Revisions 1: red bouclé jacket

The last few times I tried to wear my red bouclé Chanel jacket, I had to abandon the inclination.  I shrunk a little in the last few years, and was simply swimming in it.

So recently I took the time to "revise" it.  I took off the trim, removed the front zip, opened the lining, and then took it in - a lot.  The key alteration was taking in the upper shoulder princess lines above the bust point.  The pattern is drafted for a bust whose fullness seems to begin right at the shoulder - I kid you not. My body has a definite hollow between the clavicle and the bust, so without alterations there was quite a lot of pooching of fabric in that area.  I was happy to wrestle that issue into submission and transfer the change - once and for all - onto the pattern pieces.  I also removed a lot from the waist at each of the seams - front, side, and back, taking in the sides all the way to the hip.

Then I put it all back together.

For comparison, here's a collage of the first look, with the original hooks, before I replaced them with a zip:

Driven by my desire for change, I removed all the armscye trim and moved the secondary little pockets to their conventional Chanel locations.  Without the trim, the shoulder line suddenly seems much wider, doesn't it?

The nice thing about this revision?  not only do I have a jacket that fits me better, but the zipper tape is correctly concealed beneath the lining.  Shames me to admit it, but I was too lazy to open the lining when I replaced the hooks with zipper in the first place.  Much happier now.

Grey boucle/tweed wardrobe

Today was a beautiful day:  dry and, relatively speaking, warm.  No rain, no snow, temp well above freezing.  Tomorrow, I hear, it'll be quite the contrary.  So I prevailed upon the Hubs to take a few pics of my new grey wardrobe. To wit:

1. Chanel-style jacket, wool bouclé, cotton broadcloth underlining, silk twill lining and trim
2. A-line pleated skirt, wool bouclé, silk organza underlining, bemberg rayon lining
3. Blouse, out of the same silk twill as the jacket's lining and trim
4. Grey bouclé and black ponte top to work with the skirt for a two-piece dress
5. Standard lightweight wool black trousers, made long ago and a beloved wardrobe basic

Jacket:  New Look 6516

My new hair goes very well with this new outfit, doncha think? (...beats being bald....)

With bouclé top and skirt for a very unified look

Methinks the proportions are a bit top heavy. Next time, I'll shorten the jacket by at least 2 inches/5cm!

Skirt: New Look 6511 view D

Unobstructed view

Edge stitching of  the outside  edges of the pleats
 keeps them sharp, while edge stitching of the pleats' inside
prevents them from falling open. 

Front pleats are faced with lining fabric to reduce bulk, otherwise those pleats just wouldn't behave.
 Elsewhere, the fashion fabric is folded up and edgestitched.

With matching silk blouse.  But just look at that chain: the links are so poorly closed that they slip right out of the thread!

Bouclé-ponte top: Go 4001

I went for grey-black-grey-black-grey-black. 

Love this pattern's strong princess lines. And look at the matching sleeve trim!

 Boucle side back with black ponte on either side.

Honey, does this make me look wide in the beam? 

Blouse: Burda 10-2011-128

Half-length sleeves with self-covered buttons. 

Love the belt carriers on the skirt's yoke.   Need new, skinny belt.

From a distance the blouse looks a nice pearly grey.  But actually, it's a very fine print in cool pink and black.  I like how the print size reflects the pink loops of the bouclé.

You have to be pretty close to the garments to spot the pattern: 

If you look closely, you'll note that the rows of pink are not evenly spaced,
but at 1/2" and 1" intervals. I had to remember that when cutting out the pockets,
to match them to the underlying fronts. 

The look with trousers: The slacks are from a very old Burda paper pattern.  I've tweaked them to death so they fit me no matter what, and now I don't dare try any other pattern. 

I will, of course, add to this little wardrobe, at the very least a couple more matching tops.  

Da-da-da-dat's all folks!  

Rainbow jacket: finished!

Declaring a long project completed is a very satisfying moment.

 

I see a slight imperfection in the way the chain lays on the right pocket.  A couple of stitches ought to fix that.

Below is a close-up showing details of the trim: the yarns I threaded through the chain are quite varied. There were at least four different ones in each. I tried to match the predominant surrounding colours.  Now that I see them all together, the pocket trim seems a bit too blue to me. There are blue, green, and navy threads in there, yet the photo makes it appear very monochromatic.  I know it's all a matter of personal taste, yet a purple thread might improve matters and bring it closer to the sleeve trim.

And  on the live "dummy"; as my photographer remarked, the quality of the photos is limited by the subject matter :(

The pic above shows all that's wrong with hooks:  the jacket doesn't ever really close or stay closed.  I'm not crazy about hook closures.  I'll move those hooks inward and maybe that'll suppress the center front gaposis.

In my previous post, BeccaA asked why I included structured jacket techniques (chest shield, sleeve heads and shoulder pads) in a cardigan style jacket.  Hmmm.  First, I wanted to do the Chanel style quilting to an underlining to begin with.  The fact that I had no room for 1" seam allowances aided in that decision:  the classic cardigan method simply wasn't feasible here. Then, when the sleeve issues arose, I knew that sleeve heads would be necessary, so that dictated the other "structured" touches. And I like a structured jacket.  My red version, which has no shoulder pads or chest shield, feels slouchy and (perhaps because it's a little on the big side) sloppy.   But there's one more thing:  a question of self confidence.  I just wasn't sure that I'd have the patience to do all that piecemeal hand-sewing of the lining, nor that I could make it look good enough.  Really.  As it turned out, this jacket took a lot of hand work, so I now suspect I probably could manage to produce one using only the classic cardigan jacket method and see it through to the end.  

With sewing, there's always a next time! :))

Rainbow jacket: finishing touches

Once I solved the troublesome sleeve issues, the rest came together nicely. Here are just a few more construction details:

I added sew-in hair canvas chest shields, placed on the bias.  Since the FF was quilted, it was very easy to stitch the shields onto the quilting just inside the sewing allowance.  I had a little fun using up last bits from my bobbins, thus the different thread colours. The bottom of each shield is pinked and left free.

I added a rather large patch pocket to the left inside lining.  It has a pleat at the bottom - this prevents any contents from pooching out and dragging on the jacket itself.  

I added two patch pockets to the front.  Yes, really. Can you see them? I assure you they're there.

Patch pockets on lower fronts.

They're easier to spot from above, especially when pulled open.  I double-lined them, so that pocket contents wouldn't snag on the bouclé. The lining that's attached to the body is about 1 cm or 1/2" shorter than the pocket, to make it less obvious during wear.

Now you can see the pockets very well

I added sleeve heads made out of polyester quilting batting and foam shoulder pads.  The sleeve heads were really essential to filling out those enlarged sleeve caps, and went a very long way to smoothing out most if not all of their easing imperfections. 

I still haven't added closures to the front, and am yet to add any trim. The FF is bright enough by itself - yet trimming it up is de rigeur for the classic Chanel jacket. Should I or shouldn't I? I almost convinced myself to leave well enough alone, then came across this Crimes of Fashion (love the name) jacket, all blinged up. Oh yes, a little gold for my rainbow would really make it shine.  As it happened, I had just purchased a length of chain to weigh down the hem, so I tested the look: 

On one side the chain is simply laid on top of the garment.  On the other, I threaded a couple of the bouclé threads through the links.  

It's a subtle difference, yet like the second look better, it integrates the trim with the jacket.  What say you?  

I think I've enough bits and pieces left to pull enough threads for the job:  if I trim up the sleeves and pockets as well as the front, I'll need enough to thread 2.6 meters of chain.  Won't that be a perfect make-work project for an afternoon or two!