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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Jenny's Jacket

I've made progress over the last week on my Jenny Jacket.
 The underlining has been basted to each piece.
I always feel that I have accomplished a monumental task once the basting is complete! I'm repeating myself from last week, but underlining can make all the difference in the world in your garment. It hangs better, wears better, and will wrinkle less. As I said last week, be sure to buy good fabric for your underlining. It's easy to think that since it is inside the garment, that it can't be all that important. But just like the quality of food we put in our bodies, the better the fabric that we use inside the garment, the better the outcome of your garment will be. I like a good cotton batiste which is what I used for this project, but I also like silk organza. It really depends on the garment and the outer fabric as to what I use inside.
Once the basting is complete, I like to steam each piece once again. You will notice that the two layers of fabric will start to act as one.
I basted my jacket together to tweak the fit. So here's your chance to laugh at me a bit. Take a look at the picture, do you see what I did wrong? Here's a little tool that my high school home economics teacher once gave me, "Girls are always right." In other words, buttonholes always are placed on the right hand side of a woman's garment. If you look at the above picture, you can see that I basted my facing to the left side of my garment!! The pleats should be on the right side, not the left. Oh well, thankfully this is all basted together and I intend to take it apart before sewing it permanently together. Crazy me!! 
Try to overlook the fact that the pleats are on the wrong side of the jacket. I now have it on to tweak the fit. It's not horrible, but it can be better. 
I've pinched it in along the princess line seams.
The back needs to be shaped.
I also need to take a little out in the under arm seam.
My next step will be to take the jacket apart, make my adjustments and sew it back together. Last week I had said that I would underline both my front panels as well as the facings and possibly not use interfacing. I have decided to use a layer of silk organza as my interfacing. I feel that I need a little more stability, but I want the jacket to still remain some what soft.
Next week I'll show you the adjusted jacket with the silk organza attached as interfacing. I'll get my lining this week. I'm going to a lot of effort, so I want something special, a very pretty piece of silk is in order! I will also show you how to draft the back neck facing.
One last note, my jacket is longer than the jacket on the pattern envelope as I added 3" to the hem of my jacket. I felt that it would hit my body at a much more flattering place than the original pattern.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll do my best to help!
Rhonda

8 comments:

  1. this is great. This will become beautiful.

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    1. As long as I get the pleats on the right side of the garment!!! Thanks Elizabeth.

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  2. It is looking so awesome. I can hardly wait to get home and start on mine. Can you tell us what fabric you are actually using? At one time I was doing some teaching of sewing in a classroom and one of the things I told my students was that they couldn't make a mistake I hadn't made!!! The trick is to figure out a way to fix it. I think your mistake on this one is pretty easily fixed.

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    1. Hi Jenny, I'm using a wool crepe. It's a very pretty fabric.
      The mistake I made is no big deal at all. What I did was sew what should be the facing to the left side of the jacket. When I take it off, I will sew what is the main pattern piece to the right side. Just one of those things where I wasn't paying attention!

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  3. I love seeing 'work in progress'.

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  4. I'm really enjoying this process however I am intrigued how you are going to move those pleats to the left side unless you have spare fabric and can cut out 2 more fronts.

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    1. The front as well as the facing have pleats. When I sewed the pieces together for the fitting, I just didn't pay attention and grabbed the facing rather than the front piece. So no new cutting will be necessary. I bought lining today!! It's really pretty.

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    2. Thank you that makes sense, the facing is actually the same size as the front piece e.g. not a small facing that some pattern companies use. Can't wait to see your lining!

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