I cleaned out my fabric cabinet yesterday. The doors actually close! All the way!! So I decided this evening I would start some work figuring out the jacket for my steampunk outfit.
I decided to start out with a fairly generic looking pattern and see what comes of it. This one happens to be Butterick #4154. It's a close-fitting bodice with princess seams, with a couple of simple sleeve options. I kind of like the shape of the bodice, because princess seams tend to fit me well. I'm not sure about the sleeves just yet. The sleeves are fitted, with a dart at the elbow for shaping. Fitted sleeves can be hit or miss with me; my upper arms are slightly large and when I put in a fitted sleeve I have to make sure I can get my arm into the thing, let alone have room for wearing ease. Usually, though, if I sew into the seam allowance, tapering it to 3/8 inch near the underarm, I do ok.
I'm taking a chance and making it strait off in my fashion fabric. Usually this is a no-no. However, my fashion fabric is comprised of little pieces I'm going to sew together, and I'm not above a little 'whittling' to get what I'm looking for. What I have is a big bag full of scraps left over from making my friend's Christmas dress last year, and then the skirt for me just a month ago. Some scraps are large, some are small, some are long and skinny, some have rounded edges. By themselves I don't think I could get a whole jacket out of them. What I like to do, though, is serge the pieces together along any strait line in any scrap I can find. Since serging cuts and sews in one motion, I can quickly get larger pieces. All I have to do is press the small seam allowance down to one side. If a piece of fabric I'm working with is too small in one corner, I just serge a little piece down to that spot. The finished product has grainlines going in every direction, if I've used little pieces. This can look very pretty with the light shining on it, but it does mean the finished product has no definate grain line to make the pieces hang right. Also, with dupioni especially it means that the resulting pieces have lots of weak points. For this reason, I use the resulting pieces on more structured garments, and mount them on fusible interfacing or muslin. This is the back before I've mounted it on muslin.
Here it is after mounting.
Knowing that my hips can be a little bigger than some patterns, I cut the back piece about 2 inches short. Instead of extending the back pieces all the way down, I'm going to end with a box pleat ruffle that scoops down a little from the base of the jacket. It will be one of the last things to go on, because I haven't quite figured out its particulars yet. It will, however, allow me some extra hip room. I've sewn the side back to the back almost all the way to the end of the back piece, just left a little loose for a seam allowance.
As it turns out, most of the body pieces were cut from larger pieces, so there aren't a lot of unpatterned seamlines; most pieces have one off to the side, but it's not the drastic mosaic effect that I had first pictured. This is ok though.
You can see a little bit of the cabbage effect in the sleeves, the lower one especially.
The front looks quite plain at the moment. Not too many extranious seams. The neck is quite high, but that might work itself out once the lining is installed. The sleeves are indeed tight. I'm also not sure if they will fit over my Gibson girl blouse. I'm not opposed to cutting the top third of the sleeve off, though, and installing a puff. Maybe that will be the place for the mosaic tile look. It may also give me greater freedom of movement, as the rest of the bodice is a little tight.
