Fabric Maven’s Chanel jacket, February, 2011

Cutting and seaming:

My fabric is a blue and cream silk boucle.  It ravels easily.  The blue thread is thick and rope-like, making it hard to cut and sew accurately.  It bleeds easily onto the cream.

I first cut the yardage into pieces a little larger that each pattern piece.  I hand washed each piece, trying to get the same amount of bleeding on each piece.  I machine-dried the fabric pieces on a very low heat setting.

Then I pinned each pattern piece to the fabric and machine-stitched around each in yellow thread.  I used this stitching line to both prevent raveling and

as my cutting guide.  I stabilized all curved edges with stay-stitching and thread traced all seam lines.  With red silk thread I traced grain, waist line, and bust line markings.  I sewed the body of the jacket together.

Worried that the seams might roll or bunch up, causing unsightly bulk along the seam line, I pressed open each seam and used catch stitches to hold it to the jacket body.  The stitches do not sew on the outside.  In the picture you can see where the yellow edge stitching and red basting thread has not yet been removed.

Lining:

The lining pieces were basted to the jacket seams on one edge.  Then they were quilted to the jacket fabric using catch stitches (to allow some movement) applied between the layers. 

 The second seam of each piece was pressed under and pinned at the seam line to the neighboring lining piece. (The side panels are handled this way for both seams.) The pinned seams will be slip stitched in place.

Facings:

My pattern called for front, collar and sleeve facings, but I did not have a flat silk that worked well with the jacket color.  So I sandwiched together (pre-washed) two layers of silk organza and one layer of my silk charmeuse lining.  I pad stitched these together and traced the outline a pattern piece on each section.  I encased each “sandwich” in Aqua-Mesh stabilizer and traced an embroidery motif on the stabilizer within the pattern outline.  With 30 weight variable colored thread on my top spool and navy in the bobbin, I used free-motion embroidery to stitch out the design.  I then cut out the pattern pieces and applied them to the jacket per pattern instructions.