The Pattie Suit - Progress report

I received my fabric in the mail last Friday for the jacket/skirt combination that I was talking about here.

Before I started, I attempted to read through the instructions, which were the biggest load of gobbledygook, so I threw them in the bin and took out my favourite sewing book - The Readers digest complete guide to sewing.

It has an entire section on tailoring a jacket and recommends techniques that make way more sense and the pictures are clearer.

I also decided to name this the Pattie Suit, because it’s shorter than "jacket skirt combination" and because I'm currently reading Pattie Boyd's biography - Wonderful life. So my sewing will be embedded with quotes and stories from Pattie's life.

So far I have finished the body of the jacket and will move on to the collar, and facings next.

This is what's happened so far
Tracing the crazy huge Burdastyle pattern

Trying on the muslin - I always cut my patterns to the biggest size and then just trim them to fit. In this case, I need to bring it in at the bust and waist, but not at the hips.

Left - too big. Right – Just right! 

Welt pockets - I screwed up this one and decided to fix it with a top stitch but the top stitch was too short and now it looks funny but not noticeable from faraway

Closing the welt pockets till the side seams are done. You don't have to do this, but it makes for nice technique practicing

The interfacing is attached but it has made the jacket a little too stiff so I might rip it off... I'm hoping once I've pad stitched the underlining on it will make it softer (fingers crossed!) 

Pinning the underlining to the front piece. The underlining adds warmth and bulk to a jacket with fabric that might not be strong enough to hold its own. I am using plain cotton flannel for the underlining

Adding twill tape to the seams that were cut on the bias. The tape strengthens the fabric and prevents it pulling and becoming saggy. This is pretty important, especially because I’m using cotton sateen. 
Sateen is woven to give a small amount of stretch so I added the tape as I don’t want it to stretch over time and ruin a nicely tailored jacket.

Adding the pockets – I'm pretty sure I've sewn these pockets wrong… they should be turned to the right!

Check out my pretty green ironing board!

The result so far!

What projects are you currently working on?

Have you read Pattie Boyd's book?

Cat xo