Progress on Alex's Jacket, or Getting it Done so that I can Sew For MYSELF!

Before I get to Alex's jacket, I have to give kudos to my brilliant husband.  While sewing last night my gravity feed iron stopped steaming.  Still hot, but no steam.  I turned on my Rowenta and let the gravity feed cool down for dh to look at.  9 pm he comes upstairs.  9:05 its fixed.  He turned it on, clicked the steam button and no clicking sound.  This means nothing to me, but to dh, it means that the solenoid is not making contact.  He took a screwdriver and tightened everything up and voila, it works!    Thank you Seth!  It may have been the cheapest gf iron available, but it gives off way more steam than my Rowenta ever did and I love it.  Between the steam and its weight it really beats fabric into submission, especially useful for tailoring.

Collar and lapels done, sleeve vents finished and undersleeve sewn.  I still have to hem them,  sew the side seams and of course set them in. The hardest parts of the jacket, the collar and lapels is done.  I used to have much more trouble getting a lovely notched lapel until I I found one of my favorite articles in Threads, where else.  For those of you who have recently purchased that DVD compilation take a look at the Foolproof Notched Collar by Jan Schoen .  It's  in the Dec 96, January 97 issue.  It really is foolproof and easy.

 

You get well done, flat  lapel and collar intersection with out any bubble.  The collar is easy too.  Understitiching is used in both cases to throw the seam to the underside.  The understitching is broken at the lapel roll line so that when you turn it everything stays where it's supposed to.  

Judy Burlap's 'The Elegant Mitered Vent' is just that , elegant and perfect without any angst involved.  You do need to start in the pattern stage, but it can be easily altered for length at the fitting stage.  Threads DVD owners or those of my readers who have collections of Threads, its in the December 99, January 2000 issue.  Judy Burlap has an article in this months Threads on Japanese tailoring.  Like the sleeve vent it needs to be started with some changes in the pattern stage.  I am going to try it on the next jacket, but this one was already cut out.  Both the vent extension and the hem are 1 3/4" deep.  The vent extension and the hems are interfaced and pressed into place.  Where the hems intersect I made a tiny clip which I lined up in the next step.

 

  

I lined the clips up and the intersection of the pressed hems.  Stitched it and then pressed it open on my point turner and then flat.  Not trimming at all.  You can see it turned right side out and then lined up with the under sleeve.

As you can see the method produces a lovely flat vent.   It's all done by machine, with no hand sewing at all.  This is part of Burlap's Japanese tailoring method; to produce beautiful results purely by machine.  If I had wanted to, this would be then, while the sleeve is still flat and before the under vent is attached to the upper sleeve, to put in buttonholes.  I am not pressing my luck with my machine buttonholes and I'll just attach the buttons.  She recommends a vent of between 3 and 4 inches.  I've left this at 4 because I am using 3 buttons for the vents.  

Tonight I'll finish the pockets, attach them, sew the side seams  then set my sleeves. 

Happy sewing.