1.1m jacket: finished at last!

At long, long, very loooong last!

None of you will remember my "1.1 meter challenge" post from waaaay back in May..... I know you won't, the blogosphere moves at such a rapid pace, it's not possible.

It's been an impossibly hectic spring/summer/fall here Chez StraightJacket. Pulled into a gadzillion directions, I've been.  And I'm happy to say that finally, many events and continents and thousands of miles/kilometers behind me, here I am again... finally occupying my oversize dining table with scraps of fabric and the clackety sound that my boys love so much.

One of my personal pet peeves (have I mentioned it before?) is the abandonment of unfinished projects.  Yes, I know we all have UFOs (unfinished objects).  Guilty!!!!  But I hate, I detest, I truly despise them.  An abandoned project is the epitome of wasted resources:  fabric, patterns, electricity, all those other resources that equal cold hard cash, but most of all, the queen of all non-renewable and precious resources, time.

So today,  give me and all UFO finishers a little bit of applause. But not TOO  much applause:  I missed the opportunity for an outdoor photo op on the last beautiful day of the year, and until it stops raining, hanger pics is all I can do for the moment.

The jacket is the exclusive design from BurdaStyle Magazine Oct. 2008, pattern 131.  I cut size 38, and lengthened the hem 5 cm.  It's fully underlined with silk organza and lined with bemberg rayon.  The usual suspects (cuffs, collar, belt ties) are interfaced, so the interfacing is fused to the organza.  I added a wedge of fusible hair canvas to the lapels for extra oomph.

It's a lovely little pattern, if rather boxy.  I was attracted by the unusual collar-lapel treatment:  it's not often you see a collar laying over the lapels this way, and I wanted to try this technique.  The collar actually takes a 90 degree downwards swing at the corner of the neckline, and attaches to the facings!  Sneaky!  

Since I decided to omit shoulder pads, I had to shave the sharply angled curve of the raglan shoulder down a smidgeon. (I'm of the opinion that summer jackets have a duty to imbue the wearer with a certain summertime casualness and je ne sais quois,  thus no shoulder pads).  Everything is top stitched to death, but I used self thread, not wanting any contrast. My machine, sigh, is an aged lady, and I no longer have trust in its stitch consistency.

The back side:  central pleat, and waist tabs.  The edges of the pleat are stitched to help them keep their ever-new knife sharpness.  The waist tabs were a surprise!  I chose to use buckles with teeth rather than a prong, thereby avoiding making holes in the straps.

A year later, and I still haven't had a chance to wear this item.  Here are some extra photos showing the front and back details, including the collar-lapel construction detail that so intrigued me.

The roomy back can be cinched by the little side belts to provide some shaping.

The raglan sleeves and centre back box pleat also add interest to the back view.

The pocket welts are inserted into the vertical darts.

Collar band is sandwiched between the lapel and its lining. Aha!

And what is that purple thing peeking out from under the jacket (in the original photos)?  Ah, well, that's another no-longer-UFO (another round of applause?).  A poly chiffon top, and tube scarf out of its remnant.

I used my tank top TNT, and added a new variation:  there's a seam across the bustline, allowing me to give the sides dart-like shaping, and a central pleat in the lower section.  Those two things let the chiffon drape very gracefully, if I may say.  

Well, with all that, I was on a roll.  Not sewing last summer didn't stop me from buying fabric!  During the summer I visited an Indian sari shop in Montreal, and they had a crazy sale on silk scarves.  So, I grabbed this delightful red crepe - it's overprinted with a subtle paisley-ish pattern, which is unfortunately completely invisible in the photo - and I managed to make a top AND a scarf out of that today.  Hah!  The scarf is just a flat length, not a tube like the one above. 

This one has a pleat at the centre neckline (it only looks like it's pleated at the hem, but it's not), and two opposing pleats at the hips.

Whew. I'm all blogged out for today! And all sewed out. Then again... A beautiful lightweight light beige wool  destined for trousers to go with the jacket has finished drying on the couch- I might get it cut tonight if I regain some oomph after dinner.   I'm thinking of using a simplified version of the Jalie jeans pattern for the trousers. What do you think of that, sewers out there?

Meeting the 1.1 meter challenge

I traced and placed the pattern for BurdaStyle 10-2008-131 on my fabric, and I can hardly believe it.  The jacket's pattern pieces actually fits, with oh so much room to spare (none, actually!), on the yardage - er, one point one meterage - that I have.  I haven't trimmed all the seam allowances yet, but they'll be 0.5", which is half the nearest distance between any two pieces.  

The fabric appears to be a uniform beige-cream herringbone, but it actually has pastel colour lines in both directions: pink and yellow lines run horizontally while purple and green run vertically. I used these colour lines to pin the fabric "true" together correctly, and to align the grain lines of the pattern pieces with the fabric. 

I managed to get the back, back pleat, front, pocket welts and front facings matched with respect to the location of the yellow and pink stripe...

....and, as shown above, the sleeve fronts are matched with sleeve backs. 

Even the collar and collar stand (aka collar band in Burdaspreche) fit.  The under-collar band is on a bias with a centre seam.  The under collar, also with a centre seam, is on grain, because that's the only way it could fit in the the only space left:   in that area outlined in blue between the two sleeve pieces.

So, yeah, I'm kind of tickled.  I did of course have a plan b...and c.... there are plenty of simple collarless jacket patterns out there - but it's nice to have Plan A start out so auspiciously.

A little tip for these tight to fit fabric demands:  I found making a pattern piece for Every Single Piece (except the undercollar, which is drawn in), no matter how trivial, even stupid little belt loops, was really important.  Otherwise I'd have been guaranteed to goof somewhere along the line by spacing this or that too generously, or forgetting to make room for one item or other.

So the cute little jacket is cued.  Yes, cued - because I have to  finish this colour-blocked dress that's been hanging around for, oh.... how long?

Six weeks. Awful of me, right? It's edging dangerously close to UFO territory.  I don't like UFOs - time not well spent, and all that.  Lucky for me this little number just got a little motivation to get finished.  

My great conflict of interest, though?  My garden is finally awake.  And when it's sunny I do NOT want to be indoors.   Outside, there's always something fun going on: 

Chipmunk with peanut and hosta

Black and white warbler

Pine squirrel aka chickaree

Once the garden comes alive with these and lots of other cuties, slaving over a hot sewing machine and an even hotter steam iron demands psychological oomph.  Stucktuitiveness is the word of the week!