Jacket Update

There has been progress, but I didn't finish yesterday like I was hoping. Maybe by tonight, since all that's left is to sew on the collar, the sleeve cuffs, and sew in the lining. And press the heck out of it. ;-) Oh, and buttons. Hmmm. Here we go again with the buttons.

I had originally thought that I wouldn't line this jacket but realized I wouldn't save any time because I'd have to draft a back neck facing and redraft the front facings to join up with it. And I had already cut the front facings. So, lined it will be. That's the lining fabric sticking out of the pocket. It's basically blue and I don't wear much blue, but I'm trying to use up stash.

I wasted a lot of time yesterday. I had originally thought that I wanted to topstitch all of the seams. So, after I had the collar put together, I topstitched around the edge. I hated it. The fabric has a definite texture and the topstitching sunk into it kind of funky looking, like a 5-year old had sewn it. Plus, the brown I used was too dark. Another would be too light. And so I just gave up and ripped it out. Which turned out to be a good thing because I realized as I was sewing the pockets that it would be a nightmare to topstitch down that seam.

Speaking of the pockets … I'm undecided about them. They will, of course, stay in this jacket but I'm thinking I'll eliminate them for the next one. If I put my hands in them, which I'll most definitely do since they're there, I feel like I'm wearing a muff. And it's not like I'm going to store much more than a stick of gum or something in them. But at least these don't detract from the overall look of the jacket.

The sleeves have been giving me the most trouble. And before I realized it, I forgot I was going to evaluate them before committing and I pinked the seam allowances. Sheesh. Can we say dunderheaded mistake? I didn't trim off much, but enough to make it a pain to evaluate my changes against the original seam allowances without really studying things. At least I remembered to not cut out the sleeve cuff until I had the sleeve width finalized. (Why does the brain let you remember some important points and totally space out on others?)

So I've spent the morning trying to get the sleeves right. The shoulder point was too far out and puffed up, making me look like a Working Girl reject. I must've tried 10 different pinnings and bastings and have finally settled on what I think is the best of the bunch. It's not perfect, and I'm still trying to make a decision on whether a very thin shoulder pad is in order or not. (I'm leaning towards adding it.) If I didn't have square shoulders, I wouldn't think twice about a small shoulder pad since they do smooth things out underneath nicely. But do I need even 1/4" more shoulder?? Arghhhhh!

Now I have to transfer those alterations over to the lining sleeves and my pattern. And hopefully continue on to completion without further incident. Yeah. Right.