A Fast Raincoat

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I'm heading to Chicago in the morning to have a sewing weekend with some fabulous friends from all over the continent. Patti, who lives in Chicago, has invited us all to come and attend the Haute Couture Club's Fashion Show and Luncheon. We will naturally take the opportunity to do some Power Shopping of the Fiberly Kind, and of course there will be lots of chatting, show and tell, etc. At the last minute, almost (about a week ago) we decided to have a challenge, and any garment we started after the challenge was issued and finished before the event counts. I can't wait to see what Patti, Linda, Kay, Ann and Nancy show up with. This raincoat is my challenge garment.

I decided I needed a new raincoat for the trip, and since I've had this fabric on hand waiting to be a raincoat for a couple of years at least, I was ready to go, sort of.

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Deciding on a pattern was my next problem. I think a raincoat should be very roomy so it's easy to pull on over bulky layers if necessary, and I decided to go with the Marfy cape pattern #0493 I've used before, but I knew I would lengthen it both at the hem and the sleeves. So it's only sort-of capey. I started this on Sunday and finished it Tuesday. It's unlined, as the fabric has a very slick finish on the wrong side. The right side is a coated print. When I bought it, it was almost sticky/rubbery feeling, but now it's not sticky at all, so I don't know if it's aged well, or lost its oomph. It's much nicer now, IMO.

I enlarged the pockets from the original, and I think they're just the right size now. I love this style with the gathered pocket placed into the band.

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I think the most interesting and fun detail on the coat is the closure.

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I knew I needed some kind of focal point, as there's just so much pattern to the fabric, and with the cape-styling, there's a large expanse of unbroken fabric. I originally thought of Ultrasuede for some kind of front band or something, but I couldn't find any Ultrasuede anywhere, or anything to stand in for it. I thought of snaps, and was very pleased to find these Magnetic Snaps at JoAnn's in their handbag notions. They're exactly the same as those in the snap area, but much more reasonably priced. I used 5 in all, but still wanted something like Ultrasuede to place on the right side of the snap placement area. There was nothing, so I scouted around the store, thinking there might be some small suede or leather scrap stuff in the craft area that would be big enough for what I wanted. Well, you'll never guess what I finally used. In fact, I think it would be fun if you all just guess. So leave a comment if you think you know. I'll give you a hint or two. It's not fabric. I purchased it at JoAnn's, and it comes in quite a few colors.

I think it's going to be a nice coat to just throw on when I need it, and it's going to be perfect for my trip, as it's no-wrinkle, and certainly won't show any spills, if they don't just wipe off anyway.

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Nothing Costs 4 Cents Anymore

Photo Link

I thought you'd enjoy seeing this card, which was about half-full of snaps when I got it. It was part of my grandmother's sewing things. I've no idea when she might have bought it. Although I do remember Penney's having a sewing and fabric department, I don't think snaps were 4 cents then. Now they're apparently about $1.50 for 10 of this size. One thing about sewing notions like this, they don't get outdated or too old to use, so 'snap' them up if they are offered.

I got my brother's bread machine in our family's 'Frivolous Appliance Round-Robin', and I'm having fun with it. Like most people, their bread machine was used a lot when they got it, and then less, until it finally sat there, unloved. So, I said I'd take it for a while, and they could take an extra KitchenAid mixer I had on hand. Everyone's happy, and we are storing new things in our kitchens instead of the old, boring ones.

My favorite bread so far is called Franskbröd, (correction courtesy of Mia) supposedly the most popular bread in Scandinavia. It reminds me strongly of my Swedish grandmother's homemade bread that we could never duplicate. I've made it a couple of times now, and everyone agrees with me. This is NOT a photo of it however. This is an egg bread with poppyseed which is also very good.



I'm recovering from some minor surgery right now, although it's never minor when it's you, is it? Actually, it was my first surgery of any kind. It's been a week now, and I'm beginning to feel a bit like myself again, so I'm pleased about that.

Lace Skirt is Finished

All Lace Skirt Photos in Greater Detail Here

I finished the Prada-inspired lace skirt last night. I feel like I did enough work to make 3 skirts because I kept having to redo things that weren't working the way I originally did them. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since sewing this kind of lace was a new experience for me. I really like the final result, but I did take the long way around.

As you may remember, I originally planned to underline with silk organza, then decided to attach it only at the waist and CB seam because I was afraid of trying to control the drapiness of the lace against the not-going-anywhere organza. As it turned out, I was right to be wary of this, as the lace was heavy enough to gain a lot in length as I went along, and I finally ended up cutting the organza completely out of the skirt, leaving it only in the zipper area. I left enough extra there to be able to turn it twice and stitch it to the inside of the zipper tape. This gave a nice finished look to the zipper and as I think about it, I think it would have been almost impossible to securely sew the lace to the zipper alone.

I knew I needed to cover the zipper with lace. I stitched a piece of lace to the left side of the zipper area, and used 3 clear snaps to attach the edges of the lace to the right side. I was afraid this would make the skirt difficult to get into, but it seems to be no problem at all. The photos show the slip inside the skirt so you can see a single layer of the lace. You can see the organza-wrapped zipper-tape here too.


Covered Zipper - Open


Covered Zipper- Closed

This skirt is fitted at the waist and hip, with darts in the front, the zipper, and a plain fabric waistband. I used the appliqué technique for the CB seam, and it did give a fairly invisible join. The arrows point to the seam. There are applied lace motifs at the top and bottom of the photo.



Here is the way I did this seam. I basted it in as a plain seam with wide allowances, pressed it to mark the seam line, then took the basting out, laid one pressed line over the other and basted along the line I planned to use as the overlap edge. It can be obvious which side should go on top at any one point, and you can switch back and forth if you like. I then went back and stitched the top layer invisibly to the lower layer, trimming as I went. You won't get a straight stitching line this way since you are following the lace design as you go along, but as long as the pressed line is straight, you will have the same result as if you had stitched a plain, straight seam, but you will have an almost invisible join, and no obvious break in the lace itself.

The hem is simply turned up, pressed and hand stitched. As I went along, when I got to a place where I didn't have a smooth turnup because of excess fullness in the hem allowance, instead of shrinking out the fullness as you might normally do, I clipped through enough of the allowance to be able to move the cut edges over until I had a smooth allowance again. This was easiest to do in the "holier" parts of the lace, as I could just take out some of the design and stitch what was left back together. I took photos of this, but honestly, you can't tell there's anything going on. The non-ravelling properties of lace makes it easy to do lots of things that you might not otherwise think of.

I love Prada's applied lace motifs that give texture to what is essentially a flat fabric, and I wanted to use this idea. I found that I needed to tack the motifs on so they had a little volume and would flutter a bit, rather than stitching them flat. I began to worry that I was doing too much, or getting too dramatic, but I really love the results. I ended up using 19 motifs, plus the zipper-top appliqué. You can see the way there's room for the motif to move.


The slip I'm wearing under the skirt is not the first one I made. I wanted it a little longer, and I put 3 rows of the decorative stitching on the hem of this one.


One last note. I had places where the bars between motifs were deteriorating. I think this was because I washed the piece so many times after dyeing it to get out the excess dye. I should have waited until I got the Synthrapol before dyeing, and I think this wouldn't have been a problem. It was easy, if somewhat time-consuming to fix. I simply did buttonhole stitch over the bars that needed reinforcement or replacement.

We all discussed on Stitcher's Guild Lace Sew-Along topic why the Prada skirts might be selling for $2000, but after finishing this, I can see why. I'm sure they didn't use my learn-as-you-go "technique", but it seems that there would have to be a lot of handwork to this kind of skirt even if you did it all correctly the first time. My skirt has machine stitching only to reinforce the basting that attaches the waistband. Everything else was done by hand. I'm not sure it all had to be done this way, but it seemed easier at the time.

If you look at the photos on Pbase from the link between the first 2 photos, you'll see that I took photos of it with several different tops/jackets. I'm not sure what I really like best, and if you have an opinion, please let me know. If you have an idea of something else that would look even better, tell me that too.

Burda WOF Top

Link to ALL PHOTOS pertaining to this post.

I subscribe to Burda WOF (World of Fashion) magazine, and I almost always find several patterns that I would really like to try in each issue, but I don't often get to them, or at least not in a timely manner. The August issue was different. I found a cute top pattern that I thought would be great for a shell to wear under jackets and cardigans this fall or winter, and possibly even by itself this summer. It has a high neck, but very short cap sleeves, so it's versatile.

Burda #108 08-2008.

I made a quick muslin from a very thin mesh knit that turned out pretty good, Photo Link so I made a few changes and forged ahead with a very silky, fine rib knit fabric that I've used before and have quite a bit of. That's the top you see at the beginning of this post. It's a little bit of a problem fabric, although if one had a coverstitch machine, it might be fine. Sewing across the ribs, it's difficult to make it look straight, even if it is. I solved this by using a 3-step zigzag for the hems, and I think it turned out cute. It also shows every tiny bump underneath it, and that's why there's no photo of me wearing it. I need to get a different bra, with no cup seams before I wear it. You can read my review at PR here, and see all the gory details.

The difference in fabric weights led to some interesting discoveries on the second (non-muslin) version. The weight of the fabric dragged down the darts from their original position, and necessitated my removing and redoing them. Since I had sewn the side seams with my serger and included the dart take-ups in the seam, I really didn't want to remove that stitching. I took out the darts and using the original starting position and depth, I curved them to end up where I wanted them. I then stitched them by hand from the outside while the top was on my dressform. That form really comes in handy for tricky things like this, that would be almost impossible to do successfully while flat.

The other big change I made was to use 2 hanging snaps to close the collar at CB, leaving the top 3" of the seam open, as a keyhole. They wanted you to use an invisible zipper, and I just don't care for zippers in knits if I can avoid them, and this works great, and is easy to get into, too. If you don't know about Hanging Snaps, I did a Technique Tip at PR on them. They're easy and so handy for closing edges that are abutted rather than overlapped. I wanted something quick, and including altering the pattern, I made them both in two days, and not long days, either. I think this would make a really cute dress just by lengthening it.

Anyway, that's what I've been doing lately, along with thinking hard about my coat, but not doing anything yet. I'm waiting for one more sample of underlining to test before I actually cut and start.