Tailoring Geekery ... Conclusion

Moving forward, it's time to attach the lining to the jacket. Unfortunately, I don't have many photos of this process. I was so focused on the sewing that I totally forgot about the camera!

In all honesty I was dreading this step, but it ended up being much easier than I anticipated. After placing the right sides together, the jacket and lining are basted together with a line of basting stitches placed down the center of the twill tape. The machine stitching is placed just next to the tape. Cabrera suggests 1/16 " away. I just went very slowly with this step, making sure not to catch the edge of the tape. The seam is then pressed open and the lining / facing is turned to the inside of the jacket.

From this point the jacket is finished with handstitching.

This is my preferred way of hemming, even though it just looks like a huge mess. The hem is 2" deep, so a bias strip of pocketing 2 1/2" wide is placed into the fold of the hem and sewn in place. I backstitched the pocketing to the folded up hem along the line of the pins. (The stitches just don't show up in the photo.) The actual hem stitch is done between the pocketing and the body of the jacket. It's easiest to do this with the hem facing away from you, as shown in this photo. Sewn this way, your hem will be totally invisible. Plus, the hem gets a little extra "oomph" from the added muslin strip, and a little extra body is always a good thing in my opinion.

The disadvantage to the way I've lined this jacket is that the lining isn't anchored to the body of the jacket anywhere. It's just hanging inside. To correct this I've placed a line of invisible stitches "in the ditch" along the front / side seam. The point turner is pointing to the seam. With the seams of the jacket and the lining aligned over each other, a row of invisible stitches is placed starting at the underarm and worked down to the top of the pocket. Problem solved. Now the lining isn't shifting around inside the jacket.

The facing has a similar problem, especially on this jacket since there's no lapel. There's nothing anchoring it, so it wants to roll out. If I were sewing the entire lining by hand, the facing would first have been cross stitched to the inside of the canvas, and the lining would have lapped over the facing. My job is to replicate that. Fortunately it's not difficult.

The facing is pressed into position and then a line of invisible stitches is placed "in the ditch" down through the facing / lining seam. These stitches must catch the canvas underneath, but not go through to the front of the jacket. It's easier to do than it sounds. Still, I keep checking the fronts frequently to make sure I'm not accidentally stitching too deep.

So, there have been a couple of extra steps. But overall, I think it's been much easier than sewing the lining completely by hand.

Now that the lining is better attached to the jacket, I proceed with the vents and hem.

Is there a magic answer to lining? I wish! I just work methodically along. I find it easiest to work the lining from two directions, alternating down the vent and across the hem. It has a way of coming together eventually. It just takes patience and a willingness to fiddle with it until it does what you want it to do.

I run the lining close to the edge of the vents and finish it off with pick stitching. I think it's an elegant way to finish the lining. Plus... it's really easy and fun to do!

This is the back pleat after the basting is removed. Lots of wearing ease here.

I added a locker loop to the back neck facing. This helped give some much needed structure to this area. In retrospect I should have interfaced the facing. The last minute pocketing that I added to the lining just isn't substantial enough. A heavy weight fusible would have been perfect here. Ah well, next time. It wouldn't be sewing if we didn't have some regrets, right? It's how we learn and progress, making the next garment just that much better.

I wasn't wild about the buttons that came with my B Black & Sons "jacket packet". Other than that, the packet was fantastic. Two thumbs up! There was nothing skimpy about it. I have a nice chunk of both pocketing and lining left over. Unfortunately the color of the buttons just didn't work with my fabric. I also thought they were a little too shiny. This was the best I could do at JoAnn's in a pinch. Someday I hope to find something a little lighter, but these are fine in the meantime.

So this brings me to the end of my tailoring geekery. Thanks for sticking it out with me! I hope to model the new jacket soon.

Wrestling Match

Things moved ahead so smoothly with the lining that I completely forgot about inserting the shoulder pads. Oh man, what an ordeal. Not that this is a particularly difficult process, it's just that there suddenly seems to be a lot of jumbled fabric sitting in one's lap. It starts to turn into a wrestling match.

First, all the layers of the armscye seam allowances are basted together so that it acts as a unit. There are a lot of layers here. Two layers of the fashion fabric, the canvas and the pocketing reinforcement strip. It's also, as you can see, a huge frayed mess.

Now the real wrestling begins. The shoulder pad is placed in position at the edge of the armscye seam allowance. Thankfully, the pad is notched where it should match the shoulder seam. Next, the canvas, which up until now has been basted to the jacket front, has to be peeled back while holding the pad in place. I try to preserve as much of the basting as possible so that the shape of the jacket front is maintained. It becomes a lot of work and attention paid to a very confined and awkward area. Don't get discouraged.

Next, as impossible as it seems, the canvas is pad stitched to the shoulder pad going through all the layers. At this point the shoulder pad is actually curving in the opposite direction that it will eventually go, so the jacket should be frequently turned rightside out to check that all is going well. Suddenly, a little jacket has turned into what seems like an octopus. The first time through this process was, in all honesty, a nightmare. Man vs. fabric. The second time was a piece of cake. It's amazing how quickly we can learn some of the more challenging techniques of tailoring.

Lastly, a sleeve head is sewn in. It helps fill out the top of the sleeve so that it will "fall" without wrinkles. Thankfully, this is easy to do and goes quickly. The edge of the sleeve head is placed even with the armscye and shoulder pad edges. It starts at the front notch and goes up and over the shoulder to the back. I back stitch it into the seam with a thread that will match the jacket. The stitches should not be visible from the outside, which would be pretty difficult to do considering all the fabric layers at this point.

So here is the final shoulder construction in all its layered glory. From the top down --shoulder pad, canvas, fashion fabric and sleeve head. I won't lie, I'm sick to death of working on these shoulders. But... I've turned the jacket rightside out and can tell you that all the effort has been worth it. They look great! Time for a break before attaching the lining.

A Lazy Man's Lining

With the sleeves set it's time to turn my attention to the lining. This is where I start to part ways with the Cabrera book. I think we should all feel free to pick and choose the techniques that work for us and meet our needs. Personally, I find linings difficult. Mostly because the (insert expletive here) polyester acetate is slipping all over the place. It drives me nuts. Couture be damned, I sew as much of it as possible by machine. Sorry, I'm just not into setting the lining by hand.

Basically I use the jacket pattern pieces with a few adjustments here and there.

This is a technique I learned from the Japanese coat book. If you've ever ripped out the armpit of a jacket, this one's for you.

I add some extra fabric at the underarm seam of the sleeves, maybe about 1 1/2". I mark it out with chalk and cut. There's no need to be precise here. The extra fabric all gets eased in when the sleeve is set. This extra fabric provides some wearing ease at the underarm, a point that sees a lot of stress. I didn't do this on my frock coat and ripped out the lining the first time I wore it. Lesson learned -- the hard way!

And here's what it looks like on the undersleeve. The rest of the pattern stays the same. Lop off the extensions for the vents and sew it up.

Wearing ease is also added at the center back seam. Here's the back pattern piece. I've lopped off a portion at the neckline which accounts for the facing. The center back seam is chalk marked out 1". This extra inch continues all the way to the waist, where it tapers back to the original pattern size. Stitch with the usual 5/8" seam allowance. It will become a pleat at the center back. This allows for movement across the back and shoulders, another high stress point.

More ease is added at the lining fronts. The front shoulder seam is extended 1". A half inch pleat is basted across the lining approximately at the midpoint of the arm opening.

It will look like this after the lining is assembled.

I've worked a pocket into the left chest portion of the lining. Theoretically there should be a pocket on the right as well, but I'm right handed and never use the pocket on the right. Call me lazy, but I see no reason to add features that are never going to be used. This will be perfect for my phone. One of the great benefits of making our own clothes is to have the features we want.

This was a last minute addition to the lining. It occurred to me, while busily working along, that there was nothing to help preserve the shape of the upper back and the neckline. This is a piece of pocketing, cut using the back pattern piece, layered over the back lining. It's sewn into the shoulder seams and basted like hell around the neck opening (which has stretched, in spite of staystitching, and has frayed away to almost nothing!)

This is actually a technique from Edna Bishop's book on clothing construction, and oddly never mentioned by Cabrera. I should have anticipated using it, especially since there's no collar on this jacket.

So here's the completed lining. Not much to look at. What a mess!! Thank God none of this will be visible.

It's much prettier on the inside. I'm just glad to have this portion of the project behind me. I'll save attaching the lining to the jacket when I'm fresh.

The Blizzard Fitting

Readers, today I'm hunkered down in the middle of a huge nor'easter. Thankfully I still have power and heat. With nothing more than shoveling and snowblowing facing me, it's a good day to try on and evaluate the Spring jacket muslin. So here goes....

All things considered, not too shabby. Goodness knows, I've started out with much worse fitting muslins. I've pinned in a set of shoulder pads in order to get a more accurate representation of how the finished jacket will fit at the shoulders. The fit there is actually quite good.

The big problem is that the entire neck opening is too wide. I'm thinking that each side needs to be brought in towards the center at least 1/2" . That would eliminate most of the gap between the shirt collar and the edge of the jacket. I plan on just tapering the additional material down to the position of the top button. This will preserve the stance of the jacket.

Also, as warned by my reader Mrs. C, the jacket has a tendency to gape away from my chest. I'm hoping that with lots of basting, careful sewing and twill tape sewn along the edge, I can prevent that problem in my finished garment.

Also, as predicted, the sleeves are too long. Here I've turned them back an inch. This will allow about 1/2" of cuff to show. My plan is to shorten the pattern 1/2" above and below the elbow in order to preserve the overall shape of the sleeve.

Here's a view of the back. Again, it's not that horrible. However, the neck is dipping too low in the back. I'm hoping that I can just tack on another 1/2" without making it look freakish from behind. This kind of alteration is totally new territory for me. Nothing ventured nothing gained, right?

Readers, I'm not a tall guy. My feeling is that the body of the jacket is too long, especially now that the sleeves are shorter. It's kind of a top heavy look, yes? Too much jacket...too little leg. I think I'd be happier, and the jacket would have a "younger" look if it were about an inch shorter. And who knows, it may make me look taller!

So here it is with the bottom turned up an inch. Much better proportion IMO. I'm going to do some rip-out and redrafting of the neck opening before going any further. It won't look very pretty, but I want to be sure that what I think will be an easy fix, will actually work.


Finally, I'd like to pass along a tip to any of you who, like me, have no access to good tailoring supplies. In the few years that I've been making my own clothes, I've found that working with good materials really increases my satisfaction with the final product. For this project I'll be using a "Jacket Packet" from B Black and Sons. www.bblackandsons.com Easy online ordering and they ship very quickly.

Here's what you get... a yard of striped sleeve lining, 2 yards of a nice weight acetate lining, a generous yard+ of pocketing, a quarter yard of both under collar felt and French canvas.

But there's more! 2 padded haircanvas chest fronts (your choice of heavy or light weight), sleeve heads, shoulder pads and a set of buttons. It all comes neatly packaged for $52.50. For me, this is a lot less than the gas and tolls to drive to NYC.

Now I just need to turn all this stuff into a jacket before March 23rd.