San Diego Jacket

Let's see. Where was I?

Oh, yes. I was panicing about my Stations of the Cross piece.

And I was learning how to design a foundation pieced pattern for the set of complex shapes I created for this piece. I learned how to foundation piece to a degree, but I'm still a rank novice when it comes to designing this thing with this technique.

Yeah. What's this?

Late one night I decided that most of this piece is better managed with needle-turn applique and strip piecing, something where I have better skills. I was tired and making mistakes. My sewing area had devolved to this:

I ended up with one salvageable piece that may/may not go into the final piece.

Time to switch gears, at least for a while. The next day, I took time to tidy up and decided to finish another WIP,  a San Diego jacket from the Sewing Workshop.

I had cut the face fabric and the lining but was deciding if I wanted to add an interlining. I had also decided to use a precious piece of black leather for the facing to keep that scratchy wool away from my neck.

The lining is a medium weight silk from Gail K. It seems to be more manageable than silk charmeuse for sewing purposes and still a nice weight for a lining on this jacket.

The face fabric is a fairly hefty wool, a bit scratchy. A piece of super soft leather was lanquishing in stash and so I decided it might make a good facing for the jacket. This will protect my neck from the wool. The jacket pattern includes a cut-on facing so I had to measure and measure again before cutting the leather facing. I was very careful.

I used cotton flannel to interline the face fabric, using vertical quilting to attach the interlining. I got a bit confused and made some mistakes with the leather facing and its quilting. Dang.

After creating some new seams, I'm OK with the result. Too bad I did not trust my original cutting and think more carefully before sewing the leather facings. As you probably know, leather is as unforgiving a fabric as ever there was. I won't use real leather again - my conscience won't let me.

Sigh.

I've finished inserting sleeves and sewing side seams. The fit looks great for a fairly heavy jacket. Now I'm excited to finish. Next I have to fine tune the lining pieces to make it easier to attach to the leather facings.