Man, I’m really dragging my feet working on this. It took me all week to drum up the motivation to start cutting out the mock up. I think it’s the reputation that coats and jackets have for being so tailored that has me feeling so hesitant to attempt to sew one. A lot of my past sewing projects have been garments that aren’t very close fitting–it had a big gathered skirt or the fit was very loose–and helped to hide any sewing or fitting mistakes. It’s a bit more intimidating when you’re sewing the kind of garment where every detail counts.
Sewing hesitation and fears aside, I still made a Jo-Ann’s trip this weekend to buy muslin fabric and make a proper mock-up. Normally I would buy a few bedsheets at Goodwill for my mock-ups, but recently the selection at thrift stores around me have been very limited. So, it made more sense to buy the exact lengths I needed in muslin fabric.
While my previous post gave a sneak peek, I was excited to try my new cutting table set up with this jacket. Apparently, 32 is too old to be crawling around the floor cutting fabric. So I listened to my body and recently bought an identical folding table to create a wide enough surface to use the giant 40″x60″ cutting mat I bought last year. My back definitely thanked me this weekend as I no longer had to squat down to cut out my fabric.
I’ve also recently been using a combination of Pink Power Electric Fabric Scissors that my husband bought me for my birthday last year and traditional fabric scissors to cut out my fabric. The electric scissors have been a huge help in “cutting” down the time, although it does take some practice to keep the blade straight when turning the scissors on. Because of that, I like to use traditional fabric scissors to cut notches and other small details.
I’ll continue with working on this mock-up, and hope to show off the completed mock-up in the next week or two. With this pattern four inches larger than my bust measurement, I know I’ll have some adjustments in the shoulder and armscye before cutting into my flannel and satin.
My current sewing goal is to sew more during the week, which has been difficult with my 10-hour-day work schedule. Especially with this blog to keep me accountable, I don’t want to save all my sewing time to a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday anymore. If you have any time management advice, please let me know in the comments.
2 Comments
Add Yours →Love the setup! Maybe to motivate yourself more during the week, you can break the project down into phases and think about what you can prep in advance during the week so you can tackle more on the weekends. Schedule 30 minutes at the end of each day that is 100% only for sewing, so you can start to build the habit. Easier said than done, but that’s my advice! 😅
That’s a great suggestion! I’m always thinking about what’s next when I’m sewing, but thinking bigger picture and prepping for time to sew during the weekend isn’t something I thought about before. I’ll give it a try this week.