A jacket - Burda August 2019

Change of plan, instead of showing recent makes, I'm documenting the making of a jacket, to share and for my own future reference.
The pattern is jacket number 113 from August Burda. A lovely design that I planned to make since I saw it. It's been quite a long time ago that I made a jacket and I really felt an urge to make one.

Pattern tracing and changes

• I traced a size 40 at the upper body, grading out to size 44 at hip height.
• Added 3 cm to the upper body pattern pieces (default change for me).
• Sleeve length looks fine, no initial change. Decision will be taken later.
• Did an FBA to the front and side panel.
• Compared the pattern pieces to my sloper. Looks fine but a bit more ease might be better, so I cut with wider side seams.

Preparing the pattern pieces

As always, I'm not following Burda instructions and doing things my way. That is, the way I learned from several real life or online teachers and books over the years. 

• The front pattern pieces were interfaced with a heavier fusible interfacing. The area for the pleat was cut out. I think it will make the pleat less stiff, but it's a "call of judgement" that I'm not sure of.
• The side panel has an extra layer at the top.
• The back pattern pieces have a light weight interfacing. Both the center back pattern as the side have extra interfacing at the top.
• On the front I've added a shoulder shield, to prevent a dip of fabric in that area

You may notice there are pencil lines on all pattern pieces. Those are the seam lines and notches. In this fabric and with the interfacing on top these lines won't be visible on the outside. So I didn't bother with tracing paper or wash-away pens.  As always I prefer to work with actual seam lines over default seam allowances.

Shoulder shield

This article in Threads magazine discusses the (inner) construction of an Armani jacket. It might have been the first time I read about a shoulder shield. Later I saw it used in a Craftsy (now Bluprint) class by Alison Smith. I've used it in many jackets since. 

The canvas is cut without seam allowance and 2-3 mm inside the seam at the front/neckline in this case. A fusible interfacing is cut that is slightly larger at the shoulder seam, the armhole seam and front, but does not cover the whole canvas at the bottom. Fusing this over the canvas makes the canvas stay put.

This preparation took quite some time. I hope construction will go smoothly.