Orchids In May

I've been fairly absent from posting this week. That's because I've spent all of my spare time quilting the panels for my jacket. I've (almost) finished. I have two panels left to quilt for one of the sleeves. I'm not going to do this until after the first sleeve has been set in as I want to be sure that the fit is OK & that the checks kind of match up (I know they won't completely but still…).

Now that the jacket panels are quilted I can start sewing them together. First I folded & pinned the lining back onto itself to give me enough clearance to sew the facing seam.

Then I finished the edges of fabric with a zig-zag stitch, pinned them together & stitched the seam. This actually took quite a while because I wanted to make sure the checks on the fabric matched up (in the horizontal direction anyway) at each seam.

Once the seam was sewn I pressed it & trimmed the edges back to the zig-zag stitch. Small side note: I did this for all the facing seams in the bodice, (excluding the shoulder seams), before stitching any of the lining shut. This was so I could pin the shoulder seams closed & check the fit BEFORE closing up the lining. I didn't sew the shoulder seams until after I'd closed the lining because I find it a lot easier to slip-stitch when the fabric is laying flat on the table.

To close the lining, I folded & pressed a seam allowance into the lining & folded it over the facing seam. Just when I thought the tedious tasks for this project were over & done with, (why hello quilting – I didn't see you standing there), I realised how much hand-sewing I'd be doing. For each facing seam that I machine sew, I have to hand-stitch the corresponding lining seam.

Here's the first one I did.

Nice huh? It took me an hour… Maybe I'll get faster at is as I go. Regardless of the time this jacket is taking, I'm really enjoying making it. After I finished all the lining seams I'll move onto the hem & neckline. Expect a post sometime next century…