Preparing the Pocket Treatment

I've decided to have lower double welt pockets with flaps. No upper pocket. I used a flap pattern from another Vogue jacket pattern. The welts will be 1/4" deep with the flap inserted between the welts. After testing several methods, I've decided to use the method that Cabrera describes as a double piping pocket with flap and Claire Shaeffer (Sew Any Set-In Pocket) describes as a double welt pocket, bound method, with flap.

I cut out two paper "pocket templates" using that pattern. They had no seam allowances and allowed me to visualize how the pocket flaps would look. To determine placement I put double sided tape on the back of the flaps and stuck them to the second muslin while it was still mounted on my dress form. The tape was useful because I could peel the flaps off and rearrange them without having to bother with pins. After determining a placement that looked attractive to me, I marked the placement on the muslin, then transferred it to the poster board pattern. So that I could easily transfer the pocket placement line from the pattern to the fabric I made several perforations in the poster board pattern along the lines (using the tip of a seam ripper).

I then made the pocket flaps. Its useful to have the flaps made before you start the pocket, because the pocket size will be determined by the flap size. I'm making the pocket flaps out of lightweight black suede. The suede seemed a little too floppy so I backed it with some lightweight hair canvas. The flaps are faced with black rayon lining fabric, which I will also be using to line the jacket. I messed up one of the flaps (its corners are not as rounded as the other's) so I will have to make another one. In the mean time I decided to get the jacket fronts cut out...

Cutting and Marking the Fabric

I had the fabric steam pressed at the cleaners a few weeks ago and have already established the grain. Since my sewing area is in our living room/dining room, I do all my cutting on the floor. My cutting mat was a little too slippery for my purposes, so I used a large piece of cardboard as my tracing/cutting surface. I laid a section of fabric over the cardboard then put my a pattern piece on top. Using a ruler I made sure the pattern grain arrow was parallel with the selvage. I then weighted down the pattern and traced around its edges with a sharpened piece of tailor's chalk. For interior markings (such as pocket placement) I scratched some chalk over the holes and rubbed it in so it would fall through onto the fabric.

Note that because my pattern does not include seam allowance I am marking the seam (stitching) lines, not the cutting lines. To cut out the fabric I just cut outside the marked lines (I was probably averaging a 3/4" seam allowance, most of which will get trimmed off later. The one exception was hem allowances. I wanted all my hem allowances to be the same length, so here's what I did. On the pattern pieces I included a hem allowance with the hem line marked. I then sliced off the hem allowance using a rotary cutter. Then I taped the hem allowance back on (using clear packing tape) on the front only. This formed a tape "hinge" (see pic at left). I traced the pieces all around, giving seamline markings and hem cutting line. I then flipped up the hem allowance and traced the bottom edge, which gave me the hem fold line.

Sidebar: To the right you see a picture of my sewing area. Its a bit cramped, but it works. In the back on the left (next to the torchere lamp) you can just see my rocking chair, which is where I do all my embroidery. Off the picture to the right is the (small) dining room table. I do small cutting and hand sewing there (and dyeing and painting and jewelry making and..). I do larger cutting on the floor (off the picture to the left). The ironing board gets put away when not in use.

Marking the Fabric

I used thread tracing to make all the markings permanent. The hemlines and lapel fold lines were traced in light blue, the seam lines in red, and the matchpoints (for the collar) and pocket placement lines in yellow. Use cotton for thread tracing, preferably 6 strand cotton embroidery floss. It sort of sticks to the fabric and wont pull out easily (silk thread is terrible for this). The other thing I found useful was to use a milliner's needle for the thread tracing. These are long, slim needles with small round eyes. It really helped the tracing go more quickly.

The First Seam

So far I've sewn only the front seams. I align the stitching lines of the two pieces and put a few pins in just to hold them together temporarily. I then use white silk thread to baste the seam together. With some practice it was easy to keep the stitching lines matched up, even without looking at the back. Holding the seam area between thumb and fingers I could feel the thread tracings and line them up. Once I had the seam basted together, I sewed the seam on the machine, running my stitching line about 1/32" outside the basting. This is important! On the first seam I actually stitched over the top of the basting and the silk thread was almost impossible to get out. The cotton tracing threads come out easily because the thread is fairly weak, but that silk was something else.