Monthly Archives: November 2016

The Blue Plaid Shacket, Part 1

Hello… (tap tap tap) is this mic on?

Good?  Good.

(Those of you who get this blog via email from WordPress.com: I’ve been in touch with their tech support, who assure me that everyone who was subscribed will continue to receive new articles.  I will be reaching out privately to some of you who wrote me, to make sure this article arrives in your mailbox).

Now that the blog has (mostly) settled in its new Internet home, we can get back down to the business of sewing.

Idea

I’ve been thinking about tailoring projects for a while.  I have a cut melton wool for a peacoat sitting in my stash, and there is also a tailored blazer project in view on my project queue.  But as a way to ease into tailored garments, I wanted to first make something with a lining.

I spotted a lined, buffalo-plaid shirtjacket in a store at the mall a few weeks ago, and it got me thinking.  Shirtjackets (aka, “shackets”) are a bit of a thing for many in the mens sewing blogosphere, and it looks like now I’m catching the bug too.  Shackets really are perfect for the type of chilly but not freezing cold weather we get here in San Francisco.

Inspiration

The overall idea for the shacket isn’t totally in shape yet, but I do want it to be a plaid flannel garment that vaguely recalls a lumberjack shirt.

Besides looking at the aforementioned blogs for inspiration, there’s a great chapter on shirt jackets, with associated online material in David Page Coffin’s book, The Shirtmaking Workbook.  He has a Pinterest board with lots of design inspiration, and I have also started my own Pinterest inspiration board for the project. Continue reading

Note for Feedly subscribers

If you are not reading this blog with Feedly, please move along.

To update your Feedly account to the new blog address, please do the following:

  1. Unsubscribe from Line of Selvage in Feedly.  Here are instructions from Feedly if you need help to do this.
  2. Re-subscribe to Line of Selvage using the green button to the right of this message, on the website.  Or click on this link.

This will ensure you continue to see future updates.

Unlike Bloglovin’, Feedly will not let me adjust everyone’s feed from here in the cockpit.  And Feedly doesn’t pick up on edits to already published articles, hence the need for this additional message.

Please bear with me while I get this blog back to cruising altitude.  Thanks!

A Shiny New Home on the Internet

Dear Readers,

Behind the scenes I’ve done some major renovation, and part of the upgrade is that Line of Selvage now has a new internet address!

For now, the old blog address will continue to work.  But please, at your earliest convenience, update your bookmarks and RSS readers to use the new address:

https://lineofselvage.blog

Update: If you are reading this blog via Bloglovin’, I’ve updated the address there for you already, so you don’t need to do anything.

Update 2: If you are subscribed via WordPress.com, you’re also up to date and don’t need to do anything.

Two developments have led to this upgrade.

First, I’ve been having issues with my old Internet hosting provider, so I have decided to move the blog to a new hosting service.  Second, a new internet top-level domain called “.blog” is now available. It is an alternative to the familiar (and widely misused) “.com”.  So, I have moved over to the new address.

The address change is something I have wanted to do for a while. I originally created the blog under the “jotabout.com” domain, which I already owned for my computer software development work.  The new .blog address gives Line Of Selvage an identity separate from my computer work, so I can return “jotabout.com” to its original purpose.

As an added benefit, the new hosting provider seems to have faster servers than the old, so pages should load faster.

If you run into any issues with the blog, please leave a comment below, send me an email or use the Contact page.

221156d55b8d1724731f43f41b842ae3097b2459a14b44f322a263a56be70116

Review: “How To Make Sewing Patterns”, Second Edition

Don McCunn’s book How To Make Sewing Patterns came to me when I first started investigating fitting.  It was recommended in response to my question on PatternReview’s discussion forums, asking for a treatment of the subject that catered to men’s as well as women’s physiques.

covers

Covers: First Edition on the left, Second Edition on the right.

I feel fortunate to have learned pattern making from this book first, because it provides a conceptual basis to flat pattern work.  It explains how seams and darts, pleats and gathers can actually shape fabric to fit a three-dimensional body. I reviewed the first edition for this blog.

Continue reading