Hi!
I'm been organizing... My sewing room was in real need of some help. It took me several weekends of sorting, purging and organizing to get it in a reasonable state. I'm not done yet but the room is so much more usable and I don't have to clean up anything to start a sewing project. In the process, I learned a few things like... I honestly thought I didn't have a lot of fabric until I went to organize my fabric. It became very clear that I had too much sitting around and not being used. Surprisingly, I have way more fleece than I thought. We all know how bulky fleece can be. So, I'm on a mission to get rid of the fleece by sewing up whatever I can. Well, I'm not interested in making blankets out of the fleeced but just about anything else will probably work. Got any ideas for fleece sewing projects? Leave me a comment. I would love to hear your ideas. Well... I've had this cute little jacket pattern, McCall's 5697, which I had bought to use with some cute corduroy fabric.
Well, instead I got out some grey fleece and went to work. I decided to do View B, with the elbow length and ruffle sleeves. The jacket is unlined. I found the instructions easy to follow. Since I used fleece fabric I wasn't concerned about finishing the edges, as fleece will not unravel and cause a messy hem. I do like finished seam and I'd like to try a french seam on my next attempt. I think I might try View D (long sleeves with button tabs). The fleece might be too bulky but for the thin corduroy fabric I have, a french seam might work. For the most part, I followed the directions. I did add a small black braided trim to the collar, sleeve hem, and pockets. I used approximately 65" of braid for a size 3T jacket. If you're going to buy trim for this jacket, I would just get 2 yards to ensure you have enough trim.
When I did the edge stitching, I did increase my Design Diamond stitch width to 4.5 because of the thick fleece. The longer stitch length seem to allow for a more defined edge stitch, meaning the stitch did not get lost in the fleece. Also, the jacket calls for 1 1/4" hem but I only did a 1" inch hem by simply folding up the bottom jacket edge. There just didn't seem a need to turn the hem under and tuck it in the hem allowance since I was using fleece. The only part I was not completely happy with was the lack of fullness in the sleeve ruffle. I'm not sure if the pattern was not sufficient to have a more substantial ruffle or if it is the fleece the inhibits the ruffle. If I were to make the fleece ruffled sleeve again, I think I would add more fabric to increase the ruffle. In general, I would recommend this pattern because it was fairly easy to put together, cute and there a lots of ways to make this jacket unique by adding trims/embellishments.
Credo,
Lisa
No comments:
Post a Comment