- Originating during the middle ages, the jacket is often today's most important garment in a woman's wardrobe.

It is the fifth garment in our capsule wardrobe.

It communicates education, it says honesty, it says, I am prepared, and so much more.

Many of you have told me you don't feel quite ready to make a jacket.

Our goal today is to get you all jacket-ready.

Follow along and watch us step by step.

First the fit, then the sewing methods, all easy and fun, today on Fit 2 Stitch.

(upbeat music) - [Man] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Vogue Fabrics, Colorado Fabrics, Quality Sew and Vac, Sew Town, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Fort Smith, Arkansas, Kai Scissors, Sew Steady, Bennos Buttons, All Brands, Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, and Clutch Nails.

- Jackets are probably the most expensive garment in our capsule, so I really think that our goal is to get these jackets to where we love them, to where they fit well.

They're easy on the sewing machine, there's just more pieces, but all of our sewing is just straight, straight on the sewing machine.

So I'm gonna take you through that whole process.

We're gonna fit it.

I think that's probably the part where women are most intimidated about.

Don't be worried about the number of pieces.

We're just putting more pieces together.

And actually, the more seams we have, the easier the fit actually becomes.

So the tissue is all laid out here.

And when I lay out the tissue, do it at home to where you've got the pieces in order so that you really connect the tissue itself on the table to the garment that you're draping.

And the reason, the main reason it's important to make a muslin is simply because there's changes that I can't make, once that garment is done.

A swayback, we've seen that before, I can't just take a horizontal dart in the back of a garment without putting it into the blouse.

Whereas I can take it in the pattern and then it won't show in the final product.

So we're gonna bring out both Jeanie and Cindy.

Both of them we have jackets on.

We're using the same jacket pattern so you can see the differences between the two.

And I think, you know, the lesson I really want you guys to take away from all this is that fitting really is, first off, it's very simple to do, we just have to understand the whole LCD, and secondly, it's not so much about our body.

Our bodies are just not that weird.

I hate to say that, but they're so beautifully uniform.

And we really need to appreciate how beautiful our bodies are.

And really, we're just taking that tissue and make it match exactly what they are.

Jeanie, do you buy jackets or do you make jackets?

- I have bought a few jackets, but I'm never really happy with the fit.

- With, it's the fit.

- Yeah, so I prefer to-- - Because of the bust?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- Yeah, so I prefer to make them.

- So when you buy it for the bust, what happens to the rest of the jacket?

- I start getting a lot of extra fabric through the bust area.

And also, sometimes, the jackets are, the shoulders, I've got narrow, sloping shoulders, and so I have too much fabric up here, and so everything just kind of drags down on me.

- And when that's the case, what I'm gonna recommend is that you go with the princess seam.

Look for a princess seam.

What that will do in the beginning is it will give you lots of places to make those changes and just be a little easier on you in the beginning.

So just keep an eye out for a princess seam.

Cindy, do you buy jackets, make jackets?

- I generally buy them.

- Okay.

- But they fit tight in the arms and across the back.

- Oh, interesting, all right.

And when you go up to another size to resolve that, what happens?

- Then they're too big across your shoulders, like she has.

- Okay, and the problem is, they kinda come premade, just like anything.

This certain size bust comes with this certain size sleeve, and if you're not in it, that's your problem, okay.

But because it's the only thing we can buy, we really have to kind of almost settle.

Is that a fair word?

So the beauty of sewing to me is that we get to make all these choices and make all these decisions.

And I guess I just love the process, that I really enjoy it.

But I really want that jacket to look professional and I want it to look not homemade.

- Right.

- Is that a fair thing?

I don't want someone to say, did you make your jacket?

All right, so, I'm gonna start with the shoulder pad issue.

Because everybody gets the right, and I do wanna talk about shoulder pads, because I think they are misunderstood.

People say to me, no, I don't want a shoulder pad, I don't wanna look like, you know, the '80s.

Shoulder pads are really about bringing the shoulder to be erect.

They are not about width.

So when they were misplaced or misunderstood, they were just put so far apart on the body that they were used for what they should have been used for.

On every pattern that uses a shoulder pad, you're going to have, on the back of the pattern, a statement, a notion list, or something that says what the size of the shoulder pad should be.

In this particular pattern that we're using, the back of the pattern says that you should use a-- - One inch.

- And Jeanie's ignoring that, okay?

So Jeanie's, and I'm gonna close this jacket up in the middle.

This jacket doesn't overlap, it just has a little closure right at the front, so I'm just gonna close that up.

All right, so we are not using a one inch because?

- I prefer the half-inch.

I just feel, because I have a shorter neck, I feel like you'd lose more of my neck.

- And you know, there's probably, for each of us, a different reason, but it's your jacket, and you're the one who gets to make those decisions and those changes.

So in this case, what I want you to notice is that because, again, the pattern is calling for one size shoulder pad, and she's using another, you're gonna expect that there's gonna be extra in here.

The jacket is made for a larger shoulder pad.

So don't ever fit a jacket without a shoulder pad.

You can't envision what it will look like, don't go there.

Just put the shoulder pad in, pinch up anything that's extra.

It will be here, it will taper to nothing at the neck edge.

You won't find it any different to be here.

It will be a straight angled line.

So just pick up that straight angle line and you can see what a difference that makes and how clean and pretty that makes it.

I'm gonna keep you right there because what I wanna go into now is I wanna look wherever the original dart was.

So the original dart is the bust dart.

In the basic five grouping of patterns, the bodice front, bodice back, skirt front, skirt back, sleeve.

And if I have any type of extra fabric that's there, I wanna take it out.

That's another great reason to start with a princess seam.

Because not only can I take it out right there, is I can end it right where that princess seam was.

If I didn't have a princess seam, I could take it all the way to the front, but this enables me to just make it a little more exact and it's just easy.

This princess seam is just really easy.

And also, you notice, as I bring that up, it levels the bottom of the jacket.

I'm always keeping an eye on the bottom of the jacket because it should be straight, and when it's not, it's something internally above it, is what's going wrong.

It's never the fault of the hem.

And I think sometimes we try to change the hem and we try to hem it unevenly, but it's never really the fault of the hem.

So again, you're doing this by yourself.

And as you do it by yourself, just do little sections at a time.

The first thing you can see is how clean that makes that side seam.

So stop, take it off, sew it, and just put it back on.

Just again, be patient with that process.

Then sew this little dart.

If you then can look in the mirror and try to see, gee, I've got the back, and I'm, I've got some extra gaping back here, guess about what that is.

I'm gonna guess that typically, it's about a half an inch.

It's not gonna be standard, but start with the half an inch, see what difference that makes, and then put the jacket back on.

Because, again, you don't have anyone unless you grab your sewing buddy to do those changes with you, you're gonna have to do them just patiently, one at a time.

But remember, the back of this jacket is going to be used for many other jackets.

I'm gonna actually use the back, the side back, the side front, and just change out the front for styling.

So it's really gonna take us a long way.

And if you notice how beautiful that is across the back, it just hangs from the shoulders, there's no wrinkles.

Same with the front, it's good to go, it's really pretty.

So I made, really, let's look at three changes.

I made one at the shoulder, one at the side seam that goes to the back, front to back.

I'm gonna bring on a sleeve with Jeanie.

And the reason being is because we kind of, when we were doing a knit sleeve, we didn't worry about it because it was a knit sleeve.

When we were doing a blouse sleeve, we didn't worry about it because it was a blouse sleeve.

But now it's a jacket sleeve.

And a jacket has less ease than a blouse.

It doesn't have negative ease, I don't want a jacket to have negative ease or else, you know, it'll just not hang appropriately.

But the jacket brings in, because it's a heavier fabric, it brings in a two-piece sleeve.

And what that two-piece sleeve does is, it actually bends the sleeve exactly as the arm itself is bent.

So if I look at that, and if I have any wrinkles in the sleeve, it's because the sleeve and the arm are not bending the same.

And remember, the arm is always right, the pattern is always wrong.

So all I have to do is come to the front and come to above the elbow, just a little bit above.

And I'm gonna put a dart right there.

And what that dart's gonna do is, it's gonna completely re-angle, try not to stick yourself, the entire sleeve.

And now we can see that Jeanie and the sleeve are bending the same, and it'll completely eliminate all of this.

Not only that, but I will tell you that when you were talking about not having enough movement, if the sleeve and the arm are going the same direction, when you start to move, you won't be fighting the sleeve.

So that really helps in mobility, to have the elbow of the sleeve matching the elbow of you so that as you start to go forward, you're both going together.

If the sleeve is straighter, you start to fight it right away, even at the bottom of the wrist.

So just kind of watch for that, and we'll watch for you when we try that on.

I love it!

- Thank you.

- I love it, I think it looks great.

- Can't wait to make it.

- All right, so I'm gonna remember all those changes.

We'll go to the table and we'll make those changes.

We're gonna take that off, we're gonna let you go.

- Thank you.

- And thank you.

And, you know what, I'm gonna steal those shoulder pads, if you don't mind.

All right, so now, because in this particular case, Cindy, what size shoulder pads do you want?

- One inch.

- All right, so again, this is all personal preference, you guys.

And don't feel like there's a wrong, there's a right.

The only thing I would caution you is, I've had many women say to me, I don't do shoulder pads in jackets.

And the reason I think that's unfortunate is because, used correctly, the shoulder pad really gives a nice hang for that sleeve.

If I don't have that shoulder pad, in a jacket where the fabric is crisp, it doesn't, even if it matches the shoulder angle, because of the sleeve head, it just doesn't really have a beautiful place to fall.

And what that shoulder pad does is, it fills in these gaps on our bodies so that it really gives us a beautiful hang from that point.

So you can even move them in narrow, if you feel like your shoulders are too broad, but they also give us that lift, and that lift just is such a positive in a jacket.

So again, because this jacket just meets in the middle, we've got, we're using the same jacket pattern, I'm just gonna go ahead and give you a little closure in the front.

And if you'll tell me what drives you crazy or what you love about jackets, we'll just duplicate that.

I'm gonna just kind of give a visual.

This just fits really beautiful.

That is just really pretty.

- Sometimes I'll have lines across here and then it's tight across the shoulders.

- All right, so if they're horizontal lines, that means that it's too tight.

I don't have any back here, everything's hanging nicely.

This is actually really pretty.

But always, when you have a jacket on, even when you put the shoulder pad in, I would try to just tighten it, just a bit, just to see if you can.

And I do think you have to remember that with the first time making a jacket, you're gonna have a tendency to evolve.

You'll make the first jacket and then you'll say, you know what, I liked this, but this is what I would do the next time.

Don't be afraid of that process.

That process is really important, to learn from it.

And I would always encourage you to use super nice fabrics.

Only because I'm a lover of fabrics, completely.

And then always, in a princess seam, come in here and just see, again, if you can tighten up that area.

It really does help to just snug it up, just a little bit.

You're better off to be a little bit on the short side.

And so that's a dart, just kind of like the bust dart, but again, we don't have to have that in the final garment.

If there's any kind of gaping in here in the front, you can take and make a dart there.

And again, because this is something we couldn't change in the final product, this is great reason for the muslin.

So pinch it out where it starts and then just taper it to nothing.

And remember that if I end it on a seam, I don't have to have it in the final garment.

So I want to end it on the seam because I don't really want a horizontal dart stitched at your bust line.

And then we can just taper it to nothing.

And that's the way to get rid of those gaps that will appear.

Remember, almost always, a gap is a dart.

Because it means we have too much fabric here and we're okay on the other side of the seam.

So that's where we want to change it.

Because I stopped at this seam, I'm just gonna take this a little bit more.

And then we'll pay attention to your sleeve.

That shoulder seam, we just change a little bit, didn't we?

- We did.

- All right, and I'm gonna just continue around to the back.

And it's just a little, tiny bit across the back.

All right, there we go.

Even though I didn't see it, really, right away, when I started to pin, and you gotta trust your pins, and trust the fabric, because that just looks a little bit better.

Even though I didn't see it in the beginning, once I took out that dart at the front, as I came across the back, it really looks so much better now there than it did before.

All right, let me grab your sleeve and let's look at a sleeve here, real quick.

When I fold a sleeve in half, remember that the front, the seam that's lower is the front and the seam that's higher is the back.

So because I've draped this side, you wanna keep the sleeve on this side, even if it means turning it to the other side.

- Okay.

- Now, does that sleeve feel bigger than anything you've done before?

- It does.

- Circumference-wise?

- Yes.

- All right, so I'm gonna show you, too, how you can change sizes of sleeves.

Once you kind of figure out what your right sleeve is.

All right, so again, we're gonna look at that.

And you can see those twists, as they go up the arm.

Even when this is put into play, you can kind of see those twists as they go up.

So what, I want to come right above the elbow.

That's where I'm gonna put the fix.

I'm gonna take a little dart there.

And then we'll show you how to change it on the tissue.

And that makes all the difference.

What amazing, a little dart can make.

And again, for mobility, it really will help you with mobility.

All right, I'm gonna let you, you've actually done your final jacket?

- I have.

- All right, so we're gonna let you go and we're gonna make some tissue changes while she's working on that.

All right, so let's look at the tissue and work across.

First, I'm gonna work on Jeanie.

And again, I would just lay my tissue to where I had my front, my side front, my side back, and my back.

Because then, when I make a change, I can make sure it's continuous across the front.

So remember, Jeanie came in with a smaller shoulder pad.

So this is where I fold it down here.

And I don't try to take it all the way to here.

Remember, it goes all the way to the neck edge.

But whatever I folded down right there, I fold it down right there the same, so that it actually becomes a straight angled line, even though those pieces overlap.

It's the same thing it would be in a blouse, it's just simply, I've got two pieces now, so I've gotta make sure they connect as they go across that seam.

All right, so we're gonna leave it there.

Then what we're gonna do is, we had a little dart here at the side.

And we corrected that bust dart, we didn't want to have that in the final garment.

And remember that it's just gonna taper to nothing over there.

But on this seam, we wanted to do the same.

And so we're gonna make those two alterations match.

And I think, when it's laid side by side, it's just a little easier to see the connection of those.

But it didn't stop here.

It actually continued over and went to the next piece.

So when they're laid side by side, you have a tendency to see where they are and where they go and that one continued through to the back.

All right, so there we go, it's that easy.

I can now do my final product.

Sometimes, I'm gonna say to you, maybe make another trial, just to kind of build your confidence.

Many times, when we look at the tissue, we don't know what the tissue looks like correct, we don't know if it looks correct or not.

As we start to sew more, we'll actually look at the tissue and say, you know what, that looks right.

That looks right.

Be sure you change the back as well.

And then what I wanna do is, I wanna introduce to you what's called like a template.

It's a sleeve arm hole template.

So I know this sleeve fit this arm hole.

In the pattern, the way it came is, that sleeve and that arm hole went together.

So, I can make all my changes, and then I can lay this template, this is my arm hole size, I've got one for the front and one for the back, and even though I've made this smaller, I can lay it at the new point, I can lay it on the side seam, because that's the two points where that arm hole goes from the shoulder seam to the side seam, and I can just draw my new arm hole.

So if I make a template before I make any changes, after I've made all my changes, I can just put the template on, bam, bam, bam, whip it up.

All right, let's look at the sleeve on this jacket.

I think we've got all Jeanie's changes done here.

But I do wanna look at the sleeve.

I think the sleeve confuses women a little bit.

So again, what I would do is lay the fronts as they go together.

So the sleeve bends forward, these are the fronts, and these are the back of the sleeve.

This, and you can see that there's already a bend there.

But for whatever reason, Jeanie's arm was bent more than the sleeve, so I bent it a little more.

You're just gonna increase the angle, and when you do that, you can see that it starts at the front seam of the sleeve, tapers to nothing in the back.

It's the same amount in the same place here in the front, and then, of course it tapers to the back.

Sewing jackets is just really fun.

I just wanna get this pattern.

This should be my sleeve forever.

I should never do another sleeve because that sleeve and my template, never leave home without them.

They're amazing, they're awesome.

Okay, so let's come to Cindy.

She had a couple little changes that I wanna go over.

She had, as the garment came over the bust, she had a little bulge right there on the front.

That comes right through this portion right here.

And so I'm gonna take it away.

I always wanna measure on the muslin where it was, how large it was, and then transfer it back to the tissue.

But what you did notice is, it came right to nothing and it didn't go into this piece.

This piece had a different change.

It was right here at the side, but it tapered to nothing over there.

So you know, really, what I want you to see is, there's no way possible to measure the body and pick up on these angles and these changes because it's just too hard to do it.

It's just so much faster to make a garment, just make a trial sample, drape it, and then come back in and make the changes.

And your fabric is just gonna be so much more accurate than anything else you use to get these angles to be correct.

I put it there, with Cindy, we continued.

We had the same change with the sleeve on Cindy, so we're gonna do the same thing that we did with Jeanie.

Just make sure that you've got the change to the front and the change to the front.

Because of the bend, sometimes they look a little differently.

Cindy went through and made and finished her jacket and I wanna bring her on, because she wears jackets on a regular basis.

Now, what we did is, we kind of did a little bit of homework with her.

And we actually measured a sleeve that she liked so that we could get that sleeve to where we wanted it to be.

And I wanna make sure you all do that because if you know the number that the sleeve circumference is, when you go to put it in, it's so much easier to hit it on the market.

If you're playing trial and error, you're spending a lot of time playing trial and error.

So just measure some things you have, measure the upper sleeve, make sure that that's what you like, and then once you put it in, you'll know you get the mobility you like.

Do you like?

- I like.

- Yay!

And it looks beautiful.

- Thank you.

- Turn around.

Look at that, oh my goodness.

Just such a beautiful fitting jacket and your fabric is absolutely gorgeous as well.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, thanks for sharing with us.

There's so many things, I wanna take just a few minutes and show lining because so many women are just really nervous about lining.

They say, no, I don't wanna line a jacket.

Line a jacket.

I'm gonna use, when I'm doing a princess seam, I'm gonna use the same pieces, except I'm just gonna do them out of lining.

So I wanna take a look at the sewing machine and how that lining connects.

So we're gonna show a lining and the sleeve and what happens when we do that lining in the sleeve.

And remember that the sleeve lining is shorter than the sleeve, so it's actually gonna hem our sleeve for us and it's gonna do all the work.

So we're gonna look at this other side where I have not done the lining just yet and I'm gonna push it all the way down so that at the bottom, we just get the lining and the sleeve.

And I'm gonna recommend you put a pin in there so that it will keep it nice and secure and mainly so that it won't twist.

Because if it twists, then you can't get your arm down the sleeve.

So then I'm gonna come to the bottom of the jacket and I'm gonna pull out the sleeve.

And it doesn't matter which one you pull first, the other one will follow because they're pinned together.

And you're gonna see, I'm gonna get this long, continuous line.

I've pinned wrong sides together.

I'm gonna take the pin out and reverse it and put it right sides together.

And then I'm gonna stitch it on the sewing machine.

And I'm just gonna stitch all the way around to where the lining is stitched to the jacket.

I always put my lining on top because it makes, just makes it a little bit easier to sew.

I just literally do it right sides together.

And what I'm gonna show you is, it kind of, somebody told me once they look like two elephants kissing.

And I'll take that.

If it helps you remember, I'm good with that.

But all you do is, you just sew right side all the way around the body of that sleeve.

And then, when I go and reach to the other side and I pull it out, the lining will automatically hem the sleeve.

And that's a great place to be.

So I'm gonna reach in, and you notice it's there.

I'm gonna pull it up, and I can't pull it all the way up anymore because the lining is cut with that formula.

So remember, it's two hems plus a seam allowance, take away from my sleeve, will equal my sleeve lining.

And my sleeve will be automatically hemmed.

It's like the greatest trick in the book.

At the bottom of the jacket, I don't even attach my lining because I know that if I attach my linings, I have to be perfect, and I'm not.

When asked one time by a customer, how long does it take you to make a jacket, she replied, a lifetime.

Next time on Fit 2 Stitch, we'll make it in much less time.

Join us.

(upbeat piano music) - [Man] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Vogue Fabrics, Colorado Fabrics, Quality Sew and Vac, Sew Town, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Fort Smith, Arkansas, Kai Scissors, Sew Steady, Bennos Buttons, All Brands, Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, and Clutch Nails.

To order a four-DVD set of Fit 2 Stitch series seven, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.