Friday, July 22, 2011

The Undercollar: Part 3

Once pad stitched, the undercollar is folded then violently manipulated with the iron to form an arc. The radius of the arc is dependent on the slope of the shoulders. A great deal of force is necessary to stretch the collar at some parts. Other parts are shrunk.


Once shaped, I attached the undercollar to the jacket with a backstitch. This is just a provisional attachment -- the undercollar will be machine stitched to the neckhole once the shoulder seam and neckhole geometry have been finalised.


I can see that I need to scoop out the neckhole by at least 1/4" all around. Once I've done this and reattached the undercollar the jacket is ready for proper a fitting session where the shoulder width, shoulder slope, armhole geometry and more are given their final dimensions.


Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Undercollar: Part 2

It really did take hours of work, this collar.

The collar of the jacket is comprised of three layers of very different materials. If you look under the collar you see a wooly felt-like material not unlike carpet. This is the dark material you see a bit of in the picture above. It is called the collar melton. On top of this is the brown material called a French collar canvas. It is made of linen. In the picture above, the collar melton and the French collar canvas has been married together to form what is called the undercollar by means of hundreds of little fishbone-like stitches called pad stitches. Though the undercollar looks flat in the picture, it actually is curved towards the melton allowing it to hug the neck better.

Once installed on the jacket, the undercollar is covered by the suiting cloth thus hiding the French collar canvas.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Undercollar

I drafted the collar pattern according to Cabrera, which was a multidextrous affair because you have to lay the neckhole on a piece of folded-over paper and make pinpricks and pencil marks and such.


The pad stitching takes hours...

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Dormeuil Sportex 2.000

Received 2.1 meters of this yesterday. It is heavy but porous. Described as a fresco, but the cloth has a softish, firm handle instead of the sandpaper feel of real fresco.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Cloth for No. 1

After TG#4 will be No. 1. There are many constrains for the suitability of a cloth for a first-time coatmaker. It has to be wool, it should not have stripes nor checks, it shouldn't be >S100's, it shouldn't be barathea, it should be heavy (>10oz/sq yard or 310g/sq meter) and etc. And since I live in Malaysia, the only sort of cloth that resolves those constraints and is still wearable without causing heatstroke is fresco.

So I bought this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300562947191

This weekend is a very short one for me and I will not work on TG#4 this weekend nor on the next. I wish I could go faster but this is the fastest I can go while keeping my life in balance.

EDIT: Stole some time and completed the felling of the edge tape and the cross stitching of the bridle for the right side of the jacket.

The bridle

The edge tape