And The Winner Is...
I did my test of pinking methods, and was surprised to find that the chisel seemed to work best. The x-acto knife made a really ugly cut -- I never really expected it to work well. I thought the scissors would work the best, but a) it's hard to get exactly the right length cut, b) it's hard to keep the cut straight, and c) when cutting through both the pattern piece and the material it's hard to cut the same length through both. I backed the material with a piece of wood for the chisel test, and it worked wonderfully. I'll still have to deal with some stray threads and velveteen bugs, but it produces perfectly sized, straight cuts exactly where I want them. I just have to make sure the chisel stays sharp, but I don't think it'll be too difficult. In other news, I decided to reshape the sleeve pattern just a bit, giving it a little more rounded shape rather than a simple cone. There's some bagginess at the elbow in the portrait that seems to indicate some more room there than I've allowed for. I also picked up some polyester (yuck!) lining for the sleeves. It's horrible, but no one will ever see it and it'll make the whole thing more comfortable, I hope. I may use the lining for the doublet body too. I'm considering going against my normal method and making the sleeves first. We'll see how that pans out.
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