiful, love at first sight. My only regret is that I did not think of buying more to make a matching blouse. Unfortunately it is out of stock now. It will be a pleasure to look at those colourful flowers during my countless hours of hand stitching!