[Harnessworks]

Hi everyone,

I had it suggested by an individual that the pattern I have for this jacket could be a lot simpler by making a whole sleeve and solid fronts. You would then make the cording and top stitch all of that to the jacket in the appropriate places.

Here's my take on that. Yes this would initially seem like a simpler option to making this jacket but you will have this issue..

1. You will have to turn all your pieces of cording so that the edge of the casing is on the interior, or cut it very short before you top stitch it to your uniform.

2. If you top sticth the cording to your uniform your going to have a lot of time hand stitching (not my personal favorite).

3. You now have the challenge of making sure that you keep your lines straight while your sewing.

My favorite method:

1. Cut a 2 inch wide strip of material.

2. Lay your cording in the middle and stitch the material over the cording. A zipper foot gets you really nice and close. (Miel has a really nice set of photos showing how to do this on her tutorial).

3. When you put your two sleeve sections together (for example) you will lay one section good side up down first. Then along the edge that is to be sewn and corded, lay the cording, with the cord closest to the inside and the raw edge against the raw edge of the bottom piece.

4. Lay the top piece (the other part of the sleeve) good side down along the matching raw edge.

5. Pin and then using a zipper foot, sew as close to the cording as you can get.

When you lay this piece out flat you will have a very clean line with no exposed stitching in less than half the time it would have taken to top stitch this on or even turn your cording inside out.

Another thing that you can do if you have the cuts as I described, is you can easily insert a pocket below the box on the left chest and under the flap on the right arm. Makes a nice little place to tuck something if your out and about.

So anyway, that gives you another way to think about the uniform or the pattern. If some of you want to top stitch this, I can easily take some photos of a full sleeve for you. Let me know.