Too wet to climb, but progress is made (sort of)!

Over a month ago, my climbing buddies and I decided to get together and climb some super-secret sport and top-rope routes (near Boerne) and maybe partake of some sweet bouldering action while we were at it. But Mother Nature had other plans. With as dry as things have been, I feel like a jack-ass for complaining about rain, but goddamnitiwantedtoclimb! Oh well, I'll have lots of chances once my kid is born, right?

So instead I stayed in and accomplished some work on my Christmas project: Tommy's suit. When last we left off I was still in the planning phase of what to do. Today I started cutting. But before I did that, I did some measurements and comparisons. First up, I compared the project jacket to two others, paying attention to the lapel shapes.

Note the more exaggerated curvature the bottom (project) jacket has. The houndstooth, after its recent rework, is very straight, and the middle jacket is apparently a long cut? Who cares. Its time to measure our new edge. I don't have lots of fancy sewing tools, but I do have a level, and hey, it's good enough right?

Hit it with the chalk wheel, and we get this:

Nice. This is a good time to decide if you want a different (read: narrower) lapel shape. I decided to stay, relatively, stock with this. Next up, it's time to press the new edge. The chalk line will work as our new guide line for pressing.

I have my press cloth crammed in there for definition and to show how much material is being removed. After both sides were pressed, I basted the new edges with high contrast green thread. The idea here is to keep things from moving while we are sewing the edges together. I've tried pins, but they never work quite as well. It doesn't take long, and saves a good deal of grief down the road.

After that, I pinned the two halves together and got to sewing. The results were not spectacular, because I ignored my own advice and didn't baste the two halves together before sewing. Instead, I pinned it and there was a little bit of shift. Nothing I can't fix later, but it was there. Baste the sides, don't pin them. And here is the rough-up of what it will look like:

However, I'm not totally happy with the end result on the lapel. I think it's... off some how. Perhaps it needs to be narrowed and the notch needs to be higher. Perhaps something like this:

I'll play with it more in the morning. I have to get up early and my baby-momma is yelling at me to call it a night. Give me some love and/or feedback. I'll toss up more tomorrow.