Finished Seams: October 2021

Three years ago, I was browsing online looking for ideas for my stash of boiled wool fabrics. They were mostly leftover from previous coat projects. My search led me to a German website called Schnittquelle. I decided to give it a try and purchased a paper pattern for an asymmetrical unlined jacket

Although the instructions included with the pattern are written in German and not accompanied by any illustrations, anyone with some experience sewing jacket or coat will be able to figure out the construction without much difficulty. Thought I'd share the step-by-step process.

Fabric:

This is the boiled wool from my leftover stash. I purchased this from Mood

Fabrics several years ago. It is 60% viscose/40% wool. It does not ravel making it perfect for lapped seam construction which I used for this project.

The thing about this fabric is it does have a nap although it was not that obvious. Still I decided to carefully note it when cutting my pattern pieces. Above is a note I pinned to my fabric before storing it so I would remember what direction the nap is. I also cut my pattern pieces in a single layout--right side of pattern piece facing up over the right side of the fabric.

Notions:

Needle: universal size 80/12

Thread: Guttermann Mara 100 Polyester

Walking foot

Heat erasable pen

5/8" curved ruler

These two notions made the process of lapped seam construction much easier.

Construction:

If you do not want to do lapped seam construction, you can always substitute regular sewing while still following the chronological steps to make the jacket. If you want to use lapped seams, I highly recommend reading Kathryn Brenne's detailed tutorial on it. You can find it at Emma One Sock website.

1. Sew the bust darts on the two front pieces.

For lapped seams, I sliced open the dart along the upper leg and then overlapped it along the marking for the lower leg of the dart. Then I edgestitched with tiny stitches.

The darts after they were sewn. The larger piece is the right front and the smaller piece is the left front. Obviously they are asymmetrical!

Right side view of the dart.

Inside view of the dart.

2. Sew side front to front. Do the same with the back pieces.

Note that the notch on the side pattern piece matches with the bust dart.

The succeeding photos below will give you an idea of how the lapped seam is made during the particular step of the construction.

Mark the 5/8" seam allowance using erasable marker.

This curved ruler has a 5/8" width so it makes marking much faster.

Trim off the edges along the marking. Do this only on the piece that will be overlapped, in this case it is the front piece that will overlap on the side piece. Use the marking as guide.

Pin then sew.

Using a walking foot made it easier to do edge stitching as I could see clearly where I was sewing. In this case, I used the inner edge of one side of the foot as my guide.

3. Reinforce shoulder seams.

This part was not included in the instructions but I followed Kathryn's tutorial where she used boiled wool so I did the same!

I fused a knit stay tape to a 5/8" strip of self-fabric the length of the back shoulder seams and sewed it within the seam allowance of the back shoulder seam.

4. Sew side seams of front to back. For lapped seams, front side seams will be the overlapping layer so they will be trimmed off.

5. Sew sleeves.

5a. Sew the dart on the sleeves.

Dart overlap.

5b. Sew the cuff to the sleeve hem.

View of the sleeve hem pinned to the cuff. I love that the edges are not straight but have a nice curved shape.

5c. Sew the sleeve side seams together.

I had to baste the seams before machine sewing because as you will see below it was challenging to sew the side seams through a small hole!

Yes, that's edge stitching the overlapped sleeve seams through the sleeve opening.

The finished sleeves.

Closer view of the sleeve and cuff.

6. Sew the sleeves to the body making sure to ease in the sleeve cap.

7. Sew the collar.

This is the easiest collar on a jacket that you will ever sew!

I did not use lapped seam here but followed the original instruction.

The right side of the collar is facing the wrong side of the jacket.

A view of the right side. You will see the collar is inside.

After it is sewn, the collar is flipped to the right side and the seams are hidden underneath the wide collar.

See the seams that have been pressed open?

One clever thing about this pattern--the buttonhole is just a gap left in the collar seam.

Ant that's it! There is no need to finish the cuff and bottom hems or the front edges.

And now for some eye candy!

View of the right side of the jacket seams--side, princess and dart.

View of the shoulder and armhole seams.

Sleeve and cuff.

Small piece of self fabric to reinforce the button from the wrong side.

Finishing touch.

View of the inside.

For additional details on the sewing pattern itself, kindly check out my review at PatternReview.com.

This is my second time trying out an Oki Style pattern and I am smitten! There is something about bringing to life a pattern that screams "designer!" The Oki Style Story jacket is such a unique almost sculptural piece of garment. I think I'll let pictures do the talking!

There are so many ways to wear it and the look changes depending on how I play with the front opening.

To have an idea of how the jacket was constructed, take a look at the main pattern pieces below:

There are no separate front and back pieces but one continuous piece of pattern. That means there are no shoulder seams. It was tricky but not impossible to get acquainted with the pattern itself. It was easy enough to identify the center back and sides.

Similar to Burda patterns, I had to trace the facings that are drawn inside the main pattern pieces themselves.

This is the front facing after it was traced. The main pattern piece had a slashed dart that was not transferred to the facing pattern.

And these are the back facings.

The reason for all those facings is the jacket is not lined. To make the inside look pretty I used Hong Kong binding to finish all visible raw edges.

I used a lightweight polka dot lining fabric to make the bias strips for the binding.

A 17" square cut of fabric yielded a continuous loop of 1" bias strip that was enough for the project.

Here are some photos of the Hong Kong binding application in action.

There were some errors in the labeling of some pattern pieces. I wrote about that in detail at Pattern Review. I have just emailed the designer about it and she said she will look into it. But there are more positives about this pattern that more than make up for the errors.

Aside from the wonderful unique design, the pattern is well drafted. All notches and markings matched. The sleeve cap was well drafted with just the right amount of ease.

Here is a photo of the sleeves being eased into the garment. After it was sewn, a simple pressing resulted in a very smooth sleeve cap!