Tommy's new suit: Before and After

Back in November I decided that I'd tailor my great-uncle Wally's old suit and give it to my twin brother for Christmas. I went into this with basically no experience, a used $25 Dressmaker 101, and lots of stubborn resolve. The chronicles are recorded here: Concept, initial shaping, some revisions to the plan, finished the jacket shaping, and a brief bit about the trousers.

There was a bit of a delay getting photos of Tom in the suit, so I borrowed it back and took some of my own. Enough stalling, here are the before and after shots.

I started out with this:

And turned it into this:

and to address a few confused viewers, it is the same suit. I didn't dye it, that's just ambient lighting variation. No I didn't move the pocket, the before pics were taken in a mirror, the after shots were taken by my wife. :)

All in all, the work was fairly simple and was actually a bit of fun. The hardest part was picking a lapel shape that I liked. I struggled a little with the trousers, but that was mostly because I had never played with a pant pattern before and I had no idea how they went together. Total project cost, excluding my time (which is always free) is roughly this:

Sewing machine:        $25
Thread:                      $3
Fair value for the suit:  $10
---------------------------
                                 $65

Not bad really. I wish my suits from the store fit this well (I guess they will soon enough). So if you are a young professional looking for a first interview/work suit, or if you want to make an awesome gift for a man in your life, hit up a thrift store and dive in! I'll gladly answer any questions you have along the way.

What do you think? Is it worthwhile to recycle old suits? What are some pitfalls I may have missed or over looked? Leave me some love in the comments below.

I'll sign off tonight with a final side-by-side before/after:

PM7 pant pattern: Round 2

In my last post I was trying to decide if Pattern Maker 7 was a worthwhile investment of my time. On one hand it offered the possibility of custom tailored patterns. On the other hand it contained incomplete pattern collections, absolutely no sewing instructions, and a high learning curve. In the end I wound up with skinny pants. But a quick redrafting (based upon the same measurements) yielded a totally different pattern, and some much more promising results. Check these out:

I can even sit down in these!

Not particularly form-fitting, but most men's pants aren't (or shouldn't be). I do wish they were a bit narrower below the knee, but that should be fairly easy to do.

And an ass shot, because I wanted to show off that the program actually makes a pretty well fitting seat. I didn't add rear pockets because this was a test muslin and I didn't see the need to mess with such details.

So what are my final impressions? If you are looking for a way to bang out some men's basics (lets face it, that's all men have) and you want to draft the pieces quickly and easily, than Pattern Maker 7 is probably not for you. I found many places where the pattern drafted incorrectly (like the way that the pocket assemblies draft without a seam allowance, even though it shows one) or simply cut corners (like the lack of rear waist darts and the single piece fold-over waist band).

But if you are looking for a program that will design a pattern for those basics, and you are willing to then tune that pattern to get it where you want it (basically, just use it at a starting point for a self-draft) than the $400 + $30 (for the men's pattern pack) may be the perfect thing for you. However, I feel it worthwhile to mention that there are many other drafting programs out there for under $300... and they may offer complete mens collections.

That's about all I have for tonight. It's been a long week here, but I've got some cool stuff for yall on the horizon, including photos of the finished Christmas suit (I borrowed it from Tom and had my wife snap a few shots) and a review of TheSewingGuru.com's tutorial series. Stay tuned!

Well that didn't work...

When we last left off, I had decided to try and create a pair of pants using a CAD made pattern. The results were, well, less than spectacular:

Where, oh where did I leave my Desert boots and fixed gear bicycle? As you can see, the pants were mostly a failure. PM7 asks for your exact measurements and says it will add ease for you. I generally like more ease than this:

That is seriously the full range of motion I have for each leg. I will say that the calf-fit wasn't bad, but at the same time, the thighs fit like tights. The heavy taper accentuates the oddness of my leg build and makes me look like a weird androgynous hipster.

But surely the program was only doing what I told it to do right? Perhaps it arises from some metric/imperial conversion error. It has been known to happen, even to the best of us. So I reentered everything (in centimeters this time) and got a very different pattern. Was the difference because I used a measurement file this time versus manual entry? Was it metric/imperial madness? Who cares. Check the difference:

I think my thighs will fit in these pants! I also attached the infamous unknown part to the pant-front to create a zipper shield. The women's pattern did not generate the weirdo, but did create a flap (attached). Also the instructions (which are still pretty vague) have this picture:

Perhaps the men's pattern is not fully debugged? After a long day here are my impressions of PM7 thus far:

The men's patterns seem a bit rough. The women's patterns (aside from being much more plentiful) seem like they would produce solid garments. The men's patterns seem like they will need work. The zipper shield is either missing or oddly detached, there are no darts for the rear waist (I expected that there would be; the women's pants include them-- so have every pair of pants I've ever owned), and the fit this time around was not very good.

The program its self is a little raw too. The documentation is sparse and very technical. The interfaces are not very intuitive. I feel like I could love it (and I really want to) one day. But first I'm going to have to commit a lot of time that I just don't have. Have any of you ever used PM7? Did you just make stuff from the women's collection or did the menswear work out fine for you too?

Next time I'll post up the new pair, and maybe a little love for the garden too. I found a patch of bamboo growing wild, and there are 6 trellises that need building. Stay tuned: