Sunday, February 24, 2008

Leather Jacket, Pt. 4. – things are coming together

One thing I failed to mention in my previous post, which was, after all, mostly about the zipper: I love the zipper I put in this jacket. It's nothing special, really, just as 12" black/silver separating zipper that I got at Pacific Trims during PR Weekend, but it beats any zipper my local store has by so much that I don't even want to buy zippers there anymore. This zipper has more weight and feels sturdier than the zippers I normally see, and it slides like it's been greased. It's a pleasure to zip.

Things are definitely moving along. Yesterday I fought my way through my least favorite seam – the under-collar/pivot/shoulder seam. One side came out perfect; the other side is just slightly off but not so far that the collar/facing piece didn't fit, so I decided to err in favor of keeping the error rather than picking out stitches. Fear of leaving holes in your project will do that to you!

After I got the collar/facing piece on, it really started looking like a jacket. Before I gave up for the evening on Saturday, I spent much time with the glue bottle. I'm going to have to apply more in these areas before I'm done, but I wanted to leave myself some flexibility when bagging the lining. I glued the collar and one facing, weighting them with books overnight. The second facing is yet to be done, but you can see the difference that a little glue can make. The kind of heat you can use on leather just wouldn't get that level of flatness.

So today's projects, if I can tear myself away from the computer, are to glue the second side and cut out the lining. I don't know what I’m waiting for there. Of course, before I insert the lining, I have to face . . . the sleeves. Don't we all just love set-in sleeves? Don't we all just love a set-in sleeve when there's no way to ease it? When I made the fabric version of this pattern, I did my best to eliminate ease from the sleeve, and got it down to almost nothing. This time, I took a deep breath and lost the rest of it. I measured last night, and the sleeve opening and the unsewn sleeve measurement (minus SA, of course) are almost the same. The sleeve opening is about 1/4" bigger actually, but that's okay because the leather will stretch that much in sewing. It would stretch more if I allowed it, but the sleeves are going to get very closely pinned so they don't get away from me.

1 comment:

kasizzle said...

Wow! It's looking great!