Sunday, March 19, 2023

Shirt Jacket Duo

 Earlier in the year I sewed  two versions of Burda  12 2020 117. The Burda description is "The casual lumberjack top in a new look, a classical  glen plaid pattern in black and white instead of bold checks Sophisticated: the yoke with drop shoulders."


I am not quite sure how check  wool shirts came to be associated with lumberjacks because if you look at old historical photos,  there is not a plaid or check in sight.  But what this style did remind me of was the  plaid wool shirts my dad wore in the cooler months on the weekend. 

 We called them ‘Pendleton shirts’ after one of the brands that manufactured them.


 A sure to please Christmas gift for Dad was always a new Pendleton shirt. I collected some beautiful wool plaids to sew him a Pendleton shirt. He passed in 2015. I still think of him when I come across those unsewn wool plaids in my stash.


Back to sewing.  I liked the idea of a simple shirt like jacket  as an alternative to a sweater or a blazer as a third layer.  This style had a lot of  wearing ease - 6",  but a bit of shaping with bust darts.  The first one was sewn from a thickish wool from the Give Away table at retreat.  It was coarsely woven, but a wonderful rich blue/green interspersed with gold-colored threads .  It is lined in silk print of teddy bears, also a find on the Give Away table. 

The fabric was so thick, the thought of making buttonholes scared me. So I chose  Anorak snaps for the closures.  The design used a faced to the edge section for the cuff opening, rather than a slit.  A design feature I have noted in my  "dealing with thick fabrics " tips and tricks.

Cuff  opening

 Another technique for heavy fabrics with sleeve cuffs  is a slit  faced  with the lining, similar to this one on a heavy wool Pendleton jacket I own.


  There is a  good YouTube video on   4 ways to Sew Slits


Burda 12 2020 117


The second version of this jacket was made from, what I think, was a silk suiting from the deep stash.  Final thoughts on this version is the fabric was too lightweight, and the plaid too light colored for the look I was going for. No problem, I have lots of black and white wools in my stash.

Burda 12 2020 117

5 comments:

  1. Pendleton shirts were all the rage in the 1950s in Omaha. My mother and I made every effort to copy them in our home-sewn versions. A kindly neighbor even clipped out a Pendleton label from one of her shirts so my mother could sew it into a shirt for an older brother, who valued labels.

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    1. Had to smile when you mentioned repurposing labels. My mother's sewing stash included labels, some very recognizable brands, that had been removed from clothing. I suspect she was saving them for the same purpose.

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  2. I did see that jacket in the magazine and didn't think twice about it and now you've made it up I can see how useful it will be. I love the green fabric with teddy bears. Sometimes those accidental fabrics - ones given or found in thrift stores can be the best. It's like you have a break from your own taste for a moment and find something really unexpected and creative in just whatever fabric is available.

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  3. So true about breaking away from normal choices and using accidental fabrics. Also because the fabric choice was unplanned, I had to improvise a bit on thread. No-one had gold sewing thread at the sewing retreat, only serging thread which was a bit thin. So I used two strands of serging thread threaded through tension discs and needle to do my topstitching. This worked surprisingly well.

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