Alabama Chanin car coat, experiments

I bought this pattern during my Alabama Chanin binge last year. I couldn't resist!

I will say - Alabama Chanin are not out to market their patterns. I get the impression that they grudgingly provide the patterns, but they aren't trying to compete on the indie pattern market. What I mean by this is that the layout of the pattern in A4 is quite wasteful. Every single piece, including the pockets, crosses multiple pages. There were at least 5 pages that could have been done away with.  Ok, anyway I survived. I would prefer an A0, which there *is* so that's for next time as obviously I threw away all the rest of the pattern other than the cropped coat and I hate A4 taping.

I've settled on S as my size for Alabama Chanin patterns, though on the size chart I would be M. Also, this coat is meant to be crazy oversized so I wasn't worried about it fitting.

For version 1, I used a poly/merino blend knit that's smooth faced and has nubbly bits on the other side. I think I used the same fabric for my Mabel miniskirt.  It's very stretchy and a bit heavy, and in fact halfway through I got worried that it was a bad choice, since it doesn't have the characteristics of interlock jersey.  1.5 m was totally sufficient for the cropped version with cropped sleeves. I lined with various merino scraps.  Yay, it's great! It's so cuddly, I didn't expect to love it. The lining sticks out all over the place and so I decided to go with my new theme and hand topstitch the whole thing together, which would have been great if I had black thread.  I would have used ANY black thread...but I had to wait a bit to get hold of some.  I waited to put on the pockets until after I'd gotten the lining nicely controlled. By then I lost the fabric so there are no pockets.

 

The pockets are (like the Papercut Stacker jacket!) oddly tall and not that wide, it does look nice but it's tricky to get hands into them, I noticed this and tried to make them a bit wider than the pattern piece for my pink version.

I immediately moved on to version 2, which is what I was excited about.
This is a single, narrow meter of wool that I bought when I lived in Switzerland. It has a lot of memories associated with it. I was supposed to make a miniskirt, but I didn't and then I convinced myself it shouldn't be a miniskirt after all, but what would possibly fit such a small piece of fabric?  I considered every coat, every top, every skirt...I kept coming out at a loss. (Now I think gosh, I should have just made that damn miniskirt! But anyway.)

 

It fit on my fabric perfectly and I even had enough left over to pattern match the pockets.  I matched the fronts and backs and then let the sleeves do their thing. The lining is stretch silk, chosen because it'll help give more structure to the loose wool.  I did a lot of hand topstitching here because I could.  I let this project drag out over about 3 days, though it's really about a 3-hour effort.  I totally panicked halfway through worrying that it would have too much body, but in the end I'm happy with it.  I do notice that the hem of both of these pulls up a bit, as it's not my strength to hand sew hems with the lengths matching properly. 

I loved both of these in theory and was happy with how they came out, but I really delayed getting snaps, so they sat around for quite awhile.  I wanted snaps from Alabama Chanin but couldn't handle the shipping cost, and then finally bought some locally and then I moved house and didn't have my stuff in any order for months...and then it was summer.  So only as I have started to clean up my winter plans did I sit down and apply the snaps and think about whether these will get worn...and well, a friend likes the pink one but I think the black one is off to go out of my sight.  I was at one of the local secondhand shops and the racks were nearly bare (seriously, only in Gizzy) so I pretty much feel like it's my duty to share the things I make and don't need!

 

I, nontheless, really want to do a long sleeved long version of this coat in 2 layers of interlock knit, in true Alabama Chanin style.  I think the short sleeves feel useless to me, the body of the pink version is too much, etc. Long and funereal, that's where it's at: it fulfills some dream of being a grunge princess that I didn't know I had.  This aesthetic of mine has been evolving in the past few months and it seems the rest of the world is with me, have docs come back into fashion? 

 

Adventures with Alabama Chanin, part 1.

This took a long time for me to commit to.
When I first saw Carolyn's Alabama Chanin projects, I was kind of like ew, why would you spend so much time on one or two things??  Then at some point I got two Alabama Studio books, one for me and one for my mother.  I'm not sure which came first, but I bought the book for myself when I realised the base patterns that come with the book are really simple.  I wasn't convinced about hand sewing, but I certainly could use the patterns!

More recently I realised one reason hand sewing felt out of reach is because I have no faith in my ability to do it, so I also got the Alabama Chanin hand sewing manual. I thought that having it lying around increased my chances of actually learning to hand stitch and the book does have more detail than the design books. 

Recently, in a totally random burst of enthusiasm, I got a few of the patterns printed out. I have the Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns book.  The printing was quite a bit of effort. The patterns are on a CD.  They are unstandard paper sizes.  My local print shop is very friendly with me due to my frequent A0 service, but for this one I had to stand around the computer while they pulled up the patterns on CAD and fitted them to printable sheets.  So if I have one beef, it's that the patterns should be available for A0 and A4 printing.  The A line dress was so wide that we ended up turning it sideways and printing it across three sheets or something crazy like that.

Unfortunately I was sort of guessing which patterns I wanted, so I ended up with the skirt, the corset, and the A line dress, though I wasn't interested in the dress particularly.

During my recent and amazingly timed trip to the States, I bought a bunch of supplies from Alabama Chanin itself!  I got three colours of organic cotton and the button craft thread that is so highly touted.  Plus I got to do all the prewashing and drying at my parents house, such a luxury!

Now I wish I had bought more thread - I've sourced one place in Australia that sells it too, but they are sold out and seem to depend on infrequent restocking. Also New Zealand is many months behind on receipt of international parcels...

My first project was the A line dress.  I don't really like the green fabric I ended up with, but I thought if I liked the top I'd wear it, and if not I can always give it away.  I wanted to see whether the size chart fit was good for me.  I also wanted a no stress chance to try out the hand sewing.  I cut it in an M, which matches me on the size chart pretty exactly.  I did all the seams on my overlocker.  I top stitched and did the bands by hand, learning as I went along, and I'm happy with the result and getting better at the Cretan stitch.

But: I really don't like this trapeze fit.

Putting the top on for the photos I can see that it fits nicely in the back.  I could certainly play around with this pattern - removing a lot of the trapeze from the front to see if I like it more that way - but I'm planning to make the less flared dress next and so I'll probably leave this one for now.

I moved onto the corset.
I was really excited by the corset!  So excited that I made three in one day!
First, size M, 2 layers.  The problems were - generally too big, gaping in the front, needs the shoulder adjustment, and about 1" too long in the waist.

Because the pieces are so small, and overlocking is so easy, I went straight into version 2: single layer, size S, with the shoulder adjustment and 1/2" removed at the waist.  There are no lengthen shorten lines, so basically I removed length right above the narrowest part of the waist.

My enthusiastic shoulder shortening brought the armhole up a bit too close, and there's still a lot of pooling in the back, but I thought there's also still pooling in the front, so I went onto version 3: Size S, 2 layers, with the shoulder shortened only on the front, and with 1" from the waist.  I'm happy with this version!  Enough that I'm committed to the hand sewing.

Still had to think about how to finish the first two corsets, which, while modelling, I realised aren't that bad after all and do deserve lives as clothing.  I decided to just add normal bindings and I topstitched the seam allowances down.  It was absolute luck that I had an abundance of rib jersey in the exact matching shade.  

Number 1, with green lining, size M:

Number 2, single layer, size S:

This has totally whetted my appetite for more Alabama Chanin. As I get better at hand sewing, and watching my corset come together, it's interesting to see how the item becomes emotional because you have invested more into it!  I'm debating ways of using 2-layer jersey that don't involve an airbrush gun or flower designs. More adventures to follow...