Tai Chi Uniform: Cutting out and first sewing steps

May 17, 2022 by steelyseamstress 2 Comments

After the Lander trousers interlude I am now back with my Tai Chi uniform. I deliberated for a long time before I bought the fabric as I wasn’t exactly sure how much I needed and the Mind the MAKER cotton twill isn’t exactly a cheap fabric at £22.99 / metre (ouch!). In the end I bought 1.7 m and prayed that my skills at tessellation would suffice. I know this quantity will be enough for the two front and back pieces and I just hope that I’ll manage to get the pockets, facings and collar out of this as well.

The cutting out was therefore a little stressful. I was worried that I would accidentally cut out two left fronts, or some such error, and therefore use up all my fabric. The right side and reverse side of the fabric are very similar, but not identical. There is a slight sheen to the right side so I suspect that if I had got this wrong it would have been truly visible in the finished jacket. To make sure I didn’t mess up, I went really slowly, checked and checked again, and labelled all the pieces as I went along. (You can see my label pinned on to the jacket front on the picture below). Labelling was very useful as it meant I didn’t “forget” that I had already cut a certain piece.

I was incredibly relieved when I had all four pieces cut out. I then cut out the pockets. There are four of these. They are all patch pockets, but the bottom two are larger and are slanted at the top.

My next dilemma is that I have no instructions for the construction. Well, obviously, as it is self-drafted, so I had to have a good think about what to do first.

My first steps have been as follows:

1. Join two back sections together at centre-back seam, press, finish seams.
2. Construct front patch pockets
3. Attach pockets to front of jacket

And that is where I am at the moment…..I think my next step will be to add the facing, but I may have an obstacle here. I haven’t cut the facings out yet, as I think I am going to struggle with the amount of fabric I have left. Admittedly, on the original jacket, the facings are cut from a different fabric, so I could do this, but of course, that will probably need a trip to a fabric shop, unless I can find something suitably neutral in my oddments stash.

Tai Chi Jacket: Starting to add the front pockets to the jacket

In the meantime, I could take a look at the frog fastenings, which I think I’ll probably save for my next instalment.