A Tale of Two Red Jackets

The Sewing

I recently made two red jackets--one planned and one on impulse--from lightweight polyester crepe. The first jacket is Vintage Vogue 1136, which I made to go with the sleeveless dress from the same pattern--the dress you may remember as the one that seriously challenged me with back bodice issues.

Although the fabrics came from the same swatch family in the mail order fabric catalog I favor and appeared to match well...

...once sewn into garments, they didn't.

I think I would have been more successful if I had used the red for the dress and the print for the jacket, but even then....

The jacket did look nice with my store-bought black knit pencil skirt, however, so that will be how I wear it.

I wasn't sure about the flanges at the sides, but my husband (a fan of the forties) liked them. I shortened the flanges about an inch, because they were just too long for my build.

I also had to shorten the back bodice about an inch so it hung better.

And, of course, since I'm living the curse of the bound button hole, I made seven of the suckers, --the seventh is set an an angle in the yet to attached peplum--using yet another method, which I'll probably torture you with in a future blog post. Nothing like sharing the pain.

After my customary battle with the bound buttonhole, I relaxed by sewing on neato black and silver buttons.

I like the sleeve detail a lot.

I made the shoulders pads using the pattern instructions and this time there were no issues.

The second jacket was made on a whim when I realized that the fabric matched one of the reds in my New Look 6514 dress.

I dug through my extensive pattern stash and came up with Simplicity 4230--a 2006 pattern that has zero buttonholes, which seemed perfect after making the my previous jacket. I made the black cropped version using the three quarter sleeves on the jacket above it.

I think the jacket looks nice with the dress and gives it a more businesslike look.

I used muslin as the interfacing for both jackets. I've never been a fan of fusibles, although they are useful under certain circumstances. Instead I use sew-in interfacing whenever possible, and muslin works really well for a soft drape.

And that's about it for the two red jackets. I still have some of the red fabric left and I'm thinking of using it for a nice 30's pattern I just got--just as soon as I have time to grade it up a size. I think the drapy crepe will look great in either style.

The Writing
Before I sign off, a writing update. I turned in my final proofread of Cowgirl in High Heels and am now at work one the last book of The Montana Way series, Shae's Story. (That's the working title.) I'm also playing around with some proposals and a novella, also set in Montana.

I'm writing in the morning, sewing between 10:00 and 11:00 before the power goes off (I live off the grid for those new to the blog) and trying to get a little more sewing in during the evenings--although catching up on the fifth season of Breaking Bad and the new Project Runway is playing havoc with my evening schedule.

Back from Conference

At the Harlequin book signing event.

The Writing
I've just returned from the Romance Writers of American National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, energized and ready to write. I think the most valuable thing I took from this conference--other than a warm glow from meeting up with friends and professionals in the writing industry that I see once a year, and attending the awesome Harlequin party--was the feeling that I'm ready to stretch my wings a little. I'm going to try some free writing with no particular audience in mind and see where it takes me. And I'm also going to work on the book due in September because time is slipping away. As I see it, I have at least three weeks of solid writing before I have to think about getting ready for the school year, and I plan on those weeks being productive.

The Sewing
I only took one dress that I made to conference. I had mighty plans to bring several, but due to many circumstances, most of which had to do with me
messing up, I only had one dress and jacket that felt conference worthy.

I made New Look 6514 out of an Italian cotton remnant I brought at Britex in San Francisco and lined it in poly cotton. The cotton was wonderful to work with, but it did tend to wrinkle easily, so I packed a can of spray sizing for the trip. Problem solved, even if the can added quite a bit of weight to an already heavy suitcase.

The construction of this dress was very straight forward. I cut the bodice pieces out separately so that I could match the design across the front and back. I'm especially pleased with the back--there's a zipper in there!

The zipper installation is different that any I've done before. The center back seam is not basted shut. The right hand side of the dress is pressed under 1/2 inch and the zipper is sewn to the fold.

The left side is done is two steps--one below the waist and one above.

Here's the below the waist area. I used tape to mark the stitch line and top stitched on the outside.

Then I did the same for the bodice.

I just love cellophane tape.

Instead of facings I fully lined the dress. I didn't want to make facings on top of the lining, due to bulk, so I cut facings out of fusible interfacing and fused them to the bodice lining:

I accidentally got the perfect amount of stability using this method. Yay! 

And now the reveal! Here I am in my natural habitat, where I wouldn't normally wear a white cotton dress:

And guess what? I'm going all matchy-matchy. Yes. I'm carrying a patent purse with patent shoes because I've decided that I like matching.

This is the red jacket I made out of the fabric I'd bought to make a different jacket.

 I didn't wear the jacket at Nationals. It will be the subject of a future blog--The Tale of Two Red Jackets.

I'd like to mention that my skirt is suitably poofy due to the layer cake crinoline I made using Gertie's excellent instructions which you can find here.

It really does a nice job of giving the skirt some body. I did discover, though, that if one uses poly organdy, one should wear another slip under it. Poly organdy is not skin friendly.

And here I am at conference in my dress. I wish my camera would have cooperated, but it didn't. You probably get the idea, though.

An lastly, this has nothing to do with this post, but this is the cute and fearless little night hawk that sleeps on my husband's folded lawn chair during the day. I just love him.

Survived the Deadlines and Ready to Sew!

I'm see a trend here--when deadline approaches, I disappear for three weeks. I guess that's the price I pay for not figuring things out until the last minute. This time I had a double deadline--the revisions for Cowgirl in High Heels were due on May 27th, followed one week later by the first three chapters of my next book. I pushed send on the chapters today and now I can relax my brain for a few days.

In addition to double deadlines a week apart, the last day of the school year was last Friday--for some reason I always have a major deadline when school ends, just to add to the general chaos, I guess. It was a crazy few weeks--in fact most of May was a blur, but now the summer stretches before me with no immediate deadlines and no students. I, of course, think that I can write at least four books and plow through my sewing stash in that time. Summer lasts forever, right?

I'll be thrilled, however, to finish the book I just started and perhaps make a dent in my sewing stash, which is getting out of control. In fact, I've decided to commit to finishing at least six projects I have on hand before buying any more patterns or fabric. I've even picked out my first three projects:

Vintage Vogue 1136 which I'm making out of red and black rayon challis (dress) and red crepe (jacket). I've already made a muslin of the dress, which fit well, and I'm going to assume that the jacket will fit, too. Don't those sound like famous last words?

Vintage Vogue 2787 out of black and white charmeuse. I have long black gloves and a great black hat, so I'm set once I get this made.

New Look 6514--I'm very excited to tackle this one. My daughter bought me some Italian cotton at Britex and it's gorgeous!

I noticed that the red crepe for the Vogue 1136 jacket matches the color pallete nicely. I don't think the 1940s style jacket is going to work with the New Look pattern, but you never know. And perhaps I can squeeze two jackets out of the crepe.

Now that should keep me busy for at least a week, right? That and writing those four books. Summer stretches on....