V8522 jacket finished!

This would have been finished a week ago, but I didn't have any big snaps. Well, actually I do have big snaps, but they are not black and I can't find them. Story of my life - I can never find things when I want them. I try to be organized, but I'm like that ADD kid and don't always pay attention to what I'm doing, so half the time, I don't remember where I put things, even though it makes perfect sense to me at the time I put them away. sigh.....









Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the jacket. It does have a problem with the lining wanting to roll out to the front. The jacket is lined to the edge, meaning there are no facings. It doesn't seem to be a problem in the sleeves or even at the hem, but where the lining meets the collar - that's another story. I added an additional snap to keep the front from fold ing back, but if that doesn't stop the lining from rolling out, I'll probably have to stitch it down from underneath the collar. I did understitch the lining under the length of the collar, but that's not doing the trick. I may have to actually stitch part of the collar to the jacket to hold it in place. We'll see what happens after the first time I wear it. Which, actually is why I did not hurry to finish this - it's just to hot to wear a jacket. It is still in the high 90's here - but I'm not complaining. Although I am ready for fall, I love the warm weather and could live in it all year long. Even though it is sometimes too hot to sleep at night (I think part of that is just that I'm having my own personal summer in addition to the one outside), I still love the feeling of the sun on me because I am usually too cold.


Last weekend I went on a women's retreat with the women from our church and roomed with a good friend. We had a great time and it was nice to meet some of the women and talk to others that I really only know by name but had never talked to. It was about a 3-1/2 hour drive to get there, but I think it took us more than 4 to get there. We went to a place called Lopez Canyon. It is near the coast. There were some really cool rock formations and examples of plate tectonics and folding there

A new project

School has kept me so busy that I haven't had time to do much of anything else! I'm behind on email, blog reading, and definitely blog writing! Not that there has been much to write about - I certainly have not been doing much sewing. I did, however, finish a top this weekend and start on another new project.

This top at the right is New Look 6807. It is supposed to be a 2 hour top, but it took me way longer. Especially since after I finished it I couldn't stand how big it was in the back, so I had to undo the tie opening in the back, cut part of that out, and make the CB seam much larger in order to keep the top from falling off. I'm pretty happy with it now, so if I make it again, I will be taking almost 2" out of the back on this one!

Even though it is still in the high 90s here with the occassional 100+, I'm kind of getting in the mood for some fall sewing. Today I decided to start on a jacket that I wanted to make LAST fall! It is Vogue 8522 and I am making the one shown in gold.











I got this really interesting fabric last year, but today as I was looking at it, I realize that it is just to flimsy to make this jacket. I decided to underline it with silk organza to give it a little more body. I want it to be lightweight, but I also want it to hold its shape.

So, basically, I had to cut this out 3 times - once in the fashion fabric, once in the silk organza, and once in the lining. All three of these fabrics are very "shifty" and difficult to lay out and cut. I might have been able to stack the fabrics and cut all three at once, but I was having a hard enough time as it was keeping the fabrics from moving and distorting out of shape.

After cutting out the pieces, I sewed the underlining to the fashion fabric. Since both layers were so fluid, I had to be really careful not to have them shift around when sewing. As you can see below, first I laid both layers on top of the pattern piece, then I sewed them together. Next, I laid the pattern piece on top of the fabric pieces again, and cut to even them up. So, basically, that is all I got done today on this jacket. A lot of pinning, cutting, and sewing layers together. I did also get the lining cut out, so I think I am ready to go. Hopefully I'll have some time to sew this week in the evenings. DH is out of town for the week, so that does give me a little more time to sew!


As you can see in this picture, I stitched down the center of the darts on the underlining. this helps the layers stay together when you are sewing the darts and really helps get a neater result.
This is laying out the layers on top of the pattern piece.

Here, the layers are already sewn together and the pattern piece is placed on top to trim the excess.


I hope it will not be another 2 weeks until my next blog post!