Finally, my Hikaru is finished!!

A looooong time in the making, I finally finished my Hikaru last night. I even wore it to work today (even though it was a little warm for it). '

So, with no further ado, here it is:

I'm SO happy with how it's turned out. Particularly the awesome lining:

It had it's challenges. The wool was thick and my machine struggled with parts of it.

Military inspired buttons down the front and lapels on the shoulders

Not to mention the TWENTY FOUR buttons!!

Buttons on the cuffs

The button holes were the biggest struggle...

Patch pockets

The wool is surprisingly soft, not scratchy at all.

Embroidered "label" and a ribbon hanging hook

And did I mention the lining??! It's also soooo soft and smooth!

Buttons!

Yesterday in my lunch break I took a sneaky button shopping trip. I went to Buttonmania, which was a really lovely experience! Buttons of every size, shape, type and colour imaginable! I was offered many many different button options, and we narrowed it down to two:

The ones on the left were round mottled metal ones, and the ones on the right flatter textured brown plastic ones. I decided that the metal ones took the military inspiration slightly more literally, and the brown ones were a little "warmer.

I spent a very long time mulling over my choice, including calling a friend for a second opinion (with the lady in buttonmania being very patient!). In the end I went for the brown ones, as I like the slightly less literal interpretation of the military inspiration.

I'm hoping to get it finished this weekend - I have the buttons to sew on, buttonholes to do, and lining to sew in left to go... that's doable, right?

Buttons?

I have realised that I need to make a decision on buttons for my Hikaru before I sew the lining in... and I don't even know what I'm looking for. What kind/colour buttons would you put on this jacket?

For a reminder, this is what the pattern has for button placement, and also the burdastyle example:

So; Help??!

Getting there...

It's starting to look like a real coat!

Please excuse the pins, they're holding on the shoulder pads, I need to learn how to sew them in!

Only lining and buttons (which I still need to buy) to go. (yes, only...!?)

Full Steam Ahead...

Monday night is normally my 'stay home and sew and watch trashy TV (ie Desperate Housewives)" night, so that's exactly what I did - more work on my Hikaru. The jacket now has the peplum & pockets:

and a zip:

Slow but steady progress, mostly because I've been reading and re-reading each step of the instructions about 5 or 6 times before setting stitch to fabric. Partly because they're not the clearest, and partly because I really don't want to have to unpick anything on this fabric!

Can you spot my mistake?

Yesterday I finally started stitching my Hikaru jacket. After checking my stitch settings on some scraps of the fabric, and deliberating for far too long over topstitching options (thread colour, distance from seam etc etc), I bit the bullet and began.

Back seams... front seams... and then I got to the shoulder seams and they didn't match up... cue lots of looking at fabric pieces, pattern pieces and my muslin. It took me far too long to realise what I'd done wrong. Below is a picture of my jacket back piece... can you see what I did wrong?

I stitched the centre back pieces together the wrong way around! Faced with unpicking that much topstiching I was about to stop for the night, so instead checked if I had enough fabric to cut out new back pieces, which I did, and I made sure that I did it the right way around this time. Much better:

So now I have the front and back sewn up and together at the shoulder and side seams and the shoulder tabs basted in place on the shoulder:

Hopefully I won't make any more stupid mistakes as I don't have enough fabric left to cut out any more pieces and they don't have this fabric left at the store.

Injuries!

Last night I cut out the wool for my Hikaru Jacket... and discovered I shouldn't have been lazy and should have cut the two layers separately. Not because of any (yet undiscovered) inaccuracies between the two layers, but because the two layers is bloody thick!! Both me and my scissors are now feeling a little worse for wear! My thumb is bruised (and at one point last night didn't have any feeling), and my scissors were squeaking while I was cutting, which has never happened before.I tried them on some calico and they seem fine, but I will be taking them into get sharpened as soon as I have some free time...

Which leads me onto this question; does anyone have any recommendations of where to get my scissors sharpened in Melbourne? (Preferably in or near the city)

Pre-shrinking...

As I mentioned I would in my last post on the topic, I needed to do some research on pre-treating/shrinking the fabric I bought for Hikaru fabric.

The lining fabric is easy, I've hand washed that with the silk wash I bought at Tessuti.

Onto the wool... I have been informed by one of the ladies who works at The Fabric Store that the fabric I bought is "boiled wool". So, armed with this information I Googled... and I Googled... and I Googled.... (written three times because I know that Google don't like you verb-alising their name and I'm a rebel like that!) and Google failed me! I could find heaps of information on making boiled wool, and lots on pre-shrinking other wool fabrics (summarised beautifully here or here) but nothing on boiled wool.

So, I went back to the store and asked their advice, and I was assured that I didn't need to pre-shrink the wool, I just needed to dry clean it once it was finished... sceptical of this advice and still not convinced that my jacket wouldn't shrink the first time I get caught in the rain (much like an umbrella I once had) I went to the Library.

I got out "More Fabric Savvy" by Sandra Betzina, which confirms that pre-shrinking is not necessary.

Just to triple check, I cut a little strip off the end (after laying out my patterns pieces to check that I had the spare fabric) and drew around it on a piece of paper. I then steamed the crap out of it with my iron and compared the size of my piece to the outline on the paper... it was the same size. I repeated the process a couple more times just to be completely sure, and the fabric definitely hasn't shrunk.

I know any of you that know what boiled wool is are probably thinking 'Duh, of course, don't you know how it's made?', and I do, but I wanted to be absolutely and completely sure as I'll be absolutely gutted if it shrinks the first time I get it cleaned!

Some other useful bits of information that "More Fabric Savvy" tells me are that I don't need interfacing, that I should use a 3mm stitch length, and I should use the wool setting on my iron, with steam and a press cloth.

So it seems I'm ready to start...!

Hikaru Fabric!

I know that I had picked out the olive green wool for the Hikaru jacket, but when I got to The Fabric Store to buy it I spotted a different wool that wasn't there when I was last there.... and indecision struck!

After spending far too long pondering, including dragging out a VERY large pile of possible lining fabrics, I settled on the (slightly extravagant) combination shown above. On the right the wool for the jacket, a little thicker than the olive wool I was going to go with, and lovely and smooth, the dappled pattern is the colours. On the left, the fabric I'm going to use as a lining - I thought a bit of colour and pattern would be good fun, and this lovely silk/cotton blend was just too nice to resist! Also shown are a matching zip and the two spools of thread that I bought - one matching and one darker one, which I'm considering using for top-stitching.

The only thing stopping me from making a start on it now is that I have NO idea how to pre-treat the fabrics before sewing with them. Obviously I need to pre-treat them; I have visions of getting caught in the rain and the jacket shrinking unevenly if I don't. Thus, my next job is to do some research on the subject... watch this space! (or comment if you have any wisdom to share)

Hikaru Muslin...

The next item for my wardrobe project is the hikaru jacket so today was spent sewing up a muslin to check out the pattern and the fit. (Please ignore the fact that I set the sleeves in inside out, it's not worth going back and redoing them!) Overall the fit isn't bad. It has plenty of space for extra layers (it's photographed with just a tank top underneath) but isn't too big.

The only fit issue I can see is the slight bagging at the back, caused I think because it gets caught up on my behind when I move around (if I pull it down it will sit smooth and not be pulling too much over my hips but as soon as I move it gets caught up again).

What do you think, is it enough of a problem try and alter or not really worth bothering about?

I have swatches of fabric to choose between from The Fabric Store (which is a convenient less than 5 mins walk from my house):

The top one is a dark olive green and kinda has the feel of slightly thicker felt. The bottom one is a dark-ish grey, is a bit thicker than the green and has a bit of texture to it. I'm erring more towards the green, what do you think?