Wow, I can’t believe how long it takes to tailor a custom jacket! When our instructor told us that it takes 30-40 hours to complete, it didn’t really sink in. That number feels pretty real to me now. With all of the test swatches I had to do, plus the learning curve, I’d say I’m up to about 60 hours already. I’ve never sewn anything this complicated, ever. But, it is pretty sweet to learn such a timeless craft and get a little boost in confidence for future projects.

The most interesting part of the process has been tailoring the front of the jacket and notched collar. I had no idea how much reinforcement is jammed in there to get that smooth look. In typical Alison fashion, I bit off a little more than I could chew with the leather under collar. I was going to pad stitch this bad boy by hand. Thank goodness the machine method ended up working out since I was running behind schedule. I had to do some fiddly junk with tissue paper but the result is kinda cool.

I used hair canvas and batiste to reinforce the front. The twill tape is held short (tape is 1/4″ shorter than the spanned fabric length) to encourage the lapel to roll where it’s supposed to.

I had to catch stitch the seam allowances down along the collar to get them to behave. You can also see an unintended 1/4″ seam allowance at the edge of the collar where the leather did not stretch like the interfaced wool. Again with the leather trickiness.

I’m getting there. Slowly. *sigh*