The Coco Challenge

My fashion fabric is shifty. My silk charmeuse is even shiftier. I was all ready to pin the pattern pieces and start cutting when I realized I was setting myself up to make a very ugly jacket. Lining up the warp and weft is like straightening cooked spaghetti -- impossible. So, I went online and asked my virtual brain, Google, how to cut slippery, stretchy fabrics. Turns out there is a technique for making fabrics behave: cutting through paper. Luckily, I had some wide rolls of white paper in my supply house. I laid out the biggest piece on the floor of my studio and laid the fabric on top of that. It took about two hours to get the weft and warp more or less square with the edges of the paper, by tugging here and pushing there. Once that was done, I pinned the selvages to the paper. It took another two hours to lay out the disassembled muslin on the fabric so as to leave generous cutting allowances around each piece. With a T-square and clear ruler, I lined each piece up cor...

Sleeve too short and too voluminous at bicep. Narrow back = bags around armholes. Shoulders and waist too big. Time to mark up the tissues! My dear friend Cassie came to my studio to help me with the muslin. As you can see from the photos, the garment as currently constructed needs tailoring. Unlike a dressmaker's fit model, my proportions are out. Narrow shoulders and back, tiny waist, and normal hips.  A further complication is how short the sleeves are. My arms are not long, so this is puzzling to me. Cassie thinks the Chanel style jacket often has three-quarter length sleeves. She is probably right about that, but I'm going for full-length. We added two inches to the sleeve pattern pieces. Modifying the pattern to fit my small back and shoulders required going back to the original tissues and using pencil marks to accommodate a size 4 through the shoulders and waist, tapering to size 6 in the hips.  I have enough of the fabric left to cu...

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I began this project. My thinking was, "It's a jacket, how hard can it be?" The following pictures illustrate my second attempt at constructing the sleeve. The first one didn't turn out as well due to the complications around the cuff where the buttons and button holes are put in. First, seam lining and shell fabrics as shown. Pin cuff interfacing to inside of sleeve, then baste. Pin trim to cuff along hemline. The ends hide in side seams.  With wrong sides together, align lining and shell. Fold lining back along sleeve seam line and pin allowances together, leaving 4" at top and bottom of sleeve. Repeat on the second sleeve inseam. Baste (or pin) along quilting lines. Sew Quilt lines being sure to leave enough thread on the outside to pull it through to the inside for tying off. Pin the sleeve bottom hem along the trim. Fold the trim as shown and pin the s...

This sleeve requires sewing gymnastics. First, there are three pieces for the outer shell. Inside is an interfacing plus three pieces of lining fabric. The murky directions have us seam the shell pieces together and baste the interfacing along the inside of the cuff. Then, we sew the ribbon trim along the cuffs and hem the cuff so the trim creates a neat border at the wrist. So far, so good. Inside of shell.  Next we assemble the lining pieces. Here's where things get interesting. A normal lined sleeve would have us seam lining to the sleeve at the cuffs with wrong sides facing out so the whole thing can be turned right-side-out. So easy, so neat. Our girl Coco had a different approach involving lots of hand sewing. First we sew the inside seam allowances together with wrong sides facing each other. Next, we sew along the quilting lines to join the shell and lining. Then we seam the shell. Because everything is sewn together on the inside, it is impossible ...

Nothing ever fits me correctly which is why I’m interested in garment construction. I want my Coco couture jacket to fit like it was made for me, but better. In other words, I am hoping it will make me look better than I do in the mirror. The first step was to pin the pattern pieces to my petite dress form. No surprise, I had to shorten the waist by a good inch. There will certainly be many other reductions taken, but that is the safest place to start.    Next, I pinned the pattern pieces to some fabric I obtained from a friend who inherited it from another friend who died leaving a treasure trove of fabrics. It’s a polyester ribbed knit with a certain weight to it and a bit of stretch. It is also a fabric that I would never wear in public, so it is perfect for experimentation. Rather than go the Full Monty and cut linings and pockets with this first experiment, I decided to construct the bodice first, check the fit, and then do the same for the sleeves. ...

I'm too intimidated to enter a Chanel retail store, but I want a Coco Chanel-style couture jacket. My solution is to make one. This is extremely advanced sewing and my skills are anything but. I decided to challenge myself (or set myself up for humiliating failure) and document my efforts. I lucked into some great fabric. First, I needed to set up my work room. I recycled an old woodblock kitchen island top for a standing cutting and pinning table. Next, I repurposed a spare dining table for sewing. Then, I purchased a petite dress form for fitting and draping. Finally, my wonderful daughter gave me razor-sharp fabric scissors and a bagful of sewing room essentials: tracing paper and wheel, magnetic pin holder, ball-headed pins, one-inch grid pattern making paper, washout marker, etc. Cutting and Pinning Table Tracing Tools Sewing Table And then I read the pattern. Sixteen separate pattern pieces, most of whic...