#foreman jacket

I made the Merchant and Mills Foreman Jacket for my boyfriend! It’s all finished now but I just have these WIP photos for now.

Previous parts:

Part 1 is here

Part 2 is here.

Part 3 is here.

At the end of part 3 I was at the point where the arms needed to be assembled and inserted, step 14 of the full 17 steps. I’m pleased to say that apart from actually attaching the arms, from this point out it’s plain sailing, or whatever the seamsman term might be. Straight stitching?

The arms are each made of two pieces, top sleeve and under sleeve. Assembling them is entirely straightforward, just pin frontside to frontside and run a seam along the seam allowance. Afterwards (or in my case before) run a zigzag along the edge to stop it fraying. I did wonder why the instructions say to first sew parts together and then zigzag edges. It seems very much more logical to zigzag first, while the parts are more manageable.

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Then again, I’m not an experienced seamsman, so when I proudly showed by assembled arms to WDW, who is very much more experienced, she pointed out that my zigzags were not actually doing much at all. I’d just run them up the fabric with no regard at all for where they were placed in relation to the edge. For them to stop fraying they actually have to be on the edge, binding all the stray threads in place. I did concede that she had a valid point, and then zigzagged all the edges again. Not just the arms, but all of them. It didn’t take all that much time, but it is annoying to do a job twice.

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Arms assembled it’s step 15, setting in the sleeves. This was another one where the description of the task is trickier than the actual job, and also a point where if you weren’t paying attention right at the start, you have to look back and redo a little. When you originally marked out the pieces for cutting, there were a number of “notches” on the paper pattern. I think the intention is to actually cut these in the fabric, though I’ve had more luck just marking them with a pen (less fraying, more happiness). In any case, I hadn’t noticed these notches and hence not marked them onto the arm pieces or the front and back body pieces. So out with the pattern again, orient the pieces the right way and mark the backside. The notches are important as there are 4 markings on each piece to ensure the arms sit right.

I may have been really tired every time I went to put the arms in place, but I found it quite challenging to work out which arm went in which hole. Seriously, I’ve worn armed garments for most of my life, I’d finally marked the notches and I was still trying to work out which arm was left, and the right one was no easier. Still, it helps when you find out that the jacket has to be inside out, but the arm not inside out. I’ll never forget this process, as on the inside of my right arm is the text “Definitely left”.

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This is where the ease stitching mentioned last week comes in. When the arm piece is to be set into the arm hole, the circumference of the arm is greater than the circumference of the hole and needs to be shrunk a little. Not a lot, but you want the shrink to be evenly distributed, not all in one big bump. I did link to a video that showed how it worked and I did use the technique showed there. Only, it didn’t work for me. It may have been the thickness of the fabric, or maybe the steps in the stitching, but I ended up doing the ease stitching by hand, and there wasn’t that much that needed adjusting, so the end result turned out ok.

In fact, the hand stitching became useful for the next step as well, as after placing lots and lots of pins round the edge to be sewn, it became obvious that with the bulk of the pieces and pins poking everywhere, it was pretty hazardous to manoeuvre it all into the sewing machine, let alone sew around the edge with any elegance. Not only that, but at some points the fabric is layered three deep and the machine was struggling to work it’s way over all the pins. So I spent a few minutes basting (wow, I sound properly Savile Row now) the edge, as in with a needle and thread I quickly stitched along the edge. Cleverly, using a contrasting thread and doing this along the seam allowance, I also had a nice and visible marking to sew along once I’d removed all the pins!

Once the sleeves are in place it actually looks like a proper jacket! Step 16 is just the simple matter of hemming the sleeves, and here you have a lot of scope for getting it right for you. It’s also just a simple run of stitching so even if you want to adjust it later, it’s easy to do. The final tasks to do are making the buttonholes and sewing buttons in place. Getting the buttonholes right was not entirely straightforward as I’d reduced the length of the jacket by 3 cm, but the intention was clearly that there was to be 13 cm between buttons, so starting from the top and measuring down carefully let me place them accurately. I put the buttons in the middle of the centre front, i.e. 3 cm in from the edge. The buttonholes were set the same, but 2.7 cm in from the edge.

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I think every even slightly modern sewing machine, and even an old one from the 50’s with the right attachment, can sew button holes, so I’ll not explain in detail. Do practice though until you can do it with confidence as unpicking moody buttonholes is a sure way of eating up your fabric and it’s a shame to mess up when the end is this close. I received a tip to do an additional run of narrow and tight zigzagging along the edges of the buttonholes, and have tried to do this. The intention is to strengthen the holes and add extra lifespan.

The buttons I sewed in by hand, though there is a mode for this on my sewing machine as well. My reasoning is that every time I’ve had to sew a button, it’s been first sewn by machine. Very rarely do I replace one I’ve sewn by hand. Machines are ace, no doubt about it, but they’re not that good at sewing buttons in place. Sadly.

And that’s it really. The jacket is all done! Was it difficult and did it turn out well? I think that once I’d worked out the tricky bits the sewing itself is very straight forward and if I was to start making a new one right away it would take a lot less time. It would also be a lot more accomplished than this one, which isn’t as perfect as hoped, but better than I expected. Apart from where I missed up and did things a little out of order, it’s as the pattern dictated. Oh, apart from my little personal touch, the pocket inside the front pocket. As two were to be cut, it seemed a shame to let one go to waste!

I left you last time in something of a lather, having discovered that there was no way the collar was going to come together as described in the instructions. And I was struggling to really get a good grasp of the instructions and the diagram, so there was a distinct possibility of the problem being down to my limited experience as well. I did shoot a mail to Merchant & Mills though and they confirmed that I was indeed right, there was an error in the pattern. Specifically, the text on the paper pattern is correct (it actually says to cut 2 of piece 7, the collar stand), but the cutting layout and instructions do not mention it. Hopefully you will now not walk into the same pitfall as me and save a days worth of wasted time.

So, to make it absolutely clear: Cut two collar stands and attach one to the upper collar and one to the lower collar. Things then attach quite logically from that point.

Once the collar completed, top and bottom, four pieces in all, the job get’s a little more straightforward again. In step 4 the backpiece and two front pieces are attached to the collar. At this point I actually deviated a bit, though not intentionally. I came to step 4 and 5 while I was still missing a collar stand, so I tried to assemble it in a half-assed missing-a-piece way. And game to a grinding halt. Rather than unpick it all, I just unpicked the bits that were strictly necessary to redo. It’s probably a lot easier to get it right the first time!

This ended up giving me a collar looking like the photos beneath. A couple of points here: The value of using a thread that matches the fabric is obvious, as unless you’re a much better seamsman than me (granted, not a tall order, please carry on) then any mistakes will be highlighted by using a contrasting thread. Also, I made heaps of mistakes and retries when assembling this collar, but almost all of them are hidden away once finished. Those that are not hidden add character (I’ll pretend to believe that, though I’m crying inside).

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Now, at this point, if you’re following the actual instructions, you will have got a collar and not much else. As mentioned, I had to go back and forth a bit, so from the above photos you’ll see that my jacket looks a little more finished in the carefully cropped photos. I’d actually got to step 7. Step 6 is easy, it’s just sewing the two front pieces to the back piece, a little zip-zagging to prevent fraying and it’s on to step 7. Step 7 is where you attach the collar to the front and back pieces. This was another step where I found the instructions less lucid than just looking at the available pieces and seeing how they would fit. Pin them properly together, double check, triple check and sew carefully.

  Step 8 is another thankfully easy step, all we do here is sew the two front facings to the back neck facing (I was struggling to come up with a better term than what the pattern calls it, so be it). It’s really quite the same job as step 6, but for the inside bits. Another round of zig-zagging and it’s done. And lo and behold, we’re almost at the end of the first page of instructions here!

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  This page ends with step 9 though and this is where things start coming together, in that the outside and inside is sewn together. I think I might have preempted this step a bit as well when I was in a kerfuffle around step 7, so best to look to the diagram there if you need help. It’s really quite a logical step an mainly includes long seams, careful notching and making sure all is good before you turn the page.

And when you turn the page, find step 10 is just turning the assembled pieces right way out and pressing them, you’ll rejoice in that it’s actually starting to look like a jacket! Granted, the air-vents on the side are massive, it’s decidedly one size to fit all, and there are no arms, but compare it to the pile of fabric we started with at it’s come a long way.

  Step 11 is another easy one (we’re on quite a roll at the moment!), topstitching the “back neck facing” to the back piece. A little care must be taken here as there are three points to line up: The notching on the facing piece must first line up with the centre seam of the back piece, then the shoulder seams must match the seam between neck facing and front facings. It makes sense once you see it, but you’ll save a lot of pinning if you have it in mind the first time.

Step 12 as another milestone, and an easy one at that (yay!), sewing the side seams in place. This closes up the side seams so we could at this point saw we’d prefer to leave it as a vest and be pretty much done (no, I don’t think that would be much of an idea either). Just match up the side seams front and rear and run a stitch down it. The rear piece is still not hemmed, so the front hem needs to be folded out and sewn to the rear .

I’ll stop for today with step 13 and would you believe it, it’s another easy one. It is a little bit critical though and it will test your topstitching skills as the seams are long and will be visible. A seam to run each side down the front pieces, offset 6 cm from the edge, and a seam round the hem, offset 5 cm from the edge. This is a case where you want to measure carefully, twice, and dig out a long ruler or straightedge. And when you’ve chalked it carefully, do as straight a seam as you can manage.

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Will one final installment be enough? I’m not sure, but at this point there really is only the arms to be constructed and inserted, and then adding buttons and buttonholes. Sounds like a walk in the part to me, though I see mention in step 14 of “ease stitching”. If you want to stay one step ahead, I found this decent guide on YouTube. The end result of this is that we are now looking at a garment such as illustrated below!

Part one can be found here and part two can be found here.

The pattern I’m using is available from Merchant & Mills