Lady Grey Update

I've been busy working on my Lady Grey over the weekend. I finally picked up the muslin again and made a few changes. I took a small tuck from the lapels to keep it from gaping so much at the bust. I'm not sure it really made a huge difference. Then I lowered the armhole the way Valerie suggested. I trimmed the seam allowances to the stitching line and then stitched under about 1/8" to 1/4" at a time until the fit was more comfortable. I did this several times, so I'm estimating that it was about 3/4" all together. Quite a difference!

I really need a dress form. I marked my roll line on my lapels while I was wearing my muslin and stabbed myself with pins several times and then got blue sharpie all over the shirt I was wearing. That will teach me to use a permanent marker.

I decided to use my muslin as my pattern since I wasn't sure the changes I made were completely even on both sides. Since my muslin fabric has a slight stretch to it, I decided to cut it apart at the seam line instead of pulling the seams apart so I wouldn't distort the pieces.

All that work just to cut my muslin in to pieces!

Then I traced the muslin pieces on to my wool and added 5/8" seam allowances back in. Check out my high-tech pattern weights and sewing gauge.



You know the game telephone, where someone whispers something in to someones ear and then that person whispers it to next person and so on, and so on until the original phrase is something completely different? I wondered if this was what I was doing by all this tracing and transferring, taking out and adding back in seam allowances. So I took out the original paper pattern to compare and my pieces were surprisingly accurate. Yea, me! The only major difference is the sleeve and the armhole, which is good.

Next thing I've tackled is practicing bound buttonholes from Gertie's great tutorial. They are not as scary as I thought. I wonder if this same method would work for welt pockets? My buttonholes are okay. I cannot get the organza to not show on the outside. I tried a couple with my minty green silk lining, but I think I like the ones with the red organza better. I'm going to do my buttonholes on the actual coat another day when I have fresh eyes. Then it's on to the hair canvas and hand stitching....