My first foray into garment making.

[Mark G]

I've wanted to try sewing my own clothes for awhile now and thought I'd give it a try.

I used an old Simplicity pattern I got off of E-Bay and heavily modified it. The pattern was basically a bag with patch pockets, so I took it in and made welt pockets instead.

It's Shetland wool with pig suede trim. On reflection, I would have moved the pockets up and toward the center seam but overall, I'm happy with it.

One caveat: I used a cheap consumer machine and it couldn't handle the garment suede and quickly knocked it out of time (the instructions for the machine say it's made for denim and other tough materials... it was clearly not). It was a gift and probably not something I would have purchased on my own.

 

[Deleted member 16736]

Beautiful. What's your backlog?

 

[too much coffee]

Great job Mark! Years ago I attempted to make a shirt using a Simplicity pattern. Darn near sewed my thumb to my index finger and got the sewing thread wrapped around my wrist so damn tight I lost blood circulation.
Seriously, for the first time out of the chute, that is a terrific effort.

Regards,
coffee

 

[Trust But Verify]

Wow, seriously nice first foray! Did you already have experience sewing other types of projects? Was there anything that stood out as a particular challenge during the process? It's pretty cool that you were comfortable making the additional modifications to your own preferences.

 

[Mark G]

Thanks for the compliments. I had very limited experience with sewing. Mostly making a few hat liners and binding a couple of hats but no experience making clothes. I don't know what I would have done without Youtube. Every time I ran into a problem I'd look it up to see the solution. What a marvelous reference.

The hardest parts were the collar, joining the sleeves and the welt pockets. Also, I wouldn't recommend sewing leather on a cheap home machine (even thin).