Living on the vest coast!

The first day of spring is here, blue sky, warm breeze and the birds are singing... What better thing to do than stay inside and continuing working on the vest. 

Drawing out the pockets.

Placing pockets and cinch

And tada... the vest is done. 

The fitting doll has gone to the gym a little bit more than I have so I worn't abel to close the vest, but i think you got the feeling on how it's fits anyway. 

Sneak peak

As I said yesterday I've found a fabric that I think would look great as a vest. Here is a little sneak peak of whats to come.

Loco Jacket

Here we go again!

This time I've done a Loco Jacket also inspired from the beginning of the twentieth century.

I started out with the drawing of the pattern, witch had it's difficulties at some parts. But the most difficult thing for me was actually to chose pocket figures and the color of the thread.  After some hours scratching my head I decided to go for rounded pockets and a classic white thread.

I had never done a rounded pocket before so it was quite hard to get the shaping right when I ironed it. I figured out a little trick on how to get the shaping right, just cut out the pocket in cardboard then place it on the fabric and iron the edges over the cardboard... done and diggeli dang! Fore the chest pocket, on the left picture above, I did a watch pocket. And on the picture to the right you can se the other chest pocket and I did that one as a inside pocket and the seams are visible on the front.

As you can se I decided to go for a pretty clean look on the jacket, no double seams exempt on the pockets. And one more thing with rounded pockets, it's kinda tricky to do the perfect double stitches when you only have a single needle machine. They aren't perfect, but I decided not to redo them, it's the charm of home made.

The jacket almost done, only needs a collar. But should I do one with a collar stand (kragstånd för mina svenska läsare) ore without. I decided to go with the one without.

After nine hours the jacket is finally done!

The jacket after two days of wear.

Since I decided to make the back into two pieces I figured I could put a "little" selvedge detail on to it, haven't seen that on many jackets.

The arm pattern was the trickiest part to do because of the cuff. But it turned out better than i thought it would. 

The watch pocket in a close up. Now I really need to by me a watch pocket.

Today we visited stoff & stil in bäckebol and there I found a really nice fabric for a waistcoat. Maybe I'll get started on that tomorrow.

Done!

Allrighty then! The second pair of jeans are now done!

You've might notice a change here.... yes, I'm writing in english. I've seen that there is a lot of traffic on this blog from other countries so from now on everything is going to be in english, so that everyone can understand and be a part of what I'm doing. (No comment's on my "bad" english.... mmmkey)

Unfortunate my phone was stolen yesterday, so all the pics is gone, but I have a few of the process that a friend of mine had taken on his phone.

Now back to the jeans.

I'm making this par with some inspiration from the 20-30's. Back then jeans where used as working pants and had to be relaxed and durable, reinforced in the pockets for the working tools and other types of strains.

Here I'm overlocking the leg, but of course only on the inner leg, because on the other side is the selvedge.

I decided to do a arcuate of the letter B, for Blue Thimble off course, but lying down and without it's "back". I free handed the arcuate so they aren't exactly the same on both pockets. Which I only think is charming. I also used the fabric that I've wowed my self as reinforcement fore the pockets. 

Here is also a reinforcement detail for the back pocket. Because of the heavy tools ore rocks, if you were a gold digger, the jeans would burst around the rivet area so therefore I reinforced that area.  

I only used a single stitch when fastened the pockets. Back in the beginning of the twentieth century the material was expensive and also they mostly had single needle machines like I do. But the reason for me is that I think it looks nice.

Here I'm doing the finishing of the front pocket liner. 

 The watch pocket whit a selvedge popup. And also a small but o so pretty detail is the seams that goes from the watch pocket and up to the raw edge where the waistband will be. And the reason for that is that back in the days many sewing machines didn't have the reverse function so that they couldn't lock the seam. So when they later on attached the waistband it would lock the seam.

From now on in the process the pics are gone... But the ones above are from the first fitting that my friend took on his phone. Tanks Johan for the pics. And of course the fit was like a glove ;) 

Here I have worn them fore two day's and they are starting to get really comfortable. 

The back pocket are attached close to the side seam, and that was so that you would be closer to you're working tools.

As you might notice I haven't got any rivets on the back pocket yet, that's because I run out of rivet's. But I will attach them later and also there will be rivets on the cinch and in the end of the front rise. In the 30's belt loops started to appear on the jeans but many people still wore suspenders, so therefore I have them booth on and also the cinch.

And one more detail here is the center back belt loop, it's not attached in the middle and that's because the fabric is to thick on the back rise so the sewing machines that where used back then weren't always abel to go throw that many layer of fabric.

If you look closer to the watch pocket you may see a small rip in the fabric, which i think is quite sharming.

 The popup selvedge again.

Next week I'm probably gonna start with a loco jacket and also one more pair of jeans ore maybe a bib... will see =)