Sunday, October 17, 2010

A Stich in Time

So it's Sat. eve as I write this - 9:30 ish, which means I've been sewing for 12 hours. I did stop for food and Advil but I do feel I've accomplished quite a lot:

Front and front-side pieces sewn together on a princess seam. The hair canvas or hymo interfacing is hand stitched on top using cross stitches and permanent basting stitches.


Sorry for the crap shots - my camera flash battery is flat and I haven't had a chance to recharge it.

All the stitching you see has been done by hand. The long vertical lines are permanent basting stitches. The front interfacing is sewn by cross stitch under the seam allowance. The twill tape (on the diagonal) which marks the lapel fold is also cross stitched - talk about a bitch of a stitch!

Tomorrow my aim is to complete the pad stitching (shaping) on the lapels and then to sew the back stay onto the back pieces (those aren't shown here).

Well peeps - I did come to grips with those bound button holes (you can see where they're located, on the wrong side of the fabric, by the cut in the interfacing... ). While I'm not going to win any awards for construction, they are entirely serviceable. I'm so grateful to be on to other challenges!

Some of you may recall my post on tailoring from a couple of weeks ago. In that piece, I said I intended to machine tailor (a middle ground between iron-in and hand tailoring, as described by my fab book Tailoring: The Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket). Thing is, people seem to be going either high-tech or low-tech in this sew-along, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to play the middle. I've decided to do exactly what Gertie does. I mean, the woman (or should we call her a saint) has done up so many video tutorials and posts and answers questions tirelessly. So I'm on board.

I cannot believe how much work goes into tailoring. Seriously.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, what a great work!!!
    I'm looking forward to see the final.

    My mother used to sew and I so admire people who do that.

    Hope you're having a nice work.

    xoxo

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  2. Although I've sewn many, many garments (not for at least ten years now, though), including pants with zipper flies and pockets, jackets with lapels, etc., you've far surpassed me in the year or so you've been sewing. The tailoring so far is very impressive and I can't wait to see the finished product. You're so hardcore!

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  3. Thanks Seeker!

    Mater: You are so sweet to me. I'm sure you are much more accomplished at sewing than me - after all that time and effort. You just haven't posted lots of photos :-). I will say that this tailoring, while kicking my ass, is incredibly good for setting the learning.

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