Thinking Ahead to February Sewing Challenges!

I can't believe it's nearly the end of January already. Time has simply whizzed by and I feel like I turned my head and two weeks have disappeared. I'm still working on the one project I have started in January -- nearly done now and looking forward to sharing it soon! 

But as I draw close the finishing this item, I'm also thinking about February. I have lots of my own plans, as evidenced by my Make Nine; however, February is full of great sewing challenges. One of my favourites happens every February, the Black History Month Pattern Designers Challenge. It's run by Nateida of SewNaturalDane, and features all sorts of Black pattern designers - for sewing, knitting/crochet, bags, fabric etc. The challenge is to make something by a Black pattern designer between Feb 1 & Feb 28, and share it following the rules on the website/IG post. It's always great fun to discover new designers and see all the projects coming in. Really interesting every year. 

I'm thinking about what I will make this go round -- I have a number of items in my pattern stash that would suit. Two which I bought last year but haven't made yet  are from two different Indie Black designers. I picked up the Temi Top/Dress by Sewphilia, and the Nikki Blazer by Style Sew Me. They are still on my to-sew list, especially the blazer as it really fits in with my wardrobe plans currently.  

I also picked up a 1979 Willi Smith pattern at the thrift store a while back. I love the blouse, but I would have to grade the pattern up since mine is a 12, so not sure I'll get to it in time. And of course I have many Khaliah Ali patterns in my stash too! 

Another temptation is this unique pattern I came across recently. It's the Girma Dress/Top from Les Lubies de Cadia. It's a French pattern company but seems to have English instructions too. I love the wrap style and the cute side pleat feature. 

I'm kind of spoiled for choice for this challenge, the difficulty is in deciding what to make!

The next big thing that's happening in February is the start of the Pattern Review Sewing Bee! Well, it actually starts Monday, Jan 30. This is such a fun event -- the first round is open to everyone and then you get selected (or not) to move on through other rounds. I've been knocked out in first rounds before, and made it to the third round last year. If the first challenge is something that appeals to me I might jump in on this year as well. I don't like to spend my sewing time making things that I will never wear though, so it'll have be something within my sewing preferences to make me jump in. Either way it's fun to follow along and see what people are making for each rapid challenge! 

Other February plans are to continue with my stash cull and reorganization, and to work on at least one project from my Make Nine plans. Let's see if this short month will be full to bursting with sewing!

My Kyiv Jacket: Jalie Tania in blue and gold

Well, I made it to Round 3 of the Pattern Review Sewing Bee! This is farthest I've ever gone in this challenge, and I'm enjoying it so far. The challenge set was to make the Jalie Tania coatigan, and make it your own. I've made the Tania previously, so didn't have to do much fitting or tracing, which was a definite benefit as the week-long sewing challenge fell on a week in which I was very busy and short of time. 

I ran a number of ideas through as possibilities, until I finally decided on making a lightweight coatigan from some navy and black wool challis in my stash. I was taking Kyiv as my inspiration: it is sometimes known as the City of the Golden Domes, and so instead of the bright yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, I went with navy and gold in a nod to both. 

I cut my navy wool, and the gold lining I had in mind. I was planning on doing some embroidery and/or stencilling in gold, but when I was making samples I just couldn't get it right. It all looked too "homemade" and not what I was going for. So I decided to make a change.

 I knew I had some gold-toned fabrics in my stash so got them all out and changed the lower part of the Tania. I decided on some bronzey stretch fabric so had to interface it with lightweight interfacing to keep it from stretching out. Matching up those "V"s meant some fussy hand basting to begin with, something I experienced on my last go-round when I was matching up piping points. This bronzey gold seemed to go nicely with both the navy and the more golden lining. 

But I still didn't think it was enough, it needed a little more design. So I made the interior of the collar also in bronze, to highlight it when the collar is turned down. And more importantly, I decided to make a slashed sleeve, both to show off more gold and as a tribute to the church domes that were my inspiration - the oldest churches in Kyiv were built in 1037 and kept getting added to up to the 1850s and beyond, so that stretch of years includes the European fashion of slashed sleeves and doublets somewhere in there ;) 

 I used a strip of 2.5" wide gold fabric, attached to the sleeve which was split down the middle (it's a symmetrical sleeve) with a 1/4" seam, and then folded back together with edges touching. It's stitched down by about 3" at top and bottom, while the middle is left to open and reveal the gold insert. 

This wasn't too hard to make -- the pattern is quite straightforward. I didn't have many fitting adjustments to make, both because I am a fan of the boxy shape, and because I've made it before. But all the additions and changes did mean I had to start over a bit and think about how to put it all together most efficiently. 

While I don't think this was really out-of-the-box or terribly unique (no real changes to style lines or overall appearance) I enjoyed making it. I was pleased with my inspiration, and was also happy to have been able to once again make the entire project out of stash materials. I knew that gold lining would have a perfect project some day!

Burda Book Jacket

Well, I was fortunate enough to move on to the second round of the PatternReview Sewing Bee this year, and was also fortunate that I had the week off so I could work on my new assignment! I'm glad I did because it was a tough one. The brief was to create a garment in which the buttonholes were the feature -- not the buttons, but the buttonholes. Yikes! I was stumped at first.

I thought about it all the first day and came up with tons of different ideas, that were all rejected almost immediately. I researched various buttonhole techniques and ideas, and when I watched a Threads video on shaped buttonholes I was hit with the idea of making a "Book Jacket" - perfect for this librarian! It would feature open book shaped buttonholes. Once I had that thought I couldn't get rid of it, so spent most of the next day looking through my jacket & blazer patterns for a clean silhouette with buttons all the way up the front. Harder than you might think. 

But Burda came through for me again; I found the perfect pattern, 108 from 12/2021. It's a boxy style, and also had a coat variation (109). This was helpful because the collar on 109 had a wider gap at centre front, which I thought I'd need to accommodate my elaborate front buttonhole feature which required an extended placket to fit them on while keeping them centred on the centre front line. So I traced mostly 108, but 109's collar.

There are only 3 buttonholes, but laid out against the plain black jacket I think they stand out as the main feature. This is after all my Book Jacket, so my faced buttonholes shaped as an open book had to be the focus. To avoid disrupting the effect, I used the same text fabric for self-covered buttons (one of my favourite kind of buttons). While buttonholes for a jacket like this are usually horizontal, I had to switch mine to vertical to fit the book theme - the spine of the book becomes the buttonhole.

I made the buttonhole feature using a paper template I drew out, and was very careful to line the centres up with the centre front line. I don't always do a lot of thread tracing to mark centre front and button placement marks on a pattern, but I did here. On my samples I tried stitching the 'lips' to the facing to make a clean edged window, but I preferred the look of the topstitched window, as I felt it emphasized the book outline a little more. So that's what I did on the jacket. I put the buttonholes in on the right front pattern piece before I did anything else at all, in case I needed to recut the front and try again ;) Fortunately I didn't, so went ahead with construction.

I also decided to add in a little sleeve gusset at the wrist as a way to bring in the text fabric somewhere else in the garment. It's a little detail that shows when I'm moving.

I find the jacket comfortable and like it both done up and open -- I wasn't intending to ever wear it open, but the book effect still works when it's not buttoned up, and the counter effect of seeing the buttons separately actually adds to it, I think. I'm happy with the contrast between the black background and the book shaped buttonholes and text fabric. I enjoyed learning the shaped buttonhole technique and now have lots of ideas about how to use it in future projects.

Another element I liked about this project was that once again I was able to use stash fabrics & notions for the entire project, even if it meant I had to use two different types of lining for the body and the sleeves. 

The pattern included little patch pockets, but I didn't like them with this version - I was going for streamlined. So I didn't add them. I did shorten the sleeves (always) but not the body of the jacket. And my main change to the pattern (besides the buttonholes of course) was to extend the placket on the right side by 1/2" to accommodate the size of the book buttonholes. This was a cute pattern even with a few small issues with the instructions - it all worked out and I'm very pleased with this little jacket. The Sewing Bee really forced me to think about buttonholes in a new way! 

Tryzub themed Burda Hoodie

The Pattern Review Sewing Bee is on again, and I decided to join in on the first challenge -- to make a hoodie with accents. The challenge is to make something in a one week period, then about half the entries move on to the second challenge and so on. 

I don't usually make casual clothes, so at first wasn't sure about joining in on making a hoodie (or as we call them in Saskatchewan where I grew up, bunnyhugs.) But I flipped through my Burda magazines to see what patterns were there, and also looked into my stash, and an idea was born. I thought about how I could make something to recognize Ukraine right now.

My Spring sewing plan is all in blues and yellows, and I found this bluish ponte in my stash; it was thrifted a while ago, and I was able to fit a basic pattern onto it and avoid the flaw in the fabric that was likely the reason it ended up at the thrift store. I chose Burda 116 from the July 2020 issue. It's a pullover top with a hood more than a traditional hoodie. I like it because it's more of a sweater style top, no ribbing at sleeve or hem, more my style. 

Then, for my embellishment,  I used a cotton sunflower print which I recently bought to make some face masks. There was enough left for this project. The applique image is the Tryzub, the symbol on the modern coat of arms of Ukraine, but one that goes back to the days of Volodomyr the Great, around 980 AD.  

I liked the idea of combining this symbol with sunflowers, the flower of Ukraine. I used some Steam a Seam to make an applique, using a pattern I printed off as my base. I attached it to the front of the hoodie before sewing it together to make the pressing easier.

I also used the sunflower fabric to make a deep sleeve facing, so that I could wear the sleeves rolled up with the contrast showing. Because the sleeve isn't tightly fitting, the cotton facing doesn't restrict movement. Although my project is quite simple, I really enjoyed the challenge involved in conceptualizing and making this in a short time. Plus I like the contrast of the two fabrics a lot. 

The fit of this oversized top reminds me of the kind of bunnyhug you'd throw on to sit around the campfire, and so I also like it for the association with childhood summers. Because it's an oversized style, I lengthened the body by 2", so it was a balanced length for the style I wanted. But I also shortened the sleeve by 2".

I know that this is a hoodie I will actually wear, and it was a form of 'craftivism' for me, as I spent most of the construction time listening to podcasts about Ukraine and thinking about the people I know there, and current events.

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Some podcasts on Ukraine in general - current events and politics

Making Stitches podcast featuring Oleysa Lebedenko, Ukrainian-Canadian quilter

Wardrobe Crisis podcast featuring Vogue Ukraine's Venya Brykalin