Thursday, January 13, 2022

Blue Plaid Moto

 Finally making Burda 6800 again.  I've made it once before, in early 2020, so I figured this time I'd go ahead and use one of the fabrics I'd been saving for it.

This time I traced off size 14 (including the lapel modification) and figured out what I did wrong with the lining last time, because I did it again this time!

The front lapel pieces are supposed to be offset about an inch from the bottom edge of rest of the pieces, and this time I did notice that in the assembly instructions 

after I had cut everything out with the horizontal stripe pattern matching based on the assumption of lower edges of everything aligning.

So I went ahead and sewed it with the lower edges of everything aligning, to maintain the pattern matching--which also meant I couldn't ease the entire edge to fit the "now it's 1" too long" edge of the center front piece, because that would have ruined the pattern matching.  (I just cut off the bits that ended up sticking out.)

I'm pretty sure that in the previous version of this pattern, I did ease that edge, which is why I ended up with a slightly ripply seam and the lining being too short--because the pattern assumes there's going to be a full 1 5/8" hem allowance when the instructions are followed.  

I'm blaming this as much on me not reading the instructions closely as I am blaming Burda for thinking notches are silly.  They do have little lines that I now know are more or less notches...so...learning experience.

And I am slightly amused that I could have chosen the solid fabric I've been saving for this pattern, or the big print that I don't think I'll try to pattern match at all, and then if I had managed to notice the offset, everything would have gone together just as Burda intended.

Of course, the fact that I narrowed the lapels and made the whole thing from a single fabric are already not as Burda intended.

The fabric was thrifted years ago--the brown is forgiven because the cobalt blue, mauvey purple, and pistachio green are all so fantastic.

The shoulder seam pattern matching was very botched, but it's fine.  The shoulder seams have not been pressed at all, either.  There was more ease than I like to see, but it still passed my "well enough drafted that it looks OK without being pressed" criteria.

I was also too enthusiastic about sewing close to the zipper teeth, and this is all the higher the separating zipper can go.  I was somewhat aware of what I was doing, and I figured I'll probably never want to zip it, so I left it.

Size 14's pocket zippers should be 4", and I had 5", so I made the zipper welts a bit wider instead of trying to deal with sewing past those big brass teeth.

The sleeve zippers are also 5", and sewing the lining to that are is done by hand.  Grudgingly.  And with no attempt at being neat and hidden.  Nobody's going to be scrutinizing the insides of my sleeves.

Pretty sure this printed polyester was also second hand (although I can't remember if it was thrifted or  gifted), and had been set aside to use as lining for this project for years.  There's a lot of it left--so much  left that I could easily have cut the lining again, but longer, so it could have the pleat at the bottom that the pattern wants.  Yeah, I didn't do that.

I sewed the lining to the neck facing with 3/8" seam allowance, and the lining to the hem with somewhere around ¼" seam allowance.

Beyond figuring out how to deal with mis-keying the print matching, and how that propagated to the lining being too short, and that leading to figuring out what I did wrong two years ago, this wasn't really a hard project.

I think I took more days to trace the pattern pieces and cut the fabric while trying to pattern match (again, horizontally only--not sure if I had the patience or fabric to have matched vertically as well) than it took to sew, and the sewing was also slowed down by that pattern matching.

Whenever I talk myself into making the solid version of this, it should be a breeze.  Relatively.


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