Rain on a Parade

Simplicity 9896, released earlier this year, is a weird pattern

Where did the design come from?  Is it a knock off of something designer label that I'm completely unfamiliar with?  Was it originally intended as a costume/cosplay pattern, but they decided it was too complicated?  It seems like something science fiction. It has Pokémon Trainer Style.  It's also weirdly Kwik•Sew-esque. 

Whatever it is, I was drawn to it, and got it in the last Joann Simplicity sale.  I was in the middle of the patchwork cardigan at the time, and then I wanted to sew those two doll kimono,  then I decided I would try this pattern.

I very quickly regretted every decision I made on it.

But. It got better.

My first issue was that I didn't have any solid fabrics that I really wanted to use for it, so that meant that whatever I made would lose the Pokémon Trainer look.

After poking around my fabric stash, I decided that this would be the project to use the Tula Pink laminated Prince Charming Dew Drop indigo remnant, thrifted many years ago.  So many years ago that I not only had no idea who Tula Pink was, but I'm pretty sure looking up the information on the selvedge is what introduced me to the entire concept of designer quilting cotton.  I just got it because it was kinda delightfully weird.

The upper sleeves on this pattern are made from quilted fabric--the pattern suggests ready-made quilted fabric, but also includes a guide for quilting your own, which of course I was going to do.

I started by cutting all of the pockets, the front half band, and the outer collar from the Tula Pink fabric, instead of going for another contrast like the pattern wants.  I don't always mix patterns.  I was pretty sure that what was left of the remnant would be enough for the upper sleeves.

I shuffled through the stash again to find a backing fabric, settling on the remnants of the purple print rayon, which I had to piece just a bit to be big enough.  A look at the batting stash showed that it would also need to be pieced. And then I realized that...hmm...I probably don't want to pin baste a laminated fabric, huh.

I know that spray glue for basting exists, but I definitely do not have any.  I looked up DIY spray baste but didn't want to wait that long, so I decided to see if we had any low tack spray glue.  And we did!  Yes, it's probably not going to wash out like proper spray baste formulas, but...that's a problem for the future.  I found a can of repositionable photo mount, laid down an old torn sheet on a clear part of the garage floor, and lightly sprayed the appropriate layers.  Everything held together wonderfully, and the glue didn't gum up the needle at all, which was very nice.

What wasn't nice was that my plan to mark the quilting lines with tailor's chalk very quickly failed when I found that pressing on the tailor's chalk hard enough to make a mark also damaged the laminate layer.  So.  I turned to masking tape.

The tape worked fine to mark the first set of lines (and switching to the roller foot worked fine for sewing them.)   The second set of lines, not so much--the tape didn't let the fabric relax and move and ended up bunching it up and over the first set of lines.  I thought that was what I got from trying to quilt laminated fabric and went ahead and cut out the upper sleeves.

But.

It just looked so bad.

Either it was irredeemably ruined, or it could be salvaged.

I decided to pick out most of that second stitching and use the lines of holes poked in the plastic by the stitching to guide me in new, better stitching.  It worked, well enough (not perfectly.  There is nothing perfect about this project.) and that inspired me to add another set of quilting stitches, to obscure the damage done with the tailors chalk.

Then I turned my attention to the bias tape.  The pattern calls for ¼"/6mm bias tape, which just seemed so very narrow to me, so I decided to use ½"/12mm bias tape, which I would make myself.  I wanted something high contrast, but didn't have anything that seemed suitable, so I chose a dark green (left over from a nice, cooperative shirt made from an easy fabric in a familiar pattern.  Unlike this project.) I second-guessed myself and ended up cutting the bias tape on the straight of the grain, and not realizing it until I was completely finished cutting it.  I had an errand to run the next morning, and stopped at Walmart to buy some pre-cut cotton in a better color, and I used half of it to make this bias tape.

Since I was on the Walmart fabric aisle, I had a look at their mill end pre-cuts, and spotted a fabric that I thought could work for the main fabric of this project, since I had been unsure about the denim I had tentatively chosen.

Now, the denim was also a Walmart mill end pre-cut, chosen because it was inexpensive denim, but it had a secret, revealed when I got home and unrolled it: the back had a layer of plastic fused to it.  My best guess was that it was to make it waterproof, which was one of the reasons I was thinking of using it for this, since the laminated fabric would also be at least a little waterproof (needle holes aside.)  The new mill end pre-cut was also a layer of woven fused to a layer of plastic, but in much more of a traditional raincoat fashion. And it was dark teal!  I very rarely wear denim, so dark teal was definitely more appealing.

I obviously went with the denim, because I think I'd rather make a more traditional raincoat from the other fabric. After working with this coated denim, I'm not so sure if the coating was meant to be waterproofing or if it was meant to be non-skid, because, wow, did it not want to move through the sewing machine.  I eventually developed the habit of lifting it as I guided it, which worked, but felt very awkward, and probably didn't do much for my accuracy, either.

Since I had so much bias binding, I went ahead and used it to finish the seam allowances on the inside of the body.  I probably should have used it in the sleeves, too, but I just serged those.

That's the coating on the inside of the denim.  Sometimes it creaks when it moves just so.

Here's a glimpse of the fabric used to back the quilted areas 

I also finished the edge of the facing with bias tape

 

I should do that more often (although my default is generally to completely line things, so I may not get that chance as often as I think I might.) (I acknowledge the lumpy stitching around the outer bias binding. It won't be visible while this is being worn, so it's staying.)

I also did far more top stitching than the pattern called for, but that's the choice I'm usually going to make.

...even when it ends up outlining the sloppy shapes that are being stitched...

The pattern directed that the edges of the pockets just be pressed under, which is not something I would generally do with curved things, even if my fabric didn't have a coating that was in danger of melting.  I used the same purple print rayon to stitch and turn the pockets, and the slinky nature of rayon is maybe not so good for this application.  (There is no close-up picture of the back pocket.)

The pockets are all significantly shorter than the pattern as given, because I shortened...well, every piece of the pattern except the collar.  I watched this video and took note of the excessively long sleeves, and reasoned that, since the pattern is unisex, it was drafted for people significantly taller than I am. I mean, normal women size patterns are drafted for people taller than I am, too, but I can generally get away with making those patterns as given.  This, though, needed to be shortened significantly if it was going to maintain its intended proportions.  I used a see-through ruler to carefully fold out length on all parts, even the upper bodice and sleeves.  The resulting garment is very short and boxy and does not maintain its intended proportions.  I do, however, genuinely like the shape it ended up with.

Throughout most of this project, I was dismayed.  I felt like the design itself was just so strange--yes, that's what attracted me to it, but it was in a "What were they thinking?" way instead of a "This is delightfully odd!" way.  And my fabric choices fought me with every stitch.  (Especially fun when the denim backing would grab the sewing machine bed and start causing the fabric to feed under the needle in a curve, leading to many "You stop that" moments.)  I kept at it simply because I felt like the quilted laminated fabric didn't really have many other potential uses for me, so I might as well finish this...even though working on it was not the least bit enjoyable.

I finally got to the point where everything was attached, and what I had left to do were side and sleeve seams (yes, I ignored the pattern's instructions for attaching the sleeves, too) and the finishing binding and the snaps, and at that point I tried it on, like a weird cape.

And it was adorable.

Which didn't make finishing it any easier, since it was still all the same difficult fabrics, but it did make finishing it seem like a significantly less futile endeavor.

Yes, the side seams caused problems--I had mis-estimated something somewhere and one side above the horizontal seam was longer than the other at the under arm seam, so I had to pick things out and re-sew there on both sides.  Also, my sewing machine handled the bulky areas with multiple denim layers and bias tape with relatively little effort, but my serger could not, so, after fighting with that, I went back and applied bias tape over the bodice side seams, too.  I should have enclosed the sleeve seams as well, but I wasn't sure if I'd have enough bias tape, since, at that point I still had to do all of the jacket external edges. (I just checked: I would indeed have had enough to do the sleeve seams.  Noted.)

I am also still not very experienced with applying bias tape.  I do have the sewing machine foot that holds it just right for stitching, but I have not figured out how to maneuver that around curves with a small radius, so I didn't even try to use it.  I had been able to just enclose and stitch the bias tape over the seam allowances, but all the non-cuff exposed edges--including on the upper sleeve contrasts--were done by first sewing one edge of the unfolded bias tape to one side, then wrapping the rest around and stitching through that folded edge from the other side.  I stitched in the ditch for the upper sleeve, catching the folded edge on the inside, and, for the front/collar/hem edge, I edge stitched with the folded edge on the outside.  I had to trim a lot of the jacket edge, after sewing the bias tape to the edge, before it would wrap around in a way I found acceptable.  Not good, but acceptable.

Then it was time for the snaps!  I have a grommet press with dies for four part snaps, so applying the snaps was relatively easy.  It was a nice surprise that the plastic layers on everything helped hold the awl-poked holes open well enough to get the appropriate snap parts through easily.  The pattern originally called for eight snaps; since I shortened it, it would make sense to use a smaller amount.  And I thought about it!  I laid out the pattern's snap placement guide and didn't like how the marks landed in relation to the garment I'd made, so I folded up the pattern guide and put it away and got out the Simflex sewing gauge and ended up deciding that eight was still the right number of snaps.

And then it was finished!

And I like it so much more than I thought I would when I was dealing with all the grabby plastic coatings, and thinking about how I barely ever wear denim, and wondering if I had ruined some Swanky Designer Fabric, and mis-making the first attempt at bias tape, and all the other things that made working on this be Absolutely No Fun.

I already have vague plans for another version of this...