• Making underpants
• Various projects
• A Weekend Bag

Then there are these cool places to check out:

• For tailors
• Cool fabrics that cost HELLZA monies
• Cool site for chicks but is giving me some ideas

What do you think I should start with?  I think tailoring a suit  may be out of my realm of actuality right now.

What I hope to one day look like

Rhinehart explains that tailoring is a dying trade because of the secretive nature of the trade.  Additionally tailors tend to produce basically the same fashion over and over whereas dressmakers create newer styles.  Furthermore applying dressmaking techniques to tailoring will supposedly result in a homemade looking suit.

A tip Rhinehart gives when looking for a quality made suit: the best coats are hand-sewn 1/4 inch from the edge using two strands of fine silk thread in a practically invisible backstitch.

What the fuck is a backstitch?  “Backstitch is a stitch used in embroidery and sewing stitches. Stitches are sewn backwards to the direction of the sewing. They form lines and usually used to outline shapes or add detail to an embroidered picture.”  Thanks WikiHow.com!

Later in the book she gives a list of tools to buy.  I will be slowly buying these and continue reading the book.  Looks like I’m going to try and make myself a suit.  Crazy.

After watching my grandmother sew the pants I thought, “That looks pretty fucking easy.”  But then the jacket started.

The mens jacket may be one of the most complicated things I’ve ever seen put together.  There are a billion things to check and recheck.  The collar, which I thought would probably be super easy to make, is apparently super fucking difficult.

Getting the sleeves straight and not crooked, getting the right fit, it’s fucking crazy.  It fits together like a puzzle but my grandma was navigating it with ease.  It looked pretty intimidating.

Grandma at the sewing machine

Honestly I think if my grandma hadn’t sewn it it would have taken me at least a month to get right.  The jacket looked pretty good after it was done.  The sleeves weren’t exactly straight, but I wasn’t about to ask my grandma to go back to the sewing machine.  It was good enough for Halloween purposes.

So then I take it home and start on the rhinestone gluing.  Surprisingly, breathing in hot glue fumes over the span of hours is NOT an enjoyable experience.  Hot glue doesn’t burn very much when it gets on your fingers, it just burns.  I got to experience that over and over.

Also rhinestones don’t like to stay on unless you use the right amount of glue, which means a lot.  Fortunately the $9.99 CVS glue gun I purchased had no control whatsoever over the flow of glue, which was helpful.  It had a steep learning curve.

After about an hour I got on the curve.  The rhinestoning took about an 5 hours, and I wasn’t even close to finished but my costume looked fucking cool.  With my wig on I looked like a cross between Super Mario/Inigo Montoya/James Brown.

My Name is Inigo Brown

What do I look like to you?  Well that was my first embarkation on sewing wherein I didn’t touch the sewing machine once.  While in Korea I am hoping to pick up some patterns and maybe some fabric, might be an interesting place to do that.  I’ll be posting about my Korea trip at www.ilivewithmom.com

After a quick google search I found someone recommending these two links:
Here’s some jankily made pamphlets that reference a supposed master
Some out-of-print book on Amazon

I just purchased the Jane Rhinehart book because it seems like it will help with more than just tailoring.

Sewing/Tailoring is in my blood line. My dad’s dad and my mom’s mom were both pretty prolific at sewing and it’s always been in the back of my mind as something I should get into. Fast forward 27 years into my life and I decide to make my own James Brown costume for Halloween.

I think it’s going to be an easy undertaking, I’ll just get a little help from my mom and grandma. My mom looks at me like I’m crazy and my grandma basically has me cut out the vintage patterns I had found while she does everything else. When you ask for help in my family it ends up being that the person helping is the person doing, and they won’t let you learn.

I then asked my grandma to teach me to sew. She told me it’s very hard to sew for men and that she couldn’t help me. Being stubborn, when I am told I can’t do something I have this innate need to do it.

Looking online and all over the resources for men’s sewing tips are very limited. Hopefully as this blog grows and I become a better sewer/tailor/seamstress it/I can serve as a resource to an under served part of the community.