Vogue 8430 MT Green/Pink Kantha Jacket

I have coveted a kantha jacket since I saw one made from a bedspread at my first Design Outside the Lines (DOL) retreat with Diane Ericson and guest tutor Carol Lee Shanks back in 2014.  My covetousness was so strong that whilst still in Ashland I almost purchased a kantha bedspread.  I only refrained because I was worried about what I might purchase at the Houston International Quilt Festival and the need to get everything home to New Zealand.  Fast forward to 2018 and you can now buy kantha cloth by the yard.  I just had to indulge and was lucky enough to find a colourway that fit in with my travel wardrobe.

Straying slightly off track - I have to enthuse for a few lines about the whole DOL experience which is so energising and if you ever get the chance I encourage you to take a class with Diane. Not only is Diane's teaching inspiring, if you aspire to be a more creative sewer, the other students are amazingly creative and willing to share.  I am quite upset that I won't be able to do a DOL retreat this year on my way to Quilt Festival because Festival is a week later. If you want to see the inspirational creative garments DOLlies produce (DOL students are called DOLlies) details of those who blog can be found here.

The finished garment

This jacket is everything I hoped for and I just love it.  All the stars aligned and it was as pleasurable to sew as it is to wear. It was also a fantastic jacket for my travel wardrobe, being a very good layering piece.

There was a recent purchase during the Liberty of London sale of some velvet which I think would translate really well into this jacket. Or maybe an even longer version, although I do also have my eye on the Victory Patterns Ulysses Trench. Decisions decisions.

The fabric

This kantha cloth is from either Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics in the green / pink colour way, or Marcy Tilton. The kantha cloth comes in a number of different colourways and I am considering another purchase!

The kantha cloth that is currently being sold as yardage is made in India.  It is made from block-printed fabric that has been hand-stitched, using a large running stitch, to a backing fabric to create a quilt like cloth. Often the fabric used comes from old saris.

Updated: 27 January 2019
For quantity of fabric to purchase I suggest three times the length of your jacket for a simple garment like Vogue 8430. The minimum I could use for this long jacket is 92" and I would probably buy 3 yards (108") which is slightly more than three times the length. This is obviously dependent on the width of your pattern pieces. For Vogue 8430 I can get two fronts side by side across this 42" wide fabric. For reference the back length is 33½" from centre back neck to hem; and the finished garment bottom edge is 55¾". I have included a picture of my fabric layout using a different piece of kantha fabric (3½ yards of Blue Moon cotton kantha from Marcy Tilton)

Fabric layout: shown twice to illustrate where the two fronts and sleeve would go

The pattern

I love this pattern, Vogue 8430 by Marcy Tilton, an oldie but a goodie. My pattern is copyrighted 2007 and it is still available on the Vogue Patterns website so it must be popular. It was made many years ago, in a black boiled wool, as per the pattern but the sleeves are a bit short or maybe normal length and I am used to wearing them a bit long. Anyway it hangs in my wardrobe unworn and I have always wanted to make another one. It seemed like the ideal pattern for my kantha jacket - no darts and minimal shaping, plus I could cut the centre front edges on the selvedge.

The pattern alterations

The pattern alterations were many but style related rather than fit.  I wanted set in sleeves not a dropped shoulder.

I measured across the shoulders of a favourite coat pattern which fits well and marked that width across the back of V8430. Unfortunately the width of my shoulders is pretty much the width of the back collar piece so I had to reshape the collar piece and it now fits more closely around my neck. I then used the armhole from my favourite coat pattern to re-draw the armhole.  I didn't alter the original sleeve in V8430 I just used the two piece sleeve from my favourite coat pattern.

It seemed a shame to waste any of the kantha fabric so I decided to lengthen the jacket.  I have an Andrea Moore trench coat that finishes slightly above my knee, a great length for me, so I measured the back length and the hem circumference of the trench coat and replicated them for Vogue 8430.

Back pattern piece - original underneath my version on top

The same alterations were made to the front pattern piece shoulder width and jacket length as for the back.  Making sure that the shoulder seam and the collar height matched the back pattern piece.  I also measured where the armhole should finish for the front based on matching front and back at the side seam.

The reason I did this is that the front armhole shape was altered by the creation of the cowl to achieve the waterfall effect for the original jacket front pattern.  I needed to retain this shape, otherwise I would loose the waterfall effect, but with the same armscye length as my favourite coat pattern.  I made a template of my favourite coat armscye and clipped it to but not through the notch. By cutting the template at the notch I was able to shape the armhole so that it matched at the shoulder seam and the side seam. Sorry I don't have a picture of the armsyce template as I threw it away when I had drawn the new armhole on the front jacket piece.

The centre front has some subtle shaping which I ignored in order to use the selvedge of my kantha fabric.  I wanted to use the selvedge as it is made by folding the fabric edges under and holding them in place with an overcast stitch which is made to look like herringbone stitch.


Front pattern piece - both left and right sides the same

The two fit alterations I made were: (1)  forward shoulder adjustment which is really priceless for me as it stops the front of my garments sliding to the back; (2) a small sway back adjustment.



The sewing

The sewing was relatively straight forward. I used faux flat felled seams throughout following these steps:
(1) sew the seam wrong (plain fabric) sides together;
(2) press seam open;
(3) on the side of the seam that will be folded under remove the running stitches holding the two sides of the fabric together;
(4) trim half of the seam allowance away on three of the four fabrics (two plain sides and a pieced side).
(5) fold the second pieced side over the trimmed fabrics and stitch down.

For the neck edge and the hems I used a merino fabric (which was just the right colour) as a binding.

By using faux flat felled seams and binding the edges the jacket is reversible. So far I have only worn it patchwork side out, and I think of the patchwork side as the right side. I do however have some fabric to make trousers, which would look great with the green side so you never know it may be worn "wrong" side out one day.

The jacket doesn't have any form of closure.  I purchased a pink metallic zip from Stonemountain and Daughter at the same time I bought the kantha fabric intending to have a diagonal exposed zip. However the zip was a much brighter colour than I anticipated and totally wrong for the kantha fabric. Secondly my beloved felt that a zip was too mechanical and that my jacket needed something more organic for its closure. So for the holiday I used a large silver, modern equivalent of a kilt pin.

This gave my notions shopping in London some purpose. I now have three options, as seen in the photo below.  All three options were purchased because they had large holes in the button and could be attached to the jacket using a strip of the kantha fabric through those holes.  The Liberty button and the bottom left toggle would fasten through a fabric loop on the other side.  The toggle on the bottom right is magnetic and the two pieces of the magnetic toggle would both be attached using a loop of the kantha fabric. Now I just need to make my mind up about which I prefer. Or I could abandon a fixed closure altogether and continue to use a kilt pin equivalent (I do have a few varieties to choose from) or a large brooch.


Photo doesn't give a good impression of scale as all three closure options are a similar size

Outfit of the day

I don't actually have an outfit of the day but I do have a montage of the jacket out and about during the trip to England in May.  It is a bit too cool here at the moment (being Winter) for me to wear a cotton jacket.

2018 Holiday Wardrobe: Vogue 8430 Marcy Tilton Green/Pink Kantha Jacket

Vogue 2056 Issey Miyake Poppy's Patchwork Jacket

My progress has not been stellar in making the pieces for the Pattern Review wardrobe contest in fact the deadline has been and gone with only three garments made. I had such high hopes of making six garments in six weeks. Oh well there is clearly more in my life than just sewing.

I finished a top the first week of the contest whilst away for the weekend in Westport. Must dig it out of the wardrobe, iron it and take a picture - maybe even produce a blog post as it was a new to me pattern company. Then the last weekend of February I made another pair of Megan Nielsen Flint trousers (also not blogged - maybe next week). Then my Issey Miyake jacket took me two weekends to finish (and as long to produce a blog post).  That left two blouses and a pair of trousers to make in a week. This was never going to happen as on average I can make a garment per week and the trousers needed to be made in a less precious trial fabric before I made the "good pair".

As the pieces of the six in six wardrobe came from my 2018 travel wardrobe plans (apart from this jacket and the Megan Nielsen Flint trousers) I will finish the garments and maybe even do a post in the spirit of the wardrobe contest. I am normally quite motivated by a deadline but neither the wardrobe contest nor the match your shoes contest provided enough deadline incentive for me to finish on time to enter.

I was slightly distracted last weekend by new fabric purchases. As well as finishing the buttons and buttonholes on my IM jacket I also made two tops but with the newly purchased fabric not part of the travel wardrobe. Oops - so much for sewing with a plan.  Although tenuous I could possibly incorporate one or both of these tops into my travel wardrobe!

The finished garment

I did think that this would be a good Summer garment but as we are starting to head into Autumn I paired it with more trans-seasonal clothing.

Preparing to fly away

Ok when unbuttoned

Not sure about the extra fabric folds when buttoned

The back with the little sticky out bit at the bottom of the centre back seam

How fortuitous the jacket goes with a dress from my travel wardrobe.

The fabric

This is a Liberty Murray loopback sweatshirting in design Poppy's Patchwork colourway B from The Fabric Store.

The fabric was bought last year and I really loved the colours but now it is made into a garment I am a bit ho hum about it.  Will let the jacket have a rest in the wardrobe and see if the love comes back.

The sewing pattern

Vogue 2056 is a single sized (14) old Issey Miyake pattern copyrighted 1988. The pattern is for a skirt, shorts and top. I felt, in 2018, the top had more of an outerwear look to it than something I would put under a jacket. The top is described as very loose fitting with front, back, long sleeves and collar cut-in-one and stitched hems.

The Sewing Workshop also produced a version of this top as the Origami Blouse which I also have in my pattern stash. This pattern has the added advantage of being multi-sized but I wanted to make the original Miyake version so persevered with a few alterations.

The pattern alterations

There is plenty of room in the body of this jacket (54" at the bust) so the changes I made were for style.

First off I traced the single pattern piece which is the back, front and sleeve onto a light non woven sew-in interfacing, with the seam allowance also marked.  Then I pinned the pattern together to make it easier to visualise the garment to make the changes I wanted.

Dorothy modelling the pinned pattern piece

I did the pattern tracing and pinning many months before the alterations were made but I had written myself an aide memoire which was pinned to Dorothy for safe keeping.

How to alter the pattern to remove the 1980's shoulders and get more room at the hip

The altered pattern

I have annotated the altered pattern piece with the changes made and these can be more easily read if the photo is enlarged.

First off the shoulders - unsurprising for a 1980's pattern the shoulder dart stuck out way past my actual shoulders.  As a soft jacket I didn't want to wear shoulder pads and a dart sagging over the top of my arm is not a good look.  Also whilst the extreme shoulder trend seems to be starting to make a comeback it really isn't my style. To combat the excess I removed 2" of width from the shoulders, using a dart down the back and a tuck in the upper half of the jacket front (photo left side).  These are changes (1) and (2) on the pattern piece.

The lower half of the jacket front needs the same 2" inches removed as the top half otherwise the seam lines won't match.  However extra width at the garment hem is of benefit rather than loosing the 2". So at roughly bust level the 2" was removed with a dart and at garment hem (hip level) the dart opened up to add width. This was achieved by cutting down from the seam line and up from the hem creating a pivot point just above waist level. So closing up the dart at the top automatically opened up the dart at the bottom. This is change (3) on the photo of the pattern piece.

The sleeves were narrowed by removing 1" at the hem, from each side, blended back to nothing at the notch (about where the lengthen/shorten line is).

Once I finished the garment and took it for an outing it became obvious that the sleeves were too short.  It is less apparent when your arms are by your side but when moving about the sleeves slide to three quarter length up my arms. I think this is related to the way the top of the jacket front is stitched to the front facing to create the tuck/pleat of fabric out of the sleeve as well. To combat this I added a 2" cuff and lengthened the pattern piece for the future by adding at the hem rather than the lengthen/shorten line. This is change (5) on the pattern piece.

When I added length to the sleeves I also reduced the width at the hem by continuing the angle of the seam to the new hem length. The photos of the finished garment make it look as though the sleeves are too long now but I am not conscious of this when wearing the jacket.

All of the seam lines had to be trued up once the pattern alterations had been made.

The seam allowance was changed from 5/8" to 3/8".  This is my preferred seam allowance and was fortunate because with the removal of 2" in the shoulder dart the back neck band (sticking out rectangular shape in the middle of the photo on the left hand side) interferes with the back neck edge.

So what would I do differently?  The only thing I can't change in the finished garment and doesn't work unless you wear the jacket buttoned all the time is the centre back seam. As can be seen from the pattern piece the centre back seam has a significant change of direction at the waist. When the top is buttoned this angle is pulled out as the garment sits close to the body but when unbuttoned it sticks out in a strange and unattractive way. I haven't worked out what the solution is to this problem and will need to leave myself a note on the pattern piece in case I make the garment again.

I have also added 1.5" at the hem at centre back tapering to nothing towards centre front as I think the back length is a bit short.  Change (4) on the pattern piece. This new length is for the benefit of any future makes and not something I did for this jacket.

If I ever wore this as a blouse I would need to do something to raise the neckline. Unless I wanted to display my bra to the world and I feel quite strongly that no matter how attractive a bra is they are called under garments for a reason.

The sewing

All seams were sewn first with a 3/8" seam allowance, then overlocked for a neat inside and then top stitched.  For once I actually followed the pattern instructions, in fact you can see them close at hand as I am pinning the garment pieces together in the photo below.

The actual mechanics of the sewing is pretty straight forward. It is the origami folding that requires some mental gymnastics. The sleeve seam is also the seam across the bodice front to join the top and bottom of the front together.  You need to concentrate and make sure you match up the appropriate tailors tacks. Don't skimp on the transference of the patterns markings to the fabric or you will be lost. Even with careful marking I am not sure I stitched the front to the facing as intended to make the folds as my version does not fall as attractively as the pattern envelope suggests.

Origami folding the jacket to match the sleeve and front bodice seam

A closer view of the sleeve pinned together

The front bodice pinned and the mind bending clip to turn the angle into a straight line

I started off using my Bernina 830 but it decided to have one too many mental breakdowns so I put it in the naughty corner and then trecked it into town to the Bernina dealer.  There is enough wrong with it that they shipped it back to head office in Wellington who are apparently downloading its log and sending it back to Switzerland for analysis. So out came the trusty 1953 Singer Featherweight, which has never had a mental breakdown, it just sews along through thick fabric and thin.

My trusty Featherweight has the buttonhole attachment which everyone raves about but I had never used. With the absence of my 830 and the need to finish the garment I got it out of hiding and pressed it into service.  A few practice buttonholes were needed to get the hang of how the buttonholer worked but once again it worked perfectly.  Every buttonhole the same.  No tantrums because some bits of the jacket are thicker than others. It was easy to go around each buttonhole twice (or as many times as I wanted). The nerves were more present at the point of cutting the buttonholes open (I was good and used my buttonhole cutter rather than the quick unpick).

Three perfect buttonholes

Given the colours in the jacket I choose to use three different (in size and colour) buttons.  This seemed like a really good idea at the time but now I am not so sure. Why does it look so different when the buttons are sewn on? They looked great when I was playing with options.

The only interfacing used is a 3" strip applied to the front facings to support the buttons and button holes.

I enjoyed a meditative bit of hand stitching to finish the hems and hold the front facing to the garment front.  The pattern instructions have you machine stitch these but I didn't want the line around the garment.

The outfit of the day

Not an outfit of the day but I did think I should take a picture of my Issey Miyake jacket with my Issey Miyake Rock Sandals. When thinking about which outfit I should pair this jacket with I immediately thought of the AGF Bloom Montage knit dress used in the original Rock sandal post. From the distance of memory the colours in this dress seemed ideal.  When put together the colours of the dress are just that little bit off so they really clash. Even my beloved thought this was a less than stellar outfit and his colour choices can be decidedly iffy. Here is the photographic evidence of my never to be worn together again outfit.

Outfit of the Day Bargello Quilt Kimono Jacket

On a fine spring day we decided to take a walk along the prom at Sumner and of course have an ice-cream.  What else would you do on a trip to the seaside?

According to the Christchurch City Council website the stroll along the promenade and return is 1.25km long - not quite far enough to burn off the ice-cream calories. Luckily I didn't have one due to the blustery easterly wind blowing in off the sea. It seemed more coffee than ice-cream weather.

I wore a recently completed jacket for our walk along the prom.  It is made from a bargello quilt which was always intended to be a garment it just took over fifteen years to finish. We took photos for the blog using the mosaic taniwha as a prop but the blog post never happened.

The outfit

It is worn with an Icebreaker merino tee, French Dressing Jeans and United Nude Jacky Lo Black, Blue and Silver ankle boots.  The FDJ Olivia straight leg jeans were altered by me many moons ago to be a slim leg.

Sumner

Sumner is a  coastal seaside suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand and was surveyed and named in 1849 in honour of John Bird Sumner, the then newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and president of the Canterbury Association.  The Māori name for the area is Ohikaparuparu ("o" means place of; "hika" means rubbing, kindling, or planting; "paruparu" means dirt, deeply laden, or a preparation of fermented cockles).

Trip Advisor rates Sumner as number 20 of 249 things to do in Christchurch.

Aptly named Beach Bar which thoughtfully provides a lap rug if you sit outside on a blustery day

Looking along the beach to Scarborough head

Majestic Norfolk pines

The mosaic taniwha has lost some of his mosaic but is still an impressive sculpture.  Taniwha are supernatural creatures in Māori tradition, similar to serpents and dragons in other cultures.  They were said to hide in the ocean, rivers, lakes, watery dens or caves.  Some taniwha would eat and kill people, or kidnap women.  Others were believed to be guardians for a tribe, and people would offer them gifts and say a karakia (a prayer).

Sumner is also a haunt for surfers - maybe you can spot a few in these pictures. There were some out on the water honest.

Cave rock, a small tidal cave, can be explored at low tide and scrambling to the top is a favourite past-time for kids.  There is a plaque on the tower at the top which remembers the (ship) pilot Joseph Day who saved many lives between 1867 and 1880.  There is also a Māori legend associated with Cave Rock.

Tuawera is the Māori name for this large rock.  Tuawere figuratively means cut down as if by fire and refers to the many people who died from eating the flesh of a great whale that was stranded on the shore. It is said that the rock represents the carcass of that deadly whale which was beached by means of black magic.

The Story of Tuawera - Tūrakipō, a chief of Ōpawāho sought Hineao, a daughter of Te Ake of Akaroa for a wife. She spurned his advances so Tūrakipō cast a spell of death upon her.  In revenge Te Ake her father went to the hill overlooking Sumner and sent forth mighty karakia against Tūrakipō and his people.  In answer to his prayers a whale was stranded on the shore which the people of Tūrakipō eagerly cut up and feasted upon. Those who ate the whale fell asleep and subsequently died.  Tūrakipō, feeling that the stranded whale was the result of makutu (black magic), did not partake with his people. However, later, having few followers left to help him he was duly slain by Te Ake’s party.

The Earthquake - On 22 February 2011, the 6.3 magnitude Christchurch earthquake destroyed or made uninhabitable a large number of the local houses and commercial buildings. This was followed my many smaller earthquakes including another 6.3 magnitude earthquake on 13 June 2011. These two earthquakes caused many of Sumner's iconic cliffs to collapse, and many areas to be cordoned off using fencing and shipping containers.  Since these earthquakes a lot of the cliffs have been further dismantled to make them safe. The shipping containers have finally been removed and vegetation planted so overtime the large scars in the cliff face blend back into the natural environment.

Sumner container wall c.2015

Summit Road - As the weather was nice we decided to drive along Summit Road between the Gondola and Godley Head, for the first time post earthquake, to be reminded of the amazing views.

Sumner

Heathcote Valley

The Estuary

As luck would have it when I flew to Wellington on the Monday morning we took off to the south and flew over the city going out to sea at New Brighton with Sumner just visible at the top middle of the photograph.

The making

The idea was to finish the quilted jacket in time for Symposium in October but that plan didn't quite work out.  Now that the garment is finished I can't see it having a life in regular wardrobe rotation.  It would have fitted in really well at the quilt symposium but not sure it does anywhere else.

When I signed up for the bargello quilt class at Bernina Dress Sundries in the early 2000s I knew that I wanted a brightly coloured quilt based on the colours in a bundle of Laurel Burch Fantastic Felines fabrics sent to me by Cath. The strata of my quilt ended up being the colours of a rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) and these five Laurel Burch fabrics just blended into that theme.

I started making this jacket quite quickly after finishing the quilt using a kimono quilt pattern from a book. All these years later I have no idea what the book was or even where the pattern I traced is.  It never made it to completion for two reasons: (1) the kimono sleeves resulted in a lot of fabric under the arm which looked ugly and was uncomfortable; (2) I was obsessed with making double sided garments and I could never decide what the second side should be. So the original jacket was reverse sewn and the pieces put away in a draw for maturation.

Roll on 2017 and I looked at a number of different jacket patterns but was really limited by the fact that I didn't want to chop up the quilt more than I had to and the shape of the previous kimono jacket.  After much head scratching I remembered a Laura Lee Fitz garment quilt pattern "Fruit Garden" bought at either my first or second trip to Houston International Quilt Festival back in 2008 or 2010. This worked perfectly having more shape whilst still blending well with the original garment. I created my own facing and lining pieces and used pattern 1007 Kimono Jacket and Vest by Purrfection Artistic Wearables (now called Dana Marie Design) for the kimono style collar band.

The quilt is quilted really simply, going corner to corner diagonally across each segment of fabric, using invisible thread. It is quilted onto a heavy cotton flannel.  This was before I discovered heirloom cotton quilting flannel which is fantastic for garment quilts.  This heavy flannel makes the jacket quite heavy (but warm).

As the quilted fabric was thick I used herringbone stitch (embroidery stitch name due to old age mental blank on its sewing name) to catch all of the seams down.

One of the challenges with completing a project so many years after it was started is having enough fabric.  I had stitched the embroidery designs on a Jinny Beyer fabric and always intended to use the same fabric for the kimono collar.  Now of course I wanted to use it for the facings as well. Even the quilt shop that used to stock all of the Jinny Beyer Palette Collection is no more. So I popped into Bernina in the hope that they still had some left and yay they had a lonely fat quarter remaining. With this fat quarter and the other remnants from my original purchase I managed to cut all the bits I needed with some judicious piecing using left over bits of the bargello patchwork.

The lining came from The Fabric Store, a lovely silk satin.  I did try to find a cheaper fabric but none of the other lining suitable silks worked nearly as well as the snakeskin print.

The machine embroidery was the other feature of the garment. All of these designs were from the OESD Laurel Burch Fantastic Felines Collection.  This took ages to sew out on my previous Bernina Embroidery machine (Artista 180).  The biggest hoop I had was 200 x 155mm (roughly 8 x 6 inches). So the fabric had to be hooped many times and everything carefully positioned to line up with the previous stitching, to get a strip of fabric long enough to go around my hips.

As an art garment I love the look of the finished item.  From a sewing perspective there are a number of imperfections and I would give myself a "could do better" rating.  It will be interesting to see if it gets worn as an everyday garment when the cooler weather comes.