Amestrian Military Uniform Tutorial- Part Two: The Jacket
Step One: Jacket: Tape Pattern
Wrap your torso loosely in a layer of plastic wrap and then a layer of tape going down to at least your belly button. It really helps to have a friend to get your back and shoulders covered! Draw your pattern pieces on one half with a sharpie. I drew a line straight down my back, one across my shoulder, one down my side, and another directly down the center of my chest. Cut carefully along all lines except for the center front to free yourself. Draw a line about halfway down the other side of your chest and cut along that. If your front piece doesn’t lay flat because of more curves, cut a line straight up front the bottom edge to the center point of your bust. You should be left with two pieces kind of like this.
Trace your tape pattern onto paper, smoothing out the lines as you go. I like to do this step in one color and then go back in with another color and a ruler to straighten out the lines as much as possible.
*NOTE* All front pattern pieces are meant to be cut on the wrong side of the fabric, so they appear mirrored
Back Piece: Trace and smooth out lines. Measure along the neck edge and around the arm hole. Write these measurements down, you will need them to draft the collar and the sleeve, respectively. Add seam allowance all the way around, I like to use half inch seam allowances.
Front Piece: Be sure to mark the center front line onto the paper pattern as well. Mark a point about half an inch behind the center front line on the neck, this will be where your collar starts/stops. Draw a line going diagonally from this point to a point about two thirds of the way down the front edge of the piece. Draw a rectangle with this as the long side and a height of about four inches to make the front foldover flap (see next picture for visual) Measure the neck from the collar start/stop point to the shoulder as well as the armhole. Write these down. Add seam allowance all the way around. Ignore my label.
Collar: Add the front neck and back neck measurements together. Draw a half trapezoid with this measurement as one side, a height of double how tall you want the collar to be, and another side that is the neck measurement plus two inches. Add seam allowance to the top, bottom, and the diagonal side. The vertical side will be placed on the fold of your fabric
Sleeves: I used this tutorial and drafted a sleeve pattern using my armhole meaurements.
Cuffs: The cuffs will be drafted later on.
It’s time to cut out the jacket pieces! Make sure you are cutting your pieces with the grain running vertically up and down the pattern pieces and are cutting one right and one left, either by cutting with the fabric doubled or by flipping the pattern piece over for the second piece.
2 sleeves (mark front and back!
2 collar pieces (each cut on the fold) Interface the wrong side of one of these
Now for the weird part. Take the left front piece and cut off the fold over tab. This is now the left front piece.
Now we are going to make some facings.
Right Front Facing: Take the right front pattern piece (the one with the tab) and cut another copy of it with the pattern piece flipped over that only goes up to about 2 inches past the center front line. Interface the backside of this piece. This is now the front right facing.
Left Front Facing: Repeat the steps for the right front facing with the left front pattern piece.
Step Three: Construction of the body
Sew the back pieces together right sides together down the center back. Press and finish this seam, topstitch if desired.
Sew any darts in the front pieces.
Sew back pieces to front pieces along the side and shoulder seams,right sides together. Finish seams and topstitch where desired.
Make and hem two rectangles of black fabric for the epaulets.
Apply strips of gold ribbon to match the design for your character. Hand sew one of the embellished strips to each shoulder right over the shoulder seam
Try on what you have so far and adjust any fit problems that you notice.
Step Four: Collar, Sleeves, and Cuffs
Sew the collar pieces to each other, right sides together, along the top and sides. Trim and finish seam allowances. Turn right side out, press, and topstitch.
Sew the collar onto the neck, open edge to neck, between the two collar start/stop points. Trim and finish seam allowance. You can encase the seam allowance in bias binding to prevent it from being seen and rubbing against your neck when worn.
Sew each facing onto its respective front along the top and side edges only, right sides together. Make sure to sew no further on the top edge than the collar start/stop point. Trim seam allowances, turn, press, and topstitch. The topstitching here is just to keep the pieces together before the bias edging is added, so keep it fairly close to the edge.
Sew each sleeve together along its length, making sure to sew one right and one left. Finish and press this seam. Turn the sleeves right sides out.
Gather the top of each sleeve lightly. Turn the body of the jacket inside out and slip each sleeve into its respective armhole. Pin well, using the gathering to evenly distribute the cap of the sleeve around the top of the armhole. Sew around once on the seam allowance and once just inside it. Finish the seam, I find it’s easiest to sew a zigzag stitch right next to the cut edge or to use pinking shears.
Turn the jacket right sides out again and check the fit. If it works, YAY! If it doesn’t, take in or let out seams until it does.
Measure around one of the wrists. Make a cuff pattern following this diagram.
Cut four out of the blue fabric. Interface the wrong sides of two of them. Sew each interfaced piece to an uninterfaced piece right sides together along the top and sides only. Trim and finish seam allowances. Turn right side out, press, and topstitch.
Sew a cuff to the wrist of each sleeve, with the opening along the back of each sleeve. Trim the seam allowance and encase it in bias tape.
Step Five: Bias tape hell
*This step will take a long time! Be sure that you have a lot of pins and some matching thread. Going in sections helps!*
Measure around all of the edges of the jacket. You will need this much bias tape plus about a yard for the jacket only, you will need more for the butt cape. You can either use premade bias tape or make your own. I used this tutorial to make about 20 yards which was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. I only ended up using about a quarter of it for both the jacket and the butt cape thing, but extra bias tape is always good to have for encasing seams, so it’s not a big deal.
Add thin bias tape pieces across the chest and down directly through the bust points to imitate the grey pattern on the uniform.
Sew the rest of the bias tape around all the edges of the jacket, using this tutorial for corners and hand sewing the wrong side down. Be very careful around the collar, cuffs, and the flap where both sides will be visible.
Congratulations on conquering the bias beast!
Step Six: Embellishments and final steps
Give your jacket a very thorough pressing. Iron a crease in where the chest flap needs to fold. Try it on and figure out where the snaps will need to go to close the front. Sew the acceptor sides to the outside of the side without the flap and the positive side to the facing *only* of the side with the flap so that it will be invisible from the outside.
Sew two buttons onto the flap, going through the flap and the jacket body so that it will hold the flap down.
Add any buttons or other decorations to the epaulets to match your reference.
Try on the jacket and measure out the length of gold cord needed to make the loop over the shoulder on one side. Sew each end of the cord down under the epaulet so that the cut ends are hidden.
Slide another length of cord onto a metal ring and fold it over to attach it. Sew ribbon over the join to make it look neat. Also attach a piece of grey bias onto the ring and sew it onto the jacket side without the flap just above the horizontal stripe.
Attach the free hanging end of the cord to the loop, using ribbon to cover the join.
Add the collar pins to the jacket. I just sewed on squares and rectangles of grey fabric, but you can definitely do a lot more.
After you give the jacket a final pressing and fold the collar and cuffs, you’re done! YAY
Hopefully, it looks something like this!
