At last, a finished jacket! I was thinking that I had spent a l-o-n-g time on this one, but when I counted up, it only seemed like it took forever.  I bought the fabric at the ASG annual meeting on October 18.  I started cutting on October 22.

The tissue fit and muslin would add about a week. Not bad at all.

The fabric, as I mentioned earlier, is a wool/nylon blend that I bought for $1 a yard at the ASG annual meeting.  The lining is polyester satin that makes my camera nutso.  The entire jacket is interfaced with Pro-weft interfacing. The shoulder pads are needlepunched pads from Atlanta Thread.  The buttons came from Hancock Fabrics.

I must have a good $10 or $12 in this jacket.  That makes the thrill of it even better, eh?

Someone mentioned that they’d like to see my pieced facing, and there it is.  I put the seam between the buttonholes so that you wouldn’t stand any chance of seeing it when the jacket was buttoned, and to be sure no bulky seam interfered with my persnickety buttonhole foot.

I had hoped to wear the jacket today, as we have a kickoff event this morning.  Unfortunately it’s supposed to be 75 degrees and I refuse to wear wool under those circumstances.

It’ll be good whenever I get to wear it. ;)

Wowza!  I used the tie interfacing method of easing this sleeve cap in place.  Contrary to my usual practice of cutting sleeve, armhole, collar and neckline seam allowances down to 3/8″, I left these allowances at 5/8″. It would have taken an act of congress to get the sleeves into that jacket in the conventional way.

After I applied the interfacing to the cap, the sleeves were shaped so perfectly that I just had to pin them in and take pictures!  Imagine how great they’ll look once they’re actually sewn in.

I took a few photos of the tie interfacing business and I’ll show them to you next week.

Happy weekend!

Looking good so far!  I’ve yet to try it on myself, so I can only hope that it looks as good on me as it does on Brunhilde.

The plaid-matching went well enough.  I pinned on each red section and tried to make sure that nothing shifted.  Even so, I had to rip and restitch some.

I barely had enough fabric to cut the pockets–bias or otherwise.  They aren’t exactly the same, but I don’t think anyone will notice.  When I realized that the pockets would cross that princess seamline, I knew that any attempt at matching the plaid would be fruitless, so bias it was.

All the pieces are interfaced with Pam’s Pro-weft interfacing, and I made a back shoulder stay out of a firm cotton remnant. Before making the last Kwik Sew jacket, I don’t recall interfacing all the pieces of a jacket before.  It gives the jacket a much more firm, RTW feel.  I’m not sure what this shoulder stay will do for it, but we’ll see.

I can’t wait to get back to work on it.  Side seams and any needed adjustments are next.

After you cut and prep the pattern pieces, the first thing Jackets for Real People (JFRP) has you do is pin the seams on the outside and check the fit.

The fit is looking pretty good, I think.  It doesn’t tell the whole story, I’m sure.  The shoulder seam looks a little long, but it may be an illusion due to the seam allowances being on the outside per the book.  I’ll be able to adjust that with the shoulder princess seamline as I sew, so I won’t fuss with it much now.  When I had it on last night there was a pin jabbing my armpit, so I didn’t spend time fiddling with it.

I’m ready to sew now. The first thing is the patch pockets.  I’ll probably cut those on the bias since my fabric is so short.  Normally I’d have already started sewing, but I spent all day Saturday junking and most of the afternoon Sunday working on an altar cloth.

I was lucky to get this much done.

LOL!