Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Sunny Suit or Big Bird?

Last night, I buckled down and finished the matching skirt to the gold jacket I made last week. It had sat languishing on my sewing table waiting for just the facing and the hem.  I lost my motivation to finish it when I lost the back facing pattern piece.  It took me a week to get off my bum and print a new one.  Yeah I know, lazy me.  To be honest, the giving up coffee has been kicking my butt, as I am still getting withdrawal headaches and fall asleep at 2 pm.  Hopefully in a couple of days, my body will balance back out.  It hasn't helped that we had a puppy emergency on Monday night, so I didn't get much sleep that night.  (Puppy has fully recovered from her emergency, as a PSA make sure your dogs don't eat anything they find on their walks, it might be poisoned.)  That aside, here it is:
 I paired the suit with a McCalls 6649 shirt I made earlier in this year.  Let's talk skirt, I made a straight size 12.  My only alteration was lengthening it by five inches.  I topstitched all the seams, as that's what I did with the jacket.  I used my regular sewing machine's overlocking stitch on the seams so I could do them in yellow.
The fit part is made up of several inserts, the most noticeable being the center panel. This is the only difficult part of the sewing the skirt, other than that it is pretty quick to put together.
You can see the panels here a little bit better.  This fabric has some stretch to it, so I could have taken in the seams a little bit, as it sits a little lower than usual. 
And the back view, the skirt had slipped to the side a tiny bit.  I promise the zipper is centered.  But speaking of that zipper.
Look how invisible it is!  This was one of the things I was dreading on the construction as the fabric is thicker and fiddly.  But thankfully it went in super easy and on the first try. 
I used the selvages for the center seams.  Well tried to, but you can see that one isn't the selvage.  I accidentally cut two of the same side.  Luckily, I had just enough to re-cut the piece, and cut the center panel on the bias out of the messed up piece.  I used turquoise bias binding to finish the hem.  I also did not line it.  

I used some left over black stretch cotton for the lining.  I serged the edges of it.  Nothing too exciting. I think that is it on the construction.  So let's talk about the elephant in the room, or should I say bird.  It's a lot of yellow!  Maybe too much, I don't know.  It's also very 70's. At work, I ended up in just the skirt and the button down, losing the jacket, but what do you think?  I have a plaid jacket in the works that would coordinate with the skirt (and matching plaid jumper, and likely skirt).  I think I'll end up wearing it with that more often.

 Well that is all I have.  Next up on my list is a silk charmeuse top, and then all that plaid.  But likely tomorrow, as I might go to sleep now.  Damn you coffee!  Well, until next time, happy sewing, and a picture of the Puppy (Snoopy).  She's super happy to be home.

4 comments:

  1. I think the yellow is just a little too much with both pieces together. It may just be staring at it too much that gives the feeling. Maybe when your moving around it doesn't strike a person that way.
    You mentioned earlier that you are not going to use the unstabilized boucle that you have left, can you not stabilize it yourself?

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    1. It's already unraveling, and there are snags all over the place, which is the main reason I'm not going to bother. I'll probably donate it, so someone else can deal with it. It's still sitting in my naughty corner.

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  2. no way this is NOT Big Bird! in a few weeks it will be summery and you will love a coordinating suit - it's adorable and chic. - you can pull it off (just don't make a hat - an no Feather boas!

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  3. Your zipper is awesome! The whole thing looks so professional (on the outside). I like the pieces together and separate. Yes, it is a lot of yellow but it's not a bright lemon color at least. I think you could wear it with and without the jacket depending on what you are doing or where you are.

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