Cutting in tandem

Yes indeed, that grey Vogue 8718 jacket is cut out, along with a matching basic princess seam slightly-pegged pencil skirt which is another one of The Sewing Lawyer's TNT patterns created with Patternmaster Boutique.  It has already been the foundation of so many skirts (like the high-waisted black pencil skirt and its non-identical twin, but there are others from pre-blogging days).  It's such a workhorse of a pattern.

So many decisions need to be made when cutting.  One problem was that my fabric had flaws - little irregularities in the otherwise smooth slightly varied grey surface - which I had to cut around.  I located them all with safety pins so it is easy to tell where they are.  The pins make little bumps in the otherwise very smooth surface on my cutting table.

There are about a million little pieces in Vogue 8718, plus two over-sized ones.  Just have a look at this cutting diagram ...

On the bright side, this makes it really easy to avoid having the flaws show up anywhere important.

Many of the jacket pieces are cut x4, including the pieces at the front edge, and all the peplum pieces.  I'll hide a few of the little flaws in the peplum lining.  It'll be our little secret.

I made a muslin of size 10, which fit me almost perfectly.  I cut almost all of the muslin pieces out of the taken-apart muslin for a dress: Simplicity 2648 (the sleeveless view).  This illustrates that (apart from the sleeves) Vogue 8718 indeed takes very little fabric!

Speaking of the sleeves, have a look at the pattern for the back sleeve.  The corresponding lining piece is on top for comparison. The texture of the sleeve is created by tacking the two layers together at marked spots.

Another decision is which interfacing to use.  The Sewing Lawyer has a big fusible stash, picked up a few metres here and there at different stores when she finds a new type to try.  This is good and bad.  Good because of the variety; bad because she never knows exactly what type of interfacing she used when people ask.  "It's that slightly-lofty tiny-square interfacing that's good for lightweight fabric" or "It's that fuzzy non-woven with a shiny stripe in the length" doesn't convey as much useful information as, say, "It's Pam Erny's Pro-Weft in black".  (BTW I have ordered from Pam - very high quality and good prices.)

I generally audition interfacing by fusing medium sized pieces to scraps to get a sense of how the hand and drape of the fashion fabric will be affected.  I often use more than one type in a jacket.  In this jacket, I think I'll interface the shoulder area of the sleeves along with the fronts and the collar as Vogue instructs.

I've decided on the lining - a silvery-putty coloured Bemberg from stash.  However, still to determine is whether I will underline the jacket with silk organza.  I think it could help keep the sleeves from even thinking about collapsing.

So I cut out both patterns - Vogue 8718 and Simplicity 2648 - today.  The dress is one of the "Perfect Fit" patterns from Simplicity.  It boasts different cup sizes as well as "slim", "average" and "curvy" fit.  I am one of the lucky souls who wears a B cup so not having to do a FBA is my normal (don't hate me).  However, I was curious about the difference between the slim, average and curvy fit, because one of my standard alterations is to grade out two sizes (usually) at the hip.  It turns out that "curvy" is all about one's derrière, since only the back skirt pieces vary.  (If you also have a curvy lower front, there are princess seams to modify.)  The curvy back gives a finished hip measurement which is bigger than the average fit which in turn is bigger than the slim fit.  The pattern envelope says there is a .5" difference between the different pieces for the same size.  Also, the curvy back has 2 darts instead of one.  I cut the curvy back which is not bad once I lengthened the darts.

I haven't figured out yet if the fabric for my dress will look any good with the grey jacket-to-be.  It's a cotton & lycra from Fabricland, purchased a few years ago.   What do you think?