Pad stitching the lapel #1

Working paraelle to the roll line and holding the laple draped over your other hand pad stitch a row of 1/4 inch stitches.  Pad stitch further rows at 1/2 inch and leave the marked triangular tip of the lapel for very small pad stitches.

End of the day - finish lapels tomorrow.
 

Secure hair canvas

Baste armhole and side seam to hair canvas with silk basting thread.  Catch stitch pocket opening to fashion fabric using catch stitch then cover with a bias strip of silk organza secured with small running stitch.

tape roll line

Stitch using uneven basting along the roll line using silk basting thread ensuring you only catch a thread of the fashion fabric when stitching through hair canvas.

Cut a length of twill tape 10mm shorter than the roll line and pin ends to end of roll line.

Smooth out to distribute ease evenly and catch stitch tape in place again ensuring you only catch a thread of fashion fabric through hair canvas.   Fell stitch along the edges to hold them down nice a flat.

Attach hair canvas to front

Cut out dart in hair canvas and line up edges with stitchline of dart on fashion fabric.  Catch stitch hair canvas to dart at stitchline.

sholder dart

Baste shoulder dart using silk basing thread and sew on machine using 2.5 stitch length.  Remove all basting and press to the sholder side.

Bound button holes part 2

 

Cut 5 patches 2.5 x 3 inches to make lips and pin right sides together over the marked and interfaced button holes.

 

 

On the interfacing side stitch around the window using 1.5 stitch length on the machine.

 

 

Cut along the center line of the buttonhole and into the  courners of the rectangles.  Form lips of buttonholes and pin in place.  Hand stitch in the ditch all around the outside of the buttonhole and whip stitch lips together with silk basing thread.

 

 

Trim off the excess fabric around the buttonhole and lightly steam and pat with hand to flatten.

Bound buttonholes part 1

 

Small rectangles of fusible interfacing were used to stabilise the areas on the right front piece (shown) and the cuffs.  I do not own pinking shears but I did not want a ridge to show through to the front side of the jacket so I cut a zig zagged edge using embroidery sissors.

button hole windows were marked at 1/8th inch longer than actual buttons.  Lips were 1/8 th inch wide, making the whole window 1/4 inch wide.

I am going to leave finishing the buttonholes until tomorrow morning when I am fresher as I do not want any mistakes.

basting the fashion fabric

I basted the seamlines using the yellow cotton but used silk basting thread for the interior markings as it is so smooth it is far less likely to leave a mark on the outside of the jacket.

marking fashion fabric

The pieces to be interfaced with hair canvas need to have the stiching lines thread traced onto the fashion fabric alone so i decided to mark them with the white wax tracing paper, which dissappears on ironing. 

baste underlining to fashion fabric

 

Silk organza pieces were basted to the fashion fabric along the stitching lines using a single strand of yellow embroidery cotton.

cut out fashion fabric

I had 2 pieces of this fabric - one 3.25 metres that was intended for the jacket and a short skirt and one 2.5 meter piece intended for pants. 

I held the two folded pieces in my hands and thought I choose the heavier (3.25M).

I gave the fabric a light steam with the iron on the wool setting and decided which was the "right side" and lay out the fabric on my tabel draping the excess over the ironing board.

I pinned out the sections to be cut out using the silk organza pieces and the actual pattern for the pieces to be interfaced with hair canvas.  I worked in layers completely filling one length of fabic with pattern pieces then folding it and working on the next length until all the pieces required were pinned on the fabric. 

It was dissappointing that even pinning on the single layer and leaving very few substaintial scraps that I has used the entire lenght of fabric - until i measured it and found I had cut the whole jacket out of the 2.5M length, which left 3.25 which should make pants and a short skirt.

Unfortunatly I did not take any photos of the cutting out process being a bit too involved in working out the most efficient way to place the pieces.

cut out and mark hair canvas

Pattern pieces requiring hair canvas were cut out in silk organza (shown above) and then stiching lines, markings, grainlines and notches were traced onto organza using dark blue wax tracing paper.

cut out and mark silk organza

Pattern pieces requiring underlining were cut out in silk organza (shown above) and then stiching lines, markings, grainlines and notches were traced onto organza using dark blue wax tracing paper.

Making the pattern pieces

As the muslin had be adjusted in all the sections, except the collar so much from the original pattern I had to make all the patterns for the facings & linings from the second muslin.   

Although the muslin pieces could have been used as a pattern for the  silk organza underlining and hair canvas interfacing I decided to make new pattern pieces from tracing paper. 

The collar pieces and cuff interfacing I did not make a pattern for as they were unchanged from the original.

The most complex pattern pieces I needed to draft were the hem interfacing (shown below) and the front facing.  The hem interfacing was drafted by joining the back, sideback, side and side front together at the hemline lining up the stitching lines and then measuring up 4 inches from the hemline to form a strip that would fit along the hemline.  The front facing was challenging as the front piece contains a dart under the lapel, but the front facing did not, so I needed to trace some of the front pattern then shift it to account for the dart to trace the neckline and shoulder seam. 

 

Muslin #2

This time I went with a 100% plain cotton quilting fabric - the seams did not pucker anywhere near as much but it creases fairly easily.

In this muslin my adjustments were:

- more FBA
- lengthed at waist another 5mm
- lifted shoulder and armhole 1 inch rather than the 5/8ths in the previous muslin.
- brought the shoulder to sleeve seam in 1/2 - 3/4 of inch over top of shoulder and around the back of the jacket, and this seemed to solve the extra under arm fabric problem.

Photos are terrible - I really need to invest in a better camera.  Also the jacket is not hanging straight in the front photo - due to the lack of a sleeve (I hope)

After three days of making muslins and alterations I am pretty satisfied with this and ready to mark out the final pattern and cut the silk organza a fashion fabric.  Yay !!!