Jacket Progress

I have misplaced my tailoring book(s), so I'm doing most of this from memory.  And this fabric is nothing I would ever use for a true tailored jacket, so I am proceeding with mostly speed/fusible pseudo-tailoring techniques.  Basically anything that will help this floppy, rumply fabric take and hold shape.  I applied fusible interfacing to the fronts up to the roll line.

Double checking things before dropping in the upper collar/facings.  Both the upper and under collars and stands are interfaced.  I have been spending more time in Brooks Brothers and Thomas Pink lately and their collars and cuffs on everything could stand up and serve drinks!  I have a shirt from each maker and have come to appreciate collar and cuff weight interfacing.  They are crisp and smooth and require little pressing after wash.  For this project, I am using a standard medium weight fusible interfacing.  It was on hand, and I wasn't planning on this jacket being smooth and crisp anyway.  There is a collar and cuff weight fusible that I have used for other projects that is superior to this stuff.

I am loving that binder!  Look at the beautiful finished edge on the facing!  I am getting better at cutting bias strips too.  Things still aren't perfect.  The underside of the binding has fabric that is not quite turned under.  I think the binding scroll is too open.  A project for another day.  You would have to dig deep into the garment to see this problem, so I am not sweating it.

With the upper collar/facing pieces applied....

There is some strange bunching at the lower back just above the peplum.  This was not there until I bound the seam allowances on the CB seam.  The binding tension is too tight and has drawn up (taken up) the seam allowances, so things are not lying flat any more.  I will continue to press the heck out of it, but will need to adjust tension for the next jacket if I do the bound seam allowances.

Again... due to the weak hand of the fabric, I interfaced along all the hems.  This is a great technique to use with any fabric that needs a crisp hem but is too weak to do it on its own.  I also bound the raw edge of the hem... which also drew in the width of the fabric and caused some puckering when I sewed the hem in place.  Bad combination of weak fabric and too tight tension on the binding... but I am marching on.

Here is my solution for the body hem.  I applied interfacing to the narrow 1/2" hem.  Then I applied a bias strip that was folded in half and sewn a scant 1/4" to the hem.  Then I pressed the seam allowance down toward the fold and the hem, and then pressed up on the fold of the hem.  The result looks just like the binding but with half the bulk AND this method does not have any puckering along the curved hem.  I hand sewed it into place.