I was participating in a tailored jacket project with the SewCouture list at Quiltropolis. The project stalled for a while (over a year!) but I'll be starting up again. In the mean time here's a report of my progress so far.

I have practically no tailoring experience so I'm using 3 different books as reference for this project:

Couture Sewing Techniques
Classic Tailoring Techniques: a Construction Guide for Women's Wear
Singer Sewing Reference Library - Tailoring

The First Muslin

I'm very difficult to fit, so I planned on doing two muslins (test garments) before starting the actual jacket. I bought the jacket pattern in a size that fits my shoulder/neck area correctly. Then, by tracing over it, I added the approximate width I thought I'd need in the bust/hip areas (distributed evenly across the seams). I then cut the pattern out of a woven plaid (this is a easy way to keep track of your grainlines) using 1" seam allowances. I basted the muslin together and put it on my duct tape double. It looked ridiculous!

I positioned muslin on the form so that the neck/lapel area fell correctly, the center front & back were lined up with the form's center front & back, and pinned it down (with shoulder pads inserted). While still on the form I unpicked the seams that weren't hanging correctly (basically all of them except the shoulder seams) then with the seam allowances folded to the insides I repositioned and moved the seams until they were all hanging smoothly and on-grain, and pinned from the outside. This process took several days. When I wasn't sure what modification would fix a particular problem I would just look at it a while then try a new idea. (By the way, none of the books I read described this method, but it seemed the easiest way to do it. I guess its a combination of draping and flat pattern drafting).

When I finished this process I carefully took the muslin off the form and tried it on. It hangs beautifully! I lightly pressed it then traced the seam lines with a felt-tip marker. I unpinned it, trimmed off the seam allowances and took a pattern from the muslin based on the marker lines. On to the second muslin...

The Second Muslin

At this point I already knew that the jacket body basically fit correctly. I did the second muslin to fine-tune the jacket body pattern and to get a decent fit in the sleeves.

I cut out the second muslin using the pattern from the first. (The pattern didn't include seam allowances.) I traced around the pattern with chalk, then cut out the piece with approx. 3/4" seam allowances. I quickly thread-traced all the seam lines. OK! So I'm a lunatic, but I did need some practice (I've never thread-traced seam lines) and it actually went very quickly because I used a long milliner's needle.

To the right you will see a picture of half of the muslin, after I partially disassembled it. Its kind of wrinkly after sitting in a heap all night, but you get the idea.

I used this muslin to check the sleeve fit (not shown). I'm glad I did because it was over and inch too short! I also added some more shaping the the back waist area. After pinching certain areas in I re-basted the back seam lines and checked the fit again. When I was satisfied I thread traced the new seam lines then removed the basting. This worked nicely because I had originally thread-traced the seam lines, so I only had to compare the two sets of thread-tracing (done in two different colors of cotton embroidery floss).

Finalizing the Pattern

Now that I'm satisfied with the pattern I'm copying the pattern to poster board for durability. (I'm hoping to use this pattern a lot). I'm using and old rotary cutter to cut the poster board. To the right you'll see a picture of this in progress. Also showing are the three books I'm using. I've been referring to them almost constantly.

The pattern does not include seam allowance, but it does include hem allowance. You'll see where this comes in handy on the next page, when I start cutting the fabric.