Suit Pants Day 4 - Whoops!

Friends, I've done it, you've done it.  OK, at least I've done it.

I refer, of course, to the old sewing the pants fly shut when you topstitch along the front.  To be honest, I've never done this before, so why I did it this time is anybody's guess.  I had the legs all sewn up and the back center seam basted (on these dress pants, the back center seam will be the last one sewn, along with the right and left sides of the waistband) and I was ready to try them on.  I reached to unzip my zipper and -- gadzooks: I'd sewn the fly shut!

But that's not all.  Not only had I topstitched over the fly (what I'm calling the fly is the protruding piece you add just behind the right front side of the zipper and extends to the left), I had actually overcast together the matching edges of the fly and fly facing (the side that's turned under to the left).  I couldn't just rip the seam at this point; I had to trim the overcast stitches off, leaving both fly and fly facing roughly 1/4" narrower than before.

But what is it they say about necessity being the mother of invention?  (Actually, that is what they say.)  I dug out some vintage cotton bias tape I'd picked up recently at the flea market, and added it to the edges of both fly and fly facing.  This wasn't truly necessary, of course, but it does look pretty.  This is the kind of 100% cotton tape you never see anymore in the stores -- plaid! -- and yes, I pre-shrank it.  Cute, no?

So that was the mistake of the day and I'm averaging at least a few daily.

The good new is that I now have a real pair of pants, albeit without waistband.  Here I am trying on the left leg (before I realized I'd topstitched my fly closed).

I got my side pockets on without any of the problems I mentioned yesterday.  I double-stitched and overcast my inside pockets.  I'm not serging on this project -- for some reason the serger feels too rough.  Overcasting looks fine to me.

I've been pressing my seams over a seam roll and pressing with my wooden clapper.  The benefit of a seam roll is not only that it fits through the pants leg, but also that the slight roll prevents the overcast (or serged) seam edges from imprinting themselves on the fabric.  I've been pressing carefully on the "wool" setting of my iron with a muslin press cloth.  So far, no problems with that. 

I already have two kinds of commercial waistbanding, but I may try to find something in black.  The narrow one seems too narrow (and without the little "skirt" commercial waistbanding usually has), while the wide one seems too wide.  I'll figure something out. 

I also tested buttonholes using thick buttonhole twist thread and the 5/8" keyhole template in my vintage Singer buttonholer.  It worked.

I'd love to finish these today, readers.  We'll see how it goes...

Have a great day, everybody!

PS - Have you ever sewn a fly shut -- or something equally embarrassing?

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Suit Pants Day 3 - Pockets and Flies

Still plodding along on the pants, friends.  A lot should come together today, including, hopefully, the backs and fronts.  Yesterday I managed to complete my back welt pocket and insert my front fly zipper.

I'll say this about welt pockets: It's not so much that they're difficult, though they certainly require accurate measuring, stitching, and cutting.  It's that most sewers don't make them often enough to master them.  The last true welt pocket I made, on my cranberry corduroy pants, was more than a year ago.  So every time I make one, it's like I'm starting from scratch.  With something like a front fly zipper, I've already done them enough to know the routine pretty well. 

I decided to follow the instructions on my pants pattern for the welt pocket; not the best, not the worst.  I wasn't sure if I needed to raise the pocket placement a bit, since I'd shortened the rise in the pants, but I measured against some RTW pants I own, and the center of the welt is generally three inches below the bottom of the waistline, so I left it as-is.





I marked, I stitched, I matched, I cut...









I took a deep breath and I pulled (my welts) through.  I poked, I prodded, I pressed, I panicked (a little).  Then I pressed some more.



I stitched down those little triangles on either end, and edgestitched around the perimeter of the pocket.  After considerable toil, it looked like this.  Not perfect, but acceptable.  I'll likely press it more down the line.  How someone can do this accurately with a zigzag machine, I will never know.



Whew -- glad that's over!

Not much to say about the fly.  It went in without too much drama, though I still have to topstitch in front and trim a bit inside to keep things tidy.







Today's concern is the side pockets.  When I took 1 1/2 inches out of the rise, I also changed the angle of the slanted edges of the pockets and facings slightly, relative to the angle of the edges of the pants fronts, if that makes sense.  I may have to trim a bit or even cut new pocket facings.  But there are worse things, right?



And that, friends, is that.

I'm not sure how far I'll get today. I've been trying to limit my sewing hours so as not to exhaust myself.  As far as crotch reinforcements, a much livelier topic than I'd expected, I did include one, and I'll share it with you down the line.

Send good pants karma my way, please.

Have a great day, everybody!

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Making the Suit Pants - Day 1

And we're off! (our rockers, mainly)

It appears I am indeed making a suit; ETA December 30.  Thanks for all your encouragement yesterday.

I decided to use the pinstripe wool.  For one thing, it's lighter weight, so I think I'll get more use out of it.  For another, the stripe makes cutting much easier and, I'm hoping, everything else, from welt pocket to waistband.  Yesterday I used Pam Erny's machine pre-shrink method (you can read about it here) to prep my wool.  I've used it before and it seems to work fine.  Although, since you're not going to wash your wool garment in the machine, but rather take it to the dry cleaners, why do you have to pre-shrink wool in the first place?  I thought the whole point of dry cleaning is that it's for garments made of shrinkable fabric you can't wash yourself.  Anyway...

I pre-shrank both fabrics, just in case, but like I said, I've opted for the pinstripe.  I also have much more of the pinstripe, so if I need to cut anything out twice...

I'm making the pants out of McCall's 4359, version E -- no pleats but with the little watch pocket flap (but no actual watch pocket) on the front right side.   It's the guy in the brown pants and mustard sweater.



I could have used a suit pattern, but with pants, there's very little difference and I just couldn't deal with the 6,000 pieces of an entire suit pattern all at once.  Notice how the line of the pleated pants looks identical to that of McCall's 3995, the pattern I used to make Michael's shirt last week.  I didn't measure one against the other but my hunch is that they're the same, despite one being thirty years older.  I'll have to check that out some day.  Men's fashion changes very slowly, if at all.

Anyway, the pattern was uncut, so first I had to cut it out.



Even with just the pants, it's a lot of pieces.



Then I had to adjust the pant length and the rise.  I've done this before and I'm safe with 1 1/2" off the rise and 2" off the length; I really don't want hip huggers.  Of course, since I'm shortening the rise, I also have to shorten the fly and fly facing as well as the pockets and pocket facings.



This morning I started cutting.  I used rulers to make sure my grainlines were straight.   It took a lot of time to cut and I cut solely single layers at a time, never double.





I labeled front and backs with a chalky yellow pencil (see top pic) -- there is a subtle difference between right and wrongs sides on this fabric.



And that's it so far.  I may do a little sewing today or not.  Frankly, I'm already pretty wiped out just with all the cutting and I don't really feel like rushing through these.  BTW, I am referring to the Cabrera book, Classic Tailoring Techniques after all.  It has a ton of useful information.  I may even include the recommended "crotch reinforcement!" 

OK, time for lunch.  Happy Sunday, everybody!

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Am I ready? or Revisiting the Men's Suit Project

Readers, as 2011 draws to a close, I find myself wanting to choose one last big project to finish off the year with a bang.  I have four weeks.

Longtime readers will know that I've tackled suit jackets before.  I made this green/gray thing my first year of sewing.  This polyester blazer wasn't nearly as nice as it looks in this photo and I never wore it out of the house.  I'm pretty sure I've since dumped it.



I also made this eye-catching blazer.  Alas, I never lined it and never wore it out of the house either.  I do wear the matching pants, however.



Last year, I tried my hand at a corduroy jacket.  I went overboard purchasing tailoring books, however, ended up intimidated, and never finished it.  I'm not excited about it anymore.



In all the above cases, I used vintage Seventies jacket and suit patterns.  For some reason, at that time there was an explosion of men's tailored garment patterns, heavens knows why.  I've never seen a suit pattern from, say, the Forties, with the occasional blazer pattern turning up in the late Fifties.  Then all of a sudden, suits and blazers everywhere!  I own many such patterns.







Anyway, I'm considering taking the plunge once again.  This time, however, I'm going to limit myself to just one book, Simplicity's Sewing for Men and Boys.



Is it the definitive tailoring book?  Probably not, but it's straight forward and it's good enough for my current level of sewing.  If I complete the project and I'm ready for something more complex, I can move on to something like this.



I was looking at suiting fabric yesterday, and then I remembered I already have two different blue wool suitings in my stash, one a gift from my friend Melody, who owns Fashionista Fabrics, and another something I found in the trash (!), albeit in a clean plastic storage box full of sewing and knitting supplies.  (This happened before I started blogging.)

The trash suiting is Italian cashmere, and I have more than three yards.  The dog hair was my contribution.



Melody's gift is lighter weight pinstripe, and I have more than four yards.



So the question now is, am I up for this?  The pink blanket topper coat built my confidence somewhat, and I think I'd be more inclined to sew Michael a suit down the line (for which I already have the fabric) if I'd already made one for myself.  Plus, let's face it, knowing it's for me will give me a little more motivation.

So that's the story.  I'd likely start with pants, just to get acquainted with working with the wool.  If those turn out well, I'll be more excited about doing the jacket.

How do you feel about tackling tailoring projects, friends?  Do you generally avoid these kind of things or are you willing to deal with notched collars, pad stitching, and sleeve heads?

Wish me luck -- or talk me out of it!

Have a great day, everybody!

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All Quiet on the Jacket Front

Readers, the cranberry corduroy suit saga continues.  Slowly.  And look, I'm tailoring -- by hand!  Do you believe it?

This is painstaking work, punctuated by frequent intrusive thoughts along the lines of, "I'm hand basting hair cloth to a cotton corduroy jacket?"  It was a tough call.  I want the jacket to have body but I didn't want to fuse interfacing to my corduroy -- although there apparently are some modern fusibles you can use with corduroy.  I decided to do it the old fashioned way.

I'm almost done with my right front side; still have to pad stitch the lapel, among other things.  Even with all the tailoring books I have (and I have too many) I've found Gertie's tailoring videos tremendously helpful and encouraging.  She has such a sweet presence and I love those tender little moments when Jeff enters the room off camera or the cat jumps up on the table. I find myself watching them again and again and again, don't you?

On Monday I bought matching cranberry silk Gutermann thread, and have been using some of the tailoring supplies I bought to make Michael's today a dream, tomorrow still a dream suit.  I even started by waxing my thread strands and then ironing them between pieces of fabric to remove the excess wax.   Then I tried the silk thread without the wax and it worked just as well.

I mean, come on!



I've mainly been following Simplicity's Sewing For Men and Boys, but have also been consulting Kenneth King's Cool Couture, Cabrera's Classic Tailoring Techniques (for menswear), and Tailoring: The Classic Guild to Sewing the Perfect Jacket.  As you might guess, they all do things a little differently so I'm just trying to pick out the techniques that seem best suited (ha ha) to this project.

From the front, the eensy-weensy handstitches are nearly invisible.  That's about as good as it's going to get, I'm afraid.  This is not wool tweed.



So that's how my week is developing and I hope yours is proving a little less tedious.  I can't do more than a few hours of hand stitching per day or my eyes start to cross and my fingers go numb.  But that's me.

In other news, I found a fantastic, working, Luceplan Berenice task lamp in the trash while walking the dogs this morning.  People are strange.



We've been feeding the dogs free-range raw chicken parts and they're loving them.  Eww, right?







And my vintage Gillette 1961 Super-Speed razor -- a recent eBay purchase -- has arrived, so I can now begin my new double-edge razor morning shaving ritual.  Cross your fingers there's not too much blood.  Wouldn't you like to read more about vintage-style men's grooming?  Of course you would!



Friends, we've come to the end of our show.  I hope you'll tune in tomorrow for Pad Stitching On Parade and maybe a few rousing show tunes.  I hope your day is full of great garbage finds and lots of sewing -- by hand or that other way.

Happy Wednesday everybody!

P.S.  Before I forget, if you'd like to see how I store my sewing patterns and maintain poor home hygiene, pop on over to The Blue Gardenia.   I don't know why I agreed to expose the chaos that is my sewing space to the public at large but let's face it: I am loathe to turn down free publicity.

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