When I asked what part of sewing jackets you find the most intimidating to sew, many of you left a comment about the collar and lapel. I must have had a premonition, as this week’s episode of It’s Sew Easy gives you a few tips for success. You are right, the collar and lapel is what really makes your jacket stand out … and the good news … it’s easier to sew than you think. In fact, sewing is only a minute part involved in tailoring a collar. The most time-consuming part involves preparing the center front jacket, upper collar, and under collar pattern pieces with interfacing and twill tape, not to mention pad stitching if you are going the traditional tailoring route. The weight of the interfacing will determine the thickness and stability of your lapel and collar, so be sure to test a sample first. My two favorites for jackets are armo-weft fusible interfacing (shown here) and horse hair canvas (perfect if you plan on pad stitching – which I will show in a later blog post). Fusible interfacing can be added in layers if you need more structure at the end of the lapel, keep that in mind if you interfacing supply is limited.
Despite adding interfacing, extra measures need to be taken to prevent the neckline and center front of the jacket from stretching out. Twill tape is the perfect solution! Look closely and you can see hand stitching attaching the 1/4″ wide cotton twill tape to the front edge of the jacket. As I am hand stitching, I am holding the twill tape tight and allowing the jacket fabric to ease in. Not too much easing though! Make sure the jacket doesn’t change shape or become skewed.
What about that perfect roll on the lapel? Again, twill tape is hand stitched to the roll line (the roll line should be printed on your jacket pattern)
When hand stitching the twill tape to the roll line, keep the twill tape tight (tighter than when we added twill tape to the center front and neckline). Again, easing in the fashion fabric. I use a pin to hold one end of the twill tape and start stitching from the other end. You can see below how much I am easing!
Here I started hand stitching the twill tape in place, the main part of the stitch is on the twill tape and I am just picking a short fiber in the fashion fabric, then back through the twill tape. You can barely see the stitching from the right side of the fabric. When you are finished steam press the lapel roll using a seam roll. Again, for more details see this weeks episode of It’s Sew Easy, scroll to the bottom of their page and click on the video.
Another Giveaway, this one is for my online class: Sewing a Designer Unlined Jacket on PatternReveiw.com. Does your favorite jacket style close in the center front or asymmetrically? Just tell us your preference to enter the jacket class giveaway. (A random winner will be drawn next Monday) Congratulations to last weeks winner JRP53 who will be joining me in the Beginner’s Guide to Sewing Jackets on PatternReview! Good luck on your jackets!
Ruching with Elastic Thread on a Serger / Coverstitch Machine
Loose flowing tops are right on trend right now, here is a quick way to add a little flair and fit with one of my favorite serging techniques; ruching with elastic thread. Add the ruching to the sleeve edge, hem or neckline. This is so cute and really easy! This ruching can be done on a sewing machine by winding the elastic thread in the bobbin, threading the machine with any silk, cotton, or polyester thread, and stitch with a narrow zigzag. What about serging with the chainstitch? The chainstitch is found on coverstitch machines or sergers with the added coverstitch function.
SET UP THE SERGER / COVERSTITCH MACHINE For this sample I am using my Brother 1034D 3 or 4 Thread Serger with Easy Lay In Threading with Differential Feed
. Thread the machine like you would for a chainstitch: use thread in the needle and elastic thread in the looper. Be patient with the elastic thread, but it will go through the machine just fine 🙂
Adjust the tension:
Loosen the needle tension (loosen by 2 notches)
Tighten the looper tension (start by tightening 1 notch)
When adjusting the tensions, my coverstitch has a standard setting at 4 – so adjust the tension on your machine accordingly. Then simply run the edge of the fabric through the serger. The photo’s below show you the front and back side of the first row of stitching.
Put the fabric back in the machine, line up the previous row of stitching with the edge of the presser foot and stitch.
That it! I usually ruch 2 – 6 rows depending on the design. Another idea is to ruch the waist on a skirt – the elastic ruching makes a great waistband and then you wear the waist high or low. I will dig up a photo of my silk bathing suit cover up that is sewn like this.
FREE SERGING CLASS GIVEAWAY!
Speaking of using a coverstitch and overlock machine – I have a class on Craftsy called Creative Serging – Beyond the basics. I am giving away a FREE CLASS to one lucky reader. All you have to do is leave a comment below telling me why you would like to take the free class. Click over and “‘like” my facebook page and you will get 2 entries. If you leave a comment on the facebook page you get an extra entry as well (that’s 3 entries total :)). One name will be drawn randomly on August 1st. I know many of you are already in my class as we are just under 5,000 students, awesome! For those of you that are already enjoying the class, leave a comment as to what you like most about the class and I will include you in the next giveaway (trust me, it will be good :))
A well-made jacket can show off an outfit to its best. Join me on PatternReview for the fundamentals and fine points of creating a contemporary couture jacket (hint: my version of the traditional Chanel jacket).
You’ll love the comfort and style of this jacket… it feels more like a sweater! It’s the perfect topper for jeans or more formal dress. This couture jacket is a must-have for the modern lifestyle!
The class offers 12 videos with 2 hours and 45 minutes of HD video. There is also a 164 page PDF file with photos and close up details of every step.
Selecting fabric and lining.
Creating a 3-piece sleeve, laying out the pattern, and cutting the fashion fabric.
Attaching fusible interfacing, finishing the edges, and cutting the lining.
Using a couture technique to quilt the lining.
Sewing a jacket with a plaid.
Preparing and hand-stitching the lining.
Sewing the sleeve vent and attaching sleeves.
Covering shoulder pads.
Trim ideas, including a tutorial on how to crochet your own trim!
Closure options including custom covered buttons.
Pockets with a couture touch.
And last but not least, adding the prestigious weighted chain.
Thinking you don’t have time for a few hours of hand-stitching a couture jacket? Why not bring the jacket with you! Seriously, I hand-stitched the lining on this jacket while fishing (see the finished jacket below). The lining is hand-dyed (and not with fish blood and guts :)) Fishing and sewing might be an odd combo, but it worked. How about you, any fun sewing stories that can beat fishing? Now be nice 🙂 Cheers xoxo Angela
A well-made jacket can show off an outfit to its best. Join me on PatternReview for the fundamentals and fine points of creating a contemporary couture jacket (hint: my version of the traditional Chanel jacket).
You’ll love the comfort and style of this jacket… it feels more like a sweater! It’s the perfect topper for jeans or more formal dress. This couture jacket is a must-have for the modern lifestyle!
The class offers 12 videos with 2 hours and 45 minutes of HD video. There is also a 164 page PDF file with photos and close up details of every step.
Selecting fabric and lining.
Creating a 3-piece sleeve, laying out the pattern, and cutting the fashion fabric.
Attaching fusible interfacing, finishing the edges, and cutting the lining.
Using a couture technique to quilt the lining.
Sewing a jacket with a plaid.
Preparing and hand-stitching the lining.
Sewing the sleeve vent and attaching sleeves.
Covering shoulder pads.
Trim ideas, including a tutorial on how to crochet your own trim!
Closure options including custom covered buttons.
Pockets with a couture touch.
And last but not least, adding the prestigious weighted chain.
Thinking you don’t have time for a few hours of hand-stitching a couture jacket? Why not bring the jacket with you! Seriously, I hand-stitched the lining on this jacket while fishing (see the finished jacket below). The lining is hand-dyed (and not with fish blood and guts :)) Fishing and sewing might be an odd combo, but it worked. How about you, any fun sewing stories that can beat fishing? Now be nice 🙂 Cheers xoxo Angela
In my mission to come up with fun and unique fabric manipulations, I thought I would test out quilting (taking a short break from embroidery this week :)). And yes, I said QUILTING! I am not sure about you, but as a fashion designer when I hear the word “quilting” I typically cringe! It’s not that I don’t think quilts are beautiful and I sure wouldn’t want to offend all my friends that have a passion for this art (especially my mother :)) – but the fact of the matter is, the word itself makes many apparel sewer’s run the other way. The term quilting gives me an instant vision of cotton, LOTS of cotton, and bins of more cotton scraps that can be added to some project down the road. I know, I am so judgmental! I obviously overlook my bins of silk scraps that I know will fit into a pocket eventually.
But I think I should really take another look at this art, especially with fabric manipulation on the mind. Besides, who made the rule you can only quilt cotton. What about my favorite sewing technique, that is very Chanel inspired, where the silk charmeuse lining is “quilted” to the jacket fabric. Very luxurious and looks fabulous! Although we call it “Chanelism” not quilting. Go figure!
Or have you seen the quilted leather shown by Proenza Schouler – definitely on the short list for a fall must-have! Givenchy and Chanel both added some form of quilted leather to their collections. I really love the way you can use quilting to create a unique looking fabric or you can place the quilting in particular area of the garment to add a custom design element.
So, as to not risk ruining a large piece of luxurious fabric, I thought I would try a small sample. I am going to use silk charmeuse with batting and create Eye Candy (those of you that travel often will understand the name.) This only requires a little fabric and should be easy for testing the quilting method before I add quilted silk to a garment.
Start with 2 pieces of silk charmeuse and 1 piece of batting.
Pin together the layers.
Use clay chalk to mark a straight line, diagonally across the fabric.
I am going to start the first row of stitching using my laser-vision as a guide to follow my chalk line. Although, the light is a little hard to see, probably because I have the bright light turned all the way up on the machine – I swear I can get a suntan from the brightness LOL!
Then, using my foot as a guild, I am stitching row after row. I noticed that sewing at a medium speed with the MuVit foot works the best, in fact the same is true for the walking foot on my Quattro.
After quilting the entire piece of fabric, I laid my pattern on top of the quilted fabric and cut it out.
I added an elastic band to the back, pinning in place at each side.
That was very easy! In fact this was going to be a gift, but I think I might have to keep this one for myself 🙂 So you can see the technique of quilting is pretty easy and it does work on other fabrics besides cotton. I have a few more fabrics I am going to try, I will let you know how they turn out. But I can definitely see this quilted silk charmeuse used in a jacket or vest. If you any photos of fabric manipulation post them on flickr here is my link to share or add them to facebook! Inspire others by your creativity! Cheers, xoxo Angela
Brother™ has provided me with the DreamWeaver XE, but all opinions expressed are entirely my own.
I have a new fetish for altering fabrics and I am on a mission to test some new and old techniques and see if they will fit into high-end fashion. Embroidery is definitely high on the list, and I am not talking about embroidered bunny’s on the front of my sweatshirt or his and her towel’s (although I have to practice somewhere 🙂 I am more thinking about using embroidery to create new fabrics and using that fabric in my garments. A few ideas I am going to try:
attaching two unusual textures
quilting silk charmeuse
sleeve embellishment
embroidered jeans
embroidery + needle felting
distressing
adding faux fur
shirring
Just a touch of ideas and I am going to give them a try over the summer, looking into my fall wardrobe. I don’t expect them all to be a success, but I know this will be fun! So to kick off my experiment I thought I better learn how to embroider. These jeans were my first embroidery project last May, not too shabby if I don’t say so myself. The jean pattern is an altered version of my Angel Bootcut Jean and the embroidery design I created on Brother’s Dreamweaver . Trust me, I had no idea what I was doing but these new embroidery machines tell you what to do!
I sewed the jeans in a little different order starting with the front and back pockets and then the outside seam. A bit of a risk, after all that work, that the embroidery turns out awful. Looking back, you would think I would have tested the design on something, even a scrap of fabric. I am too stubborn for that. Each leg took 3 hooping’s and at first the total embroidery hours for both legs was tallying up to be 26 1/2 hours … YIKES! Then I realized that each color would only embroider for a few minutes and I would have to keep changing threads (this is only a one thread embroidery machine, in case you might think I have the fancy one). I decided to change the order of color, even if it altered the final design.
The embroidery design: I changed the design from being a little larger in the top (1st hooping) a little smaller in the middle (second hooping) and really small at the ankle (third hooping). Minus a few mistakes (which I won’t point out :)) I was really pleased with the final results.
One thing I learned with embroidering stretch denim – after you embroider, the denim doesn’t stretch. Just keep that in mind and make alterations to your pattern to allow for that non-stretch, especially if you are sewing skinny jeans or jeggings. I am planning on embroidering another pair of jeans with all one color of thread, I am thinking black fabric with silver thread or something along that line.
Any embroidery tips for me would be greatly appreciated, I have a lot of fabric I want to try (especially silk charmeuse). There is so much to learn and take into account. For example, embroidery thread. There are a ton of choices, any advice on the what’s the best and why? I would love to know the scoop!
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