Sewing Burda Jacket 5941: seam finishing tips for quilted garments

The jacket pieces I cut out yesterday are ready to sew together, which is the moment I’ve been waiting for!

I’m working on the Burda jacket pattern 5941, which has unusual shaping because it has no darts. It’ll be interesting to see how it all fits together. As mentioned earlier, I may tweak a few things as I sew, to get it the way I want! Remember that we are making a structured jacket from quilted fabric.

If you’re a quilter, this next step will be somewhat of a challenge. OK – it’s not that big of a deal, but we’re so used to sewing with a ¼” seam allowance and the seams on this garment are ⅝”. They’re huge compared to what I’m used to.

To make the stitching easy, I’m using a PFAFF Seam Guide Foot for IDT System,  and it’s fantastic. There’s a metal guide along the edge that gives me an exact ⅝” seam. While I could use the markings on the stitch plate, it’s so much easier with this presser foot.

Why didn’t I serge these seams? With the quilted fabric, if I serged the two fabrics together, I would have a very bulky seam, so that wasn’t an option. I did use the serger in other areas, so stay tuned.

It took me a few minutes to get the hang of using this foot as it’s so wide, but once I was going, I won’t give it up! To make it easier and to prevent any ugly thread nests at the beginning, I held onto the thread ends until I had taken a couple of stitches. You should anchor the beginning and end of each seam by using the Tie-Off function or backstitching.

For those who know me, I’m not a pinner, and I didn’t find that I had to pin these pieces together. Before starting each seam, I “finger pinned” along the entire edge to make sure that things lined up and that no ease was required. Then I lined up the start of each seam and began stitching. I stopped periodically to ensure the ends would still line up. Using the PFAFF IDT (Integrated Dual Technology) helps feed the top and bottom layers at the same rate. No slipping on these seams. I LOVE IT!

You may find that you have to ease in a small part of one piece to match the other, and that’s OK.

For the basic construction, I’m using gray thread. These seams will not be seen, so there’s no need to match the thread, although I use the red and blue thread later on.

The pattern instructs that the seam allowances (joining the two sections of each piece) be open, which I don’t want. Now I could have finished the edges with the serger or the overcast stitch on the sewing machine. Since the jacket is unlined, I wanted a neater finish on the inside.

Instead, I’m using a hybrid between a self-bound seam and a flat-felled seam. There are many options for the seam finish, but this is one I love. I start with the self-bound seam technique and trim one seam allowance to ¼”. I used my rotary cutter and ruler. Be extremely careful, you do not cut the jacket fabric, which wouldn’t be good!

Then I loosened the quilting stitches in the other seam allowance using my seam ripper. If your quilting motif is too dense, this can take a lot of time. Use the PFAFF appliqué scissors to trim the batting and the outer fabric away. If I were not using quilted fabric, I wouldn’t have to do this step. What we now have is one seam allowance (lining material at ⅝”), and the remainder is at ¼”.

I folded the raw edge under and then folded one more time and pinned that fold in place over the other parts of the seam allowance. With a self-bound seam, you would topstitch ONLY the fold of that seam allowance without going to the right side of the garment. I’ll top stitch that seam through all layers to keep the seam flat. So from the outside, it’ll look like a flat-felled seam, but it’s not. Alternatively, I could hand-stitch it in place, but I don’t have time for hand-stitching!

There are so many seam finishes that we could spend an entire week discussing the pros and cons of each. You need to find one that works for you, your fabric, and the style of garment. I like the self-bound seam in an unlined jacket as the seams are invisible and not thick.

OH – I see my gray thread along that seam. It’s OK, it’s very subtle, but I should have used the blue thread! Next time! So much to learn and so little time.

I put the red thread in the bobbin and the blue thread in the needle. I attached the PFAFF Right Edge Bi-Level Foot for IDT System to the sewing machine. There’s a raised edge along the right side, which helps to keep the presser foot flat when stitching over that raised area. Keeping the presser foot as flat as possible is beneficial and helps to get a better, more even stitch.

If I placed the raised edge of the foot beside the raised area, my needle wouldn’t be in the correct position, so I could use Stitch Positioning and move the needle to the proper position. I’ll do that for the remaining seam finishes.

And here’s what the finished seam looks like. I was going to run another row of stitching right at the seam edge to look at a real flat-felled seam, but I don’t think I need to. It looks just fine like this. This hybrid self-bound/flat-felled seam is the finish I’ll use on the majority of the jacket, joining the two sections for the front, back, and sleeves. I also use it for the side and shoulder seams. I’ll have to change my process slightly to ensure the sleeve seam is consistent. I’ve got a plan and I’ll share that with you tomorrow.

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, the process of making this jacket is a little strange, as there are no darts, but there are those curved seams to join the sections together. This process resulted in a split band on the front. I’m not sure I’m a fan, but we’re this far along, we’re going to make it work!

I stitched the front band/facing to the front of the jacket. Since those seams will be under the front band/facing, I won’t finish them the same way. I’ve decided to serge the edges of both seam allowances. I should have done this BEFORE I put them together, but it worked out just fine.

I used a three-thread overlock. It’s easy with the Husqvarna Viking Amber Air S600 to switch between different stitches. You can’t beat an air-threading serger!

Those seams will get pressed open, as I don’t want a lot of bulk in one line along the front of the jacket. It’s a little challenging to press the seams with the quilted fabric, but that’s OK, and I was cautious. I pressed the pieces carefully on a towel to give the fabric a bit of cushioning. Since my batting is polyester, I don’t want to melt it. A little bit of steam, and that seam is lying flat.

I have a lot of seam finishing to do, and then I can continue to finish sewing up the Burda jacket 5941 and putting the finishing touches on it. I can’t wait to see what it looks like!

Be sure to come back tomorrow and follow along.

Have a great day!

Ciao!!!

This is part 4 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 3: Cutting fabric & interfacing for Burda Quilted Jacket Pattern 5941