We left off with sleeves set into the jacket using an awesome trick by Gertie. Today, I had to finish the facing behind the bound buttonholes so my buttons could reach the front. I did this by the age-old “finagle” method. I cut the lips of the bound buttonholes open, cut a slit in the facing and whipped the edges under as best I could. The directions said to baste around the buttonhole, slash facing and hem the edge to the buttonhole. I wasn’t sure what they meant, so I interpreted it my own way. Of course, I later realized that Gertie’s subsequent “Lady Grey” post covered how exactly to finish the buttonholes, which would have been helpful.
I only opened the facing at the four “real” buttonholes. For the other four buttonholes, the “fake” ones, I sewed the button to the inside of the facing and pushed it through the exterior buttonhole so it looked as real as possible with all 8 buttons in place.
At this point, I did a test fitting to make sure the buttons were not too difficult to button. It was no problem, but I noticed the back of the peplum hung a bit limply.
I unpicked the catch stitch holding the facing in place and added a 2″ horse hair braid along the bottom edge to give it a little more body. Again, this is a trick I learned from Gertie’s awesome blog! I basted the bottom edge of the braid in place, tightened the drawstring and then used a catch stitch to hold the top edge in place. Then I redid the catch stitch holding the facing in place.
All that is left for the jacket is the sleeves, so I washed and dried my fabric for the sleeves, then spray starched it heavily so it wouldn’t be so darn slippery. In the end, because the fabric was so slippery and thin, I decided to interface it, which made everything much easier.
The directions were pretty clear about assembly, so I just zipped up the seams as directed, sewed in a few buttonholes, stitched the buttons onto the wrists, and BAM! the jacket was finished!
Next up, the skirt. How do you like it so far?