Ziggi and me! The Ziggi Biker jacket!

To answer this question up front – no, I don’t have a motorcycle. But I couldn’t resist making the Style Arc Ziggi Biker Jacket. Kind of an odd choice for my first Style Arc pattern but I’ve been fascinated with this jacket. The draft on these patterns are legendary so I thought I would give it a try. I’m definitely a convert! Just made the Issy knit top and love that too!

This is what it looks like zipped up:

The back is pretty interesting. It has a peplum on it to give it some shaping and ease:

My wonderful Mother in Law gave me a very generous birthday present and it was enough for the leather of this jacket. Actually I have a whole lot left as I ordered an entire cow hide! I spoke with a very helpful sales person at Hide House and she guided me to the correct leather. It’s called Moto so you can guess it’s pretty thick. I did say I wanted something suitable for winter – this sure is!

I have to say Style Arc is not really great on directions. But there were lots of tutorials out there to assist me on this. This pattern is not for the faint of heart!

As shown in the illustration I quilted the shoulder and sleeve top. I thought that gave it an extra designer touch. The zippers came from Wawak and the lining was a Bemberg Rayon Twill from Gorgeous Fabrics. It’s a heavier coat weight lining. 

There were a few tricks I learned about working with leather. If you get unintended sewing holes of course they don’t just go away with an iron like with a woven. As a matter of fact you can’t iron the stuff anyway! I used Leather Weld to fill the holes and a leather conditioner to blend them in. Worked quite well.

To get the seams to be easier to get through the machine I used a skiving tool to shave the leather down in bulky places and a rubber mallet to sort of pound seams down. My Bernina B790 got through the jacket with little complaint.

Also adding the lining was a bit different. I couldn’t bag it through the sleeve seam as I would just about any other jacket so I left the opening at the hem and tacked it there.

This jacket has a total of five zippers on it. One for the front, two for the pockets and two for the sleeves. That’s quite a bit of hardware. 

Well, it was cold enough to wear it today and one of my coworkers asked me if I road my bike in or drove a car! Of course I had to answer “what bike”?

Deer and Doe Pavot Jacket

As before mentioned I received this pattern as a gift for participating in the Pattern Review Wardrobe Contest. It was a really fun contest and putting things together and photographing them was part of the fun too. I think Colin would agree to that.

I decided as one of the pieces for the Natural Fabrics Contest I would use it to make a Winter coat. This pattern is unlined and made to be mid season but I've pretty much got mid season covered and for Winter I wanted something new.

My fabric came from Gorgeous Fabrics. I got some very nice brown coat weight wool and some black Bemberg lining for it. The buttons were from G Street Fabrics.  I definitely recommend Gorgeous Fabrics - the fabric got here very quickly and it is wonderful to work with.

My first observation when I was doing the muslin of the pattern is that French women are obviously not like 5'8" me. I had to drop the bust point down 1 1/2" and also drop the waist 1". Because I was making it to go over Winter jackets and sweaters I used the largest size, 46, and added 1" of ease to it as well. This fabrics was pretty beefy and definitely benefited by the additional ease.

 

 

I came to terms with the Peter Pan collar although I had to think about the first. Not exactly my style but it works on this coat. I also decided the puffy sleeve affect wasn't me and really wasn't this fabric. I made the sleeve as a basic set in with a fairly thin shoulder pad.

I also drafted the lining using the skirt pattern, the bodice and taking into account the facings. That worked quite well.

I found these very cool buttons at G Street Fabrics:

 

 

This was my first project on my new Bernina B780. It followed me home a few weeks ago and although it's cabinet isn't here yet I have it set up on Roberts sewing table I bought for machines not in cabinets and it's worked out pretty well in the interim. I can't get over how much the dual feed feature helped on this thick wool! It also made some really nice buttonholes. Having this machine and my B580 as my two main machines is truly a dream combination.

The fact I got both of these jackets done in the month of October feels much like a win already -
so - bring on the Surprise Sewing Bee!

The iconic jean jacket - Denim and Leather edition

I've done this pattern several times but I thought why not do this for the Pattern Review Natural Fabrics contest? This pattern is a basic jean's jacket.  I know there are several patterns out there for this but I have the program for it and decided to use that. A quick muslin confirmed the fit.

The denim, leather and very interesting lining material came from Gorgeous Fabrics. The denim is some really high quality black denim and the leather is glove soft. I did interface the leather with Pro Weft Supreme Medium-Weight Fusible interfacing from Fashion Sewing Supply. I can't say enough about this interfacing! It doesn't need to be preshrunken and it fuses beautifully. 

For the front I used the leather on the yoke. On the back I used it on the yoke as well as the strip in the back. I also did the cuffs with it.

The jeans thread came from Wawak as well as the buttons. A word about this thread from Wawak. It came in a very huge cone - I think enough for me and maybe a few generations after me. But the price was good. The gray thread looks pretty striking against the black leather and denim.

To fuse the interfacing to the leather I used a cool iron without the steam. It took to the underside very easily. I do have a shoe on my iron so I didn't need a press cloth.

I set up the Bernina B580 with black thread for the denim and leather construction. I put a leather needle in and used the very interesting leather foot - it sort of looks like it's on one training wheel:

I threaded the B780 up for topstitching. I used the jeans thread with a denim needle and put all purpose thread in the bobbin. I used the jeans dual feed foot with the dual feed engaged and it did a wonderful job on topstitch both the denim and the leather.


I did create a lining out of a really interesting looking cotton fabric. I thought it was a pretty nice touch to inside. I didn't flat fell the seams because it was lined.The other modification I made was to make the rounded collar more pointed. Just more my style.

I'm glad I finished before Fall totally set in as it's the perfect weight for that season.

Day Dress

This is the day dress I did for the Tim Gunn Sewalong on Patternreview.com. He suggests a day dress and when I got this fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics I knew that’s what it had to be! I think this fabric really has a Tommy Bahama feel to it.

It was the Bernina My Label basic dress pattern but, of course, I had to change some things. I put pockets on the front because I always wished dresses had pockets! Hey, I made it so I can do whatever I want with it! I put the slits in the front as opposed to the one in the back and added a placket neckline. I finally mastered doing plackets so now I want to use them more often!