Sewing seams with padded pieces

[chargirlgenius]

The doublet has eaten me – I’ve had no computer time or time for anything else! I’m at work, so I’ll keep this really brief. I continued the quilting last night. After finishing up the butt portion, I had to mark the quilting lines on the back torso. I drew with the chalk on the inside, but again, I really need to work from the outside to keep the lines straight. I figured I’d do what I did the other night, run it through the machine, but without the thread.

Maybe I need a bigger needle, but just running it through the machine without the thread doesn’t really leave holes for marking. Others might have better luck with this, but I probably just don’t keep big enough needles around.

Instead, I set it at the biggest stitch possible, and messed with my tension so that the thread on one side was essentially flat. That makes it a lot easier to pull out.

Some people asked about sewing the seams on a quilted/padded piece. I’ve been cutting the padding away from the seam allowance to do that. I’ve sketched up a quick diagram – let me know if it doesn’t make sense.



Red is the hemp outer fabric
Green is the inner most lining
Blue are the stitches
Orange is the padding. It’s actually made up of several layers of fabric, but it could be anything

Note that I’ve included on lining layer sandwiched with the outer fabric. That gives that seam a bit more strength, since the hemp is a heavy but loose weave.



Also see the album for more info:
http://www.mathildegirlgenius.com/gallery/ArmingCote

Comments

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

Have you considered marking your quilting lines on a piece of tissue paper and basting that to the front of the piece? Then you can stitch through the tissue paper and it just tears away when you're done. koshka_the_cat used this method a while ago when she was sewing soutache in a curvy design down on an 1860s coat, and it seemed to work really well.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Hm, interesting. I'll have to try that if I do a more complicated design. I think the tissue paper would get pretty torn up on this piece, as I go, though.