MMM Day 4

This MMM post is also a review.  The overalls are from http://evadress.com/, #3322.  I have been wanting to make these for a couple years but the MMM has spurred me to finally do it.  I’ve only made one other pair of vintage trousers, but they didn’t fit well so I only wore them a few times.  This pair fits nicely from the waist down but from the waist up there are issues.  First, while this is a multi-sized reprint, it only goes to 32in waist, so I needed to grade up a bit.  My upper chest is rather small for my size, so I really had to mess around with the bib.  I thought I had it right in my muslin, but I’ve learned the hard way that thin muslin doesn’t behave the like denim.  After constructing the bib (including all that top stitching), I tried it on and found a 2in gap at the top center front.  I’m glad I had fabric leftover and I was able to cut the bib out again after folding out the gap on my muslin.  It’s still a bit gappy, but a deeper bust dart would help fit the top edge better.  What angered me most on this pattern was my expectations.  I had thought that since I was buying a new reprint pattern, it was have better instructions.  At the very end of construction, the instructions tell you to cut a bias strip for the underlap at the side closure.  By this time, I had gone through most of my leftover fabric by recutting the bib.  I barely had enough for the strip and it isn’t on the bias.  However, this is common procedure for vintage patterns.  The other problem I had with this project was the fabric.  I have sewn with denim before, but it had always been a lighterweight stretch denim commonly found in chain fabric stores.  This was a medium weigh non-stretch denim from http://fabric.com/.  It’s such a nicely fabric than the stretch denim but a real bear to sew.  I had gotten everything I needed to sew denim, but still, I broke every needle I bought for the project, plus more to where I ended up sewing them hem with my last ball point needle.  I also bent every single pin that I used.  There were several points where it was so thick that I couldn’t get the piece under my machine’s foot and had to hand sew.  At the waist band, the button is sewed onto the top and it closes with a hook and eye because my machine could not do a buttonhole through all that denim.  In the 12 years that I’ve been sewing with this machine, it has never had this much trouble, not with the home dec canvas, Elizabethan canvas corsets, the Mister’s several layers thick fencing armor.  All that being said, I love my overalls.  I feel this really extends my vintage wardrobe into something that can be every day, 365 days a year.  They are comfy enough for housework, warm enough for winter and roomy enough for long underwear underneath.  My only complaint is that they are too warm for summer.  I can see making them in linen or maybe seersucker.