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!