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V1419 Sewalong: Steps 4-22

Good morning, sewalongers! This is the week we actually start sewing our coats – aren’t you sooo excited!?! 😀 Meg will actually be covering this week’s set of steps over on the McCall Blog later this week (she had a family emergency last week, so please be patient if it takes her a couple of days to have the post up), but I thought I’d post here with some tips and progress updates (and personal cheerleading, in case you need it 😉 ).

This first set of steps will get you acquainted with attaching the binding, as well as starting some basic construction on the coat – the back belt, the underarm gusset, and attaching the side to the front. It is fairly straightforward – you may not even need the sewalong once you start reading the instructions – although you do need to be very precise. Don’t be afraid to go slow and maybe even do some hand basting on the trickier parts. You got this!

Ok, here are my ~top tips~ for this section:

If you underlined your coat, you will want to remove the basting stitches after you sew each piece together. This is where the silk thread/hand basting comes in handy – it should be very easy to pull out 🙂

Underlining or not, if your coat fabric is thick, you will definitely want to trim and grade the seam allowances as much as possible when it comes time to apply the bias binding – otherwise, you may have problems getting it to lie flat. I use my Gingher duck-billed applique scissors for this; the flat side keeps any errant fabric from getting caught and accidentally snipped. Obviously you can use regular scissors – just be mindful of where you cut 🙂 I grade down my coating fabric first – as close as I can to the stitching line, without compromising the strength of the stitches – and then trim the remaining seam allowances once I’m ready to fold over the binding.

SPEAKING OF THE BINDING…

Trim off those little triangles before you start applying. It’ll make things a tiny bit easier.

When attaching the binding to the belt, I used my #10 Edgestitching foot to stitch in the ditch on the right side…

Which turned out freaking GORGEOUS, by the way.

The rest of the binding is actually applied flat to the coat, with the topstitching visible on the right side. It can be pretty difficult to get everything even on both sides (catching the binding at the fold on the inside, while still keeping an even topstitching distance on the right side). The pattern has you baste the binding down first, which is a great idea. The only thing I’d add to that is to baste it by hand – yes, I know machine basting is faster, but guess what? It’s also a HUGE PAIN IN THE REAR to remove. Do yourself a favor and baste by hand. Use silk thread if you got it. I basted right along the edge of the binding with dark blue silk thread (so it was visible)(sorry, no photos of this), and then topstitched right inside my basting line on the outside, using one of these little seam guides so I could keep the stitching line straight. Afterwards, you will want to beat the crap out of your seams to get them to lie nice and flat. I give everything a healthy dose of steam, and then smack it with my clapper (I use this clapper & point presser, but honestly, you could use a hunk of wood if you’re feeling cheap. Just make sure you sand it reeeeeeally well so you don’t get a surprise splinter in your coat!).

Oh yeah, and I realized about halfway through this sewing session that it’s probably a good idea to keep a container around to hold all my trimmed seam allowances. There is a LOT of trimming going on around here, and for some reason, I’m incapable of hitting the trash can. Whatever.

Anyway, once you have finished through step 22, you should have something like this –

It’s a coat… front… thing! Yeah!!! Not so bad, huh? 🙂

Head over to the McCall Blog for Meg’s step-by-step of this part of the process (hopefully up later this week!). In the meantime – how are we doing? Anyone have questions on this section of the sewalong?

Side note/disclaimer: Ok, so I decided to start occasionally using affiliate links on this blog. Sorry if you hate me! 🙂 I am currently only affiliated with Amazon, and I promise I will only be linking things that I personally use and recommend – such as those scissors & that clapper. Y’all will never ever ever see me link something just for the sake of linking it – that’s just crappy. However, please keep in mind that any purchases you make through these links will net a small kickback to me, which I will likely spend immediately on yarn & fabric (and thus pour back into this blog, in the form of content for y’all to read!). Also, no sneaky linkies – I will always describe the item I’m linking so you don’t have to click to see them, if affiliate links squick you out 🙂 I won’t be posting this disclaimer at the end of all my posts, as it seems a little redundant, but you can always view it in my About Me page. That’s all! Thanks for supporting my blog, dudes! ♥

Tags: McCall Pattern Company, ralph rucci, seawlong, tips and tricks, v1419, v1419 sewalong

Comments 41 Comments
Categories sewalong

Vogue Sewing Patterns: Winter 2014

17 Oct

Well, well, well… looks like the new Vogue sewing patterns are officially out! Happy day!! 😀 I’m know I’m late for this one – I hadn’t even realized that the new patterns came out (no shit, this is something that I tend to just randomly discover as I’m perusing blogs. Because, you know, joining the mailing list would be way too easy ), so I’m sorry that this is delayed! Although, to be honest, there’s really not a lot to snark here this go-round. Yay for Vogue, boo for us 🙂 Still, I didn’t want y’all to think that I’d, I dunno, gone corporate or some shit! Since my visit at the McCall Pattern Company offices, I’ve definitely had a much softer spot in my heart for the company and everyone who works there – but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still poke a little fun at ’em 🙂

One thing to keep in mind (something a lot of us – especially me! – recently learned) – with anything that is a Designer pattern, the garment you are seeing is an actual designer garment. Meaning, Vogue didn’t choose the fabric/notions and sew it up specifically for the pattern cover. It is literally a garment from the designer – labels, price tags, and all – that is being modeled. The pattern is drafted from the exact same garment (which was incredibly fascinating to hear all about), with Vogue sizing and instructions. Anyway, I’m reiterating this because any horrible fabric choices we see on the Designer patterns have nothing to do with Vogue! We should really be ripping the designer a new one (I’ve tried to note which pattern is Designer and who, so you know exactly who to direct your anger toward). That being said, any other Vogue patterns are fair game 😛

All right, onto the patterns!

Vogue 1426 // Badgley Mischka
OH MY GOD THIS DRESS HAS STARTED REPRODUCING

Vogue 1428 // Tom and Linda Platt
The question here is: Do we consider this print placement an epic fail or an epic win?

Vogue 1425 // Pamella Roland
Look at the lace at the hem. Wait for your eye to start twitching. You’re welcome.

Vogue 1427 // Donna Karan
Let’s call this one “Andre the Giant Goes to the Disco!”

Vogue 1422 // Tracy Reese
Here, Vogue decided to show you the prettiest dress/most gorgeous fabric/bestest hair ever in an attempt to distract you from what appears to be someone’s tool shed in the background.

Vogue 1423 // Bellville Sassoon
“What do you mean this isn’t how you wear a thong?”

Vogue 1424 // Rebecca Taylor
I guess the neckline is supposed to be some sort of snappy cutout, but honestly all I see when I look at this is a backwards wifebeater under a tank top.

Vogue 9046
I just wanted to point out that for once, this dress – with all it’s detailing – isn’t made up in some crazy patterned/shiny fabric, aka, you can see what is being modeled here.

Vogue 9066
~Tarp-Chic – taking camping to the next level, one business suit at a time.

Vogue 9072
If I was half this cute when I was a kid, maybe I wouldn’t be the angsty piece of shit I am today.

Vogue 9073
I just don’t know anymore.

Vogue 1429
What the everloving fuck is going on with this fabric.

Vogue 9065
If your lapels are so wide that they cover the shoulders of your SLEEVELESS BLAZER, you’re doing it wrong.

Vogue 1430
No comment on the pattern itself – my question is: Where the hell did they find this fabric, and do you think I can still get my hands on some?

Vogue 9069
Vogue 9096: The only time it’s ever socially appropriate to wear a bathrobe out in public.

Vogue 9057
The neck binding is not flat and that is bothering me way more than I care to admit.

Vogue 9060
Vogue 9060: When ~~bad things~~ Marcy Tilton happens to good people.

Vogue 9059
Frumpsville, population: This chick.

Vogue 9056 & Vogue 9055
So, these are pretty cute – basic knit tops with a few options. Just wondering, though, why the hell they have darts?? I thought that was the whole beauty of knits, that you could eliminate darts (barring giant FBAs or anything like that), and yet here they are. What’s the deal here?

Vogue 9074
Hey! I actually don’t hate this one. Ok, so that purse is definitely not my style, but let’s all just sit back and appreciate that it looks like a REAL PURSE you’d buy at, say, Macy’s. It doesn’t scream homemade – it actually looks pretty legit! (not that there is anything wrong with homemade purses – I’ve made my fair share of quilting cotton bags! But I think it’s safe to say one has definitely leveled up if they managed to make something that looks this pro, you know?). It even has little purse feet! Eee! Thumbs up for this one. I might pick up the pattern just to get a lurk on the instructions.

Vogue 9070
Ughhh I’m going to get so much shit for expressing my distaste – but I hate everything about this! The shape, the fabric, THE DANGLIES!

Anyway- what are your thoughts? See any patterns you love or hate? I gotta say, I’m disappointed to not see any Ralph Rucci 😦 I was excited to see what they’d come up with.

EDIT Just spoke with Meg (of the McCall Pattern Company fame) and she’s going through some family things right now, so there may be a delay in replies to the comments on her end. Just FYI!

Tags: are you serious with this shit, lol, McCall Pattern Company, omg wtf lol, patterns, vogue, vogue patterns, WTF

Comments 81 Comments
Categories misc

V1419 Sewalong: My Muslin

6 Oct

Good morning, V1419 Sewalongers – and Happy Muslin Day! Yes, today is all about the muslin – a very important part of coat construction (some of y’all make refer to it as a toile, same difference!). After all, you don’t want to spend all this time and money making a coat that doesn’t fit once it’s finished… do you? (if the answer to that is no, then, um… do you want to share some of your spare time and money with?? haha!)

Meg is handling All Things Muslin over at The McCall Pattern Company blog, so check out her post for advice and tips. Me, I’m just here to be your personal cheerleader this week – as well as share my muslin! Wanna see?

Some notes & thoughts:
– I started with the size 8, which seems to fit pretty well right out of the envelope! The small bit of pulling you see under the bust is not noticeable in real life (and, god, these pictures are awful. I took them three times and these are the best you’re gonna get. Something about shooting a *white* muslin is just… ugh. And yes, I even tried against a not-white background. No dice, looked worse. Deal with this.), and some of the wrinkles were actually pressed into the muslin. I think that, overall, this looks good, and I will be making no further adjustments other than shortening the length and the sleeves. Thoughts?
– Notice when I said I made a size 8? That’s at least 1-2 sizes bigger than what I usually cut in Vogue patterns – this lady runs a little snug! For what it’s worth, my body measurements correspond very closely to the size measurements for the 8 (I’m about 1/2″ bigger all around). If you’re hung up on sizing, I suggest start with the size that works for your measurements and make a mock to see what direction to take the fitting. I know this goes against everything I’ve ever told y’all about using the finished measurements to start, but maybe Vogue has been hearing our cries about the extra ease? 🙂
– I used a medium weight muslin to make this mock-up, and it’s a bit more drapey than the fabric that I chose. This is fine, as I’ve tried on the original and I like the way the dramatic shape looks on me – but if you’re still debating whether or not to use a drapey fabric, try making the muslin with a fabric that has a similar hand to get a feel for how you like it.
– When trying on your muslin, make sure you are wearing the same types of clothing you plan on wearing with the finished coat – for me, that’s a long sleeve tshirt and jeans. If you try this on with a lightweight tank top, for example, the fit will be totally different (and, um, might not work with a big sweater!). Speaking of big sweaters – this style of coat is NOT the thing to wear with your giant chunky knit warmest wool pullover. It’s supposed to be very sleek and fitted – the type of fabulous coat that you would wear over a cocktail dress. If you have your heart set on making this an every day winter coat to wear over multiple layers, you may want to consider sizing up to accommodate the extra bulk.
– Need to make some adjustments? Not a big deal! While this pattern does not have traditional style lines, it *does* mark the bust apex and waistline, so that will give you a general idea where to add your adjustments. Due to the time restraints we have for this sewalong, we will not be covering flat pattern adjustments. A few people have asked whether or not this particular pattern can handle a FBA (full bust adjustment) – and the answer is yes! You’ll need to first remove the lower skirt portion of the coat, as well as the sleeves, make your FBA (I like to use the method explained in Fit for Real People)… then rotate out the dart you create to retain the original lines of the pattern, and reattach the sleeves and skirt (smoothing and blending your lines as needed). Don’t know how to rotate out a dart? Here are some links that you may find useful: The Mahogany Stylist, Vicki Kate Makes, The Sewaholic Blog (with extra links!). Alternately, there are zillions of tutorials online of how to do a FBA/rotate a dart – just Google and pick your favorite!
– For length adjustments – you can actually just hack it right off the bottom of the sleeve/length. Which is exactly what I plan on doing, fyi.
– If you’re one size in your bust and another at the waist, you can grade the sizes together to get a better fit. There’s a brief write-up on how to do this here on my blog, but essientally you’re just drawing a line to connect size x to size y to seamlessly blend between the two.

Finally – we have an Offical V1419 Coat Sewalong Flickr Group! Whoop whoop! The group is open, so please feel free to join and upload your photos to share with everyone – fabric selections, muslins, anything V1419 coat related! Additionally, there are forums if you need to ask questions or advice on fitting or selecting fabric. Meg & I will be manning the group and forums as needed, but please feel free to jump in and help if you see a question that you know the answer to! 🙂

Oh, and don’t forget the Mood Fabrics discount code, if you haven’t already purchased your fabric. “lladybird1013” is good through 10/13/14 for 10% off your order (not including PV codes or dress forms). If you missed the V1419 fabric selection post, you can see it here.

Don’t forget to read up on Meg’s muslin post over at the McCall blog! How is everyone’s muslins coming along?

Tags: coat, fba, McCall Pattern Company, Mood Fabrics, muslin, ralph rucci, v1419, v1419 sewalong, vouge patterns

Comments 25 Comments
Categories misc

V1419 Sewalong: Fabric Selection

29 Sep

Good morning & happy Monday, sewalongers! Today, we are going to talk about my favorite part of coat-making (or, really – any sewing project 🙂 ) – fabric selection! Forreal, I could spend all day perusing fabrics and never feel like I’ve seen enough!
(psst – if you’re just here for the discount code, it’s at the bottom of this post 🙂 FYI)

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, though, let’s take a minute and look at the original garment:

A couple things that immediately come to mind when I see this picture-
1. As far as coats go, there is not a lot of ease in this guy. This is not your wear-everywhere-and-pile-the-thick-sweaters-underneath sort of coat – it’s very fitted and the shape is quite dramatic. Something to keep in mind while choosing your fabric!
2. To get that dramatic shape, we need a choose a fabric with quite a stiff drape and a very firm hand. The original coat is made of a sort of heavy wool garbadine backed with a stiff wool flannel. The resulting fabric is very substantial – stiff and sturdy enough to hold it’s shape. If you make this coat in a fabric with a softer drape, you will not get the same end result. This could be good or bad, depending on how you want the finished coat to look!

Still having problems wrapping your head around the whole drape factor? Don’t know if you even want a coat that’s this dramatic and structured? Go ahead and start your muslin, using a fabric that is a similar weight to what you have in mind (if you can’t find muslin fabric with a stiff enough drape, try inexpensive cotton twill or even home decor fabric). That will give you a good idea of the drape you need to get the coat you want. For more information on fabric drape, check out this post I wrote a couple months ago!

Now let’s talk about possible fabric choices! With all big projects like this, I URGE you to swatch before you commit to anything! You don’t want to spend a lot of money on coating fabric, only to find out that the drape wasn’t as stiff as you were anticipating (been there, done that! And you can’t return fabric most of the time, argh!). Especially when it comes to the contrast for this coat – you want to make sure the colors work together, that the coating is the right weight/drape/hand, and that you actually *like* the way it looks in real life. I’m recommending these fabrics based on the website descriptions, but please don’t take my word for the gospel until you’ve actually touched it in real life.

Also, please keep in mind that this coat is UNLINED. You will want to choose a fabric that can easily slide over your arms – or you will need to underline the coat with something that serves that purpose. As far as I know, there’s not a way to completely line this particular coat (with all the insides hidden and all that). We will be covering underlining in this sewalong, we will NOT be covering lining. Consider yourself warned!

FOR WINTER-WEIGHT COATS WITH A STIFF DRAPE:

For a dense and warm coat with a nice stiff hand, you can’t go wrong with virgin wool. This fabric is not quite as stiff as the original – it will still hold that nice bell shape at the sleeves and skirt, but with softer folds. Virgin wool is actually what I bought for my coat – in a beautiful lipstick red 🙂

Another great option that will provide lots of warmth and structure is wool felt. Definitely swatch this – you don’t want it to be too thick for all those seams!

Similar to wool felt but not as dense is heavy flannel coating. Check out that purple!

I really love wool twill for a nice dense coating. Wool twill comes in many weights, so make sure it’s heavy enough to give the structure this coat needs.

Here’s another nice, heavy wool twill – this one is from Marc Jacobs!

Classic wool coatings, such as this dark turquoise solid coating will also work, as long as they are stiff enough to give the effect you want.

This plum coating is pre interfaced!

Looking forsomething a little more fancy? Up the luxe factor with this italian velvet.

Another great fabric option for this pattern (one that I believe Meg is using for her coat – although hers is this beautiful double-sided brocade!) is brocade. I love this metallic brocade!

Also, this floral brocade if you’re dying to stand out a little more.

Or you could go all out with this bright pink ribbed silk brocade, because YES.

FOR WINTER-WEIGHT COATS WITH A SOFTER DRAPE:

How gorgeous is this silk wool? This fabric would give you a much softer drape than the ones above – think less of an exaggerated bell shape for the skirt and sleeves, and softer folds at the arms.

Of course, you can’t go wrong with black cashmere coating – a true classic!

Doesn’t this wool cashmere coating just look SO snuggly? It’d be like wearing a blanket 24/7.

For a lighter wool weight with a very soft drape, consider boiled wool. I just love this bright purple color!

FOR A LIGHTER-WEIGHT COAT:

Those of y’all with milder winters – no worries, I’ve got ya covered! You have a few options for making this coat in a lighter weight, while still retaining the dramatic shape. First up – consider cotton twill! I love this organic cotton twill – especially that hot pink color, yes! – but any cotton twill will work as long as it’s heavy enough to hold it’s shape. Try to avoid anything with lycra (or any stretch), as it will make sewing this coat more difficult.

You could also make a very beautiful, very dressy lightweight coat out of silk faille.

Want the shine of the silk without the price tag? Try cotton sateen – again, be sure you are getting one with no stretch and a heavier weight.

I’m thinking this coat would also look really cool (in a super casual way) if it was made up in denim! Am I crazy? Give it some gold topstitching and brass buttons and it’s like the fanciest denim jacket in the world. This heavyweight Theory denim even comes pre-interfaced!

Obviously there are many, many more options for coating – including non-natural fibers (I’m not linking these because I personally don’t like to wear or sew with polyester anything! Sorry!) – but this should be enough to get the ideas flowing. In the meantime, let’s talk about underlining and contrast fabrics.

FOR UNDERLINING AND/OR CONTRAST:
For my coat, I knew I needed to underline with something because I’d otherwise have a difficult time pulling the coat on. I initially thought about using silk chaurmeuse, because I just love it, but ultimately decided to stick with the stiff drape theme and use silk taffeta. Silk taffeta is also recommended for all the contrast (as is chaurmeuse, but just between you and me – I don’t recommend the latter. Unless you just looove sewing bias chaurmeuse binding; in that case, don’t let me stop you!), so I actually bought two colors. I love silk taffeta! Obviously, you can use poly taffeta if that’s all your budget allows – but I like the added warmth that silk provides, so that’s why I went with that. Anyway, if you are underlining – you will want to buy the same amount of underlining as you are coating fabric. For contrast, buy whatever the pattern instructs you to buy.

Check out this kelly green silk taffeta from Oscar de la Renta! Swanky! For something a little more understated, there is also this caviar black silk taffeta from Ralph Lauren.

Love the look of silk taffeta but hate the price? There are also some beautiful polyester taffetas available, including this cool checked taffeta. This coat really isn’t suitable for plaids as the outside fabric – but as far as the contrast is concerned? Go for it!

For those of y’all who are not underlining and only need contrast for the binding, you might also consider shantung or dupioni. On a super budget? Check out cotton sateen.

Another thing to consider with the contrast fabric – there is contrast on both the outside of the coat (for the bound button holes, belt, and pocket), as well as the inside (bound seams). Keep in mind that, while the pattern is written for all contrast to be the same fabric – you don’t have to sew your coat that way. Use the fancy stuff for the outside, and bind the inside with something fun (even a woven cotton, if that’s your thing.). You’re the designer here! Just make sure to swatch so you know that you like the way your contrast looks next to your main fabric.

Couple more things, while on the fabric subject!
– Concerned about warmth, but don’t want to make the coat too bulky? Stick with natural fibers (wool coating, silk underlining) and consider interlining your coat with silk organza for an additional layer of warmth.
– Found your dream fabric but it’s just a *smidge* too drapey? Get some good interfacing and block-fuse that baby! Fashion Sewing Supply has a great super crisp interfacing, or even fusible hair canvas. FYI, this coat does not call for interfacing at all – so you only need to buy it if your fabric requires some extra heft.

Whew! I think that’s enough fabric talk for today. For sticking through it this far, I’ve got a discount for ya! Use the code “lladybird1013” to get 10% off your entire order at Mood Fabrics (not including PV codes or dress forms). This code is good through 10/13/14, so you’ve got time to swatch 🙂

I promise I will share photos of my fabric as soon as I receive it (still stalking the mailbox, daily. Ha!). In the meantime – what about you? What fabrics are you eyeballing? Do you have any fun ideas for the contrast? Is your coat a lighter weight? Let’s talk!

One last thing – time to announce the Sewtionary Giveaway winner! Lucky number generator says:

Congratulations, Jin! Crossing your scissors apparently worked 🙂 I’ll be in touch to get that book out to ya asap 🙂 Everyone else – if you’d like to pick up your own copy of the Sewtionary, you can order a signed copy at the Sewaholic website. The Sewtionary is also available on Amazon!

Tags: coat, discount, fabric, fabric hoarding, gorgeous fabrics, McCall Pattern Company, Mood Fabrics, ralph rucci, sewalong, v1419, v1419 sewalong, vogue

Comments 57 Comments
Categories sewalong

Announcing the Vogue 1419 Sewalong!

17 Sep

Hey guys and gals! Remember this coat we all made fun of?

Then remember when I tried it on and realized it was actually amazing?

YAY $10K DESIGNER COAT!!

Well, here’s the thing. I want this dang Ralph Rucci coat for my very own – and I want to make it. After chatting with The McCall Pattern Company – and realizing that a lot of y’all are hankering for your own Ralph Rucci Dream Coat – we’ve decided to partner up together and host a sewalong for Vogue 1419! LET’S ALL MAKE FANCY DESIGNER COATS, Y’ALL!

The sewalong officially kicks off on 9/29, which gives you plenty of time to buy your pattern and begin sourcing fabrics. Don’t worry – the first couple of weeks will be nice and slow, with tips on fabric selection (and yes, I’m working on snagging y’all a sweet discount!), muslin-making, and prepping all your pieces so we can dive straight into sewing in mid-October. We will finish our coats on 11/10, with a finished coat parade on 11/17. The sewalong posts will alternate weekly between here and on The McCall Pattern Blog, so make sure you’re following both!

Keep in mind that while this is a coat pattern – it’s not a traditional tailored coat, so there will be no scary pad stitching or lining (although I will be underlining my version, so we’ll have some tips on that as well 🙂 ). While I wouldn’t recommend this pattern to a true beginner, I think a super adventurous/advanced beginner could probably swing this – just make a muslin, take your time and aim for accuracy! We’ll be photographing every step, which will make construction easier (and of course, the posts will be up indefinitely if you decide that you need to revisit your couture coat dreams at a later date 🙂 ). The McCall Pattern Company has lots of interior shots of the coat in this Pinterest board if you want to see more of the deets. It’s a really beautiful coat that lends itself to lots of fun customization!

Here’s the full schedule of events:
9/22/2014 Social media: official hashtags, Flickr group, Pinterest board & blog badges
9/29/2014 Selecting your fabric
10/6/2014 Making your muslin
10/13/2014 Prep week: cutting your fabric; marking your pattern pieces; underlining (if applicable); creating bias binding; reinforcing and staystitching (Steps 1-3 and step 35)
10/20/2014 Attaching the gusset, binding, belt & side seams (steps 4-22)
10/27/2014 Sewing the sleeves & back (steps 23-50)
11/3/2014 Assembling the pockets (steps 51-63)
11/10/2014 Finishing: Facing, button holes, buttons, and hem (steps 64-86)
11/17/2014 Parade of coats

I know that sounds like a lot of work for each week, but keep in mind that most of the steps involved are instructing you to sew bias binding. Those of us who have made unlined bias bound coats before know that once you get into a groove, it’s not so bad 🙂 Plus, I don’t want this to drag on forever! I want to take my coat to London, dangit! 🙂

Ready to join in the coat-making fun? AWESOME! Don’t forget to buy your pattern – there’s a sale going on right now through 9/19, yay! – and make sure to follow The McCall Pattern Blog if you’re not already doing so. Next week, we’ll have all the official badges and hashtags so you can pretty up your blogs 🙂

In the meantime… who’s in? What’s your dream Ralph Rucci coat look like? I’m currently manhandling some of the most gorgeous red wool coatings, can’t wait to make this baby up! 🙂

Tags: coat, coatmaking, McCall Pattern Company, ralph rucci, sewalong, sewing, v1419, vogue patterns

Comments 133 Comments
Categories sewalong

NYC Part 2: Touring the McCall Pattern Company

25 Aug

Ok, y’all, time for part 2 of my NYC journey – touring the offices of the McCall Pattern Company! Whoop whoop!

Before I get too far into this post, there are a couple of things I’d like to address, as I’ve had some emails and comments about this:
– The McCall Pattern Company did NOT fly me into NY to visit their offices. Umm… I wish? I paid for my plane ticket all by myself, sorry!
– I did not come to NY specifically to visit The McCall Pattern Company – I was here to teach a workshop at Workroom Social. As soon as I announced my impending visit, I was emailed by Meg from McCall’s and offered an invite to tour the offices while I was there.
– Meg is the new Social Media Pro at McCall’s. If you’ve talked to anyone from McCall via Twitter, Instagram, their blog, etc – you were likely talking to Meg. I personally have known Meg for a couple of years now – well before she went into working for McCall’s – which is why she reached out to me to visit while I was in the city. Much to some the butthurt anonymous commentary on my blog, McCall doesn’t have a grand scheme of shutting me down (I mean, let’s be real you guys – I’m not hurting their sales when I post commentaries. There are a WHOLE lot of other sewists out there who don’t read my blog/don’t read blogs/don’t care about my opinion on Koos Van Den Akker. They still buy the patterns – some of the traffic coming directly from my blog. So there’s that.). They simply wanted to reach out and let me see the company, so, (in their own words) that when I’m talking my shit, at least I’m getting the facts straight 😉
– I’m sure there are people who are thinking about what a sellout I am right now. That’s totally fine. You do you! I got over that whole ~sooo underground anti-coporation~ shit when I was like 17. DGAF.

With all that being said – OMG! Longtime dream – accomplished! I’ve ALWAYS wanted to lurk around the offices of this pattern company (as much as I poke fun at them, it doesn’t excuse the fact that we are still talking about dream job territory here. Nevermind that I’m not a patternmaker in any sense of the imagination, nor do I plan to become one), so this was an absolute treat for me! Full disclosure – I went into the offices with every intention of taking lots of photos (hence my phone in my hand in, well, every picture haha. Wish that dress had some pockets!), but since I never end up doing what I planned, all the photos you see in this post were taking by Meg. Thanks, Meg!

I got the grand tour, you guys – I saw every department, met sooo many people (except the CEO, who was unfortunately in a meeting when I arrived. Oh well! Next time!), and a few of them even knew who I was! So crazy!

One of the biggest things I learned was just how freakin’ small this company is! Sure, they had a hell of a lot more employees than any of the indie designers we know and love – but it’s not like there are thousands of them, scattered across the world in giant corporate offices, with a big fat CEO smoking a cigar in his silk bed jacket and laughing all the way to the bank (I mean, I know I just said I never actually met the CEO but I’m just gonna ASSUME here, you guys). Everything is done in-house in NYC – they produce the patterns for McCall’s, Butterick, Vogue, Kwik Sew, and even do Vogue Pattern Magazine. Each individual department is very small – some only having a couple of employees at most. It’s also one of those companies where everyone is basically family, which I just think is really nice and feels good to be around. Everyone was extremely friendly and clearly very happy to be there.

There are a LOT of rooms and departments – the fabric library (where they keep zillions of swatches, plus buttons and trims and notions and, oh god, it was heaven in there), drafting, dressmaking, customer service, in-house photography (complete with racks of clothing and even more racks of shoes aieeee), etc etc. All in all, I think I was there for about 3 hours – flitting around, chatting everyone up, getting all grabby hands on the various fabrics (and apologizing every few minutes. Forreal, my mom hates shopping with me because I’m incapable of not touching things. This is why I hate museums and love flea markets, haha).

Checking out the fabric room and perusing the samples was one of my favorite parts. Sooo much eye-candy!

This look of wide-eyed wonderment was pretty much plastered to my face the entire time I was in there, ha!

Another highlight of my tour was getting to finally meet the famed Vogue Pattern Designer, Carlos Correa (I didn’t get a photo with him, but you can see him chatting about some of the designer pieces in this McCall blog post). The very first thing he said to me was, “I LOVE YOUR BLOG!” hahahahaa!! Apparently, he reads it and loves the pattern round-ups (and I reckon he’s reading it right now, so HI CARLOS!). I spent a long time in his office, talking about the pattern and their styling vs how they look in real life, and saw some of the new designs for next season as well. I can’t say much about those, but what I can say is I kept going, “Oooh! I want one of those!” haha!

I also stopped in the Vogue Pattern Magazine offices, to chat with the Editor and LURK THOSE DESIGNER DRESSES.

Did you know that the outfits on the Vogue American Designer pattern envelopes are actual designer garments? That was news to me! Take Vogue 1409, the Saber-Toothed Tiger dress, for instance. This dress literally came from the Donna Karan Collection – and McCall’s based the pattern off it, then used the actual dress in the photoshoot. It wasn’t sewn by them, nor did they choose the fabric (since it’s from Donna Karan). If you look inside, you’ll see all the tags – including the original price tag. This is much better explained on the McCall Pattern Blog, but that’s the general gist.

With that being said, the next order of business was to try on the $10,000 Ralph Rucci coat.

Me: If it fits, that means I get to keep it, right?
Everyone else: lolololololol

Damn, that thing was a work of ART! I know I hated on the arm holes at one point (that’s such a random thing to hate on, ha), but seeing it in person absolutely made me change my mind (and I still think it looks weird on the envelope photo, maybe it’s just the way the model is standing?). The inside is amazing – all bound seams and even some hand stitches! Apparently there’s a whole Pinterest board for lurking the inside of the designer garments, so we can all drool from far away.

After that, it was obviously time to play dress-up. Because, duh.

In another Ralph Rucci original (pattern is Vogue 1404), featuring the wind machine 😉 Also, those shoes are like 4 sizes too big.

Obviously I had to try on the Guy Laroche purple nightmare (that is actually silk chaurmeuse) (pattern is Vogue 1416. The sleeves were cracking me up to no end.

Hahaha!
(side note: holy shit I need to touch up my hair color)

Ughhh WANT THIS COAT (pattern is Vogue 1419)

I had an amazing time visiting the offices and meeting all the wonderful people who work so hard to produce all these patterns (whether you personally love them or not, I think we can all agree that the sheer amount of patterns they put out every year is quite impressive!). I did bring up some personal beefs – the excessive ease, the styling situation – as I feel like these are areas that do need some improvement. My opinions were definitely heard, and some things were already in the process of being addressed before I even brought them up, thanks to customer feedback. The McCall Pattern Company is absolutely interested in what the consumer has to say, and they’re making a huge effort to reach out to the online sewing community and bridge that gap. I know it’s really easy to hate on the ~big guy~ for just being there (especially when it’s a faceless corporation), but at the end of the day – I want to support the sewing community and it’s future! I’m absolutely invested in doing whatever I can to bring home sewists more options, and that includes supporting the Big 4. It was such a treat to visit the offices and get to know the people who make things happen there.

If you have a question or a complaint about a pattern from the McCall Pattern Company – contact them! They don’t know there is a problem unless you tell them, and their customer service department is extremely dedicated when it comes to helping. Follow their blog to learn more about the company, Like their Facebook page, lurk their Pinterest. Don’t be afraid to reach out and chat them up if you have a comment or concern. I’d love to see the gap close between the Big 4 and Indie pattern companies – I mean, we’re all in this for the love of sewing, right?

(me hanging in the styling room. I was told to pretend I was fixing my hair – I promise I don’t sit at every available mirror and preen, haha! Although my hair did look really good that day. Minus the whole I need-to-redye-it situation)

Now, I can’t stop thinking about that Ralph Rucci coat…

I am definitely going to sew the shit out of that pattern. Just need to find my perfect red wool.

Tags: butterick, McCall Pattern Company, mccalls, meet-up, NYC, patterns, sewing patterns, vogue

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Another Weekend in NYC!

22 Aug

Hey everyone! Sorry I went into dead radio-silence for a minute there – as most of you know, I spent the last long weekend in NYC, and I got home to Nashville on Monday. I’ve been running around like crazy trying to catch up since then – all the work-related things I put off while I was gone, prepping for a court date that was set for yesterday, and my video shoot for The Sewing Party is early next week! Oh, and I agreed to housesit this week, too, which means I’m not even home right now! I’ve been replying intermittently to emails and comments as I can, and this is the first chance I’ve had to actually sit down and type up at blog post. Whew! Now I understand how people fall off the blog wagon – it’s hard to get back when you’ve been off it, even for a week.

Don’t worry, though – I’m not going anywhere. I enjoy this space waaay too much 😉

So, anyway! NYC! Today, I just want to give a lil’ recap of what happened over the weekend… I’ll be going over a couple things in more detail in future posts next week (I knowwww, I didn’t want to drag this out into multiple posts, but otherwise we would have had something that was the length of a small novel! Anyway, it’s my blog, I do what I want :P). I also don’t have very many photos that I actually took myself, because as we all know at this point – I don’t ever take photos. Too busy having fun, that’s my excuse!

So, anyway! I started out my weekend on Thursday morning in the gorgeous studio space that is Workroom Social. If you’ve ever lurked Jennifer’s blog or Instagram, you know the space is obviously beautiful… but I can’t even put into words how great it was to see in person! It’s very well set up, with a big cutting table in the center and machines surrounding it against the walls. There are shelves, stacked with boxes full of notions and supplies, and the pressing stations are that they aren’t in the way of the cutting or sewing machines. Everything is beautiful and filled with sunlight, and there is some legit Parisian sewing studio music playing in the background. Guys, I love my sewing room – but I’m INSANELY jealous of this one! Good thing I got to hang out there for a weekend, yeah?

Anyway, Jennifer and I went over the upcoming class – she’d made a couple changes to the pattern we were using (simple stuff, like adding a pocket facing), I showed her my sample I made up at home, etc etc. We had a couple of hours to kill before dinner, so we decided to kill the time by going to… Ikea! Hahaha!! Don’t laugh at me; I live in Nashville and the closest Ikea is 4 hours away in Atlanta. I am not exaggerating when I say you can sell used/broken Ikea furniture here for close to the same price as what it costs new (I know this because I’ve done it… I set the price high to get some haggling going and NO ONE HAGGLED WITH ME. Well, ok then!). People in Nashville think Ikea is special (well, I do too, but I wouldn’t pay $80 for a broken Expedit I’m just sayin’). Jennifer indulged me – she needed to pick up a couple things for class – and we even went through all the little fake rooms and apartments. Ha! I bought some boxes, but not much else because I wanted to keep my suitcase empty for fabric.

Afterward, Jennifer took me to see the Statue of Liberty, from a Brooklyn perspective. Can you believe that this is the first time I’ve seen this thing in person? Also never been to the Empire State Building, Central Park (kind of sad about that one!) or.. I dunno, touristy things. I love doing them, don’t get me wrong (I am SO not anti-tourist – in my own town or someone else’s!), but I never have time! Womp womp. So at least I got to see the Statue of Liberty from afar. Isn’t she so gorgeous and… tiny? Ha!

Friday morning, I managed to make it downtown with the help of Carolina (who also agreed to meet up with me way early in Brooklyn for coffee and breakfast – yay!), without which I might otherwise still be wandering around NYC, lost and confused (I’m sorry, I just cannot understand the subway system. The lack of good public transportation in my own city is mostly to blame for that). Anyway, I had an early meeting with the The McCall Pattern Company – you know, the same people responsible for Vogue Patterns!

YEP.

There is SO MUCH to say about that experience – all good stuff, promise! – way too much to tack into this blog post. It’ll have it’s own blog post (with all the dirty details and PHOTOS) next week! Just know that I had an amazing time, learned a LOT about the company, and I’m still alive 🙂 Ha!

Also, I totally tried on a $10,000 Ralph Rucci couture coat. That was pretty cool!

After McCall (and a brief walk down Wall Street, because lurking investment bankers is highly entertaining to me), I met up with Heather Lou so we could get to the Garment District for our meet-up! Oh, right, Heather Lou and Vicki came down from Canada to hang! It was awesome meeting both those ladies in real life – I’ve been email chatting Heather up for a good year or so now at this point, but this was my first chance to actually HUG her! My weekend schedule was pretty hectic, so I didn’t get to spend as much time when them as I would have liked, but we made every moment count. Starting with fabric shopping 🙂

I never did get around to getting a selfie with Heather, but here is a photo of her being incredibly cool, hanging on the stoop in Brooklyn. In case you were wondering, she always looks this cool. It is maddening.

The Garment District meet-up had a great turnout! I initially assumed it would be very small – we started at 3pm on a Friday, after all – but y’all New Yorkers sure know how to sneak out of work early 🙂 Or maybe your offices are just more lax on a summer Friday! (mine rarely was, boo! Good thing I’m self-employed now so I get to do what I want haha). We started out in Mood Fabrics, where I finally got to really sink my teeth in the wool aisles – I’m always there in the spring, which puts me in the ~mood~ (lolz) for summer fabrics. This time, though, I was ready for some winter pieces! We spent a couple hours in Mood before charging through the rest of the ‘District.

Since we started so late on a Saturday, we didn’t get to hit very many more shops. I did make it a point to go to Paron Fabrics, because I had a Groupon *and* they were having a 40% off sale. I did get some nice stuff there, although a couple of the employees were a little rude. The guy letting us out did not believe me when I said I’d flown in from Nashville to buy fabric – he asked me if I knew Elvis. My response was, “Elvis is from Memphis!” to which he replied, “Good! You passed the test!” Ha! Right, ok dude 🙂

After we were done shopping, it was time to find a place to eat! We originally were going to sit in Bryant Park, but a few people said the weather wasn’t really ideal, so we looked for a restaurant that could accommodate our large party and all our bags. The first place we looked at was massively full (figures, 7pm on a Friday!), but the guys across the street at Black Iron Burger were going crazy trying to wave us in so we obliged. The restaurant wasn’t very full, but there wasn’t enough table space to fit all of us, so they set about rearranging the damn restaurant to make a big enough table! This place was freaking awesome, by the way. Not only did they manage to accommodate us, they were unfazed by the additional drop-ins that meant they had to keep adding tables and finding chairs (we had a HUGE party! I wish I would have though to get a picture of everyone! I told you, I’m bad with photos). The service was great, the beers were $4 (ahhh yeeaaah!) and the food was delicious. Our party came and went – people dropped in, people dropped out – but a good chunk of us stayed until 1:00 AM. I tagged along with Fleur back to Brooklyn, and we got to have a lovely chat on the train (and then of course, I started talking about the Bell Witch and I think I scared her with my ghost stories. I’m sorry, Fleur! Come see me in Tennessee and we won’t go near Adams, promise!).

Saturday & Sunday was spent hanging in Workroom Social, teaching the wonderful world of pants-making! Again, I will be writing a separate blog post about my experience teaching at Workroom Social, and working with Jennifer, because there’s simply too much to squeeze in this post. It was an AWESOME weekend and I met so many amazing ladies (and got to spend tons of time with all of them!). Jenny, my newest little treasure, wrote a post on her experience in the class, if you’re interested to read about it from a student perspective.

Also, at some point during the week (that would appear to be Saturday, based on what I’m wearing), I ended up with a sandwich the size of my head. Oh, America. In case you were wondering, that shit was delicious.

This was the first time I’ve visited NYC and spent more on food than I did on fabric! I barely bought anything – I was feeling very restricted because winter-weight fabrics weigh so much, and plus, I only spent a few hours there on one day (vs my normal 3 days in a row, ha!). I assure you, my bank account was very happy with this situation, but next time I’ll definitely need to plan for more fabric time 🙂 Here’s what I ended up bringing home:

Top (from left to right): Stretch black denim (Paron), striped ponte knit (Mood), striped ponte knit (Mood)(fuck yeah I have this knit in all 4 colorways now – black and white, white and black, navy and white, white and navy. Don’t judge me.), reversible wool doubleknit (Paron).
Bottom (from left to right): Black wool knit (Mood), dark grey wool knit (Mood), black stretch twill (Mood), grey wool knit (Paron).
Middle: WOOL SWEATER KNIT WITH STARS. Omg is that shit not amazing!? It was sooo hard not to buy the whole bolt (ok, it wasn’t *that* hard – shit was $25 a yard!), but I only bought enough to make a long-sleeved top. It’s so soft and amazing, can’t wait to sew it up. Devra bought some too, so now we are fabric twins ♥
Not shown: I also bought elastics for bra-making (I looked for fabrics and powermesh, but the guys at Spandex House were being total dicks so I gave up and left. Speaking of dicks, there is dick fabric there. I’m not talking about cartoons. The fabric has actual photographs screenprinted on it. HA! I seriously considered buying some, but Landon draws the line at dick fabric. He doesn’t draw many lines so I’m ok with letting him have this one), and rivets and buttons and zippers for jeans. Some fun sewing coming up this fall, yay!

I had an amazing time in New York, and that’s 100% due to all the great company I had. Thanks to everyone who came out for a meet-up – or dinner – or coffee – or fabric shopping – or whatever! It was so inspiring and refreshing to talk to so many like-minded women, and to have conversations that didn’t focus on gossip or trash-talking, but encouragement and nerdy sewing and knitting talk! Y’all are all the best! I think I wore myself ragged from trying to do everything at once, but it was totally worth it 🙂

It was hard coming back to Nashville – hard, but also lovely. I love NYC so so much, but Nashville just feels good. It was good to see my wretched cat, my awesome boyfriend, and sleep in *my* bed. I snapped this photo of Nashville yesterday when I got out of court – I had already paid for parking, so I decided to play tourist and walk down Lower Broadway, as well as check out the Observation Tower at Public Square (which is that big patch of green in front of the courthouse). Such a pretty birds-eye view, don’t you think?

Oh, one more thing –

I’m coming to London at the end of November! I will be staying with my favorite traveling roomie, Clare, and YES there will be fabric shopping! I definitely want to plan a meet-up for one of those Saturdays, and I have some other plans that are currently in the process of being cooked up (more on that later!). I haven’t been to London in a good 17 years (wait, has it really been that long??), so needless to say – I’m pretty fucking excited!

Tags: fabric hoarding, Garment District, giant blog recap, mccall, McCall Pattern Company, meet-up, Mood Fabrics, NYC, teaching, workroom social