1945 progress - sleeve

I've been working on my jacket little bits at a time. You can see here that I have all of the pieces of the shell sewn together except for the sleeves. At this point, I realized that my pocket was too large and would be running into the seam between the facing and the front, so I cut that down smaller. As you can see, there are a lot of seams in this jacket! But, that's the great thing about it, because you can really get the fit right - which always seems to be my nemesis!






I really like to use my tailor's board when making a jacket or shirt. You can really get into those tight spots and press everything well. People at my work always say that my clothes don't look homemade (thank goodness). I tell them it's because I spend more time at the ironing board than the sewing machine! Good pressing really makes a huge difference.













OK, so now the fit issue. I started this jacket by cutting 12 in the shoulder and then tapered to a 14 at the hip. I could tell that the upper bodice was too big, so I cut the pieces down to a size 10 above the bust and resewed them. I then removed 3/4" from the shoulder and tapered it down to the original seamline at the bottom of the armscye. I still have too much fullness above the bust, so I am going to need to take some more off the front bodice above the bust. Also, I think I need to take the sleeve in a little bit, since I orignially cut it as a 12 and I probably need to cut it down to an 8. I am trying this on over jeans, but I can see that I'm going to also need to take it out a little in the hip area.