Its finished... its started.

Well, I've finished the quilt at last. I only had two sides to sew down, but it sat on the sofa back for a fortnight waiting for me to get on with it. I sat up until midnight last night to get it finished, and here it is. Its quilted in the ditch down both sides of the cream strips, then, because that wasn't enough quilting to keep it together, I've also quilted it down the centre of the sections running between, and paralell to, the cream strips. All the quilting was done in a brownish cream thread which matched the backing fabric. Its bound with a half inch binding, which was made from straight grain strips of the backing fabric, torn not rotary cut (because I am very lazy and anyway, my rotary cutting isn't that accurate along such a huge long strip). The backing was double width so there are no seams.

At long last, I have managed to conquer my fear of cutting the Marfy jacket out, and took scissors to fabric yesterday. It has taken me all weekend, working pretty much all day, but I've got all the main pieces cut out, and most are now completely interfaced. I've a couple of extra bits of underpinning still to do, most notably the shoulder support, but most of the speed tailoring underpinnings are in. I am working from the instructions in a book called "The Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket" which I have owned for a while but hadn't really used to its full potential before. In addition, I am using some techniques from my Terry Fox Speed Tailoring DVD's. I've used these before and really like the way she does the shoulder and sleeve support so I will be using her method for those areas.

The whole of the jacket is underpinned with very lightweight interfacing to stabilise the tweed. The sleeves and back have knit interfacing since this was the softest and most supple. The front, which the book says should have slightly heavier interfacing, is backed with woven lightweight, and the peplum both front and back is backed with stitch reinforced non-woven since I didn't have any woven mid weight left and I wanted the peplum backing to be slightly more structured since the muslin peplum seemed to want to curl up at the front slightly.

Once all the backings were in, I used a woven light to mid weight interfacing with a slightly fluffy face, for the support structure as well as the lapel area. The back stay runs across the whole upper back area, over the top of all the jacket seams. The side front and mid front pieces had their support layer added before sewing the seams. The centre front piece is completely interfaced with the fluffy interfacing, on top of the backing layer and in addition has fusible squares added to back the button and button hole areas for strength. The lapel also has a second layer of the fluffy interfacing, cut with the grain parallel to the lapel roll line, and applied, without seam allowances, to the lapel area only, stopping an eighth of an inch away from the roll line. The roll line was taped with fusible stitch reinforced stay tape and I shortened the tape three eighths of an inch, mainly easing the fabric to the lower part of the tape, to reduce gaping on the lapel. Easing the tape was not as easy as I had thought it would be. I think it might have been more accurate, if more timeconsuming, to tape the roll line using ordinary stay tape sewn on rather than fused, in order to be able to control the easing process more effectively and accurately.

The upper collar and facing pieces were all fully interfaced with the fluffy interfacing.

The undercollar, which is cut on the bias, was interfaced with fusible cotton interlining, also cut on the bias, which gave a crisp but still soft, finish. The undercollar stand was then cut with the cross grain going around the neck and applied on top of the first layer, once the collar had been sewn together at the back seam. Because my fabric has a stripy weave, I managed to get a nice, if subtle, chevron effect at the back neckline seam, which pleased me hugely.

I am really proud of my lovely undercollar so it has got three photos all to itself because it felt like magic to take two pieces of flat fabric, and turn them into a collar that sits up on its own. I've not done this shaping step before with other jackets. So we have the collar on the ham, drying, then the collar sitting up on its own, and a rather poor photo of the chevron effect at the back seam. Please ignore the makeshift ham stand... I can't source a proper ham stand, so I have to jam it into the sleeve board set on its side. The strange blue marks are the result of my rather stupid decision to mark the line for the collar stand, through the tissue, using a blue felt pen...which of course then ran all over the damp cloth and the interfacing, but mercifully not onto the face of the cloth... more from luck than judgement.