A while back I posted pictures of my muslin for this jacket, Vogue 8839, another ingenious Marcy Tilton design. Initially I spent some sewing energy and good karma trying to determine if it could be made in a woven.So I made it out of a knit: ponte - one icy gray and the other chocolate brown.
This provided an opportunity to explore raw edges, and to learn more about knits. Ponte is a stable knit - rayon, poly, and lycra, I think. It has a modest amount of stretch crosswise and almost none lengthwise.
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Anyway I think that stretch around the body is only needed on the sleeve bands and the hem bands. The bands are slightly smaller than the piece they are sewn to, and so should be stretched while sewing.
Using the selvage, I left the edges raw for the collars - one in each color - as well as for the sleeve bands. As mentioned above, the sleeve band piece is more narrow than the sleeve piece. In order to use the selvage as the raw edge I cut these bands lengthwise - so no stretch. This was easy to fix by just cutting the bands wider.
The selvage for a ponte is not gorgeous but it's a little different.
The jacket hems and the front are also raw edges. (I learned that) a steady hand on the rotary was needed for those raw edges. Since the inside seams show down the front, (I also learned that) a steady hand was required on some seams. I top-stitched most of the seams on either side of the stitched line.
I like this little piece quite a lot. I think I'll enjoy wearing it, at least until it gets really cold here. I'm still dreaming of the perfect cozy sweater wool for it. And maybe a woven with two interesting sides...
This looks great, Martha! I like the two toned neutrals.
ReplyDeleteMartha, this looks really nice, and it flatters you well. I like your color combination. I have the pattern and see that it calls for moderate stretch knits. Sometimes ponte can have very little stretch, sometimes a lot more. It looks like you make a good choice with your fabric. By the way, ponte can be made of many fiber combinations, including rayon, polyester, cotton, nylon, and lycra. And the stretch issue - the industry uses "2-way" to refer to an east/west or north/south stretch,and 4-way is both vertical and horizontal. Oh, the things one learns working at a fabric business...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your nice comments on my blog--not sure how to reach you so will write here on yours. I love what you have done with this jacket---looks like one I'd like to try! I see you live in Atlanta---I live in Aiken SC during the winter months so maybe we can have a meet-up sometime! Sew on!
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