Brocade Jacket...WIP#2

Additional progress was made on my jacket this afternoon. The sleeves were sewn in. I had to stop sewing in order to make dinner. I also took the opportunity to take some more pictures.

I found these buttons in my stash. They are temporarily pinned to the jacket. We'll see if I end up using them.

Now, all I need to do is hem the jacket and do some test buttonholes.

Brocade Jacket...WIP#1

I thought I'd take a break from sewing and give you an update. I finally found some blocks of sewing time. I am holed up in my sewing room. Blinds open to let in the wonderful sunshine. I am making some progress.

Yesterday, I spent an hour sewing my jacket (e.g. pleats, shoulder seams, side seams). This morning, I sewed in the facing. You can see my progress in the following picture.



I took in the sides quite a bit and made the side seams straighter (removing the flare at the sides). Basically, sewing a regular 5/8 seam at the underarm area and then tapering until I've taken in about 2 inches at the bottom of the side seam. I had a little help with a ruler and chalk to draw my line.

To press the brocade, I have been using a dry press cloth and medium heat setting on my iron. It's working wonderfully. I did have a slight issue with getting my weft interfacing to stick to the fabric. I ended up misting my press cloth with water and applying the slightly damp press cloth over the interfacing and fabric. That worked out well.

I am getting used to the idea of not topstitching down my pleats. Here's a close up of the front and back pleats.



Still hard to take a good picture of this brocade. I've been using my external flash and practicing picture taking. Bouncing my light here and there to see what I get. Part of my artistic expression. lol!

Well, back to sewing my jacket. I need to finish my side seams with a serger, sew in the sleeves and hem the jacket. I'm still debating what buttons I should be using.

Do you think I should stick with plain black buttons?

Sewing Mojo & One Project at a Time...Whew!

What can I say? I am glad to be sewing again. Every now and then I do have a problem. I have all these sewing projects whizzing around in my head...constantly. Like right now, I'm thinking of 2 jackets and 4 fabrics. I'm getting a slight headache.

See this picture? This is the 1 yard EOS brocade remnant (60 inches wide) that I received the other day. See all those pattern pieces? They fit on the fabric. Yes, I'm doing the happy dance! I'm too tired tonight to cut out the fabric and I don't have enough light in my sewing room. For me, cutting black fabric at night is not a good idea. I'll let my fabric relax on my cutting table overnight. I'll get up early in the morning and start cutting away.

I did find the perfect buttons for this jacket at Hancock's. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of them. I'll save that for another post later.

I really need to focus on one sewing project at a time. That's the only way I can be sure to finish a garment.

So, how do you folks sew? Do you end up sewing one project at a time or do you have several ongoing projects?

Upcoming Brocade Project

First off, I want to commend the folks who run online fabric stores and take wonderful pictures of the fabrics they sell. Thank goodness for digital cameras, because I ended up taking 20 pictures before I could get the details of this brocade to show up. And you know when you're snapping away, you lose track of how many pictures were taken. Yep, that's what happened to me.

So, here is the black and gray lightweight brocade fabric I purchased (1-3/4 yards) from EmmaOneSock (EOS) two weeks ago. Linda recently had an end piece (1 yard) left and I snapped that one up. I'm waiting for its arrival. I think I can get by using this 1 yard piece to make my favorite Butterick 5223 cropped jacket. I am going to save the larger piece for something special later on. So, what happens if the jacket takes more than a yard? I know I can get the front, back, and sleeve pattern pieces to fit within the length of the fabric. I'll just use a plain black fabric for the front and neck facings.

While I'm waiting for the fabric, I better look for some fancy buttons.

Kat...thank you for the suggestions on how to iron/press the brocade fabric when I get to the sewing stage. I feel more confident now.

I also have a black fabric with a herringbone weave that's calling to me to be made into the same jacket. Since I'll be using black thread for both fabrics, it makes sense to cut out and sew two jackets at the same time.

Some of you are probably wondering why am I making so many short sleeve jackets when Fall is right around the corner. I think I'm part Eskimo (not really), but I get warm when I wear long sleeves. That's why I like wearing layers. A lot of times my base garment is either a short sleeve or tank top.

Well, I'm off to watch the Olympics before it's lights out at our house.