Blue jacket 2.0

I’m back!! I feel like I’ve been away from the blog for ages (sob sob).

Today I’m sharing the story of a little blue jacket. This bad boy:

I bought it from Next a few years ago. It has some awesome details like cool pockets and great top-stitching.

But if you wear a jacket for several years, stubbonly refusing to get a new one, it’s going to end up bobbly, full of holes and missing buttons. Ack!

Then… (plot twist alert!) during early February another Amy remade her favourite blue coat and I won Sonja’s Anise giveaway, so I started to hatch a plan.

Ahem, I promptly sat on my butt and did nothing with that plan for months and carried on wearing my broken jacket – what a hobo.

But now I present to you blue jacket 2.0!!

I found this awesome blue coating at The Fancy Silk Store in Birmingham which is a near perfect colour match. It may have been a little bulky for the Anise but think I get away with it.

I used fusible interlining for warmth and a mixed blue satin lining, which reminds me of looking through a window on a rainy day (I’m so poetic).

I used prym metal self cover buttons and nearly broke my thumb by not buying the assembly gadget. You’ll notice no bound buttonholes. I swear I practiced them… here’s the proof!

But in the end I felt like I didn’t need the extra hassle/bulkiness. I’m glad I learnt the technique though!

I think I like the quality of my welt pockets but I’m a bit iffy on my collar execution. It was soooo fiddly to sew together and turn out. The curves of the collar look a bit lumpy to me. Hmmmmm…

Because I’ve seen it on many rtw jackets, I added internal buttons to minimise stress on my exterior buttons and to stop the left side slipping.

One totally obvious thing I didn’t add was a hanging loop. Why isn’t this in the instructions!?! I’m really gutted about this as it won’t hang up now. Booooo.

So there you go! My jacket is done and I can get back to some less stressful sewing!