The Little French Jacket Sew-Along

I'm still working on my couture dress, but it has been slow as family birthdays (September's a busy one in this family) and just everyday happenings with the kids going back to school have been keeping me otherwise engaged. But, if you know me I get bored too easily and distracted frequently.  This time it's for a really great reason though!  I was surfing some sewing blogs recently and came across this fun Sew-along Challenge. I'm hoping to have time next week so I can work up a muslin for my chosen pattern:

I'm looking at and figuring on doing view B which is on the lower right of the pattern envelope.  I have only 2 yards of the fabric I want to use so I'm hoping I can make it work.  Gosh, I think I just sounded like Tim Gunn?!  Oh My?!  Anyway, I've had this fabric for quite some time and was never really sure what I wanted to do with it, but I think this would be the perfect project for it.

 

It's a very pretty boucle that has a black background with accents of purple, magenta, dark blue, light blue and yellow threads that make up the pattern.  I think I can almost make out a houndstooth shape with the black, but it's really hard to tell.  I figure it has tons of possibilities for pairing with any number of skirts, or trousers or even jeans!  I will have to look for a lining fabric as well which means I'll have to go to the fabric store . . .  which means, I might get distracted again . . . which means I might end up wanting to start another project??!!!  Yikes, I think I better get focused on what I've got going so far.

 

Why not check out the posts about the Little French Jacket Sew-Along at A Challenging Sew and here at Thewallinna and see if you might be interested in sewing along too!

Hope to be back again soon with updates on these 2 exciting projects I got going on.  SEW . . . until  then . . .

~Connie

P.S.  I hunted down my copy of Threads, issue 121 from October/November 2005.  It has a great article by Susan Khalje on the "Inside Secrets of a Chanel Jacket" which I'm gonna read over again.  There's tons of great info in the article for this project if you can get your hands on a copy of this issue for yourself!

 

Craftsy Class

I recently signed up for Susan Khalje's class "The Couture Dress" on Craftsy.  I watched through all the lessons once before my pattern arrived in the mail and I've been busy these past 2 weeks trying to work on my muslin.  Last night, I finished up doing some redrafting of the front side bodice and am very pleased with the results.  Looks like I am very close to actually starting to sew my first real dress!

The toughest part was figuring out how to alter the areas that needed to be adjusted.  I searched on the Internet and through all of the books and magazines that I have and found my answer with Sandra Betzina's book Fast Fit - Easy Pattern Alterations for Every Figure.  (BTW, this is a great must-have reference for anyone interested in garment sewing)  Believe me when I say I should have looked at this book first.  Since I have so many books and really haven't been sewing the last couple of years, I didn't mind doing all this research and I really needed this primer on the basics and garment sewing lingo.  From now on, this will be the first book I consult when I need to alter a pattern.

Anyway, here are some photos of my muslin.  I chose to do option C for Vogue pattern 8648.

Front:

Back:

 

Side:

 

 

All in all I am very happy with the results.  (Please don't pay attention all those wrinkles you see.)  I had to adjust the bust for a lower bust and I made the seamlines for this smoother so that there was no point at the bust.  I also had to let out the sleeves a bit and will need to adjust the armhole, but this seems pretty minor as I was really worried about the bust area more.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  I am off for now and one step closer to starting my actual dress!  Until next time . . . Happy Sewing!

 

~Connie