Sewing the Steffi Jacket: Final Touches

As promised, pictures of my progress with the Steffi. 

Basting the lining and jacket together in preparation of sewing the facing on.

Completed basting ready and waiting for the facing.

Facing sewn on and sleeves hemmed.  This is when I started to realize I was almost finished.  And I still needed to go buy buttons.

I under stitched the facing's seam allowance.  It gave the edge of the jacket a nice finished look to it, and it made the front of the jacket and the facing lay a lot nicer when i steam ironed it.  I am defiantly doing this more in the future.  (You can see that I hadn't taken out the basting stitch yet in this pic.)

In the end I did decide to finish the facings edge with bias binding, and it just so happened that I had some vintage bias binding in navy.  (Side note: I need new fabric scissors.)

The Bias binding took a big chunk of time to complete, but the final look was worth it.

Bias binding attached and hand sewn to the lining.

Here's a close up of the finished edge.

Yesterday I also practiced button holes on my sewing machine the top three were my last attempts and my best.  I'm still nervous about the button holes, but I am ready and know exactly what I'm doing. 

Yesterday I braved the wind and the rain to buy these little buggers.  BUTTONS! I finally went out and bought buttons for this jacket.  I ended up buying fabric and there was tons of new stuff in the shop that I wanted to get.

There is one more day to my self imposed deadline to finish this jacket and I think I'm going to make it.  All I have to do today is make six button holes and sew 6 buttons.  And then voila, a jacket.

Sewing the Steffi Jacket: The lining

I finished sewing the lining.  Here is my progress. 

And here is the finished lining with sleeves and all!

First, I am a pro at setting in those sleeves.  After doing something 4 times one should improve.  The silk was so floaty and slippery it made me crazy trying to sew it.  I finally gave in and went pin crazy, it was the only way this fabric would behave. 

There is a week before Simon and I go up to my parents for Thanksgiving, can I finish this jacket?  I'm going to take a small bite out of it everyday.  Here is the plan of attack.  To day I am going to hem the sleeves first on the lining and then on the jacket.  Tomorrow will be hand basting (crazy right) the lining to the jacket.  Then on Friday the facing will get attached.  Now here is where I'm torn.  I think I'm going to use some bias binging to finish the edge of the facing so that the edge isn't bulky and it is easier to sew it down to the lining.  If this is what I decide I will be doing that also on Friday.  On Monday (I take the weekends off if possible) I will hem the sleeves and tack the facing down to the lining.  Finally on Tuesday I will sew the button holes.  This is the part I am super nervous about.  Good thing I have that muslin to practice on.  Leaving me Wednesday to sew the buttons on to the Jacket.  Oh, and somewhere in there a trip to the fabric store is required to buy the buttons, and finishing a sweater.  Wish me luck!

Sewing the Steffi Jacket: Sleeves and Silk

It's a river of silk!  I am making head way.  The past few days has felt like a struggle to sew, but I pushed threw it and now I am on to the lining.  The lining pieces are cut out and are waiting for me to only change the color of the thread in my machine. 

The jacket its self is hanging neatly on a hanger look very dapper and waiting for it's lining.  I might hem the sleeves before I start the lining.  I am really proud of how the sleeves turned out.  It took an hour to set them in and I wasn't sewing them by hand.  It was like complicated sleeve surgery where everything had to line up just so.  The one good thing is that after struggling with the first sleeve the second was a breeze to complete. 

The fact that this garment is coming together so nicely is getting me pumped.  The challenge of sewing this jacket has kept me on my toes and made me have to learn new skills.  As scary as it first was I am glad I took this project on. 

Here is one more pic of the sleeve, I am really excited about them.

Sewing the Steffi Jacket: Making Head Way

So, I got over myself and started sewing the jacket together.  I'm almost done with the actual jacket part and am hoping to start on the lining by the end of the week.  Above you can see one of the sleeves.  I figured out why the one sleeve on my muslin was all cockeyed.  I didn't line up the sleeve seams in the right way therefore the sleeve wasn't set into the jacket correctly.  Well that is why I sewed a muslin first.  I've made good markings on my sleeves and body of the jacket so that won't happen again. 

Here's the body all sewn up and ready to go, Now I just have to sew the collar to the body and the facing, and set in the sleeves.  This is where my fear started to come up again.  My big question was how do I put the lining in? My question was answered by Gertie on her blog.   She made a coat in 2010 and video blogged about it every step of the way.  It gives great information on tailoring and the vlog about inserting the lining calmed my fears and made me realized that my first instinct to make both the jacket and the lining separately was correct.  The coat vlog laid out how to attach it and hem it and all the important things I needed to know.  I feel confident moving ahead in my Steffi sewing.  I think I will make my deadline too.  How exciting. 

Sewing Update

I decided to just get over it and sew the back of the jacket together.  The image is a bit blurry, but you can see the seams pretty well.  I love the princess seams on this jacket, and although they are a bit of a pain to pin and sew I think I like them more than darts.  This reminds me I need to purchase or make a tailors ham. 

I found this awesome tutorial for an easy draped cape today on Oh So Lovely.  It's a guest post by Alli from one of my all time favorite blogs One Pearl Button.
 

Sewing the Steffi Jacket: Finishing the Muslin

I am finished with the Muslin for the Steffi and will soon embark on cutting out the lining and well the rest of the jacket.  It went together pretty easily and I was surprised at how well the muslin came out.  I only ran in to two small problems, but I'll get to those in a minuet.  Here is a photo log of my progress. 

I sewed a lot of the pieces together the sleeves for example were two pieces so I sewed them first and set them aside for when I would need them.  I then sewed all the front and back sections to their partners. and then connected them at the shoulder.

It was weird to not sew the side seams up first, but it was clear that if i decided to do that the yoke wouldn't fit in right and I would be kicking myself later.  This is a bout the time I realized that something wasn't right about my color pieces.

Problem number one and two happened one right after another and while they were easily fixed they did throw a wrench in the works and once they were sorted I called it a day.  What happenend was first I didn't cut my collor pieces on the fold, easy enough to fix I had enough extra muslin fabric to remedy that problem.  The second problem came when I went to sew the yoke together and realized I was missing a pattern piece.  I though search under the bed were my pattern storage is did not turn up the missing piece.  It was a smallish piece and i was able to print it out on one sheet of paper and had just enough fabric to cut it out.  The only problem is that out of all the other pieces of the pattern this tine little crescent of fabric is the only pattern piece that does not have the seam allowance incorporated in.  Weird but not the end of the world.

On my second day of sewing I put together the yoke, sewed in the collar and the yoke in one piece and set in the sleeves which was a bit scary.  One came out better than the other and I am going to go back and take a look at the better one so I can replicate it.  But here is my finished muslin.

I love the back of this jacket I find something very pleasing about the seam lines. 

A little rumpled, but pretty snazzy for a test and some cheap fabric. 

It fits! I don't need to make any adjustments to the pattern. 

Next week I plan on having my silk lining cut out and sewn along with some practice button holes and maybe even the wool cut. 

Sewing the Steffi Jacket: Muslin and fabric Choices

Burda Style

I am in love with this jacket and have been for about a year.  I even bought the pattern and the fabric to make the muslin, but after Simon and I got married I was sewn out after making three dresses two ties and a bunch of other crafty bits the idea of sewing a tailored jacket with buttons and a lining seemed a bit daunting.  But with the weather cooling down and my desire to make clothes instead of buying them I pulled the pattern out of storage and the muslin fabric and I am going to do it I am going to sew this jacket. 

Here it goes, the pattern all laid out ready to cut the fabric for the muslin.  I am a bit of a fearless sewer (and Knitter) and I usually jump in with both feet, but I want to make sure I know how this pattern is sewn and how it fits before I cut the wool and silk for the real one.  I have expensive tastes and I don't want to f-up really good fabric.  It's not like yarn where I can frog it if I don't like it or if it doesn't fit. 

All the muslin pieces waiting to be sewn my poor little tomato is empty of all its pins. This will be today's project, start sewing the muslin together.

Before work I went to the fabric store yesterday, I had some Brithday money from my mom and decided that it was going toward my fabric. 

My original thought was to make it out of navy wool, but after seeing this forest green I hemmed and hawed about it for a few minuets. 

I finally decided to go with my original plan and make it in navy.  There was even this great lavender gray silk on sale that I got for the lining.  I do really love the green and if this goes well maybe I'll make a second in green.