Sew House Seven Toaster 2, a review and pleasant surprise

The toaster sweaters went through a revamp a few years ago, and somehow I have lost the instructions for this version.  I looked everywhere. No instructions.  I used the size chart and SA from Toaster Sweater 1, and made size 2.  I was aided by 2 blogs, one of which showed the hem, and a tutorial by Sew House 7 with advice on keeping the neck down using wonder tape or hem tape.

The fabric is a very not stretchy italian nubbly stuff.  This pattern took very little of it which was too bad, because I was trying to use it up and give the top to a friend.  I came at this in a true spirit of entertained curiosity, and I was blown away by how fun it was to make, and how cool the results are.  I used iron on hem tape for the neck - I sandwiched it between the layers, positioned everything, and ironed it down, and now the neck is stuck in place!  Nothing flappy!  I have no idea if I did the hem properly but I am happy enough with the way things look.  I think I overlocked everything, sewed the corner mitres, then flipped it and topstitched with the coverstitch machine (which was a bit crazy at the corners).  I tried different clever things at the top of the split, but ended up just stitching across to strengthen that spot.  The fabric doesn't show stitch lines so that was an advantage.  

 

The fit of this is great on me. I'm short, it is pretty short, the arms are tight, but my friend is smaller than me.  I will decrease the SA on the arms for myself and use some more stretchy fabric, but I'm definitely making myself one of these. 

Since the pattern pieces were on the floor, I did that sooner rather than later. Unfortunately I had to use my last piece of the nice cashmere Mind the Maker fabric for my boyfriend's snowboarding midlayer, and I absolutely could not tetris two tops onto the fabric I had.  So spots it is: 

 

This is normal weight sweatshirting.  It's not quite as cozy as I thought, I went down to about 3/8 or sometimes 1/4" SA since I was overlocking anyway, and so it drapes straight down the front and lets a draft up.  Also, I used the double iron tape again, but I didn't get it at the absolute bottom of the neck band bit, and so my neck band is still trying to flip a bit.

Thus I could comment - this pattern is really great for not-very-stretchy knits.  I think the neck is suited to that type of fabric.  For a stretchy knit it's still ok but I do really hate any kind of facing that flips around and I'm worried this one might irritate me from the small bit of flipping it's doing.  Other people have commented on how the pull from the shoulders across the front of the neck creates a kind of wrinkle, which looks good in drapey fabric, but looks a bit funny in more structured ones.  I have noticed that more here than in the blue top.  The blue fabric had more body so it might have been less obvious.  This is cute but I do struggle with sweatshirts so it might end up going to a friend, we shall see! It will be kind of funny if I cave in and use the rest of the blue fabric to make myself another one like the original...but it might happen.

Back to the Free Range Slacks

I was looking for the blog posts of the four versions that I made.  And I guess they fell into the window of time when I didn't post all my makes on Insta, but I also didn't blog them.  It is too bad as my changes were substantial and included the narrow leg version, and I really thought I had taken photos of them!  

So, I have been known to put these down in comparison to the Pomona Pants, but the truth is that they are two different pants, and you probably need both. 

My size is 6 - could have made 4 but I never bothered to reprint the pattern from my first makes.  My very first was wide leg, in heavy weight linen. I still have these and like them, but don't want more of this wider leg shape.  (See my post here). I then moved on to the narrow leg version.  I shortened the rise by about 1" and I shortened the waistband height to create a 1" waistband - a bit tricky as you have to fold down the waistband facing which is angled, but doable.  I find this is just less commitment to the waistband and I quite like that, especially when I remember to leave the elastic relatively loose (it tightens up with washing, and many of my pants have ended up really snug because of this.) 

I wanted to use the leftover chambray from my absurdly massive Bisque trousers (they have found a happy home, do not fret.)  That fabric was just so nice in trousers - it's lightweight, holds a press nicely, and a perfect colour. 

I didn't have enough, specifically, for the side pieces.  Two months passed while I sadly had no time to sew, due to bad life choices.  I was so ready to make these and be done with thinking about it.  I had set out some silk to use for the size pieces.  But then it came time to actually do the job, and I realised what I wanted to do was tetris tiny pieces of the self fabric to create those side stripes.  So that's what I did.  It took an extra 2 hours!  And it's kind of funny that the extra work is really invisible.  

 My new photo location is in direct sun, I am still looking around for better spots.

 

I am happy with these, but they are never going to beat out my ridiculous plaid flannel pair.  I wear those crazy pants SO OFTEN.  Maybe I should make another pair in something that looks like pajama fabric?  Also, I note in my photos that the butt isn't entirely shapeless all the time.  

Since I didn't document these adequately (regarding those previous makes) there is no blog post specifically ABOUT the plaid free range slacks.  But I dare you to find 5 blog post instances when I'm wearing them to model other garments...

Sew House 7 Toaster sweater number 1: wangling minky and other adventures

Not long after this fabric arrived I allocated it to this pattern.  It's a rather small piece of minky and I loved the design, which is why I bought it from Blended Thread along with some other pieces. The fabric itself feels very soft and is very floppy, it's quite cozy.  And of course, it has nap. 

It's been a long time since I made this pattern (here.)  So long that I lost my pattern pieces, which is rare for me. I really loved the fit the first time around but I still found it oddly useless in my wardrobe and it didn't stay around.  

So, reprinting etc later. I was really committed to this fabric for this pattern despite knowing it would be a serious tetris game.  I didn't really know how the minky would sew up either. The new modified pattern has new, modified sizing, and I went with a size 2, as the bust is correct and I thought the waist measurement would be a bit irrelevant.  

It was a serious tetris game, and I lost - I decided to just use the rainbow selvedge edge on the hem, which a friend of mine has done on a different project recently.  I wasn't sure I like it as a design feature, but you know, live and learn. 

The real story here is that minky is horrible to sew.  It's like velvet but with higher pile.  Simply sewing two pieces together, they try to shear away from each other, as velvet does, but the real tragedy came when sewing the folded over pieces like the neckband, cuffs and hem.  The pile doesn't like being folded in half and so it would squirrel away from itself.  On the hem I had learned, and basted the hem together.  The cuffs were a pain.  This is a problem that continues post sewing: the neckband and hem don't want to be folded, so they kind of mush up and slide around.  

I ended up really not liking this fit for this fabric.  I debated cropping the top, as when it was shorter it hung more loosely and that was both more flattering and suited the fabric more, but because of the annoying shiftiness of the bands, I decided to give it to a friend along with a shipment of winter clothing, so hopefully she will like it as is!  Her hips are a touch narrower than mine too so overall it will hang more nicely on her.   

I have had mixed feelings about my Blended Threads fabrics - none of them have been quality I would buy again, and this is also the case here.  I didn't find the minky fun to work with and it's polyester feel makes me think it wouldn't be nice in most clothing other than maybe vests or jackets.  I have not seen much fading of the prints on the Blended thread fabrics, but the best of the lot was the bamboo spandex.

Sew house seven slacks, 2 variations

Version one was a success, I've worn them all summer. See here.

I wanted to make some changes to the pattern to turn it into my perfect lounge-linen pants pattern.

-Shortened the waistband by an inch total
-shortened the rise by a total of 2 inches in two separate locations

When I did this on the wide leg version, I had to do it on the short leg version too because I was too lazy to unpick my tape.

The wide version is out of a relatively loose weave silk from Nepal.  I'm pretty sure it's silk.  Once I put them on I was surprised by the heavy, clingy feel, which is what I'd expect from silk.  Also the only other fabric that I would have bought in Nepal is hemp and it doesn't have that texture.

But the loose weave - I thought it might be transparent so I added all the pockets and their excuse of a double layer.

The sewing up was straightforward, it's annoying that I can't write notes into PDF files!  So I had to read through my emails to find the seam allowances for the places in the pattern where they were missing. (I think I missed a chance to download an updated file.)  Otherwise, I have done this before so it was straightforward.

The elastic that fit in my casing was 1".
The changes are good. I suspect I need to be careful not to overfit this pattern - it's meant to be loose and drapey, after all.  Possibly because I am a lazy cutter-outer, the hems were totally mismatched, literally no two pieces were the same length.  So I cut each leg to be even, then matched the two legs and cut them even, and hoped that was right.  I didn't actually measure anything.

The clingy silk makes these into a kind of luxury wear, actually!

On to the narrow leg: well, why not some plaid, so they will be fancy winter sweatpants?  I have a new ruler and it makes shortening patterns amazingly easy!  No more hunting for straight edges and measuring things in 10 places, seriously, why didn't I have a ruler before?

These came together easily as now I'm a pro at this pattern.

I think honestly the linen is the best match for this type of fit.  In linen, it hangs down and the drape really advances the style.  In clingy lightweight flannel I don't think this is my most flattering effort.  Never fear, it'll be worn, it makes me instantly feel scruffy and cool, which is my favourite look.

I don't really like the shape of the narrower leg compared to the wide leg pattern - I think the wide leg pattern is basically perfect.  I did feel like I'd kind of overfit this one - also I might have been better off sizing down to the 4 instead of up to the 6, and it is possible that in a more drapey, heavy fabric, or in something with stretch, these pants would be totally fine.  Anyway now I have all the loose pants!  I will probably revisit this pattern for more linen pants in the future, but now I'm turning my attention back to jeans and work pants.  (And now I realise these would be perfect work pants, if only I had bought some black softshell fabric instead of all the greens...oops.)