Working from Home

I am working from home, like many other people. As per company communications, I will be doing it for at least the next two weeks.  I personally do not like to work from home.  I have always enjoyed sewing and dressing for a corporate work environment, and interacting daily with “in the flesh” people. At home, there are too many domestic distractions.  Pets, sewing projects, my DH wanting to talk about the inspection and repairs on a rental property we just purchased.  Also, my neighborhood is a black hole of Verizon phone coverage, so I must use the house phone for conference calls. Good thing we still have a house phone.   And how is it that coworkers with 30 plus years with the company have never used Skype or don’t know how to share their screen on a Webex?  Yes, I am an old grouch!

How nice that I had just returned from a sewing retreat (gathering size = 10 ) and had a new, appropriate for working from home, top to cheer me up.  McCalls  7842 “Semi-fitted, button front shirts have sleeve variations and shaped hemline.

I made view C,  the multi fabric version, in coordinated plaids.

1. Red plaid from a thrifted XL size shirt
2. Black linear plaid from Vogue Fabrics

3. Black red plaid from deep stash

I found the perfect red plaid to coordinate with my black plaids in a thrifted men's shirt. An XL size provided enough fabric for one front  and the upper back.   

All that remans

Pattern construction instructions are good. Only issue was that there did not appear to be a matching square on the front pattern piece for the square on the lower edge of the back overlap.  I assumed it was supposed to match with the seam line and this appears to have been correct.  The back overlay is lined and then topstitched to the  rest of the garment,  1 inch from finished edge.  This resulted in the front points curling back .  I tacked the overlay to the rest of garment closer to the edge using the machine hemming stitch.

tacked overlay

The front placket is designed to hide the buttons, but the way the pattern wants you to construct it results in 6 layers of seam allowances that must be dealt with at the front bodice placket seam line.  I chose to use an easier to sew and construct hidden placket. The front right-hand side placket is double width and folds back over itself to hide the buttons.

Hidden bucket placket

Surprisingly there aren’t a lot of blog posts or reviews of this pattern online.  One good one is Pati Palmer’s, which features details of a full bust adjustments.  She also made a different hidden button placket.

Palmer Pletsch

McCalls  7842 

McCalls7842 back

Oh,  and other domestic distractions; my camera, great outside light and the urge to blog.  Now I’ve really have to  get back to work.

Feb BurdaStyle Duo

I loved the Feb issue of Burdastyle.  It had so many styles that appealed to me.  These two were perfect for an upcoming vacation.

The blouse is cropped in front, and longer in back.  The pants have deep waist pleats, panel seams on the legs and welt pockets.  I used a silk print  ( Anna Sui, FMF, I think) from deep in the stash for the top and a lightweight wool gabardine with a lot of drape for the pants.

"Wow it's windy" Copy the Magazine pose

pocket detail BurdaStyle 106 pants

The BurdaStyle instructions for the welt pocket were really difficult to understand, but what really surprised me is that none of my sewing books (and I have many) had any information on making this type of pocket, with a single vertical welt .  Neither did online sources.  An ancient issue of Threads magazine saved me.  There were detailed instructions in Issue 75, from 1998, in an article called Pant Pattern Upgrade  - Use menswear techniques to improve the comfort, appearance, and quality of any basic pants pattern, by the late Mary Ellen Flury.  I  extended the top of the pocket pieces, as suggested by the article, so that they were caught in the  waistband seam to prevent sagging and pulling.

Threads Issue 75 -Pant Pattern Upgrade

This is a fun and comfortable outfit to wear. The pant legs are a voluminous and taper quite a bit at the hem. There is a dart up the center back leg, starting at the hemline, in addition to the seaming on the front legs.The hemline is so tapered, it is finished with a facing rather than a turned up hem. A friend calls them my "baggy pants".

The vacation was in AZ,  where it is a felony to steal or kill the state's iconic saguaros cactuses.  In this case the Airbnb owners built around it. And we were very careful when driving the car into the garage.