Burda 7576 Jacket - Setting in the sleeves

I've always had difficulty setting in sleeves.  They always seem to look a little unprofessional, a bit too rustic.  So obviously I was a little nervous when I got around to doing them for the 7576 jacket.  My main problem has always been there's a pucker, or a gather that's not evenly distributed, no matter how hard I try.  This is the sleeve of the McCalls M5759 jacket I made, notice the problem?

I was told recently of another method to set sleeves in which is different to how pattern instructions and all my books said to do it, and I decided to give it a go for this jacket.  I'm thinking the results are pretty good....

Do not sew the 2 gather lines as per pattern instructions.  Instead, it's all about pinning to distribute all the ease evenly.   First match up all markings and pin together - I had 4 markings for this jacket making 4 little sections.  Next, working on one section at a time, find the middle of each fabric piece and pin mark it, then match the 2 pins together and pin the sleeve to jacket.  Then do the same again and again until all ease is distributed.  Then move onto the next section until all are done.  Your pins should be close together, about 1/8 inch apart in areas with a lot of ease.  This is what it'll look like once pinned:

You can then hand baste it all together and take out your pins, or like me whose hand basting isn't good enough, just sew the sleeve with all the pins in - obviously sewing really slowly so you can whip them out if the needle looks like it's going to hit.  This is my sewn sleeve - I'm thinking is the cleanest one I've done, big smile!  Compare it to the M5759 one above.

This will definately be my method from now on.

Burda 7576 - Jacket, interfacing

I'm interlining my Burda suit jacket with hair canvas following the guidance in my tailoring book.  This book describes 3 methods - custom, machine and fusible.  Originally I wanted to follow the machine method to speed up the process - I didn't want to get bored with endless mindless hand stitching - however some of the steps for machine method are a little light on detail.  So now I'm doing a combination of methods to incorporate the custom method too. 

First I worked on the undercollar.  For this I used the machine method.  I needed to cut the interfacing on the bias, and being a newbie to bias cutting, wasn't sure how to do it!  So all I did was cut it on a 45 degree angle to the selvage using my mat grid lines as the guide.

When stitching interfacing onto the fabric, the machine method stitches will show through to the jacket fabric.  It's only a problem if you put the collar up, but as I won't be I'm okay with this. 

Then the collar needs to be wrapped around a tailors ham and steamed to set in the roll.  Here I wasn't sure how long I needed to steam it for, and how I could tell if it was done enough, so I gave it a good blast for about 5 minutes.  Now only time will tell I guess .  Looks cute hey!

When I moved onto the jacket front, I switched to the custom method.  I ignored the pattern's front interfacing piece and instead used the jacket front piece (& slightly altered it to take a chunk out from the inner side). 

There was a fair bit of hand sewing to be done - yawn.  However, strangely I actually found it really satisfying work!  I learnt new stitches - catch stitch, padstitch and uneven permanent basting - and it was all kind of relaxing.  Perhaps I drank too many camonile teas....     

I steamed the lapel on the roll line as well to set it in. 

For the back interfacing, I used the back pattern piece folded up to give a bit more support across my shoulders. 

That's an awful lot for one day!  This has so far been a really enjoyable project which was much needed after my last one.

Burda 7576 - Jacket, muslin

I've encountered a problem with the dress.  It's now on hold until more material arrives in the post!  I seem to have miss-calculated a pattern alteration and cut the skirt front piece too small, disaster!  However, crisis was averted as luckily the fabric store had some left - 75cm left to be precise, but I only need 64cms luckily!

And so I've moved onto my next project in the meantime - the suit jacket to match the skirt previously made.  I'm using a Burda pattern for the first time - Burda 7576:

I want this to be a proper tailored jacket, and so am using a book to help me - Tailoring, a step by step guide to creating beautiful customised garments.  I'm going to use their machine method which combines many of the hand tailoring techniques with the sewing machine to make it faster.

Today I made the muslin.  Following the book, I cut the front, side, back, under collar and sleeve pieces only and constructed it.  I'm pretty happy so far; sizing is good (for once), darts and waist line in right place and lapel seems to sit well. 

I need to make 2 adjustments only - first is to mark on the under collar roll line (Burda seem to have omitted this from the pattern) and secondly, eliminate the back peplum gathering and replace it with a pleat, which I think looks less homemade, what do you think?