It's here and I'm still procrastinating!

The buttonhole thread arrived, and I'm moving forward albeit very slowly on the jacket. I have done one hand made buttonhole, and although it's not perfect, once the jacket is pressed well and on my body, I don't think anyone will notice. I'm finding this fabric to be extremely prone to raveling so as per my usual when I'm uncertain, I have procrastinated a bit.

While I was waiting for the thread, I started tracing off and altering a Vogue pattern, #8689. I really like the looks of the pattern, and thought it would make a good work shirt. But I have to say, after spending more than a week tracing off pieces, altering pieces, and contemplating the shirt that would come out of all these pieces, I have set it aside. It has front and back yokes, front and back princess seams, and a collar and collar stand. I think it is more suited to a "play shirt" with lots of topstitching than a nice professional shirt.

In the white fabric which they have shown all of the shirts, you don't notice all the seams as much, but I think for me, it's not what I'm looking for. I consider this more of a "Western Style" shirt, which doesn't work in my professional life. I may change my mind down the road, but currently, I decided it was a no go. Thus, I went on a quest to look through my sewing patterns, (only the ones in the house, not my downloads or any from my tall file cabinet in my future sewing studio aka the shed,) and found several candidates for the shirt I want. Some will require slight modifications, but these are the patterns found in my pattern boxes in my sewing room, without getting into the Stretch & Sew, which I believe has one or two. There were an even dozen that I thought would be appropriate, as shown below.

The Burda #5387 is a really old pattern, and it shows the wide shoulders of the time it was designed, but I save a swatch of fabric in the envelopes and it showed that my all time favorite blouse was made from that pattern, so I have included it.

After a night of mulling, I decided on the Jalie pattern. I love my Jalie Rose I made last year, and I found the Jalie draft to be so inclusive, and more appropriate for my body style. Their patterns are very well drafted, and their instructions are straight forward and easy to follow. So I have now got that one drafted off. The only modifications to this first "wearable muslin" are a narrow shoulder adjustment and I lengthened the sleeve from a 7/8 to a full length. I did modify the cuff to fit my arms. I think once this one is completed, I'm also going to give the StyleArc Sara a try and probably even the McCalls 7575, although on the McCalls 6436, I had a ton of alterations to get it to fit me. We'll see how that goes.

For my hopefully wearable muslin, I'll be using a practically new sandwashed rayon in lilac purchased from Stonemountain and Daughter in March. Once that's done and any tweaks are noted, I'll be  moving on to a navy pima cotton broadcloth purchased from Mood in September. Can't wait to see how it comes out! Wish me luck.

More later,

Now the waiting begins

Well, I have been working intermittently on my jacket, and it's all done but the buttonholes and buttons. BUT...my machine doesn't like the fabric and won't do proper buttonholes. I have two in and both have to be removed. There is not much I despise more than ripping out buttonholes in a fabric that is basically the same color as the thread. But, I will grab my handy magnifier lighted headband and painstakingly rip out all the stitches. I found a picture of  what I use for buttonhole ripping:

While it makes things easier, it's not perfect and seems to take forever. Although taking forever is much better than destroying a jacket at the final stages! After messing up two buttonholes, I am biting the bullet and have ordered some silk buttonhole twist from WAWAK and will hand sew the buttonholes once I have the thread. If you've never done this, and/or as a reference for me, here's an online tutorial: https://sewguide.com/make-hand-sewn-buttonhole/

As it stands, everything else is done, and although it needs a final press, here's a picture:

I think it will be great for a work jacket. While I wait for the thread, I'm going to start on shirts. I have several to make!

More later!