Tag: Buttonholes

Cycling Skirt

Making a turn of the century bicycle skirt for the non-car owning people among us.

During the pattern buying spree of 2020 (that rhymes!), I also got Black Snail Patterns #0714 Bicycle Skirt about 1900. At some point when the corona lockdown wasn’t as bad as it was now, I’d purchased 5-6 meters of a sand coloured (no, it’s beige but I hate that word) fabric. I think it might be a sort of twill, but I’m not certain at all. I’d also found some sand and white checked fabric that I thought would work well for a blouse to go with the thicker twill stuff. While the paper pattern has been cut out for a while now, getting started on it proved to be a little more difficult.

  • Back
  • Side
  • Pocket
  • Front

Eventually, however, I managed to get going and once I did, the thing was done in three days. I chose to make the third size but once I’d cut it out and was measuring everything, I got scared and wanted to have some more space in the waist. So I moved all the markings on the side – front seams over by a centimeter. The seam allowance was 2 centimeters so that wasn’t too big of an issue. I think that this was probably a good call as I can now wear the skirt without foundation garments too. I also took 8 cm out of the hem and disregarded their instructions for the spacing of the hem-stitching. Most of it was sewn on the treadle, with certain bits being hand-sewn on.

  • Buttonholes and decoration
  • Button stitching
  • Back decorations and bar tack

The appliques where sewn on using a thicker thread, the same that was used for the hand-worked buttonholes. I’m very proud of these. It was the first time making a keyhole opening for the buttons and using a technique that actually seemed to work. I also used it to secure the buttons in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The buttons on the left are functional for putting the skirt on and the ones on the right are just decorative. There is one pocket in the skirt and this sits on the right side. Once I’d finished it and put my phone in the pocket, the entire skirt pulled out of alignment and I decided that I needed to add a pocket-holding strap. That’s since solved those issues entirely.

  • Pockets and insides
  • Hem stitching

I’m fairly certain that this thing is based of a Cycling Ensemble in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from around 1900. Otherwise it’s an incredible coincidence… The details seem to fit even if the actual seamlines might differ a little. The Met version also has a friend which is so similar that I actually had to look very carefully to spot any differences. The only real obvious changes I can find is that the second one has more buttons? I have made my very first bicycle test drive with this skirt and it seemed to work very nicely. I hope to get some wear out of it and finish a nice blouse to match.

Twinsies!

Blazer

I had a plan, ages ago, to make a suit from some grey fabric. Part of the plan got completed, in the form of Fancy Grey Pants. I have now finally completed the other part of the project, the Blazer part. I’ve been wanting a new blazer for ages now, but always was a little to scared to actually start it or was unable to find a nice pattern.

Eventually I found a nice pattern in a rather odd place. As you may know, Male Pattern Boldness is the blog of a guy who sews and he regularly writes about things he doesn’t get. One of the things was ‘Annie, too’ patterns. Somewhere halfway down the page, I found this fantastic pattern and I wanted to have it. I found a size 8 copy, but when I got it in the mail it looked like it would never ever fit. So I also bought a size 12 copy, which is pretty accurate and what I based this Blazer on.
Pattern

I made some changes, I changed out the sleeves for a two piece sleeve, reduced quite a lot in the bust area and in the back, added two non-functional buttons to the sleeves, worked two buttonholes by hand in the front, instead of one, added some piping to the neckline (below) and added a lining. The general shape still is similar to what it was supposed to be.

Lining Piping

It took time, a lot of time, especially to get the sleeves in right, about 2 days before those were fixed. When I came to the almost end, I couldn’t really decide on the buttonholes I would choose, bound would be nice, but the buttons  I wanted to use are not so large, so that would be mega fiddly.  Eventually I found I really nice tutorial on Williams Clothiers.com for hand worked button holes, so I tried it out, on the left my practices and on the right the final buttonholes. I’m quite happy with them.

Button hole practice Button holes

This is the final project!

Front Back

For the sleeves, I also added a little bit of piping and two non-functional buttons to the bottom. Getting the sleeves in was terrible. I chose the two piece sleeves from another pattern and it was fairly annoying to get those in. It took me over a day of constant fiddling, but right now, I’m really happy with the limited amount of pulling that I managed to achieve.

Side Sleeve detail

The pattern came with a front pocket which I made happen with a contrast welt in black. This way the blazer also sort of matches the pockets on the original pants. I don’t know if the pants and the blazer go together, and at this point I’m not interested enough to try it out. When putting on the front buttons and buttonholes, I figured it would be handy to also be able to close the front pocket, so I put a button on it too and this one is functional!

Buttons Front pocket

Last but not least, I added the lining because getting a thing on is easier when it’s slippery on the inside. The loop is for hanging it up which may be very handy in the future too.

Lusje Lining

I’m going to have to start wearing it to see if it works satisfactorily. Who knows, there may be a MMM update in the future.