Stuff I’ve Sewn in 2021

Some of the sewing sisterhood are dabbling with reviving their blogs. In solidarity with them, I will try to make a new post, even though I’ve forgotten how this interface works.

The year started with chore jackets, utility jackets, whatever you want to call them. I made two – one for cooler months and a white one for summer. A white jacket hangs by the door to the garage all summer, ready to be grabbed whenever I go out. Although these both look really similar, I used different patterns.

Chore jacket #1 was made from some selvedge denim I got for cheap in our dearly-departed fabric district. The stores I used to shop there are all gone now. Very sad. Anyway, originally I thought I’d make jeans. But the fabric was so heavy that I knew my machine couldn’t handle all the thicknesses involved in jean-making. For this jacket, I used the old Cutting Line Designs “By Popular Demand” pattern: lengthening it, eliminating the yoke, rounding the corners and adding a center back seam. I used lapped seams to show the selvedge and deal with the heavy fabric thickness, and bound any raw edges. Faced the hem.

Fresh from the back seat of the car

Chore jacket #2 was #17 in the 2/2021 issue of Ottobre Woman, called “Worker Look”. This one I made straight out of the magazine, no changes. The white Japanese denim was purchased from Fashion Fabrics Club and is really, really nice. I like this pattern a lot – except that the instructions refer to a non-existent tutorial for the collar/center front. Luckily, there is a good youTube video for a different jacket that shows very clearly how to get it right: Lifting Pins and Needles

Let’s see, I also made a shirt to honor David Page Coffin in PatternReview’s memorial “contest”. This one used Sewing Workshop’s oooold Elle pattern to mimic their newer Cottage Shirt. I used one of the collar and stand combinations from David Coffin’s excellent Shirtmaking book. David’s drafting was perfect, just as you would expect.

And I made a pair of pants. Style Arc has been releasing some pants patterns with balloon-type legs that I just love – last year I made both the Victor jeans and Kew pants. This year I got the elastic-waist Barry style and like them too. It’s too bad I have never been able to get decent photos of pants, because I would love to show them to you.

And now I can go read some of the other newly-updated blogs free of guilt.

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