Going Home update

I have continued looking for a second job, pulling in side work (alterations) and praying that more men would come into the shop to buy, buy, buy!

I actually got to work a full 4 days! It made my check look a little better, but it won’t pull me out of this rut any time soon, much less get me back home. So, I continue to look for work.

My older son called me last night and told me that he bought me a late B’day gift. After playing phone tag throughout the day, I guessed what it was.  My kids can’t keep their own secrets! ❤ It’s a MacBook!!

I am excited and relieved to have a computer again! It makes working online so much easier!  Thanks Nick!

Jacket pattern. McCall’s 6657

After weeks and months of working your 9-to-5 job and sewing for your clients, it’s nice to be able to sew for yourself. It’s not the grunt work of just sewing seams and doing alterations and trying to bring your clients vision to fruition. But you get to choose the fabrics and the colors and the patterns and using your best hands stitches to complete a garment that you truly love.

Saturday night I spent hours cutting out the pattern pieces to a jacket that I wanted to make. I have this fabric in my stash, since 2012 or 2013 I think. I love the fabric, but I never used it because I didn’t want to just make anything with it, because once you cut it you’ll never have that fabric again. I got it on sale somewhere, and I didn’t know the fiber content, but according to a burn test, it looks like it’s nylon. It’s got a sheen on one side and almost a brushed cotton feeling on the back and has a slight stretch to the fabric.

I started cutting the pieces out and in the back of my mind I’m trying to think of how I want to line it. Then I remembered that I have a beautiful blue polyester lining in my stash and I decided that’s what I want to use for the lining.

Usually, when sewing, I will just use the pattern for cutting and then I will totally go off script on the assembling and do things my way, but on this project, I tried my very best to stick with the instructions and I’m really happy with the turn out.

The only issue I had with this, is that I am using a home iron, and a very low quality one at that, so I’m not getting the benefits of a really good press on the fabric.

I could work the fabric and possibly do a top stitching all the way around to give it that really great finished look, but I didn’t want to do a topstitch on this jacket. We’ll see though. I’m not completely finished with the jacket yet, I am currently handstitching the hems and sewing the facings down. I will post pictures of the completed project later.

There were two patterns I had to choose from, mcCall’s 6442 and McCall’s 6657. I chose my calls 6657 view D and shortened it to the length of view C.