Wednesdays with Kenneth: Back Pockets and Yoke

The next few months I’m sewing along with Kenneth D. King. A bunch of other talented seamsters and I have joined up through the Craftsy online community to learn how to recreate our favorite jeans. Here’s a reflection on my efforts to sew well.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re finally sewing our jeans!

This week’s Craftsy Jean-ius video lesson was all about the back.  First up were the back pockets.  I was merrily following everything Kenneth was doing to create my back pockets (with facings!), sewing a little bit here and a little bit there when I could squeeze in the time.  (Bananas is how I’d describe life right now.  But, we finally have a place to live in Seattle!  And, it has a sauna!  You can thank my husband and his ability to drive 26 hours in one weekend.  What?!) At dinner with friends Monday night, I proudly announced that I was working on the back pockets.  The soon-to-be-recepient of these jeans asked what design I stitched onto them.  My jaw hit the ground when I realized I’d forgotten to stitch on a design!  That’s one of my favorite parts of making my own jeans!  But, Kenneth hadn’t sewn one on, so it skipped my mind in my attempt to be a good student.  Since I’ve been going through the alphabet (A, B, C), I figured another letter was in order.  One friend said I should make my As my signature.  Another thought I should just keep on going in order, making these my Ds.  But, since my friend’s name begins with an L, I decided to first ask her if she wanted an L on the back.  She said she has always liked cursive Ls, so it was settled.  When I got home from dinner, I carefully chalked an L onto the back around all of the stitching I’d done to prep the facing, mirrored it on the other pocket, and started top stitching.  Three things I’d like to note here.  First, back pocket designs are best (in my opinion, of course!) when their ends get folded under and top stitched in place.  I use my back pockets a lot for storing my phone or some loose cash or a metro ticket, and my Bs are starting to unravel because I just pulled the loose threads to the back and tied them off.  Obviously not tightly enough.  Second, practice your topstitching on scraps to get the tension right.  This time I’m using a regular thread in my bobbin (instead of topstitching thread), and while my sewing is going much more smoothly than with my other pairs, the thread tension setting I’d used for my previous jeans wasn’t right.  Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until I was done with both Ls.  Again, too much focus, but not enough vision.  When I saw how uneven the stitches were, I practiced on some scraps.  Things got slightly better for the topstitching around the pockets, but I overcompensated, and the stitches are a bit tight.  I practiced some more, and things got much better for the yoke.  Nice, even, long stitches.  I think that bodes well for the rest of the jeans.  Hopefully my friend will forgive me for the poorly stitched Ls…  Third, you really have to tack down the top corners of the pockets if you’re not going to use rivets.  Kenneth recommends just a few back stitches, but I’ve found (with my poor Bs again!) that it’s just not enough since I actually use those pockets.

Since everything feels so miniature on these jeans (size 24 petite!), I decided I would only topstitch a single time around the pockets and keep the two rows of top stitching on the yoke fairly close together.  Kenneth gave us permission to use our edge stitching foot to keep the rows even, so that’s exactly what I did.  Even Maya noticed how nice and even it is!

Next week is a whole video lesson on making the front pockets.  My friend is always cold, so I was thinking about cutting the pocket bags out of flannel.  Do you think flannel would be too bulky for the front pockets?  I think she’d really appreciate the extra warmth…

If you’re interested in taking this class yourself, follow this link for 40% off Jean-ius: Reverse Engineer Your Favorite Fit with Kenneth D. King.

Cotton: Narrow Machine Hem

It’s the last week full week in April, which makes this my last post on Cotton.  For now. There’s so much to learn about this versatile fabric that it’s hard to imagine ever truly having a last post about it.

This week I wanted to focus on one of the final steps in the making of my Archer:  stitching the hem.  Again, I followed advice from Susan Khalje’s book Linen and Cotton.  Susan’s book has five pages on hems, the bulk of which are spent describing the narrow machine hem.  Her focus is on hemming a circular skirt, but I thought the technique would help me get a nice curved hem on my shirt.  The trick is to start with a row of stay stitching right below the intended hem.  Susan says,

This first row of stitching is the most important–it establishes the hemline and acts as staystitching.  It also allows you to assess the placement of the hem.  It’s easy to spot and correct any adjustments that are needed at this point.

She recommends “allowing at least a 3/8-in. seam allowance” since “anything less is difficult to manipulate.”  That said, I stitched my row of staystitching right at the pattern’s recommended 1/4″ seam allowance since I wanted to keep as much length as possible.

Next, fold and press along the row of stitching.  Then, sew a second row of stitching parallel to the first, and cut off the seam allowance as close to the new row of stitching as possible.  Since I’d skimped on the first step, I didn’t have much to trim off here.  What little I did trim off was done using my applique scissors since any slip would mean cutting through my nearly finished shirt!  Finally, fold along the trimmed seam, press, and stitch a third row of stitching parallel to the second row.  This final row of stitching is the only one that should now be visible from the front.

And, ta da!, a nicely rounded hem.  The book carries on about hemming, so I do recommend you check it out if you ever have a chance, but that’s the narrow machine hem in a nutshell.

Okay, now I’m off to the first day of the Pattern Review Weekend.  Can’t wait!

Drape Drape 3 Winner

Congratulations go to aleah of no time to sew!  She recently made a dress that looks just like one in this book, which hopefully means that she’ll get quite a lot of use out of this book!   aleah, Laurence King Publishing will be sending you your very own copy of Drape Drape 3 shortly.  In fact, it sounds like they’ve already put it in the mail!  Enjoy!

And, just in case you didn’t get enough of my Drape Drape 3 project, it’s now posted over on the Mood Sewing Network. Pop on over and say hello!

Wednesdays with Kenneth: Draft to Pattern

The next few months I’m sewing along with Kenneth D. King. A bunch of other talented seamsters and I have joined up through the Craftsy online community to learn how to recreate our favorite jeans. Here’s a reflection on my efforts to sew well.

With a month to go until the move to Seattle, it’s getting a bit crazy up in here.  My sewing is likely going to slow down here for a bit, but I’m thankful that I should still be able to squeeze these bite sized classes into my schedule each week. In the video this week, Kenneth showed the class how to turn the draft into an actual pattern, including how to make pattern pieces for the details – the pockets and fly facings and such.  After adding grain lines and seam allowances to all of them, we are now ready to start making our jeans!

In preparation for next week’s class, I’ve washed my denim twice. Is that enough?  I hope so!  But, I’m curious, how many times do you wash your denim before you cut into it?

If you’re interested in taking this class yourself, follow this link for 40% off Jean-ius: Reverse Engineer Your Favorite Fit with Kenneth D. King.

Me-Made May ’13: The Pledge

This May I’m joining Zoe at ‘So, Zo…’ in a challenge to wear something handmade every day for thirty-one days. This post marks the beginning of the saga.

I, Amy of Sew Well, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear one handmade garment each day for the duration of May 2013.

It’s that time of the year again – the month where many sewing bloggers around the world sort through their closets and make sure their handmade garments are front and center, having committed to proudly wearing their handmade makes. I’ve completed this challenge twice before: Self-Stitched September ’11 and Me-Made May ’12.  This year I’m amping up the challenge by throwing in an interstate move at the end of the month and by committing to take daily photos that also include my head.  (I’ve always cropped my challenge photos in a way that removed my head, just to keep myself from stressing about the photo a day part of the challenge.  This time I’m going to try to learn from the photography part of the challenge.)  Look for my MMMMonday weekly round up posts all month!

Who else has signed up or is thinking about signing up?  Also, who’s going to Pattern Review Weekend in San Francisco this weekend?  I’ve never been to one of these weekends before.  What should I expect?!

Cotton: Patch Pockets

Last week I briefly mentioned interfacing my Archer Button Up Shirt, and the five pages on the subject I found in Susan Khalje’s book Linen and Cotton.  Well, after interfacing the cuffs and collars and plackets and such, one of the next big things to do was add the patch pockets.  Susan’s book has quite a lot of information on pockets, including nearly three pages devoted to patch pockets.  Now, I’ll confess up front that I didn’t follow all of her advice.  Actually, I’m embarrassed to admit that I ignored most of it!  She clearly states that “pockets need to be interfaced as well as lined to help them maintain their shape and to preserve the line of their upper edge.”  Her example patch pockets were on the skirt section of a dress, where I could imagine structure would be necessary.  But, I didn’t want my pockets to be structured, so I skipped all of that.  I later realized that Jen from Grainline interfaced her silk Archer pockets with an ultra lightweight fusible interfacing that didn’t seem to add any structure whatsoever.  So, in the future I’ll know that there’s probably always a way to start off right and follow Susan’s advice!

Susan also states that “if the pocket is cut on the bias, make sure that it’s been stretched thoroughly before applying interfacing and staystitching.”  I considered this idea for some time since I had cut my pockets on the bias.  I wasn’t planning on adding interfacing, so would stretching the fabric help or hurt?  If I stretched the fabric, wold I throw off the grain entirely?  At first I decided I was going to ignore her advice here, too.  Instead, I chose to do my best to keep the pattern pieces from stretching, though I figured a little bit of stretching wouldn’t be so bad since loose pockets on a shirt like this one would still look okay.  To keep stretching to a minimum, I kept the pocket pieces pinned to the pattern piece until it was time to use them.  When it was time, the first step was to fold the top of the pocket over twice and topstitch, as instructed during the Sew-Along.  And, would you believe that just that little manipulation s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d those pockets out, mocking my attempts at careful handling?!

I figured it was worth a shot seeing if the stretched out pockets would actually behave well once sewn on the shirt.  The answer, from my limited experience at least, was no.  Despite my careful pinning and stitching, there were weird drag marks coming from the lower side seams up to the pockets.  Perhaps things would have been different had the pockets been interfaced after stretching?  Perhaps I didn’t stretch “thoroughly”?  Regardless, the seam ripper came out, and the pockets came off.

Now I had two stretched out pocket pieces.  To get both back into their original shape while taking care to make sure they were identical to each other, I finally started listening to Susan’s advice.  She says,

It’s critical that matching pockets be exactly the same.  The easiest way to guarantee uniformity is to use a template of the pocket.  Templates are essential, both to match one side of the pocket to the other and to match one pocket to another.

I made the simplest template imaginable by folding the seam allowances in on my taped together paper pattern piece.    Susan suggests tracing or basting, but I needed to get my pockets back into shape, so I carefully pinned the fabric onto the paper pattern, folding the side seams around the back, and steamed the fabric like mad.  Miraculously, it shrank back to its original shape.

This time when I carefully stitched the pockets into place on the front of the shirt, the drag lines were gone.  Hooray!  The pockets do have a wee bit of fullness, but I don’t think it’s anything anyone but me would ever notice.

I think I was saved by working with a very forgiving fabric and pattern. Next time I might not be so lucky, which is why I’m going to try to more closely follow Susan’s advice from the start.  I know better than to think I know better!

What about you?  Any stories to share about working with patch pockets?  I know I’m not alone since there was a whole challenge dedicated to patch pockets in the second episode of The Great British Sewing Bee!

Drape Drape 3 + No. 3 = Review and Giveaway

Laurence King Publishing is at it again with yet another English translation of the fabulous Drape Drape series.  This time our treat is Drape Drape 3.

The book is organized the same as the other Drape Drape books.  The beginning is filled with information about the fabrics, sewing techniques, and draping techniques that are used for the patterns included with the book.  And, yes, when I say included, I do mean included.  Multi-sized paper patterns for all 15 of the garments you see in the book are found in the back – though you do have to trace them off of a large, nested sheet.

When I was browsing through the book trying to decide which pattern I wanted to make, I found quite a lot with interesting details that I was excited to try out.  See the gathered skirt in panel marked 3 above?  It is quite the attention catcher, and it’s part of a V-neck dress, a style I’ve recently realized I quite like.  The panel marked 5 above is a long-sleeve T with a really cool twisted drape at the hip.  Finally, the neckline and overall drape of the dress in panel 6 above is stunning.

Meg of Meggipeg has made a really cool version of this dress, only she added a second sleeve.

I want to make this just so I can wrap my head around that twist at the hip line!

My ultimate choice though was none of the patterns I’ve shown above.  I was really focused on using a bit of Cavalli print from Mood that I thought would look elegant draped into a lot of folds, like what you see in the skirt in panel 4 way above.  I actually would have gone with that skirt, but its draped piece is not faced, and I worried that the back of the jersey print fabric (which is almost white!) would peek out too often.  After much deliberating, I chose pattern No. 3, the three-piece cowl-neck top.

The deep cowl gave me the folds I was looking for, and I realized I should actually get more use out of a top like this one than I would have out of the skirt. I imagine wearing it with skinny jeans for a night on the town, with a black pencil skirt for a fancy occasion, or over a bathing suit for a day by the pool.

Since the back doesn’t have much draping, I chose to use some of Mood’s solid black jersey instead of the print.  I also used the same solid black jersey for the cuffs.  The whole top came together relatively smoothly in a few short hours on a lovely Sunday, thanks in large part to the fact that I was able to serge almost every seam!  Quick makes are so satisfying.

That said, the jury is still out on this top.  It feels fabulous while it’s on.  When I look at it in the mirror, it feels quite elegant with the glittery roses peeking out amongst the folds.  When I ask my husband what he thinks, he also uses the word “elegant”.  But, many of the photos my husband and I took together looked like I had just thrown a lot of fabric over my shoulders (see below, for example).  My hope is that I’ve just had a second lesson on how hard it is to photograph something black and that the top really does look as fabulous as it feels like it does.  I’m going to have to get a few more real life opinions though before I reach a solid verdict.

Regardless, I really enjoy how these books teach me about how fabric hangs and moves.  You can see below how the drapes all hang from the shoulder while the bulk of the shirt actually fits closely.

And, how it catches the wind!  (It was so windy the day we took these photos!)

Now for the best part – the giveaway. Laurence King Publishing has agreed to give away an additional copy of the English version of Drape Drape 3 to one of my readers. If you’d like to be entered into the drawing, just leave a comment below letting me know. I’ll pick a winner at random next Thursday, April 25th at 7 am PDT. Good luck!

As an aside, I really have to thank Laurence King Publishing for continually going above and beyond to make great sewing books accessible to a wide audience.  They have not only translated the Drape Drape series, but also the Pattern Magic series and several other coveted fashion books.  And, so far they’ve been very generous in their giveaways!  They’re definitely a company to keep an eye on!