"I dreamed I was a peasant in my Burda muslin"

 

Readers, can I be real for a moment?  Sometimes I wonder what people think of the stuff that goes on here.  Those poor innocents who stumble upon Male Pattern Boldness for the very first time, perhaps while doing a random search under "SEXY SEXY SEXY" in their office cubicle, or "kathy girdle fun" --

What do they make of all this?

Occasionally I read past entries and even I am aghast.  I will say no more, we must move on.  But if you are one of those people visiting for the first time and now frantically deleting your entire search history as a result, rest assured that there is nothing strange about me.  I just happen to find myself in very strange circumstances.

What would you do if you'd been ask to sew a BurdaStyle pattern for a competition and you had to make a muslin and your identical cousin was on the other side of the planet cavorting in the company of various Bollywood B-listers?  I am confident you would look a lot like I do right now -- admittedly ridiculous.

So here's the back view.  For the muslin I used an old flowered cotton sheet.  Does my ass look fat?



Obviously I took these shots before inserting the back and front panels.

I hope you don't consider these inappropriate and it is not my intention to titillate, merely to archive my progress.  Some people actually prefer me dressed like this, but not anyone you'd want to spend the day with.

Here's a close up of the tucks.  Tucks, pleats, to be honest, I'm not sure if these are what was originally intended; I can't make any sense of the directions even in their English version, which an MPB reader so generously helped me track down.  I think they're supposed to be inverted this way....but maybe not.  Anyway they work as-is.



Here's the almost finished muslin on the bodyform with the front panels simply pinned.  You probably can't tell, but the right (as in right-left) side of the front has the wrong side of the fabric showing and there actually shouldn't even be a right and left side: I had to cut it in two parts because the cotton sheet I used to make the muslin wasn't wide enough.  That's the short version (of the story, not the muslin).

I still have to add the band collar, the cuffs, and the button loops of course.  And hem.



In case you've forgotten, this is the dress I'm making.  I am hoping the Westminster Liberty Art fabric arrives this week.

It's a little Dr. Zhivago, a little Laura Ingalls, a little Rhoda Morgenstern, and a little Yves Saint Laurent 1976 peasant collection, don't you think?

By the way -- and if you're an employee of BurdaStyle, Inc., please take note -- I love this dress and I think the final version is going to be gorgeous.  It's going to be all I can do to rip it away from my cousin Cathy.

Now then, do you see a dress like this more with Roman sandals or wedge espadrilles....?  Bare legs, right?  Big dangling earrings?  Head scarf?

I hope you all had a pleasant Sunday, my friends.  I kid you not when I say I didn't even leave the apartment.  Too much to sew.

So what do you think?

Does the tuck fold show on top of the fabric or underneath or doesn't it matter?

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A time to rend, a time to sew....

It's Saturday at long last, the end of a long, hot week.  You wake up to the image above and a sense of dread sweeps over you.  But then a friend invites you out to do a little flea market shopping.  You really shouldn't; there's so much work to be done here at home.  The BurdaStyle project, the suit project....

But still, so tempting...

Freunde, I ask you: WHICH would you have chosen?

I chose to spend the day with my sewing machine hoarding friend, Johanna.  And boy, did we have fun!

We visited two different flea markets and just look at some of the things we magnetized:









It must have been in the air that Johanna was coming, because readers, there were a TON of sewing machines for sale -- more than I had ever seen there before!







Every time you turned your head, there was another vintage straight stitcher!

Needless to say, smart shoppers that we are, we didn't buy any of these but rather generously left them for others who may not already have collected their ten-plus sewing machines yet.  Aren't we good?

After lunch at Kinokuniya -- or was it before; it's all such a blur -- we hit Daytona Trimmings.  Johanna wanted to see what patterns they sold there.  (We also popped in Parons, where you can find the latest sewing magazines for sale, but I forgot to record the moment on camera.)

Daytona has a largish assortment of patterns actually and they're cheap -- five for $10! -- but mostly out of date (though too new to be vintage) and bland, bland, bland.  But they have an amazing selection of ric rac and more embroidered trimmings than you've ever seen in one room.





Back at the apartment, I let Johanna take my White "Fair Lady" out for a spin, and she was quite impressed, though she did agree that the little lady has a bit of a weight problem -- can you say hernia?



We also played with my trash-salvaged Brother LS2125 zigzagger.  Such fun!

Michael made us all dinner -- summer-squash faux lasagna followed by chocolate pudding -- yum!

So what was my take for the day?  Very little, my friends.  I have become a very, very, very selective shopper of late.  But I couldn't say no to these vintage tan nylon gloves -- with original tags attached -- for just $1!  Cathy's going to love them if she can ever get them away from Willy.







And now friends, it's time to deal with this.  I can't put it off any longer.



I hope your day will be more fun than mine.  If you remember, do keep me in your thoughts or light a candle or something.  It's going to be a long Sunday.

See you bright and early on the morrow!

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Suit-us Interruptus or "Burda, He Wrote"

It has happened again.

Readers d'un certain age, remember how you used to think life would be a clean linear progression -- 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, Burger King beef-patty flipper, unwed parenthood, delinquency -- but it never was?  No, as you and I have painfully learned, life is instead filled with countless tangents and twists, road blocks and blind alleys.

And so it goes with my sewing projects.

I try hard to provide a much-needed sense of order in your chaotic lives.  I try not to make false promises, to raise your hopes too much.  I know many of you are on the edge emotionally, I can sense it from your comments.

That's why it is with a great deal of trepidation that I reveal that fate has thrown the proverbial wrench into my plans once again.  Actually, it's not fate.  It's BurdaStyle.

Last month I was invited to participate in a friendly little sewing competition using the downloadable Burdastyle dress pattern of my choice and a Westminster Liberty Art Fabric.  They'd send me the pattern and the fabric and I would submit the dress by September 7.  I cannot tell you what criteria they used in choosing me but I suspect it had less to do with my sewing skills than their sense that I was a person with time on his hands who was desperate for a little attention.

I was flattered, of course, and Cathy delighted at the prospect of modeling something that wasn't ripped from the fashion pages of a 1943 issue of Ladies Home Companion.

Well, readers, I've received the pattern -- thirty-six  8 1/2" x 11" sheets of paper that I had to trim and tape together to form a medium-sized area rug and then proceed to cut again into its various pattern pieces.  I am embarrassed to admit how tedious and embittering an experience this was.



This is the pattern I chose.

This is the fabric.

I know, I know, not the best match but the choice was limited and I did the best I could.  You can hardly even tell what's going on in the dress from the photo, and now having seen the pattern up close I can confidently say, a lot, including approximately fifteen button loops.

While BurdaStyle very generously provided me with the pattern, however, they somehow forgot to include the pattern instructions.  Friends, I was forced to humble myself and approach the very person who would most likely want to trip me up, in a veritable act of self-sabatoge.  She quite selfishly downloaded the instructions off the German Burda website and translated them into English for me. 

So this weekend I really must muslin this pattern.  The fabric should arrive any day now -- Ich hoffe das, meine Freunde, oder mein Ganz ist gekocht. 

So there you have it.  My weekend will be sadly devoid of hair cloth interfacing, pad stitching, Silesia, buttonhole twist, and all the other good things we've been talking about for the last how many days.



Wise readers, have you ever downloaded a BurdaStyle pattern and can you explain how this makes sense when there are an infinite number of beautiful printed patterns available to us -- patterns that don't involve toner cartridges, laser printers, Scotch tape or the cheap generic equivalent I use, and dull scissors?  How many hours does it generally take you to put one of these together and are there any shortcuts?  Of course, it's too late for me, but maybe someone else can benefit.

I am hoping that this all comes together.  If not, I swear I'm gonna Burda someone.

What has your experience been with downloadable patterns?

Be discrete -- the walls have ears!

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The Men's Suit Project: Oh, Sweet Irony!

 

Readers, what a day I had yesterday!  First laundry, which involved washing the approximately 40 dirty dog diapers we use weekly instead of wee wee pads for Freddy and Willy.  (Don't ask and pass the Lysol.)

Then the suit project, the suit project, the suit project!

How did we leave it at the end of yesterday's show?  Oh, yes: I was going to go to Greenberg & Hammer and purchase the necessary notions to get started.  And readers, that's precisely what I did!  Only Greenberg & Hammer was closed for the week so I had to go to Steinlauf and Stoller instead.  And guess what?  They were very nice to me.  It was the late afternoon and the store was calm.  They had nearly everything I needed. 

I'm too lazy to print out all the goodies, so here's my shopping list:



And here's my score: various widths of twill tape, hair canvas, lambswool, decent quality shoulder pads, buttonhole twist, thimble, needles, waistband canvas -- the works!









I didn't get the silk thread: it was expensive at $10 a spool and I couldn't remember if it needed to match the "outer cloth" or not.  You're not supposed to call men's suiting "fabric" or didn't you know?

They didn't have linen canvas for the collar, or felted wool undercollar cloth, but I'll improvise with some canvas tie interfacing I have and find the felt elsewhere.  They also don't carry Silesia, and they only had the cheap Dritz hook and eye packages which aren't what I really wanted for the pants.  Anyway, I'm 90% of the way there.

Look, I've even started practicing my hand stitching:



Later in the day I thought, since yesterday's Barney's blazer disemboweling was such a hit, maybe I'd pick up another men's jacket -- something of lesser quality I could rip to shreds and compare and contrast here.   That would be fun, no?

So I go to the Salvation Army and I find this gray Hugo Boss blazer, Size 38, too big for me -- perfect for deconstructing.  All the way home I'm thinking of snappy blog entry titles like: "Peter tells Hugo who's Boss."

At home, I show it to Michael and on a whim, ask him to try it on. Well you can probably guess what happened next.

He likes it.  And it doesn't fit him badly either.





Readers, if I'd known all I had to do was find him a jacket at the Salvation Army....!

So we've decided to use it as our back-up, just in case I don't get the suit jacket finished in time for the September photo shoot.  It's always good to have a Plan "B," right?

Meanwhile, I found a used hardcover copy of the Roberto Cabrera book, Classic Tailoring Techniques: A Construction Guide for Menswear on eBay for the very decent "Buy It Now" price of $37.77, including shipping.  (The softcover version is $55 at the FIT bookstore.)  I should get that within the week.

I also stumbled upon and joined The Cutter and Tailor website, which has a ton of information about tailoring techniques and some fantastic tutorials.  Very inspiring if a little over my head.  Do you know it?

Oh, before I forget:  Jane Rhinehart, in How to Make Men's Clothes insists that anyone making a suit start with the pants first.  She explains, "You will see progress faster, and what you learn in making pants will shorten the time it takes to make a first coat.  Pants tailoring is elementary -- you can get superlative results with the first pair."

So I think that's what I'm going to do.  And I think I can get them done in a week.  Because in one week -- and here's where I haven't been completely forthcoming with you, my friends -- I'm....going on vacation again!

I know, I know...I was just on vacation for five days on Fire Island.  But that was sort of an unplanned vacation.  Our planned vacation is the week after next, in Provincetown, Cape Cod.  It's only one week and I promise that upon my return I will throw myself into the suit jacket project with laser-like focus.  It is August, after all.  You Europeans understand, right?  Five days does not a summer vacation make.

Oh, one more Rhinehart-related tidbit:  She'd have you draft the pants from scratch rather than use a commercial pattern; she lays out all the instructions.  Since I do have some experience with drafting a pants pattern, I think I'm going to ditch the vintage McCall's pants pattern and use Michael's own measurements.

I should also mention, for those who weren't crazy about the McCall's pattern, I also have the contemporary Burda 7842 men's sports jacket pattern as a fallback.

Friends, that is it.  I hope to get started on drafting Michael's pants pattern today.  And yes, I'll make a muslin.

In closing, have you ever secretly preferred some skanky old thrift store cast-off to a really good quality garment you bought at, say, Nordstroms, or --perish the thought -- was lovingly sewn for you?

Does your DH prefer his ancient, saggy Fruit of the Loom boxer shorts to the beautiful new ones you painstakingly flat-felled for him?

Is he "saving" yours because they're too good to wear?   Bad sign.

Have a great day, everyone!

Please stay tuned for Green Acres -- coming up right after these commercial messages!

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Peter dissects a Barney's blazer!

 

Welcome back to the show, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Do you like this gray wool suit jacket?  I hope not.  Because in my quest to create a beautiful suit for Michael, a garment had to be sacrificed.  This one.

Do. Not. Panic.  I bought it at the flea market roughly six years ago and maybe wore it five times.  I probably paid $10 for it; throw in another $10 for dry cleaning.  I have the pants too.  It's from, I don't know...the Eighties?





It's a nicely tailored garment though, which is precisely why I wanted to perform an autopsy on it.  I needed to see for myself how a jacket of this quality is put together.  It's also made from a wool similar in weight to my Loro Piana houndstooth.

It has little armpit shields...



Beautifully finished cuffs...



Inside welt pockets...



Hand-finished buttonholes...



And guess what?  NO fusible interfacing (except for some webby stuff along the hems).

Voila!








The front is interfaced with 1) a layer of hair canvas (or HYMO) that lies directly against the suiting; 2) a smaller, stiffer piece of hair cloth (confusing right?) on top of which is 3) a soft fluffy layer -- maybe lambswool, probably felt.  The shoulder pads seem to be constructed with batting sewn inside layers of muslin -- or attic insulation; I don't know.  Really fascinating stuff.  Jane Rhinehart's How to Make Men's Clothes explains what all these materials are -- or should be.

I am learning many new words.  I thought Silesia was a fairy tale principality somewhere in the Pyrenees.  I was wrong; it's cotton twill fabric for pockets.  Also must purchase a thimble.

Moving right along...



The underside of the chest pad is also reinforced with some sort of muslin strips...



Here are the sleeve caps, which combine muslin, hair canvas, and a layer of the wooly/felty stuff:



Later today I'm going to Greenberg & Hammer, about a 15 minute walk from here, and see how much of this they sell; I'm guessing most of it.  (I find it a much friendlier place than Steinlauf and Stoller.)  I'll also get the necessary stay tapes.   What do you think, guys?

What's really interesting is that there is no back interfacing at all.  While the armholes are reinforced with tape on the bottom half, there is no underarm interfacing anywhere.

Meanwhile, I'd forgotten I owned this 1973 book (actually a thick pamphlet), which someone mentioned they'd used to make a suit -- it's excellent and those guys on the cover are looking pretty groovy to me.



There's a LOT of detail about creating the chest piece with handstitching as well as detailed instructions on doing the stitches themselves.  I've also discovered some useful YouTube handstitching tutorials.





Early yesterday I actually did test some fusibles I had around the house, and they bonded with the fabric extremely well: the weft weight is light and barely changes the hand; the black is considerably stiffer.





I don't know if I'll use any of either of these.  Right now I'm thinking I'll just do it the way my (late) Barney's jacket was done.  What's the rush, right?   Doing it the long way will build my character.  Did you ever read Sewcology 101?

It should be obvious by now that I am extremely impressionable when it comes to commenters with strong agendas and there are a few.  All it takes is a few guilt-inducing statements like "If you're going to put in the work...don't you want the results to last" and "I thought you were making this jacket in something like six weeks for someone who has to wear it for a family portrait" and I just want to stand in a corner, dunce cap on head.  This experience may send me back to therapy.

So that's it, my friends.  I wrecked a perfectly nice jacket from Barney's and let's hope it pays off.

Why am I sewing Michael a suit again...?

P.S.  If you've never ripped your clothes apart you should give it a try -- it's very cathartic.  (Even better, somebody else's.)

So what do you think?

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