Finally - the black peacock suit

Happy New Year everyone!  I've been back from Melbourne almost a week now, but wanted to finish the jacket before I posted.  I was lucky enough to be able to meet up with Vicki (Hong Kong Shopper) again while I was there - we chatted, we had coffee and yes we bought fabric  - more on that later.

So here at last is the finished outfit.  
Things I learned while making this;

 - It's better not to start a time consuming project in party season

 - It's definitely worth keeping those back issues of BWOF, at least 5 years if you have the space

 - Fabric shrinks when you quilt it

 - I'm not completely crazy about dropped shoulders

 - If I ever need to pick up any lint or white cat hair I need only wave this jacket nearby

I'm really happy with how it turned out though - the canvas and the topstitching around the hem of the jacket, although subtle really give it a nice weight and structure and the brocade details make this easy to dress up with the matching skirt, but it also works as a more casual piece with jeans.  These are not the greatest photos but you can see the details and colours more clearly in these dressform shots.

You can see in the end I decided not to use the patent zipper I bought recently.  Lindsay T and Trena were right, it begs to be left exposed and it was just too much for this particular jacket since I already had the brocade detail - the zip got kind of lost.  Interestingly the Project Rungay boys posted about zippers recently and included this Michael Kors jacket which has a similar zipper so I may make something inspired by this.  

But not yet, much as I love jackets I need a break before I make a new one.