Tremont Jacket - TSW

Ta-daa!  I finally finished the Sewing Workshop Tremont jacket.  I have been working on this thing for several days.  Actually, it would be a pretty quick jacket to make if I had serged all of the seam allowances, but I decided to do Mock Hong Kong finish on all of the seams.  Several years ago, I purchased a silk tie left-over bundle from FMF.  I didn’t realize how great these would be for seam binding until I started using them.  Most of the pieces are already on the bias, so it’s pretty easy to line up those strips.  I cut the strips 1/25” wide, the stretched them as I pressed them (learned this trick from Lynda Maynard at a PR training).  You sew them to the edge of the seam allowance, press toward the edge, then wrap the raw edge and stitch in the ditch.  I’m not great at stitching in the ditch, but I still got a nice finish.  On some of the seams I needed to trim the excess silk fabric from the underside of the seam allowance.  

The one thing this jacket does not have is a pocket.  I don’t know why, but I love pockets.  Maybe it comes from all of those years of being a teacher and always having too many things in my hands.

This pattern has only 4 pieces.  Left front, Right front, Back and Sleeve.  The back neckband and facings for front are all cut onto the front.  It’s a little bit tricky to sew correctly, but it makes a nice finish.  
Another great thing about this pattern is the way the points are finished.  It is not easy to get a good finish on uneven corners, but Linda Lee's directions help you to get a nice finish like this:












This fabric did not have a lot of body, so I knew I needed to so something to keep those sleeves up.  I cut strips of fabric 2.5" wide and 6 or 7 inches long.  Sew up the long edge and press the seam allowance open.  Turn the tube so that the seam allowance is in the middle.  Do not press, but mark your point.  I drew parallel lines 1/4" and 3/4" down from the edge.  I then drew from the edge of the seam allowance out to the corners to make the trapezoid shape.  I then stitched on the 3 lines that would make the shape.  Trim and turn right side out.  Make the button hole on the right side and slide over the button.  Pull up the sleeve to have the amount of folding you want and trim and hand sew the straight edge of the tab to the inside. 

I like the length of the jacket because it falls right below the butt.

This pattern has a lot of topstitching.  If I were using a fabric with a little more body, even a quilting weight cotton, it would be fun to do some decorative stitching.  The straight stitch worked well with this fabric.

The fabric I used for this is the last of the FMF bundle I bought earlier this month.  I’m not thrilled about the color of this fabric, but I like the way it feels.  It is very light weight and probably a rain coat fabric.  When I took it out of the washing machine, the water just fell off of it.  It has sort of a sueded front to it.  I like how this jacket turned out and I'm really happy with all of the pieces that came in my bundle.