A "western" blouse, finished

Recently I wrote a post about my acquisition of some two meters of a checkered light cotton fabric, that should be manufactured into kind of a "western" blouse. 

As the picture above shows, manufacturing has been done and the blouse is ready. It has patched pockets (usually the shirts I make, are without pockets, because I will not use these, but a "western" shirt would'nt be complete without them, is'nt it?)


I had to wear this shirt immediately.


This last days of august happened to be very sunny and it was nice to be outside in the sun and nice to walk around in this new garment.

 
Looking at this shirt myself, I must say, that my initial objections to plaid shirts start to fall. 


I especially do like the function of the vertical dark blue stripes: these are more present than the horizontal ones, in this way countering a too "square" effect of the shirt. 


No more thoughts about what might be trendy or not this fall. For me, now, it's just a nice shirt to see and to wear.

A "western" blouse, the parts

 checkered blue cotton

This is the checkered blue light cotton fabric from the shop in Volendam, I referred to in a former post.


The idea is to manufacure kind of a western blouse from this material. Checkered fabrics are due to be trendy this fall, so why should'nt I jump the bandwagon...


In general, I am not very much in favor of checkered fabric, but one is never too old to give it a try. And light blue is one of my favourite colours. So....


I will use two colours of yarn,  a light blue one for stitching together the different parts and a grey one for making some decorative stitchings.


And what about the buttons?


Buttons in "western" shirts will have kind of a white, shining core in a metal like setting. I prefer something different, like these ones:

 the button to be used on this kind of fabric

I think these look very special, in combination with the colours and pattern of the fabric.


Here is what they look like from the back side. Buttons with incisions...(for less than 1 euro each, don't understand how one can produce it for this price):

OK. These are the parts. When combined correctly, these should produce kind of a "western" blouse.


Let's wait and see. (Can't wait? Look here)

A black/white striped, traditional red cotton fabric from Volendam

men in traditional Volendam costume (no wooden shoes)

In a recent post I told about a trip to Volendam, to buy a fabric to make galgo coats.


Recently we visited Volendam again. Just to see what the tourist scene would look like around the end of august. Well, at this time of the year, it's still a lively scene, one can say.


I looked around to see if I could buy some fabric, and yes, there happens to be a shop on the Dike, close to Volendam Harbour, where they sell all varieties of laces and also had some bolts of fabrics.


I bought two meters of a blue checkered light cotton fabric, to manufacture a shirt out of (to be discussed in a future post).


And in the same shop, I also came along this one:

This is a black/white striped red cotton fabric, as in ancient times was incorporated in  (male)  traditional costumes in the Netherlands.

The red fabric was also used in women's dresses, like in the picture above: a young lady's traditional dress with a blouse in white striped red fabric, as worn on Marken.


The vendor in Volendam told me this black/white striped red cotton fabric was his last bolt. He would not have a new order of this one, becasue of insufficient demand. This did it, I just had to buy this stuff before it would be too late. And I thought it might be fine for a gilet or so.


(I know, I know, it will never be a gilet. I am fatally attracted to red fabrics, but red does'nt suit me, so whatever red stuff I buy, it's being stored and in all probablity will never be transformed into a garment).  


The black/white striped red cotton fabric has been produced by the dutch firm van den Acker, located in Gemert, Brabant. This firm for more than 200 years has been run by the same family. They have been great in manufacturing fabrics for traditional costumes, as worn in a variety of (fishermen) communities in the Netherlands.


Demand for this kind of fabric, however,  is declining, so nowadays the firm is specialising in designing and producing high quality fabrics to be used in the interior.

A gentleman with a nice coloured jacket

No, I did'nt manufacture this jacket myself. Neither am I the one on the bike.


This picture is just a random shot, while walking in the centre of Amsterdam, near Dam square.

I really do like this kind of outfit: hat, scarf, jacket, jeans, sneakers....

Bravo, Sir, whomever you may be.

The jacket seems to be inspired by desigual,  but it also has an indian texture.

Spanish firm Desigual has its own shop in the centre of the city, and there are some retailers. 

Of course, in Amsterdam you will find a lot of shops selling Indian clothes and Indian fabrics.

A light blue shirt from a soft cotton fabric, with inwoven embroidery

The shirt above is also pictured in the header of this weblog. It's a shirt for summer time. 


I came along this fabric one day, crossing the Dappermarkt (Dapper Market) in Amsterdam, on my way home. This market is a rather casual one. It is in the eastern part of Amsterdam, where cultural diversity is standard, since this part of the city was build, from around 1900 on.


So, nowadays you will have stalls with fabrics, that will satisfy all types of clients, irrespective of where their family backgrounds are located.


When I saw this light blue fabric, I just thought it would be fine to use it to manufacture a summer shirt.


So that's what I did.

On the shoulder the shirt has a yoke (a schouderpas in dutch). Such a yoke is essential in men's shirts, to provide better fitting of front and back parts: these parts "hang" on the yoke, so said.


Under the arm holes this model  has two side parts along the side seam (can't be seen on the pics),


The shirt has no patched pocket. It might have a decorative function, but in this case I prefer to express the decorative aspect in the buttons and the button holes. So I fixed light blue button holes combined with mixed yellow buttons.


Like summer: sun, sand, blue sea....

Gilets in black

Gilets are easy to manufacture. Once you have a nice looking pattern, that produces well fitting clothes, the only thing you have to do is to select some fabrics that will do to back up your personality (and cut and stitch carefully and in the right order, of course).


I manufactured some gilets in black. Above is one I made from a remainder of a striped black denim I used for a pair of jeans.  


The pockets are what in french are called poches passepoilées, in english probably welt pockets, in dutch paspelzakken.


The backside is a simple gray corduroy.

Here is another black gilet I made. The front is a very fine waled corduroy fabric with small motives. I came along this one in a local shop with supplies for knitting and sewing in the community of Dieren, where they had a number of these very thin corduroy fabrics.


The backside has been made of a simple grey, sofly striped cotton fabric.


The pockets once more are welt pockets, this time with flaps. And the buttons were recycled from a garment, one time bought in an  "America Today" shop.

And here is a gilet made from a more wide wale black corduroy fabric, front and back manufactured with the same material.


This is one of the first gilets I made. The pattern is a bit different from the other two, and I prefer the pattern of these two, because of a better fitting and look.

Making galgo coats

As I announced in a former post, my partner and I have been active in manufacturing galgo coats.


These coats will be transported to Spain, to the shelters over there, that come at the rescue of galgo's (Spanish greyhounds). These dogs are heavily abused in that country, and not only there..


All over the world, also in Spain, organisations have been formed in order to fight this injustice and to take action to help these dogs.

One way of helping them, is providing coats, to protect galgo's in shelters during the winter from the cold and the rain.


So a galgo coat must have a warm inside, often made of fleece, and a waterproof outside, made of....well, lots of fabrics will do.
  

One day we went to Volendam, to visit a company were they manufacture tents (Yes, Volendam is more than fishermen costumes and wooden shoes). That company sells scraps of canvas, used to make parts of the tents. Very good waterproof stuff.

So we bought two varieties of this waterproof fabric, a blue colored one and another one, kind of grey.

Galgo's won't care about colour,  but if you're at it, why would'nt you use nice colours?


Just in case you would like to manufacture galgo coats too, I have posted a simple pattern for such a coat. Quite probably through the internet you will find an adress where you can deliver finished coats to be transported to Spain.

What about the pinstriped jeans jacket?

What about? It is finished, yes!

It began like this:

This is the backside. It has four parts. In dutch we would call the upper one a "pas", in english probably a "pass" (in this model it is not a yoke). There is a lower part in the middle, that needs no comment.. The two side pieces provide the fitting, that's why they wrinkle when laying flat.

And here is the front side., shown from the interior:

The front of the jacket has an upper and a lower part. Two front pockets have been adjusted on the seam between upper and lower part. The pockets have been made from the fabric that will also be used for the lining, a beautifil dark blue soft shining fabric, with small round motifs.

Next, after connecting front and backside, and after setting the sleeves and the collar, you get this:

It is going to look like a jacket...

By fixing the collar, the lining has been fixed too, another construct of front, backside and sleeves.

So, just a waist belt, cuffs, buttons, buttonholes, and there you are.

The pinstriped jeans jacket is finished.

The story is quickly told. But, making such a jacket takes time. I guess it will take me some 20 - 30 hours to complete it, depending upon unexpected setbacks I encounter.

Sandra's present

My partners friend Sandra makes wonderful mosaic creations. On her Galgosan website you'll find nice specimen of her work (Ooops, the website has been hacked and may not been active lanymore. But Sandra's creations can also be found on Etsy)


The website is in dutch, but if you just click in the header on "glasmozaiek"  you can scroll along a number of items and you will see pictures of her work, especially the wonderful mosaics she creates of galgo's (spanish greyhounds).


Like this one:

 mosaic by Sandra 

As a present to my partner and me, Sandra made a nice plaque, depicting items that show what we are engaged with, like in the left a number if items that refer to me, making men's clothes (well, occasionally I will make a ladies pair of trousers for my friend...).

.
The plaque is on the wall behind my workplace, a very nice decoration for this corner. Orderly, eh?


As you can see the sewing machine.is called Sew Fun. That's O.K. with me, but there is no need to convince me that sewing can be fun.

Et voila....

Here is another parade of pins......Lining and fabric of the jacket under construction are pinned together.....the collar is hidden between the two parts.....


It's like cooking. You combine three or four ingredients in the correct quantities, put that combination in the oven, and after some time, just take it out.....et voila....


So, combine fabric, collar and lining together, stitch carefully, no heating, no waiting, just turn it around ....

et voila...

This is what you get, assumed elements have been well arranged in advance.


Just like when cooking, I am always pleased when the operation is successful again.


This project, making a pinstriped jeans jacket, is to be continued.


Still have to add a waist belt and cuffs.  The closure of the jacket will be with buttonholes and jeans buttons.

Can't wait to see the final result.

Setting a sleeve into a jacket

Recently I have been making a jacket from a half woolen fabric with pinstripes. It will be kind of a jeans jacket and it probably is not very usual to have a pinstriped jeans jacket.

Well, I did like the pinstriped fabric. However, I do not like pinstriped classic suites. So I decided to give the jeans jacket model a try, and just await what would be the result.

The picture shows a mass of pins, meant to fix the sleeve into the jacket. That is my way of setting sleeves.

People in the clothing industry would not use such a lot of pins. They fix beginning, end and top of the sleeve and adjust the parts with their fingers, giving "ease" while stitching.  

There is a scholastic way of setting a sleeve into a jacket:  handsewing a thread in the upper part, pulling this thread slightly to "ease" the upper part, and then stitching the sleeve to the front/back part. 

Maybe I would use this trick when doing a classic outfit, but now I was doing something non-classic.

Well, all these pins may look like a mess, but when, after stitching, you turn the inside outwards, the result will be like this:

Nice, eh?

The pinstripes of the front and of the back are not exactly "in line". I have no idea if this would be a must. I have seen pictures of jackets from men's fashion shops with the same appearance, so I do not feel too bad about this.

And if anybody has something to say about this, I always can put forward this is kind of an artistic freedom, ha ha...

In a future post I will show the finished jacket.  I need some time to complete it

A fabric from the market at Ridderkerk

Some time ago we went to Ridderkerk, south of Rotterdam, to see Sandra and to do some shopping at the weekly market over there. 

A vendor at that market has a stall with some special fabrics. She sells all kinds of fleece, that can be used to make nice warm coats for galgo's, needed in winter time by spanish shelters who are at the rescue of these much abused dogs. (More about this later).

We bought meters of fleece. 

And we came along some fabric that looked rather waterproof. Back home we did a test, but no, it was'nt waterproof at all. 

It was rather synthetic, shiny and looking leatherette, but it was definitely not waterproof. 

No good for galgo coats.

So I got the idea to use it to make a jacket for myself. The picture above shows the result, a view from the frontside. 

Here is a view from the backside. .Me, leaving to do some food shopping (in dry wheather, of course...).

It's like a jeans jacket, somehow, and it has jeans buttons, but because of the shiny effect, the look is quite  different.

That's what I like. Using fabrics in a way that is different, making unexpected combinations, but stylish.. 

I have been making my own clothes for some twenty years now. A men's fashion shop will see me just for t-shirts, sweaters and an occasional pair of jeans.

But trousers, jackets, shirts, gilets I make myself. 

And galgo coats, of  course.