Waffle patterns Azuki work pants

 Waffle patterns!  A company that makes gorgeous patterns, with unusual details, and fantastic instructions.  Every time I've made something from Waffle, it's been epic.  So why have I not made them all?  I suppose they do seem complicated, and that can sometimes be daunting.  These pants definitely seemed daunting!  So many pockets! The fly!  And then I realised I could use these two separate 1m pieces of fabric and I became totally keen to overcome all and make them right now.  I allocated a weekend.  

 Chose size 38 because in non stretch fabrics I didn't want them too tight, I could maybe have done a 36 if I were using a lighter weight or a stretchy fabric.

The blue is a "duck egg" canvas from Miss Maude and the brown is Japanese denim, also from Miss Maude.  The denim, in my defense, was for shorts.  But I have no excuse for why I bought a single meter of the canvas, as I was probably hoping to make Persephone pants with it and they need 2 m. I really liked the colours together but I also wanted to be careful not to turn these into clown pants.  I thought long and hard about how many pockets to use, and how to use the pockets to blend the colours.  The side tool pockets were tempting - and I definitely had enough fabric, but I was also a bit impatient and didn't want to faff around with too many little details, so I didn't do them.  The front leg pocket is supposed to have a flap, but I thought that was dumb.  Instead, I lengthened the pocket about 2" towards the inner leg, and added a zip to it with the sort of zip welting technique.  There was a bit of mucking around to get it to work (Note: always make the zipper-hole smaller than you think you need!) but it's fully functional.

It was a full 2 days of work, with the cutting being a previous day, so 3 including pattern piece management.  Incidentally, I finally figured out a dilemma that had plagued me this week: why my patterns were wonky.  The print shop had printed single pages wrong.  I figured it out because the pocket page was wrong and I had it to compare to the other pages.  I've since dropped by the print shop who are so understanding and we are going to come up with solutions to make it not happen again - but on my side it was a serious fail of taking responsibility and measuring the square box *every time!!*

I was sick on the weekend I made these but I managed to slowly make my way through, aided by how awesome Yuki's patterns are.  Everything is clear. The fly instructions were, somehow, as always, different from -all the other fly instructions ever- (why are there infinite ways of making a fly?) but they produced a perfect result.  I didn't switch to my new-old Bernina until after the sewing machine had birdnested up the waistband, but anyway the Bernina gave me easy hems and a buttonhole, which my sickly Pfaff can't manage.  

And to my shock they fit!  Pretty well! 

I took these with me on a trip away and convinced a friend who is good at photography to do a bit of a photo shoot around his house.  He has lots of jungly nooks and was entertained enough to get creative. 

After wearing these pants around for a day, although the waist is a tad too high, they scrunched down nicely and the fabric has started to stretch a bit.  I don't think I can call these high sophistication, but they are down my usual alley as sort of intrepid urban and the color scheme matches most of what I own (except for the pinks.)  This has also led me to look harder at Waffle patterns and I think I might attempt another pair of her pants now that these were such a good success. 

Ilima or Hallon, by Paradise Patterns, a review

Basically this low gathered back is what I was talking about here. (However in my dream vision there would be more tiers of gathered ruffles...)

With a great sigh of the inevitable, I put aside all thoughts of making jackets the week this came out. I bought the pattern the day I found it and picked it up from the printer the next day.  My muslin is size 4, B cup, and shortened 1" through the upper bodice lines (to ensure the back won't be too low.)  I made one stupid mistake in cutting my armhole bindings shorter, but in fact they aren't involved in the bodice shortening, obviously, and I had to recut.  I cut the dress as long as my fabric let me, and with no plan to add the bottom ruffle. 

I'm not entirely convinced by the angled bias bindings - on one side it meant that the edge wasn't fully covered, but when I put the armhole bias over it, things were fine.  It also doesn't match the pictures in the instructions, and the lengths are not consistent with the length you need- I ended up with a lot of excess to cut off.  The fabric is a lightweight silk cotton. The front neck feels too high - but that might be fixed with the bodice being longer.  The darts are about an inch too high. The drape of the front is very straight compared to all that gathering in the back.  

Verdict: don't need that shortening. Got busy with life and didn't carry on with the wearable version for a few months, at which point summer was so long gone.  Ugg season.  Oops.

Made a version according to the pattern in rayon/linen blend.  Maybe I should have started by following the pattern without any changes?  This pattern takes quite a lot of fabric, more than you might think because the back is really wide, so this pink was also the only thing I could find that I had enough of and was willing to experiment with - I had some other tempting fabrics but not enough of them.  I kept the 1" shortening near the hem but went back to the basic pattern otherwise.  I still disliked how the bias lengths are not the right length for size, they are just standard lengths, so you end up trimming a lot off the ends.  

I took a bunch of pictures on my phone without a bra, though I guess the bra is useful as a marker of how much lower the dress hangs without that adjustment.  Obviously the back looks better without. The front, not so much.

My friends all seem to think I should keep this dress for myself but it's the middle of the winter and freezing so I suspect it will wing its way over to Arizona.  I'm not actually super keen on the fit as is. My friend Regina has a higher tolerance for ruffles than I do.  Plan is to: 

shorten 6".  It's just too dramatic

add pockets, duh

Wedge a bit out of the side back above the gathering, to bring it up enough not to show my waist but without modifying the fit of the front and arms.  Though it's nice the pattern included a way to shorten through the back, in the end you need to be really short for that to work, because it changes the front quite a bit.

I have some lovely textured grey rayon that will wait until October or so when wearing backless dresses again makes some sense.  Overall this pattern is ok.  It's not a super high quality pattern.  You follow the instructions and you will muddle through and get a pretty good result, but to take it to the next level you need to think a bit for yourself.  (Pockets!)

DP Studio le 205: Asymmetric zip front jacket

 This has been on my queue for a bit, and I have promised friends I would make my own merino jacket to wear hiking, which prompted me to get on with it.  I actually have loads of hoodies and lightweight jackets and interestingly....none that I've made myself.  I have made nice ones but somehow they have always gotten wings and gone to new owners.  I'm suddenly thinking, as I write this, of a nice scuba hoodie I made, and loved and was proud of... and wondering who it went to.

Anyway so I committed an entire day to this.  Would have cut it out the day before but I didn't manage.  It takes full concentration.  I cut a size 38 as I'm not a perfect match to the size chart and I thought 34 1/2" was a better bet for a jacket than 32".  I didn't look at any measurement below the bust.  

The fabric is lightweight scuba, I bought it awhile ago and made a top out of it then found it beautiful but totally useless.  I love the fabric and hoarded the last piece for this project.  It was quite a leap of faith to use this fabric rather than the merino I have for a second version - especially since I have 3 meters of the merino and it was really really cheap.  

The instructions are nicely illustrated but they are not particularly well translated.  With knowledge of what you are aiming for in general everything ends up where it should be, but in terms of properly finishing seams it was hopeless from quite early on.  This is something I had foreseen and that's part of why I used scuba, but it's always that wee bit sad to have catastrophic pocket/zip/jacket intersections.  

The jacket got put together in the day I had allocated, but sewing down the facings was another story.  Really this needs to be heavily understitched on the facing, collar and hem.  My scuba does not iron.  I mean, ironing doesn't do anything to it at all, so I had kind of puffy parts, like the hem just puffing out.  Understitching would have helped.  I've taken a lot of notes for the upcoming merino version.  After about 2 weeks of sulking about I finally took a very deep breath and stitched in the ditch to get all the facings down.  I strategically tacked the pockets to hold them in.  The facings kind of overlay the pockets, but a few tacks here and there are helpful.  

 

Result was good.  I topstitched the bottom of the hem to get rid of that puffiness but decided not to meddle anywhere else (it kind of lettuced but I hope it settles with time, and it's better than the previous puffiness.)  I adore this jacket.  Everything comes together pristinely on the outside!  The fit is good and I'm glad I didn't size down.  Of course, a wee bit shorter would have suited me but this type of jacket can be a bit longer without looking oversized on me. 

 

 I think I prefer the pocket side with the open pocket, it's perfectly angled for hands and objects, and it's easier to get a good finish on it.  Zip pockets in stretchy fabrics are always a crapshoot and this one does need to be held at the top as you open it so the fabric doesn't pull, but it's a nice secure pocket - both of them are huge and fully fit hands!  This is a functional jacket!  Don't be led astray thinking it's a wimpy fashion piece...

I would add to the instructions the following clarifications: 

-on the open pocket, understitch after attaching pocket to the body 

-really understitch everything - the facing against the zip, the neck at the top and the hem.  

-For a clean finish fold the hem in by the seam allowance before sewing it to the side facings.  Also, baste a line along the front facing and the inside neck piece to know where to fold it in afterwards.   Stitch in the ditch in one go from front up the neck and back to where the pockets get in the way.

-re the pockets: finish every single edge before you start.  So, overlock the pockets all the way around.  Overlock pocket openings first.  Then sew together.  You will not get a second chance!  

The good news is that the mucky bits of my pockets are on the invisible side and actually it looks reasonably neat now.   The only zip that fit is a precious Riri zip which I think I bought in Switzerland so once I'd committed to that this project had no choice but to be awesome.  I'm now quite keen on making the second one and seeing whether I can get perfect innards too! 

Misusu Dia sweatshirt x 3

Oh I saw this and wanted to make it right away now now! I had other projects in the way but it jumped to the top of my winter sweatshirt queue.  I used stable sweatshirting from The Fabric Box and a colour combination that I knew would pop...though I wasn't entirely sure how well it would work together.

 The size chart is very precise, I cut BB, based on the fact that the finished measurements had a hip of 39" which is a nice amount of ease for my 37" hip.  I sewed all the diamond pieces together before overlocking and the stitching got pretty thick, and then my overlocker broke a needle!  I've never changed a needle on my overlocker so I didn't even know what I could use and that slowed things down a bit.  I ended up using a normal sewing machine needle, which the machine didn't love, but it did work.  (I was in a hurry because I wanted to take it on a weekend away with me, which I did.)

 

There's a tiny mismatch at the base of the diamond but everything else came up perfectly, and it is a pretty fun project to tetris together.  The high-low hem of the sweatshirt is hard to shorten - you have to shorten through a lot of pieces, but I think you could also just shorten at the hem.  I was lazy with the hem and didn't snip into the turning points, which I would do in the future.  You do not need to stretch any of the hem bands to fit.  

Basically after this I wanted to make more!  I thought I'd shorten the high-low hem in future, but I also thought I would make the tunic length next, and then I changed my mind and instead I decided to do another one exactly the same, plus a straight hem version in normal tshirt weights of lovely hoarded scraps.  

I went scrappy first: 

And oh, it's too long.  That was foreseeable...drat.  I am going to cut it by just cutting off the binding and shortening it, but I wanted to wear it around first and get a sense for how much to crop, so for now it's staying long.

I went straight on to my precious bamboo sweatshirting from Blackbird Fabrics.  This stuff is so cozy, soft and very stretchy, feels a bit thinner than standard cotton/poly sweatshirting.  I was happy to have a few run throughs done because I already knew the pitfalls.  Really happy with this - and this time I did snip the hem after sewing it on the machine, so that I could overlock it cleanly.  

 

 

On all three versions I heavily leaned on my sewing machine. I sewed each part of the diamond and the front with the machine then overlocked to finish it.  When sewing the top and bottom of the diamond together, I sewed just the match points until they matched (3 tries...) and then sewed it together.  I think this is necessary to get good matching on all these geometric bits.

This is a project that takes more than the usual hour for a sweatshirt, but it is so fantastic that it's worth it.  I'm done with Dias for now but I am looking over Misusu's other offerings. I loved the instructions, the drafting was great, the detail was fantastic.  Rare these days.