Style Arc Marie Top

When I finished the Burda knit jacket in my last post I was reminded of this Style Arc Marie jacket that I started making back in June before a visit back home to the UK.  I managed to get it all finished in time except for sewing on a single snap and I am ashamed to confess it has taken me 6 months to finally sew on that one measly snap.  In my defence it has been too hot to even think about looking at jackets until recently, but now the season is changing and I'm going through that familiar feeling of not being ready for it.  At least I have 2 new jackets, it's a start....

Style Arc instructions are more an order of construction than detailed instructions, but they are very clear and this was straight forward to put together.  I made a size 10 and I could do with either making it a bit shorter or adding a bit of extra room to the hips next time.  While I was making it my only complaint was that it felt like there should have been a back hem facing as the fronts are faced and it seemed a bit lightweight in the back.  I followed the pattern anyway and actually it feels fine wearing it and maybe a back hem facing would make it too structured when wearing it open.

The 6 month snap - naturally it took less than 5 minutes to do, why oh why did I leave it so long!?!

It has proven impossible to take decent photos of this black jacket indoors, so I am sorry that the photos of me wearing it below show little more than a black silhouette, I don't want to wait another 6 months before this gets blogged.  I'm at the mercy of whatever doubleknit is available here but recently have been able to find some more colours so I am planning to inject a bit of colour into my winter wardrobe this year.

Exhibits A, B & C (the burgundy is already almost a dress and jacket, the purple is going to be the new Kay Unger dress 1369 and I got the end of the bolt of the teal, 5.5 yards at a great price so some experimentation is in order!)

Back to the previous Burda jacket, Cidell asked what happens if you zip it all the way up and does it form a funnel collar.  This was interesting and you can get a couple of different looks, although one would require sewing on 2 extra snaps (which let's face it is unlikely to happen) and they would show when you wear the collar open so you would need to be neat about it.

Here is a reminder of the original jacket:

Here it is fully zipped up:

Here it is with a funnel collar, just pinned here where you would need to add snaps, I had thought you could add a longer zip, but you run out of jacket to attach it to!