DIY | Jasika Nicole

Projectors for Sewing

January 19, 2021/9 Comments/in DIY, Ramblings, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

I love when I am done projecting a pattern and my chromecast just starts showing pretty images in the dark room. If it weren’t so hard to sew in the dark I could just watch TV on this thing while I worked, haha

I read about this phenomenon over a year ago in one of the Closet Core Patterns monthly inspo emails- there was a blog post included by a woman who was sharing her experience working with projectors in her sewing room. Essentially she (and what seemed like a growing community of others) had figured out a way to rig a projector onto the ceiling of their sewing space that projected the pattern they wanted to cut out onto a table. Among many other things, it completely eliminated the need to print at-home PDFs or copyshop patterns because you could either project the pattern lines onto your own pattern paper (if you are #TeamTrace like me) or even directly onto your fabric and either cut out from there or trace the projected lines onto your fabric and then cut the fabric out. I was of course intrigued and I devoured every word of that blog post, but I was also overwhelmed. The idea seemed to be catching on in some corners of the sewing community quickly but it was still new enough that there would be a LOT of troubleshooting to contend with. It seemed like a lot of work, a lot of physical and technological jiggering and problem-solving (which my partner Claire always says is my specialty but I disagree with, lol). Now I’m not one to shy away from hard work- I did after all build and tile our entire master bath vanity from scratch when I couldn’t find a used piece of furniture that would fit in our newly built space (don’t worry, I had my contractor’s blessing!) But I tend to be more invested in doing a lot of work when I know ahead of time how much I will benefit from it, and while using projectors for sewing seemed incredibly cool, there just weren’t enough people talking about it for me to know whether or not it would actually be something that made my sewing life easier, something that would be worthwhile.

Keep in mind that at this time, I was still waiting for a bit of a Craft Room makeover where I planned to get some cabinets installed on one wall of the basement for storage, getting rid of the awful eyesore that I had been working with for the past several years. When we first moved in I tried to install some shelving on that craft room wall but they fell apart pretty quickly and in some places were literally hanging by the thread of the screws I used, lol. So we hired an excellent, affordable cabinet maker to work on my craft room wall, while at the same time getting a recording studio built into our storage-cum-pottery studio. As much as I wanted to dive into this rabbit hole, I made myself be patient and wait for a better time.

my new cabinets, which I designed and painted myself before they were hung!

That time finally came in December of 2020 when a very generous and smart instagrammer I follow, Minimalist Machinest, started posting about how she was converting her sewing space to include a projector! She has a patreon that she set up for people interested in consuming her deep dives for all things sewing related, so I decided to join hers for a bit to learn about the ways in which she was using her projector. I hadn’t seriously revisited the idea in a long while and I realized that in all the time that had passed from when I first read about it, sewing with projectors had become WILDLY popular! The dedicated Facebook group (that I don’t even think existed when I first read about Projectors for Sewing) has somewhere between 20 and 30,000 members, all helping each other out with resources, tips and tricks, graphs, videos…one of the members even designed an app to help people make technical changes to their PDF patterns for use with their projector- the wealth of knowledge there is staggering!

I cannot describe to you how MASSIVE this facebook group is, how much information is crammed into dozens upon dozens of pages and hashtags and posts, and it is of course very overwhelming at the beginning, but there are two great and unexpected things the group does from the get: one is making it very clear that there will be no tolerance for hateful language, inappropriate comments or posts, racism/ableism/homophobia/transphobia, etc. You even have to take a quiz before being allowed to join the group where you promise to be respectful and keep all talk focused on the subject at hand. This was a HUGE relief to me as I had deleted my facebook account in 2016 and was terrified of coming back for this group and being subjected to some typical facebook bullshit, all the stuff that had made me leave that platform in the first place (my partner Claire still has their account and let me log in and join the group through it because I couldn’t bear to start a new account myself).

The other great thing this facebook group does is include a couple of posts that are pinned at the very top of the group’s ‘Announcements’ page that basically says “If you are new, START HERE”. It is suggested that you just read and take in all the information being posted before asking questions (as everyone has asked every single question there is to be asked and the answers are already there, you just have to be patient and look for them). Whenever I read someone say “I tried to look into that Facebook group but it was too overwhelming”, I assume that they didn’t heed this one bit of advice, start here. I never even had to dive into any of the other posts in the group because the “Master Announcement Post” information was SOOO GOOD, right off the bat. It includes:

Visual Quick Start – gives you all the basic information you need to know about what, how and why people use projectors for sewing, and helps you figure out if it’s the right choice for you.
What to Look for in a Projector – helps you figure out what projector is the best choice for your individual space.
Setup and Calibration – this one seemed like a doozy initially, but it’s actually not THAT bad, it just takes time to physically set up your projector to project accurately onto your cutting area.
Top Tips for Projecting – includes information about how and when to use your projector, with which patterns, how to manipulate Acrobat Reader and a few other programs to get the most out of your set up and your patterns, etc.

I should note here that lots of people assume that projectors today are the same kind that were used when we were in grade school, the big bulky pieces of machinery that had to be wheeled in on a rolling cart so we could watch Science videos- those are not the kinds of personal-use projectors being made today, and certainly not the kind that the majority of sewists are using. Most modern projectors are small, portable, efficient, and pretty affordable. I found my projector using this amazing graph that someone in the group put together that mapped out all the different projectors people were using compared with their throw. The first big thing about choosing a projector is knowing how much space you have to work with. Throw refers to the distance between the lens of your projector (which will most likely be installed in the ceiling and pointing down) and the top of your cutting space, which will be a table top for most people but can also be the floor if that’s where you plan to cut your fabric out. The object here is to get the largest projection onto your cutting space as you possibly can, and of course projectors project larger images the further away they are from the thing they are being projected onto. Which becomes a problem when you are projecting downward and have only a limited space (the ceiling height) to work with, as opposed to something being projected onto a wall, in which case the projector can, within reason, be moved forwards or backwards in the room to make the projected image bigger or smaller. You want the projected image to be as big as possible so that it can project more of your pattern onto your surface. My craft room is located in my basement and thankfully I have a decent amount of ceiling height down there, but not so much that a standard projector would give me the projected image size I needed. In the case of having less throw than is ideal, you need to opt for what is called a Short Throw projector rather than a standard projector. A standard projector needs approximately 4 feet minimum to provide a decent sized image, but I had less room than that so I got a Short Throw. These tend to be a little more expensive than the standard, but still in the $200-$300 range new (less if you find a used one on eBay), although they can also get REALLY high priced, like in the $6000 range. According to this graph in the facebook group, the largest projected image someone got with the same amount of throw I had in my space was with an Optoma Lv130 projector, so that’s exactly the one I went for. It was comparatively well-priced to other Short Throws, but doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, which came to bite me in the ass later.

my view of the projector looking up from my cutting table

My projector doesn’t have any adjustable pieces on it to angle, lift or shift the projected image when it’s sitting flat on a table, which is totally fine for me, as I wouldn’t need mine flat on a table, it would be hanging from a mount in the ceiling and didn’t need to be adjusted on a flat surface. However it also doesn’t come with a remote control, which means that you have to manually turn it off and on, which does not work well for the ways I need to use it. It means that in order to calibrate the projector (changing brightness, contrast, focus and keystone and shifting it) you are required to physically touch the projector, which moves it and knocks off the calibration incrementally. However the BIGGEST issue is that I can’t turn it on remotely, I have to stand on a stool and verrrrrrrrrry gentlyyyyyyyyy press the power button so that I don’t knock it out of alignment. Someone made the suggestion that I get a smart plug for my projector, which can be turned off and on remotely through an app on your phone. It seemed like a completely brilliant idea, until I realized that smart plugs only work on appliances that have physical on/off buttons, not the kind that have electric on/off buttons, and of course my projector has the latter kind, lol. This might have been a deal breaker for me at the beginning of my foray into this subject, but now that I’ve already set everything up, it’s actually not THAT bad. I have a stool close to my cutting table and I have to climb onto it when I use the projector to press the button on (I can still turn if off through the smart plug though), then I do a quick check through Acrobat to make sure it’s properly aligned, and so far it hasn’t been knocked off (I’m just waiting for an earthquake to ruin all my hard work, though).

the chromecast is the round thing with a cord coming out the side, and the other wire is my projector’s power cord

Figuring out which projector is right for your space is the easy part- next comes installing everything. I found a cheap ceiling mount on eBay and I bought a chromecast for my projector as well. You can very easily plug your computer or phone or tablet device directly into a projector with an HDMI port, but that entails having a bunch of wires hanging down from your ceiling and connected to your device, and I just personally did not want to deal with that. Aside from being unsightly, it also seemed very limiting- I wouldn’t be able to move my computer around easily and I would be weary of knocking the cords around which would in turn knock the calibration of my projector off- I just didn’t want to go that route. I hadn’t read great reviews about projectors with wi-fi capabilities so the chromecast seemed like the smartest option for me and I am so glad I went that route. The chromecast is connected to the HDMI port of my projector and it connects wirelessly to my computer so that I can share my computer screen through the projector. Sounds easy enough, but each new gadget I added to this set up required a fair amount of trouble shooting and I spent FAR TOO LONG trying to figure out why I couldn’t get my entire screen to share through my chromecast when I first set it up. I eventually figured it out (the culprit was terrible UX design, not my own shortcomings), but man, these troubleshooting steps took such a toll on my mental health!

this image is taken during the day with light filtering in through my window’s shades- I usually use the projector once the sun has gone down to make the most out of the low light

After I got my projector mounted to the ceiling, plugged in, connected to my chromecast, and my screen shared through the projector, it was time to…dum dum dum dum…CALIBRATE! This is the trickiest part of the whole process, not because it’s difficult, but because it’s tedious. Most set-ups make this a two person job, but I was able to get it done by myself, which made it take longer I’m sure but also meant that I didn’t have to drag my partner into this mess, hahahah. The facebook group provides a downloadable PDF with a few boxes on it that measure perfectly square, and your job is to adjust your projector so that the projected boxes match up with the grid on your cutting mat (if you have one, measured taped lines on your table if you don’t) that coordinate with the measurements of the boxes in the PDF. This is of course easier said than done. It is necessary to zoom in your PDF reader to make the projected boxes the correct size, and once you are more or less in the correct zoom territory, you have to physically shift your table/cutting mat and projector, utilizing it’s keystone/focus functions to get the projected image even on your surface, so all the lines match up and there are no warped boxes or overlap. It took me a few hours spread out over a couple of days to calibrate my projector, but once I did, the hard work was done. After calibration, you just have to note which zoom number helped you achieve the correct measurements through your PDF reader, and THAT is the zoom number you will use for all future patterns. So whenever I am ready to trace out a pattern onto paper or fabric, I open the pattern in my Acrobat Reader, put the zoom at 28.3%, maneuver the program to full screen, and then start my project that is now projected onto my cutting table.

This is a shot of the projector working in my craft room in the evening with the overhead lights turned out. It shows up more brightly of course and you can see the boxes of the PDF sort of matching up with the grid of my cutting mat (I staged this photo for this blog post so if the grid doesn’t equate with the boxes it’s because I’ve moved my table around since I used the projector last)

There are lots of cool things you can do with your pattern at this point (most of which I haven’t even researched or attempted to be honest)- the standard is to open your PDF file to a website like sedja.com which allows you to manipulate your pattern for optimum use. Adding some extra room around the pattern let’s you move it around your computer screen without running out of room- hard to explain unless you’re doing it on your own computer with your pattern projected to your surface. There are also ways to stitch separate PDF files together all into one, get rid of edges and gaps in tiled patterns, etc. Eventually I will have to figure out how to do that stuff, but for now I am absolutely enjoying the sheer ease of eliminating a big chunk of paper products from my sewing practice, and only a week and a half in, all the labor and research seems to have been absolutely worth it.

this is an example of tracing a PDF onto pattern paper, which I can manipulate and then cut out

Here are the main pros and cons I have experienced with my new set up- I’m sure these will change over time- maybe it will be cool to revisit them in the future and see what has changed and what hasn’t.

Projector Pros:

I don’t have to get indie patterns printed anymore!!!! I would use tiled PDFs occasionally if I needed something in a hurry or if the pattern was small (less than 15 pages taped together), but generally I am not a fan of tiled PDFs because they are cumbersome, they take too much time to put together, they are difficult to store, and they require a lot of paper and ink to be printed at home. Most of the time, if the option was available and if it was a pattern I really liked, I would get them printed as a copyshop file, which could get very expensive. Depending on the size of the pattern, my local copyshop charged between $15 and $20 a pop. When possible I would use one of the discount architectural prints services online which was much more affordable, but they require a minimum order for prints so I would have to wait til I had several patterns I needed printed, which sometimes took months and would keep me from actually making the things I had planned on the schedule I wanted (I usually just broke down and got them printed locally for more money).
I find myself buying more patterns now, which could be considered a con to some, haha. But I would rather spend my money supporting the art of pattern designers I love than on paying to get a pattern printed up. Now patterns that I would see in passing and think ‘oh that might be cute, but do I really want to spend $14 on the pattern and another $20 on printing it up for something I am not 100% sure about?’ are more likely to actually get purchased and used quickly- it’s not easy to forget about a pattern you’ve purchased when it’s immediately available and you don’t have to wait to print it up.
I don’t have to worry about physically storing my copyshop files anymore! Before my projector, I was on the brink of doing both a cull of patterns to get rid of all the ones that I wasn’t likely to be sewing anytime in the future, and buying another bin to start storing future copyshop prints. My bin already took up a lot of space and was becoming an eyesore for me since they just didn’t get used very often. It was a constant reminder of how wasteful they were.
my unsightly bin of copyshop patterns, barf!
I was on the fence about cutting directly into my fabric from my projector at first and therefore wasn’t sure if a projector made sense for me, (I have since done it and it was totally fine and not that big a deal, even though it wasn’t a perfect result, lol) but I realized that even if I didn’t cut each project directly out of my fabric from my projection, I would still massively benefit from not having to print copyshop files because again, I am #teamtrace and could still eliminate the need for the printed pattern by tracing the pieces onto my drafting paper from the projection. It’s quick, easy and still saves a substantial amount of $ and paper.
I actually haven’t tried this yet but I am so looking forward to it: I won’t have to use a tracing wheel to place my darts on my fabric anymore!!!!! This is one of those random tedious sewing things that I hate doing more than others. It’s just so fiddly and takes so much time and not all fabric responds well to chalked paper and tracing wheels but the only other alternative has been making tailor’s tacks, which I hate even more. Now I can just place my fabric under the projected image of the pattern piece and draw the dart on properly with my fabric pen, no flimsy paper and double layers of fabric to contend with!

Projector Cons:

After finally getting my cabinets installed in the craft room, painting them and organizing the whole area so that it looks really tidy and nice, I now have (what feels to me) like a huge eyesore hanging from my ceiling. All those necessary cords to make the projector fully operational thankfully aren’t hanging down in the middle of the room, but they still aren’t very sightly, running across the ceiling and then down the wall to plug into the nearest outlet. I have some white cord-wrapping that I might use at some point to get rid of some of the visual clutter but so far it hasn’t been a big enough issue for me to address it properly.
If your goal is to cut directly into your fabric without tracing your pattern pieces out, this set-up seems most ideal (read: less work) for straight sized sewists than sewists who need to make lots of adjustments to their pattern pieces (FBAs, SBAs, FBAs, etc) which require a lot of pattern manipulation that you would have to do in a computer program first.
There might be a way to do this in some app, but otherwise you are limited to the layout of your PDF pattern pieces and have to either manually adjust the rotation so that you are cutting your pattern pieces out properly on your fabric (making sure grainline of each piece is situated in the right direction) or move your fabric around to adhere to the direction of the fabric grainline (I have to do this with pattern pieces on the crosswise grain, as there is no way rotate the PDF incrementally, you can only go clockwise or counter clockwise at 90 degree angles).
The biggest con is that this set-up might not work for people with visibility issues, as the projected image on your table top is not going to be super clear and defined- most patterns you won’t be able to read the projected words on, which is pretty standard in the community from what I’ve read, and you also need to work in a dark room in order for the projected lines to show up on your paper or fabric brightly. This is also where the biggest request from Projectors for Sewing comes into play- having a special projector file from indie sewing designers makes our projects run so much more smoothly. PDFs that come with separated layers are also a godsend as you can just uncheck the layers you dont want and work with one set of lines to trace from, as opposed to squinting to figure out which line is your size in the midst of a fairly blurry image in front of you. Being on the lowest or highest end of the size spectrum here is definitely an advantage as it’s always easiest to pick out the first or the last set of lines in a nested pattern, but having only one line appear is obviously the most helpful. There are ways to try and get your projector image to show up as brightly and clearly as possible, like changing the colors of the PDF file on your computer to show up more vividly (having a black background with bright yellow lines was helpful on one project but the lines barely showed up in that color scheme on another designer’s pattern). You can also adjust the brightness and contrast settings on your projector. I’ve also found that lighter colored fabric has great visibility when I am cutting directly into it, and that when tracing onto paper, sticking another layer of paper underneath it to make it look more opaque helps the lines show up more clearly (I have a green cutting mat which makes anything transparent on top of it take on it’s green hue).
The projected lines show up on certain colors of fabric fairly well. This is a textured peach silk.
You can’t map out a cutting layout with PDF files (although I haven’t used the suggested cutting lay out from a pattern in YEARS, so this won’t be an issue for people like me).
I have to manually turn my projector on by climbing on top of a stool and carefully pressing the button when I am ready to use it. Not a deal breaker, but definitely a hassle.
I’m not sure how you use A0 tiled patterns to work in your Acrobat Reader. There is a way to trim off the margins so that all the pieces connect, and there is a way to piece together a continuous row of pages in Acrobat, but not more than one row, so it only works if you have a pattern with pieces that adhere to those rigid constraints. There might be more information on how to accomplish this, but I haven’t found it (and I also haven’t looked very hard- I’m sure I will try and figure it out once I am ready to project an A0 file).

And that’s it, folks! So far I’ve used my projector for two projects- for the first one I just traced the pattern pieces onto my drafting paper because I didn’t have the fabric I needed for the project yet. It was quick and easy and fun and a great first project with the projector since I didn’t have to pay attention to any of the details required when you cut directly into the fabric. The next project I made WAS directly onto the fabric and let’s just say…I learned a lot! Thankfully I didn’t completely screw it up, but it was definitely an ambitious project for only my second time working with the projector, hahah! You can read more about that experience when I share the details of my faux fur coat in the future.

Til then, thanks for reading, and keep wearing your mask!!!!

Eggs/Animal Highlands Wrap Dress

August 16, 2020/12 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

Making this dress has been on my mind for over a year, and, par for the course for some of my most favorite makes, I was inspired by a dress I found on pinterest! It’s by designer Mara Hoffman (who has a really lovely eye for modern prints, color and style and knows exactly how to put them all together).

I feel like this dress absolutely speaks for itself, but let me see if I can articulate just why it resonated with me so much. I love the large print of the polka dots, I love the sort of disparate color choices that somehow work so well together, I love how dynamic the colors look on the model’s skin, I love the easy, relaxed fit of the dress and how it doesn’t look boxy even though it isn’t body-huggingly tight. I LOVE the buttons down the side, and the extended sleeves are so cute to me! Now, having said all that, I didn’t actually end up implementing every single one of these design elements into my version, but I’m still crazy about what I ended up with, and excited to try out some other versions in the future!

I have several wrap dress patterns in my stash already but I chose the Highlands Wrap Dress by Allie Olsen because it was so close to my inspo dress and seemed to require the least amount of hacking. I wanted a narrow, yet loose-fitting skirt (as opposed to a circle or dirndl skirt), a wrap top that wasn’t too revealing, and sleeves proportionate to the rest of the dress without too much drama- the Highlands Wrap totally fit the bill.

It wasn’t until I actually bought the pattern, printed it out and looked over the instructions that I realized the back waist of the dress was gathered and had an elastic band (it’s hard to see this detail in the photos of the finished garments and the main line drawings of the pattern on the site only show the front views (you can only vaguely see the back views of the line drawings in smaller resolution on the pattern’s page). I knew that this design feature was likely going to present a problem for me since gathered waists coupled with slim fitting skirts do not drape well on my body at all- with such a large difference between my waist and hip circumference, a gathered waist like that hugs my hips and thigh creates tons of extra, bunchy fabric at the small of my back and I hate the way it looks and feels.

I made a muslin to see how I could address this issue and modify the back skirt to give me a more fitted, yet still comfortable garment, and I was thrilled to see that, except for the back skirt which I already knew needed adjusting, the dress fit everywhere else really nicely.

The sleeves were beautiful and fit my shoulders perfectly, the wrap in the front wasn’t too low or loose and therefore didn’t need a snap installed to keep it closed, and most delightfully, I discovered that it is designed with a button on either side of the wrap skirt to hold it in place, instead of having a hole for the tie to slide through and keep it closed. Having the skirt held in place with hidden buttons instead of a belt is SO BRILLIANT; it means that the tie won’t get loose throughout the day as I breathe and my body gets warm, and it won’t need to be tied more tightly; the dress feels really secure when it’s closed (it helps that it’s long!) and runs much less risk of exposing my bits and bobs if I’m ever caught in a strong wind, haha!

Once I knew that the dress was well suited for me in the front and sides and sleeves, I got to work fixing the back skirt. I had already graded from a 2 in the bust/waist to a 4 in the hips, so the measurements for my curves were accurate, but I needed to pinch out the excess fabric in the waist since I was eliminating the gathering ease/elastic at the back waist. I omitted the back waistband pattern pieces and raised the rise of the skirt to accommodate the missing length. Initially I tried to pinch out the excess fabric in two darts but I didn’t like the way they were laying- because there was so much extra material to take up, the darts had to be very wide and short, and they were causing a pucker on my buttcheek that I couldn’t seem to get rid of (part of this issue is because, in addition to a smaller waist/larger hip area, I also have a swayback). Then I remembered that in my favorite pencil skirt, there are four darts in the back skirt which allow the darts to be skinnier and therefore lay over my butt more smoothly without pulling or gaping anywhere. I pulled out the pattern pieces for my favorite pencil skirt and used them to loosely redraw the darts in my skirt. The skirt of my dress was of course a bit wider than the pencil skirt pattern pieces because it is drafted to have a looser, more relaxed fit than a fitted pencil skirt, but, amazingly, the darts still translated well onto the wrap dress and the silhouette from all angles is SPOT on. It took me approximately two toiles and then lots of extra adjusting on the third one, but it was all worth it cause the dress fits exactly the way I hoped it would!

Although one of my favorite things about the inspo dress were the buttons down the side, I ended up eliminating them for my own version- I wasn’t entirely sure how well the dress would lay and I didn’t want to hack too much of it during the first make and then end up having something that was just a little wonky in too many places. Now that the dress is complete I realize that I could omit the ties and use buttons instead and it would lay like a dream. One of the reasons I was too nervous to try the buttons out on this dress is because, aside from reworking the back of the skirt and eliminating the waistband and elastic, I also had to pay close attention to the fabric details since I was print blocking it and…it required so much of my brain space!!! Hahaha! It seems like it would be totally easy, and it’s certainly not complicated per se, but you just have to pay really close attention that you are cutting the correct side of the pattern on the correct side of the fabric, adding seam allowances for pieces that are supposed to be cut on the fold, making sure the facings are cut on the proper side and in the right direction…it was a lot! Instead of cutting out everything in advance, I cut out the main pieces first and then cut the remaining parts out as I went along so I would make sure that I didn’t cut anything upside down or wrong side up. I messed up just a couple of the facing pieces but for the most part I got everything right the first try and didn’t waste a lot of fabric (I was even able to cut out a mask and an Ogden Cami from my prized animal print fabric)!

Speaking of the fabric…how spectacular are these prints, both alone and together? They are printed tencel twills from Blackbird Fabrics, and I cannot rave enough about how perfect the fabric choice is for this garment. For this dress to lay beautifully, in my opinion it needs to have a bit of drape since the skirt is long and a bit of flow looks nice with it, but it also needs to be stable enough to maintain it’s striking silhouette on the body, which this tencel does beautifully. These prints are from the same designer and were released at the same time so imagining them together wasn’t difficult at all. I wanted to choose prints that were bold enough to stand on their own but that also worked well together, and these fit the bill perfectly. The orange-y brown in the fried egg fabric (yes, I think they look like sunny side up eggs, lol) isn’t quite the same color as the orangey brown of the animal print, but they are definitely siblings, and the black in each print helps pull them together. Even though black isn’t in my color palette, there is enough earth tone in the pops of egg yolk and the background of the animal print for me to pull it off, but honestly, even if I couldn’t “pull it off” I would still wear this dress. It’s just so cool!

Again, I cannot stress enough how pleased I am with how this came out. It was a long time in the making but it was well worth every single decision to get there, and if I come across another set of beautifully contrasting prints like these in the future, I might be inspired to make another dress just like it!

Flowery and Romantic; A Departure

August 3, 2020/0 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

Lol, this blog title. I was struggling so I just went over the top.

There is little in life these days that allows for spontaneity, and I’m a rule follower by nature- I’m an avid mask wearer when in public or in spaces shared with others, I rarely leave the house except to go to the grocery store/drugstore/ post office, and I DON’T eat out al fresco or otherwise because I am unconvinced that it’s safe (I have gotten some fries from the McDonald’s drive thru a couple of times though, lol). All that is to offer an explanation of why I made this dress, which is sooooo far outside my normal wardrobe style. It’s frilly, it’s ruffly, it’s got sleeve drama, and it’s off the shoulder.

It would be rare for me to choose any one of those details for a make, much less all of them in the same one! But alas, desperate quarantines call for desperate measures, and every time I saw this pattern pop up in my feed or across my computer screen, I thought, “this would be such a fun dress to wear”. I think it just reminds me of those carefree pre-pandemic days when I would get dressed up and meet friends for brunch or head out for a stroll in a new neighborhood with Claire, totally overdressed and feeling like a million bucks. A dress like this feels so over the top when all you’re doing is driving to pick up your groceries curbside at Sprout’s, but there are so few opportunities to feel (safely and smartly) frivolous these days, so I bit the bullet and made something totally out of the norm for my taste and style. Although I don’t plan on making this a habit, I think it came out great and I really enjoyed sewing it!

Although I have issues with how the pattern was styled on the pattern envelope (I love a casual shoe with a more dressed-up kind of outfit, but to me, the chunky sneakers just don’t look right with the proportions of the dress), I was drawn to how overly romantic and flowy McCalls 8108 looked without going into maxi dress territory. Of course The Fabric Store had the most perfect floral fabric for this pattern, a crepe viscose (which I was gifted) that I also think would be a perfect match for a 90’s inspired Shelby romper. The tiny flowers are pink and white on a green background, so I figured I could get away with it color palette-wise, and the drape is certainly ideal for this pattern. It’s flowy and lightweight so it doesn’t make the ruffle on the bottom look too heavy for the breeziness of the garment (which is another issue I had with the way they styled the garment on the pattern envelope- the textile they chose looks stiff and a bit voluminous, which could certainly be an intentional decision, but I’m not into it so much- I much prefer it in a less crisp, flowy fabric).

This garment came together fairly quickly and I didn’t need to make any size adjustments to it, probably because it was mostly like making a bustier without the bells and whistles. I sized down to an 8 as per usual with Big 4 patterns, and lined my bodice with a dupioni silk from my stash to give it a bit more stability and weight. I also used steel boning at the seams because on it’s own, the bodice seemed a little…flimsy. I don’t have big boobs, but something about the view I chose, the one with the detached sleeves that just kind of connect under the arms, coupled with the weight of that ruffle, made me think I should include as much support as possible. And this is a note to anyone thinking of making this pattern- I would consider a muslin or at least a double-check of the measurements against your body to make sure the bodice isn’t too short/shallow for your tastes- if I made this again I think I might add just the teeniest amount of additional length…this one works fine on me, but I wouldn’t go to the club in this and attempt dancing very hard, lol.

I could probably get away with wearing this without the boning but I would be constantly worried the dress was going to slip down. Since the bodice is so short (it ends right under the bust), I can’t really rely on waist shaping to help hold it up, which is how I usually have success with strapless garments, so taking the extra time to sew channels for boning was well worth it, and also reminds me that I have a strapless, boned bodice jumpsuit in my roster of imaginary makes that I might as well get around to soon- I love a well-fitted strapless sweetheart bodice!

I kind of stopped paying attention to the instructions for this dress early on because I have made enough paneled strapless bodices to know my preferred way of construction. But because of this, I’m not entirely sure that I put the sleeves on in the right place, or attached them the proper way. I just used a double strand of thread to hand tack the sleeves to the bodice under the arm where I felt like it would allow me the most movement, and it seems to work well. My biggest issue with this dress is that I don’t particularly like elastic wrapped around my bicep- it feels very restrictive even if it isn’t technically too tight (but you kind of need it to be relatively firm so that the sleeves don’t look limp around your arm- the fitted elastic also helps to hold the bodice up just a bit).

The ruffle at the bottom was pieced together in three parts. Unfortunately did not have enough room to cut them from my fabric in the proper direction, but because the flowers are so small I don’t think it’s very noticeable…and if it is, it can be a considered a style choice, right? Right!

Pretty straightforward make in these very UN-straightforward times, but I’m making it work as best I can. I hope all of you are taking good care of yourself, staying as safe as you possibly can, and keeping optimistic whenever possible; we won’t come out the other side of this if we aren’t staying both vigilant and hopeful! I’m sending you all love and well wishes for good health, good thoughts, and good making!

P.S. Shoes are memade slides I completed a couple years ago I think? Time seems to have lost all meaning these day, maybe I made them last year! I love them but the leather is looking so dingy! I’m crazy about the shape of the peep toe looks on these so I’ll probably try and recreate it in another pair of flat slides soon as soon as I get some shoe-making mojo back! Thanks for the photos, Claire!

Life these days…

August 2, 2020/13 Comments/in DIY, Pottery, Ramblings /by Jasika Nicole

It just occurred to me while I was writing another post that I have been pretty bad at updating this blog with anything else I do aside from sewing, which is a terrible misstep for me- this blog is about being TryCurious and trying all kinds of different things in the realm of making, which I absolutely do on a regular basis, but I just forget to share it here! Although to be fair, I do a GREAT job of sharing all my different interests on my instagram account. So this post will just be a little catch up of some other things I have been spending my days immersed in during quarantine.

Of course, work is pretty much at a standstill for me since not many auditions are happening due to the fact that very few projects are currently in production. Every time a new production gets started, they have to shut it down because people start immediately getting sick. So I have been able to sink my teeth into some other interests over the past few months, mainly selling prints of my illustrations in my etsy shop and getting back into ceramics.

I felt inspired months ago to start drawing illustrations that depicted different aspects of a maker’s life. I got to thinking about how so many of us makers create beautiful, often functional artwork which gets lumped under the heading of “craft” (I have no problem being considered a crafter but I think we should also consider getting comfortable also naming ourselves as artists), and how so many of us live in homes with walls adorned with all kinds of lovely artwork and photographs and paintings that depict our aesthetic, but don’t necessarily depict us, the work we do, the art we create.

“Stockinette” illustration available at the LA yarn store The Little Knittery

With this jolt of inspiration I have been focused on creating an ongoing series of maker-inspired artwork, which I have printed on 11×17 poster paper and started selling in my etsy shop. Initially I only had two prints available and they sold out in about 3 days, which was a wonderful surprise!

I have since been selling these prints to fabric and yarn shops across north america and I even have a couple shops in the UK carrying them! Thanks to the following shops for supporting this black indie artist!

The Little Knittery, Los Angeles, CA
Freeman’s Creative, Durham, NC
Brooklyn General, Brooklyn, NY
Fabrications, Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Josephine’s Dry Goods, Portland, OR
Knit & Bolt, Minneapolis, MN
Three Little Birds Sewing Co., Hyattsville, MD
Fancy Tiger Crafts, Denver, CO
Domesticity Fabric & Studio, Baltimore, MD
Knit1Chicago Chicago, IL
Lovely Jubbly Designs & Fabrics Wimborne, UK

If you’re interested in purchasing now, the stores above are carrying “Stockinette”, “Machine Dream”, “Sew Good” and “Sew Close” (some of the shops are offering the illustrations for purchase online). I am carrying a selection of these prints in addition “Patron Saint” in my own etsy shop which you can find here! You can have a look at the Maker Illustrations below:

Stockinette

Machine Dream

Sew Close

Sew Good

and the most recent addition, a personal fav…

Patron Saint

This last one was inspired by an instagram post I made recently where Claire called me the “Patron Saint of Pants Down”, to which I was tickled and honored to no end. Most of us who have sewn dresses or skirts for ourselves know the habit of dropping trou and shuffling to the mirror to assess how the fit of something is coming along, so it feels like an almost universal experience for a particular kind of sewist. I wish I had this on a candle!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDIHjfOnNip/

You can find my etsy shop here, and since I have a tendency to sell out quickly I would suggest favoriting the shop so you’ll know when there are more items available. You can also follow me on instagram if you don’t already- I keep it updated regularly and always share when new items come into the shop!

As you can see from my last several posts, I’m still enjoying sewing, but I’ve decreased my output a lot during the last couple months of quarantine. I started having little glimpses of an existential crisis when I spent as much time on sewing projects as I normally did. Namely I just kept thinking “why? what is it all for?” It feels a bit more difficult to get lost in a sewing project these days when I start wondering when I will actually ever have an opportunity to wear the garments I’ve made (if the projected advice from medical professionals is any indication, it won’t be ’til several months into 2021). I’ve definitely been more interested in making casual and comfortable clothing that I can wear around the house and feel cute in as I am not a ‘PJs all day’ kind of person, but I also don’t have a lot of wardrobe needs to meet, so the sewing is just…slower. I’m excited to make a couple of those Elizabeth Suzann patterns that were made available recently to the sewing community, and I also promised my dad some masks that say “Good Trouble” on them (I finally broke down and got a used Cricut Joy to cut out the letters, lol), so although I’m not as busy with sewing as I normally am, I’m still inspired! I am actually not mad about the decrease in sewing at at all, because it’s given me so much room for my newfound obsession…CERAMICS!!!!

tiny cup with wax resist and speckled glaze

Anyone following this blog for several years might remember the post I made when I took my first pottery classes with Claire a few years ago and joined a local pottery studio. My time there was spent pretty much exclusively throwing on the wheel, which I took to fairly quickly. I loved the teacher at the studio and had a really great time familiarizing myself with the process- every single one of my christmas gifts that year was a not-always-functional but made-with-lots-of-love piece of pottery that I made, hahaha. But eventually I started working again and ended my time at that studio. Some days I missed it, but I always had sewing to fill in the gaps so I didn’t spend much time reminiscing about it. Then at the beginning of quarantine in March of this year, my sweet and extremely generous friend Stephanie asked me if I wanted to take her potter’s wheel off her hands. She had gotten into pottery for a while but had moved on to other hobbies and didn’t want the equipment taking up space in her storage area. I hadn’t really considered getting back into pottery, but I was happy to take the wheel- I figured that quarantine would give me plenty of time to get back into the groove if and when I felt inspired to dive back in.

When I went to Stephanie’s house to pick it up (all of us donning masks, even at that early stage!), I was thrilled to see that not only was she gifting me her wheel, but also a chair designed especially for wheel-throwing, a bunch of plastic bats, bags of clay, trimming and modeling tools, small ware boards, banding wheels- literally everything you would need to get started in building up a tiny but efficient home ceramics studio. I suddenly felt super excited to get back into this hobby, and I set everything up in the storage room beneath our garage, which has actually been a usable space the entire time we’ve lived here but we haven’t really known what to do with it.

perfect sized cup for a margarita, turns out. Wax resist and speckled glazes.

In the months since receiving all of Stephanie’s old pottery equipment and tools, I have carved out yet another making space in our home that brings me more delight than I ever imagined (much like my craft room where I do all of my sewing and shoemaking). And I have discovered something so important about my making process- turns out, I FLOURISH in an environment created and curated for my own needs! I’m always excited to take a class and learn from an experienced and knowledgeable teacher, and I think there is a lot of good that comes from sharing a space with other students who are also learning a process at the same pace that you are…but I see now that I am able to tap into my most inspired, most imaginative, most productive self when I am alone in my own space. Spoken like the true introvert that I am, hahaha!

After a few months of learning and experimenting and reacquainting myself with the craft of pottery, I have noticed such a marked difference between my experiences making ceramics at my local pottery studio and making them in the quiet safety of my own home. I was proud of the pieces that I created while a member of the studio, because learning something puts you in a state of vulnerability; to effectively create anything when you feel exposed to the opinions and criticisms of others is an absolute feat. But looking back, I did feel a bit disconnected from the pieces I made. I was pleased with the technical aspects of what I had done but…they just didn’t feel like me. They weren’t pieces that I would have been drawn to if I saw them on a shelf in a gift shop. They weren’t pieces that looked like I had made them. After years of making clothes and drawing illustrations and cooking meals and writing stories, I can easily recognize my own style, and I get so much joy when others recognize it, too. But the pottery I made in the studio didn’t seem to be imbued with my style at all, and maybe that’s why I never kept up the practice- I was struggling to find myself in it.

Part of that comes from the fact that I hate unsolicited advice and criticism, whether online or in person. A lot of people assume it’s because I am uncomfortable with criticism and just get defensive. But I have been acting professionally since my late teens. I went to college for theatre, art, music and dance. My career requires that I regularly perform in front of strangers and then wait for them to tell me whether they think I am good enough to get paid for it; I am all too familiar with the criticism and evaluation that comes from others weighing in on my work. And that’s why making has become such a nurturing, safe space for me! Creating art, the kind of art that is for ourselves, for our own self care, for our own enjoyment– that should never be tainted by the opinions of others (unless of course you are asking for it, which is the difference between solicited and unsolicited advice).

an attempt at creating a watercolor effect with glaze on a small tumblr

The advent of social media has only perpetuated the tendency for strangers to weigh in on the work of others, and it happens ALL THE TIME with sewing- someone shares a beautiful garment that they have worked hard on in an instagram post and comments pour in from virtual strangers along the lines of “are you gonna fix the hem?” or “this looks so much better than the last thing you made!” or “you should work on getting a better fit in the shoulders” or “I think this would have looked better in linen”, and so on and so on. Are these strangers’ opinions valid? Absolutely! But do they need to be shared with anyone else? HELL. TO. THE. NO. I have gotten pretty good at setting boundaries on my instagram- anyone leaving a comment or sending me a DM that criticizes, offers advice I never asked for, or otherwise projects their negative personal perspectives into my space (this includes anti-fat or sexually objectifying comments) gets an immediate “you don’t get to say this to me, and this is why…” response. Most people are receptive to it, but every once in a while people get defensive, and then I just block them. The joys of social media are few and far between some days, but being able to block assholes is one of the most pleasurable things it has brought me. I only wish I could block people like that in real life!

unglazed pieces ready to be fired

Unfortunately we live in a white supremacist world ruled by patriarchy norms, so I get mansplained and whitesplained all the time. I am not always able to defend myself against it in everyday situations, like at work, so I will be damned if I let it fly in my curated spaces on social media. I remember once when I was at the pottery studio working on something, a man who was a member of the studio came to up to me (we had never spoken before) and told me that I was “doing it wrong”. I was enraged but didn’t say anything because I don’t like trying to have conversations with men who so boldly interfere with other’s personal space (and yes, I consider art that I am creating my “personal space”). I don’t remember specifically what I was working on, but I know I was experimenting with a new technique and trying out something weird and interesting. I was attempting to see if the technique would work, which is generally how I learn best- I don’t like to be told a million rules that might reflect on the teacher’s preferences and process rather than the craft itself. I prefer to learn by trial and error. I get a better understanding of why something won’t work by doing it myself and understanding the consequences rather than someone just telling me “don’t do it this way” and offering no context. I am able to find so much more nuance and space for experimentation by understanding firsthand the why’s of a situation rather just having them told to me, but unfortunately classroom settings are not always the most inclusive, supportive spaces for experimentation, especially if you are sensitive to the prying eyes of others (raises hand).

To be clear, I love talking about process and method and approach with others whose work I admire- it’s just another way for me to learn! But telling someone they are “doing it wrong” does not leave space for conversation or even education. It does not invite a dialogue. It does not create a safe space for people to explore in their making process. You know what does invite dialogue? Curiosity. Questions. Inquisitiveness. “Oh, what do you plan to make with that?” or “How are you gonna do this part?” or simply “what are you working on?” are all ways to start a conversation and share information that are much more preferable to a statement like “you shouldn’t do it that way”.

progress of an inauthentic mishima-type process, where you cover a leather hard project in wax, carve out a design in the piece, then cover the lines in underglaze. The wax keeps the underglaze from adhering to anything but the raw clay, and then, once it is bisque-fired, the wax will burn off, leaving colored indented lines. You can then glaze the piece like normal and give it a final fire.

All this is to say that being able to create in my own time has allowed my imagination to prosper! The things I am creating are strange and beautiful, but most importantly, they feel like me! I’m still in a process of learning the do’s and don’t of ceramics (because there are a lot of technical elements to account for after a piece of clay has been manipulated, as well as safety precautions, which I take very seriously). But the growth of my own ability, style, and methodology seems to be keeping pace with my learning curve, and I am having so much fun! I want to be clear that I don’t think there is one specific way that everyone will thrive in. We all have different preferences and tastes and all our brains work and respond to things differently- there is no such thing as a “right way”. But I do think that figuring out your own ideal set up is important in the life of a maker. Maybe you are the most inspired when it’s noisy and busy and music is playing and people are all around you working on the same thing. Maybe you like to be in a quiet room at the end of the day with a little fan whirring and a work lamp lighting your space. Maybe you like to have an on-going stream of true crime shows squeaking out of your laptop with a glass of wine close by and a baby napping in the corner. You might not be able to replicate this ideal space every time you are able to make. But knowing what to strive for makes a big difference, and allows you to anticipate what you might be able to accomplish when you have all or none of your preferred parameters in place.

As for my own ceramics practice, I’ve effectively created an ideal space to work in (although Claire is growing plants on the other side of the room, which is a visual distraction for me whenever I walk in- thankfully my work spaces are turned away from that area, haha). I’m bordering on obsessed, where I’m devouring books about handbuilding and wheel throwing and going to sleep dreaming about projects I want to try and waking up excited to put my visions into practice. I felt like this when I came back to sewing 7 years ago, thinking about it all the time, consumed by everything I wanted to learn and do and try; it feels a little like falling in love. I don’t have this same relationship to sewing any more, which isn’t a complaint. Falling in love isn’t a sustainable place for my creative mind to exist in long term, and after years of learning about sewing and fit adjustments and fabric and patterns and color palettes and curating my closet, I’m experienced enough that I don’t consider myself to be falling anymore- I’ve landed! And I LOVE being on solid ground with my sewing practice! I’m still inspired and motivated and I still find challenges in the craft, but I feel secure, encouraged, confident with it all these years later.

small thrown dish with handbuilt flower

I would love to get to that place with my ceramics, but I have to say, I am truly thrilled by the journey of falling. I’m sure there are lots of factors involved that have set the stage for this inspired time in my life (can’t work professionally, can’t socialize in the ways I’m used to, can’t safely leave the house, can’t go on trips- I feel like I’m on sabbatical in my own home) but so far I have been able to utilize the parameters I have been given to my own benefit, and I feel EXTREMELY GRATEFUL. Everyone’s experience of this pandemic is different, and there are lots of people out there who aren’t finding any “joy” in our current circumstances, which is completely understandable. My own moods and motivation have a tendency to swing all over the place, so I just try and meet myself wherever I’m at with patience and compassion. Sometimes it’s really hard, and other times it’s easy. Life in a nutshell.

I’m thinking of doing a more detailed series here about my ceramics journey because, even though I do love wheel throwing, I have found so much delight in handbuilding, which I have been learning about from books and online classes that I have been taking from a local pottery studio called POT LA. This is not the studio I belonged to before, and I wonder how different my experiences would have been learning in an environment curated by the WOC owners of POT LA, a studio that is working to educate, support and amplify the queer and POC community, but I digress. One of the many great things about POT LA is that, with their doors closed for the pandemic, they have been offering paid online courses that anyone anywhere can take. So even if you don’t live in LA, if you can supply your own clay tools (which are fairly easy to find or repurpose), you can learn and create from the comfort of your own home. Lots of local studios will allow you to fire and glaze pieces in their kiln for a small fee, so you can probably do a little research and learn more about what’s available to you in your own city.

I that feel that handbuilding is more accessible to more people, and I think the stunning pieces that you can create just with your hands often get overlooked by the glamour of working on a wheel. In the handbuilding book I am reading right now, each section is divided into projects that build upon the previous techniques shared, so I think I might go through and work on making all of them, to both build up my own skillset and share how vast the world of handbuilding can be, and how your hands can create something that looks just as professional and elegant as what you can make on a wheel.

And piggy-backing on my earlier mention of kilns- as you can probably tell by this post, I have two! My first one, I called it Baby Kiln because it’s so small, is maybe 6 inches across and 6 inches deep. It’s a used dental kiln, meant for making dentures and veneers out of porcelain, and Claire surprised me with it for my birthday in April because I was getting so deep into pottery and feeling frustrated by the prospect of having to rely on someone else’s kiln to finish my pieces. It took me like, almost two months to finally use it because I wanted to educate myself and learn as much as I could about the process. Once I finally got comfortable with it and had success with firing , I realized quickly that if I ever wanted to try and do some small batch productions of ceramic pieces, the tiny kiln would be far too limiting for my needs. It could hold one mug or one medium sized bowl at a time- anything larger than that was a no-go. So I scoured online classified for weeks and finally found an affordable used CRESS kiln on craigslist that has about triple the space of Baby Kiln. I call this one Mother Kiln and I have had two successful firings in her so far! Thanks to my instagram friend Bob who generously donated his knowledge from his experience as a ceramicist and gave me loads of information to help me be successful in my first firings!

This post has been more musing than anything else, but it felt overdue. I love talking about making here! Thanks for reading, and following along on all the different paths our maker journeys can take us down!

Jasika Blazer

July 21, 2020/6 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

Alas! I have finally, finally, FINALLY made the Jasika Blazer by Closet Core Patterns, the sewing pattern that Heather Lou so generously named after me! Spoiler alert: I LOVE ITTTTTT! SO DEEEEEEPLY!!!!!!! Now you might be saying to yourself, wow, this pattern came out about a year ago-ish, why did it take so long for her to make it? And that is an EXCELLENT question! Readers, buckle up, this is a long blog post lol!

I was so stoked when the pattern was finally released that I bought my fabric for it before I even had an actual copy of the pattern in my hands. Even though I don’t normally shop at Mood (and don’t plan on doing so ever again after their appropriation of Masai culture for their most recent fabric print release), I knew they would probably have the best selection of wool fabrics suitable for this project, so I scoured their website and narrowed down all the options til I came up with something I loved- a sky blue and white windowpane check wool suiting. It was expensive (having a pattern named after you seems like a great time to splurge on a beautiful fabric!) and clean and crispy and springtime-y , perfect for the season, and I ordered enough to make myself a pair of matching pants. When it arrived in the mail shortly afterwards, it was just as stunning in person, but it had a much looser weave than I anticipated and I immediately wondered if it would be the right kind of weight for a tailored jacket…but I put the doubt out of my mind and waited for the pattern and additional blazer materials kit (which Heather sells in her shop) to arrive.

Life got busy and I found myself putting the blazer off because I wanted to give it my full attention, not squeeze it in between a bunch of other projects I was trying to get done. And then my work life changed dramatically when I found out I was going to be spending much of my next year in Vancouver, so the blazer got pushed back indefinitely. On one of my weekends back in LA, I pulled out the pattern and cut out all the pattern pieces (heads up, folks, there are a LOT of them!), gathered my fabric and notions and carted everything back to Vancouver with me so I could work on the project in my apartment up there, but I quickly realized this was not the smartest decision. The Jasika Blazer is a beautiful tailored jacket with lots of pressing and tweaking and special techniques required in the construction process, so sewing it away from home without all my special tools handy made no sense (I didn’t bring my tailor’s ham or clapper with me to Vancouver cause they were too cumbersome and weren’t necessary for most of my projects, but it would have been a grave mistake to try and make the blazer without them).

All of this is to say that the blue windowpane fabric sat untouched in a closet in my vancouver apartment for about nine months til I moved back down to LA. By this time it was February and I had just come out of my Curated Closet/Palette Color stupor. By the time I pulled out that beautiful windowpane fabric again, finally ready to tackle the project, I realized….oh my god, I didn’t want to use the fabric anymore! I still thought it was beautiful of course, but I had learned that baby blue is just not in my color palette and doesn’t make me shine the way so many other colors, like oranges, browns, yellows and greens do. That’s not to say I won’t ever wear the color- I can totally make blue work when it is used as an accent for my seasonal colors, but I just didn’t feel excited about sewing a complicated, time-consuming garment in something that wasn’t smack dab in the middle of my palette, something I could get tons of wear out of with everything in my wardrobe. So the project went on hiatus yet again…

Sometime in early February of 2020, before all the proverbial shit hit the fan, I found myself in Michael Levine’s (the only LA fabric store I frequented in the past few years which has had to permanently shut it’s doors thanks to coronavirus, RIP!) looking for a specific type of fabric for some project or another, and I came across the most remarkable tweed I had seen in recent memory. It was a remnant bolt from some designer’s collection, and it immediately caught my eye because it was so stunning.

It is mostly golden yellow and dark brown, but there are tiny flecks of pretty much every other color in there as well- reds, blues, blacks, grays, greens. It’s so brilliant that it’s almost hard to decide what the main color is- in certain lights it looks green, in others it looks like a muted gold. Whatever it is, it’s very obviously in my color palette so I brought a yard and a half home with me, thinking it would make a great pair of wide legged trousers. A couple of weeks later I was hit by a bolt of sewing inspo and I ran to my craft room to see if there was enough of this fabric to make the Jasika blazer with- I had suddenly realized that it was the most perfect, plushy wool for the blazer, and thankfully I had enough fabric to make it happen!

The beginning of my blazer making timed out pretty perfectly with the coronavirus quarantine so I suddenly had LOTS of time to dedicate to this project. Even so, I decided to take my time with it, to divide it up into little bite sized chunks so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by working on the same project for such a long time. I gave myself little palette cleansers in between some of the bigger steps, for example, I cut my muslin out first and made some small fit adjustments to the paper pattern pieces, then I worked on pottery for a couple days. Next I cut out all the main pieces out of my fabric and attached the interfacings, then I worked on a less complicated sewing pattern. It was fun to divide it up this way, as it gave me something to look forward to while ensuring that I didn’t get bored or saturated by the project (which only became important because of the weird atmosphere of staying at home for so many ~~weeks~~ ~~months~~ seasons?? in a row).

I love sewalongs for complicated or new-to-me projects so was SUPER excited to be able to have my hand held through each step of the blazer process by watching the class that accompanies the Blazer pattern. Heather Lou and her team put together a BEAUTIFUL, professional class series that guides you through each step of the construction process, from discussions about what fabric to use to the differences between interfacings to why we need sleeve heads. But I want to ensure you that the class isn’t necessary to make the blazer. As always, Close Core Patterns has excellent instructions with very clear images and descriptions of each step, and I relied mostly on them to get through the blazer, but I liked having additional visuals to ensure I was doing everything correctly. I also learned a lot just by listening to Heather talk about the process and share interesting tidbits of information along the way. I got in the habit of watching the next lesson over breakfast or lunch before I went downstairs to sew, and then implementing what I learned in my work that day (although occasionally the laptop had to come downstairs with me so I could watch it in time with what I was doing). In short, the class isn’t necessary to make the jacket, but it takes out any guesswork you might have about certain steps that might be unfamiliar to you, and if you generally like to follow sewalongs, the video is definitely going to add a lot of ease to your experience of making the blazer.

As far as fitting goes, I graded the hips out to a size larger (I think I made a 4 in the bust/waist and went up to a 6 in the hip) but once I made my muslin, I realized I had miscalculated the ease somehow. I’m not entirely sure how this happened since the pattern clearly states the finished measurements on the envelope, but I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention or just misjudged how much hip ease I would need. Either way, the muslin fit like a dream through the shoulders, bust and waist, and viewing from the front, the hips looked like they fit great, too, but the back told a different story; the vent was splayed open about a 1 1/4″. I evenly distributed that 1 1/4″ across the hip areas of the front, side and back on my pattern pieces and then transferred that additional width to the lining pieces as well. I shortened the sleeves about an inch or so (customary adjustment for me) but didn’t need to take any length out of the body- CCP tends to be proportional on me in this arena.

The adjustments I made were all great but I could probably use a teeny tiny bit of extra room in the underarms. I had no issues at all with my muslin, but of course my muslin didn’t have the sleeve heads, horsehair, interfacing and lining attached, and it wasn’t made out of thick wool. I did use my shoulder pads in the muslin fitting, but it still wasn’t a great approximation for how the arms would ultimately fit. The shoulders are perfect on me, I just wish there was a little more room for my arm to move around and feel comfortable in the underarm area, but I think it’s just a matter of personal preference for me personally because…ummm….well, I like to do impromptu dances and kicks at a moment’s notice, lol. The fit is definitely wearable and most importantly it doesn’t cut into my underarms at all, it’s just something I will probably make a tiny change to the next time I make it. After an in-prpgress try-on, I went inside the jacket and trimmed off the teeniest bit more from the seam allowance (you’re instructed to trim no less than 3/8″ in this area), and it seems to be a little bit looser now that I have worn it a couple times.

I chose a fairly bold leather for the elbow patches on this jacket, which I love- it’s a vintage-y 70’s green that looked out of place in my wardrobe before my closet curation and now matches everything. Ironically, this is where I got snagged the most while making this jacket- I have no idea how, and I am embarrassed to admit this (I blame Covid-19), but I sewed the sleeves on backwards, ugggggghhhh!!!!! Obviously this has happened to all of us at some point in our sewing career, but these sleeves are actually drafted to be slightly curved to follow the natural line of the elbow and arm as it moves towards the front of the body, so I feel like I should have known better. Regardless, when I first tried the jacket on to see how the sleeves fit, the elbow patches were on the fronts of my forearms (LOL) and my immediate assumption was that I had accidentally put the patches on in the wrong place. It wasn’t until I had unpicked them, sewn them onto the proper sides of the sleeves and tried the jacket on again that I realized the entire sleeve was set in backwards, and I hadn’t needed to take the patches off at all. UGGGGGHHHH again. So I unpicked the sleeves from the armholes and opened the inside seam of the sleeve so that I could lay the sleeve flat to re-sew the elbow patch on again. Re-sewed the sleeves right ways, tried it on again. Claire was visiting me in the craft room and said “those elbow patches look kind of low”. I gave her a foul look but she was right, somehow I had sewn them on so low that they looked almost like wrist patches, UGGGHHHHHH for the third time! So off they came again, and this time I trimmed them down a little on all sides because 1. I thought they were a little big proportionally on my jacket (the patch is drafted to be one size fits all), and 2. they had holes from my sewing machine needle on the edges from sewing them so many times. Although I think I could probably have sewn them a little more towards the center of where my elbow rests, you can imagine how uninterested I was in sewing them a 4th time so we are going to act like they are perfectly and exquisitely placed now, lol!

After the elbow patches the rest of the jacket came together quickly…or, wait, that’s not true. I got stuck and stumped a couple more times, again, through no fault of the pattern, but because my brain needed more breaks than I was giving it. I sewed the lining together and took it out twice because I thought I had put it together wrong; the lining of course has different right and left sides to match up with the different sides of the back vent, and I kept convincing myself it was incorrect. It wasn’t. LE SIIIIGHHHHH. Eventually (after a long break!) I got my shit together, sewed my correctly pieced lining to the outer jacket, and birthed it. Ahhhh, sweet satisfaction! A lot of people feel squeamish about sharing their coat birthing videos with the public but I personally LOVE it, and I was very excited to share the experience of bringing my beautiful new blazer into the world on instagram! (will make this a highlight on my instagram cause yall just LOVE coat birthing videos! lol)

This wool was absolutely MADE for this pattern- it’s so thick and plush and the stitching just sinks into the surface of the fabric. I truly think that one of the reasons this jacket looks so stunning is because it’s such a good match of fabric and pattern. Like, I’m a decent seamstress, but this thing looks damn near PERFECT- any flaws or wonky stitch work is totally covered up by the thick wool fabric, and I am NOT mad about it! And now that this jacket is done, I can see what a pain my thin, slightly airy window pane check wool suiting would have been to make in this pattern. Initially I was disappointed in how long it took me to finish this blazer (it’s such an honor to have a pattern named after you, who in their right mind would wait so long??) but now I am ridiculously happy that I didn’t push myself into the project before I was ready because I know I wouldn’t have come out with such a pristine, stunning garment. Whether it was the sewing gods intervening, my own sixth sense being stimulated, or just a coincidence of the universe, this blazer wanted to be born into the world in a perfectly suitable textile that was in my color palette, created at a time when I had plenty of physical and mental energy to give to it. I am so thankful! Failures are an important part of the creative process, but I don’t think I would have been able to handle a big loss like this blazer during quarantine, so I feel very lucky to have it turn out such a success!

As you can see, there are several more memade garments included in this blog post, and I am just going to briefly chat about them since I don’t want this blog post to turn into a whole novel.

The Jenny Shorts are another CCP make that I sewed in some stunning bull denim from Blackbird Fabrics. I have made the Jenny Overalls before and used the bottoms from the pattern to hack onto other bodices, but this was my first time making the shorts and I absolutely LOVE them. Great coverage, comfortable, interesting details I love the warm color and the weight and feel of the denim was so fun to sew- very stable and substantial for bottomweight but not super stiff and rough like a lot of woven denim tends to be.

The button up shirting fabric is gifted from The Fabric Store – I made this garment from Butterick 5526 a while ago but was never happy with the photos I took of it. Lladybird raved about this pattern on her blog forever ago which is why I bought the pattern (I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it weren’t for her) and she is right- it’s a terrific design! The version I made has princess seams and 3/4 sleeves and it fits like a dream- I made no mods and was able to make the size I actually fit into and it’s so lovely. It fits my petite frame so nicely but doesn’t feel too tight anywhere, and I absolutely plan on making more, as soon as I feel inspired to make dress up clothes again. I have worn regular clothes pretty much every day of quarantine (yes, even bras! What can I say, I have comfortable soft bras that I love wearing!) but have kept it quite casual- I can’t remember the last time I dressed up for anything other than blog photos or putting myself on tape for an audition. Anyways, white is not in my color palette, but I think this shirt works if I’m wearing with other colors from my palette, and I can definitely get away with it in summer time when my skin is a deeper shade of brown.

Next we have the yellow Alphonse Trousers seen in the photos towards the beginning of the post which has been my favorite pattern discovery of the past several months. I am a huge fan of the high waist, loose fit in the hips and thighs, and tapered ankles of the pattern, and it’s relatively quick make since they fit me right out of the envelope. I made them in silk velvet here and in a stunning drapey tweed here and these yellow ones are made of a super soft. almost velvety cotton from The Fabric Store.

Lastly are the green slides seen in the top photos which I made from the same leather as my elbow patches, because again, IT’S IN MY PALETTE! They were a super simple make, but when I tell you that I wear them about 5 days out of the week because they go with EVERYTHIIIIING! I actually plan on making another pair of slides in an orange color to fully round out my summer slides game, and then I should be set (and hopefully wont wear the green ones into the ground any time soon)!

Whew that is a LOT of makes! Thanks for the pictures, Claire!

And thank you again Heather Lou for including me in your illustrious line-up of makers to name your patterns after. I truly could not be more honored by the recognition, or more impressed by the pattern! Your team continues to push the sewing community to challenge themselves and tackle exciting projects like these, and my personal sewing skills have grown so much thanks to your designs! Sending fist bumps and shimmies to you all in Montreal!

Colorblocked Kalle

July 16, 2020/2 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

FYI: This post is about the Kalle Shirt/Shirtdress by the artist formerly known as Closet Case Patterns- they have now had a name change and can be found at Closet Core Patterns! Same great patterns, cool designs and inspiring and informative blog, but with a new name! You can check out their blog to learn a little bit more on the why’s of the name change. As a massive fan of this brand of patterns I have made just about everything they have released, so I plan to go through all my old blog posts to find where I have tagged their company so I can change it to their new name.

I stumbled upon the idea for this colorblocked Kalle by accident. In my stash were two cuts of raw, nubby silk that I had purchased from different fabric stores, and I bought them with no idea whatsoever of what I planned to make with them, I just really like this kind of raw silk and I snag it up whenever I have a chance. I had saved both pieces when I did my fabric palette color cull at the beginning of the year, even though one was only marginally in my deep autumn palette.

The sunny, bright yellow was an obvious yes, but the salmon was debatable. Warm, orangey peaches definitely work within my palette, but this salmon-y color is more cool than warm, and I could even tell when I held it up to my skin that it made me look pretty grey. But I kept it anyways because I’m the boss! Although I love having parameters to work with in my makes, I don’t ever want to feel like the PALETTE is in total control, and I like experimenting and seeing how I can involve other pieces outside of my normal style/color scheme. I wondered if the yellow might be lively enough to bring up the kind of dull mood the salmon silk was conveying, and the Kalle shirt seemed like a brilliant pattern to test out my theory on.

I’ve made the Kalle a bunch of times, both for myself and for Claire, and it’s a real TNT for me. It’s so easy to wear and it’s a very straightforward make, but it also has lots of room for playing around with the design. I’ve made the kalle shirtdress in a silk that I sandwashed in my washing machine and one of my fav versions is in a striped grey and white linen that I changed directions on so that one side was vertical and the other horizontal (never made it to the blog but it’s been on my IG feed a bunch):

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAoDEDxn68V/

The construction was very straightforward- again, I am familiar with this pattern because I have made it about 5 or 6 times now, so I don’t have much more to say about the make itself that I haven’t mentioned in my other blog posts (here is my first make of this pattern)! I decided to french all the inside seams since I knew you would get glimpses of the innards while I was wearing it and I wanted it to look nice and clean.

Fiddling around with the color blocking for this project wasn’t too tricky either, it just required some thoughtfulness of where I needed to add seam allowances (if I was splitting one pattern piece into two) and which sides needed to be a certain color. I will admit that I had to go slow with the collar pieces, lol. My brain gets easily confused with this sort of stuff but it doesn’t help me to plan it out by writing it down in advance- I have to see the fabric and the pattern pieces all laid out for them to make sense to me. I decided to do the collar all in one color to add just a tiny bit of visual interest to the garment, and since yellow is the warmer of the two hues, I wanted to have as much of it close to my face as possible (the inside of the collar is colorblocked the opposite way of the outer shirt, which I guess is just a little something for me to enjoy when I put the shirt on, haha.

Josephine’s Dry Goods kindly provided THE MOST PERFECT buttons for this top, and we did it all through instagram DMs which I am very impressed by; the color is spot on!

Oh, one other huge thing I did with this top besides colorblock it was to lengthen the back piece, haha- can’t believe I didn’t start this post with that information. I see these pics and forget that this isn’t exactly how the pattern was drafted!

I got the idea for this dramatic high-lo hem from, you guessed it- pinterest!

…and the bravery to try the yellow and salmon together from this image. My color choices aren’t quite the same, but the spirit is there!

My kalle is obviously a much more wearable version of the first image above but I do love the idea of a shirt as kind of a cape (I’ve been going around calling this top my “butt cape” lol), and I’m really happy with how this ended up! It’s fun and its interesting and I got to use two fabrics from my stash that, until this point, I couldn’t figure out how to utilize! Altering the back piece was super easy, I just added a lengthen line on the pattern piece and added several inches, but you can’t forget to transfer that same length to the hem facing. One of my favorite details about this pattern is the hefty hem facing that gives the garment a bit of visual and physical weight- I loooove that curve at the sides, and the dramatic drop on the back is so nice!

My only issue is that I am not entirely sure how to style it. I threw it on with some persephone pants for the purposes of this photo shoot, but truth be told, I had taken photos of like, 7 other garments already before we photographed the Kalle shirt and I was too tired to work on putting together a nice outfit- I just wanted to get it done. So I’m not sold on this outfit (I personally prefer this top with more slim-fitting bottoms), but I am curious to see what it would look like with a couple other items from my wardrobe- namely these hot pink pants (also made in raw nubby silk!) or these baby blue Peaches Trousers that might tell a beautiful color story. I’ll probably share some more ideas on what to style this with on IG stories or something at some point in the future, so if you follow me there, stay tuned!

Espadrilles: me made

Persephone Pants: me made

Kalle shirt: me made

Thanks for the photos, Claire!

Ombre Dress

June 28, 2020/10 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

I got this fabric for either Christmas or my birthday several years ago, I can’t remember which. It’s an ombre silk charmeuse from Mood and there were several colorways to choose from- I’m also not sure who this gift was from (I think it was Claire?) but I am SO HAPPY they chose this golden and deep brown version because, even though I hadn’t curated my closet and gotten into my colors when I put this fabric on my wishlist, it’s smack in the middle of my palette and looks really nice with my skintone.

I fell deeply in love with this silk as soon as I held it in my hands but I had NO idea what I wanted to make with it- I didn’t even have an idea when I saw it on the Mood website, I just knew that I wanted to have it. So it has sat in my fabric drawer, unused, for about 3 or 4 years. It wasn’t one of those “this fabric is too nice and expensive for me to use it on anything” pieces, I just kept getting stumped on what pattern would best match it’s qualities. I wanted something that would allow the full measure of the ombre to stand out, which was tricky because the color gradation of the silk occurs from one selvedge edge to the other, as opposed to having the ombre spread out in measured panels lengthwise. This meant that I had to be smart about which pattern I chose and I had to make sure that my layout would work within the confines of my yardage (I think I got three yards), but since I had to follow the rules of working with a directional print, it meant there was much less space to play around with and I would be squeezing as much as I possibly could out of the fabric.

I don’t think I realized when I bought the SashaMcCalls 8036 pattern that it might be a good match for this fabric- it actually took me a few weeks of the pattern hanging out in my craft room to make the connection! I was just casually going through my smaller-than-before stash one day and I pulled out this silk, as I had done a million times before to no avail. I glimpsed this pattern out of the corner of my eye and poured over the pattern details to see if I would have enough fabric for it. It seemed like a good match because 1. it has a waistline, which meant I would have a little wiggle room in matching the ombre from top to bottom, 2. the skirt was full and swingy, which was important to me so that the beautiful soft drape of the fabric could take centerstage, and 3. it had some interesting design details, like those dramatic sleeves!

Although I love the version with the buttons down the side, I thought this fabric would work best in the most simple, uninterrupted silhouette possible- putting buttonholes in charmeuse felt like it would have been the biggest mistake ever- I personally like to mess with this type of fabric as LITTLE as possible. It wasn’t terrible to sew with, but the tiniest little threads in the fabric wanted to snag every once in a while, even with brand new microtex needles inserted into my machine, so the less I had to handle it, the better.

I was smart enough with this project to make sure that I made a muslin before cutting into my precious silk, and I only made some minor, customary (for me) adjustments on the pattern pieces, like grading between sizes at the waist and hips. I usually shorten the bodice on big 4 patterns but I think this one didn’t require it, which was a nice surprise. I was on the fence about the sleeves at first, worried that they would not look very proportionate on me because of all the drama they are drafted with, but turns out they are my favorite part of the dress!

Once my muslin was finished and I was happy with the fit, I laid out the pattern pieces so that the brighter yellow gold at one end of the ombre would be closest to my face and the deeper brown would fade to the bottom of the skirt. I’m sure it would have looked really nice the other way, too, but since golden yellow is one of my favorite colors, I wanted that to be the part that got the most action. I ombre matched the bodice and skirt so that the fade of the colors would look uninterrupted from top to bottom by overlapping the placement of the pattern pieces by the width of the seam allowance along the same lengthwise line of the fabric, and it worked out well. I just barely got my sleeves in on the same line of the fabric, though to be honest, one of them had to be cut slightly off the parallel line of ombre because I had do little fabric to work with. I figured it wouldn’t be obvious since the sleeves would be separated by my torso and therefore any discrepancies would not easily be seen, and I was right- I can’t tell where on the sleeve there is the slightly color variation!

The construction of the dress is pretty simple, the only trick for me was being gentle with my delicate fabric and making sure the pleats of my sleeves were aligned properly. This charmeuse doesn’t recover well from holes made by machine or hand sewing needles, but I couldn’t easily get around them when constructing the sleeves- since the fabric is slippery, I had to baste the pleats down as per the instructions (I was worried that sticky tape would have left gunk and stained the fabric) and the price I paid for this is that you can see several faint 2 inch long trails of needle holes at the heads of the sleeves where the pleats are. Small price to pay as you have to really be looking hard for them, but still annoying. While I love the overall look of this dress and am so happy I made it, charmeuse is just not my favorite fabric to work with- believe it or not, I would take silk velvet any day of the week! Ha!

Besides the slipperiness of the fabric and extra care I had to take to sew it every step of the way, it’s just not particularly easy to wear. It likes to wrinkle A LOT, but ironing it is tricky because it loves to soak up the imprint of whatever is underneath it (seam lines and edges and folds) and steaming was difficult because the fabric just LOVED to pick up water stains. After completing this dress I actually found it so hard to do a final press that I took it to the dry cleaners. It came out looking great, but just in the transition from cleaners to car to closet it picked up wrinkles again, lol. And what’s more, when I wear it, the fabric is so slippery that it doesn’t really want to stay closed at the front bodice wrap- just in the process of taking these pictures I found myself constantly looking down to make sure my bra wasn’t showing. The fabric is much too delicate to sew in a snap at the front, which I normally do on wrapped garments that like to loosen up over wear, so I will have to see if fabric tape will do the trick. This is of course not even mentioning the fact that one mediocre gust of wind is enough to blow this floaty fabric up and away from my entire body, a la Marilyn Monroe over the subway grate, so wardrobe malfunctions are high on my list of worries when wearing this thing, lol.

So I’ve barely worn this dress and I already have some limitations on how, when and where I can get away with wearing this dress: preferably inside, possibly outside with a coat/jacket worn on top, with plenty of fashion tape in my purse, and ideally with a very plain slip underneath! But oddly, I’m still happy I made it! Each of my makes is an opportunity to learn a little bit more about the marriage of fabric and pattern, about new techniques and classic ones, and about my own preferences when it comes to construction and taste. I hope I get an opportunity to wear this dress to the perfect event sometime in the near-ish future (seems like it’s mostly zoom calls these days, but a girl can dream!) and I am also excited to make this pattern again in a more appropriate, easy-to-wear fabric, like a lightweight linen or cotton. See you next time, Sasha!

Photos by Claire Savage, maker necklace from Closet Case Files, RTW shoes.

My Judi Dench Coat

February 29, 2020/2 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

buckle up, these pictures are weird as shit lol

WOOHOO! How y’all doin?? If you follow me on instagram, you know how…special…my experience with CATS the movie was. I’m not here to argue with anyone about whether or not CATS was good. I have been around long enough to know that art doesn’t have to be good to be entertaining, and I was NOTHING if not entertained! One of the strong takeaways from the film (and there were MANY takeaways given my state of mind, lol) was Judi Dench’s Cat/God character wearing this gigantic honey blonde colored coat that seemed to be made out of cat fur. Like, she had her own cat fur…and then she wore a coat on top of her own cat fur made out of what looked like…other cat’s cat fur. At the time I couldn’t stop thinking about Silence Of the Lambs, how this was the equivalent of a human wearing a trench coat made of human skin, and how, since she was a Cat/God, the coat was probably made out of all the furs of her enemies. Which is…so weird. But perfectly suited to the rest of the movie which was also…so weird!

Anyways, when I started making this coat, I realized that it drew a fashionably striking resemblance to Judi Dench’s costume in CATS, which tickles me to no end! I originally got the idea for this coat after trying on a jacket at a store in Vancouver last summer.

You can see these fleecy furry coats everywhere now, but at the time they were brand new to me and I absolutely loved how unique it was. I loved the texture of the sporty, wooly fabric paired with a more traditional cut of coat, and I loved the curved hem at the bottom. I would have been happy to buy this RTW jacket since it was such a special piece but it didn’t fit well (see how long it is in the sleeves?), it was too expensive for the quality, and it was made of 100% polyester. I knew I could do better than that- it didn’t seem like a particularly difficult hack to pull off- no lining or surprising design details or anything.

I found the pattern before I found the fabric. I think I asked the IG hive for any pattern ideas they might have based off this photo, and IG totally came through- the Stacker jacket pattern by Papercut seemed like the closest thing to what I was looking for, and hacking would be super easy- I just needed to lengthen it and curve the hem (I also made it a slightly hi-lo hem). It took longer to find the fabric.

All I could find was 100% polyester fleece or sherpa, and the places that did sell organic cotton fleece tended to not have enough fabric for my project or only have it in colors I didn’t want. Eventually I found a place called Simplifi Fabric based in Canada, which is an online fabric store that specializes in organic and sustainable fabric by the yard. I love them! In addition to all kinds of organic cottons and bamboo and denim and ribbing in their online shop, they had a few different colors of a sherpa fabric that was mostly organic cotton with a little polyester in it, and after being indecisive about which shade I wanted, I went with the earthy-gray toned sherpa (I was initially drawn to the ivory shade but I knew it would probably get dirty pretty quickly).

do not know whats going on here but i think im supposed to be acting like a cat? a florist cat?

The fabric was super soft, softer than I anticipated, and squishy and cozy. The back of it is flat and non-furry, and seems to be more like a knit- it kind of looks like the inside of french terry on the back, actually. It has a little bit of stretch but not enough to make any big alterations to the sizing. The pattern was straight forward and construction was easy- I serged my inside seams since I knew I didn’t want to line it and they were too bulky to french seam (wasn’t interested in Hong Kong seaming either). I turned up the bottom hem and used my coverstitch to tack it down, not that you can tell- the texture of this fabric eats up any top stitching which means you don’t get much room for detail, but it also hides away any imperfections. The fabric was super easy to work with- the seams were certainly bulky, but it was stable, not too messy (nothing like velvet or sequins) and my machine needles had no problems working through several layers at a time.

I didn’t run into any issues at all except the normal problem solving that comes with hacking a pattern, haha. I constructed my yoke with two pieces instead of one, because even though the fabric isn’t super heavy, I wanted the shoulder area to feel nice and stable with all that coat length pulling down on it. I had a little bit of confusion about the construction of the pockets at the front of the coat- there are two different versions and I didn’t realize I was following the directions for a specific one til I was halfway through it, haha. Turns out, I wasn’t making the pockets I intended to make! In addition to that, the original placement of the pockets was off on this coat- probably something to do with the new length and the fullness and texture of the fabric, but my original choice of breast pockets looked strabnger and bulky. I scooted them down to hit around hip length (which is where my hands would naturally fall if I was using side pockets. Ultimately I think I would like this coat better with regular in-seam side pockets in addition to the patch pockets on the front, but it’s all good!

I found some beautiful buttons from Michael Levines and I think they work so well with the coat- they elevate it a bit from looking like your average athletic-wear fleece jacket into something a little more refined.

And…I guess that’s it! A super simple garment that has a pretty major impact- I got a compliment on this coat by a salesperson in SAKS recently, who, upon finding out that I made it myself, immediately started scrutinizing it and asking to see the insides, lol. I hate when people do that- just appreciate it and move on! Sometimes people are so shocked when you tell them you’ve made something impressive that they start looking for flaws anywhere they can find them, telling themselves that you can’t be THAT good (it happens with men examining my woodworking ALL the time!). Well guess what- we can and we are!!!

Hoping I can get some more good wear out of this thing before LA heats up to the oven setting that global warming has turned it to. Anybody else so ready to be on the other side of this election with an amazing, exciting and inspiring president in office?? I can’t bear to deal with all the upcoming stress and anxiety of it, but I am SO ready to celebrate some good political news!

Keep on keeping on, y’all! And as always, thanks to Claire for this pics!

A Camel Overcoat

February 20, 2020/22 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

This particular make was the source of a lot of interesting conversations on my instagram a couple months ago, and it all started with curating my closet and defining my color palette. In culling a wide assortment of beautiful looks on pinterest to get a better understanding of my style goals, I found myself coming across the same duster over and over again. It was usually camel colored and in a very lux, expensive looking fabric, hitting at the ankles and unadorned with lots of bells and whistles. I loved the clean lines of these RTW dusters and how easy I knew it would be to wear with so many things in my closet, since camel is in my seasonal color palette already. I also happened to have the most exquisite, luxuriously soft cashmere wool coating from The Fabric Store in my stash that I had been saving for years, which was perfect for the look I was going for. I was planning to make By Hand London’s Rumana coat with the cashmere but once I discovered the boxier, less tailored style of these pinned RTW looks, I decided I would use the fabric for this instead, since I knew I would be getting lots of wear out of it.

All I needed next was a pattern, and here is where this sewing tale takes a detour into darkness, folks. I have a handful of great coat and jacket patterns in my stash, but nothing that checked all the boxes for this particular make. So I did a little online research and asked around IG for any recommendations that had the design details I was looking for: unlined, simple, boxy fit, a proportionate collar and lapel, and a drape that allowed the coat to kind of hang open on it’s own; I wanted this duster to be a compliment to whatever outfit I wore underneath it, not the main attraction. After receiving a few good suggestions, I settled on the Hot Toddy Coat by a company called Our Lady of Leisure because it seemed the closest match to what I was looking for. It was boxy, loose fitting, the perfect length, and the collar and lapel were exactly what I was looking for. The only thing I needed to change were the pockets- as designed, they are simple patch pockets stuck onto the fronts, but I wanted hidden side pockets that didn’t detract from the smooth lines of the coat. I hacked my pockets from the Oslo coat onto the Hot Toddy Coat and it worked a treat. Sadly that’s about the only thing that went smoothly with this make, lol!

I made the smallest size provided because I was in between a size 2 and a 4 and I didn’t want the coat to end up being super huge on me. When I decided on this coat I asked on IG if anyone had ever made designs from this pattern line before and I didnt get many hits (red flag number one). Two people reached out to say that their makes of different patterns from this company fit a little on the large side, so I thought I was safe in choosing the smaller of the two sizes I fit between.

I printed out the tiled PDF pattern, taped all the pieces together and then started cutting them out. I immediately noticed that there was an error in the layout of the sizes. This pattern uses letters for sizes (size A=US 2, size B=US 4 and so on) and nested patterned lines to differentiate between them, but one side of the same pattern piece would have backwards lettering, so that the dotted line for size A on one side of the front coat piece would suddenly turn into size G on the other side. I’ve been sewing for long enough that I know how to follow the right line for my size even if it’s not properly labeled, but for some reason the nesting of these pattern pieces was extremely hard to follow. I couldn’t tell if the pattern line for one specific size was mislabeled or if the letters were out of order, or both. So the ensuing fit issues I ran into? I am still not sure if its because I cut the pattern pieces out incorrectly due to their mislabeling or if the drafting was really that off. I think it’s the latter, but I honestly have no idea (you are required to add your own seam allowances to this pattern, which I did). The reason this ticks me off so much is because this was not a cheap pattern. For a $12 PDF, I expect there to be no major, obvious errors with drafting or labeling of pieces- if you are charging people this much money, you got to deliver the goods, and they simply did not. It’s one of the reasons I scoff good naturedly at BURDA patterns all the time- their instructions are atrocious and you have to add your own seam allowances, but their PDF patterns are usually no more than 5 bucks. You get what you pay for!

Once everything was cut out, I constructed my pockets and sewed the main pieces of the jacket. It came together very quickly because there is no lining and it’s already a very simple design, but even with such a beginner-friendly pattern I noted that the accompanying instructions were really poor, which was red flag number 2. The illustrations didn’t make sense a lot of the time, because if I recall correctly they didn’t differentiate interfacing and regular fabric in the drawings. Furthermore there was no information on pressing anywhere! Like, at all! I don’t just mean they didn’t specify which direction to press, I mean they didn’t suggest you press at all. On a wool coat! As my sewing wizard friend Grace says, “Pressing is sewing!” For a pattern marketed to novice and beginning sewists, this pattern left a LOT to be desired.

Not crazy about the bright white pockets inside this coat cause they obviously dont blend in well and you can get glimpses of them if I am sticking my hands in my pockets or something, but honestly…these are the least of my worries with this coat lol!

I basted one sleeve onto the jacket, tried it on, and was very surprised at how ill-fitting it was. It’s a two-piece sleeve so I assumed it would have a pretty nice fit right away since it was built to allow ease of moment for your arm, but it was so tight that it got stuck halfway up my arm and I had to yank it down. The seam of the underarm was also so high that it cut into my armpit. On top of that, not only was the sleeve itself way too tight for a boxy coat that was supposed to fit my measurements, but it was also puckering all around the armscye. I took the sleeve out and redrafted the pieces with an additional 1.5-ish inches of ease while also scooping out the bottom of the armhole of the coat. Sewed everything back up again and tried it on. Thankfully the sleeve fit much more comfortably now, but the wrinkles and puckering around the armholes hadn’t disappeared at all. I went up to my mirror for closer inspection and turned my camera around so I could have a better view of the back and it…was…my god. What a nightmare.

The drag lines in the back made clear that there was simply not enough room in the body of the coat to lay across my shoulders smoothly. Because it doesn’t close in the front, I had no idea how badly it was pulling in the back when I first tried it on, but now that I could see it clearly, I was devastated. There was no way I could (or would even want to) get away with wearing such an ill-fitting coat. I kicked myself for not making a muslin, then admonished myself for feeling guilty- at a certain point in your sewing career, you can comfortably make all kinds of simple projects without doing a muslin first, and should have been one of those patterns! It’s got a boxy fit, simple design lines, no darts or curves to fit onto the body- by all means this should have been an easy project to sew and adjust without having to rely on a muslin. Anyways, I digress- I was just super disappointed in both myself and the pattern. I hated that I had saved this cashmere coating for over 3 years, just waiting for inspiration to hit, and I had ultimately squandered it on a pattern that didn’t work well at all for me.

this is my “Im too mad to talk” face

I decided to walk away from the coat, to take a long break. I knew that after a couple days of letting it marinate on my brain, I would either decide to move forward with trying to save it, or…gasp…throw it in the trash, attempting to save as many large, unencumbered pieces of the cashmere fabric as I possibly could (to do what with? Who knows! But saving some of it felt better than trashing all of it). As much as I tried to get the jacket out of my head over my “break”, I was unsuccessful. I couldn’t stop thinking of ways to fix it, wondering which would be most efficient, which would lead to the sleekest looking final piece? I was dreaming about this thing! After my break, I knew I couldn’t move onto another sewing project before trying my best to save this one, so I got to work. I took out the back seam, cut out a 2 inch-plus-seam-allowances panel from my remaining fabric (from here on out I will be referring to this panel as my “racing stripe” lol) and sewed that to my back pieces. Because of adding 2 additional inches to the back body, I knew this would have to transfer to my collar and neck facing pieces so I recut all of them with the extra 2 inches included. These additional two inches would also mean that the coat would fit differently in the front, and I was hoping that the new neckline wouldn’t sag out or droop down too much.

After adding the racing stripe, I tried the coat back on and it was…not perfect, but definitely better. Still a few drag lines around one of the sleeves, and I actually kind of hated the idea of the racing stripe, but it was way more comfortable than before and didn’t look like the nightmare it started as. I ran into trouble again at the kick pleat (which, as designed, seemed to include way more fabric than necessary, but whatever) and the mitered corners. FYI hate mitered corners! They look so beautiful when finished properly but I always find it hard to get them even on both sides of a garment. This coat was, unsurprisingly, no exception, and after lots of fussing and seam ripping, I ended up just cutting the excess hem and kick pleat fabric off, omitting the pleat entirely and extending my racing stripe all the way down to the hem. Fin. UGH.

I have so many conflicting feelings about this coat. On the one hand, I am SO PROUD OF MY STICK-TO-ITIVENESS! In the past, I have given up on far less complicated makes, or fixed things in ways that made them wearable, but not as aesthetically pleasing. This jacket, though not the initial vision I dreamed of, toes the line between the two- it is absolutely wearable (which I know is true because I have been wearing the CRAP out of it since I finished it) and the weird racing stripe is in the back so I really don’t have to look at it and be reminded of how much I hate it! But on the other hand…I am still frustrated at myself for not making a muslin, which should be par for the course when working with fabric that is precious to you, or working with a pattern from a company you have never sewn before. And of course, I am frustrated with the actual pattern.

The coat elevates pretty much any outfit I wear it with, but it can also go from casual to dressy without a hitch. This is face is because someone handed me a box of french fries with caviar, and I do not think they go well together at ALL.

Which leads me to the tricky part of this blog post: attempting to offer an honest, personal review of a pattern without tearing that indie pattern company down. It is important to me to show respect to everyone in the sewing community- those who sew the patterns, and those who make them, but I also want to be specifically careful with discussing indie pattern designers, whose work and growth I want to support whenever possible. It’s easy to complain and nitpick and judge what we have purchased when it’s brought us grief, but the truth is that I don’t know the first thing about designing patterns and managing a small business, so I can’t comprehend all the work that goes into it- it does NOT look easy. If I had made tons of patterns from this company and had issues with every single one, I wouldn’t hesitate in telling folks to be weary- I’ve done it before and I will do it again! I have had consistently bad experiences with both bigger and smaller sewing pattern design companies, and I try to be very transparent about my experiences with them- I’m not offering honest contributions to the maker community if I am afraid of speaking my truth because I don’t want to offend anyone. But, although I don’t plan to make any Our Lady patterns in my future, I want to remind you all that these are my experiences, and not necessarily indicative of what other people have experienced- after sharing my rough journey with this coat on IG, I had a few people write in to say that they also had a terrible experience with this specific coat pattern, but others wrote to say that their makes from other designs by this company came out great! So what is the truth? Well, like so much in this world, it’s not binary. My experience with this pattern wasn’t great. But someone else’s experience with it was terrific. Above all, this pattern company seems to be helmed by passionate, enthusiastic makers who want to share the joy of sewing to a broader audience, and I don’t want to get in the way of that. I wrote an honest review on their etsy page so if they are interested in taking constructive criticism about what could be better, they have the opportunity.

There you have it, y’all. This was my weird experience. This is my weird coat. I get compliments on it every time I wear it. Sometimes the world makes no sense. We just gotta keep stitching!

Thanks to Claire for the photos! And FYI the dress underneath is another Rachel Wrap Dress in forest green ponte from Blackbird Fabrics- unfortunately I think they are sold out but they restock popular fabrics all the time 😉 !

Where In The World Is Sika San Diego?

February 5, 2020/4 Comments/in DIY, Sewing, Uncategorized /by Jasika Nicole

I actually hate the nickname Sika and I only let a tiny few people in my family use it, but it does have kind of a nice ring to it in this context, lol!

This Vogue 1650 trench coat was a BEAST, but I expected it to be. Occasionally I’ll come across a design that is deceivingly fancy, the kind that looks like you put way more work into it than you actually did, the kind where you feel a little guilty accepting compliments on it because it wasn’t a particularly difficult project even though it looks super amazing. This is not one of those patterns. Every bell and whistle you see on this coat took all my strength to ring and all my breath to blow, but I do think it was worth it in the end!

The green fabric is from The Fabric Store, and I am so tickled that I chose this color even though I hadn’t gone on my color palette journey yet to discover that green is smack dab in the middle of my seasonal palette. One of the reasons I landed on this fabric (aside from the fact that it’s so similar to the version on the envelope, haha) is because it specifically seemed perfect for this project, but green is the only colorway it came in, so the color is just a happy accident! It’s a sturdy nylon and canvas blend, which makes it great for outerwear since it repels water very easily (it’s not treated with anything, that’s just the qualities of the fabric) but it was incredibly difficult to sew because…well, again, it repels water very easily!

Ironing interfacing to these pieces was a journey into madness- it wouldn’t take steam well at all and adding more heat just burned the nylon fibers of the fabric, but I had to press on because, what good is a trench coat without interfacing?? I was afraid that regular sew-in interfacing would alter the fabric’s properties (it is crisp, unwrinkling, and…unfortunately I can’t think of a better word than erect, lol- it just stands straight up at attention!) I worried that sew-in would either make it floppy or make it lose it’s crispness, and I also was lazy and didn’t want to go all the way downtown to buy some sew-in. Eventually I learned that spraying the interfacing lightly with water, then pressing down very hard with a medium-set iron and a press cloth worked 80% of the time. When it didn’t work, I would see little bubbles peeking up from the otherwise smooth canvas, and then I would have to use the strength of ten Serena Williamses to press even harder and push those bubbles out to the edges, which would also work about 80% of the time. In short, I couldn’t get all the interfaced pieces perfectly flat and adhered, but so far I haven’t noticed any bubbles when I am wearing the coat, so let’s just call it even: Trench:1 Jasika:1.

Aside from the bizarre properties of the fabric, this sewing pattern has 4,672 pieces. Y’all. Y’ALL. I feel like I might have spent one lifetime tracing and cutting out all the fabric, lining, and interfacing pieces of this damn coat. Then I died and was reborn again in time to actually sew everything together. Half of this coat was made by a ghost. This many pieces of a sewing project isn’t all that unheard of, nor is it that difficult for me to get a hold of under normal circumstances, but I started and finished this entire project in my apartment in Vancouver, which means I didn’t have my trusty cutting table or rotary cutters or the space I’m used to for laying pattern pieces in separate piles around the room for easy organization. And also. I had to cut. my. pieces. out. on. the. floor. I’m fast approaching the age where this kind of activity is a OH NO THE HELL YOU WONT! I was doing cat/cows, back stretches and downward dogs every 10 minutes because my body was SO not okay with being treated so poorly, lol. I think it took me a full two days to cut all these pieces out but I finally got her done. Then I went through the hell of trying to interface everything, which took another half a day. When I was finally ready to sew, I celebrated and hooped and hollered and flew through construction of all the big parts, but I got slowed down again once I finally put the sleeves on the jacket and realized that something was very wrong.

This next part of my sewing project became a dramatic saga detailed in my stories on instagram over the span of a few days, so if you missed seeing them, I’ll get you up to speed. Essentially the sleeves were drafted really weird on me. I made a size that my measurements fit squarely into and I didn’t anticipate there being any issues with fit, but once I tried the jacket on with the sleeeves, it was obvious that something was amiss. Mainly, the armhole felt way too tight at the underarm, and way to shallow around the bicep, so it pulled on the bust area of the coat even when the coat was open. I am not a busty person (32B here!) and I also have a small back, so whenever I have too-tight issues at the bust on a garment that I know for sure I made the correct size in, I know it’s something to do with the drafting and not with me. There were drag lines at the bust as the sleeves tugged around my arms, and that was just with me standing still with my arms at my sides- as soon as I moved my arms away from my body, the whole entire coat lifted up- instead of being able to move my arms freely, the jacket was moving with them.

Thankfully Grace (wzrdreams for those of you who are unfamiliar, my friend and professional tech designer for RTW who is a virtual wealth of information for so many of us in the sewing community) had some ideas for me on how to fix the sleeves. She also shared lots of helpful information about the drafting of Big 4 patterns and explained why I always seem to have the same issues with their patterns but not any others. With my newfound knowledge from Grace, I unpicked the sleeves, made the armholes deeper by scooping out maybe 3/4″ at the bottom of the armhole grading to nothing about halfway up, and re-drafted my sleeve pieces (back on the floor, I went!). I added length to the top of the sleeve cap to accommodate what I scooped out of the armhole, widened the entire sleeve so I had more ease for wear, and re-cut the little band on the one side so that it would fit around the wider sleeve piece. I was nervous this wouldn’t work at all because I didn’t have any of the TOOLS that you are supposed to do this with, like curved rulers and math, lol. I was pretty much just eyeballing things and guesstimating, but it’s all I had to work with and guess what…it totally worked! I know it is imperfect in some ways, perhaps there is a version of this fix that is much more precise than what I was able to do, but by god, it worked! I could move my arms and wiggle around comfortably, wear a sweater underneath without it feeling like I was suffocating my arms, the bodice has no more weird drag lines, and there was no visual misalignment with any of my seams. So, take THAT, coat! Trench: 1 Jasika: 2, for those of you still keeping score.

The rest of the coat was put together without too much drama. The lining of this coat didn’t require me to birth her, sadly, so I did lots of hand sewing to attach everything at the hems, and a bit more hand sewing when I realized the coat wasn’t hanging properly and the lining was tugging at the outer shell. That’s pretty much the last hurdle I had to tackle, right at the very end, and again, I attribute it to the wonderfully strange qualities of this nylon canvas- I’ve never sewn with anything quite like it, and it bewildered me as much as it made my heart sing. I think there is still a little tugging and pulling on the hem because of how the fabric wants to lay, but it’s something I ~~can~~ am living with. I’m not a sewfectionist and probably never will be!

I was excited to wear this coat even before it was actually finished- I wrapped the belt super tight around me and wore it without buttons when I went shopping for… buttons! Ha! Which, by the way, I found at Dress Sew, my favorite physical fabric store in Vancouver. The selection of buttons in the basement of Dress Sew is tremendously good but also overwhelming. Thankfully everything is arranged by color which at least gives you a place to start if you are trying to color match.

I am so proud of this jacket, not so much because of how well it turned out, but because of how much I persevered to see it through to the end. It’s so easy sometimes to run into one too many obstacles on a project and decide that your time is better spent starting over from scratch, with something different, something familiar, something easy-ish. That’s what my Butthole Bin has been for. But as I get further along in my sewing career, I have learned to trust my skillset and my ability to think outside the box when it comes to making something work that decidedly does NOT want to work. This doesn’t mean that the same answer applies to every project I work on- sometimes my mental health is way more important than figuring out how to fix that wonky zip fly. But trusting myself enough to at least try to fix things instead of immediately discarding them feels like major growth for me, and I’m very thankful.

Thanks to my babygirl, Claire, for the photos!