Details, details, details

When making the jacket, I didn't take pictures of every step of construction. I showed you the dart-and-pocket thing but there are so many tutorials on bound buttonholes, pocket welts and padstitching that I didn't feel the need to add any of my own.

So, the details in this post are all on the outside. The pictures don't look great because I had to lighten them to show the detail. But, since I don't think these features would show up in an 'all over' photoshoot (not even in the best of light) I thought they deserved a post of their own.

My new jacket has:

pocket with welts and flaps. My best yet, I even managed to get the welts at the angle.

bound buttonholes. These were made way easier because my sewing machine will automatically stitch the 'window' for a bound buttonhole using the buttonhole foot and a certain setting. That's how I managed to create such narrow welts.

fabric covered buttons. Just from one of those 'cover your buttons'-kits.

back vents, neatly lined.

and, just to add an extra touch, piping between facing and lining.

Yes!

It's done. I've finished the jacket.

Sure, I will probably give it another pressing and it certainly deserves a more glamorous photoshoot than this one. But the important thing is this: the sewing is all done. I did the final bits of handsewing last night.

These are just some quick pictures of it, taken when I came home from work today. They don't show a lot of detail, even after a bit of lightening, but you can at least see the pocket and, of course, make out the silhouet.

I hope I can convince E to take some better pictures this weekend (hopefully with matching trousers, but I'm not sure I'll be fast enough at making those).

By the way, what trouser shape would you prefer with this jacket? Now that it's finished, I think it could go with any shape I wear...

This jacket is all about old-school tailoring. There is horsehair in the front and collar, the hems and also in the sleeveheads, to keep those points up.

As a result, there is a ton of handsewing in this jacket, from the basting you've seen, to the padstitching and then some in the hems. For those, I bagged the lining as usual but then, I pressed the facings, added horsehair on the inside and catchstitched the seam allowances of the facings to the horsehair, while catching threads of outer fabric onto the horsehair as well.

Although I can sew very neatly by hand, this was the ideal fabric for it. The dense wool doesn't fray very much and it just doesn't show the stitching on the outside.

I have every intention of going back to regular posting, so I will show you some details of the jacket tomorrow. And then, I'm keen to get started on spring-stuff, I want to show you a recent vintage find, I may do a tutorial of a simple project I'm planning and I may just give away a multi-lingual pattern magazine...

Stay tuned, I will be back soon ;)

Time flies...

Oops, I really didn't mean to stay away this long. Eh, life getting in the way, I guess. That, and the wish to show you the jacket in a fabulous, completed state. And people, fabulousness takes a serious amount of time....

First of all, as you will have noticed, I'm not taking part in Me-Made-March. I like the concept, but I'm always wearing things I made anyway, so it would feel a bit like cheating. Also, I don't think I'd like taking pictures of myself everyday. I really respect those of you who do, and do it well...

Over to the state of affairs here then?

The jacket is very near completion. The lining is in, it just needs to be attached at the hems, and the hems themselves need... ehm.. hemming. I also still have to attach the facing-side of the bound buttonholes to their front but I prefer to do that last, when the jacket doesn't have to be turned inside out anymore. And then, I'll have to confirm my choice of buttons (or reject them and find others of the same size...) and sew them on.

After that, I'll make another jacket, as an assignment from my friend J. I'm finished with the pattern (apart from a little bit of tweaking of the sleeve heads) and we will go fabric shopping tomorrow.

I suspect I will squeeze in a quicky skirt and/or knit top at the same time. I am getting rather excited about fabrics and colours for spring. I already found several things in my stash and on sale (like: it-really-must-go sale) at the market which will work well with those of the supposed new trends that I like.

I also plan on making trousers to form a suit with the jacket. I have enough of the same fabric for those, but I will consider their once the jacket is done. I originally planned wide, straight legged trousers, a la Dietrich's. Now, seeing the jacket evolve, I am thinking more towards narrow and tapered... but I'll see when it's

done. I will very likely ask your opinions again.

I going to leave you now with some pictures of different fashions in jackets during the second half of the 20th century (which I scanned for a 'jackets throughout history 2' post. However, there's no complicated defining of terms or historical stuff involved now. These were just changes in fashion, so I guess the pictures sort of speak for themselves).

utility wear (Ok, that's from the 1940's of course. but I just loved the pattern drawing)

1960's, by Mary Quant

early 1970's, by Ossie Clark

and 1980's by Armani

The dart-and-pocket trick

Remember this pattern piece? Well, I got enough time to work on my jacket last weekend to put it together.

It's not really a how-to, but if you know how to do a bound pocket, this may help de-mystify the dart-and-pocket trick (if it was a mystery to you, maybe that was just me last year...)

Anyway, first I sewed up that front dart. I pressed it open and applied the horsehair in which I had cut out the dart, catchstitching the seam allowance of the dart to the horsehair. The bit about the horsehair is not really relevant to what I'm trying to explain here but it is why the photograph is like this. The dart gives such shape to the pattern piece that some bits of basting and catchstitching had to be done with the bust piece draped over my small tailor's ham.

After that, I sewed the side seam and fused not-woven interfacing (Vlieseline, I never use that stuff except for things like this) to the spot where pocket will be. I prepared the pocket flap and welt pieces, and proceeded to make a bound pocket with flap as normal.

Only when I cut it open, I only had to cut though the interfacing for most of the pocket's length.

And this was the result. I'm rather pleased with it.

After the pockets, I made two bound buttonholes.

Next up: padstitching the collar and lapels.

Quick jacket update

I've started!!

And here's the proof. This is the center back piece with the horsehair back stay. I've cut the horsehair with half-width seam allowances and without the darts. The shoulderdart (which I think can look quite cool moved to the center back seam like this) has been cut open at its wide bit, pressed flat and hand-stitched (I don't know the name of this stitch in English, in Dutch it is called flanelsteek).

I wanted to get started last night, but I remembered that the only bit of horsehair in my stash was fusible. Yes, there is such a thing as fusible horsehair. I tried it out on a tiny scrap and it fuses really well and the end result gets quite stiff. Because I really want to try out the whole padstitching thing in this jacket, I didn't want to use it. So, I had to wait until today and go out and buy non-fusible horsehair.

One question for the experienced tailors among you: Normally, I cut the undercollar on the biais to let it ease into the shape of the upper collar. And when using woven fusible interfacing, I match that. Now, I want to shape that undercollar with horsehair and padstitching, so what do I do?

I know RTW jackets often have felt undercollars (which makes the whole grainline issue irrelevant anyway) but I have never taken one of those jackets apart so I don't know how those are shaped.

Oh, and by the way, do you really have to use silk thread for padstitching?

Unfortunately, I have a lot of other things to do today (it's my day off now, because I'll be working Saturday), like laundry, cleaning the house and some computer as well, so I don't think there will be any huge progress today.

Little steps in the right direction

I did it! Finally!

Last night, I cut the fabric for my jacket. A very nice black wool suiting. I will cut the horsehair interfacing tonight and hopefully make some small start on contruction. I plan to go for pad-stitching this time around.

Shown in this picture is also the last real change I made (other than fixing the drag line in the sleeve). I attached the bottom side of the front piece, to the main bit of the front, leaving the dart only in the bit above the pocket. This is a nifty little trick which you will often encounter in RTW and also in some commercial sewing patterns. For quite a while, I didn't know how it was done and this is the first of my jackets to have this feature.

The point is, there is not enough room for a seam allowance on the horizontal seams. However, that's OK because a bound pocket will be inserted at that spot. So: a pocket which would require cutting into the fabric anyway.

If anyone is interested, I will try to remember to take pictures when I start sewing those darts and pockets.

For now, I don't have a lot of time and I will have to look up some extra information on hand-tailoring (mostly to make up my mind about which is the best way of doing it...) but I am quite eager to get started. Finally back to real sewing, after so many muslins.

P.S.

About the gloves, I didn't forget, but there hasn't been any progress (want to sew jacket...). But at least, I'll try to answer to some of the questions and suggestions given to the glove post:

- Darci, I am also carefully considering the option of making an 'ultimate' pair of gloves by hand. In thin leather. Even though I know hand sewing leather is a PIA. And I think you might be OK using thin leather or suede for a pattern written for faux stretch suede. Real leather has a slight stretch of its own, it's only the fake versions which either do or don't stretch.

- Marina, it's sort of a mini-sew along. It's me, Carolyn, Darci and some ladies following Carolyn's blog. Posting about it isn't very organised but it would be great to have you sew along with us.

I hadn't thought about tracing gloves yet, but you have a point there. It would also enable me to have the thumb gusset I want. And be a load of work...

- Our Heroine, thank you for the link, I haven't looked yet but I will before I proceed with those gloves.

- Carolyn, I didn't forget about seam allowance. We are, however, using different patterns. One would expect Vogue to use the same basic shape for both, but maybe they didn't. In which case I think your pattern should be our sew along recommendation for fit. About the stretch issues for leather, see my answer to Darci. Your gloves don't look stretched tight and the pattern is written for stretchy stuff, so you should be OK with a naturally slightly stretchy material. Marina was mentioning the pre-stretching to avoid bagginess in relation to tracing existing leather gloves (at least, if I understood correctly)

- gwen, my top-tip so far: if you have Carolyn's pattern as well, the fit on that might be better. If not, stay tuned.

Glove-making minus 1

I had a little time left over last evening and decided to get started on a glove muslin. I will use some jersey scraps and don't intend to make a wearable muslin. In fact, I may just make only one glove at this stage.

For the 'finished' gloves from this pattern, I have to options: stretch lace or re-used suede or leather. For the lace, view H, with the ruffle, seems to be the most appropriate, for the leather I would make the longest version of the pattern without decoration.

Like Carolyn, I was first puzzled and then disappointed by the pattern's sizing. In the describtion it says S 18cm, M 21cm and L 23 cm, without telling where to measure...

Like her, I measured whatever seemed to make sense and found both measurements to be the same and put me a size S.

And then I saw the pattern. I wouldn't call that sizing. I am perfectly cap

able of lengthening or shortening a pattern piece myself. And I distinctly remember from the times I've bought gloves that different sizes always ment difference in width of the glove.

This little thing made me rather less confident about this pattern but I decided to go on and cut out the pattern pieces anyway. It's been a very long time since I've used an envelope-pattern and I had forgotten all about how annoying pattern tissue is to work with. I was also surprised to see that Vogue had felt the need to print the pattern no less than five times for eight versions which are hardly any different from each other. I admit there are one and two sideseam versions, but any pattern magazine would have settled for the 'cut here for view X' option. Which would have made the envelope a lot thinner.

Among that and the sizing, it looks like the good folks at Vogue are trying very hard to make this pattern look more professional than it really is.

But I might be speaking too soon...

These are all the pattern pieces laid out for cutting (and how do you like my little work-table tableau?). It is view H with the ruffle and I will try one glove first.

When sewing something like this, it pays of to know your sewing machine and to try out different stitches. The pattern recommends stretch stitch or zigzag for stretch lace and doesn't specify anything in particular for jersey.

However, most sewing machines are not that great at sewing jersey on a tiny seam allowance, certainly not using a stitch which takes a bit of width in and of itself. I knew that on my sewing machine, a short straight stitch will work for most not-too-stretchy jersey fabrics. That is what I'm using here.

I stitched the seam on the thumb-piece and then inserted it into the hand-piece. I followed the instructions and did the very thing Carolyn described in detail yesterday (although I made less effort to be precise about it. I didn't draw lines to stitch on or baste...).

This is where I am now.

I'm not sure how to proceed. It looks quite a bit too big. I'm a bit surprised at how much too big it is. Carolyn's thumb looked fine and I have, based on the pictures on her blog, always thought of her as a slender lady of normal height (that's without reading. she did mention to be tall). Also when I buy gloves, I have size 6.5 to 7 or M. I guess this is just a circumspect way of saying I didn't expect to be this far off.

I'm going to finish this muslin glove according to the instructions and then, I'll try and see where to go from there.

There is one little thing I'd like to adress. Carolyn mentioned the excess material where the thumb meets the hand. I took a look at the gloves I own and found different solutions at that spot.

All my leather gloves have a shaped thumb piece like this. I think it would be nearly impossible to sew the likes of it on a normal sewing machine, but it does the job very well. It provides the thumb with a full range of movement without adding bulk.

I also have these vintage stretch fabric gloves. These are cut very narrow, relying on the stretch of the material to fit one's hands (and these are sized. they are size 6.5). On these, the thumb piece is set into a eliptical hole like it is on the Vogue patterns but it is much smaller.

I hope I gave any useful information here. I have to confess I find myself having little patience with this pattern...

To be continued.