sewing pattern review | Jasika Nicole

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Faux Fur, Real Opulence

March 8, 2021/1 Comment/in Sewing, Shoe Making /by Jasika Nicole

This coat was inspired by a woman named Ariana who worked on the wardrobe truck of my last job. She is one of those people who immediately comes across as VERY COOL. Tattoos, dyed hair, piercings, incredible style. She also happened to be a maker, and every time she came into my trailer we would chat about what I was working on (she wasn’t currently working on any fun personal projects because she was on set 16 hours a day but would talk dreamily about how excited she was to get back to her own stuff).

inspo coat (as you may have noticed, my coat doesn’t quite look like this LOL!)

I saw her a few times in this really terrific animal print coat that I just adored. It was a boxy style, very simple lines and no flourishes (obviously faux animal print *is* the flourish), and I fell in love with it. It worked well with the simplest outfits underneath- a black jumpsuit, jeans and a turtleneck- and, having fully embraced the fact that I once was a girl who hated animal print and now I am a woman who LOVES it, I decided to look into making something similar for myself.

With all the shops mostly closed in DTLA during quarantine (and not wanting to venture into any of them even if they were open because COVID), I had to shop online for faux fur, which seemed like a terrible idea, especially after Ariana said that most of the fur sold on etsy was of poor quality and not meant for apparel. But somehow I hit the faux fur jackpot and found a great etsy shop that delivered the most stunning 4 yards of faux fur I could have dreamed. Honestly, I was not anticipating finding something so nice at the price I paid for it, because Ariana also said that faux fur downtown ran in the $75+ price range, and the stuff I found was only $36 a yard! I also looked very carefully at the description of this fabric because there were a lot of sellers that were selling only sheets or pieces of faux fur as opposed to continuous 52″ wide yardage- if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it would be easy to spend a solid chunk of change on the wrong thing. When my box of yardage arrived in the mail, I cannot tell you how incredibly soft and silky it felt, how vibrant the colors were, how beautiful it was. I was absolutely stunned. Half the quality of this fur would have been totally acceptable at this price point! I really lucked out!

However, once it arrived, I realized that it was…maybe nicer than I even wanted? The jacket I was trying to recreate had a shorter fur length than mine does, and I didn’t take the length of the fur into account when I was researching fur because I had never shopped for it before. The inspo coat had fur that was probably 1 inch long, the kind of faux fur you see in causal fast fashion coats and accessories – really cute, not super billowy, fun to touch but without a big fuzzy silhouette. Think appropriate for a Saturday brunch with the girls as opposed to a night out at the opera.

So yes, I thought I was getting brunch when I bought this fur, but I actually received tickets to the Opera, the ballet, The Tony Awards and a Grammy’s after party, lol. This is not the first time this has happened to me! I made another coat maybe a year and a half ago that I planned to be a fun throw-over-anything belted number, but instead, the fabric I ended up using was so chic and fancy that it elevated the whole look from casual to opulent, and from there “Rich Bitch” was born (you have to follow me on instagram to have any idea of what I am talking about, haha).

So yeah, here I am with this incredibly super lux fur that wasn’t quite what I was expecting but I decided to stick with my plan anyways- if I came out with something more fancy than anticipated, who cares? Everyone thinks I am always overdressed anyways, lol. I wanted a short-ish coat (like mid thigh?) but I didn’t have anything in my pattern stash that was exactly what I wanted, and I didn’t want to buy a new pattern because I already have a TON of coat patterns. So I decided to go with By Hand London’s Juliet Coat.

I had always loved the silhouette and bookmarked it for some future car coat that I might make one day, and this seemed like a really good pairing for my lux fur. The Juliet coat is knee-length (I shortened my version a bit) with pockets, a lining, and a swingy silhouette that is enhanced by it’s shorter length. It’s a very simple coat with not a lot of details (a great make for beginners!) which I knew would match up well with my fur- I hadn’t sewn with faux fur before but I knew it was gonna be a doozy to work with, so I wanted to keep the style lines simple and uncomplicated. The Juliet coat also has an option for a notched or a shawl color. I actually think that both versions would look great in this fur but I opted for the classic notched collar- it’s hard to see the details of the collar in this tremendously plushy fur, but I still like it!

Sewing with fur was…a lot. It was a bit less labor intensive than sewing with sequins, but much messier because sequins just fall to the floor or on the table, while faux fur floats in the air…and into your mouth, and up your nose, and all over your hair- I actually cut most of this project out wearing one of the masks I use for COVID precautions so that my nose would stop itching and my tongue would stay clean.

I researched Tips for Sewing with Fur before I started my project and all of them worked well for me:

sew with a walking foot using a longer stitch length
cut the knit (under) side of the fabric with scissors and only make little snips into the actual knit backing fabric, don’t open the scissors wide and cut the fur on the other side. I actually didn’t heed this advice at first (which was fine because all those edges would be tucked into seams) but if your edges will be hanging down and free, this is a really important tip; if you cut the fur straight across, it looks like a bad haircut. But I actually found that, if you’re proficient with its’ use, a box cutter or razor blade is much more quick and efficient to cut out your fabric and even better at keeping the fur on the right side of the fabric intact.
use clips to hold fabric together (my fur ended up being easy to pin so I used both)
push fur in direction of grain and sew straight down the seam, tucking fur towards outside of garment
trim the fur sticking out of the seams with scissors or clippers to reduce bulk
if you have one, keep a hand vacuum at the ready to keep your workspace clean (I also kept my robo-vac running while I was cutting everything.
mark information on the underside of the pattern pieces; the fur hides any marks made on the back of the fabric and it makes it easier to keep track of which pieces are which since the fur makes everything kind of look the same.
make sure to cut in the direction of your fabric’s grain, and make smart decisions about which pieces should utilize which grain- this became important when I was making the collar and realized that having all the pieces match the same grain created weird effects since the fur is more 3D than 2D like most fabrics.

This is my impression of pooping out in the woods while wearing an animal print coat.

This was the first project I cut out directly from my fabric using my projector (although this isn’t quite true- I outlined the pattern pieces directly onto my fabric from the projector, then I turned on the lights, double checked everything and THEN started cutting). I knew that I was taking a HUGE risk by doing this. But the end result wasn’t too bad, surprisingly. If I was cutting straight from the pattern with no adjustments, my cutting directly into the fabric would not have been a big deal, but I decided to take some length out of the shell and lining pattern pieces, and because the coat flares out and has a curved bottom edge, this invited a lot of room for mistakes where some pattern pieces didn’t quite match up. I ended up cutting my back pattern piece out shorter than my front ones, and the misjudgement was too big to ignore. Thankfully I had enough fabric to recut the back out in two pieces with an additional back center seam that is practically invisible in this fur, so it ended up being fine. I also needed to cut my collar pieces out again because on one pattern piece I forgot to orient it along the grain of the fur, and with the others, they ended up not looking right when sewn together on the proper grain of the fabric so I had to cut them out on the opposite grain. Again, everything worked out fine in the end and I had enough fabric to address all my mistakes, but I learned a good lesson in terms of working with my projector and how to pay attention to the pattern layout: make sure the lengths of everything match before cutting out if I have done any alterations in length!

The seams of this coat are obviously very bulky, and the sewing felt slow and tedious, especially when I made a mistake. But by that same token, it’s kind of hard to see mistakes in fur this big! I am only slightly ashamed at admitting that this is one of the worst sewing jobs I have ever done, hahaha. Fortunately you can’t really see all the messy parts, they are mostly covered up on the inside, but the trickiest part of this jacket by far was sewing my slinky lining to my stable, bulky fur. I wished I had a lining fabric that was a better match for it, but I wanted to use up what was already in my stash so I just had to suffer through working with something that was “close, but not quite right”. I had to unpick so many seams of the lining after I had already stitched them because the lining got caught on top of itself under the fur, and of course removing the stitches was even more tedious because the stitches get soaked into the thick knit of the fur and are difficult to remove. The attachment of the lining at the bottom of the coat is just UGHHHH. NOT GOOD. Again, nothing that stands out if you’re looking at it from several feet away, but my lining had a decent amount of to it and seemed to grow at each seam so that by the time I was closing up the seam at the hem of the coat, I had like, 1/2″ more fabric that just got kind of gathered in there because, by this point of the coat, I WAS SO OVER IT. There is an unsightly puckering at one corner on the inside of my coat, and I am not proud of it, but weirdly, I AM still proud of this coat!

It was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of project but ultimately I pulled it off and am truly stunned at 1. how gorgeous it turned out and 2. how very few opportunities I will have to wear it before it turns hot again. But let’s be honest- this wasn’t a *fill a gap in my wardrobe* type of make, this was purely a frivolous and fun make, and with so few chances to be able to feel lighthearted and whimsical in this damn pandemic, it’s important to find little bits of joy whenever and wherever we can. While cumbersome, it sure was nice working with such soft, luxurious fabric, and I really enjoyed making this pattern for the first time! I actually think I will probably make it again at some point in the future, in a much less dramatic fabric so that you can actually appreciate the style lines and swinginess of the coat! It’s roomy on the inside so you can still wear a sweater underneath (which is how I prefer my coats to fit) and it’s also just FUN! When you put it on, you want to do twirls in it because the swinginess just CALLS to you!

The last cool thing about this coat is the button closure, which I ultimately did not utilize in the traditional way. I knew I wouldn’t want to put a buttonhole in thick fur like this cause it would look horrible, but I couldn’t think of another type of closure that would work. I didn’t think a decorative hook and loop type deal would fit with this stylewise, and neither would a big metal snap. Honestly I thought it looked good plain in the front with no closure at all, but I wanted the actual function of having a closure.

Then I had a brilliant idea- I had a stack of these super strong magnets in my craft room from when I was contemplating making some little sewing pin holders out of my pottery and glueing magnets on the bottom. I never got around to that project, but the stack of magnets was staring me right in the face. I pulled a few apart and tried to see if they would still be operational with layers of fur in between them (though strong, magnets can lose some of their strength when other materials are placed between them). It turned out that two magnets on either side still had a really great magnetism through the fur! I marked where they needed to land on the inside of my coat collar, sewed tiny pockets for the magnets to be held in, then handsewed the pockets to the inside of each collar. It works absolutely beautifully- a soft, gentle snap that holds the pieces in place and maintains the integrity of the fur on the outside of the coat.

A few people DMed me on IG “warning” me (eyeroll) that strong magnets can wipe credit cards or damage electronics, of which I am very aware, because I, too, learned science in grade school! The facts are: the placement of the magnets of my coat would never reasonably come into contact with any of my credit cards or electronics for any length of time. If they were located near my pockets that might be an issue, but they aren’t, and, perhaps more importantly, the same size and strength magnets are sewn into the HOBO brand wallet I have been using for years. The magnets serve as a closure for the wallet instead of snaps or zips, and none of my credit cards have been damaged in all this time, nor has my phone, which is always nestled close to my wallet in my purses since those are about the only two things I leave the house with besides keys, chapstick and masks. I don’t know what strength of magnet it would take to cause the kind of damage to credit cards and cell phones we are always warned about, but it’s much higher than the individual ones I bought on etsy (maybe the stack of 10 could do some damage because they are definitely very strong when all linked together, but their strength diminishes greatly when it’s just one or two magnets pulled away from the pack). So if you think this is a great idea to try for yourself on your own project but are worried about damage from your magnets (with electronics or health or anything else!), definitely do your own research to be safe, but I think the chances of them being damaging when used like this for sewing are pretty benign.

Lastly, I just want to highlight a few of the other items in these photos- the heels are memades from a few years ago and they are still going strong- I love these shoes! So comfortable and they go with so many things! The pants are a recent make of mine, the Cass Pants from the new indie sewing brand Make, by The Fabric Store. Hopefully I will do a blog post on these at some point in the future but I will go on and tell you that the pattern is divine and one of the nicest pairs of pants I have ever made or owned- the fit was spot on and didn’t require much adjusting at all! And finally we have a peacock blouse made from a vintage pattern that I will also be blogging about at some point in the future- it’s one of the tops from the How Many Blouses Challenge I started for myself at the beginning of the year and it’s such a winner! Belt is also memade and hat is RTW. Photos are by Claire!

Alright, that’s all you could hope to learn and more about this coat! Thanks for reading, and I hope you are all staying safe out there, taking care of yourselves and each other!

Sherlock Holmie

January 9, 2021/6 Comments/in Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

I was so intrigued when I came across Vogue 9288 a couple years ago that I feverishly hunted it down online (I *think* this was a pattern I couldn’t find in my size on etsy or ebay so I ended up buying it from an IG follower who had it in their stash), and waited to come across the perfect fabric for it. That day came when my friend Mimi destashed some of her fabric onto me and I received several yards of this perfectly-autumn-orange boucle that kind of looked like muppet fur and definitely looked fun and interesting. It took me a while to get around to finally cutting the project out as I was waiting for LA to get cold enough (sigh…I’m still waiting!) but by the time I did, I had made a HUGE mistake- I missed tracing and cutting out one essential pattern piece for the cape, the front center panel that each side of the cape buttons onto! So I had cut out all my pieces from fabric thinking I had PLENTY of room and not being frugal with the placement at all! Of course, by the time I realized what I had done, it was too late- there was not enough fabric left to squeeze that front panel from, not even enough to try and Frankenstein something together (although I’m sure I could have made it work with more thoughtful pattern placement). I searched EVERYWHERE for a remnant of this fabric- the fabric Mimi had originally purchased it from was out, so then I made inquests on instagram for anyone who might know where to find it, googling “orange boucle” fabric and scouring all the results. I found myself on European fabric store websites translating the pages to English, thinking I might have found it, but alas it just was not meant to be.

I banished the pattern to the back of my filing cabinet because seeing it brought me too much grief- what a waste of all that pretty fabric due to a shitty mistake on my part! But eventually enough time passed that I found myself re-inspired to cut out the pattern once again. This time the inspiration came from a beautiful (and also very autumnal!) wool I was gifted from The Fabric Store. It’s a classic plaid made of brown, tan and orange hues and it’s not-too-beefy for our mild LA winters.

As soon as I saw it, I was both excited to use it and annoyed with myself for always finding a way to make yet another coat or jacket even though I live in a part of the country that gets the least use out of them. Whatever- you’re supposed to dress for the climate you want, not the climate you have, right? Ha! I knew my vision for this cape was way different than the original one I had planned in the orange boucle, but I also realized that this is exactly where my tastes are today- classic, chic, and simple (she types, as a pile of animal print faux fur sits in her craft room waiting to be turned into a swing coat LOOOL).

Anyways, this time I made sure to trace the missing piece from the pattern that I had somehow forgotten about last time, and I cut everything out from this beautiful Japanese Glen Check wool. I figured that the plaid was busy enough that my non-pattern matching wouldn’t be super noticeable, but I’ve also learned after years of sewing that the less attention I pay to pattern matching, the better it comes out. I swear I have been meticulous about trying to get lines to match up before to absolutely no avail, while other projects seem to magically match up at the side seams. This cape is not perfectly pattern matched, but considering it was not a priority for me, it didn’t come out too badly!

This Vogue Easy Pattern was actually pretty easy (a lot of them are more appropriate for intermediate sewists, which I personally don’t mind, but I know can be a little stressful if you’re a beginner and feeling like the project is too advanced for your skillset- though I have to keep reminding myself that “Very Easy” doesn’t necessarily translate to “Beginner”), and suitable for a relatively quick sew, seeing that this pattern isn’t very fitted, so won’t require too many tweaks or adjustments. Mostly you just want to make sure the shoulders suit your frame well, that you have enough room in the front if you have a large bust, and that the length is right for you (I shortened mine just a bit as I am petite and I didn’t want to be completely dwarfed by a big wall of plaid when I wore this thing). The construction is very straightforward- it consists of two main pieces: the front center panel and the back cape, which attaches to the front panel on the sides with buttons. You can also make a belt that doesn’t actually attach to the cape but just ties around your body and holds the front panel in place. You can absolutely make and wear this cape without the belt and it’s super cute, but on me it was a bit shapeless so I love wearing it with the belt. You could also do well to sew a couple of belt loops on the front panel to hold it in place; depending on what you wear underneath it, the belt might want to drift around a bit so I might add them to mine just to make the belt feel a little more stable.

The one thing I did to elevate this simple make was to make bound buttonholes instead of regular ones, because the buttonholes are the main closures to get in and out of the cape and therefore will have a lot of stress put on them. Bound buttonholes are generally much stronger in terms of stability in a bulky fabric like wool, but I also don’t like how my machine makes buttonholes on thick fabrics- they just look a bit unkempt and unprofessional, so whenever I work with thick wool fabrics I opt for bound buttonholes (you can also get nice buttonholes professionally sewn in at a shop but I have no idea where to get that done in LA during COVID). And because I made bound buttonholes, the underside of the fabric was much thicker and took up more space than regular buttonholes, so I decided to face the whole top part of the underside of the front panel instead of just relying on the thin facings that were at the edges. It was a very smart idea and it also makes the whole panel a little bit warmer since it’s got two layers in the front (not that it will matter much here in LA, but who knows where the future will take me and my cute cape!)

I like making bound buttonholes, but ten of them is…A LOT. VERY MUCH A LOT. I think it took me a whole day and a half just to complete them, but of course now that it’s all over, I am SO glad that I spent all that extra time on them. They look so nice! And they set my buttons off so well! Speaking of buttons, I found these (and about 6 other sets that I immediately fell in love with) from a vintage button shop on etsy based in Canada. They have the most incredible vintage buttons- none of that plastic crap that Joanns sells, these are all beautifully designed metal pieces with the most lovely details. There were so many that I liked, I’m pretty impressed that I limited myself to just to the 6 sets I got, but I rarely come across buttons that make me stop in my tracks so this seemed like a smart investment. I bought two sets to pair with this cape in hopes that one of them would work, and these lionheads were the clear winners (the other art-deco set I got in the correct size have a great design but were too bright gold for the colors of the cape- the dark, muted antique metal of the lions ended up being PERFECT). I’m just crazy about how well the buttons work- they feel ornamental and extravagant paired with a fabric that feels a bit utilitarian and unfussy. A little too much paired with a little too little, ending up in “just right” Goldilocks territory!

This Vogue cape comes in size XS-to XXL which fits chests/busts from 29.5″ to 48″.

Thanks as always to Claire for the pictures!

Color Blocked Blanca Flightsuit

August 24, 2020/3 Comments/in Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

Yall know I love a jumpsuit. LOVE! A! JUMPSUIT! But my favorites have been ones that I’ve tweaked and hacked between as many as 4 different patterns, so when Closet Core came out with the Blanca Jumpsuit pattern, I was over the moon! I knew the chances of it fitting me pretty closely right out the envelope was strong, and I was excited to be able to make some small tweaks to one pattern as opposed to big tweaks to four (I don’t even think I could recreate the jumpsuits I have made in the past since so many adjustments were made to them in different ways- I try to keep up with them during construction and write them all down but I inevitably get so overwhelmed with all the things needed to tweak the fit that I usually abandon my note-taking duties to focus on the actual garment.

Anyways, the Blanca Flight Suit has some lovely details, as to be expected from a Closet Core pattern, but they are easy to adapt to one’s own needs. It has a relaxed fit in the bodice, a much slimmer fit in the hip and thighs, and a straight leg that can be either cropped, full length, or tapered in with little tabs and snaps (think authentic flight suit details). There are some different pocket options for the front bodice and options for the sleeves as well. I’m normally not a “zipper straight down the front” kind of person and I usually alter my boilersuits to give them a button placket down the front but, maybe because the zipper has a facing, I really like the way it looks a lot. Which is funny because I have read that a couple people don’t like the facing (think of it a little like a fly shield but for the whole jumpsuit instead of just the zipper area on a pair of pants), but I think it makes the jumpsuit look really polished and professionally made. It’s totally a personal choice and I’m pretty sure it’s easy to omit the zipper facing if it’s not your thing, but for me it’s the only reason the zipper down the front doesn’t bother me.

I decided to make the simplest, least adorned version of the jumpsuit for my first version so I could get a feel for the shape and fit and figure out what changes I might want to make for a future make (think wearable muslin with emphasis on the “wearable” part). As I have been doing lots of color and print blocking lately, I had a pretty zany idea for how I wanted to use color in this make. I’ve done the right side vs. left side before but I hadn’t ever done a front vs. back color block, so in my next order of gifted fabric from The Fabric Store, I rifled through their marvelous assortment of linens and chose a deep burnt orange to pair with a light sky blue- sky blue is of course not in my color palette, but I love the way an orange and blue combination looks and I figured if I wore the blue on the back of the jumpsuit, it wouldn’t do any of the things to my face that pastels normally do (wash it out, make me look grey, etc).

I didn’t make too many changes for my first version- I graded out at the hips to accomodate my measurements but kept everything else pretty much the same; short sleeves, cropped length, non-zippered chest pockets. The instructions were clear and easy to follow and the whole thing came together pretty fast, considering I was color blocking and having to pay extra attention to how I was cutting the fabric and which pieces were being used where. The back bodice has this interesting pleat thing going on that creates a little visual interest and allows the wearer room in the back body without it being too full in the shoulders, which I liked a lot.

Once the majority of the garment was sewn, I tried it on and was pretty pleased with it- it came out absolutely wearable, but it’s also just REALLY FUN, because I look like business in the front and a party in the back, which pleases me to no end. However I definitely had some issues with the way the waist was sitting on me, so I made a quick and dirty fix to make it work for this version that was already nearly complete. I have a swayback and a smaller waist size compared to hip size and the waist area on this jumpsuit was so big it was literally hanging down over my butt. The flight suit is supposed to have a loose fit in the bodice and a bit of extra length in the back so that you can sit, stand, and move around with ease without the jumpsuit digging into your nether regions, but this is the opposite issue I have with a swayback, where I need to take out length in the back to accommodate the smaller distance between my hip and my waistline. But the waistline was also just way too roomy for my liking, so roomy that even with a belt on, there was so much fabric that it bunched up and gaped everywhere.

I knew I needed to figure out a way to take out the excess ease in the waist so I opted to slide some elastic just in the back waistline piece to see how it looked and it was a great fix. I didn’t make it super tight, I wanted to keep in line with the loose fit of the jumpsuit, but using elastic allowed the extra fabric to be eased in without looking lumpy and bumpy.

In addition to the extra room in the waistline, it also lands really low for my body. I had actually seen What Katie Sews discuss this issue in her own IG stories so I kept it in mind but didn’t want to alter my own pieces til after I had made it as drafted and could see how it fit for myself. Turns out I had the same issue- it might just be a preference thing, but I like that most of my garment waistlines hit high on me, so I will probably bring this waistline up between a 1/2″ and 1″ on my next version. I will also make a swayback adjustment and take out a little length in the back bodice at center while adding a little length to the back pants at center- hopefully that will fix the issue and make it look nicer. You can kind of see how low the waistband is on me at the back- I placed the pockets at the appropriate marks and I think they hit in the right spot, but look how close the tops of the pockets are to the waistband- there isn’t much room between the two areas which I will hopefully be able to fix my raising the waistline.

Looking at the finished garment, I wished I had made the full length of pant legs instead of cropping them, but that’s an easy fix on the next version, too. For these pictures I wore the colorblocked belt I made (which was unfinished in this photoshoot- I was still waiting for my belt rings to arrive in the mail, lol), but although the rings eventually arrived, I’ve been wearing it without the belt. This is a style preference that I have to work out for myself, but for some reason the utilitarian elements of the jumpsuit just aren’t vibing with a belt for me, whether it’s tied, made with buckles or made with rings. It’s the center front zipper that distracts me from it- a belt just looks too busy on top of the zipper (again, this is just my own taste talking- I’ve seen lots of cute versions with belts and I think they all look great). Thankfully the elastic keeps the waistline in place so I can get away with not wearing a belt, but for future versions, I probably just won’t even make one.

I’ve been racking my brain to figure out what I want to make my next version out of. Although I think the linen is easy and breezy to wear, I think I prefer this jumpsuit in a much more structured fabric, especially because the design is so utilitarian. I have a lightweight canary yellow wool suiting in my stash that this would look so cute with, but I also just got a gorgeous earth toned twill from Blackbird Fabrics that would be an amazing match with this pattern come fall/winter, so…maybe one of each? HA!

The Blanca Flight Suit was a joy to make and it’s even more fun to wear (although I admittedly haven’t had a ton of opportunities to don it, seeing as how the temps have regularly been in the 100’s the past couple of weeks). Here’s to hoping for a nice cool down sooner than later!

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!

Arden Pants

August 9, 2020/1 Comment/in Uncategorized /by Jasika Nicole

Funny enough, I made several versions of the Arden shorts hack from Helen’s blog, Helen’s Closet, before I ever made the pants. Maybe because Los Angeles is in the depths of summer heat right now and shorts seemed smarter, or maybe because I wasn’t sure if the pants version would fit into my wardrobe, but the truth is that I was wrong on both counts! In the right fabric, these pants are an excellent summer staple in hot weather because they can keep me cool by protecting my skin from the beating summer sun, and they have also proven to be an excellent addition to my wardrobe!

First off, I am gaga for this fabric! I LOVE a polka dot the way other people love a stripe, but I don’t come across spotted fabric very often (and when I do, you best believe that I snatch it up)! This red and white spotted viscose crepe was gifted from The Fabric Store, and you know it must be special because I don’t even like the color red for myself, but I am learning to have a better appreciation for orange-y reds that are in my palette. My initial plan was to make a super cute vintage 70’s style dress out of the fabric, but unfortunately I didn’t have near enough for that project, so it hung out on the edge of my sewing table for a while til I came up with a plan B.

By this point I had made four pairs of Arden shorts, two for Claire and two for myself. I used a super cute roller skate printed cotton from Josephine’s Dry Goods for one of my own pair that look like little kid’s swimming trunks (they are so adorable!), and for my other pair I used a cut of burnt orange 3-ply silk that I bought on the east coast last Christmas. Even though it’s a simple pattern, the silk makes them look luxurious and expensive, and they are also super comfortable. I worried I was “wasting” my nice silk on such a simple garment as unadorned shorts, but because I had such a small cut of silk to begin with, I didn’t have a ton of options for what to make with it- it was most likely going to be an Ogden cami, of which I have a few already, so turning them into shorts instead has actually made them more wearable!

Because those silk shorts came out so beautifully, a version of the pants in an unexpected fabric like my spotted viscose crepe seemed like it would most likely be a good pairing, too. I have a thing for flowy, silky pants, but I prefer them to be fitted- I’m not really a fan of palazzo style pants on myself, and most pants using lightweight flowy fabric seem to be paired with skirt-like designs so I rarely make them. There is one occasion where I tried to meld a fitted pant with a flowy material, and it was only moderately successful. I paired the Sasha trousers from Closet Core Patterns (which calls for a bottom weight knit with a little bit of stretch) with a drapey, woven rayon, and because I knew the fabric wasn’t quite stable enough for the pattern and that it would probably bag out during wear, I put some elastic in the back waistband to keep them snug. I was actually crazy about the result- I loved the look of the slightly tapered legs and the feel of the of the flowy fabric around them which felt breezy but not voluminous. However, the butt bags out so much after sitting down for a few minutes that I have to wear them with a long shirt on top so that people don’t think that I pooped my pants. And I also tore a big hole in the crotch area after kneeling down to put air in my tires at a gas station, lol- the woven fabric simply isn’t strong enough to hold up to a fitted pants design, so any extra stress applied to one particular area can make it rip like a piece of paper. I was able to mend the crotch area and get more good wear out of the pants, but let’s just say I’ve learned my lesson and understand that there is a reason we don’t make fitted pants out of thin woven textiles!

However, there is another option if you’re a silky, fitted-pants lover like myself! You can get away with pairing a drapey, woven, non-bottom weight fabric with a slim fitting pants pattern if the pants are drafted with an elastic waist! The extra fabric necessary for the elastic waist means there is excess fabric around the hip, thigh and crotch area, which translates into a garment that is able to handle more stress in those spots. Most of the finished Arden pants I have seen floating around the community have been made in cottons and linens, and they obviously look great because you can’t go wrong with those fabrics, but I am really partial to the look of a flowy fabric in this pattern- it’s unexpected, the ease of wear is tremendous, and they look really fancy even though they feel like I’m wearing pajama bottoms.

The construction of these pants is very straightforward and the pocket design is a real winner for me- they are deep, wide, and they lay flat! In-seam pockets on pants and skirts (where they are just attached to/open up at the side seam) tend to stick out and look really bulky on me because my waist and hips are the curviest part of my body and the pockets just don’t want to lay flat around them. But an angled or curved pocket with a facing works great for my figure (note: straight angled pockets only tend to work on me with garments that have a loose fit in the hips- pants, skirts or dresses with a very slim fit across my hips make the pockets gape EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. no matter what sewing tricks I apply). The pockets for the Arden pants have an angle and a facing and they fit me beautifully. The waist is also relatively high and hits right at my waistline which is my preferred fit for pretty much all bottoms. There are a few options for added details on these pants, like top stitching the seams and using back pockets (I omitted the pockets on my shorts because I didn’t have enough fabric but they still look super cute), but overall it’s a very simple and quick pattern to put together. Each of my versions took only a few hours a piece, and the most time consuming part was topstitching the elastic waistband.

Although I have very little red in my closet, these pants still work well with the rest of my wardrobe- the polka dots go great with stripes and other small- patterned fabrics, but come Christmas I am going to be an absolute vision when I wear these pants with my green hand knitted sweater, lol! This baby blue sweater knit in the photos (the top is made from a pattern from one of Gertie’s books, I think the Vintage Casual one) has a color that I think looks really exceptional with browns, oranges and reds, and it’s the only reason I have kept it in my closet. Blue is not anywhere in my color palette and I’m not crazy about wearing it close to my face, but I have found a way to keep it in my closet’s rotation by involving it in color combos that I’m really drawn to, and red and baby blue is one of them. I’ve actually had this shirt for several years and it’s nearing the end of its life because it’s starting to get pilly and the armpits are getting that gross, brownish hue, but I’m gonna try and squeeze just a bit more life out of it while I can!

Highly recommend the Arden Pants, and thank you for the pattern, Helen! Also thanks to Claire for the photos!

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!

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!

Green Silk and Velvet

June 25, 2019/4 Comments/in DIY, Sewing /by Jasika Nicole

Hi hi hi hi hiiiiii! It’s been foreverrrrr since I posted here, but not forever since I made anything, hahaha. Here are some excuses: I got a beautiful camera of my own for Christmas last year to replace Claire’s DSLR that I usually used to take blog photos and make audition tapes. Her camera is great, but it’s bulky and a little too professional for someone like me who takes pics and video out of necessity rather than for the fun of it. Claire got me the Sony a6000 mirrorless, which feels a little like using a point-n-shoot (way more my speed) but it took a long time to figure out the best accessories to use with it. We spent months doing research to get the lenses for her Nikon DSLR to work with my new camera, but ultimately there were too many incompatibility issues so we just bought the lens that was originally designed for it and now, at long last, I am finally able to take some great photos for the blog (and by “I”, I mean Claire, lol). Aside from waiting to figure out my picture-taking situation, I spent a lot of time over the past month making things for other people (button up shirts for my Dad for Father’s Day, pants and shirts for Claire) and getting ready for a temporary 6 month relocation to Vancouver. Ah, yes, Vancouver, my old stomping grounds!

Although I am so excited for this new adventure, it’s really hard for me to disrupt my life without my partner in crime, so the relocation feels bittersweet (we just celebrated our thirteenth anniversary this month and I’m feeling sooo emo). Anyways, Claire will hold down the fort in LA while I fly back and forth, so not only did I have to pack a lot of clothes and shoes and all my hair products and my body therapy tools, but I also had to get my travel sewing situation together. I didn’t bring a ton of sewing stuff with me, just fabric, my travel sewing machine, a magnetic pin holder and some scissors- I usually pack a small bag of essentials when I sew away from home but now it makes more sense to just buy a second set of the essentials and keep them up here.

All this is to say that for my flight to Vancouver yesterday, I fought the i’mgonnamisshome blues by wearing something that would feel like a big warm embrace: my recently completed green silk velvet jacket!

Woo doggie, I know I say it all the time but…this thing took me on a journey! The silk velvet is from The Fabric Store and it is ABSOLUTELY. EXQUISITE. The hand feel of this velvet, the drape, the buttery shimmer it gives off when the light hits it just right-my gosh, it is unreal! And for every positive descriptor I can think of to define how gorgeous this fabric feels and looks, I can think of just as many negative ones to describe what it’s like to sew with, haha. But this is not to scare you off! Some people love sewing with velvet because they love a good challenge! I am not one of them! I’ve sewn with velvet to mixed results a few times in the past (1. 2. 3), and I certainly have gotten better at my technique, but it still requires very careful maneuvering and extra time and patience.

Because velvet is piled, it shifts very easily when the fibers crush into each other (especially if it doesn’t have a stable backing to it), so it can be very hard to keep the edges aligned. I always use a walking foot, but sometimes, like if sewing on the right side of the fabric, the feet can crush the velvet as it rolls over it, and ironing velvet is really tricky for the same reason- it can ruin the pile by flattening it and then it’s seemingly possible to revive. Add to that that this fabric has the additional shiftiness of silk? Like I said, woo doggie!

But look, it wasn’t impossible! Maybe it did take me two tries! But that doesn’t matter- I am in love with this jacket now! And every single fiber of velvet that gave me trouble was well worth what it took for me to get here.

First off, I couldn’t decide between two jacket patterns, this vintage belted one above, or the Artemis jacket from I Am Artemis Patterns.

Both were cute, one with a looser, more boxy look to it and one with a decidedly vintage flare. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I opted for the more fitted vintage one; it seemed right to pair a deep green silk velvet like this with a 70’s silhouette. Welp, guess what, folks? It was the wrong choice! The wrongest wrongly wrong choice. I didn’t take photos of the disaster that was jacket attempt number one so you will just have to trust me on how bad it was (but if you follow me on instagram, you know exactly what a Georgia O’Keef -inspied travesty it ended up being!)

Let’s start off with the pockets on the sides of the vintage jacket. Drapey velvet fabric such as this doesn’t wanna be top stitched. It’s so hard to get the straight stitches perfectly even and nice looking around the edge, because the nap of the velvet shifts around so much that even if you have sewn a completely straight line, it just doesn’t LOOK straight. After failing at attaching the pockets by machine stitch, I unpicked them and decided instead to hand stitch them to the fronts, which took me approximately 5,000 years to complete, and they still ended up looking terrible. Also, because of the drape of the fabric, the way the pockets were sewed onto the fronts looked wonky- I pinned them on straight but they shifted so much by the handling of the fabric that for some reason they just leaned too far to one side and looked slanted. I decided to take them off again and just forgo the patch pockets on the front, but of course by this time the outline of those seams were were so pock marked on the front that it looked awful. I trudged forward because I had faith in myself and the jacket and because it’s green silk velvet and you just do what you have to do for green silk velvet!

But when I got to attaching the collar, things got worse.

The vintage pattern calls for interfacing the collar to give it a little bit of structure, but my iron on-woven interfacing would not attach to the underside of the silk velvet with the light touch of my iron (I couldn’t press harder or I would ruin the pile on the right side). So I decided to make some sew-in interfacing out of organza instead. I meticulously cut out my collar pieces, basted them to my shifty velvet, and then sewed it all up. It looked horrendous. The light, voluminous body of the organza was not a good match for the drapey velvet, and the collar now poofed out around the neck and refused to lay flat. I looked like a Santa’s elf during the off-season.

I opened all the seams around the collar and cut the organza interfacing out- maybe I didn’t need interfacing at all, maybe the velvet was heavy and stable enough on its own to maintain the shape of the collar without the aid of interfacing. I sewed the seams closed again and took a look in the mirror. I don’t know how, but this looked even worse! The collar wrinkled and draped around my neck, flopping around the shoulders and not holding its shape at all- honestly, each side of the collar looked like a gigantic labia fold, and although labia folds are wonderful, I simply don’t want to be wearing them on my body if I am not in a production of the Vagina Monologues.

Each attempt to fix this jacket was destroying the nap of the velvet more and more and it was starting to look tattered and tired. But that didn’t stop me from making one more attempt to fix it, which, spoiler alert, didn’t work out. I wondered if the wider shape of the collar was keeping the velvet from laying down nicely around the neck, so I tried shaving off the width higher up on the collar to make it thinner and more like a band. Perhaps that would have worked if I had done it before constructing the whole jacket, but as a fully sewn garment being manipulated and hacked to bits, the adjustments couldn’t stand on their own and the whole thing looked a messsssss.

There was no saving it as a jacket anymore, so I picked it apart to make some scrunchies with the leftover fabric pieces and I started the jacket over with fresh green silk velvet. This time I opted for the Artemis jacket, and as you can see, it came out beautifully! It was a very straight forward make and was way less stressful to put together because it behaved so much better with this pattern design. One cool thing about this velvet is that the nap isn’t directional like on other velvets, so I was able to jigsaw my pieces together from my meager yardage- I think I squeezed this jacket out of about a yard and a half of fabric, which is great because this pattern takes up a lot of space due to the unique shape of the pieces. I shaved the sleeves down about 2 inches in order to make the cutting layout work, but I could have shaved them down even more- since this fabric is so drapey and the underside of the velvet isn’t very pretty, I didn’t like how the sleeves looked rolled up once the jacket was finished, so I ended up chopping off an additional couple of inches from the sleeve hems.

As I said, the Artemis is a very easy and straight forward make- only four pattern pieces (front, back, pocket and collar), and it comes together very quickly. Even with this finicky velvet I was able to sew this up in an afternoon. I love the way the pocket is designed- it attaches to the front of the jacket and folds in on itself so there are no visible seams on the outside. In fact, the only top stitching for the jacket is done to tack down the inside fold of the collar to the inside of the jacket, but after trying out topstitching on a few inches and seeing how terrible it looked on this fabric, I carefully unpicked it and just handstitched the inside of the collar to the inside of the jacket so that it was invisible on the outside.

Because the pockets are not attached to any seams of the jacket, they kind of flop around on the inside, which wouldn’t be so much of an issue with a more stable fabric, but in a drapey fabric like this it can feel a little weird. There wasn’t an easy way to tack the pockets down after construction was completed without it showing on the outside, so if I made this again in a drapey fabric, I might elongate the pocket piece, sewing it closed so that it isn’t too deep, and that way it can be caught in the bottom hem of the jacket. Other than that, though, I am really happy with this pattern and how it looks in this velvet. I love the richness of the green and the ease of wearing this jacket with so many things in my wardrobe- I am so in love with it that it feels like a neutral! I’m expecting to get lots of wear out of this jacket in Vancouver with her breezy sunny days and chilly nights, so if you follow my IG, get prepared for an onslaught of silkyyyy greeeeen!

The shorts I am wearing in these photos are the Flint shorts by Megan Nielsen , the top is a crop from a Mimi G Simplicity pattern that I haven’t blogged about (and sorry, I don’t have the pattern number off the top of my head) and the shoes are Sven clogs. Thank you to Claire for taking these photos and gifting me this magnificent camera! You’re the best and I love you!!

Purple Backless Dress and Turquoise Animal Print Heels

March 17, 2019/6 Comments/in DIY, Sewing, Shoe Making /by Jasika Nicole

This little purple number is made from a fav vintage pattern, Butterick 3867, that I first blogged about here a few years ago, but it was inspired by a pinterest image (below) that kept popping up in my feed over the fall. Apparently it’s a look from the upcoming Spring 2019 Madewell line up, and although I don’t follow their brand all that closely, I do love much of what I see from them.

As soon as I saw this dress I knew what a dead ringer my vintage Butterick pattern was for it, with only a couple minor adjustments. Although I love my original make of this pattern, I was excited for the chance to redo it; I made the original dress back in the day when my sewing skills were less advanced, so the old dress has a lot of room for improvement. For one thing, my mint green ladybug covered fabric, as pretty as it is, is a cotton voile, which is pretty sheer on it’s own. To make the bodice more opaque, I added a lining to it but I used a silk organza which was the best thing I had on hand at the time. As you might know, silk organza is pretty transparent, and also a bit of a strange pairing for cotton voile- while it successfully beefed up the body of the bodice, it doesn’t really flow well with the voile since the qualities of the two textiles is so different. I also used a white organza which just soaked up my deodorant marks over the years and turned the pits to a sickly green-ish yellow color (my preferred natural deodorants are made with Bentonite clay, which is a MOTHER to get out of light-colored fabric!)

The main adjustment I needed to make to create the Madewell inspired dress was to simply change the angle of the back bodice pieces so that they overlapped at the very top where the neckline is instead of the center. I basically just eyeballed this part and curved the neckline of the back instead of angling it down, then adjusted the bottom of the back bodice lines to meet up with it- everything else I kept the same.

I used a cut of beefy sandwashed rayon that I purchased at Promenade Fabrics on a trip Claire and I took to NOLA last December (SHOUT TO THE GERIATRATRIC CREW!!!!!), and I sewed this entire dress up while shooting in Vancouver this past February, which makes this dress my first #sewnawayfromhome of 2019!

It was a smart project to sew while out of town- I have learned to choose projects that I am familiar with and know will not need a ton of fitting adjustments. Aside from the hacking of the back bodice and creating a lining (the pattern doesn’t call for the dress to be lined at the bodice, but I prefer it that way since it’s basically a backless garment that I don’t want to wear a bra with- lining it gives my babygirls in the front some extra coverage and protection from the cold!), everything else was sewn according to the instructions.

This dress comes with nice, deep pockets, a button closure in the back that goes all the way down the skirt, and a lot of flexibility in terms of fitting- since the gathered skirt is essentially attached separately to the bodice (they only meet at the waistband), it’s easy to make any adjustments necessary at the very end stages of construction.

Again, I still really love my ladybug version, but this purple remix is a real win! It can obviously be dressed down, but I had no idea how chic it would look when paired with heels! I love the body of the fabric- it feels substantial and weighty, but not heavy- in fact, it’s light enough for the skirt to look really full and airy, and the sheen of the fabric in certain light makes the texture look luxurious! And my dress looks even chicer than the one in the inspo pic, if I do say so myself- the Madewell dress has drag lines and scrunching on the back bodice that looks like it either doesn’t fit well around the arms or is just baggy. Jasika 1 Madewell 0.

Now let’s talk about heels!

Inspo shoe:

I was very excited to get an invite to NYC in early March to take a 3-day shoe making class with the I Can Make Shoes team which is based out of London. I have been shouting them out on IG for a while now because they carry hard to find supplies and have some great free youtube tutorials available on their channel, and although I have been making heels for a while now, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to learn something new and continue elevating my skills…which I totally did! I had actually taken a satellite class of theirs several years ago when they came to LA for a one day sandaled heel making class, but the most recent class I took with them was 10 times better- for one thing it was taught by Amanda, founder of the company, who was super knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and patient with each of her 10 students, and the setup was much more efficient- 3 days gave us plenty of time to design, plan out, and implement our shoe makes, and we got to work at Brooklyn Shoe Space, a really fantastic shoe making studio in Brooklyn that offers classes on bag making, shoe making, and more. There were so many amazing machines to use at BKSS and I only knew what like, 4 of them were for- there were belt sanders and special leather sewing machines among them, but my favorite was the vented table in the basement that sucked all of the toxic fumes from the rubber cement glue out of the room so you could glue your shoes without passing out from the smell- brilliant!

I soaked up all the wisdom that Amanda and her assistants had to offer, and among the most helpful techniques I learned/clarification on was covering the heel! I have always had a lot of trouble getting a nice, clean-looking heel for my shoes out of leather, but I was cutting out the shape all wrong- Amanda showed me a way to cut a vaguely mushroom shape out of the leather and then make Y-cuts (god, I hate Y-cuts!) along the allowance edges to fold them in, then how to cover the front with a leaf and another piece of leather to get everything smooth looking. I even used a really thick suede to cover my heels and I didn’t have to skive down the edges- with her technique, everything laid down beautifully! I also learned how to make a sole that tucks underneath the heel of the shoe as opposed to flowing down the front of the heel. I actually prefer a sole that goes from heel tip to toe because I think it gives a skinny heel a little more stability with memade shoes, but it’s definitely a great technique to use for wider, thicker heels, and I am so excited to recreate them. Oh! And I also learned how to do the quick version of “welting” a shoe! It’s not really welting, of course- it’s actually just using randing as a decorative edge around the sole of the shoe but I have always liked how those looked and I never knew how to do it! I liked it so much that I bought like 4 yards of randing from my fav shoe components place in anticipation of actually learning how to do it, and YAY WOO HOO the time has finally come!

As you can tell, I am SUPER inspired to make more shoes with everything I have been learning! At this point I still prefer to stalk cool shoe designs on pinterest and use that as a jumping off point- I don’t have enough skills (or perhaps creativity, lol) to design shoes on my own- I mean, I’ve done it in the past, but they are not always successful. I think a lot of that comes from me wanting to make sure I create something that I am going to love and that will be wearable, and there are a lot of rules to shoe design that I am completely ignorant of. It’s much like sewing, where, for instance, you know that a woven dress will need a certain amount of ease in specific places to be wearable, and that’s just a rule of the craft that you learn early on and carry with you in all your makes. There are similar things in shoe design where, like, you don’t want the back of the shoe upper to come up past a certain point of your leg or it will dig into your ankle when walking, or how you can’t pair heel components with a pair of lasts that don’t match the lasts’ toe spring or it will make you walk funny. It’s cool to be absorbing all this information but it’s mostly through trial and error since I am self-taught, so I am slowly gaining more knowledge through copying other designs and figuring out why certain elements work and how.

BKSS has a huge wall full of stunning leathers to choose from, and although I had a good idea of what I wanted my design to look like, I was completely open to color and texture, and I figured I would wait to see what I was drawn to from the available materials. There are countless times on this blog where I have talked about how I don’t like animal prints, so it was hysterical for me to feel myself reaching for yet another animal-print leather, at the same time realizing that the last THREE pairs of shoes I have made have all been with animal print leather, lol! I couldn’t take my eyes off this blue green roll of amphibian-inspired leather, and I liked that it had so many other colors in it: it was blend of turquoise, and blue and even had a tiny hint of black in there, so, although a bold choice, I felt like it would pair well with a variety of garments.

I chose a deep royal blue suede for my straps and heels, and went with a brighter turquoise leather for the insoles and lining. I used some of my black shoe elastic for the buckle, a material I started incorporating into my shoe making after I completed my snakeskin print heels– elastic helps provide some flexible ease to your straps- if you have any strappy heels/shoes in your closet, take a look at the strap that holds the buckle around the ankle and chances are you will see a small fold of elastic doubled over to connect the strap and buckle together. Not all flat shoes with straps have it but I have found that the majority of modern RTW heels do. It makes the shoe a bit more comfortable when walking and allows the straps to stretch out a bit instead of clinging fixed and tight to your ankle. My favorite thing about my inspiration shoe was the peep toe because it’s so tiny and isn’t big enough for a whole toe to force its way through (something that happens with me and peep toes a lot since I have a long second toe, argh!), and I think that on my next pair I will make the peep even tinier.

I am super happy with how these shoes came out, and construction and design-wise I wouldn’t do anything differently, although the sewing on one of the ankle straps is pretty atrocious- I blame it on the fact that I was using a new-to-me leather sewing machine that I was in love with, but that definitely required some fierce maneuvering that I just wasn’t skilled enough to master. Because my ankle straps were so thin, it was hard to get the edge of the strap under the needle (this machine didn’t have a bed to rest your material on, just a skinny little raised platform, so for thin straps you have to work hard to keep it from slipping off the machine). I might go back over that area on my home sewing machine if the stitches ever start coming out, but for now, it’s totally unseeable to the naked eye since that area of the strap is covered by the buckle and strap end.

Thanks once again to Claire for these glorious photos, and stay tuned for another exciting installment of my adventures in shoemaking in a future blog post…and yes, they are made of animal print!