Couture Jacket Class -- 1

I learned a lot of things today in class. This was our first real class. Our job was to come to class with the stitching lines drawn in on our pattern sheets. I measured in at a size 10 so I drew a stitching line in 5/8" inside that line. In the following pictures, you can see it as the thin, red line.

The first thing we did was a tissue fitting. I've attempted this before but have never been successful. You really need another person to help you with this. We did the fitting with just the main body pieces; no arms or collar. I found out that I should be taking a 1/2" tuck out of the front between shoulder and bust (yes! it's what I have been doing!) and adding a 1/2" to the back (oops, I've been taking a tuck here too). It turns out I have a forward-thrusting neck and I need to add a bit more space to the upper back to make the collar come up where it is supposed to be. Can you think of a worse name for an alteration? So now, I've got to do a swayback adjustment and a forward thrusting neck adjustment. Both of these make me feel like singing The Old Gray Mare.

I also learned that truing your muslin is a job all by itself. I spent most of the class tearing my muslin, hand basting the edges together, and then ironing the snot out of it so it would go back on grain. Luckily, my muslin was nice quality and needed very little help to get on grain. Here you can see the hand basting, the tuck, and the drawn stitching lines.


Here you can see the additional tissue for the 1/2" addition to the back piece.


After attaching the pattern pieces to the muslin, we used tracing paper and a wheel to trace out all the markings, stitching lines, and seam allowances. We used 1" seam allowances on all the edges. I have a double wheel tracing wheel so this step went pretty fast. I will wait until May 17th to cut it off the muslin. There is no class on Mother's Day so I'm off the hook for two weeks. It's a good thing too. I need to get some stuff done for the SWAP. I did trace out the Patrones pattern and put it on muslin too. While I had everything out it seemed like the most efficient thing to do.


Hopefully I'll have the duppioni silk dress done in a day or two so you guys can see it. The Jalie jeans are already cut out and waiting to be made into pats. Then, it's on to the two jackets.