that about sums it up.

the scene: thursday night in a hotel room, spread out on the desk, project runway reruns blaring in the background, doing battle with a zipper.

then, i try it on.

then, i started swearing. and crying. and considering ripping the dress off my body with my serrated gingher shears.

the biggest issue at the time was its strange, flat, tight fit across my chest, which i mitigated by removing the bra cups from the underlining, and thus returning it to the (semi-) normal state you see above. the flatness, alas, would require surgical intervention, so i left that alone.

now, getting it home and trying it on again, the real heart-breaker is the wonkiness of the waist seam. it sort of zigs and zags across my mid-section, instead of going straight around in an oval at about my waist level. i am unsure if this is fixable and frankly ambivalent about attempting it.

i admit to being somewhat satisfied with the back, because i love a deep V.

but i think ultimately that my best option is to disassemble and simplify.
i think i may be able to salvage most of the skirt into a crescent blouse.

or i could try slicing and dicing, blocking and mixing, and going back to a simple a-line, like this tracy reese number spotted on a recent lunch trip to nordstrom.

the latter would allow me to salvage more of the bodice print placement, which was my favorite bit of the versace pattern.

but as for v1207? i’m over it.

chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk.

and taking a little piece of my soul with it each time.

part of it is my fault, because i started with a size 11 needle.
too big.

microtex?
too big.

i went through my entire stash of needles, looking for a size 9. nothing.

chunk, chunk, chunk.

and then, at long last, as i was starting the french seams to put the sides together, i found this buried in a supply drawer.

unfortunately, no chorus of sewing angels awaited me.
the damage had been done.

i was about ready to give up in despair when i decided to at least attach the lining layers to the fashion fabric layers. and, as one does, i saw immediately an entirely new vision.

so i’m going to keep on plugging away. all that is left is several hours of handsewing: two hems, a zipper, and tacking the sleeve pleats in place. and then a vicious, vicious pressing.

then, i stenciled it using my bloomers stencil from the alabama stitch book.

and then i let it sit for a while.

well, several months, a weekend spent visiting friends with kids, and two viewings of “wreck-it ralph” (in one saturday! 4-year-olds…what are you gonna do?) later, i’m much closer to getting it to its final state.

i filled in the “bloomers” stencil using a very wide satin stitch, so that the glitter paint shows through in the right light. i also decided to “string applique” a rose from my rose motif stencil over the leaves for a real three-dimensional texture.

all that remains is to tack the string applique in place, maybe using beads? or is that too much?

much to do this weekend, friends. i have a dress to finish and a vegetable garden to get in the ground. plus, my fruit trees arrived this week! exciting things are happening.

have a great weekend!

to help myself along, i set a task: finish V1207 in time for my sister’s hooding ceremony at her graduate school.

and i’ve been slowly…

slowly…

painstakingly…

forcing myself to meet that goal.

even though i’m feeling much more like i’d rather be doing this.

and this fabric, while gorgeous – and VERSACE, for crying out loud – is shockingly problematic. i am not convinced it is 100% silk, just because of its texture and its ornery-ness as i was attempting to cut it. (i also think it might be time to sharpen my serrated edge ginghers)

it also doesn’t help that it literally took me six months to figure out how to fit this pattern.
because i am an idiot.

so i have my usual method of using my sloper with an existing pattern, right?

great. only it wasn’t until two weeks ago that i realized the reason i wasn’t getting my moulage to fit properly – i kept thinking i needed to add two inches to the shoulder seam, when i usually have to do the opposite – is because this pattern isn’t a set-in sleeve.

doh.

it’s a raglan. once i realized i needed to account for the shoulder height and slope by taping on the raglan sleeve, it fit almost perfectly. i even made a muslin. i was completely in business. except for the cutting bit. (BOOOO on dull scissors!!)

so, meanwhile, i continue to do a few seams a night while i mostly veg out to “the fabulous beekman boys” and “the amazing race,” cycle 21. (yes, those two things are related. and i completely adore the beekman boys.) i decided to underline the lining instead of the fashion fabric because the versace print is also a little more sheer than i remembered it being, and i didn’t want the underlining to interfere with a clean drape on the main dress. i am really glad i made this decision, because the main garment has a lot of pleating and draping, and the lining substitutes all of that with simple darts, making it a better fit for underlining in the first place. i hope.

and meanwhile, a flower from my garden to share with you all.

i’ve spent a lot of time lately mentally apologizing to my mom.

i’ll be reading a book, perusing a magazine, walking across the yard, and it flashes across my head.  “sorry, mom,” often with a rueful shake of the head at my inadequacy.

and not over the usual things – clothes, boys, life choices, credit card bills and the always-tricky “who could you possibly have been on the phone with – for an hour – at 4am?” that comes part and parcel with a family share phone plan.  (fortunately, that one hadn’t come up in years.)

no, i’m sitting here eating my words over coreopsis.  and buddleia.  and periwinkles.  maybe the occasional miscanthus.  because the simple truth is that my mom and i always had a fundamental disagreement over the garden and its appeal as an all-you-can-eat buffet to the herd of deer that cross it twice a day.

i wanted things that are pretty.
she wanted things that would last longer than the first afternoon.

and, with the obstinacy that only comes from a mother-daughter relationship, i remained convinced that none of her suggestions could possibly satisfy us both.  especially since, buddleia aside, my mom had a preference for evergreen plants that i never cottoned on to, leaving me perpetually convinced that any suggestion of hers would involve bark and needles and not much else.  simple perusals of garden catalogs become fronts on our cold war, as i pointed out beautiful photographs of daylillies and tulips and she shook her head and said in a flat voice:  “not.  negotiable.”

for so many reasons, i wish my mom could see my order list so far this spring:

• coreopsis moonbeam
• miscanthus morning light
• joseph cline monarda
• echinacea purpurea
• dragon’s blood seedum
• vinca minor periwinkle

and the garden going in around my pond, which we’ve taken to calling the “memorial garden,” because she promised me that she would wait for me in the flowers.

only she hated yarrow.
sorry, mom.

and yet…what is it about the jacket that still holds so much power over us today?

when you get down to it, it’s basically the most boring garment in the history of garments.  princess seams and a boxy cut:  the end.  so why spend either time (70+ hours) or money ($6,000 – $25,000) on it?

and yet….and yet…

there is an undeniable elegance in the simplicity of it.

i often find myself discussing this with fellow sewasauri when we have the chance to meet up.  whether it is arguing with my anonymous co-seamster who just doesn’t see the appeal or debating the merits of different techniques with fellow-travelers who are intrigued and want to try one, it seems that most of us have an opinion on the iconic garment.

i have to admit that for me, it was fascination by way of repulsion.  i just did.  not.  get.  it.  it was, for me, the ultimate garment of the ladies-who-lunch, or, worse yet, the upper-caste new yorkers gathered at charity and political events i have to attend for my job.  a status symbol only:  look at how awesome i am, (and yet, how much a part of the crowd!) and move on.

i think the first glimmer of interest happened for me when i realized that it’s also a kind of cool sewing status symbol:  something to aspire to that was about what kind of skills i could develop instead of a socio-economic identifier.  and then, as i do, i began researching endlessly, looking for photographs and re-reading the go chanel or go home jacket sew-along and hunting down the elusive threads article penned by susan khalje.  and finally i began to see the jacket as something else entirely:  a near-perfect blank canvas that goes with anything and can be almost anything, while still being the ultimate wardrobe staple.

i mean, as uniforms go, a chanel jacket, a pair of jeans, a comfy T and a good pair of shoes is about as awesome as it gets.

1. making one of these properly, into something that will look and feel luxe and rich, is a huge investment in both time and money.  caveat emptor.  this is one of those projects that if you are going to do it right, then do it right, and splurge on those materials.  even as i’m dabbling in the so-called shortcut method, i was reminded at every turn why the “right” way is actually the right way.  there is a difference in the end result.
2. embrace the basic bones of the pattern, and then do it your own way anyway – short, long, cropped, fitted, oversized, collared – because the point of making one is to make it your own.  experiment with trims, buttons, and linings.
3. have good tools.  try japanese hand needles and japanese basting thread.  it actually makes a difference!
4. have a fitting buddy.  maybe you can’t splurge on the time and cost of a 6-day class, but the important bits of the construction technique are well-explained in susan’s threads article.  enlist a friend and help each other to get as good a fit as you can…and learn something about fitting in the process.
5. don’t wait for a “special occasion.”  don’t be afraid to wear it with jeans…shorts…sandals…or black tie.  make it something you love so that the time and money are worth it.

so that is my take, just to wrap up my endless chanel-inspired recaps.  i will continue with loads of work-in-progress updates and, obviously, cat photos.  because even the cat was desperate to understand the tricky task of sleeve insertion.

wait, no, GET OFF THAT…how am i supposed to work like this?!

better.
so, on tuesday evening, i started a second jacket.  using my fitted muslin from my lapels-and-godets number, i folded out the lapels, eliminated the godets, and i traced out a straight jacket on a separate piece of chanel haute couture fabric, also scored on last year’s trip to mendel goldberg.  in fact, this piece is all stash, baby.

this was my first piece of boucle fabric that didn’t have any loft or give and i was shocked at how much of a difference, tactile and otherwise, that had in the making and manipulation of the jacket pieces.

for instance, even though i painstakingly left match points as i prepared my piece of fabric, my rounded and narrow shoulders were completely unforgiving in the stripe-matching department.  the fabric simply refused to ease through the curves, leaving me no choice but to have susan hand-fit the shoulders using me as a dress form.  you can see the re-pinned seam above, which i stitched in place using “my friend the fell stitch.”  (susan’s term, not mine.  i had some other choice descriptors for the ubiquitous hand stitch this week!)  getting back in there with a machine would have been nearly impossible, and i would have had to hand-baste it besides, so why not save the step, right?

interestingly, this was the first curve in any of my three jackets that i actually had to force a match.  normally, we are advised to match up to the bust points (or shoulder curve) and then let the fabric do what it needs to do.  as i wailed to the group, “what does it say about me that my bust curves always match and now i have to hand stitch the shoulder seam?!?!”

but at least i had quilting and cutting down to an art form by now, so it wasn’t too long before i had this:

i admit that by tuesday evening/wednesday morning i was fully suffering from what i call the stages of camp chanel.  namely,

1. EXCITEMENT.  i cannot wait to get this piece of fabric into something amazing and gorgeous and all mine.  bring it on, baby!
2. PRODUCTIVITY.  wow, this is not nearly as hard as i thought it would be.  i am making awesome progress.  keep it coming!
3. STAGNATION.  ok, this is definitely taking a long time.  progress has slowed.  i am sewing 12 hours a day and haven’t touched a machine since monday.
4. OMG I AM SO TIRED OF THIS CRAPPY HOTEL ROOM.  self-explanatory.
5. PANIC.  WTF?!  how is it wednesday already?!  and i still have so much left TO GET DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so i was definitely taking a few shortcuts to get enough of the jacket done to muslin and cut a sleeve that would match my deformed shoulders.  the inside of that jacket?  totally pin-basted.  not a stitch in sight.  and the shoulder seams are definitely holding on with a pin and a prayer.

and meanwhile the cat continued his campaign of seduction with every woman in the room.

gray thread…

and yet i was still shocked when i ran out of thread, probably because i had already been to jo-ann twice that day.  so i just casually swapped…

to purple thread.  i am pretty sure no one noticed, because i was quilting godets like a madwoman.

cutting the godets turned out to be a huge deal, because i was almost literally out of fabric.  i had thought i had nearly five yards but it was probably closer to three and every snip into the fabric would affect anything else i wanted to accomplish.  no pressure there!  i cut the godets on the bias, both for drape and for visual interest.  by some miracle (a passover miracle?  but it was more like the never-ending oil of chanukah…) i had enough fabric for four godets, in two sets that mirrored each other.

here you can see the awesome way the bias shows in the godets

fortunately, quilting the godets was a cinch.  mostly because susan uttered words i never expected to hear from her in my life:  bag them out so they are pre-hemmed and quilt right off the edges.

close-up of godet insertion

say WHAT?!?!
dude, i can so do that.

anyone need a pattern weight?

by tuesday night, i had four godets and two sleeves ready for insertion.  both as a design intention and as a necessity, i went for a half-sleeve.  this allowed me to use a two-piece sleeve rather than a three-piece sleeve, because three pieces would have unnecessarily cluttered up the lines of the shorter sleeve.  bonus:  a two-piece sleeve takes up less fabric!

i focused then on cleaning up the inside of my sleeves and jackets so that everything was mostly done – done enough, at least, to try on a sleeve and finalize the sleeve placement.  this took approximately four episodes of series 6 project runway (susan laughed when i explained my method of measuring time, but it made sense to me…)

a note on tools:  i ended up switching over to a japanese needle for this handwork.  amazingly, it made a huge difference.

and then by wednesday morning, i had this:

answer:  be the crazy lady with the cat on a leash.
guess who went to camp today?

susan and my fellow inmates kindly invited me to bring a guest to class today for extra company.

needless to say, he was a huge hit with all of the ladies.

then, having made his presence known, he settled down to serious business.

meanwhile, i quilted. after nearly going blind yesterday squinting at my thread tracing, susan and i came up with this ribbon technique for marking out my quilting lines. it was pretty genius. as usual, i couldn’t quite keep my lines straight, but overall i was quite pleased with the result. i actually got the “wooly mammoth” (susan’s term) basted together and re-fitted.

the boucle has so much loft that even a 2-muslin fitting process still needs to be tweaked in fashion fabric. in my case, we needed to drop the shoulders (again) and nip in the back a bit for a smooth and slim fit.

and for the bossy ladies out there, a few detail shots (with a bonus look at my newly-ombre hair):

my workroom/hotel room, with my homework spread out on the desk. after i quilted, knotted and basted today, i decided to get a jump start on tomorrow by starting to clean up some of those seams. i fell-stitched the side seams so that i can start my sleeves tomorrow. i also pin-basted my SF and SB seams so that when i check my sleeve layouts tomorrow i can also commit to my godets. right now, the choice is between two godets (one in each center front/side front seam) and four godets (adding two at the back/side back joins). however, since i am literally going to use every scrap of fabric eeking this garment out, i need to consider carefully and know what i am about before another milimeter of fabric gets cut.

parting shot of my quilted fabric, and in this shot you can actually see the amazing ombre rainbow swirling over the boucle. what do you think of the lining? in general, i am a bit “meh” on the absurd quantities of marc jacobs prints at mood, but in this instance, both of my chosen lining fabrics are marc jacobs. in this instance, a crepe-de-chine. i was really curious to see how the crepe felt against my skin (answer: amazing) and compare it to the charmeuse i used last time.

i skipped most of the shopping day in NYC this year, still having nearly 6 yards of chanel boucle from last year’s excursion.  i originally planned to draft a jacket from scratch, incorporating the chanel single-layer lapel and also eliminating all of the styline shaping, replacing it with ease.  abut two weeks ago, i realized that whatever my energy level was, i didn’t have enough of it to spare in drafting and bringing an untested pattern to a project that cost over $500 – just in supplies.  then, i had a brainwave.  i could use the jacket pattern i had already done a fitting on with susan and kenneth in october, and also incorporate some of the amazing details from this number spotted on couture allure:

bonus:  this meant i could actually make – or start to make – two jackets over one course period.

my pattern had armscye princess seams, which susan quickly vetoed as not being a good fit.

armscye – to – shoulder conversion

i say “vetoed” because working with susan on a jacket is always about getting the balance between what she thinks you need and what you really want.  in my case, i got to keep my “dior darts” if i agreed to the shoulder princess conversion.

all of this happened nearly at lunchtime.  the first day of camp chanel, i have learned, is catching up with other repeat offenders – i know more than half the women in class! – and joining the fitting queue, muslin in hand, dreams and aspirations on display.

all too soon comes the dreaded moment of truth, where it is time to place your adjusted muslin onto the precious fashion fabric and make the first cuts.  i carried on a running conversation with both my neighbor and my fabric during this trying period, not really caring which one of them might respond.  mostly i was soothing my fabric:  “you’re so pretty.  this is going to be amazing.  i love you so, so much.  you’re awesome.”

but tell me i am wrong.  i dare you. 

and then, because class ends at 6:30 and i long ago exhausted my excitement for finding things to do in baltimore, why not a little more handsewing after six hours of thread tracing and my first-ever headache from squinting at something too small to focus on (my needle.  next time, embroidery needles!  big ones!)?  above:  a pocket-in-progress for drape drape 2 #3 with alabama sewing studio techniques.

whew.  no wonder i’m pooped!