Herringbone Twill Jacket Update

The jacket continues to come together, albeit slower than I'd originally hoped.

I think tailoring projects are a little like childbirth -- if you remembered how hard they were you'd never do them again, but somehow you forget until it's too late to turn back.

No matter how many jackets I make, I always find new challenges, many having to do with the fabric I'm using.  As I mentioned yesterday, despite being a casual fabric, this cotton herringbone is unforgiving: it's dark and solid and shows every flaw.  Since this is a summer-weight blazer, I decided to have patch pockets, but they've taken as much time as double welt pockets, if not more.  First I had to line them, then turn them, carefully press and shape them, etc.  I was going to pick stitch them, but then I remembered my pick stitch skills are nonexistent.  In a desperate moment I decided to stitch them on by machine.  The result looked awful, just really cheap; sorry, no photo but take my word for it.  Fortunately, I'd attached only one pocket that way.

In the end, I sewed them all on by hand.  By hand!  But I really like the result: if you look closely you can see this was not done by machine and that's exactly what I like about it.




I decided to use my vintage polka dot poly for the half lining.  Yes, it smells like moth balls when you iron it, but only when you iron it, otherwise it smells just fine.  And I think it looks smashing against the navy.



As you can see, I used some floral shirting for my inside welt pocket.  There's going to be a lot of color inside this jacket!

I managed to get one sleeve attached and it came out fine but the silhouette of the shoulder (below) was sharper than I wanted.



I ended up removing the sleeve, trimming the high sleeve cap, and then reattaching.  The result is a softer shoulder that reads a little less dressy.  With luck, I'll finish this tomorrow or the day after that.

In other news, you'll be happy to know that my flight suit, the miracle find from yesterday, is in the laundry this very minute. 

And that's it!  More salad for dinner tonight.  It's been salad, salad, salad all month.



Don't forget to tune in tomorrow for my Sunday vlog.

Have a great day, everybody!