Journey into a man's sport jacket

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, a young woman got married and started sewing a work wardrobe for herself.  But the young husband was jealous and wanted some sewing done for himself. 

So he sent his bride to school to learn how to make him a suit.  Over time, he got about ten of them for himself.  Then the bride took off in other directions, and he never got another one again.

Now, about forty years later, he is being honored once again with another new sport coat.  Thanks to modern technology, it is now possible to share the journey with you!  Let's travel the path together.

PR Meet-up Milano

Last spring, I had the privilege for the first time of meeting in person a new friend I'd made on my favorite sewing website.  That pleasure was extended recently by getting to meet two more users of the site.

One visit was fairly local, like the first one, but the second one involved a day's trip into Italy, which we turned into a mini-vacation get-away.

I thought I'd show you some of what we did.

At twenty-two

Because I happened to have the necessary materials at hand, I decided to enter a Vintage Pattern Contest on my favorite sewing site.  The requirement was that any pattern used had to be older than 1981. 

Normally I wouldn't have patterns that old, having gotten rid of them when we moved overseas.  But as my prize for winning a contest last year was vintage patterns, I now have a few qualifying ones to choose from. 

What I didn't know was how my particular choices would take me on an interesting trip down Memory Lane, starting with when I was around 22 years old.

PR Meet-up Monaco

Last weekend, my favorite sewing site, Pattern Review, held their annual meet-up weekend, this time in Chicago.  It must be a fabulous opportunity to meet various members who support the site and have a common interest, especially ones who are actively involved and have thus become virtual acquaintances. 

I will probably never get to find out, although I was quite sad last year when they met in Los Angeles, as I would have loved to double the trip and see all my family.

However, I did get to do the next best thing last month and participate in probably the first meet-up in Monaco!  I thought I'd share the experience as well as a little virtual tour of the second smallest country in the world.

A never-ending wardrobe collection

Once again, I just participated in another sewing contest.  While this one was also a multi-garment contest (usually there's only one item to be made during a month period), it was much tamer than the last Wardrobe Contest.  Instead of a set number of ten items, this one only required four, but you could do as many as you wanted after that.  The only requirement was that the second item had to go with the first, the third had to go with the second, etc.

Well, I got carried away, and I did a completely endless set of nine items!  So I thought I would share the process.

A Peach Sundae

Last year, I participated in a major wardrobe contest on my sewing site.  While I was putting different fabrics together from years worth of stash, I came across a whole different set that could go together nicely.  Although the contest themes change from year to year, I held onto these in case there was one again this year.  And there was! 

Last year we had six weeks to make eight or nine new garments that all went together, but this year we needed to make ten new items within a full two-month period. 

I thought I would share just how I went about the whole contest from start to finish, starting with connecting the chosen patterns with the collected fabrics, and then trying to find a catchy name that reflected the overall theme.

Scarf art

I have an American friend who is currently living in Mexico.  Among all her other ventures, she has started doing sewing pattern designing.  In looking for testers for her newest project, she asked me if I would be interested.  Never having done such a thing before, I thought it could be rather fun.

While I'm fairly confident in my sewing abilities, neither Doc Leo nor I are particularly professional when it comes to modeling and photographing, but I needed to show off the product and explain how to use it.  Here are the results of our efforts, as well as various styling ideas I came up with.

Winners and losers

As Doc Leo doesn't like to stray very far from his internet connection and his kitty cats, we don't seem to ever take vacations now that he's retired.  Thus I get stuck having all my obligations around the property staring me in the face with no break. 

To combat that, in order to have a bit more personal time, I apparently have ended up throwing myself into my sewing site with more participation than I really should dedicate. 

Here is a recap of some of the ups and downs I've experienced recently.  The recent ups are particularly rewarding!

Becoming a teenage sleuth

Contests can be fun.  Sewing contests that stretch creativity can be fun.  Provided one can reach inside and pull out some semblance of creativity.   The current contest I am attempting really involves some imagination, and I didn't know if I was up to it.  However, succeeding at a challenge is rewarding, so I really put on my thinking cap.  But just how does a book provide inspiration for creating a wearable garment?  Not a costume, not a period piece, but something appropriate for wearing currently, yet reflecting a particular literary work.

While some contestants were considering abstract themes, I needed something more concrete.  And suddenly, the inspiration arrived.  I'm going back in my own world about 55 years to a favorite character who I'm taking back about 15 years earlier than that.  I'm turning myself into a 1940's Nancy Drew!

On being featured

As anybody who knows me is aware, I've been sewing my whole adult life.  I really don't know how that evolved.  My grandma hand sewed me a dress she cut from a pattern out of newspaper when I was about four, but otherwise she was only known to me for crocheting.  My mother could sew and went through a spell of making us girls a lot of gathered skirts, but she must have done it while I was in school, because I don't really have memories of her doing it.  She did teach me a few basics when I was nine, but that was about it.

So what made me think as an adult that I was just going to make all my own clothes?  And who would ever have guessed back then that it would become a lifetime involvement?

Anatomy of a new wardrobe

The sewing site I participate on has just run a really massive contest lasting six weeks, rather than the typical two-four week run, and I decided to give it a try.  It involved making a total of nine garments, with all items being able to coordinate with every item.  In looking over my vast collection of fabric and patterns, I saw that I could actually make this contest work for me, so why not? 

This is the initial collection I came up with and followed through with, only changing one pattern for a similar one that fit my design better.

Unlined jacket tutorial

As a complement to the summer dress I just made as part of an ongoing sewing contest, I made this interesting casual jacket.  While I doubt I'll ever make the included dress, I really liked the design of this jacket (trying to see past the model wearing it in my favorite color,  and then I did it in the same thing!) and used this opportunity to try it out.

Again, I thought I would point out some of the techniques I used outside of the typical pattern directions.  Perhaps you may find some of them useful, too.

A summer's dress tutorial

I am in the process of sewing a nine-piece wardrobe for another contest!  After taking a sewing break for a number of years, this time around I'm trying to incorporate a lot of little extras I mostly didn't mess with in my sewing heyday when rearing an active family and trying to keep customers happy. 

I thought I would explain some of those techniques used on the dress of this pattern, Butterick 5619.  I've already made the jacket and the skirt, so now it's time to do something with the dress pattern, too.

Popular pattern participation

Remember the sewing contest I mentioned I entered?  A sewing site I follow has regular contests with various themes, most of which don't interest me or fit my personal needs.  However, this last contest involved using a specific pattern from a specific list, which was a compilation of the most popular patterns from the past three years.  I happened to have three of them, so I entered one item from each.  After a week of voting, the results are in!

Fun with a Plantain Tee

There is currently a contest in progress on the sewing site I enjoy reading, and I decided to participate with a couple of entries.  It is an interesting experience to be judged by others based on photos, so hopefully those photos show all the important information necessary to make a good judgment. 

I thought I would share a little of this particular project, because I decided to have a bit of fun with it.  The pattern is just a simple T-shirt, which I recently made for the first time, so I wanted to do something a little different this time.

A sewing techniques tutorial

My sister has been bugging me to do a sewing tutorial for several years now.  We have been separated by vast expanses of territory our whole adult lives, and she has never been able to take advantage of my "expertise," although it's only fairly recently she's gotten involved in sewing herself. 

While I have a lifetime of sewing experience, I have very little teaching experience, and I've never done one of these now common web tutorials.  As I just made something from both a pattern and fabric that my sister gifted me, perhaps this is the time to take a stab at it.  So, Sister Dearest, this one's for you!

A lacy tunic and skinny pants

After way too much lapsed time, I recently indulged myself and did some more sewing.  I could easily sew instead of doing just about anything else, especially hard stuff like construction or boring stuff like fall cleaning my house. 

While I have a whole stack of projects I'm just dying to dig into, I did a spur of the moment something else!  As it was kind of a fun adventure, I thought I'd share some of the highlights for you other seamstresses out there.

CCC - Sandra makes three

The Calvary Chapel Couturières now has another success story.  From a group of absolute beginners who for the most part had never touched a sewing machine before, we had a number of young women create their own little drawstring bag to hold their sewing supplies during the first class.

Then Janka was the first to finish an actual wearable garment, a T-shirt, with Lindsey coming in second, as part of the second class project.  And now we have Sandra, who ended up doing a different garment.

Sewing with cats award

I am a cat person.  It's genetic.  My grandma was a cat person, I grew up with cats, Doc Leo is a cat person, so it's only natural that our children are also cat people.  I am also a seamstress.  I've been sewing my whole life.  Which means I've been sewing with cats. 

Thus, it was very exciting to be given a new badge that I have truly earned over the years!

CCC - Another Tee!

Two down now, another two to go in the continuing saga of the Calvary Chapel Couturières and the four budding seamstresses who were able to trace out their T-shirt patterns.  While Lindsey has her own sewing machine, it's not properly in shape to handle her fabric, and she was getting rather discouraged.  As I'm going on a little vacation, then she's going back home for a month right after that, she came up to my house so she could get it finished in time to show her mom!