Worked on the vest quite a bit last night and wanted to try to get the faggoting technique on the back curved seams. I saw someone had posted a link to an article about using fusible interfacing but I was worried about anything sticky gumming up my needle.
So first I basted the seams about 1/8" inside the stitch line, pressed the seam allowance open, and then topstitched the seam allowances on either side of the seam. I then ripped out the basting and separated the pieces. Next I used a piece of gray flannel underneath the pieces -- flannel worked nice because it had a bit of grip, and carefully placed the pieces 1/4" apart, pinned the hell out of it to the flannel, and slowly went over my topstitching with topstitching thread, so the pieces were stitched to the flannel.
It actually worked out pretty great! All that was left to do was hand-stitch a ladder stitch over the flannel, being careful not to pull too tight. (I used low-budget pattern weights, also known as cans of soup and peaches, to make sure everything stayed in place during this process. I originally used plain thread for this, but disliked how it showed up, so tore it out and did it again with 3-ply embroidery floss, which made it show up much better. I repeated this process for the collar seams as well.
So it's moving along! Today I'm wrestling with the shoulder pads, and need to start on the gauntlets. Fellow Reys, any tips for gauntlet construction? I'm not sure of my pattern so I know some trial-and error is ahead. Any advice would be great!
