This semester I've been taking an apparel construction class. The syllabus describes it as a course for students with little or no sewing experience, which I know is not me, but it's a prerequisite for any higher level sewing courses so I registered for the course. We've been focusing on the basics of sewing and working on learning all sorts of different sewing techniques from blind hems to buttonholes and everything in between. I've actually been learning a lot about sewing and about what I've been doing wrong as well as what I've been doing right. Since any sewing ability I have has been learned informally, my way of doing things doesn't always line up with the correct way.
Each week I have a portfolio assignment which is just a sample of the different sewing techniques we're going to be applying to our project that week. For example, this week we sewed buttonholes and buttons on a shirt so the portfolio assignment was completing one buttonhole on a piece of sample fabric and sewing one button on to a different sample. We started off the semester by sewing a basic pillowcase which was easy enough with its straight lines and simple pattern pieces. Two weeks of the course was dedicated to this project and my completed pillowcase has been claimed by Natalie and lives on her bed now.
Next, we moved on to pajama pants! I was excited about this project because I love pajamas and have even sewn pajama pants a few times before so I knew I could do it. I chose a black flannel with a pink and grey floral print. The pajama pants took about two and a half weeks of the class. One week we prepared the pattern pieces and cut out the pants, the next week we sewed everything except the waist casing and the hem, and the final week we took care of the elastic waist and the hemming. The projects so far have been fairly simple but they take a lot of time because I have to take pictures of every. single. step from the pattern placement on the fabric to the completed product. Obviously, that's because this is not a face-to-face class and the instructor needs to be able to see what I'm doing and if it's being done well or not, but man does it slow things down. My pants fit and they're soft and comfortable, but I don't love how they fit. They're too wide through the legs and I'd really like to have pockets. Because of that, I don't wear them all that much. Patterns are provided for everything we're making in the class but I think I would have been happier had I been given a list of requirements for each project and then been able to choose my own patterns. Especially after completing the next project, which took a full five weeks of class time but is something I'm never going to wear because the style is not so cute.
It's a short sleeve, button front, notch collared shirt and I think it could be cute but the combination of the collar and the fabric I chose is giving me serious seventies vibes. I mean,
look at this shirt I found on Etsy - it's basically the long lost sibling of the shirt I just spent five weeks of my life making while photographing every single step along the way.
My completed shirt. I love the fabric - the colors, the floral print, the feel of the fabric. I'm so bummed that it was wasted on this disaster of a shirt. But even if I'd chosen a different fabric, like a nice safe chambray, I'm pretty sure I still wouldn't be wearing the shirt because of that crazy collar. Give me a peter pan collar or a regular collar that's not so long and has a placket that buttons to the top any day over this. I shouldn't complain so much because I did learn things about interfacing and buttons that I never knew before while working on this project. Plus six darts, six buttonholes, and a handsewn collar and facing had me paying attention as I worked and being careful which is not always how I sew. I'm more of getting it done quickly as long as it's good enough sewist. It fits quite well, thanks to the alterations I made to the pattern to accommodate my waist to hip ratio that is never what a pattern thinks it should be.
The final project for this class is a skirt and I thought I'd learn from the other projects and see if there was any way I could use a pattern of my own instead of the provided pattern. I thought the
Freja dress without the bib and straps would be a good option. The pattern we've been given has a waistband and a zipper. The Freja has a waistband and a zipper. And I've sewn it before and already made a muslin and all the alterations so it would be easy to make it fit. My professor said no - the zip of Freja is invisible and we're doing a lapped zipper on the skirt. So I'm going to make two skirts over the next few weeks. One for Natalie following the pattern provided to me by BYU and a Freja for me in a lovely black corduroy.
I chose this class because I needed some more elective credits and I thought it would leave me with a couple new things to wear and it would be fun to have a sewing class mixed in with the more academic classes. I'm finding that it's not so fun to make clothes that you end up not wanting to wear so I really hope this final project ends up being something that Natalie will wear.
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