fitting

Vogue 1466 toile

I’m making a jacket in a thick black boiled wool. It’s special fabric and quite an involved pattern so for once I’m doing a toile to check the fit before I cut into the good stuff. Before we get into the photos of me pinned into unflattering unbleached calico with wild hair and not a smidgeon of makeup, here’s the technical drawing and model photo so you can see what I’m aiming for. It’s Vogue 1466 which is an out of print Donna Karan design, so no link I’m afraid.

I normally start one or two sizes down from my measurements in Vogue because of the large amount of ease they include, and add 5cm length between bust and waist and also 5cm to the sleeves. With this one the finished pattern measurements showed there is next to no ease at the hip so I used my true size there. Here’s the front view.

I haven’t got any shoulder pads to put in, although the pattern does need them, so I think that explains the diagonal wrinkles from shoulder to armscye seam.

There is a lot of ease in the sleeve caps and I didn’t do a great job setting them, so there are a few little tucks. In my defence, setting the sleeves in boiled wool will be a lot easier than in calico. Despite the bad sewing and the unforgiving fabric the arm mobility in this is impressively good. I can reach right over my head without problems.

I think I need a little bit more bust room, despite the printed finished garment measurements showing a large amount of ease there.

I haven’t got a good photo of the back. All the ones where I was standing straight came out blurred! Anyway you’ll have to take it from me that the back is OK. What this does show is that there is a lot of room in the waist, but I think that’s intentional.

I haven’t got an unblurry shot of the side at all, but this one is the least bad. Again looks like I need a full bust adjustment and shoulder pads.

This one shows the collar tab slightly better. Mine seems larger than the technical drawing but similar to the model photo. The collar is comfortable to wear, which is the main thing.

So, some small pattern tweaks and then on to figuring out how I’m going to manage those jetted pockets in ultra thick boiled wool.

Pattern adjustments

So I’m making Burda 116 09/2018, very slowly indeed. It’s got quite a lot of pieces and I’m making things slightly worse by adding hip yoke pockets, although I’m also skipping the zip and most of the lining.

I’ve got a longer than average torso so I always add 5cm to the length of dress bodices to make the waist match up with my actual waist. I started sewing with Big Four who always put a lengthen/shorten line between the bottom of the armscye and the waist. Adding a ton of length there can leave the bust point too high, but it’s easy to do. But I notice Burda recommends doing it differently: adding only 2/3 of the extra length there, and the other 1/3 above the bust point. Which lowers the bust point but means changing the armscye and sleeve too. So in a fit of enthusiasm I decided to try that this time. Here are my adjusted front bodice pieces.

I’m…unconvinced. That looks like a huge change to the armscye to me. I’m carrying on for now but I won’t be surprised if the sleeves fit strangely.

Fitting woes

I had some denim left over from my grey cargo trousers, not enough to make an adult garment, but far too much to throw away. I’ve made simple elastic waisted trousers for my little boy before which were successful, so I set to and cut out Burda 127 03/2018 in what I thought was his size. These are pretty detailed: slash hip pockets, a fly front, welt pockets on the back and one of those useful adjustable waistbands with buttonhole elastic.

Obviously I wasn’t going to do back welt pockets or belt loops in such tiny trousers, and I noticed that my son’s similarly styled ready to wear trousers don’t have a zip inserted in the fly front, so I planned to skip that too. It sounds odd but the fly is so short that it works.

And then life got in the way and the cut pieces sat in the sewing room for a few months. You can probably guess what happened. I finally made them up last week and they don’t fit; he’s obviously grown a lot since I cut them.

They have a strangely short back crotch length even accounting for being a size too small. I think they also run long in the leg which is why they’re rolled up.

So not my most successful piece of sewing. I definitely made the wrong size, but I’m not convinced the pattern is quite right for my son either. So he got new ready to wear trousers instead, and I’m going back to making dresses for me! I’ve finished the black Burda dress with all the gathers, and am well on the way with the project after that. Just need to find time to take photos.

Sometimes the reviews are right: Burda 118 09/2010

Burda has really great outerwear patterns, and one in particular has been on my to-sew list for years: number 118 from the September 2010 issue. It’s modern, architectural, and it doesn’t hurt that the sample is made up in white which I always think looks wonderful for outerwear (yes I know it’s not remotely practical but I can dream.)

Unfortunately the pattern has terrible reviews. The instructions are said to be dreadful, which isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but everyone I’ve found who’s reviewed the pattern itself says it is astonishingly oversized and the sleeves in particular are over long. It’s a Tall pattern but the only difference between Burda’s Tall and regular sizes is supposed to be in length measurements, and even that doesn’t account for the sleeve problem.

But despite all this I still find myself wanting to give it a try; I haven’t found a similar enough pattern anywhere else. So I traced it, going down a size and reducing the sleeve length, and made a toile. When I first put it on I could see exactly what people were talking about. The front wasn’t too bad but the back was vast. At that point I only had one sleeve in and hadn’t pinned up the hem or marked the location for the closure. It looked so awful that I wasn’t sure I could be bothered to complete the toile and left it a few days. But eventually I returned to it and here’s what it looks like now. I’ve not removed the seam allowance from the front opening edge, although I have folded it down on the top of the collar.

It’s still boxy, but the style is meant to be roomy. Marking the front closure in the right place and pinning it there has improved the baggy back view. I suspect shoulder pads might help it more, as would making it out of something a bit thicker than calico. The features all seem to be in about the right place on the body. The next shot shows my hands where the pockets would be.

And there’s certainly no difficulty reaching forward or raising my arms.

The instructions are as bad as everyone says. Most of the space is taken up with an oddly described method to sew the front zip pockets which I’m not convinced would work all that well – assuming I’ve followed it correctly anyway – and then they skim over the rest of the construction.

The drafting also seems a bit off. The armscye in the side panel comes to a sharp point at the bottom which can’t be right. I had to round it off to sew it smoothly. The pattern comes with hem allowances built in which is unusual for Burda, but they’re oddly skimpy at only 3cm. It’s tricky, although not impossible, to make them deeper because of the way the side panel comes to a point just where the hem starts to angle down towards the front of the coat. I suspect facing the hem would work better than turning a hem up.

So, am I going to make this for real? I’m on the fence at the moment. The pattern still needs a lot of work because I haven’t made pieces for facings or lining yet, and I need to sort out the armscye problem. My current warm winter coat is worn out so I need to replace it with something this year, and this style ticks almost all my boxes. Maybe if I find the right fabric.

Trench coat toile take two

Thanks everyone for all the advice on fitting my coat. I’ve made some adjustments to the toile and it is vastly improved already.

I’m making Burda 105 02/2019, a single breasted trench coat style. Here’s one of the model photos.

Burda 105 02/2019 trench coat model photo

My first toile came out looking oversized on me. This was a particular problem because the fabric I am making the coat from is on the heavy side for this style so it was going to look very bulky indeed when pulled in with the belt. I went off and did a bit of browsing for images of trench coats to see what sort of shape would work better for fabrics without much drape. Burberry have some good ones in leather and metallics (the gold crocodile leather was a particularly spectacular version). The hem on theirs tends to be mid knee rather than mid calf and they are much more shaped in the body, having front and back princess seams. They often style them with the collar turned up too.

I didn’t really fancy adding princess seams, but I shaped the side seams and the centre back seam on my toile to nip it in at the waist, and took a whopping five inches off the hem. I also shortened the sleeves slightly. My husband wasn’t available to take photos so excuse the awkward mirror selfies.

It definitely still needs shoulder pads – unfortunately I didn’t have any handy when I was fitting – and I think the back vent needs to start a little higher now I’ve shortened it so much. But it looks a great deal better already. That odd wrinkle on the sleeves seems to have gone too, but I’ll look at those more closely once I have the shoulder pads.

Trench coat toile

My next project is the coat that I was talking about back in December. Only now we’re coming into summer I’m making a trench coat rather than an overcoat. Years ago I had a cheap, bright red cotton trenchcoat from H&M which I loved; it was so easy and fun to wear. I wore it out many years ago and now I want to make something similar but hopefully a bit more durable.

The H&M coat was slightly unusual for a trench coat in that it was single breasted and so avoided the widening effect of the usual double breasted button closure. The closest design I’ve found in my Burda collection is 105 02/2019 (model photos below) which hasn’t got a closure at all. I can live with that as long as there’s an overlap to keep the wind out, which there is.

I also looked at 103 04/2018, which is a similar wrap over style but with the addition of an asymmetric drape at the front. I love that style but eventually decided that the fabric I have for the coat (a grey denim with a subtle shine) has too much body for it.

I’m not normally one for making test garments but a coat is a large commitment so this time I made the effort. Here it is. I’m three different sizes in Burda from 36 at the bust to 40 at the hips, so I’ve blended between the three and added my usual 5cm length on the bodice and sleeves. Otherwise this hasn’t been adjusted at all yet.

Burda 105 02 2019 toile close up front view

It seems a blousy above the belt at the front compared to the model photos. The black and white sample in particular looks much slimmer fitting than mine. The shoulders are OK and I have a reasonable amount of arm mobility. The sleeves are a bit long but I prefer them like that.

It also blouses at the back.

I’m not sure about the hem length here. The hem hasn’t been turned up yet but it is going to end at the widest part of my leg when it is. Not the most flattering length. I’ve looked at a few Burberry trench coats online and they are generally hemmed at the knee.

The side seams are hanging straight. There’s a wrinkle on the arm I don’t understand and am a bit reluctant to try to remove in case it results in not being able to reach forward.

Here’s an action shot of sorts. It stays closed fairly well when walking.

I am tempted to take darts in the front and back to slim it down a bit, otherwise I fear it’s going to look very bulky when belted. Thoughts welcome!

Vado jeans finished

I finished my Vado Bootstrap skinny jeans at last – just as there has been another glut of articles saying that skinny jeans are dead and we’ve all got to wear wide legs now. Oh well. I like wide legged trousers but nothing is as practical as skinnies.

I talked a bit about the sewing process in previous posts but I stand by my assertion that if you didn’t know how to make jeans the instructions that come with this pattern aren’t enough.

What the instructions are good for is some little details that give a nicer finish. Things like top stitching down the outer side seam from the waist to the end of the pocket bag. The method for the fly front led to the best top stitching I’ve ever done on a jeans fly. You make the fly closure before sewing the front crotch seam, which is sewn as a lapped seam. It sounds tricky but it works nicely and means you have a much flatter space to do the fly top stitching on. I was determined to do a better job on the top stitching than my usual slapdash effort and these changes helped.

I’m slightly less keen on the way the photos showed to top stitch the ticket pocket, with a leg of top stitching continuing past the top corner of the pocket and into the waistline seam. If everything was sitting perfectly flat this would be hidden under the outer hip pocket but the whole front pocket area tends to move about and reveal it. Also I don’t see a good functional reason for it: one less end of top stitching to tie off I suppose?

And I haven’t sewn the fly button in quite the right place…I’ll have to do that again.

Anyway the important thing is, was the custom fit pattern an improvement over my usual Burda jeans pattern? I made one small adjustment while sewing them, which was to take in the centre back seam along the yoke and reduce the waistband length to correspond, but otherwise they are sewn up as drafted.

Well it’s win some lose some. The fit on the crotch and legs is a bit better than my Burda patterns, although having carefully compared photos of these and the various Burdas the difference isn’t as huge as I thought. It was really nice not to have to lengthen the pattern. Really nice. Yes it’s a simple alteration to do but it still takes time, finding the sellotape, and clearing a big enough space on the dining table. The back pocket placement is also pretty good, which I was worried about based on the pattern photos where they looked much lower than they’ve come out on me.

The bad news is that the waist is too large. In the picture above I’ve pulled them up to where they should sit, but in practice they tend to creep down and look more like this.

Here are some full length shots. I am not really nine feet tall by the way. It’s a combination of a low camera angle and the jeans having a very high waist. Thanks to my other half for taking the pictures!

They’re a bit too long for the boots I’m wearing here but I prefer jeans to be on the long side.

The real question is whether next time I make jeans I reach for this pattern or something else. I think I will use this one, but I’ll definitely adjust it. Not just the waist either; I prefer jeans front pockets to have an extension that reaches centre front. They sit flatter that way. The pockets on these are also too deep for this style; it’s not so easy to extract things from the bottom of them. They’d be fine with a looser leg.

I’m glad I made these and they’ve got me a step closer to my perfect skinny jeans pattern, but more iterations are definitely required.

Vogue 1573: unintentional mom jeans

So I wanted to make a pair of black jeans to fill a gaping hole in my wardrobe. I wanted a skinny jeans style with a bit of seam interest, and the trousers from Vogue 1573 looked absolutely ideal. Here’s the line art. Look at all those pieces! It’s one of the designer patterns, a Guy Laroche style from Autumn 2015.

I don’t have the patience or the time for toiles, so I just dived straight in. I was slightly hampered from the start by the fact that I’d ordered the smaller of the two size ranges but my pattern envelope arrived containing the larger one. I’m pear shaped, and based on the finished garment measurements I calculated my hips needed a 12. Luckily that is where the ranges overlap so I had that one in the envelope. I traced the 12 and graded the waist down. I used 14 for the lower leg because I have footballer calves, and added 7cm to the length, 3cm of which I took out again when hemming.

And it appears I have inadvertently made mom jeans: high waist, tapered leg, baggy thighs and seat. These pictures were taken after several washes, so they’re better than they were straight off the machine, but there’s still plenty of excess fabric.

I always have extra folds of fabric under the bum on trousers but this pair is really baggy there. This picture is not the worst one we took. I haven’t made woven trousers from a Vogue pattern before and I suspect part of the problem is the standard Vogue crotch curve doesn’t suit me. Burda’s is better on me and I understand that they draft for a different body shape.

Anyway this all sounds a bit negative, but I have in fact been wearing these a lot. They aren’t the most flattering jeans I’ve ever made but they are practical and comfortable, and I don’t have another black pair right now. Incidentally the fabric is Black Marl stretch denim from Croft Mill. The pocket lining is black cotton poplin I had scraps of left over from something else, the interfacing is Vilene G405, and I used up two of those 30m spools of Gutermann topstitching thread.

Apart from the sizing I actually really liked the pattern. The method used for the pockets was new to me and gives a very clean, bulk free finish on the inside. I’ll be using that one again elsewhere. The belt loops are also a bit unusual. They are sewn into the waistband seams at both top and bottom rather than sewn into the top and bar tacked at the bottom. Then the top waistband edge is top stitched right over the belt loops. My machine found that very heavy going, and I can’t say I think it’s an improvement over the usual method, but it was interesting to give it a go. I didn’t like the instruction to hand stitch the waistband facing down though. I stitched in the ditch from the right side, although the sewn in belt loops got in the way a bit so I have little gaps in the facing stitching.

I was puzzled by the waistband grainline. The waistband is cut in such a way that centre front ends up almost on the bias which isn’t conducive to making a nice neat front closure, and my buttonhole is a bit sad looking too.

Some reviewers said they found the fly construction instructions confusing. The method used is almost exactly the same as Burda’s, which has always come out well for me, but I ran into problems with the fly top stitching on these. I couldn’t fold the fly shield completely out of the way as instructed because of how it was attached, so I had to do the curved end part of the top stitching through all the thicknesses. Then the fly shield edge fell exactly along the line I wanted to stitch along, so my stitching line kept falling off it leading to skipped stitches and tension problems. I managed, but it took about four tries. I think if the fly shield had been longer then what I did would have worked, but I’m not sure I got the construction quite as Vogue intended in the first place.

I might have another go at these, but grafting the style lines onto a jeans pattern that fits me better in the first place. So they are a partial success, and I expect I’ll wear them to shreds anyway because who doesn’t need a pair of comfortable jeans?

Fitting Style Arc’s Genevieve jacket

No pretty finished project photos in this post I’m afraid; in fact quite the opposite. This is my toile of Style Arc‘s Genevieve jacket. It’s a long line jacket with an asymmetrical closure and a collar I’m not quite sure how to describe. You know what, here’s the technical drawing.

The suggested fabrics cover a huge range of possibilities: wool cashmere, boiled wool, ponte, brocade and linen. So in my mind that covers both stable knits and wovens, and goes all the way from fairly crisp fabrics (brocade) to floppy (linen). Hopefully that just means that the collar looks good no matter what the degree of drape. Not that it matters as I’m using none of these. My fabric is a mediumweight grey denim with a bit of stretch and an unusual brushed finish on the wrong side.

I’ve made a few Style Arc patterns before and been very impressed with the drafting, but the patterns were all drapey sack dress type things that required next to no fitting. I don’t know how the more close-fitting styles come out. Style Arc have a reputation for having much less ease than Big Four patterns though, so I was expecting to make a bigger size than I do in Vogue. I did a bit of googling and found lots of people saying the size chart is accurate and in particular you should go with your shoulder width for picking a pattern size. Which put me two sizes down at the bust from what I expected and one size down from what I make in Vogue…it didn’t seem very likely. The hip and waist sizes I got seemed much more plausible. So for once I made a toile.

I should mention here that my copy of the pattern is multisized so I could easily blend between the three different sizes I needed. If you buy Style Arc paper patterns direct from the Style Arc site you only get a single size in the envelope. Multisized paper versions are available through Amazon, but not in the full range of styles. Confusingly, you can also buy PDFs from the Style Arc site that come in your chosen size plus one either side. At least you have options!

So here it is. Excuse the hem, I was way too lazy to pin up the hem allowance so it’s just folded and has dropped down in places. I did fold up the sleeve hems.

And actually it’s pretty good. The front seems to fit well. The sleeve length is technically OK but I like my sleeves long so I’m adding a bit more.

Style Arc Genevieve toile front

I need more room in the upper back I think; both length and a tiny bit of width. After rummaging through some fitting books I think a ’rounded back adjustment’ will do at least some of what I’m looking for. It means adding a shoulder dart. And if I wasn’t making this in a stretch fabric I think I’d size up.

Style Arc Genevieve toile back view

Everything on the toile matched up perfectly except in one place: the diagonal style lines were off by 5mm at the side seams. You can just see it below. I’m certain it wasn’t a sewing error but I may have messed up when making length adjustments. I’m honestly not sure how I did that. Anyway it’s easy to fix.

Style Arc Genevieve toile

I know I am now supposed to go and make a second toile to check I have all this right, but I don’t have the energy. Also I have run out of calico. So I’ve adjusted the pattern as best I can and now full speed ahead with the good fabric. Let’s see what happens.

Short and simple: Rick Owens inspired knit top

If you’ve been reading sewing blogs for a while you’ll have heard of frosting sewing versus cake sewing. Or for those of us in the U.K., icing versus cake. Icing is the pretty, impractical stuff we love to sew but rarely wear, and cake is practical basics. This is a cake project: a simple black long-sleeved t-shirt in wool jersey. I know I will wear this until it goes into holes.

I’ve made a couple of these before using a pattern I mashed together from an old McCalls dress pattern (no, I don’t know why this seemed like a good starting point either) and while I loved them and wore them to destruction they nevertheless had a few fitting niggles. So this time I started off with the close fitting stretch t-shirt block from Metric Pattern Cutting for Womenswear and adapted from there. I was going for a combination of these two Rick Owens tops: the shaped hem of the tank with the ultra long sleeves of the t-shirt.

I copied the raw hems and the feature centre back seam of the originals. My centre back seam is just overlocked wrong sides together with the four thread overlocker stitch and pressed to one side. I find it surprisingly difficult to sew that seam correctly because my brain’s so used to doing it the other way. I have to keep chanting ‘wrong sides together, wrong sides together’ to remind myself.

I like it a lot. It’s not totally perfect: I’m wearing it over a long sleeved cotton t-shirt in these pictures which tends to produce extra wrinkles, but even so I’ll add a touch more ease next time as I don’t think all the wrinkling is down to the extra layer. The good news is that the fabric is a reorderable one – John Kaldor Isabella wool/viscose jersey – so I can get the exact same fabric again for next time. I might also shorten it a little but I haven’t quite made my mind up about that yet. The fabric was a birthday present and it’s lovely! Warm, stretchy, great recovery. It’s also extra wide: 170cm, so I got this top out of only one metre.

This was such a quick project to sew. Cutting out took about five minutes and sewing maybe an hour and a half, and that’s only because I was going very slowly and carefully because I didn’t want to risk making a mistake with the posh fabric.

I sewed it with size 75 stretch needles. I guess you could construct something like this entirely on the overlocker, but I did the seams on the sewing machine first for accuracy. I find if I sew with a fairly long stitch length even a straight stitch has enough elasticity to use on a knit.

Already planning another one of these in another colour…maybe in the gunmetal grey.

Catherine Daze's Blog

sewing my own clothes