Superman Progress Pt 3

The hood is attached! It took a while for me to get it just right. After the buttonhole mishap and having to recut another hood in both the red fabric and lining, I was a little discouraged and needed a small break. But, I pulled the jacket out again tonight and attached the hood. And my thanks to Ed for being a good sport about modelling it for me.

Since the two layers are pretty thick, I needed to use double wide bias tape, rather than regular bias tape, where it said to use it as the neck facing. Since I didn't have the light blue I originally had bought for it, in double wide, I ended up just using black. But that matches too since the Superman fabric has enough black in it, and a lot of the top stitching was done in black. Which brings me to the details that I promised a few posts ago.




The first image is the top stitching I achieved using a twin needle. I am in LOVE with my twin needle! And it makes such a nice finish on the inside as well, which you can see in the second photo. Since I didn't plan well about pocket placement and the hem, I started the hem stitching further towards the back of the pocket, though I did hand stitch to the lining on the inside. Basically it looks like the pocket is placed over the hem stitching, though it's not. I saved myself by that idea! I really didn't want to have to rip apart half the zipper and place the pockets higher up so that I could make a hem.

I realized too late to go out for it, but I didn't have nearly enough elastic. So, the project waits on hold, again, until I can get both more elastic for the hem and cuffs and a drawstring for the hood. I made a point NOT to photograph the buttonholes because those are pretty bad. My idea to put in the buttonholes after the hood was stitched in place wasn't a good one.

Superman Jacket

I found this incredible Superman sheet at Goodwill about 6 months ago. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do with it when I bought it, except make something for my cousin who lives and breathes Superman. Seriously, the guy has about 4 tattoos of Superman and related things and that's a rough estimate. As soon as I left, it hit me that I should do a raglan hoodie jacket. He lives in Tennessee and it gets cold there and it would showcase the Superman graphic perfectly. So I searched high and low for an appropriate jacket pattern and found Kwik Sew 1367, an out of print pattern from the 80's I believe, on ebay soon after.

I chose to do view B which is the guy in the turquoise jacket, but I altered the pattern so that the pocket holes started on the side of the stomach rather than the side seams. That just looked awkward and weird to me. I also angled the pockets so that things wouldn't fall out of them, like your pocket litter does on regular RTW hoodies. Boy, does that drive me nuts! I can't tell you how many things I've dropped in the toilet because of that (yeah, eww!).

After consulting him on it, he wanted blue arms, so it would be like Superman's outfit, and a red hood to resemble Superman's cape. I decided to make the pockets blue as well because more Superman would just be too busy on the front. The blue pockets give it a little breather.

I'm not finished yet on the jacket because I ran out of thread and needed to pick some up. I lucked out because JoAnn's is having a 50% off sale on Coats and Clark XP brand thread (which I didn't know about going in there).

I did line it with flannel. I actually dyed it blue after testing a batch a while ago. The larger pieces came out a lot lighter than the test pieces, and mottled looking at that. But since it's inside and it kind of looks like the sky, which goes with the Superman fabric, I kept it as is. I know that the flannel will likely make getting it on and off slightly difficult, but I explained that to my cousin who wanted the flannel anyways. The flannel is a queen sized blanket I found for probably under $3 at some thrift store or another.

I had to baste ALL the flannel to the outside fabric to keep it secure. In planning this, I didn't realize that I would have to do that. But, it makes for more precise construction. Sometimes the flannel was larger than the outer fabric and I'd have to trim it.

I'll post more about the details once it's completed!

Simplicity 5194 - Shirt

This is an OOP, from 2004 but I got it from the thrift store for 69 cents, so I couldn't beat that. I went with view A, that had the longer sleeves and the regular bottom. The design was cute, and has a V neck that isn't too low.

I ended up making 3 different muslins trying to get the right fit. I did an FBA and the front fit ok, but the sleeves, where it meets the bodice and back around the bust area was very tight and the sleeve cap seam was too far away from where it needed to be. I couldn't move my arm forward or back without a terrible pull. I had a hell of a time trying to figure out what to do.

I ended up using a slope shoulder adjustment and adding to the areas where it pulled. That meant that the whole arm area needed to be redrawn. To add to that, I originally had made an adjustment on the sleeve and facing because my arms are fat and probably wouldn't have even fit in the original sleeve. That meant that I had to re-do the sleeve cap too, which too a lot of fiddling and trimming off. I also added to the length. All in all, a kind of frustrating fitting for this pattern, but it ended up coming out ok.

As you can see on the right arm (your left in the photo) it still pulls some when I reach back. But, once I got to this point I quit. I ran out of patience. But, it's not too bad. I have some RTW shirts that have a pull like that, and I guess it's expected in more fitted shirts (and with a full bust).

The fabric is some kind of poly I think. I got it at a going out of business sale at a Joanns for a dollar a yard. It is very silky feeling and is so drapey it's limp.

I did have to add a snap to the top of the button/button loop area because in my alterations, somewhere along the line, the facing for the neckline and along the front of the shirt got skewed and my dots weren't in the right place. I had to wing it on collar placement and it ended up being a little off, so then I had to re-do the buttons so that it wouldn't sit skewed. That gave me too much room at the very top, so if I didn't want the front to gape open a bit, I needed a snap.