Jenny's Jacket

When I left you last week, I had done my final fitting on my jacket. I've made a bit more progress this week.

For the hem, I cut a 3" wide bias strip of the organza. It's important that the strip be cut on the bias as the hem of the garment is not perfectly straight, it has a curve to compensate for the curve of the body. So if you are interfacing your hem with organza, or any other type of interfacing, it should be cut on the bias.

I attached the organza to the jacket with a catch stitch. The stitches are attached only to the underlining and do not go all the way through to the fashion fabric.  

The organza was placed so that it would be inside the fold of the hem. This will give the hem a nice soft roll rather than a hard flat look. This should be done in the hem of the sleeves as well.

The hem was turned up and a catch stitch was used to hem the jacket. Once again the stitches do not go through to the fashion fabric.   

Now for the facing. The front panels of the jacket will be self faced, but we need a back neck facing.

 You will need your front jacket pattern, the piece without the pleats, the front and back sleeve patterns, and the center back panel of the jacket. Turn the seam allowances under and tape the pieces together just as if they were going to be sewn together. In the picture above, the back panel is at the bottom of the picture.

In the above picture, the front is at the bottom of the picture.  

We want our facing to measure 5" deep at center back. In the apparel industry, they call this hanger appeal. From center back, measure down 5" from your seam line. 

We want the facing to match up with our front facing. You can see my dashed line above. It matches to the front at the seam line.

 Take another piece of paper and trace the new lines for the neck facing.

 Your pattern should look like this. Add seam allowances.

 I hope I can explain this without the aide of a video. When cutting my seam allowances, I like to fold the seam allowance in the direction in which it will be pressed. The reason I do this is so I don't have those pesky little points on my seam allowances that will get cut off later. Begin by cutting the straight line that you see above. 

 Now fold that line on the seam allowance and cut the curved line.

 You can see that the seam allowance will now follow the curve of the facing.

 My final pattern.

Now I need to prepare my pattern for the lining. In the above picture you see the line I drew in for the facing. Above it is the seam allowance that I added. Cut on that line as you see below. 

 You will do the same to both sleeve pattern pieces.

Because this is a fitted jacket, we should add a pleat to the back so the lining will have room to move. I taped a piece of paper to my existing pattern piece.

From the edge of my pattern I measured over 1". This line is curved back into the pattern just below the waist area.

From the top of the pattern, measure down 1 1/2" and place a dot. In the waist line area, place another dot. When You sew up the lining, you will sew to the dot and back stitch. From that point to the next dot, you will sew in a basting stitch. Along the edge of the piece, you will sew in a regular stitching line. Once the jacket is completed, take out the basting stitches and you will have the center back pleat.

 The picture above gives you a better idea of what the back pattern piece for your lining should look like.

 I cut out my neck facing and placed it on the jacket to show how it will look. This piece will be underlined and it will also have a layer of organza basted to it as well.

The neck facing will be sewn to the front facing. 

You can see here that the entire front panel will be self-faced. 

I have decided to make button loops for my closure, so now I have to find buttons. I want the pleats to remain soft along the edge, so the loops will go between the bumps of the pleats. 

A view of the back. I need to do more steaming, but I'm pleased with how the jacket is looking at this point. I plan to have it finished next week. I'll take pictures of my progress.