So to continue my review of Janet Pray’s class on Craftsy – Sew Better Sew Faster.

For the first part, please follow the link : Craftsy review– Sew Better, Sew Faster–part 1

So on my last post   finished with making the patch pocket and how important it is to take your  time to follow the instructions before forging ahead and making mistakes.

Anyways, the next was to make the placket opening for the pocket. I followed Janet’s instructions and they came out perfect. I did trace all the lines and extended them for a better guide. All that an I did not even use a pin to do it.

Although it did not  come out perfect, I am pleased as it is sure better than any plackets I made before (they we only 3 ) I think. But anyways not bad.  I did try the first jacket in denim, although I was not recommended for a first try.

 

Janet does not recommend sewing the topstitching with a  double needle. She shows in her class how easy is to do the lines parallel. Just loved it once I got the hang of it. A few times I had to remember to change the thread  before I continued to with construction.

And the shoulder seam!!! the ‘Buritto’ technique she shows is great! Now I am no longer scared to make shirts with back yoke. There was no hand stitching in sight, not even one! And the shoulder seam is completely encased no raw edges showing and it was all done by machine!

However the most tricky for me was once the sleeves were stitched to the main body and the  side seam closed we had to do a top two rows of top stitching on the resulting seam. However as Janet shows in her class with a little patience and going slow it can be achieved. 

The cuffs  and the collar gave me a bit of trouble but I expected that to happed. I did not have to much experience in the first place with this kind of  pieces and  I was working with quite a heavy fabric. Got there in the end.

I was a bit disappointed that Janet did not give us some tips on how to make the button holes.

My tests on the scrap fabric was perfect (fist pick in the collage below), love my machine she does them so easily. Well I did pick a machine that does the 1 step button hole. Less messing about. But until this project I did use this feature of my machine. Tried to avoid projects with buttons.  So I picked my jacked and proceeded with my button holes. But surprise. I have encountered some problems and I think there is only 1 or 2 buttonholes in the jacked that I am happy with But because of the problems I’ve had I decided not to make any button holes on the pocket flaps. Safer! Jacket would have been ruined.

However overall I am happy with how my test jacked came out. When I started it I did not expect it to me a wearable garment. So the fact I already wore it says something.On my next jacket that I am already working on , I need to make the back  smaller by taking about 3 cm of the centre back piece and the other pieces affected by this (back yoke and collar) and shorten the sleeves of course. I mean I knew form the pattern sizing I will need to do that. But I wanted to see how the jacket would look in my size before I altered the pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Janet advised to clip the curves to  the stitching line. Well I was not afraid to do that,and some of my corners did not survive the first wash. Turns out I clipped the fabric to close and they burst  . Well Will know next time to be a bit more careful with my scissors.

Since I have  seen the class on Craftsy I have patted myself on the back several times for this investment. I have learnt many techniques and most of all I know now how to make stuff without using pins. Janet is right when she says this way of doing things makes the process so much faster.  Now I can also tackle me shirt patterns.  Still have a bit of a fight with making buttonholes But I guess the only way I can get the hang of it is not make more button holes .

And of course during this project I had to use my friend the unpick!