Tutorial, part 4 - Yoke Trim

Using your quilting/walking foot and gray thread, sew the back yoke trim (piece Q) to the bottom of the quilted back yoke, right sides together, ⅜" from the bottom edge.

Press the yoke trim downward.

The front yoke trim and neckline trim are a bit more involved, though.

It's a bit dodgy, this process.

We highly recommend practicing this process several times before attempting it on your "real" jumpsuit! 

Beginning on the armscye end of the left front yoke, sew the front yoke trim (piece P) to the front yoke, with the raw edges aligned at the armscye and right sides together, ⅜" from the bottom edge and stopping at the centermost quilt line (⅜" from the center edge of the front yoke). 

There should be a bit of excess trim, as the trim, at this point is longer than the yoke is wide.

Pin the raw edge of the neckline trim (piece O) to the raw, dangling edge of the front yoke trim, right sides together.

Fold the "upper" neckline trim away from the yoke so that its centermost/uppermost (long) edge is continues the direction of the neckline where the upper miter will be. 

Press a fold into the neckline where the upper miter will be.

Unfold the neckline trim and pin into place.

Sew the neckline trim to the front yoke along the edge where it meets the yoke trim, ⅜" from the front opening edge, and along the upper line you just pressed. 

Your stitch lines should meet and pivot directly on the quilt lines - for front opening option #3, that is! This is easy to check on the wrong side of the yoke. 

The stitch lines of front opening options #1 and #2 should also meet the centermost quilt line at the bottom, but the angle will obviously be different; #1 should extend straight up with the quilt line, while the "pivot stitch line" of #2 should be on a mid-quilt line. 

Fold the front yoke/neckline trim downward. 

Using your zipper/piping foot, sew the front yoke and neckline trims together along the bottom edge of the yoke. 

Cut off the excess trim just below the stitching line.

To form the lower miter, fold the yoke out of the way and sew a line from the joined trim edges to the previous lower stitch pivot, beginning about ¾" from center and ending at the pivot point. 

Cut out the bulk as close to the stitch lines as you dare (this may require some experimentation on your part). 

Repeat this process for the upper miter.

Sew the neckline trim to the yoke in the same manner, repeating the mitering process for the right upper miter. 

Sew the right front yoke trim to the bottom of the right yoke. 

Join the neckline and front yoke trim on the right side as done previously. 

Your yoke probably looks like a mess right now, but don't panic!

Turn the trim under, press it away from the yoke, and it already starts to look way, way better.

And how about those beautiful machine-sewn miters, just like the screen-used???

(This one's ours!)

We'd like to extend a special thank-you to Kenneth King, author of Cool Couture, as his online "mitering a Hong Kong finish" tutorial was instrumental in helping us reverse-engineer this mitering process! 

NOTE: For the First Contact and Insurrection-style rounded trim, skip the upper mitering process. Cut the upper corner of the pattern piece into a gently rounded curve and attach the neckline trim around it as you normally would with double-fold bias tape.

One final note: For either style trim (mitered or rounded), it's perfectly fine to cut and attach the front yoke/neckline trim as one continuous piece; we used two pieces both to demonstrate that it's possible, and to be in accordance with the screen-used Nog uniform shown earlier (note that his jumpsuit's yoke trim was cut on the grain, while the neckline trim was cut on the bias, indicating that they were two separate pieces). 

Set the yoke assembly aside for now.


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