Ziggi Sleeves

Apologies for the infrequent posting recently.  My current temporary assignment is in the centre of a neighbouring city and the commute is a total of 3 and a half hours a day, which has meant sewing is currently confined to Sundays and fit between mundane chores.  However, today I managed to get a whole day to spend on the jacket (mainly by ignoring the requirement to deal with the garden on the basis that the weeds will be easier to pull out if I leave them to grow large enough to really handle). 

Anyway, an entire day spent studiously NOT looking at the garden and working on my Ziggi sleeves, resulted in this.  Although two sleeves took me all day to make and insert, I'm happy with the outcome.  I chose to follow SewMaris' tutorial on inserting the zippers and adding a gusset behind the zip, but chose to make my gusset from the main fabric since it doesn't fray and I felt it would give the most authentic look to the garment based on my old leather motorbike jacket which had leather rather than lining fabric gussets.  I did a hem on the gusset and topstitched it then sewed it in by hand.  This took the longest time to do as I wasn't too sure quite what I was doing. It was a bit bodgit and scarper initially but I got a nice result in the end.  First I sewed the gusset to the seam allowance (there was only about an eighth of an inch available to sew it to, hence the hand sewing) then I opened the zippers out so the gusset lay totally flat between the two sides when fully open and sewed the gusset to the zipper tapes between the edge of the garment and the zip teeth.  This made the gusset look nice from the right side. 

The hems on the sleeves are pressed up and top stitched but not sewn properly.  The pattern is designed for a bagged lining so I think the hems have to be left loose for that.  I've not topstitched the bottom jacket hem yet because I don't think I can top stitch all the way along in one pass without compromising the areas needing to be attached to the lining.  I'm a novice lining bagger, having done this only once before, so am not totally sure what I'm doing, and will be consulting text books next week prior to lining construction and insertion. 

Amazingly, the padded sleeves fit in the armholes first time with absolutely no problems.  I just pinned, sewed and they were done.   I had NOT remembered to check the sleeve length before I cut the jacket out so was extremely relieved to find the length was acceptable, after all that work.    Sadly the jacket is a tad tight across the back shoulders.  I guess this might feel better when I've put the lining in since it will slide better, but for next time I think I'll add a touch to the back center seam just for a bit of extra reach room.  Its wearable as it is, but would be more comfortable with a bit more ease.