Barcelona Beauty - Part #11

Q/A

I've had a few questions regarding certain aspects of this project which I thought I'd answer today, because they are important to careful garment construction and advanced sewing techniques.

First, Regarding seam allowances and seams when the pattern pieces are thread traced on the fabric, Lauren wanted to know: "Do you then cut with a rotary cutter with an arm to get exact seam allowances where you want them? I'm following you through the tracing part, but then getting lost when I try to figure out how you're lining up the seam lines to be sewn." When you thread trace, the basting stitches are on the seam line, so to stitch the seam, the seam lines are lined up not the raw edges of the seam allowance. This is how it is done in couture, where the seam allowances are not always 5/8" as found on commercial patterns. In most cases, the seam allowances are much wider, generally 1", but can depend on the the fabric and garment. Once the seam is sewn the basting is removed. One excellent resource for couture sewing is Couture Sewing Techniques by Claire Schaeffer.

Second, regarding the pad stitching, Myra wanted to know: "Why do you pad-stitch? Is that to keep everything from shifting?" There are at least two reasons, one, as you suspected to keep the interfacing from shifting around and two, to allow the fashion fabric and interfacing to work together yet retain their own characteristics. Both of these answers can be found in Paddy Mann's article in Threads, #110 Dec/Jan 2004, in which she wrote an article for the "Basics" section on pad stitching. This, by some strange fate, is the same issue that has the shawl collar article to which I referred a few days ago. Another reason, and a more generic sort of flippant answer is, "That's they way they always do it in couture or tailoring!" Of course, but now at least you know *why* rather than that's just the way it is!

The fronts of the jackets are almost ready to be stitched to the side fronts and the shawl collar assembled, but there's a lot of material there, enough for a separate post. Tomorrow, I'll show you the assembled fronts and collar of BB.

Parting Shot: Solo. My daughter played a piano solo in chapel today. Since chapel is right at the beginning of the school day, I just stayed once I had dropped the children off to hear her play.