Jacket shaping

After working on the jacket steadily for days, but appearing to make little progress beyond practice runs and applying interfacing, it is finally starting to look a bit like an actual jacket. Its amazing how long the underpinnings and shaping take to do, much less time than sewing the jacket, or so it feels anyway.

The back stay is in but it gave me problems and I am not sure it is quite right. I originally put in a fusible back stay, but then read the tailoring book again, and a comment from someone on Pattern Review, and realised this was the wrong thing to do. So I steamed it to soften the glue then pulled it back out, replacing it with a cotton lawn stay. Now this jacket is very curved at the upper back, cos I am very curved there, and there are multiple seams which incorporate some pretty large darts. So my one piece back stay was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard in the “staying things” department since it didn’t have the shaping that the jacket body has. I couldn’t find anywhere where a back stay was constructed from the actual jacket pieces, all the books showed them in one piece, including the Readers Digest book, which was the only one I owned that showed a shaped jacket back. So, in true “bodge it and Scarper” tradition, I pinned the back onto the dress form and folded out darts where I thought they belonged and sewed them in. This was a bad plan. I have had to let one of the darts out a bit because there was pulling on the back shoulder area when I’d got the shoulders sewn up. I think I managed to rescue it and steam some of the problem area out, once I’d released the dart, but I certainly won’t do that again I can assure you. I am not sure how the back should be stayed, but a one piece, “dart goes about there” approach obviously isn’t going to be the way forward. Of course, some of the problem might have been caused by ripping that fusible stay out, which again was not a particularly smart move and is a good advert for not making sewing decisions late at night.

I put the upper chest padding/plastron in last night, following the Terry Fox Speed Tailoring approach. Its not the easiest thing to explain but I will try and I actually remembered to take photos of some of the process… usually I get caught up in sewing and forget to do the photos. The plastron is cut out the same size in both hair canvas and fusible chest padding. You can see the plastron in this photo, already installed. The canvas has been cut down so that the fusible padding extends beyond the edges of the canvas, and these edges fuse to the jacket to hold the piece in place. The chest canvas, being underneath the padding, gets fused to the padding which keeps it in place... clear as mud so far???

In the photo to the left the plastron is at the top of the photo. The white is the fusible padding and you cannot see the canvas at all because it is completely underneath the padding.
The canvas was trimmed a quarter inch at the armhole and five eighths at the curved edge on the chest. At the shoulder however, the fusible padding is trimmed off level with the canvas to one and one quarter inches down the plastron so that only the canvas and padding are stuck together, forming a flap that does not fuse to the garment, at the shoulder. The non-fused section is exactly the width of the shoulder seam allowances pressed open. This is easier to see in the next photo.

I checked that the whole thing was placed at least five eighths away from the neck/collar/lapel edge before I fused it in place because I don’t want any excess bulk in those areas. The fusible padding extends slightly into the armhole seam allowance, which will keep it in place whilst I set in my sleeve. Once happy with the placement, it was fused into place and left it to cool. The plastron fills in the hollow area in the upper chest and really does make a big difference to the way in which the jacket falls on the figure.

The front and back of the jacket must be sewn together at the shoulders before the shoulder part of the plastron can be sewn into place. Once the shoulder seams are sewn and pressed open, the jacket is held over the hand, or on a dress form, and the loose flap of padding/canvas is pinned through the shoulder seam. The reason its done over the hand or dress form is so you get a natural curve to the shoulder area. Once pinned, you sew the plastron to the back shoulder seam allowance with loose stitches. In the photo at left you can see the plastron more clearly, and I am holding up the flap that will go over the shoulder seams. You can clearly see the outline of the canvas under the padding and see how it is stuck to the garment at the edges.

I stayed the shoulder seams on this jacket, something I have not done before, following the instructions in "Tailoring. The Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket. The back shoulder of the jacket is larger than the front so that had to be eased to the front shoulder seam first with pins. Then a piece of stay tape was cut the same length as the front shoulder seam (including seam allowances… I say this because I was daft enough to cut mine without seam allowances the first time). The stay tape is then shortened either a quarter or three eighths of an inch, then the whole length of the shoulder is eased to the shortened tape, pinned and sewn. The seam is then pressed and steamed in a slight curve, toward the front, which apparently will not look curved when it is worn. It isn't possible to see this yet, as the side seams aren't sewn up.