F-Suit for Vanilla Gallery - A Zipped Hood

This was my first attempt at a hood for the Vanilla Gallery/Karen Hsiao Black Cherries project. It came out well enough from the front...

...but I didn't care for the amount of puckering I was getting at the rear along the zipper. It was caused because when I extend the rear panels to meet in the back, they pretty much became too long for the distance they had to cover from the top of the head to the base of the neck. The only way I could think to fix the problem was to split the rear panel into 2 parts. I knew if I made the seam where those 2 parts come together curved, it will help shorten the length and make the curved shape needed to conform to the back of the head. 

 So here is the pattern for version 2. As you can see, the rear panel is split into two parts. 

 Here are all the pieces for the hood cut out. 

 Every piece for the hood gets skived, in this case for comfort as well as looks. It helps the seams lay perfectly smooth on the inside of the hood. 

 First sewing steps: the front of the hood, and the top and bottom left and right rear panels are clipped together for sewing. 

 Sewing complete:

 At this point I glued the rear panel seams. Folding them down, they start to take a nice curved shape right away - always a good sign. These also get sewn together where they meet at the top. 

 Now I glue the rear panel opening and top rear seam. 

 The front of the hood, seam glued and flattened. 

I'm ready to set the zipper in place. I'm using my new method of separating the zipper and sewing one side in at a time without any clips or tape to hold the zipper in place. 

The key to getting this to work is leaving enough extra zipper for two things. First, to make sure you can trim them so the ends are close to even when you are done sewing, so they line up when you put on the slider. 

And second, you want enough room to place the slider on the zipper and get it going a little way...

 ...with enough room to tuck it under and pull it through to the right side. If you cut it too short, this can be tricky.

When you get it right, it comes through nicely on the other side. 

Now it's time for the tongue. A 1.75 x 12-inch strip. 

This gets topstitched in place. 

Now it's time to join the front half to the rear. Align on the center seam...

...and don't forget the 7th D-ring at the top of the hood!

Sewing complete. 

Ready to glue and flatten the side seams. 

And we're done! 

Nice, strong D-ring on top. Seams look nice and centered... 

...and the problem of the severe puckers has gone away along the rear zip. Looks much, much better! 

I actually made two more versions of this hood, in addition to the two above. This one (version 3) ended up being too tight. The heavier leather usually means you need to size more generously as it will stretch much less than a lighter weight. In my attempt to up the size, my third version was too large, and had a bit of a bump at the forehead. It's sometimes hard to predict what changing just part of a curve will do to the final piece. The fourth and final version that gets attached to the f-suit was just right - in between the version 2 and 3 sizes. I ended up with an open mouth as well, in order to make the suit a bit easier for my poor model to endure! 

F-suit for Vanilla Gallery - Leg Pockets

Now that we have the arm pockets and body partially finished, it's time to work on the leg pockets. 

I've gotten into the habit of marking left and right pieces so things don't get mixed up along the way. 

The first thing I am going to do is sew the zipper into the front panel of the leg pocket. I've started experimenting with a different way of sewing the zippers. Instead of doing it with the zipper together, I separate the teeth and do one side first. The zipper stops just short of the knee-seam. 

 Once that first half is sewn in, I zip the other part together with the slider. 

 The top of the foot pocket is sewn in until I reach the zipper. Then I stop to glue down the seam allowance for the outside leg. 

 I glue right up to the beginning of the zipper. 

 Once the glue dries I fold over the seam allowance and sew the other half of the zipper in place. 

 I'm taking this zipper all the way to the end of the foot pocket, so it will run along the edge of the leg, from the knee to the toes. 

 That went well, and I end up with a nicely-shaped knee pocket. 

 Both sides have zippers in...

 Time to cut a couple of strips for tongues. 

Because the leg pocket can open wide, it's pretty easy to sew the tongues into place freehand - without tape or clips. 

 Tongue complete!

So, zippers and tongues in place, we can proceed with the 2nd side of the leg pocket. 

These just get clipped in place and sewn. 

Done... 

And next we clip the bottoms of the foot pocket...

Done and done...

 We can turn these right-side out. Everything look OK? Good! Time to glue down all the rest of the seam allowances inside. 

 And that pretty much takes us to completion on the leg pockets.  

F-Suit for Vanilla Gallery - Arms & Body

I'm using a new hide for this project - Absolute from Hide House Napa in "Tamarillo" color - a deep, rich red. They ship without folding the leather, so the mailing tube ends up being around 8 feet long! This one definitely won't fit in the mailbox... 

The leather has an almost automotive-looking finish. 1.2mm thickness. 

One thing about the hide, it's a bit more distressed than I could gauge from the 3x2 inch sample swatch... You never know exactly what you are going to get until it arrives... and every hide is different. I can't wait to see how this will turn out...

The hide measures just over 51 square feet, and you can see how big that is on my layout table - lots of overhang. My work table is 8 feet wide and 54 inches deep with the extension.  

All the pieces cut out and paired up:

Because the 2 leg pocket pieces are similar but different, I want to be sure to mark them so they don't get mixed up.  These are the outside leg pieces.

Just a little number in each corner should do it. I also mark the torso with the same numbers, so all I have to do later is match up the leg 2 to the torso 2. It's a good habit to get into...

My surgical prep blade come out to skive the edges. 

I'm doing this when I don't want to see the seam allowance on the front side of the piece. It can be more of an issue with heavier leather. 

Front panel halves clipped together and ready to sew...

This is the seam at the knee area of the foot pocket. Breaking long pieces down into multiple parts allows you to make more efficient use of the leather. 

Cut relief slits around the elbows in the arm pockets...

Rear panels of the arm pockets sewn to the side panels.  

Now the front panels clipped on for sewing.  

Before I sew the front to the rear of the body panel, I make up a bunch of D-rings to be set into that seam - at the shoulder, under the arm, and at the hips. One extra for the top of the hood. =0)

These D-rings get inserted with just the tails sticking out for sewing. I usually mark the pattern so the alignment marks are symmetrical on both sides. 

All clipped up and ready to sew... 

Once sewn, it's time to glue down those seam allowances. 

And here we have the finished torso: 

Seam allowances glued down on the arm pockets:

And the knee seam glued...

...and flattened.

Maybe a quarter of the way done at this point?