Return of the Bound Buttonhole

I am not a coat-making novice. I enjoy making coats and jackets and last year I tailored two wool frock coats for the Great Dicken's Fair in San Francisco.

Neither of these frock coats (one is hanging in the background) had bound buttonholes. The directions did fantasize about me hand binding slashed buttonholes, but I ignored that part...just as I considered ignoring the buttonhole directions for my 60s coat, once I found out about them.

I'm notorious for forgetting to buy at least one key component of my current project, so last weekend I carefully read the directions before starting my coat. In step 5, I was startled to discover instructions for making seven--count them, seven--bound buttonholes. Oh, happy day.

Again I was tempted by my 1955 Singer buttonholer, but the reason I'm sewing retro is to learn and practice new techniques, so even though I was smacked around by a bound buttonhole while making the Sew for Victory jacket, I decided that I needed to suck it up and try again.

I followed the pattern directions--I was pleased that this pattern actually gave directions, unlike the 40s jacket which tersely commanded "Make bound buttonholes"--and made a practice buttonhole. It came out cute as a, well, button. Perfect.

But I'd fallen for this before--being lulled into a sense of false security by a perfect practice buttonhole--so I made a second.

Scary little dude, eh? Let me explain that I made a couple errors on this one (no kidding--right?) I wasn't as careful with my grain lines, but the big mistake was that I didn't tie off the thread ends by hand on the back. Instead I back stitched, and the stitching on the scary side started to come undone. No more back stitching.

Fraying was also a problem with this silk linen fabric.

And when I tried to stitch the little triangle to the welt ends, there was no triangle. It had frayed away.

To deal with the fraying, I reinforced both the welt strips and buttonhole area on the coat front with knit fusible interfacing. It was light enough not to add bulk to the narrow welts, but kept the fraying to a minimum. I had a triangle to stitch!

I marked the buttonhole placement with thread as the pattern said to do.

 The fabric strips for the welts are very narrow:

To make certain that my grain lines were perfect, I carefully placed the strips and then taped them into place instead of pinning or basting. The tape worked excellently.

I drew the stitching line on the welts--which were only 1/4 inch wide when folded--then  tied off the thread ends on the back (three knots and snipped 1/8 from the knot). I can thank the scary second practice buttonhole for this grain-line/thread-end vigilance, so as frighteningly as it turned out, it was worthwhile.

By employing a great deal of sweat and anxiety, I ended up with seven nearly perfect bound buttonholes, four of which are shown above prior to being sewn shut. They're very delicate looking and I'm quite pleased.

The big lessons:
1) Never give up, never surrender.
2) Make more than one practice buttonhole, just in case.
3) Don't hurry.
4) Experiment with tape.
5) Don't turn your back on the cat.

Pantone Color Contest 60s Coat~ Rough Draft

I love this coat pattern and it takes less yardage than any of my other 60s coat patterns—only 2 5/8
yards of 54 inch fabric. Ironically my muslin fabric for the Pantone Color Contest is the color of mud. It is, however, the proper weight and only cost $1.50 a yard.

The jacket went together easily. The only problem is that the princess seams are made for a larger busted princess than myself.

I solved this by pinching out the excess and marking it with chalk on the side panel. 

Then I took took the seams out of that part of the muslin and matched the chalk line on the side panel to the regular stitching line on the front panel. 

The result was a much better fit. There's a tiny pinch, but that's because I didn't release the sleeve seam.

Since I was happy with the new fit, I took apart the muslin, ironed the side panel and adjusted the pattern piece.

The sleeves were 1 ½ inches too short. My husband, a child of the 60s, quickly explained this to me—women wore gloves in the 60s. Sure enough. I decided to lengthen the sleeves by 1 ½ inches.

The only other issue is the belt. The smaller coat pattern I bought came from a university home ec department. It had a penciled note on the front saying to add length to the belt so that it would lie nicely. I made the belt without lengthening it, and this is the result. 

I'd rather not have the coat cinched in, so I lengthened the pattern piece. I can always take it back in if necessary.

After spending two days with my mud colored fabric, I'm very, very excited to finally tackle some color! 

80s Summer Dress!

The 80s dress! I first made this dress in 1987 out of dusty pink cotton fabric (remember dusty pink and country blue?) and I remember wearing the dress to get my driver’s license renewed. I couldn’t believe how old I was. Heh.

This time around, I changed the sleeves. I wanted an 80s style dress, but I have to be careful of some cuts of sleeves that simply do not look good on my shoulders. I raised the arm hole and drafted a new sleeve pattern for a simple short sleeve rather than the straight bands that acted as sleeves in the original.

I had in my possession exactly twelve burgundy buttons—the perfect amount for this dress--and they complimented the fabric.

I had to re-mark the buttonholes because I lowered the neckline, so I was very glad I didn't make said buttonholes prior to discovering I had to lower the neckline.

Maybe it’s the painter coming out in me, but I love this fabric. It’s a rayon challis called Van Gogh. I like the colors, the splashes, the way it feels. 

Confession—I tried to put in shoulder pads to get that 80s feel,  however, the shoulders were too narrow. So I’m padless.

Surprise!

I asked my husband why he kept this shot, which is kind of funky and he said he thought it showed the dress off well. And so it does. And now my attempt at the pattern pose.

I think I hurt myself.

60s Coat ~ Prologue

The Sewing

I’m excited for my 60’s coat and shift. I was very young in the 60s, but I remember the styles so well.  Or maybe it's all those reruns I watch. I've had several 60s patterns call out to me as I've perused eBay and Etsy, which means they are now in my collection. In my world, Call out = Buy button. 

I decided to make this coat, McCalls 8353 from 1966. The design reminded me of an Easter coat my mother once made me, so I bought the pattern in a size 10, which is three sizes too small. Less than a week later I found the same pattern in a size 14—much closer to my size, which means less pattern grading. I debated about buying the same pattern twice, but eventually pushed that Buy button. Now that I'm grading, I’m glad I did.

The fabric is a silk-linen blend that I bought at Britex on my last trip to San Francisco. It has a wonderful drape. I’d planned to buy something in green or blue to make the coat, but this color shouted out to me. It’s so 60s and so me.  I love wearing orange. Being able to wear orange almost makes up for not being able to wear camel, a fashion staple that turns me an odd color and has people asking me if I feel all right.

 

The shift fabric is chiffon and I’ve decided that it’s Lemon Zest, another Pantone Spring 2013 color. This is good because the Pantone Color Contest calls for two pieces.

I’ve only sewn chiffon once before, but it was low-cost chiffon and I wouldn’t have curled up in the corner sobbing if I’d ruined the garment. Of course it went together easily. This chiffon is a bit pricier—to the point that I only bought 1.5 yards. The fabric is railroaded, meaning that the lines go selvage to selvage or crossways. I’m hoping the waviness of the lines adds a vertical component so I don’t look like a box when I wear the shift.  

Now my only question is which shift to make.  As you can see, I’m going with contemporary patterns and I plan to make a (hopefully wearable) muslin of each before deciding. I've started with McCalls 6123. 

Nora is helping. As usual.

Revisions: No End in Sight

The Writing

I should get my editor's notes soon and that will probably send me in a different direction than I'm going right now. It's amazing what another pair of eyes can do for the process. Meanwhile, I'm writing away, raising the stakes, increasing tension, generally torturing my characters and having a good time.

The Sewing

I'm still working on the 80s summer dress, which is fine, since the weather has taken a turn for the worse and I don't think I'll wear it until next week at the earliest. I was hoping the apricot blossoms would be on the tree for the photos, but they've been deeply offended by cold. Maybe there'll still be few this weekend.

I’m a silk organza underlining newbie, so I wasn’t certain what to do about the organza feeling all prickly and itchy at the unfinished edges of the sleeve and where I trimmed the darts. I decided to try to encase the seams in bias tape. I was concerned that it might add bulk to the sleeve area, but it didn’t. If anything it seemed to support the area.  I also enclosed the trimmed darts and, violà, no more itchy edges. I've probably broken some sewing rule, but it works.

I hung my dress for 48 hours so that the bias part of the skirt would stretch before hemming (rather than after). As you can see the bias stretched almost three inches.

I did, however, run into one small problem while hemming *sigh*. Do you see where the pink lace hem tape ends? And guess who didn't have another package?

Talk about a rookie error. For the record, even though 3 yards of hem tape sounds like enough to hem one summer dress, check measurements before starting to sew. 

This hemming cloud turned out to have a silver lining, however.  My local variety store didn't have this color of hem tape, so I ordered the tape online. To justify the cost of postage (which was more than the cost of the tape) I had to add additional items to my cart. I so love adding additional items to my cart. I bought covered button kits and a zipper and four yards of daffodil yellow Bemberg to line the 60’s coat and shift I plan to make next. 

Since the coat fabric is nectarine, one of the Pantone Spring 2013 colors, I now have to enter the Sewing Pattern Review Pantetone Color Contest, right?  I hadn't planned to enter because I had no lining. Problem solved thanks to not checking the length of my hem tape before starting to sew.

The contest deadline is April 30^th, but I think I can get a coat and a shift done by that time.  Wish me luck. Another deadline. Yay!

Sewing For Victory 40’s Suit ~ Flashback #2 The Reckoning

The Sewing
As you may have guessed from my previous posts, I did a lot of sewing in not many days to make the Sewing for Victory Challenge deadline. If I hadn't had to go to work, it wouldn't have been such a push, but I did and it was. I found that there are two things that one cannot hurry along and do slap dash--color blocking and bound buttonholes.

Color Blocking--or how to beat a corner into semi-submission
I have a thing about precision--must have something to do with all the engineers in the family--and one thing sewing has taught me is that sometimes I'm going to have to live with results that aren't as precise as I'd like. But that does't mean I have to like it, or that I won't beat my project to shreds trying to get the results I'm aiming for.

The color blocking on my suit made cool square corners. To do this, I had to clip to the dot 1/2 inch from the end of the seam then sew from the garment edge to the clip. At the clip, I then had to start a new seam going in a perpendicular direction to make the 90 degree corner. And the first time I did it, it went slick.

It went slick two more times. I had three perfect corners. And then came the last one...the one I wanted to finish before my husband and I went running that day. Let's just say that I spent my running time wondering how I was going to pick all of those stitches--because I sewed over my previous stitching about fifteen times trying to true up that corner--out of linen. Yeah.

Eventually I got the corner to where it was acceptable by removing all stitching and starting over. The linen was beat to death and the organza wasn't looking much better. I couldn't stand to look at it, much less photograph it, so there is no record of the carnage. But I ended up with a corner I could live with.

The underarms went perfectly though. I started stitching right at the point of the underarm seam and sewed up one side, then went back to the point and sewed up the other side. I'm a huge fan of breaking up seams to accomplish what I want.

At the last minute I decided to color block the facings, even though the directions didn't call for it. I just cut a purple piece the same size as the purple front and cut off the gray top--allowing for seam allowance of course--and sewed them together. It didn't add bulk and it made me feel better.

Shall we move on to bound buttonholes?

First of all, due to time constraints, I considered just putting in buttonholes with my beloved 1955 Singer buttonholer--which makes perfect buttonholes every time. However, the pattern primer rather casually said, "Make bound buttonholes." That was the end of the instructions. I decided that I could at the very least make a practice bound buttonhole and see how it goes. After all, the coat only has two buttonholes. How hard can it be?

Of course the practice bound buttonhole worked like a charm. I literally made it in less than 10 minutes--probably closer to 5. So the next step, of course, was to attempt to destroy my jacket with my new found skill. (There are several excellent tutorial on making bound buttonholes online. Choose your poison.)

Jeannie's Guide to Bound Buttonholes

Step 1--make gaping rectangular hole. Do not do this in the waist button area, where it won't show. Start at the neckline, where everyone will immediately look.

Step 2--Sew the little lip deals in crooked.

Step 3--Cringe as husband says it's time to run. Yell back that you need a minute.

Step 4--Attempt to remove little lip things. Pick out the wrong stitches, so that organza is now loose.

Step 5--Tell son who calls to say Happy Easter that you can't talk now.

Step 6--Tidy up gaping hole and try again. Sew in crooked again.

Step 7--learn to live with less than perfect lip thingies.

Hey--it doesn't look that bad with the button in it.

Need I say that the buttonhole at the waist that no one will see went in easily and looked fine?

Of course it did.

Well, husband is saying it's time to go run and for once I'm not in a trauma spot, so I'm going to go run before I get myself into trouble again.