The little black jacket, la petite veste noire

A few months ago, Karl Lagarfeld and Carine Roitfled realised a book and organized an exposition on the little black jacket, Chanel's classic vest revisited.

Many sewist make the trip to tailoring land in hope to make their own true Chanel vest. One could says it's the holly grall of sewist (for some of them anyway).

I never dreamed of owning one, but this new jacket is really attractive. It's really modern, not too old lady like. And I had a lovely piece of tweed, so why not? 

Me wants it!

Of course the tweed is not black... It as a nice Briton color: green, pink and orange, exactly like the Moore in October.

I spent many hours trying to figure out the pattern. It's very lucky that a video on the making of the vest was realised. Thanks you dear Karl!!

It's awesome, when you look at it frame by frame (you understand why it was so long) you can see how the pattern was drafted as well as the sewing techniques.

Today I am concentrating on the pattern. So here we go:

 First I copied my block pattern for light vests. Then kept referring to my notes and playing again and again the video.

I also found an very revealing interview saying the vest is: straight, structured, closed "bord à bord".

The pockets are placed so that you can put your hand in them (which apparently was so far reserved to the men...), there are no underlining nor epaulets. The vest is not in the bias (thank you!!) with no bust dart, WHAT???

And with a simple straight seam in the back.

the length

 The length is pretty easy to figure out,because of the tape marking the hips, I chose 7 cm above the hips.

 

Despite what is said to the media the vest has some shaping, look at the sides, it is slightly curved.

This is my pattern during the process, you can see in black the lines of the vest (black vest, black lines, original no?)
It was really fun to make. You can see that I shaped the pattern, but I only kept a fraction of the original darts.

For the bust dart I could not really believe it. How is it possible to omit the bust dart???

Well, turns out it's not!! I knew it!! I almost tried without it, but gave a last chance to the video and saw this:

See the side? Oh yes, this is a bust dart! I win!!

It is small and on the side because it's the best place to hide it, completely under the arm.

You might not need to have one if you have a small bust, but if you are like me, you need a dart for a good fitting. I saw that some people didn't use a darts for this vest, but formed some small gathers instead, not a bad idea.

This is how I moved the dart.
On the fist picture, I slashed the paper at the  new place of the dart, and closed it with tape, the direct effect of the closure is to open the new placement.Then I reduced the dart of 3 cm and drew it again properly.

I also changed the neck line, making it a little bit wider than on the block pattern. And omitted the neck dart, because, well, they say there is not one, so...

the pockets

 I draw in red all the important placements, and things to remember, I try to be nice to myself, because I know I always forget something, it's normal I think when you don't sew your garment in one day. I am a slow sewist.

I am actually sewing it, I am looking forward to the result, it's never easy to tell before it's finished. For the moment it as no sleeves, no pockets and no lining.

I really enjoyed the pattern making process, I think I even prefer it to the actual sewing! Next month I'll present you my trusty pattern making book, even thought it was probably written before the 70's  it's has everything you need and it's really cheap.

What about you, have you ever made a Chanel vest? Do you make you own patterns?

Oulàlà ! The panty.

I have been meaning for quite some time now, to make some underwear, but couldn't find a drafting pattern book on the subject. Then a few month ago I discovered that ESMOD, the fashion institute has it's own line of pattern making books!!

I purchased the one called "become pattern drafter, Women's underwear". I will not make a revue here. I will just give an advise for those interested in buying it, it would be better first, if you have already taken a few classes on how to draft patterns or with a pedagogic book (like I did). 

I also found a great shop on line for lingerie's lace and notions: http://www.elingeria.de/catalog/, and big plus for me, it's located in Germany. I don't really like ordering overseas, local is better in my opinion, and faster!

I tried to order everything I needed, but of course failed to. Sooo, I am waiting for another small shipment!

OK, so when I said I wanted to make underwear, I meant ALL sorts of underwear! Yeah!!

Tangas, bras, bodysuits, and oh yes: bikinis!!

As you can see I don't have yet everything that is needed for my sewing plan, but I have some beauties hidden in my closet and I will order along what I need.

I decided to begin with something simple (or so I thought...). A simple tanga made with a large band of stretch lace. 

 

Those pictures are from Victoria's secret, but it seems to me I have seen this kind of panties made by many other brands. The reason is as simple as the pattern I imagine !

It's two simple piece of stretch lace sewn together at the center front and back, and at the crotch.

The instruction book made me do this:

In red: waist, small hip and hip. I added the first and last line because I didn't like the way the pattern was made. I am used to "working" with the waist an hip measurements, this small hip thing didn't convince me. It's placed at 5,5 cm from the waist, and in my opinion it's ether to high or too low on the body to be elegant or sexy, i made a muslin to see the fit and looked like an horrible 80's thong!!! 

So I compared it to an older pattern I made, with a book for garment pattern drafting, that has a few pages on panties.

This is perfect pattern to make a 50's pantie, high waist and low on the leg.

For fun I put them on top of each other :

It is quite different no? I have decided that concerning panties I will stick to my old pattern, but will follow the advices on how to reduce the block pattern to the stretch of the fabric. But even with this two patterns I couldn't figure how to make the one I had in mind.

I ended up on the Internet, lurking at other people's panties!!! But for a good reason, and it help me to figure out how to make this "satanné" tanga.

The pattern on the left is the one I used to make my tanga and the other one is the pattern before the reduction induced by the stretch of the lace (it's just folded on the middle to remove the excess fabric).

I could have never drawn it without the pictures posted on many blogs of people making Jalie 2568.

Look at what it looks compared to the block pattern :

Who thought of changing the place of the crotch?? It's genius! 

 

Unfortunately I bought the lace before knowing how much I needed :-)

For the record 1 meter is not enough, I would have needed 1,1 m I think. But it was just a try, and the lace costs only 4 euros.

tada!

I like it and will probably make some more. I tried to use a zigzag stitch, but it didn't work, I had to unscrew the machine 4 times because of mechanical problems caused by the treads, and then... I found the marvelous stitch number 14 

 

I creates a straight stitch and serges (is that the word?) the edges at the same time, it's really fast and the machine seems to like it as well! See:

Next time I make panties, I will make something like that I think:

That I can make with my pattern, see, the crotch is made with another piece of fabric in the "wright orientation".

As a conclusion, and a gift! I share with you the measurement chart from ESMOD, on witch I have my measurements. You will immediately see why I don't buy pattern:

The pink circles are the bust, waist and hips. I do not fit in the chart!! Do you believe me when I tell you I have no problem dressing in RTW? Because it's true!! This is crazy, but at the same time, I think ESMOD doesn't take into account the recent campaign of measurement that took place in France and changed the sizing of clothes. Now the shirts fits me better, more place for the boobs and longer arms, yeah!!

But still it never fits me as good as when I wear the close I make for myself. You can understand why.

Another one?

This chart doesn't correspond to me at all! I wear a size 34 in pants!! The hardest part was to measure those two weird thing circled in violet, I think this book lacks in explanation. ESMOD teachers must give them in their classes, the measurement on the back of the panty is supposed to be taken at the beginning of the legs. I don't know about you, but I always thought my legs begun after my butt, not in the middle...

What about you, have you already made underwear, or underwear patterns? And Where do your legs begin?