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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!
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Best laid plans
I took a little sew-cation using my annual leave so I could work on my Anise and ended up doing barely anything on it!
Instead I’ve mostly been working with my mum to make her a Chanel style tweed jacket. The jacket is coming along so well and really makes me glad I did the course to learn all the techniques.
We have cut out, quilted, fitted and stitched it all together and I’ve left mum hand-sewing all the lining down before I return and help her mark the hem and sleeve lengths, do mitred corners and organise the finishing touches.
I have one day off left so I need to make sure I get up early and get cracking. I’ll be redoing my Anise muslin with some hard-core adjustments and hopefully get cutting with my fabric. I picked up a bright blue wool coating from the Fancy Silk Store in Birmingham.
- I need to re-draft the armhole and sleeves as something just isn’t working with these. I’m going to use a similar jacket with a two piece sleeve that I know fits fine.
- The back princess seams are also too thin so I’m going to move them closer to my centre back.
- I need a little more length I think, just so it will cover all my favourite longer-length cardigans. This is probably the easiest of all my alterations.
- I think the collar needs shaving down a touch as it seems a little large on me. I’m not yet 100% certain I’ll do this as the finished versions I’ve seen on the Internet seem to be in proportion so perhaps I just need see it through as per the drafted instructions.
Wish me luck!
