Hommes Fashion Tutorial: The Jacket

Here I am, back from my business travels, it was tough (too many meetings, too few time to rest or think or eat properly during the day.....luckily we managed to have a couple of nice dinners), but  now it is going to be a bit more relaxed....hopefully. This is the last instalment of the male suit tutorials.

Last but not least, let's see how to sew a jacket. After several mistakes I came up with this simplified pattern, which fits pretty well. It is partially lined and doesn't look as bulky as IT jackets do.

We shall need cotton or gabardine, and satin for the lining, thread and pins!

Again to draw your pattern you can use these tips from April's Blog

As you see the pattern is quite simple, the only "complicated" parts are the lining of the lapel and the collar.

At first I did a partially lined lapel, but it fitted awfully, so I devised this

The fit is good now whe mus sew the back together:

Nice enough

Now the collar, you have to take the measurement on the doll:

This is not the "elegant way" to attach the collar, but it won't show and it is neat enough:

As you see it fits nicely

The sleeves shall be lined too, as it will be easier for the doll to wear the jacket on long sleeves:

And here's Goffredo in his complete Tobacco Road outfit!

Hope this tutorial is clear enough, please feel free to ask any questions, I'll do my best to answer you!

Hommes Fashion Tutorial: the vest

As promised, here's the new chapter of the Hommes Suit Tutorials.
This is the vest from the first of the Tobacco Road collection outfits (which will be ready sometimes in the winter I hope)
This time I made an express post, with a collage of the steps for each part of the vest. In order to make the pattern I used a ready made IT vest, you can also start from this tutorial by April to design one of your taste. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

This is going to be a lined vest, so you will need cotton, satin linin, thread and a lot of pins !

The front, as you will see my vests close in the back, Mattel style, as I like a perfect fit on the front:

The back. This is made of a double layer of satin, for thickness as we'll have to apply our press studs there. We don't want the fabric to fall apart at the seams, do we?

Putting together the whole thing, adding some fake buttons on the front and studs at the back (remember to try it on the doll in order to get the perfect fit):

Et voilà, Goffredo is super handsome in his new outfit. Love this style!

Hommes fashion tutorial: trousers

Sebastiano is going to be this month's star. So he's  helping me modeling the trousers for this tutorial. These are part of the Tartan craze collection.

Let's strart with what we need for the trousers:
Fabric, pins, needle, tone sur tone thread and snap fasteners.
First I'm going to show you the pictures of the slopers I've made, along with a meter.

These measurements fit FR Homme dolls.
When I started sewing garment for guys, the first question was: how to draw a pattern for trousers? Here's the answer:

And here's the pattern adapted to a doll's needs, of course one front and one rear for each leg!

Then hem the whole thing, fold the pocket and cut a piece of fabric for the inside pocket:

Here you can see the pocket attached to the front of the leg. Then we put the front and rear together, I usually draw the desired sewing line with chalk

of course we try it on Sebastiano to check the fitting.

Now we can take the measurement for the bottom hem of the trousers, we fold it and sew

And here comes the thing that drew me crazy until I found this tutorial: how the heck do you sew the two legs together?!?!!?
1) turn one of the legs outside out

2) insert the turned leg inside the other

3) fix the crotch with needles and draw the sewing line with chalk

4) These trousers will open on the back, so sew the whole lenght of the front and halfway in the back:

5) Let's turn the whole thing outside out and "et voità":

a perfect fit

But of course, we're not finished yet, we have to add the waistband. Let's take the right measurement on the fitted trousers

Fold and hem on the sides (inside out)

Turn outside out and hem the bottom

Sew the waistband to the trousers

of course we have to sew a snap-fastener on the waistband

Now our trousers are complete!

Sebastiano is ready for a walk in the highlands

Kisses Billa