Some visible progress
Jun. 2nd, 2014 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizabeth_mnMy HB took The Girl out for the afternoon yesterday, so I was blessed with another long stretch of time on my own in the sewing room. Bliss!
I started by hand topstitching (or edge-stitching, whatever) all the small pieces: the collar, cuffs, and pocket flaps. To make these, I sewed them RS together on the machine, clipped, turned, and pressed, like you typically do. But they just didn't press crisply flat like I wanted, so topstitching to the rescue.
Here is a flap not topstitched (left) next to the topstitched one (right).
And the collar; the topstitched part is in the foreground, non-stitched part in the background.
You can see that slightly puffy look disappear. I promise I really did iron the crap out of these, but this soft wool just doesn't want to press to extreme flatness.
I just used a running stitch. It's about as small as I could easily manage, which is probably not all that small. About 5-6 sts/inch if you are just counting the stitches on one side.
Next I made buttonholes. I did these by machine. I wanted those super skinny buttonholes like you see on originals. Plus making them skinny makes them look less like a clunky machine-made buttonhole. My machine has two buttonhole options: standard squared and slightly rounded. I chose the rounded and set it to a very narrow width and somewhat less dense length.
For my reference:
The pattern's buttonholes were marked at about 2 1/2 inches long, which seemed huge, but I just went with it. These are all decorative only; they aren't cut open.
One cuff done! It was hard keeping that very long narrow buttonhole perfectly straight. Some of them got a little wonky. It doesn't help that my machine sews the buttonholes backwards for some reason. That makes it much harder to keep your eyes on the chalk line!
And a flap done. This is probably a more accurate shot of the color. The buttonholes are so small and skinny you can barely see them! Perhaps I went overboard. But I think they will be more obvious when the buttons are there to make you notice them. Anyway, it'll be subtle, and that's what my man likes.
Next up: attach the flaps to the pockets and the cuffs to the sleeves, then assemble the body, put the sleeves in, and join the lining! I'm really hoping to spend the next 3 days on this and then be done.
I started by hand topstitching (or edge-stitching, whatever) all the small pieces: the collar, cuffs, and pocket flaps. To make these, I sewed them RS together on the machine, clipped, turned, and pressed, like you typically do. But they just didn't press crisply flat like I wanted, so topstitching to the rescue.
Here is a flap not topstitched (left) next to the topstitched one (right).
And the collar; the topstitched part is in the foreground, non-stitched part in the background.
You can see that slightly puffy look disappear. I promise I really did iron the crap out of these, but this soft wool just doesn't want to press to extreme flatness.
I just used a running stitch. It's about as small as I could easily manage, which is probably not all that small. About 5-6 sts/inch if you are just counting the stitches on one side.
Next I made buttonholes. I did these by machine. I wanted those super skinny buttonholes like you see on originals. Plus making them skinny makes them look less like a clunky machine-made buttonhole. My machine has two buttonhole options: standard squared and slightly rounded. I chose the rounded and set it to a very narrow width and somewhat less dense length.
For my reference:
The pattern's buttonholes were marked at about 2 1/2 inches long, which seemed huge, but I just went with it. These are all decorative only; they aren't cut open.
One cuff done! It was hard keeping that very long narrow buttonhole perfectly straight. Some of them got a little wonky. It doesn't help that my machine sews the buttonholes backwards for some reason. That makes it much harder to keep your eyes on the chalk line!
And a flap done. This is probably a more accurate shot of the color. The buttonholes are so small and skinny you can barely see them! Perhaps I went overboard. But I think they will be more obvious when the buttons are there to make you notice them. Anyway, it'll be subtle, and that's what my man likes.
Next up: attach the flaps to the pockets and the cuffs to the sleeves, then assemble the body, put the sleeves in, and join the lining! I'm really hoping to spend the next 3 days on this and then be done.
