Responding to comments

Now that I've finished the jacket, I'm  coming up for air to respond to comments and a few questions about the internal padding.  They were prompted by this post.

First, thanks all for reading and being interested!  

lin3arossa asked whether the internal structure meant that I would only dry-clean the jacket.  Oh yes!  I take dry cleaning as a given for any tailored jacket.  Immersing the jacket in water would be a sure-fire way to ruin it.  Wool is washable, but I have not pre-treated this fabric by washing it because the garment will never be washed.  I steamed the fabric to shrink it somewhat but washing would change the hand completely, making it thicker and fuzzier.  I don't want that.  Further, washing any tailored garment, assuming it has an inner structure that depends on materials like those I have used, will cause unattractive lumpiness.  Maybe some tailored jackets are washable.  But I doubt it.

Nancy K asked about the design of my shoulder padding.  Frankly, Nancy, I'm feeling my way on this one!  But I don't think a really stiff layer is needed anywhere.  The top layer in my shoulder area (right under the wool) is the thin cotton quilt batting.  Under that is the soft wool fleece.  I put it on the fused fleece mostly to give it a real base - it's not very stiff at all. 

I find pre-fab shoulder pads sometimes to be too stiff, especially if they use foam for padding - their edges may poke through the fashion fabric, and they will not mold to the shape of your own shoulder.  Hopefully my softer padding will.

j.kaori wanted to know if my shoulder "yoke" was meant to stabilize the shoulders.  Not really.  It's mainly to provide soft support for the fashion fabric to prevent my bony shoulders from poking through, and to prevent the relatively soft wool from collapsing in areas such as between my shoulder blades.

 Vicki had it right when she said that "the important thing is to get the look you are after. It doesn't matter so much what you use as it is hidden."  On this theory, I encourage anyone who is interested in sewing a tailored jacket to experiment with different types of shoulder padding or inner structure.