Woolly Oslo Cardigan

What do you do with a fabric that you can't press, pin, wash, or mark? That frays, gobbles up stitches, stretches in ways you don't want, and creates glitter once cut? Oh, and it's striped. If you're me, I guess you make an Oslo cardigan!

You know how Mood has a Deal of the Day fabric, something at the crazy price of 50% off? (If you didn't know, I apologize now, as you're about to spend more $$ there than you've planned.) I previously bought one of those half-off fabrics (pink stretch silk charmeuse!) and loved it, so when I saw this wool blend knit I had to have it.

It's wool, acrylic, and lurex. It was listed as a knit that doesn't stretch. I didn't even bother trying to press it because of the acrylic and lurex. The weave is SO open that pins fell out. The cut edges frayed and the lurex disintegrated and left sparkles all over my sewing room (and me). I also didn't wash it, probably a first for me. It's hands-down the craziest fabric I've ever sewn.

All of that said, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I couldn't wait to sew this up in an Oslo cardigan, one of the December patterns from Seamwork magazine. After a mere 5 months, pregnancy sewing is boring me to tears, but I knew that a cardigan would be useful now and for years to come. Seamwork provided an excellent article about sewing with sweater knits, and that gave me the confidence to plow ahead with this beast (you can read the articles for free, it's $6/month to subscribe and receive the patterns).

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the completed garment. The fabric was a real challenge (in a good way, I learned a lot) and I don't know if it works well with the pattern. It's a bit stiff and I think it makes the cardigan look enormous on me (I made a small). Normally I'd give you my measurements for comparison, but they change every day, ha!

It looks particularly...fluffy...from the side. You can't even tell that I'm pregnant in the above photo. Ooo, but if you look closely, you can see my stripe-matching on the side seams!

I'm not crazy about this color ON ME. I love it, but I think silver and white kind of wash me out. I styled this with the brightest maternity shirt I could find (a modified Renfrew, blogged here) to help bring some color into the picture, but still all I can see is OLD MAN SWEATER.

I omitted the buttons (for now, I might sew some on next winter) but here is how it would look if the cardigan closed:

The pattern is very well drafted and the instructions are excellent. Good thing too, because every stitch completely disappeared into the weave. If I had made a mistake I would not have been able to rip it out. I was even able to sew the sleeves in flat without issue. The seam allowance is only 3/8" so choose your size wisely. I did a LOT of test sewing to figure out the best stitch for construction. I ended up following the guidelines in the Seamwork article, a zig-zag stitch with a length of 2.0 and a width of 1.5. Yes, you read that right, I assembled the whole thing on my sewing machine even though it's a "knit". All the seam allowances were finished on my serger.

I sewed the hem by hand after serging the raw edge. With white thread you can't see the stitches at all, so I didn't have to be particularly careful with it.

Next time, I'll add some length to the sleeves. It's probably a personal preference but I'd like them longer than the above. The shoulders are dropped and it made it hard to know exactly how long they'd end up. I'm also not sure my cuffs are done correctly.

Again, I think it's an issue with my fabric, but the cuffs are crazy big compared to the sleeve and looked stupid before I cuffed them. I turned them down and tacked them just over the seam. If I could unroll them maybe the length wouldn't be an issue, but like I said they looked bizarre since there wasn't the right stretch.

Above, on the left, the cardigan with the collar unrolled. On the right, folded down.

I don't know...your thoughts? Do I need a size x-small? Is the back too wide? The fabric not right? Too long on me? Some combination of those things? It's such a pretty garment, I hate to stick it into the closet, and I'm not going to fault the pattern if the fabric was the problem. With a standard knit this would be a quick sew and could keep you cozy all winter!

A Sewist's Notebook free download and giveaway!

When Sarai at Colette Patterns introduced her Wardrobe Architect series back in January, I was thrilled. I've loved following along with the posts and exercises, and it's truly helped me to focus my wardrobe and my sewing. Shortly after the series started, I contacted Sarai with the idea for a Sewist's Notebook tie-in. I was SO nervous contacting her--she's kind of a sewing world superstar!--but Sarai was great. I've really been looking forward to sharing our plans with you!

Today, you can hop over to the Coletterie blog for a FREE download of a single page from A Sewist's Notebook. If you've been eyeballing the book but haven't pulled the trigger yet, I encourage you to try this download and give a whirl!

AND two lucky people will win a free copy! How great is that? Go here for all the details!

Coat Making: Resources

I have no idea how many work-hours I have in my completed Albion, but it's probably equal to the amount of research-hours I invested. SO MANY LINKS. And also books. So how's about we put them all in one place to reference later?

First of all, the modifications I made were inspired by my own winter coat (you can see photos here). I studied this coat as much as possible without tearing it apart, and used my best judgement to plan order of construction, etc. (many nights falling asleep going over construction in my head). I also practiced the collar during my muslin stage.

Books:

Tailoring: The Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket--VERY informative, and will teach you all you need to know about tailoring a more traditional coat or suit jacket. Also goes in depth about supplies like interfacing and linings. Plenty of info that transfers into coat-making.

Links:

How to Preshrink Wool at Home--This is the method I used. You need to preshrink wool somehow, otherwise when you press/steam your seams will shrink!
Another Preshrinking Discussion
All About Linings--Also be sure to preshrink your linings!

How to Sew a Welt Pocket--I used this tutorial to insert my welt pocket and it worked perfectly. I drafted my own pattern pieces based on the size of my husband's cell phone.
How to Bag a Jacket Lining
How to Bag a Lining without a Weird Pleat
It should be noted that the Albion pattern does not have you bag the lining, but I decided to try it this way. I ended up doing the sleeve hems differently so honestly I didn't use anybody's directions!

All my testing for automatic buttonholes was disastrous. I quickly realized that I would need to sew the buttonholes (all five of them) by hand. Le sigh!
How to Sew a Buttonhole by Hand--Fantastic tutorial.
How to Sew a Buttonhole with a Zig-Zag Stitch
(video) How to Sew a Buttonhole Stitch--This helped me the most with the actual stitch.

This is my final post on the Albion, which has been haunting me for months now. It was the most expensive, ambitious, taxing sewing project I've ever undertaken. When it was done I refused to take it back into my sewing room for even minor tweaks or pressing, because I was so over it. I'm proud that I made a coat. I'm proud that I made complicated pattern modifications and it didn't end in disaster. But is it my favorite thing? No. Is it my husband's go-to every day coat? No. Do I sometimes wish I could burn it into a pile of ash? Yes.

But I hope that I won't always feel that way. I had very high expectations for myself, probably unfairly so, and I need to learn to take it easy on me. I kind of feel the way I felt after I made my first pair of trousers. Like I learned a whole hell of a lot, but like it was work when sewing is usually fun.

In the end, it's always an accomplishment when something leaves the sewing room for the closet. And maybe that's all that matters.

Coat Making: Choosing Supplies

I spent a LOT of time selecting fabrics/supplies for my husband's Albion coat. I did plenty of research and I think it would be helpful to share my thought process and how I chose one thing over another.

The shell:

If money had been no object, I would have ordered wool melton from Mood. But at $20/yard, needing 4 yards, it wasn't in the budget. Instead, I ordered a 100% wool coating from Fabric Mart for the exterior shell. It was thinner than I expected (seemed more like a suiting weight) but as I worked with it I was glad for the weight. Some areas of the coat had 5-6 layers of wool, and it would have been impossible for me to sew that much bulk with a thicker fabric. I read that the tightness of the weave is just as important as the actual weight, and since this fabric is heavily felted it's still warm. The finished coat is SO. HEAVY. that I can't imagine using a thicker fabric, so I was lucky.

The wool was very easy to work with, which was nice since it was my first time using wool yardage! Here's a close-up of the fabric. It has a very subtle herringbone design that gives it some visual texture:

It was a closeout deal, so there isn't any left (sorry!). The only thing I didn't like about it was its attraction to pet hair. Even with excessive lint-rolling there are always cat/dog/people hairs sticking to it.

The lining:

I considered all kinds of things for the lining. Silks, flannel, flannel-backed satin, quilted yardage, Thinsulate, on and on. All of them had drawbacks. Silk would have easily slid over clothing, but it's expensive and breaks down when it interacts with sweat. Flannel is warm, but difficult to find a high quality and doesn't slide over clothes. Flannel-backed satin would have been my ideal choice, but the quality at Jo-Ann's was unimpressive, and it was hard to source elsewhere. Quilted yardage is expensive. Thinsulate can't be pressed (it melts) and is more appropriate for a puffy ski-style coat (so I read). Ultimately, I decided on a flannel lining for the bodice, and Bemberg rayon for the sleeves.

The plaid fabric in the first photo was my eventual choice. It's flannel from the Platitudes collection at Jo-Ann's. Most flannel from there tends to be thin and terrible, but I made two shirts from Platitudes flannel last year and they have held up very well. I was happy with this flannel except that it was off-grain.

The grey lining is Bemberg rayon from Mood. While shopping in some nicer stores over Christmas (J. Crew, Brooks Bros.) I studied the suit jackets and they were all lined with Bemberg rayon. If it's good enough for a $400 suit jacket, it's good enough for me! While a nightmare to cut, the Bemberg was easy to sew and press. It was a bit fiddly to hem, and ripping stitches out was frustrating. Overall, I'm kind of meh on it and might consider something else next time.

Interfacing:

Originally I thought I would make my husband a tailored pea coat, and that opened the door to many types of interfacing. But given the simplicity of the Albion pattern, it didn't need a lot of tailored work. I went with a mid-weight fusible interfacing. I've found that anything stronger than mid-weight is awfully stiff, and makes buttonholes much more difficult (although I ended up sewing them by hand anyway).

I'm kind of torn about the stiffness of the stand-up collar (which is two layers of wool, each interfaced). Owning a similar coat myself, I know that a stiff collar is useful when you want it around your face, but I'm also constantly pushing it out of my way because it bugs me. I guess a mid-weight interfacing is the best compromise.

Odds and ends:

The buttons are all from Jo-Ann's (yay for buy one get one free on Black Friday!). I'm sure there's a nicer choice out there, but a few dollars here and there on so many details adds up over a whole project.

The white piping inside the coat is also the store-bought poly stuff that everyone hates. Sorrynotsorry that I didn't make my own, but my time is worth more than the cost to purchase.

The ribbing inside the collar is from Wawak. It's heavy-duty ribbing made specifically for jackets, and it comes in a pre-cut size. To have enough length, I ordered the "waistband ribbing" and cut it down to fit. I was very pleased with this ribbing and the price is right.


If anyone was curious, I probably have around $100 in materials in this coat, half of which was the coating fabric (I got a good deal!). It's by far the most expensive garment I've ever made. Coats can be quite the investment piece!

Tomorrow I'll go over the resources I used to learn about coat-making and include links to some helpful tutorials.

Albion

I teased. I mentioned this coat a month ago and then didn't mention it again. So here it is, two months in the making, my husband's Albion!

Fabric is wool coating from Fabric Mart.

I used buttons instead of toggles.

I left off the hood and drafted a stand-up collar.

The coat body is lined with cotton flannel from Jo-Ann's.

The sleeves are lined with Bemberg rayon from Mood.

Patch pockets.

Extra topstitching on the back yoke.

I added piping to the facings and a ribbed interior collar.

I inserted a welt pocket in the lining.

I hand-embroidered this tag and sewed it inside.

Interior piping.

Collar with interior ribbing.

I sewed and inserted a loop for hanging.

Sleeve tab.

All five buttonholes were sewn by hand.

This post is picture-heavy and light on the text, but I promise more details later this week. There is a lot to say about this coat!

Finished Negroni shirt!

I'm not sure how to go about this review. If you want to know how I feel about the Negroni pattern, A+. If you want to know how I feel about the completed shirt I made, eh...it's a C. Maybe a B if it's Friday and the teacher is feeling generous because it's almost the weekend.

By the way, this fabric (a linen/rayon blend from Jo-Ann's) is impossible to photograph. Half the time I couldn't even see it with my bare eyes. Some of these pictures are purposefully overexposed because that was the only way you can see any detail.

As the person who sewed the shirt, of course I can only focus on the negatives. The pockets aren't even, the sleeves are too long, one cuff opening is smaller than the other...but there are good things, too.

Next time I'll put the pockets on last.

The chest fits well, the length is just right, and it's constructed well. It was the first time I'd done a real sleeve placket, and my first patch pockets, oddly enough. It's probably the sturdiest garment I've ever produced, thanks to the flat-felled seams, and it was also my first time with those (they weren't so bad!).

Flat-felled side seam.

I spent a loooooong time on this shirt. We had a few rainy days and that meant I stayed inside and sewed a lot. And then our house got hit by lightning and I had LOTS of time to finish it!

The day it was done and I discovered the issues with the cuffs and the sleeves, I was feeling very down about the whole thing. There's nothing worse than spending ages on something that doesn't turn out how you hoped. I went out to run some errands and had this in my mailbox:

My Grandma sent it to me, along with a letter saying that I had made it for her a long long time ago. She said that she thought she should keep it until I was a famous seamstress, but that I might want to have my first project.

To say that this letter made my day would be an understatement. It was such a nice reminder that putting love into a gift I've made is more important than how it looks. Sounds cheesy, but there it is.

But let's get down to the nitty gritty!

The instructions for this pattern are excellent. There is a sew-along over at Male Pattern Boldness, but I only used it once to double check that I understood about how to flat-fell the armscythe seam. The changes I made to the pattern are noted in this post. In the future, I'll shorten the sleeves a little and also triple-check the way I cut the sleeves. I think I cut them incorrectly and that's why the cuffs ended up so wonky.

I omitted the loop at the neck. The other two changes I made had to do with the front facing (by the way, a facing is a lot easier to deal with than a placket like on Simplicity 2447). The instructions have you double-fold the raw edge and stitch it down to itself. I was afraid of too much bulk and decided to use rayon seam binding instead. This was my first time using this stuff and it. is. awesome! Easy to use, presses so well, and looks nice when you're done! Sorry it's red...I bought it to use with another project so it doesn't match this shirt.

I also slipstitched the facing to the shirt. It was only secured in the shoulder seam, hem, and buttonholes, which meant I had an unsightly facing flapping around with visible interfacing. Yuck. The slipstitching didn't take too long once I got into a rhythm with it, and you can't see it from the outside.

It may be a while before I make another one of these. I'm still reading Shirtmaking and the instructions for drafting your own men's shirt pattern are pretty good. I may start with the Negroni and go from there to make a sloper for my husband.

Now that this is done, I'm sure I'll be back at my forgiving, easy-to-love knits! Have you done any sewing for men? How did it turn out?

It's Thrifty Thursday! Snatch up the Varsity Cowl-Neck Pullover for $4 today only, at Peek-A-Boo Pattern Shop. See my review of this great pattern (perfect for fall!) here. Be sure to check out the rest of the fall line, there are lots of cute patterns!

Men's shirt pattern adjustments

Confession: I've never blended two sizes on a pattern. When I sew for myself I cut the smallest size and adjust as I'm sewing. When I sew for AB, if something doesn't fit just right I don't bother to fix it because she'll grow into it eventually. So when it came time to draft customized pattern pieces for my husband's Negroni, I was oddly terrified. 

Yesterday I talked about David Page Coffin's book, Shirtmaking. The book is fabulous and mentions that the most important part of a well-fitting shirt is the shoulder. The rest can be adjusted based on personal preference. 

My muslin was certainly too short in the shoulder point, and too tight through the chest, but fit fine through the torso. Here's how I developed my new pattern pieces, starting with piece A (shirt front).

I already had a Large pattern piece traced because of my muslin. I traced the XLarge and placed it behind my Large pattern piece. This photo shows the bottom of the armscythe and the top of the side seam. Checking where I marked on my muslin, I needed to grade from XL to L starting about where the notches are in this photo.

I don't have a French curve so I freehanded a line starting at the end of the armscythe and blending down to the notch. Then I cut on the line, as you can see in the photo above. I repeated these steps for the back pattern piece, double checking that the line I drew was the same shape as the line from the shirt front.

Here's how the new back pattern piece looked once cut it out. Since the whole chest area is XLarge, I did not have to make any adjustments to the yoke pieces, I could use an unaltered XL piece. However, I did have to change the shirt front facing piece because it runs the full height of the shirt, which was now slightly different.

I really only needed a bit more length in the shoulder area, which I added on to my original Large pattern piece.

To recap:

Piece A (shirt front) is a blended XL/L.
Piece B (back yoke and yoke facing) are XL.
Piece C (shirt back) is XL.
Piece D (front facing) is a blended XL/L.
Piece E (collar) is XL.
Piece G (long sleeve) is XL.
Piece J (cuff) is XL.

If you make any adjustments to a Negroni or any shirt pattern, make sure you track the domino effect that it will have on all the pattern pieces. Since the chest was XL, that meant the sleeve needed to be XL, which meant the cuff needed to be XL...on and on. Go slowly and double-check your work, especially before cutting into your real fabric!

At this point, it might have been wise to make a second muslin...but I'm not all that wise. I got to work with my real fabric. Check back next week for the big reveal!

Men's shirt muslin fitting

I know everyone says that when you make a garment, you spend the least amount of time actually at your sewing machine, but sheesh! I've been working on a Negroni shirt for my husband, and it takes for.ev.er. to mark and cut out. Not to mention adding a muslin on top of it.

Plus I'm being extra careful because I'll be devastated if he doesn't like/wear it. I might have to move out.

I kept my muslin very simple. I used pattern pieces A (shirt front, I cut 2), B (back yoke, I cut 1), and C (shirt back). Trust me, you don't want to assemble the facings, collar and the inside back yoke just for muslin fitting. You could cut sleeves if you wanted, but the pattern contains a finished garment underarm measurement, and you can easily compare that to a well-fitting shirt you already have.

Sorry all the photos aren't on a live model. I could barely get him to put it on for fitting.

I drew on the pocket placement, buttons, and marked the hem so I could get a visual on those.

My husband is tall and muscular, and RTW shirts that fit him in the chest are baggy through the rest of the torso. For my muslin, I cut a straight large and prayed for a miracle. I was disappointed. Stupid. I've been shopping with him for almost 7 years, I should have known better!

The length and bottom half of the torso were fine, but the chest/shoulders area was too small. After fitting him I knew I'd have to cut an XLarge in the chest and yoke, but grade it down to a Large everywhere else. Because the upper torso would be XL, the sleeves would also need to be XL too, unless I felt like messing with the armhole (I didn't).

It was from roughly the middle button up that needed to be bigger, so I marked that on my muslin. I must say, muslins are a pain, but being able to make notes right on my fabric was fun. Made me feel like a naughty child drawing on the wall.

Thursday I'll be going over how I adjusted the pattern pieces. It involved advanced math and a graphing calculator. Just kidding!

Inspiration: Men's shirt details

I did it, finally. I started a shirt for my husband! I've had fabric and a pattern (Colette Negroni) for.ev.er. and now I'm actually working on it! I told myself I wanted to wait until I had my serger, so that my seams would look all nice and pretty. If I had bothered to read the directions in the pattern, I would have seen that all the seams are flat-felled or enclosed. No serger needed. Whoops.

This week I'll be sharing my muslin process and the pattern adjustments I had to make for my husband. I've also been browsing men's button-up shirts and found a few that really inspired me!

To start, you MUST click over to Colettire and look at their post of men's shirt inspiration. I love them all!

Vintage Park Service Shirt

I guess Urban Outfitters sells one-of-a-kind vintage clothing online? Who knew. I love the shoulder tabs on this shirt and the pretty grey color.

Salt Valley Tunisia Shirt

Also from UO (but not a vintage shirt) this one has a loop on the collar like the Negroni. There's no way my husband would wear a print like this, but I think it's fun!

Rag and Bone

This "beach shirt" from Rag and Bone looks so soft I want to grab it through the screen! I particularly like the contrast color for the inside of the collar and the shape of the shirttail hem.

Irish Linen Shirt

This linen shirt from J. Crew is the most similar to how my Negroni will look, since I'm using a navy linen/rayon fabric.

Here's hoping that the shirt for my husband turns out better than a similar one I made for myself. I definitely learned some things from that project! Like how to sew a collar on crooked...how to make a shirt too thick for buttonholes...how NOT to cut plaid...

Today is the last day for Craftsy's Summer Sale! ALL classes have dropped their prices (sewing, knitting, quilting, jewelry, etc.). I watched a few lessons from Beginner Serging over the weekend, and I can't wait to try out the techniques I learned!