In my last post I wrote about the inspiration for the new fall jacket I was going to make, here’s an almost finished jacket itself! This make has been...interesting. And by interesting I mean lots of mistakes and obstacles in almost every aspect of the process. But hey, I was the one who told that she likes complexity in a sewing project, so who am I to complain now. Let’s see what went wrong and how I more or less fixed it.
Pre bottons front view
I used a cotton twill for the exterior and a striped (mystery fiber content) knit for the underlining. I cut the same pieces out of the main fabric and the underlining and treated both layers as one layer. All the seams are finished with premade bias binding. The pattern is the Moderne by Aime Comme Marie but it’s so heavily modified that there’s not much left of the original design but the main body shape I guess. I had made a green jacket with the same pattern before (using the actual pattern and not modifying it, except the sleeve lenght), but that fabric had a bit of a stretch in it so it behaved differently.
Basically my biggest problem here is the sleeve width. I wanted a fall jacket that could be thrown over garments with long sleeves for layering and the sleeve is a bit too tight for that. I mean I can do it but it’s not so comfortable. The thing is, if I already made a jacket with the same pattern how could I go wrong with that? Life is mysterious, I know, haha.
Well first of all, I did add 1 cm to both sleeve sides and even widened the armscile on the bodice pieces thinking that it would be enough. I was comparing it with the jacket I already made but I didn’t take into consideration that the other jacket had just a little bit of stretch which helped with the sleeve issue (the sleeve on the first one is sliiiightly tight too but it’s not annoying). So yeah, that’s a bummer. I already made the seam allowance smaller, gaining another 1 cm from there but yeah, I’d like to have maybe 2 extra cm to be happy? Anyway, it is what it is, I’m not unpicking to add some kind of extra piece (too complicated, I’ve been doing a great job with finishing all the seams with bias tape...no one wants to unpick that!) and I don’t have enough fabric to cut new sleeves...it is what it is.
All the love for finishing seams with bias tape <3
Apart from that everything is more or less as I imagined. I love the solid color + stripe + bias combination that’s happening on the inside of the jacket. I know that it’s not visible for the rest of the world but I do know it’s there, haha. I improvised the hood by using one from a pattern from Ottobre design and measured to match it with this jacket (I first made the neck opening larger by lowering the neck curve 1 cm in general and 2 cm for the center front). Turns out that I didn’t measure very well and ended up missing like 3 cm of the hood when I placed the body and the hood with right sides together to join them. 3 cm...yeah, that really hurts because it means you’ve clearly missed something big there, haha. Anyway, I could cut out this new hood facing thing that I then attached to the hood and this mistake was fixed.
In the end I made sleeves 5 cm longer and still had to make the sleeve placket double width for my arm length. I know my arms are longer than average but this pattern really goes short there (and well, tight too...I guess, maybe it’s only me, haha). I also made the front plackets double the width as I was worried that the overall jacket would be too small. I added some easy rounded pockets as by that point I was already losing all faith and I didn’t feel like getting creative, haha.
Anyway, now that it’s only missing the buttons (and buttonholes, don’t be fooled!!) I actually really like how it turned out. I try to not think about the sleeve error anymore… Yes, it sucks but I can’t go back in time. It will probably limit the time I can wear it as I can’t layer it on top of bulkier clothes but well, I still can wear it for some time at least! It bugs me to make mistakes like this one after having sewn so many garments but I try to get over myself, that’s just life. And sometimes you just work on autopilot and forget to check the measurements. I will for sure remember doing it now, haha.
Also, after all of this process only once I finished the thing I started to think about the pattern itself and why it had so tight sleeves. And yeah, if you look at it, it’s actually meant to be worn as a light extra layer and not a fall jacket I think. It’s like a denim jacket, you usually don’t have enough room to wear a bulky garment underneath it...well some designs do have the room because they are oversized. The thing is that this particular design by no way is oversized, especially in the sleeve area (and when you use two layers instead of one it also adds up and makes the cse even worse). I should have noticed that earlier when planning the make. It’s so obvious now that it occurred to me...but here I am with my tight sleeves after finishing the whole thing, haha. So yeah, a lesson to remember, what can I say?! You only learn from your mistakes blabla :) I’ll try to take some better photos for the next post once I have the right buttons. I’m also thinking if I should now make another jacket as this one didn’t turn out exactly as I imagined…?!?!?
About the pattern: unfortunately I didn’t take notes when I made the first jacket so honestly...I don’t remember everything to write a detailed review and this time I didn’t follow the directions as it was a very different make. The pattern comes in French but has English instructions. It’s not very well edited as the English instructions are on the last page and not under the drawings. I remember that I had to go back to the webpage to see where the size chart was as it was not included in the instructions booklet and that was kind of annoying (I used size M by my measurements by the way). I could understand the instructions well but I also have been sewing for a long time and I’ve made similar garments before...but don’t expect very detailed step by step instructions, it’s more like some drawings + text.