Guy Laroche jacket

Details, details

Thanks so much for all the nice comments on my silver version of Vogue 1335. I said I’d post some detail pictures next so here they are.

Welt pockets first. The silver colour is actually a very fine silver and black stripe – probably about a millimetre wide. The stripes made lining up the welt pockets nice and easy, although you can see it’s not perfect. The welt is an even width though; it’s the picture that’s on a slant here.

Cutting out with those very fine stripes was a pain in the neck. There are a lot of strong horizontal and vertical lines in the design so if the grain was slightly off it really showed. I cut a lot of pieces single layer because of this. It’s still a stripe or two off in places.

I interfaced all the pieces of the top with Vilene G405 to give it plenty of body. Unfortunately it wasn’t until this point that I noticed that my fabric shrinks when pressed. Luckily I’d cut the pieces out with the usual generous 1.5cm home sewing seam allowances so I could afford to lose some of those. However in a few places this design has extra wide seam allowances which are pressed to one side and top-stitched down to give the appearance of bands. I had to reduce the width of the top-stitching slightly because otherwise the fabric shrinkage would have meant I wouldn’t have caught the seam allowances at all.

Here’s the neckband. The upper diagonal line coming out from the neckband looks like a seam but is actually one of the lines of top-stitching. I used Gutermann top-stitching thread so it would really stand out against the fabric. I marked the line with chalk before top-stitching as the seam it has to run parallel to is too far away to be able to simply line up with something on the machine presser foot. You can just see the lining here; it’s acetate/viscose satin from The Lining Company.

Details of the sleeve bands below. The top and bottom seamlines are more top-stitching. The top-stitching interacts with the stripes in an annoying way where the stitching line is almost but not quite parallel to the stripe: it gives a stepped effect which you can see here on the lowest line of top-stitching. I found that using a smaller stitch length reduced the effect but didn’t eliminate it completely.

I think I’ve done this pattern to death now; between this version and the last it’s been about seven blog posts. I’m aiming to sew a completely new-to-me pattern next.

Oven-ready? Vogue 1335 pullover in silver

I love shiny fabric. When I came across this heavy-weight silver knit on Goldhawk Road last year I knew it had to come home with me despite the fact that I had no immediate plans for it. I found it again while going through my stash in December and immediately thought of Vogue 1335, the Guy Laroche jacket that I spent about three months making last year. The pattern has a definite science fiction vibe which I thought would pair well with the silver.

However I wanted something a little more casual and faster to sew than the original so I omitted the front closure and turned it into a pullover. The neckline is easily wide enough to go over my head. The adaptation for the shell is very easy: fold the right front pattern pieces on the centre-front line and cut them on the fold. The lining required a bit more effort: I cut an extra copy of the front neckband piece in the silver fabric to use as the inside front neckband, and made a lining piece by merging the original front lining piece with the original front facing less the neckband. While I was making new pattern pieces I also did new lower sleeve pieces without most of the extra length I’d added to the sleeve pattern first time around. The original sleeves run seriously long. These are now the original sleeve length plus half an inch. I’d normally add two inches.

While making it I wondered if it was going to turn out a little too much like this costume from Blake’s Seven. Probably my favourite Avon costume, but not entirely practical for real life. (Picture courtesy of the Blake’s Seven Image Library). I think the fact that my top is more of a metallic grey than full-on bacofoil silver saves it.

All of my recent practice at welt pockets is paying off. I didn’t make a sample for these and I don’t think I had to unpick anything for once. My only complaint with the way they came out is that they are a little shallow. I’m always a bit paranoid about putting my phone in them although they’re fine for smaller things. I could easily make deeper pocket bags another time.

Here’s a back view. Somewhat creased because I’ve been wearing this a lot lately. I normally take blog photos before putting a new garment into regular rotation but the weather’s been rubbish and I like this top far too much to wait on photos before wearing it. I’m wearing it here with my Burda jeans and black knit top.

That’s more than enough pictures for one blog post; I’ll post some detail shots of this and talk about the construction problems I ran into next time.

Space clothes: Vogue 1335 modelled

I like space clothes: the sort of thing BBC costume designers came up with for 70s and 80s scifi shows. Vogue 1335 definitely fits the description. Unfortunately we don’t have a post-apocalyptic wasteland round here to use as a backdrop for photos, so my garden will have to do.

The original looks like this:

Finishing this project coincided with one of the UK’s rare heatwaves. I’m wearing this with my Vogue 1378 neoprene leggings and a black wool jersey top derived from Burda 122-4-2011. And I’m melting. The jacket shell fabric is wool.

Here’s the back. It holds its shape pretty well. The diameter at the waist is actually greater than at the hem on this design.

This is meant to be an oversized style but the sleeves in particular are very long. I added the usual two inches to the length that I always do with Vogue patterns and ended up removing it again. I also added two inches to the body length, which again I normally do, and that was about the right amount.

The pockets are very roomy.

They’re pretty high upon the body, but I think it works with the design.

The fasteners are a little bit fiddly! I’m glad I didn’t need the internal snaps that were on the pattern as well as external fasteners.

Not such a good picture of the jacket, but I like the Doctor Who monster pose. And it’s about the only shot I have where any of the lining is visible. The lining fabric is a heavy poly satin that just adds to the insulation factor.

So there it is. I’ll have to wait until the end of summer to wear this for real, but I’m really pleased with the result.

Fasteners for Vogue 1335

Warning: picture-heavy post ahead. This is my last post about constructing Vogue 1335, which I started sewing way back in March. Hopefully I’ll get some pictures of it in action soon.

Vogue’s version of this style has optional tab closures made from scraps of leather and poppers. The pattern also has marking for snaps inside the jacket which are supposed to provide the real closure mechanism. The tabs are just decorative.

I originally wanted to use the tabs on my version, so I made these from some faux leather I got on eBay. However as the project wore on I started to think that the tabs I’d made were a little too yellow against the winter white shell fabric I was using. When I finally came to the stage where the tabs had to be stitched on I decided not to use them and looked for something else.

Much internet searching and several failed purchases later I acquired these things:

The fasteners are from Macculloch and Wallis and at the time of writing are available here. One of the difficulties with finding them was that there doesn’t seem to be a standard name for this type of fastener. Macculloch and Wallis call them ‘trigger lock’ fasteners, but if you google that term you’ll mostly find a slightly different type of gadget intended for attaching straps to handbags. I’ve seen the coat fastener variety called ‘hook and dee’ or ‘fireman’ fasteners on US sites but had no luck finding them for sale under those names.

The rivet setting tools came from Amazon. I also got a pack of extra rivets which provided useful practice material before taking the hammer to my jacket and fasteners.

The rivets were quite tricky to install. Thumping them with the hammer wasn’t difficult but keeping them straight was. The results aren’t entirely straight and square but luckily that’s not obvious unless you get very close indeed.

One nice and unexpected thing was that it turned out that two external fasteners are enough and I didn’t need to install the internal snaps. I am useless at sewing snaps – they never stay attached for long! I’ve had to reapply the snaps on my Burda coat more than once. This jacket sits perfectly without snaps; probably a testament to all the extra interfacing in it.

So that’s it for construction. I’ll try to get some pictures of the jacket being worn soon.

Interfacing Vogue 1335

It’s been a long time but I never gave up on Vogue 1335. Here’s a peek at the finished item.

And here’s the original Vogue pattern photo. It’s a Guy Laroche design from Vogue’s autumn 2012 release.

I’ve stuck fairly closely to Vogue’s interpretation of Marcel Marongiu’s vision (fasteners aside, of which more another time). However I don’t think the pattern as written has nearly enough interfacing to produce the rounded shape in the pattern photo. Vogue has you interface the facings and neckband only. I ended up interfacing the lot: the body, bands, welts and facings in fusible canvas; the sleeves in Vilene G405. I thought canvas might be a little heavy for the sleeves. Originally I wasn’t quite sure what to use for those. Normally I choose interfacings by going to John Lewis and having a feel of the different weights available, but my local branch seems to be reducing its range and I couldn’t find anything that seemed suitable when I visited. Clearly I was going to have to risk buying interfacing online. I picked out Vilene G405 after a detailed perusal of the options on the Vlieseline website – which incidentally is a fascinating read for a sewing geek. G405 is obviously one of Vlieseline’s less popular products because I could only find one online shop selling it in the UK: Moresewing on eBay. But one is enough. The fusible canvas (picture below) came from John Lewis – I hope they don’t stop stocking that!

I wanted to cut all the interfacing without seam allowances so I made separate pattern pieces for interfacing rather than simply cutting out the shell pieces again in fusible. It took forever to make the extra pattern pieces but it was worth it. I’d rather cut extra pattern pieces than fight with fusible that’s slightly too big for the piece I’m fusing to.

I think the sleeves worked out OK. They have the rounded shape from the pattern photo even without arms in them. With hindsight I think it would have been fine if I’d just used the canvas for the sleeves, but I’m glad to have discovered the Vlieseline website as it’ll take some of the guesswork out of buying interfacing online in the future.

Next time: a shaggy dog story about fasteners.

Tabs and snaps

I spent some time looking for suitable closures for the jacket I’m making, Vogue 1335. The original pattern calls for home-made leather tabs with snaps applied to them. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to produce anything like that so spent a lot of time searching for toggles, buckles, and the like online.

I completely failed to find anything suitable, so tabs it had to be. I got these scraps of cream-coloured ‘leather’ from eBay. I very much doubt it’s real leather but it’s the right colour and texture.

John Lewis supplied a pack of 10mm snaps and pliers for applying them. Those things are fiddly. Here’s my first, rather wonky attempt.

I did better after drawing a lot of guidelines on the wrong side of the leather.

The smaller tabs weren’t so successful. 10mm snaps are a little bit too large so it was difficult to position the second snap without catching the first one in the pliers.

But they don’t look too bad when fastened.

Of course it could all still go wrong because I’ve got to top-stitch them to the jacket yet.

Insanely wide top-stitching: more Vogue 1335

I’m still making Vogue 1335, the slightly mad Guy Laroche jacket from autumn 2012. It looks like a fairly straightforward sew at first sight.

But did you notice the top-stitching? It’s something like an inch to the side of the seamlines. Normally I’d top-stitch by lining the seamline up with something on the sewing machine’s presser foot, which works nicely for regular top-stitching of 1/4″ or less. But no presser foot is two inches wide.

What I’ve been doing is using my Elna’s quilting guide, which is a metal rod that slots into the back of the machine’s shank. It bends down at one end to rest on the fabric. The idea is that you slide it over to the width you want and line up the original seamline or stitching line with the quiet guide. Only mine doesn’t really work out of the box; it fits so loosely that it moves around as soon as I start to sew. A little paper and sellotape cured that though.

And here we have reasonably straight one inch top-stitching. There are welt pockets too. I already blogged about making welt pockets and these are exactly the same as the last lot so I didn’t take any construction pictures this time. Very pleased with how they have come out though.

Hopefully now I’ve done the pockets and worked out how to do the top-stitching the rest will be simple. There are a couple of inset corners on the neckband but I can’t see any difficult bits apart from that.

Ridiculous patterns: planning Vogue 1335

Anyone remember this Guy Laroche jacket, V1335 from the autumn 2012 Vogue patterns? The considered opinion of the blogosphere at the time was that it is ridiculous, but I confess I’ve always rather liked the style. It’s had a place on my sewing shortlist ever since it came out. I got some bargain wool melton in winter white last month, so the time has finally come to make it up. It may work out well or I may end up looking like a big white football.

Here’s the line drawing. I think there’s a mistake in it. In the photo the front closure is clearly asymmetrical but in the line drawing it looks almost centered. The pattern pieces look much more like the version in the photo.

I was curious enough about this one to go and look up the original. You can see a photo at http://nowfashion.com/guy-laroche-ready-to-wear-fall-winter-2011-paris-302?photo=12856. It’s very different: made up in brilliant scarlet, with much less ease, and a double-breasted button closure. It is heresy to say I prefer Vogue’s version? Although I do wonder a bit about the ease. Here are the finished garment measurements:

	6	8	10	12	14
biceps	17¼”	17⅝”	18″	18½”	19″
bust	55½”	56½””	57½”	59″	61″
waist	42½”	43½””	44½”	46″	48″
lower edge width	40½”	41½””	42½”	43¼”	45¾”
length	26″	26¼””	26½”	26¾”	27″

I’m not sure how meaningful the bust measurement is. The armscyes are so dropped that they fall well below the bustline; in fact they aren’t far above the natural waist. However the waist measurement is unambiguous. That’s got nearly 20″ of ease in it. The lower edge looks as if it falls at hip level and is two inches smaller than the waist, giving a much more reasonable 8″ of ease or thereabouts. It’s an interesting silhouette, that’s for certain. I considered going down a few sizes, but even the smallest size would still have bags of room in it. And really the point of this style is the oversized shape, so I’ve cut out the pattern in my usual Vogue size and just added length.

On the subjectr of adding length, it’s one of those annoying ‘no provision provided for above waist adjustment’ designs. I think that’s because the very dropped armsyce gets in the way of drawing the usual adjustment lines. I simply added the length I needed just below the armscye. I don’t think anyone is going to notice if the bust point isn’t in the right place on this one.

The pattern calls for interfacing on the facings and neck bands. I’m planning to add quite a bit more: the fronts, backs, and the top of the sleeves. I don’t want the jacket to collapse into drapey folds when worn!

Watch this space. Hopefully the Michelin Man will be appearing here soon.

Catherine Daze's Blog

sewing my own clothes