Modifications Retard Progress! (Pearly Wannabe Jacket)

The Pearly-Wannabe jacket, I've been blogging about recently, was a challenging project. There as so much I was trying to do. Some ideas worked, some didn't.

I was reminded of a line from a WWII British novel by D. E. Stevenson (Listening Valley). During a card game ( no video games or pre-recorded movies for entertainment in those days folks!), one of the young officers says, "No more mods (modifications). Mods retard progress!"

Of course, I'd created all my mods up front. Looking back on the project I'm guessing I would have been safer just doing button on/off sleeves on my original pattern. My mods definitely got in the way of speedy sewing. But.... well it was a lot of fun imagining the results.

One of the mods I had planned was to bind my hem edge with bias trim made from the flowered home dec fabric. Sounds cute, don't you think?

In practice what happened was that, even when I weighted down the bias trimmed two layers of fleece with leaded drapery cord, I still just ended up with a great, heavy, bunchy hem. But I persevered. I hand stitched. I kept re-laying it out and stitching it again. I made sure things lined up. Then I re-pinned and did it again. I added vents to make it hang better.

And no matter what I did, that hem just looked bunchy, heavy and yucky.

I heard myself saying, Well gee, I've put so much time into getting this hem right. I've got to get this bias trim to work out. And suddenly I remembered a conversation from my very young adulthood.

A work mate was explaining why she was sticking with her lousy boyfriend, Well, see, Jimmy and I have been together for five years.

Yeah, you know what I did then. I unpicked that bias trim and used it to simply turn up the hem behind the bottom edge of the jacket. (I stitched in the heavy drapery cording as well, to make a nice stable hemline)

No bad boyfriend hems in my wardrobe!

El Debut: My Pearly-Wannabe Jacket

Yes, I double-checked 'el debut' really is the Spanish version of the word we often think of as French for 'presentation'

I have been working on this jacket for probably six weeks now. I can't even begin to catalog what went into the creation and imagination of this new adjunct to my wardrobe, though I plan to highlight some of the sewing techniques and items I used in this blog. Several of them were new to me and I plan to use and try them again in less complex projects.

Nor can I say that this garment is absolutely finished. Note the piece of floral binding still hanging down from one of the faux pocket flaps in front. And I keep finding other places I want to add buttons. I don't even dare show you the back! We are not talking a mainstream piece of clothing here, yet it's definitely something I plan to wear in my everyday world.

This Pearly-Wannabe garment (you know about the Pearly's right?) has button on-off sleeves, so that it can live life as either a vest or a jacket. I'm hoping that will make it a useful travel garment.

I'll share more on this creation over time. The base pattern is one I've sewn many times in the past, but altered tremendously for this garment.

After working so long on the Pearly-Wannabe, I'm craving some plain, basic sewing time. I'm already working on a pink flowered shirt (that's where the binding that's going on the faux pocket flap and the lining for the button on/off sleeve wings came from) and have a pair of very simple black linen cropped pants cut out as well.

This jacket, no matter how much she wants to be one, doesn't really qualify as a Pearly. For one thing, all the Pearly clothes I've seen, are solid black, then trimmed with elaborate patterns of buttons. Also the Pearly roles are inherited. And they're British!

What can I say? This gal's a California Pearly!

~ ~ ~

For more on Pearly's

http://www.pearlysociety.co.uk/Main%20page.html

Scraps:Covering Buttons (Letter to Sharmila)

Dear Sharmila,

In sewing class the other day you asked me about the covered button I'd made for my vest using scrap fabric from the project. Here's the lowdown.

* The covered button forms are available in normal places, like Joannes. There is a version with a tool or a no-tool one. I just get the no-tool type and snap them in place with my fingers. Maybe the other kind is good for heavier fabrics? I'm not sure.

There are different sizes of button forms
They come in round head
or flat head style
I have also used the flat head style for
creating beaded buttons, using
scrap fabric as a base to attach the
beading
Make sure the beads don't go to far out if you
do that, but far enough to cover the scrap fabric
You really need to make a test covered button with
the same sized forms to figure that out!

* I use a piece of scrap paper (like a recycled mailer card) to match the pattern on the back of the package. It's just a half circle, but of course I cut out the entire circle. Some covered button packages have multiple circles depending on the size you bought.

* Then I center the pattern over a great design in my fabric. I have also cut up an old stained embroidered linen napkin, making use of the embroidery and cutting away the stain. (I need to find the jacket I put that on and photograph it!)

* I glue stick the circle on top of the rounded button form. When you and I were talking about this, Ronda suggested that you could interface with a lightweight fabric, like silk organza, if you were using a light or sheer fabric, like the beautiful sari fabric you were sewing with when I first met you.

* Then I turn the form over and catch the edges of the circle on the teeth on the back of the button form. I have to do lots of smoothing of the edges to avoid puckering.

* Once I'm happy with the placement of the fabric and it's caught well on all the teeth I snap the button back in place. I always get confused by which side goes inside, but one part has grooves that fit better. I have to push hard, but eventually it snaps in place with a satisfactory click. They don't come apart after that.

* Sometimes I make them up with scrap fabric, not knowing how I will use them and just put them in my button collection.

Hope you enjoy making some. I'd love to see what you come up with!

Your sewing buddy,

Laurel

I forgot I had these with me yesterday.
I made three different types and tried them all out on my vest.
I might use one like a pin on the vest, just for decoration.
They are also nice on a purse or bag.

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

Other  favorite frock postings  

Romancing the Dress Part 1: Dainty


Romancing the Dress Part 2: California Romantic asks do skirts really fit into her active and arty modern life?

Romancing The Dress Part 3: The Dress Comes to Life

Do modern children play Button Button Who's Got the Button? We sure did. It's one of those simple large group activities where the kid who's It, has three guesses trying to read faces and hope that the face of their little chum who's got the elusive trinket, can't keep from giving away the secret of their prize. We still played it in our youth, probably because most households still had a button box or jar. Nowadays- not so much.

Faced with a desire for a nice crisp column of simple black buttons I envisioned marching antlike down the front of my recently sewn Vogue v8810 dress (Read more about it in my piece, Romancing the Dress: Part 3 ), I started looking for all the recent perfect buttonhole articles I'd been saving off. What happens to those guys? I could have sworn the Threads newsletter had a juicy one by Sandra Betzina sometime this year. Plus I was also pretty durn sure I had the same writeup in one of her books. Could I find either?

Not on your life. nor the probably ten other articles, both paper and digital, that I've saved somewhere. New rule for self, just read the gol durned techniques and think about the skill next time instead of squirreling it away for a rainy  day. Although, I'm pretty sure the squirrels lose just as many acorns as I do vital articles.

Here's what I did that was new and different for me, using common sense and a couple of things I actually remembered reading.

First off I looked at where the pattern piece indicated the center of the buttonholes ought  to go (I admit there have been times I eyeballed that step and was really sorry later). After I marked the line with a lovely strip of super narrow postit tape*, I ran a line of basting down the front to mark the center of the buttonholes. Of course I made a sample strip the same thickness as my buttonhole edging to use for my test buttonholes. I just drew a center line on that with a marking pen, because it will not be going out on the town.

I remembered that more than one of those missing buttonhole articles talked about using stabilizer and it sounded like the same kind I use as a second layer when I do machine embroidery on my artistic tee shirts. I quickly learned, however, that although I put the wash-away stabalizer that looks like saran wrap ON TOP when I do machine embroidery, I definitely want to put it underneath when I stitch  buttonholes. (Do you hear the faint refrain of gummed up machine noises at this point?) Thank goodness for my test strip. My  several year old machine has several different buttonholes and I tried all of them that looked right, until I found one that worked pretty well.

I measured off and marked each potential hole with two pins. I am a little ashamed to admit that I can't figure out how to program repeated buttonholes on this machine. ** Still I was pretty happy with the results. I also machine stitched the standard four hole buttons down. Are you still tempted to hand sew them? I am, but I reminded myself I had two spares in case I messed up and broke one. Hummmm that reminds me that I didn't sew the spare buttons into the pockets. Where did I leave those girls? Machine sewing standard buttons sure saves a ton of time.

I was pretty happy with the results, though one hole is messed up. Think I'm gonna tell you which one? Not on the soul of my Great Aunt Mabel! That nice little black button pretty much covers up the extra long stitches on the goofy one. What's really important is how much I've been enjoying wearing my new dress, whether or not every buttonhole stitched out exactly so.

* I learned to use a couple of different sizes of postit tape in chorus. We use it to temporarily alter the lyrics. The tape has transitioned into the sewing room. I will have to do another posting on the marvels of that stuff.

**I could pull off programming repeated buttonholes on my old one machine but not on my newer one. Yup I do have the manual for the new gal! Yup I have turned to the appropriate page! I also can't figure out how to do things like getting my husband's name to stitch out. I bought this machine used and the dealer has since closed up shop. Oh well, another rainy day activity.

Well Bust My Buttons! A Sewist Visits Victoria British Columbia

My friend Marilyn told me, with a laugh, that her mother used to take the buttons off her fathers worn out shirts before she turned them into cleaning rags.

Can you believe women used to bother to do that?

I must have produced my best dolt look. Don't you save the buttons from your husband's shirts?

I hadn't realized until then, that I've kept a habit that others associate with Depression-era hardship. As far as I'm concerned a button in the hand is worth two on a card, especially when it comes to having to drive twenty plus minutes just to buy six or seven plain white blouse or shirt buttons. I say, bring me your old, your tired shirts with buttons burning to be freed from their old threads. Those, of course, are the practical buttons, the ones I recycle from Dave's old button-up-the-front standard men's shirts.

Then there are the dreamy buttons I drip through my fingers, for the sheer pleasure of feeling the sheen and admiring the gorgeous designs. Those buttons are the girls I sew onto bags and purses, stitch brooch-like  onto  the top neckline of a shirt or jacket, or affix to the pocket of a blouse for maximum effect.

On our family vacation into the Cascades and Canada we squeezed in one day in the capital city of British Colombia, Victoria. Could I miss some kind of sewing related activity there? Well, I almost did. I got lost looking for Gala Fabrics (There's always next time, right?) but then I found myself (almost) walking past the Button & Needlework Boutique. There I got to immerse myself in a gorgeous collection of pure dreamery'esque buttons. And it turned out to be a durn good thing that I missed out on Gala Fabrics, because I spent over 60 Canadian dollars on beautiful buttons in about ten minutes. We are talking major embellishment potential. It's amazing what they pack into a small store, and the merchandise bears very little resemblance to the cards on the racks at my local Joannes. Can't wait to decide what blouses, purses and vests are going to sport these delightful ladies.

If we have buttons like these in California, I've never found them.