Marfy 1987

I have neglected the blog lately because I haven't felt much like sewing and whilst I have done quite a bit of knitting, I haven't got around to photographing it yet.

I've done lots of tracing and pattern alterations in the hope it will kick start my desire to sew and it does seem to have finally worked. This is Marfy 1987 and I felt confident enough in this pattern to skip the calico muslin stage but am still making a test run, which will hopefully be wearable, in brown furnishing weight linen. The jacket will be unlined because I really don't want to have to draft a one piece lining from all those tiny little pieces. Any lining drafting can wait until I've tried the jacket and made sure it fits and is comfortable since I find drafting linings difficult at the best of times and this has an insane number of pieces to it.

Today I tacked together both fronts and the back pieces and sewed up the shoulder and side seam on one side. Tried it on, and it looked fine, so I've decided to go for it and sew it up properly. I didn't put the sleeves in because I know I will have trouble with those. I am hoping that decision doesn't come back to bite me later. My reasoning was that I finally want to sew, therefore, I need to get going on this now, whilst I feel positive, not be cast down by fighting with a sleeve that will have to be taken back out as soon as I have got it fitted because the jacket is only tacked.

I don't think I've ever made an unlined jacket before so I am quite likely to sew myself into a corner with this. But I have overlocked all the edges of the pieces so that it looks neat inside and the yoke and waistband are having a contrast inner made from cream and beige narrow striped cotton. I shall apply the yoke facing by hand, trying to cover all the construction details, then will probably use a bias strip of the same fabric to bind the armhole seams together to keep them neat. I had planned to bind all the seams in the stripe fabric, but the linen is not all that heavy and the seam finish would have shown through so that was the end of that plan. I have been keen to try a bound seam finish for some years and haven't yet had the opportunity. One day I am sure I will get to try it.

I have sewn three of the front panels together for each side. The little triangle was a pig to get right, but it is going to give lovely curvy shaping to my jacket so I've forgiven it for the extra grey hairs it gave me. Even though I ripped one of them out five times, I still have one that is a quarter inch longer than the other. Hopefully it won't notice. There will be topstitching on the seams but I am going to do that all at once, after I've got all the lower panels sewn together. Might as well minimise the number of times I have to rethread the machine.