Bound buttonholes!

I finally did it!  I made bound buttonholes!

This has been a goal for a couple years - my machines' four-step buttonhole looks like happy-hands-at-home at the best of times.  I've been using snaps as much as I can but there's a limit.  Especially when your snaps come from Joann's because you can never remember to just order a lifetime supply of some good snaps along with a decent snap setter.  Even more so when your Joann's has six different sizes of snaps and four different size snap setters ... but only one snap and one setter that work together.  Yes, the other five snaps cannot be put in with any of the tools Joann's sells.  And the other three snap setters have no snaps to set.

Brilliant.

So I either needed to learn how to do a bound buttonhole or get a new machine.  I'd like the second option but bank account is pointing to the first.  Oh well.  And since this pattern calls for bound buttonholes (which is looking less like a word each time I type it ... buttonholes buttonholes buttonholes) I figure it was telling me that it's time.

How'd it go?  You tell me.

First I marked up the pattern properly.  By the way, isn't that such a great looking pattern piece?  I'm really loving the styling.

Tacked on the backing fabric (or whatever the technical term for it is)

Sewed 1/8" around the line ... that was pretty tricky.  This is the wrong side of the fabric, complete with interfacing (sew in, of course).  It's hard to see the stitches on the front.

Cut along the white line (just the horizontal one) and snip in the corners.  Fold the little rectangle of fabric in through the slit and form two little piping-like bands.  Carefully hand sew because I don't trust myself to stitch in this ditch without my thread or my fabric going someplace it shouldn't.  And, while it's a little hard to see (stupid camera would NOT take a decent pic of this), it's a bound buttonhole!
All this was done following the directions in the pattern.  My favorite 40s sewing book is on loan-out and for whatever reason I didn't check my other half dozen books to see if any of them have directions.  I do want to look up other methods because this one, while not bad, didn't make the best bound buttonholes.  The edges look a little wonky to me.  But the buttons will be covering them up.  And, besides, this is a wearable muslin.  Perfection on the first try isn't bad but it doesn't give me much to aspire to in the next version, now does it?

Even so, looking beyond the wrinkles (this is pre-iron), I'm really loving how this shirt (jacket? it's just heavy enough) is turning out!

Simplicity 116 and Wardrobe musings

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The simplicity shirt is coming along nicely though it's surprisingly detailed for how simple it looks! The back has four tucks and each of the front panels have another two along with two darts, one of which is a tiny french dart at the collar. If you want to practice your dart skills, this is the pattern! And the pattern instructions have you finish all these BEFORE the first step. And there's five bound buttons to look forwards to. Which, oddly, I am. I've avoided buttons to this point because of how ugly my machine made ones are. So I feel like it's time to learn how to bind buttons, just to see if they're worth doing on more garments.

Looking to the wardrobe, I haven't officially joined yet because I'm not certain about the fabrics. I posted my storyboard on PR and the general reaction was positive about the patterns but iffy on the teal/tan combo. Apparently that tan faux suede was not getting any love. That worried me since I KNOW I'm horrible at color matching and so it wouldn't surprise me a bit if they really are bad together. At the same time ... I like them. So I'm trying to decide whether to switch out the tan with another dark brown or a dark denim. One person suggested navy and I like the idea of pairing it with the teal. Unfortunately I don't have any navy and I'm trying to do this entire wardrobe from stash.

Sadly, that's not hard.

Another challenge has been this button up shirt. I really like the pink fabric but I only have enough for a short sleeve shirt - and barely enough for that. I really like the longer sleeves. So what to do... I have some cambridge blue cotton/poly but it's just not jiving with the browns. Even I can see that. Maybe cream... I've got plenty of that left over from my petticoat experiment. I just need to see if the facings will show through and cheapen it. If not I'd love to do some embroidery on it to really up the elegance. Hm. I like it.

On the cutting table: Simplicity 116

Image curtousey of Vintage Pattern Wiki

I want to test out this pattern before August so I pulled it out of the package and laid it out on some burgundy cotton that's been aging in my stash for far too long. The fabric might be a bit thick for this pattern but, well, we'll see. Worst case this muslin will just be about getting the fit right and perfecting (or at least working on) my shirt-making skills.

Interesting tidbits - the pattern was cut out before using pinking shears on the top half and regular shears the rest of the way. Also the pattern has a square of tissue with "Use to hold small pieces" printed on it. How cool is that? Unfortunately, while the previous owner carefully preserved all the small pieces (namely the back of the neck facing and the cuffs) they didn't preserve the long sleeves after cutting them off to make the short sleeve version. Oh nos! So I laid out the pattern anyway and through measuring the little pattern piece drawings, my arm, and doing some guesstimating I drew the longer sleeves directly on the fabric using a silver fabric pencil. We'll see how good my guess was soon!

I still have the front facings to cut out but I've tailor tacked the markings on all the other pieces and should be ready to sew 'er up tomorrow. Unfortunately my entire day kinda ground to a halt due to a stupid food allergy. I'm not certain what's causing it but every so often I'll eat something with whole grains of some sort and my body will just go three sorts of angry with me. Today I had granola cereal for breakfast and I'm still being punished for it. And it wasn't even very good granola! Drat. I've spent the evening alternating between curled up on a ball in the living room and curled up in a ball in the bedroom. Not. Fun.

Hopefully all will be better tomorrow (it can't last that long, can it? It wasn't even very much granola!) and I can get back to sewing! On top of this shirt I want to make a half dozen reusable grocery bags for my mom's birthday so gotta get started on those as well!