Nearly a jacket

After extensive deliberation I decided not to use the pink and grey patterned lining.  I just wasn’t confident enough that it would work. Anyway, I went with a plain black lining – boring, maybe, but at least I know it won’t clash.  Putting together the lining is exactly the same as the main jacket pieces (remembering to change the needle). In order to get the ease pleat in the back I simply cut the back piece 2 inches from the fold, instead of actually on the fold.  I then put a row of basting down the edge of the pattern piece.  Cutting out and assembling the lining took about an hour and a half.

I added shoulder pads and filled out the sleeve head next.  The pattern calls for lightweight shoulder pads.  Some time ago I bought a large bag of shoulder pads for two dollars, so I use them whenever shoulder pads are required, regardless of the size.  They are fairly basic pads, consisting of two layers, so if I need larger pads I add an additional layer from another pair.  In this case I cut the two parts into one part to make a lightweight pad. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then used the discarded piece as the batting required to pad out the sleeve head.  I than had stitched the shoulder pad and the batting to the seam allowance and stitched in the shoulder seam to secure the shoulder pads.   

 

As this jacket has quite a narrow shoulder seam I also had to trim the shoulder pads at the neck edge.

This all took about half an hour.

Before putting the two together I interfaced one set of the edging pieces and stitched together the two complete sets of edging, then joined the two sets together.  This was fiddly and took another 45 minutes.

At this point I deviated from the Burda Instructions.  They suggest putting the edging on the fashion fabric, edge-stitching the reverse side down, then adding the lining.  I couldn’t see how that was going to work out, unless I hand stitched the lining in place.  If I was going to hand stitch anything I decided I’d rather it was the band.  I pinned the lining and the jacket together then added the edge band, stitching through all three layers.  This was quite quick – 30 minutes.

At last the jacket was starting to look like the one in the magazine!

 

I then left the project for the night, which was just as well.  When I came to photograph it this morning I noticed an odd kink in the front of the jacket – right where it will be really obvious. 

 

This will have to be unpicked and re-done this evening before I can sit down in front of the TV and stitch down the edging on the inside of the jacket.

So far I've spent about 7 1/4 hours on this project.  This has been made up of 4 sewing sessions (mostly evenings) of between one and a quarter and two and a half hours.