project past: ADRI, vintage vogue individualist designer pattern 1807

I have made this particular Vogue individualist pattern by Adri several times. The first time i used a beautiful dove grey fake-fur fabric for the jacket/coat and did not make the vest, because i did not want to cover this material.  Still remember when i finished this coat in winter of 2000/01, because i wore it to reunite with a friend for a visit in Paris, seemed appropriate to wear this coat there for the first time.  Alas, don't have this first edition of my version of this pattern anymore, but should you want to make just the coat without the vest a fake-fur fabric works well for this pattern because of the clean and simple lines of this design.

For the second edition of this coat i used a quilted shiny bottle green fabric and though it turned out all right i did not wear this green version a lot before it ended up in my good-will bag. Basically: wrong colour/fabric, felt like the incredible hulk due to the bulky green material i used ;-)

I have made a third version since and this time included the vest, unfortunately the black knitted fabric i used for the jacket/coat doesn't wear very well, or rather the coat doesn't keep its shape on account of the elasticity of the knitted fabric. This fabric was an open knit but after prewashing it too hot it had accidentally felted to a closed thick rather stiff material. Hence my decision to use this fabric to make a coat. I added a quilted lining that was finished with a black acetate on one side and a grey acetate fabric on the other side with the batting in between. This to offset any remaining openness in the black knitted fabric to prevent wind-chill. The vest is made of a light weight printed fake-fur.  Wearing both the vest with the coat is rather bulky but nice and warm on a cold winter day.  I'm thinking about remaking the coat of a light weight felted wool fabric in a light grey colour to match the vest.  Haven't decided yet but i think i will do so.

It is an easy coat to make, simple and straight forward. As usual i have made some changes to this design:  a lining is added for extra warmth, so far not buttons but fur-clips or snaps were used as a closure with a hook and eye clasp at the collar for my latest version of this pattern. It is a very loose fitting coat and because the pattern dates from 1986, it has the extended big shoulders with shoulder pads.   I remember using smaller shoulder pads in the first version of the coat, but no shoulder pads were used in this present black version. As a result i had to take in the coat in for about 2,5 cm  (1 inch) at the side seams  ( and adjust the side pockets) to get the proportions right for all the versions i made. Otherwise the coat would have been too loose fitting on my small frame.  Mind you the raglan sleeves of this design are perfect for a wintercoat, one can easily wear a thick sweater or vest underneath this jacket. Getting rid of the big shoulderpads makes for quite a timeless clean and classic design.  Don't need a shawl, the high collar keeps you warm. Add the vest for another warm layer and a different look.  Basically one gets two coats in one with this Vogue individualist pattern by Adri.

project past: donna karan, vintage vogue american designer pattern 2586

Like shoes, one can never have to many winter coats :-) because that is all everybody gets to see you wearing when outdoors in winter.

That's one of the reasons i still make my own winter coats. I prefer to wear a unique  coat because i dislike wearing the same store bought coat as everyone else. Plus i have a choice in winter coats to wear.  Mind you it helps that i can sew these coats myself.  This coat by designer Donna Karan was made a few winters ago from Vogue American designer pattern 2586.  Like the Montana coat in the previous post, a similar faux-fur fabric was used for this pattern.  I was lucky enough to purchase this dark forest green faux-fur material the winter before at the open air market in the city i live in for a great price.  (bought so much of this fabric to easily make another coat at some future point in time)

According to the envelope, the pattern needs average sewing skills to make this coat.  The following changes were made to the pattern: I added a lining to this coat, because of the fabric i used and because a lining adds extra warmth to a winter coat.  To do this i traced the necessary pieces of the pattern on special pattern paper and subtracted the facing, which was a bit of a nuisance but it worked out fine.  Another thing that was added were side front pockets, so much more practical.   The inset seams of the sleeves  below the armpit were also changed.   More room was added by sewing smaller seams ( i may even have added to the seam when cutting the fabric, i 'm not sure) in order that i could wear the thickness of winter clothes underneath this coat. I always make sure that i have plenty of room in the shoulder/ sleeve inset, and the picture on the envelope of the pattern showed that the sleeves at the upper arm seemed fairly narrow.  The faux-fur material works wonderful for this flared coat.  It falls in beautiful folds, something to take into account when purchasing fabric for this design. Heavy woolen fabrics may be too stiff, on the other hand that might result in a particular desired effect.  Fur hooks were used as a closure. The belt was purchased in a store.

It is a wonderful coat to wear with a dress or top,skirt and boots underneath or worn more casually with jeans. It's elegant, timeless and feminine, so typical of Donna Karan's designs. Thank you Donna Karan for sharing your designs via Vogue patterns with us, sewnistas  Affordable Democratic Design for your fans with a small purse. This design is less warm because of the shorter length than the vogue Montana coat described in the previous blog, but nevertheless serves very well as a winter coat.  Happy with the result and wear this coat often with a nice scarf or woolen shawl and mohair beret when the outdoor temperatures become cold.

project past: Claude Montana, vintage vogue Paris original pattern 2204

Another sewing project past that i made approximately 10 years ago is a design by Claude Montana, Vogue Paris Original Pattern 2204.  I still wear this coat on the occasion that it gets really cold in Holland ;-) So last winter i didn't get to wear it at all  :-(  Even though i do not reside in Canada anymore i still make very warm winter coats as if to withstand the Canadian winter windchill temperatures of - 40 Celsius.  Mind you the wet Dutch sea climate can chill you to the bones because of the dampness. So whenever it snows or outside temperatures reach below - 5 C, this is the coat to wear.  Only thing is, i cannot bicycle in this coat, which becomes tricky anyway with snow on the roads because Holland is only geared toward removing very light snowfall from highways and main roads on such occasions.

The fabric i used is a chocolate brown faux-fur with a woven backing. ( it is not a knitted faux-fur fabric) It's a beautiful material that might even get mistaken for the real thing. Or i assume that passersby make this mistake, because i sometimes get a dirty look when i wear this coat, but most of the time i get compliments.  It is not a difficult coat to make. The pattern has an average rating on the envelope. But i didn't add the cord for top stitching which makes things easier. The faux-fur is a good choice for this pattern because the fabric falls beautiful in spite of the thickness of the material. Actually, a heavy woolen fabric might even be too stiff  for this flared pattern with its large collar?   I did not use the recommended shoulder pads, plus made smaller seams when stitching the sleeves into the armholes. I do this purposely (with almost all my winter coats) so i can wear a thicker sweater or jacket underneath this coat and still have ample room for moving my arms without fabric bunching up because of a tightness in the shoulders.  Several  fur hooks were used as a closure for this coat. Side front pockets are also wonderful to keep hands warm. Add a knitted hat and woolen scarf plus thick leather gloves and off i go for walks through a Dutch winter wonderland on the incidental occasion. The pattern for this coat is a timeless classic: Thank you Claude Montana for sharing your designs via Vogue patterns with us, sewnistas. Affordable democratic design for your less affluent customers.

project past: issey miyake, vintage vogue designer pattern 2979

One of the most dramatic coats i ever made has been hanging on my spare clothing rack for approximately 14 years. Not that i don't like it. It is my version of the vintage vogue pattern 2979 by designer issey miyake, so what is not to like.
It is a great pattern because the coat is reversible so essentially you get  2 coats in one!

I made it from a ivory satin fabric with a black rubber coating on the back of this fabric. Plus i extended the pattern to just above ankle for a longer proportion and therein lies the  problem: the coat weighs close to 2 kilograms, it is heavy. Plus the elastic for the drape at the bottom in the back of the coat (as a result of my lengthening the pattern) sits exactly at knee level and cuts in to the back of my knees when walking. Another thing i changed was adding an elasticized tunnel at waist level plus 2 loops to put a belt on this coat in order to close it. It has no closure in the design and that is not very handy for a raincoat especially in Holland. So even though it looks all right and i really like the design of this coat, i have not worn it much, nevertheless it is one project i cannot seem to part with. I do wear it sometimes for Carnival, a masquerade festivity in the south of Holland in February / March when i go to watch the parade. I only have to add a mask and i'm wearing a very dramatic costume. Because of my choice of fabric and by extending the length it seems to have become a coat for the catwalk, quite extravagant.

Maybe one day i will remake this coat from a light weight parachute fabric, i all ready have the material but there is another issey miyake coat for which the fabric has been cut and sits waiting on my sewing desk to be made for some time now.
It's been too long ago since i used this pattern to comment on the sewing skills needed.  It has an average rating according to the pattern envelope. It is mostly a lot of work because of the welt pockets and the seams are stitched in a flat fell seam as a finishing touch because the coat is reversible.

What is most wonderful about this and his other patterns is the democratic sharing of his designs.  I am very grateful that Mr. issey miyake allowed some of his designs to be distributed by Vogue patterns for  his fans with a smaller purse who cannot afford to buy his clothes ready made in one of his beautiful stores ( i've been to the one in Antwerp, Belgium) Actually making his designs yourself is even more satisfying because you get to experience the genius of this man: he is a sculptor of fabric.  Thank you Mr. Issey Miyake!  Hopefully i will visit Japan one day, it is on the top of my wishlist, but traveling to Japan is so expensive.  Would love to see the the 21 21 Design Sight Museum of which issey miyake is one of the directors together with tadao ando, my favorite Japanese architect.

Below the photographs of my version of Vogue pattern 2979 by issey miyake, this pattern dates from1992.

YouTube video of fashion show with catwalk version of this pattern at 3.36 minutes. "Issey Miyake" Autumn Winter 1990 1991 Paris Pret a Porter Woman:

things present

I've been residing in Holland again since 1990. There is one particular advantage to this when it comes to sewing: an open air / public market twice a week till noon all year round except public holidays in the city i live in.  So i have managed to accumulate an enormous amount of beautiful fabric which barely fits in one floor to ceiling cupboard. I can almost start my own fabric stall, so i do not allow myself to buy anymore fabric at this point until i have used up some of the fabric i all ready have. But when i do see one more beautiful piece of material for a market price i do still make exceptions ;-)

Another thing i acquired some years ago is my indestructible sewing machine: an old fashioned Pfaff 362. A colleague suggested i get one of these machines after we both received a garbage bag each full of leather scraps from a local furniture factory. And yes this semi-industrial machine from the 60's can sew  leather easily even if this device is half a century old.  A wonderful machine with no plastic-fantastic parts of which sewing machines are made today. Afterwards i bought 3 more of  these machines on the Internet with the idea to start a sewing class, but i never did due to lack of time. So i intend to sell 2 of these machines and keep the newest ones when i get around to that eventually.

My latest purchase this spring was an adjustable dressform / mannequin. My first one after more than 30 years of sewing! I  bought this secondhand mannequin on the Internet because it is a special one and i cannot afford the oh so 'special' new price. It is a Casoli, an Italian dressform and i love the design of it. It looks great on its sturdy stainless steel stand  and the fun thing about this mannequin is the additional feature of an adjustable bust: it can be pushed out by 2 levers below the form to adjust bust size even more but they also go up or down i.e. take gravity into account for sagging bust points ha ha ha. When i purchased it, the dressform was covered in its original red elasticized smocked cotton cover, but this cover was old, faded and stretched out. I replaced it with a cover made from a stretchy wool blend fabric. The mannequin is adjustable from an approximate size 8 to 18 by turning the knob on top of the dressform. The size is displayed on the small plastic frame in the neck when you turn the knob, they are Italian dress sizes but easily converted. I will also be using this dressform to photograph my sewing projects, this way it will be about the design of the clothing and not the person in it.

 I will start with my sewing projects from the past, that is to say the ones that are still hanging in my closet or on my clothing rack and have not ended up in the good-will bag even though there was nothing wrong with them. If i had kept all my sewing projects I've made over the years i'd probably need a walk-in closet the size of my present sewing room.  Letting go of the things you cherish is part of life too, plus will make room for new sewing projects still to come.

Some of the photo's of the sewing projects in the posts of this blog are and will be also published on pinterest; https://www.pinterest.com/fabSEWnista/

 

things past

Decided to start writing a blog to record my sewing projects, past present and future. Well unfortunately not all sewing projects from my past, simply because I do not have photo's of the finished results from when I started sewing more than 30 years ago.

 
When my family and I emigrated to Canada in the late 70's, I asked my mom (thanks mom!) to teach me the basics to sew my own clothing, simply because I did not like the clothing that was being sold in Canadian stores.  Growing up in the Netherlands my mother made some of the clothing for her daughters from patterns in Dutch pattern magazines named 'Knip' and 'Marion' which were very fashionable in the 60's 70's and 80's and the former magazine is still sold today. I always liked fashion but in particular I always preferred to wear coats that were different and stood out in a crowd.  So as a child and teenager I wore a bright yellow fake leather/fur coat, a bright lacquered red coat and a shiny silver metallic rain jacket just to name a few.  What also stands out in my memory is the Holly Hobbie dress my mother made for me when I was a preteen.  When living in Canada in the 80's I was sewing a lot of my own clothing in earnest from Vogue patterns and from the patterns of the German fashion pattern magazine Burda international.

I still have the latter magazines, unfortunately I do not have the vogue patterns anymore because I moved back to the Netherlands in 1990 and my family moved to a different town within Canada and my patterns did not move with them.  Nevertheless I still have quite a few Vogue Designer patterns from that era that I managed to buy again on Ebay. And throughout the years I kept buying my Vogue Designer patterns when visiting my family (simply because these patterns are more expensive here in Holland, no sales like in North America).  My favorite designer is Issey Miyake and I own quite a few of his patterns.  Made quite a few of these designs too, though with my small frame some of his designs seem to overwhelm my petite body type.

Anyway, my reason for writing this blog is because I have sewn so much but I have so few photo's of all these past sewing projects from this pre-digital era.  So intend to record and publish on the web for posterity those sewing projects which I still own, which am making now and may be making in the future.  Who knows I might inspire some other sewnistas  ;-)

fabSEWnista
(by the way, fab stands for fabric and/or fabulous designer patterns which i both love, but is not about my sewing skills as I am self-taught, I am not a seamstress )

Some of the photo's of the sewing projects in the posts of this blog are and will be also published on pinterest; https://www.pinterest.com/fabSEWnista/