My sister loves to shop and sends me stuff that she thinks I might like. We’re not the same size (she’s considerably taller than me), so some of the items are hit or miss in terms of fit.

This is an Armani vest, new with tags, fiber content of rayon/wool/silk/cashmere.

But we have major problems in how it fit. The vest looks nice laid out flat, but once we put a 3-dimensional body inside, it turns into navel-baring, hi-lo shell that I’m preeettty sure violates Mayo’s dress code in more than a couple ways.

However, I do need a winter hat. 😀 I thought I had enough material to make a slouchy beanie, and I loosely followed this Craftsy tutorial to draft a pattern. The pattern suggests it fits an “average-sized head” and is drafted for a final brim circumference of <20 inches. I added 2.5 more inches to fit my giant (22.5") noggin, I hate when hats feel like they are squeezing my brains.

Given the deep V of the vest front, there wasn’t enough fabric to make a double-layer hat. I opted for a single layer with foldover brim. Construction was straightforward, with only a couple seams. I sewed the seams with a 3/8-inch seam allowance, using a zigzag stitch, and then serged the raw edges.

With Casey

I love this hat! I may or may not have worn it all day. 🙂

TL;DNR – I sewed funky flare jeans!!!

But let’s go back to the beginning.

If I manage to get up at 5:30 AM, I can sew for ~15 minutes before I get ready for work. What can be sewn in twice-weekly, bleary-eyed sprints? Well, how about a sloooow pair of Jalie pull-on jeans! Cumulatively, this project probably took about 8-10 hours to cut and assemble, so while it was a multimonth project for me, normal people could probably pull it off in a weekend. 🙂

I deviated from my usual cautious self and didn’t make a toile. Instead, I took flat-pattern measurements at the waist and hips and decided to go with a size X at the waist and blend it to a size V at the yoke bottom and then to a size T at the hips. I kept it at size T from the hips through the bottom hem, although I shortened the inseam length by 2 inches.

I didn’t blend between sizes quite right because the yoke extended into the side seam, oops. I just trimmed it off, and it didn’t seem to affect fit.

Fabric was from the stash, a nice midweight dark stretch denim from Lura’s Fabric Shop, purchased in 2011. (Excellent service at that shop, btw.) I’d originally planned to sew a few pairs of Jalie 2908 jeans (inspired by the Selfish Seamstress), but I lost steam after the first one (never even blogged it) and put the rest of the fabric away.

I set up 2 machines for sewing. I used a Bernina 830 Record for seaming and a Bernina 1030 for topstitching. I bought the 830 last year (totally lemminged Renee when I saw her post and then found one available semi-locally) but never gave it any serious time until this project. It’s a little jumpy (rabbity start, but possibly from user error), the lighting is pathetic, and the foot control is literally held together by packing tape, but it otherwise sews a fine seam.

For topstitching, I threaded the 1030 with 2 spools of regular sewing thread. I didn’t use a fancy triple stitch setting or anything because I anticipated the inevitable tearing out and redoing. Honestly, I am terrible at topstitching.

Gahh, where’d it go…

Picked it out and redid it. Not perfect, but better!

Even though I tried using specialty guide foots and other bells and whistles, the only way I could generate 2 parallel rows of stitching was to first draw lines on the fabric with chalk and then sew over the lines. Anyway, I’m happy with how it looks, especially considering that most of this was sewn before 6 AM and without any coffee!

Chalk line

Open toe for better visibility

Hooray!

Two major fitting challenges cropped up, swayback and muscular calf.

Three-way mirror shot

For the swayback alteration, I followed the Jalie gaposis fix and added 2 small darts to the yoke. I started with a single dart, but it was not a subtle change; to my eye, the curve looks much better with 2 darts and probably would be perfect with 3, but I’m OK with what I did. I’ll redraw the yoke piece to eliminate the darts in the future.

See how nicely it hugs the back now?

Up to that point, I’d basted the side seams only to the knee because I was working on fitting the hips and waist. When I finally sewed the side seams all the way to the ankle, I got an unpleasant surprise – the calf circumference was super tight and very uncomfortable! Yuck.

I’d thoughtlessly assumed that these jeans would fit a big calf. The designer even said, “These are not skinny jeans, but are ‘skinny friendly.’ As a big-calf girl, it is SO frustrating when a pair of skinny jeans fits perfectly everywhere but [just wants] to explode at the calf!”

Shame on me, I never measured the pattern below the knee. With a 3/8″ seam allowance, I had no fabric to let out. Gulp. I channeled Mrs Mole and tried to think outside the box. I found the inspiration I was looking for in a $280 pair of True Religion jeans.

Hello, flare! I drafted and inserted a godet following the instructions in Sandra Betzina’s Power Sewing. For the first trial godet, I drafted it such that the tip matched exactly where my knee hinged, but it was too low (no pics, sorry); I redrafted to make it 2 inches longer, with the tip starting at the top of the knee.

Ah, better. My jeans don’t quite look like the True Religion inspiration, but I will chalk that up to the model probably having a 36″ inseam and weighing 130 lbs. Ha! Next time, I will redraft the leg for a bootleg cut or swap that portion with the relevant part from Jalie 2908.

I remembered to shorten the waistband to match the darted yoke.

Some of the reviews for this pattern suggested the 1″ elastic was not wide enough for the waistband. I had 2″ elastic that I trimmed down to 1 7/8″ (Pro-Stretch, you can cut it horizontally without it falling apart).

At 1 7/8″, the elastic fills out the whole waistband and gives it a nice sturdiness. I also shortened the length of back elastic by 1″ and stretched it to fit.

It still gaps a tiny little bit at the center back, so next time, I will probably make a deeper concave curve to the waistband edges and shorten the back elastic length by another half inch.

Pretty bar tack

Next time, I will change the pocket placement ever so slightly. The pattern has the pockets centered on the back seam, not the topstitching. However, because the eyes reset the center back on the line of topstitching, it looks like the pockets are slightly malpositioned.

Will it be seen on a galloping horse? No, and hey, if someone notices being off by 1/4 inch, they’re looking a little too closely, anyway.

Laid flat, unhemmed

Lastly, I serged the raw hem edge and then washed and machine dried the jeans 3 or 4 times before hemming. I didn’t want a thick, bulky hem because the jeans were so flared (thought it might give the lower half a “hoop skirt” look). Instead of making a double-fold hem, I turned it up just once and topstitched.

Are you still with me? (I know, too many words.)

Back and front

The mini wrinkles and creases seem a lot more evident in the photos than they are in real life. Still, I’m not concerned about them at all, they have to be there so that my body can move in these jeans. I also rarely stand as stiffly in life as I do for photos, so the creases appear and disappear as I move.

Love this flare!

I like that it doesn’t gape appreciably when I squat down (critical wardrobe feature when you’re wrangling kids).

OK, to sum up – blending sizes, gaposis fix, flare legs. Thanks for reading!

[Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link.]

These items have been finished since May – figured it was time to blog about them!

I made another Flirt Skirt, this time out of a striped ponte knit, purchased a few years ago from Gorgeous Fabrics. I had a heck of a time matching the stripes on the side seams because the angles of the front and back somehow weren’t quite the same (?), but I used a gazillion pins and matched every. single. stripe. to make it work.

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I made a really cool t-shirt using a digitally printed knit of a city skyline reflected on water (from Sawyerbrook Fabrics [now sold out]). I am on their mailing list and saw the fabric when it was first offered for sale toward the beginning of 2015. I resisted – obsessed – worried about the price [$23/panel, and I’d need 2 for a shirt] – obsessed some more – gnashed teeth – gave in – made the shirt. Whew. It probably is the most expensive t-shirt that I own. But I like how it looks.

I had to forgo all of the darts and fancy fitting tricks that I’d been developing because it would mess up the vertical lines. Also, I could not make the front as long as it needed to be – see how the skyline angles upward and it still rides up at the hem?

But I ran out out stripes in the hem allowance and thus didn’t dare try to make the shirt any longer.

Pattern placement was interesting. I wanted the skyline of the shirt to be fairly high and the neckline fairly low without the two running into each other. I also wanted the skyline to be more or less at the same place visually on the front, back, and sleeves.

I was scratching my head for a while, trying to figure out what part of the sleeve should match the bodice – I found this visual from Knits for Real People, which was a big help.

So there you have it!

I bought a short piece of ITY from Nancy’s Notions in March. It was advertised as “fronds,” but when I got it in my hands, it started to look like “feathers.”

Feeling indecisive during layout, I put out a call for advice on Instagram, and Kathy very helpfully suggested that I drape it on myself in both orientations. Ah, in the feathers direction, I looked like a miffed bird, so fronds were the way to go!

I pulled out all stops and used my ever-evolving shirt pattern with the custom shoulders and sleeves. This time, I added French darts (borrowed from Silhouette patterns’ Ann’s top) and back darts (borrowed from Maria Denmark’s Audrey dress).

Chalk would be near invisible on this fabric, so I marked darts using tailor’s tacks.

I realize you can’t really see any details on this print, but that’s OK. I’m still mustering up the courage to make this up in a solid color. 🙂 But please note, if you can, the very limited number of drag lines, the lack of saggy-baggy in the back, and the even hemline. I added an extra half-inch to all side seams but ended up cutting them all off again. I set the sleeves in flat but attached the cuffs in the round.

The skirt is also new (review is here). This is the Magic Pencil Skirt by Pamela’s Patterns. Fabric is some kind of rayon-poly-lycra blend from FabricMart that I bought a couple years ago. I’d assembled the skirt last year and gotten to the pin-fitting, try-on stage when I got discouraged (sewing late at night after a long day of work and kids is not really conducive to success). It sat as a UFO for months, but it’s finished now. The amount of skirt pegging seems universally lauded by everyone who’s ever sewn one up, and I have to agree – it really is spot on.

I’d show you the darts and waistband, except my tummy is covered with little Xs of Steri-strips, and I’d rather not photograph that. So, yeah, I had to undergo laparoscopic surgery last week to remove some diseased lady parts (1 ovary and 1 tube). Everything went as well as could be expected, and the pathology results are negative for cancer [big sigh of relief]. Recovery has also gone as expected (postoperative day 1 = miserable pain; postoperative day 6 = off all meds), but I look like I’m 5 months pregnant. (I’m seriously holding my breath for the above photos… except I can’t seem to suck in my belly much any more.) I guess 4 incisions through all the core muscles will do that. Hopefully, this preggo belly is temporary…