Monday, August 2, 2010

Progress on my faux-Chanel jacket, aka "Nashville Chanel"

I've made some progress (and some oops) on my classic French jacket I started in Susan Khalje's Couture Sewing class in Nashville this past June.

(I still haven't made a properly fitting cover for my Uniquely You dress form so don't judge the fit of the jacket.)

Nashville chanel jacket front halfway

My bust point sits quite a bit higher than the torpedo bust on this foam dress form.  Who knew something on my body was still perky?!

Nashville Chanel on Uniquely You bust point comparison

Something became obvious to me on the dress form...my side front panels don't match the pattern direction on all the other jacket sections.

My right front (your left) is the worst side.  Do you see how crooked that is?!!

Nashville Chanel right front pattern

My left front (your right)

Nashville Chanel left front pattern

This is disappointing but I've got bigger problems if someone on the street is staring at my chest close enough to notice.

I cleaned up the neck and shoulder seams first.  This involves tons of pinning to line up the turned in edges.

Nashville Chanel neckline pinned

The neck was so much easier than the armscyes, however. For the first armscye, I used the ham to help me smooth out the shape with pins and then close with fell stitches.

Nashville Chanel armscye lining pinned

When I checked the finished look of the lining armscye, the dress form once again revealed crookedness.

Nashville Chanel inside left armscye

Turns out matching up the lining edges and pinning together while on the dress form will yield a much nicer armscye shape.

Nashville Chanel inside right armscye

Well, at least it's on the inside.

Nashville Chanel inside jacket halfway

Next up is the center front edges.  I need to attach the hook and eye closures while I'm doing that.  My boucle seems to have a much looser weave than others so I was worried about pulling/stretching.  The lining is supposed to hide most of the hook or eye so you only attach the hook or eye to the boucle.  I found a neat tip in Claire Shaeffer's Fabric Sewing Guide:  insert fusible web between the folded boucle edges.  Hmm, that might work!  More updates later.

1 comment:

  1. Nice work, especially on the sleeve heads. I'm yet to tackle the sleeves on my jacket. Fear factor...high!

    ReplyDelete

Just my opinion....

This policy is valid from 11 December 2009
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. We write for our own purposes. However, we may be influenced by our background, occupation, religion, political affiliation or experience.
The owner(s) of this blog will never receive compensation in any way from this blog.
The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.
This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org