Sewing the velvet jacket...

a trial of my patience

I never tire of my sewing room

It has been six months since I cut into my cranberry red silk velvet fabric. Cutting it was not a problem because I checked and rechecked to make sure the nap of my fabric went in the same direction of my pattern pieces . I wanted to smooth the velvet down, not ruffle it up, and I certainly didn't want any of my pieces going in different directions.

Velvet scraps on top vintage hat box.

I chose a simple pattern. Two sleeves, a back, two front pieces, and the facings for the neck and front. Cutting the velvet went smoothly.

My stash of vintage patterns

For the lining, I chose to use a silk sari. Very sheer silk. It was much more difficult for me to cut because it wanted to cling to my scissors and/or dance off the cutting table. But I got it done.

I sewed scraps of each fabric to test. But when I sewed them together, they bunched, they stretched, they did everything except lie flat and stay together. The entire front of the jacket had to be ripped out. I say ripped out, but what I mean is I had to pick each tiny stitch out my hand. This after I had basted the entire thing together by hand.

After that, I sewed the lining to the jacket by hand. It does not lie flat, but it is together.

There was no way for me to do my magic trick of sewing the whole thing together in such a way that I didn't have to do hems. I mean, I'm sure there IS a way, but I couldn't find it.

So, I sewed hems on the jacket and sleeves on the machine. I sewed hems on the lining of the sleeves and jacket by machine.

Lumpy edging

All that remains for me to do sewing-wise is hand sew the lining to the jacket and sleeves. Then I will press it and try to make it look less "gathered." I will press the lining side with a towel under the velvet so as not to smash the pile down. Then I'll turn it right-side out and steam it to raise up any pile that did get smashed.

Now I'm looking for an opportunity to wear it before it gets too hot out.

At least the fabric is gorgeous

Meanwhile, I am also resizing a designer (Ellen Tracy) jacket to fit me. It needs to come down a few sizes. I've found an excellent tutorial on YouTube for this project. The jacket is heavy cotton and unstructured, so I'm following a tutorial on how to make an extra-large man's shirt smaller.

So far, I've removed the sleeves, cut the jacket down to fit my shoulders, marked the sleeves where they need to fit into the sleeve holes. There aren't a lot of steps left, but I wanted to finish the velvet jacket (finally) before finishing the yellow jacket. I do have an event to wear the yellow jacket coming up in a few weeks. I'll wear it with black pants, so I bought black and yellow striped socks. I'll look like a bumblebee. 

Photo by Allec Gomes on Unsplash

Would you dress like a bumblebee to introduce your own play?

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