Saving Sydney

Still playing with fabric beads. See a great tutorial here. 

If you read my last blog posting, you know that I made a mess out of the lovely Sydney jacket using a fabulous piece of wool and cashmere. To stay calm, I am still making these fabric beads. They are a little addictive. Last night I created the bracelet by weaving them together with a bias tube from a thrifted tie.

But I can be a bit stubborn so I am working thru some fixes for my Sydney Jacket.

First up:

The incorrect pattern piece for the back (and the cut piece of cashmere/wool) is quite a bit smaller than the correct pattern piece, as you can see below. It makes sense to me to slide the poorly cut piece down flush with the lower hem and create a new piece that frames it and becomes the correct size for the back.

I traced the difference between my incorrect version of the back pattern piece and the correct pattern piece, creating a corresponding new pattern piece (adding the 3/8 inch overlap):

It is an oddly shaped piece and, of course, I do not have anything that size in my remnants. Despite this, I proceeded to cut the new pattern piece out of old quilt cotton and put the jacket muslin/toile together. Here is how the sewn back looks in this test piece:

And here is how it looks as a complete muslin/toile with the frame or insertion. I do not have plans to highlight this inserted piece in the final jacket but it is helpful to see how it looks in this high contrast cotton.

So far, so good.

Now I have a major decision to make. This oddly shaped piece will not fit on any remnant I have. Even if I rob the Peony vest pieces, I will have to piece them in order to create the new insertion piece. And I'm not ready to sacrifice the Peony vest, as it may turn out to be a favorite item to wear.

You may recall that while my reptilian brain was in charge, I noticed that I had enough fabric to cut out a vest AND a jacket. So I did so without considering the possibility of catastrophe.

My next step is to see if there is ANY way to piece the remnants into something like this insertion piece.

Alternatively I have been hording saving a beautiful piece of soft black leather, also purchased at Gail K. I'm wondering if it might look cool to add a leather insertion. I could add some other leather accents to the front. The down side is that I have almost no experience with leather so I will definitely be doing my research first!

Stay tuned, if you can stand it!