This is the second part of my journey creating a Chanel Jacket. The first part outlined how I gathered all the supplies and created a well fitting toile (ie. test garment in calico). In this post I’ll discuss the cutting out process, which was quite different to any other pattern that I’ve worked with.
Related Posts
Why I decided to make a Chanel Jacket
Blue Chanel Jacket – Part 1: Supplies and Toile
Technique Research
To prepare myself as best as possible before cutting into my expensive Chanel fabric I wanted to do some research on the techniques I would need to use.
The Sewing Guild sew-along that I was doing this with had completed by the time I was ready to cut out and sew my jacket. This meant that I could read through all their provided instructions and watch the accompanying videos.
For some more in-depth videos of the construction process I watched The Iconic Tweed Jacket Course by Lorna Knight on Craftsy. There were a few differences to how Lorna constructed her jacket and how it was presented in the sew-along. The main one was that Lorna used a pattern with seam allowances included, whereas the sew-along used one with only seamlines, so seam allowances had to be added. As you’ll read shortly there are quite a variety of seam allowances used in this jacket. The course did give me a general idea of how the jacket would be constructed though, so it was definitely worth watching.
Finally, I found blog posts by fellow sewers that had documented the making of their Chanel style jackets which were so helpful, and I referenced them quite a few times during the construction phase. Some of them were:
Poppy Kettle – A French Jacket
Goodbye Valentino – The French Jacket Experience
Preparing Pattern Pieces
The first step to get ready for cutting out the fabric was to cut my calico toile on the seam lines as this is what would be used as my pattern. I had made quite a few alterations while fitting my toile, so this made perfect sense as transferring changes to the paper pattern could cause some discrepancies.
The name of each piece was written on the right side of the calico with a ballpoint pen, including if it was left or right for identification. So there was Left Front, Left Side Front, etc. The grainline and balance points above and below the bust curve were also marked.
Cutting Out Boucle Fabric
With the pattern pieces all ready to go and laying out my boucle fabric I knew there was a problem. There wasn’t enough of the boucle fabric to cut all the pieces out. I tried many layouts, even putting the under sleeve on the bias. But it just wouldn’t work. So after a little panic and putting it aside for a few weeks I mentioned it to a fellow sewing guild member at a meeting who suggested seeing if there was any more fabric. This had passed my mind, but I was a bit hesitant due to the cost. In the end I decided to see if they had any more otherwise the fabric I had wouldn’t see the light of day. Fortunately, I was in luck, there was just enough fabric available to cut out the jacket. I was back on track. Phew!
The boucle fabric was laid on my cutting table right side up. As there are no seam allowances, the pattern pieces need to be spaced out quite a bit. The seam allowances differ depending on the area of the pattern. This is to take into account the fabrics tendency to unravel, and to allow for any adjustments later on.
The seam allowances I used were:
- 10cm for Hems
- 10cm for Shoulder Seams
- 10cm for Sleeve Head
- 5cm for All other seams
The calico pieces were placed on the fabric right side up and pinned so that the pins were at right angles to the edges of the calico as the next step was to thread trace the seam lines, and having them at a right angle made it easier to hand stitch. I used flower head pins as they work better with this loose fabric.
Once they were pinned I cut out each pattern piece using the suggested seam allowances as a minimum, but in a lot of cases it ended up being much more than that in places, resulting in lots of rectangles.
A Chanel jacket is definitely not a zero waste project, there are lots of off-cuts at the end of construction.
For each pattern piece I used Gutermann Basting Thread and a Basting Hand Needle to thread trace seam lines. This involved using a long running stitch on each seam line, extending 5cm at the start and end of each line. Where the seams intersected the stitch started at exactly the same point to indicate that intersection. As you can imagine this was quite a time consuming process.
Stabilising the Armhole
As the boucle was quite a loose weave it was suggested that I use silk organza on the wrong side in the armhole area to provide extra stability, much like you do with a tailored jacket. On the Side Front and Side Back pieces I cut out silk organza that went about 7cm below the armhole and included the shoulder seam and extra seam allowance. The seam lines were hand stitched again on the boucle and silk organza to keep the layers all together.
Each calico pattern piece was left attached to the boucle fabric with a few pins to keep it organised and help with cutting out the lining.
Cutting Out the Lining
The next step was to cut out the lining. As the lining is quilted to each piece before joining any seams, it’s done a little differently to a normal jacket.
I laid the lining fabric on my cutting table wrong side up. I placed each boucle piece right side up, matching the grainline of the calico pattern with the lining fabric. Pinned it in place, then cut out the lining about 5cm larger than the boucle to account for any shrinkage of the lining when the two layers are quilted together.
After doing this step I noticed a problem (another one!). The navy lining could be seen through the light blue boucle fabric. This made the boucle fabric looked darker and washed out. I had to decide whether to live with it or add an underlining.
I’d read a post on the Poppy Kettle Blog about using cotton batiste to underline her very thin and fragile fabric. I didn’t have any cotton batiste but I did have some white sew-in Armoweft interfacing, and when I put it between the boucle and lining it definitely returned the colour intensity of the boucle fabric to the way it was.
I cut out the Armoweft interfacing to the same size as each boucle fabric piece. This negated the need for the silk organza in the armhole area so that was removed. Then I had the painstaking task of doing the thread tracing all over again. It was something that I just couldn’t avoid unfortunately. The thread tracing is used to match up seam lines during construction whether you are looking at the wrong or right side, and I wanted to stay true to the couture process and not use any chalk or fabric markers.
With the fabric pieces all cut out, they were pinned to the relative lining piece ready to start the sewing process.
Part 3 of this series discusses the sewing of the Chanel Jacket, what I learnt, and how I felt about the whole process.
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