Jenny's Jacket

Just for a quick review, The jacket that I will be working on in the coming weeks on Tuesdays will be the jacket that a follower, Jenny asked me to help with. The jacket is pictured below. She loved the jacket but was unsure of how to draft the pleats in the front of the jacket.

To copy the jacket, we are using Simplicity 1758, view A.

The original jacket has raglan sleeves, so before we could move on to drafting the pleats, we first needed to draft a raglan sleeve. I covered the raglan sleeve on this Sleeves On Saturdays post.

I began by drawing a guide line on my paper and placing the center of my sleeve on that guide line.

I did remove the seam allowances on the original pattern so as not to get confused by trying to overlap seams. The side panel of this pattern does not have a side seam, so I split the side panel pattern at the underarm mark and then I was able to work a little more easily with my pattern. In the end, I left the pattern separated as this will give me one more seam where I will be able to make fitting adjustments if I need them.  

My center shaping has been established. In the above picture, you can see that the shoulder seam matches to the center raglan shaping with a much too severe point. (You can also see that I made a mistake when I originally connected my front shoulder seam to the sleeve. Please ignore the line with the squiggles through it!)

I used my curved ruler to shape the shoulder seam into the center line of the sleeve.

I used my tracing wheel to transfer my new raglan lines to the paper which will become my new pattern.

Last week we talked about how to form the pleats for the front of the jacket. You can see that post here. In last week's post I had said to make the pleats 1 1/2" wide. As it turns out, that will be too wide for the front of the jacket so please make note of the change and make the pleats 1" wide.

You can see from my final pattern that I originally folded in 1 1/2" pleats. I made x's on those lines and drew in new lines for the 1" pleats. 

We only want pleats on the right side of our jacket, so I have a left front pattern piece and a right side pattern piece. Of course the left side pattern is minus the pleats.

My sleeve pattern once I cut it was away from my drafting. I still need to add the seam allowance down the center of the sleeve patterns. I was lazy, so rather than make new patterns with the seam allowance, I decided to just add the seam allowance once I cut out the fabric

 The back jacket pattern with the raglan shaping.

As for the fabric that I chose to use, I made a complete 180 degree decision change from the subdued fabrics I thought I would use. This is a cherry red wool crepe. People are going to see me a mile away!!

I've had this fabric for quite a while. It was given to me by one of my brides. She thought it would look sensational on me. We'll see!

I decided to underline my jacket with cotton batiste. I love cotton batiste as an underlining. If you decide to use cotton batiste, please buy a very good quality. The finer the quality of batiste that you use, the lovelier your final garment will be. My left front as well as my right front pattern pieces will be faced in the wool crepe. I want my front, especially the pleated side to have a soft feel, so rather than interface them, I am facing both the top layer as well as the under layer with cotton batiste. Silk organza also makes a wonderful underlining. If you do use the cotton, be sure to wash and dry it before cutting it out. This will cut down on any possible shrinking of the cotton. Also, before I cut my wool, I steam the entire piece from the underside with a hot iron.
Once I cut out all of my pieces in batiste, I steam the batiste to the wool.    

If I am not in a hurry, I like to leave my pieces sit for a while. If they are allowed to sit, any moisture that is in the fabric will dissipate and it gives the fibers a chance to cool completely before I begin basting the batiste to the wool. The basting should be done by hand and not on the machine. 

Next Tuesday I will have the batiste basted to the fabric and I will have the jacket basted together so I can try it on and tweak my fitting.
See you next Tuesday!