Cut21 -- Part 3 -- The Jacket

Okay, now I'll get onto the jacket. It's an open jacket so it has not fastening. It's meant to be simple in style, which is why there is no closing. That's a feature I might change if I ever made it again.

A sketchbook page featuring the jacket

Just because it's a simple style and has no closing, it doesn't mean to say that it was easy as pie to make. It's unlined (a lining would have made it easier in some ways) but as I refused to use a zigzag stitch or overlocker on this project, all of the seams had to be felled or bound, but the main two challenges were the pockets and facings. As you can see, this was very fiddly to bind. This was an issue that had to be amended. I did this by introducing a full-length Princess seam at the front and sewing the front edge of the pocket into that. I also changed the shape of the other side of the pocket so that it had a much less acute angle to bind, a curve. In this photo you can see the side seam, the side of the pocket, and the back peplum seam. The hardest part was going over the bulky cross seams. You have to use some finger skills here, and a humper-jumper helps. The hem was originally going to be a simple double-turn hem, but that didn't work with the steep curve at the back. So I decided to use a bias facing.

There was the conundrum of what to do about the part where the hem goes into the facing seam -- how to sew it neatly by machine? The solution was to leave the facing topstitching undone at the bottom at first, tuck the bias into it, then TS it down, being careful to match up the TS lines as discreetly as possible.

So this is the final jacket (I must sort out a nice backdrop for photography):

The back swoops down to cover you while you're riding a bike.

And a couple of detail shots:

The armscyes are bound. The stitching at the top of this one is not perfect and now it's really bothering me. I won't be letting that happen again.

Binding, facing, felled seams and front TS -- all in one shot :)

I hope you like it! It was actually the easiest part of the collection to make and took about two days, if memory serves. After I had made a few, I expect one day would suffice, especially as I wouldn't be taking photos during the process.

Sabrina