Progress report: Amazing technicolour dreamcoat

 PROGRESS REPORT ON MY AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT

Just in case people are unclear on the reference, "Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat'" is a musical, based, I suppose, on the biblical story. I know our highschool put it on, but remember nothing more about the story! However, it seemed like a good name for this project.

I posted early progress in the second part of this blog posting, and have been making slow and steady progress.

I cut out all the pieces last week.

In the end, I regretted that I had not made blocks to fit each pattern piece individually. I would have been able to prioritize the placement, and use more of my more precious squares than I did by creating one large panel. I could also, maybe, have done a better job avoiding thick intersections in the seams.

I did some unstitching as I cut, in order to remove some of that thickness in some seams.

I had plenty of fabric, too!

I cut out the facing pieces, and the sleeve pocket lining, from leftover linen from the Christmas PJs. I dyed the blue and the green burgundy. There are now three shades of burgundy as a result, rather than three different colours.

The pattern calls for three patch pockets on the front. Clearly this fabric was not conducive to patch pockets. So last weekend I spent hours creating a zippered welt pocket on the front. I was going to do a breast pocket, but decided that it would look weird with anything IN the pocket, so placed it lower. Good decision!

I looked online to find instructions on creating a welt pocket with a zip, and based on things I read ended up kind of ad-libbing. It appears that there are two main methods of creating welt pockets. One is to create welt pieces separatedly, the other (which I saw called a simplified version) is to have one welt piece which gets folded up to create the welt. 

This is the method that the Closet Core Mitchells uses, so I used the instructions and pieces from the welt pocket on those pants, and adlibbed the zipper installation.

One of the things I find challenging with this method is sewing down the little triangle piece; I realize that I keep catching the folded over part of the welt, which makes the corners look wonky. (If you are a non-sewist, sorry if this makes no sense!) However, I redid it several times to get it right!

Then sewing on the zipper was an exercise in resewing: since I had gone off-script I needed to figure out the best order to sew the zipp, without having visible sewing lines on the outside. The first run through I missed the zipper tape completely. So it was unsewn and resewn a coupl of times. 

But I am delighted with the outcome. I have never sewn such a perfect welt pocket opening! 

I French-seamed the pocket bag itself, so it looks great on the inside. Also tacked it down in a couple of places.

The next step was the back seam. Easy-peazy, right? Not so fast!

Because of the lower vent, this step had some challenges. The muslin had gone fine - the technique is well explained, and if you have marked your pattern well, it is not too difficult.

However, I had to content with thicker intersecting seams from the flat felling. I wanted to undo one section, in order to remove some extra, but then was not sure how that would affect the pieces it joined up with. 

The upper centre back seam is not lovely. Some of the fabric is puckered, there is a teeny tiny sliver of one fabric which otherwise got consumed into the seam allowance, so looks like an error, and the topstitching was tough, over those thick, intersecting seams. I even used the Juki, which helped, but... I did not use topstitching thread (because I have no luck with it!)

I installed the snaps. Had to get through a fairly thick seam there, too, just because of the way it lined up. But I am currently hopeful that this will come together in a more cohesive look as I move forward!

Finished the weekend by getting the facing and upper collar together, and sewing the shoulder seams, and then the under-collar to the body. To the wrong side - so had to unpick that, and called it a day. But I am seeing it come together. 

It will be quirky, but fun!