Throwback Thursday: The “Don’t Hire Me” Suit

I’ve been on many business trips over the past 5 months with last week’s trip being the last for a while. Thank gawd. While I enjoy a chance to get out of the office, it would have been better to spread them out a bit. C’est la vie.

For this Throwback Thursday post, I’m gonna throw a little bit more business at you. I got brave in 2012 and made an unlined blazer, using Butterick 5647 and a matching skirt with Simplicity 2451, view C. Now I’m giving you a heads-up that this isn’t going to be pretty. I’m calling it a slight fail although the techniques and execution were pretty spot-on. The fail comes from the fabric:

Looks pretty bulky, right? Right! I got this fabric for very cheap at SAS in my early days of sewing. That was before I learned the importance of choosing the right fabric for the right project. This fabric, no matter how many times you wash it, will always be stiff and slightly uncomfortable. That coupled with the cut of the skirt makes things a little poofier than I would like.

See? Not flattering AT ALL. I can’t believe I went out of the house with this on, ha! I knew it wasn’t great back then, but I spent so much time on it that heck if I wasn’t going to get some use out of it!

Let’s take a look at each piece, starting with the skirt.

My lovely model, Brunhilde, has a smaller waist than I do, so she’s wearing pretty low here. The skirt itself is a cute pattern but the front pleats do nothing for my curvy figure and give me a big pooch in the front. Very sexy.

See that pooch? Ugh.

This was before I realized how great invisible zippers are. On the other hand, one thing I learned from this project was how to do a kick pleat.

Something that came out right!

I also blind-hand-stitched the hem. It’s not the best fabric to do that with, as you can see. :-\

I guess it doesn’t look too bad in the photo above, but you can trust me that the side view isn’t too pretty.

OK now let’s move onto the blazer. I’m liking this more than the skirt as I think it’s a bit more wearable (and it doesn’t kill my figure too much).

Again, you can see how the stiffness of the fabric does weird things… and Tasso is staring intensely at you!

I had to tweak the arms like crazy, slimming them down, because the original pattern was like WHOAH.

I did enjoy doing all the top stitching… and there’s tons of it.

Those flaps aren’t hiding anything… fake pocket!

Ugh… I can’t for the life of me ease a sleeve, so I just settled with weird shoulder gathers. I’ve looked at a few tutorials on how to ease a sleeve since and hope to do a better job next time. Does anyone else have this problem?

There’s also a vent in the jacket. Oh, silly me, not completely taking out my pink tailor’s tacks before wearing it out on the town. Sigh.

And just so you know, I did NOT wear this on any of my business trips. I have a “real” suit from the mall that looks way better than this monstrosity. 😉

I think I’ve had enough of picking apart these projects. It’s slightly embarrassing to showcase your fails, but I think it’s a great learning tool for other sewists and there should be more fails out there in the sewing blogosphere. Hey, we should start something like “Fail February” (or “F-This February?”) and show each other that no one is perfect! Not sure how many people would jump on board for that, though, as it doesn’t seem quite as fun as “Me-Made May.”

This action shot perfectly encompasses my feeling about this outfit. Woof.

I know some of you have blogged about projects that didn’t come out as expected.. but who else is brave enough to show off their less-than-stellar me-mades?

-RED