Simon's long johns

Simon works outside and he needs some help keeping warm. I'm not always around to keep his feet warm,  you know! During our Stretch fabrics class at Club Tissus we made yoga pants. Simon was supposed to make stretchy pants for himself but we never got around to it, with all our pending projects. We had purchased Peach Skin fabric from Stretch Text on St-Laurent.

Our sewing instructor was having a fashio show and all her students were invited to show off their creations. Simon really wanted to have another item from the "tissus extensibles" class, so he made the 2 items in 1 day! 

Simon used 2 patterns to create his long johns: Jalie's 2327 and 2918

He extended the boxers to make his legs, accounting for the width of his thighs, knees and ankles. His shirt he made a -5 to make it tighter and he made a mock turtleneck.The length is a bit longer so that when he moves around the shirt does not lift past the pants. I think he will be nice and warm in these. Coupled with the sweater he made from the same pattern and the winter jacket he made, he is good to -40 Celsius!

Jalie 2108 - My winter ski jacket completed!

Simon finished my jacket! This was a very difficult project, one that challenged us. I am SO proud of the work we Simon did! I must give him his credit. I did the interior and he did my exterior. This was such a hard project first because we needed to make modifications due to our measuring. I needed a little more room for my hips and the arms were not long enough.

The interior was done with nylon lining and 200g Earthwrap.The exterior is downtex. We used pattern Jalie 2108 and made MANY modifications. The jacket has a detachable hood, an internal drawstring, sleeve cuffs, princess sleeves and fancy-pancy topstitching. The jacket is guaranteed to be warm up to -35 Celsius, and let me tell you it is! We have had extreme cold weather and I am not the least bit cold in this jacket. Rather, if I am in a store or my car I AM HOT!

 

 The back pattern piece was easy enough. I chose to use some decorative topstitching.

My machine has many interesting patterns that we can use. We had fun testing out the stitches.

We ended up using 2 different styles of topstitching and we embroidered my name in the back. This pattern of stitches takes A LOT of thread, and it takes FOREVER! Just be patient and buy a lot of thread!

The fun part came in the assembly of the interior and the exterior pieces. We made princess seams and we put the pockets in the princess seams. The second jacket we make will go much smoother now that we (Simon) understands how to do the pockets in the princess seams. The topstitching of the pockets is where we all went a little fuzzy on. I think Simon is one of the only ones that got it, and he does not even have them on his jacket.

 The sleeves were not long enough and we needed to add some length. The best way to do this so that it would not show is to have a cuff. This way we can turn the material over and hide the seams.

 Inside you will see the cuffs. With this the snow and wind have no chance of going up your jacket!

 Here you can see the internal drawstring.

And now that it is all done and we can finally sleep, we are taking the snow pants course. We will need the pants so that we can play in the snow!

Vacation project - PJ's for the boys

So my jacket lays on the table not done yet. It really takes concentration and time to think. Having the 2 boys out of school for the Holidays and peace and quiet do not mix. Simon made me a gorgeous dress for Christmas and now I am feeling the itch to make something myself. We have some left over fabric from last year's PJ's. Tyler loves the onsies and Sam hates anything on his feet. I have many patterns that I vow to use, so into my stash we go....

I made this pattern for Tyler last year and I found the finishing details to be lacking. I can improve upon the pattern. I will make it without the hood and feet.

I traced the next size up, as Tyler grew since last year, and I don;t have enough fabric. Off tot he store we will go for him.






On to Sam's PJ's. I know I have enough for a size T2.Last year I bough Kwik Sew's 3922 but I have not had the chance to make them yet. This is perfect for toddlers still in diapers as the snaps go all the way down. Now I ask all you parents and caretakers out there "How do the people at the BIG 4 pattern companies change diapers?" Take a look at all the patterns out there. Where does the zipper stop? At the belly button. Not very convenient for changing diapers I tell you. Now I don't know about you, but my kids DO NOT sit still when I change their diapers. They twist they buckle, they laugh, they try to escape. All they want is their FREEDOM!
Seriously, this pattern is one of the few I have found that the opening goes down the inside leg. Maybe Jalie has one, I am not sure.

We will make this one without the feet. Sam has many sleepers I made with the feet and he tries furiously to rip off the feet. Not a good thing as I made MANY sleepers. Sigh.

I cut out the McQueen fabric left over from last year for Sam. And we will let Tyler pick out his fabric. Hopefully this will be a good pattern to work with! Looking back on only one year and I amazed at how much Tyler has grown! SOB!

Finishing up *MY* jacket

OK, so where is your jacket, Jennifer? You ask? Well, to be honest, on the sewing table at the moment. Somewhere between Simon's 1,000,000 calculations and the problems with the princess seam pockets I became discouraged. Simon has helped enormously with my jacket after the princess seam pocket disaster. I think he is one of the few in our class that understood the princess seam pockets. This was her first year teaching this class with Princess seams, and the notes were not done beforehand. I think it was a lesson in progress, as it took 2 classes to completely demonstrate the pockets properly. Even then most of us gave up. So many of us became discouraged and vowed never again to do a princess seam. Now that Simon has shown me how to topstitch the pockets properly with the princess seam, I think we can do it again with no issues.
My issue is that I did not make the sleeves long enough and now need to add length to them. When I tried on the inner shell why did she not see this? She saw that the hip area was not large enough and I had to add to that. But what about the sleeve length? Why did we not see this? ARGH. Another frustration. But my suggestion of adding a cuff and putting some nice pink topstitching went over well.

I was thinking that the grey jacket is a little boring and needs some pizzazz. We went scouring for a pink zipper long enough for the front, a 2 way zipper. We went everywhere, then gave up and went to Fabricville, a store that i recently came to despise as their staff has turned into morons who are wicked and mean. Of course they had it, after running around St-Hubert street with the 2 kids in the cold. ARGH.

We were going to do a pink front zipper with the zipper shield on the inside. In the end we will have an interior and exterior zipper shield. The exterior one will have the same pink topstitching design on it to add some color and design the the jacket. We were going to have the front embroidered with a nice pink snowflake, but hat is going to add to the cost and time of the project. I am sure we can do some fancy topstitching to put some color and design that we will like.

We have had a few nights off where we went to sleep with no sewing. Time to get back at it and finish my jacket now, with the help of Simon of course! It has come that we don't want to sew without each other, good Lord! We are too cute,n n'est pas?

Simon's Winter jacket FINALLY DONE!

 It's official! Simon's jacket is finally FINALLY done! And what a great job he did. I think I gave up this past week, the desire for sleep was SO great, after 10 weeks of sewing classes, working every night on our projects, it is nice to have this DONE. Now all is left is my jacket.

Simon is VERY happy that he finished his jacket! He designed this and sewed it all on his own. He took the base pattern for the arms, hood, front and back. The rest he came up with all on his own. 

 He wanted the green of his arms to arrive at the pockets, and he was exact in his details.

He wanted to have so many details on this jacket, that it was way beyond me. My first jacket I wanted to concentrate on the basics. 

 

 Look at the stripes Simon sewed on his hood. The eye for detail he has. Some people in our class we wondering how his stripes would come out, like a skunk? No, they are great!

Look at the inside pocket that zips up. Now remember Simon has never sewed a pocket.  He did an amazing job.

 Each pocket has a purpose. One for his cell phone, one for gloves, one for Kleenex.

 He has an interior and exterior zipper shield. He has Polar Blizzard for the lip guard and the back of the collar. Nice and soft.

He even did double stitching on the coat hook

He says that his jacket are heavy when there is alot in his pockets and this will help support it when on a hanger. I don't know about you, but when I am learning a new skill, I don't see all these details the first time. He does. You can't see well from this picture, but he embroidered his name, just in case anyone wants to steal this jacket! .




All in all I am extremely proud of the work he did and I think his jacket is better than anything we could buy! Now time to finish my jacket so we can play in the snow.

Jalie 2108 Winter Ski jacket class 3 & 4

So week three brings our pockets. Seeing as we did the sample of a zippered pocket in 6 steps, we should be good to go to put the pockets now in our jacket.Simon had MANY pockets, and he was able to do them all with no issues, including the facing for the pocket openings. They just took FOREVER! We are one week behind. Here we are Sunday, after class #4, and we are doing class #4 stuff only now.
What I neglected to say was that it is our anniversary weekend, my mom has the kids and we have wasted all this time F***ing around with my stupid jacket and the princess seams. We have redone the pockets on this at least 4 times. I say f**k it, I give up. Simon will try one last time. I don't care.


So class 4 we learn to install a facing at the bottom to the jacket, a drawstring or jupette and the removable hood. So far we have done the drawstring and we are doing the facing. I hope we have enough time to finish Simon's jacket. It is looking really professional. Mine is sitting on the couch looking sad and depressed. I hate my jacket.

 Here is Simon's jacket at the end of a long journey. So glad the finish is in sight!