The Secret Stash / La Cachette Secrète

Guys will keep and wear garments forever. 

When my neighbor came over the other day with his favorite pair of pants, lets call them "cargo-harem pants", I was quite surprised that he still had them and that his girlfriend hadn't thrown them out already, well worn is an understatement. But I felt for him, I sure am guilty of hoarding old favorites, so I agreed to copy them. 

While I go looking for the right fabric, I thought you might want to see this little construction detail that had me howling with laughter : the fly has a secret pocket for stashing stuff. What?

Yes good folks, there is an invisible zipper in the fly shield. I don't want to know what it's for, but it sure is a couture detail I have never seen before.

He said he has never used it and I don't have to put one in, but I might just for fun.

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Les gars, ça gardent et portent leur vêtements très longtemps.

Mais quand mon voisin est venu me voir avec son pantalon favori, on va appeler ça un "sarouel-cargo", j'ai quand même été surprise que sa copine ne l'a pas déjà jeté, ce pantalon est très très usé. Je suis moi-même coupable d'accumulation de vieux trucs et je peux m'identifier alors j'ai accepté de les copier.

Pendant que je vais à la recherche d'un tissu idéal, vous pouvez examiner ce petit détail qui m'a fait hurler de rire : il y a une poche secrète dans la sous patte de la braguette pour y cacher des choses. Quoi?

Oui bonnes gens, il y a une fermeture éclair invisible dans la sous-patte. Je ne veux pas savoir ce qu'on y met, mais je n'avais jamais vu ça avant!

Mon voisin dit qu'il ne l'a jamais utilisé et qu'il n'en veut pas, mais je pense que je vais en mettre une quand même juste pour rigoler.

Machine Stitched Bound Buttonholes

I'm making a housecoat with bound buttonholes. 

My current one, made three years ago is my most worn me-made item of all time. I need some change. 

The pattern is Simplicity 3592, which I won in Molly's March giveaway (Thanks!). I think it's the perfect shape for that humongous Ikea print I bought a long time ago and never used. 

I usually am less finicky on finishing garments that won't see the light of day, so why bother making bound buttonholes instead of machine ones you ask?

One : it was in the pattern instructions. I am quite an obedient seamstress, I do have a tendency to make dresses in the same colour as the pattern envelope!

Two: obviously I need practice! I tried to make them according to Fashion Incubator's method for welts with the paper jig, but there is something in the calculation of the lips and turn of cloth that I can't get quite right on such a small area. 

Three : I wanted to try a finish I saw in a coat I bought at H&M some years ago which I have never seen in any blog posts about bound buttonholes, the openings in the facings are machine sewn. I don't know how to do that and I winged it.
This is not a total success so I am not going to write up a tutorial about this, but I thought you might like the idea and try it yourself. 

The gist of it is you open up the facing a tad smaller than the buttonhole opening and you stitch the buttonhole in the ditch. Am I making sense? 

Had I made the lips in white instead of a contrasting colour, it would be nearly invisible from the outside. Also, I made the opening with a little square of cotton voile which I pushed through but I don't think this method needs it, a square of very small stitches would be fine and less bulky.

I don't like them. They are so sloppy, I might get the seam ripper out, and sew the facings by hand but as this garment will stay house bound, I might just leave them. 

Sleepwear is a wonderful place to experiment, all the pressure of making things absolutely perfect is off so you can just enjoy the process. In fact, when I give advice to a beginner, I tell them to make a nightgown first or make the Tofino pyjama pants with Karen. There is no pressure there,  your learning mistakes will remain private.

Jr C told me I looked like a pregnant cleaning lady when I tried it on and then I realized it is a pattern for a pregnant person. I might send it to Zoe when I'm finished. (Zoe do you want it? Give me your address.)

Boutonnières Passepoilées à la Machine

Je fais une robe de chambre avec des boutonnières passepoilées.
Celle que j'ai, faite il y a 3 ans est mon vêtement fait main le plus porté de tous les temps, j'ai besoin de changement.
Le patron est Simplicity 3592 que j'ai gagné chez Molly en mars (merci!) et je crois que c'est la forme parfaite pour mettre en valeur ces énormes fleurs achetées chez Ikea il y a un moment mais jamais utilisées.
En général, je porte moins d'attention aux finitions d'un vêtement qui ne verront jamais la lumière du jour alors pourquoi s'embêter à faire des passepoils?
Un : parce que c'était dans les instructions. Je suis assez obéissante à ce sujet, j'ai même tendance à faire des robes de la même couleur que la photo sur l'enveloppe!

Deux : J'ai besoin d'entraînement, c'est évident! J'ai essayé de les faire en utilisant le tutoriel de Fashion Incubator avec le papier plié mais je n'arrive pas bien à calculer le recouvrement sur une si petite surface.

Trois : Je voulais essayer une finition machine dans la parementure des boutonnières comme celle sur un manteau que j'ai acheté chez H&M il y a quelques annnées. Je n'ai jamais vu cette finition expliquée nulle part, on ne peut pas dire d'ailleurs que je sais ce que je fais!
Je ne peux pas franchement dire que c'est un succès alors il ne faut pas vous attendre à un tutoriel, mais j'ai pensé que l'idée vous plairait et que vous pourriez l'essayer.

L'idée, c'est de faire l'ouverture un tout petit peu plus petite que la boutonnière et de la piquer dans la couture. Est-ce que ça vous parle?

Je crois que si j'avais fait le passepoil en blanc, ça ne se verrait presque pas. J'ai aussi fait l'ouverture avec un petit bout de voile de coton mais je ne pense pas en avoir besoin. Je crois qu'une piqûre à tout petits points, ouverte et repassée serait adéquate. 

Je ne les aime pas beaucoup, c'est un peu brouillon. Il est possible que je sorte mon découd-vite et que je les finisse à la main, mais comme ce vêtement ne sortira pas de la maison, je vais peut-être les laisser.

Les vêtements d'intérieur sont génial pour expérimenter les nouvelles techniques, on n'a pas la pression du tout parfait. D'ailleurs, quand une débutante me demande, je leur dis de commencer par une chemise de nuit ou de s'inscrire pour faire le pantalon de pyjama Tofino avec Karen. Il n'y a pas de pression, vos erreurs vont rester privées.

Jr C a mentionné quand je l'ai essayé que je ressemble à une femme de ménage enceinte. Et c'est là que je me suis dit :  ah! ben oui, c'est un patron de femme enceinte. Je vais peut-être l'envoyer à Zoé quand j'aurai fini.

How To Hem a Full Skirt Without Help

We work alone...most of the time.

And family members have other agendas, I mean if you have managed to convince them to leave you alone while you sew, you can't really ask them to drop everything they are doing to come and help just right now this very minute right? 

One of the sewing thing I find very difficult to do all by yourself is to hem a full skirt. I love full skirts, I love fabric, I love wearing tons of fabric. On this particular dress, I wanted a gathered circle skirt with a center pleat, more fabric to wear, more hem to sew, probably all by my own lonesome.

Patternmaking for Fashion Design

While reading up on how to draft such a skirt, I came upon a possible solution for hemming it without help, so I decided to try it out.
In commercial pattern making, they calculate the skirt overhang and draft the pattern pieces accordingly. We can't do that because we don't use the same fabric for each skirt, but I thought if I do the hanging before the sewing, I could then trim the skirt to the right length using the pattern. Would this work?

Before working on the bodice, I basted the skirt and lining pieces at the waist so they wouldn't stretch and hung them with "weights".

The next day, before sewing the skirt together, I placed the pattern pieces on the skirt pieces and I removed the excess. I was very happy with this solution, feeling clever you know, then I had my moment of interstellar emptiness which brought me back down to earth and, the dressed finished, I hemmed as I would any other skirt. 

By that I mean, I made 2 rows of stitches about 4cm apart, used them as a pressing guides, pulled on the top row to ease the fullness, pressed again, did a machine blind hem with the accompanying foot and removed the basting.

I'm not sure this would work other fabrics, but with Ikea curtains, which didn't stretch all that much, it did the trick. And I didn't have to wait to hem the skirt, so this dress was finished in a couple of sewing sessions. Almost instant gratification! 

The bodice is from Vogue 2512 for which all the fitting work was done and the skirt is a modified Simplicity 8943, which I kind of messed up. I have all this fabric in the front and much less in the back, I really should have put a pleat there too to balance it out. Call this a designer newbie mistake.

I can live with it as it's a much less visible mistake than an uneven hem, the next full skirted dress should be better.

As always, when I do something like this, I feel like I have made an important discovery that will revolutionize the home sewing business, only to discover that it's standard practice in other corner of the world. If you try it out, please let me know how this worked for you and if we, as member of the sewing collective, can improve on this. We will all win.