Vogue 2973 Jacket - finished!

My excitement at finally finishing the jacket has been somewhat marred by the fact that I just dropped the digital camera on the floor and have broken the screen. It seems to still function (i.e. it can take pictures, you just can't see them) so I will see if it can be repaired. So here are possibly the last shots taken by this camera;
Actually when I say it's finished I mean it is finished as far as it can be. The collar band is supposed to be topstitched as well, but my fabric is quite thick and there is no way I can get this part under the foot of my machine without really forcing it which makes for extremely bad topstitching (trust me, if I have to unpick any more topstitching I will go nuts). With the benefit of hindsight (in addition to not dropping the camera) I would have marked the seamlines of each collar piece and done the topstitching before stitching the pieces together. Do you think it is OK to leave the jacket like this? I don't have much choice, but maybe I can take it in to my alterations place and see if they can do it with their industrial machines if it looks really odd.

Apart from the topstitching this pattern is not too difficult. I love the design of it, the seaming and the zip detail on the sleeves. I sewed part of the collar in by hand as it was much easier to control it that way and make sure that the lapel, collarband and top collar all met at the same point. It's funny I used to think that the goal was to sew as much as possible by machine like Ready to Wear and that handsewing was somehow cheating, but if you can get better results first time then why not. The instructions have you attach the collarband to the top collar first and then separately attach each side of the collarband to the inside and outside of the jacket. To attach the collarband to the body of the jacket and the facing/lining, I machined the centre of each seam first, then each side leaving the last centimetre or so to the corner and hand stitched this part. Here is a photo to try and illustrate that step since it is hard to explain. You can see it would be quite tricky to get the machine right into the point on the right hand side.
The only other part that is slightly non intuitive is inserting the zipper in the jacket front - the illustration in the pattern instructions confused me and I found it much easier to separate the zipper before stitching, like this;
I mentioned in an earlier post that the fit is a little unusual, there is a lot of ease built into the chest area, and very little in the waist. Even without my usual FBA there is still plenty of room in the size 12 I made straight from the envelope. Something to watch out for although personally it worked for me and is I think quite a flattering style for my shape. Hopefully, depending on the camera situation I will be able to get some pics of me wearing it soon.

I love Fridays

Who doesn't I suppose. But mine are especially good because I don't work on a Friday and it is a real "me" day. I spend the morning doing my favourite gym classes of the week, have lunch and catch up with the internet or Project Runway if some kind soul has posted it on You Tube and then sew. (I saw the finale today, personally I am so happy that Christian won although all of the finalists showed great work. Whether you love him or hate him, the talent is undeniable - America's next top designer? - maybe, he's reminiscent of McQueen or Galliano in my completely unqualified opinion).

Anyway so I have been sewing for the past few hours, working on the jacket that seems to be taking forever to finish. I just have to topstitch one lapel and the collar stand and have run out of topstitching thread. Aaarrgh! I bought 2 reels of it so you can see how much topstitching there is on the jacket and how many sections I have ripped out because I wasn't happy with them. The place I need to go to get more thread is very near my office and there's no way I'm heading over there on my day off! I am really happy with the jacket so far though so bear with me for a few more days!

So I started to cut the fabric for this jacket - my BWOF sewalong project for the February issue. I must be crazy to be making another jacket, but that's what I committed to do and if I start changing my plans now I will end up dreaming and not actually sewing anything. Besides, I love jackets.
The fabric has a pattern which needs a bit of matching where I can so I am cutting on a single layer. I panicked a bit when I lifted one of the cut pieces and thought I had cut it double layer by mistake. What is this stuff? It seems to be two layers of very lightweight fabric with loose threads in between which are just caught in places to create the floral pattern.   I can see my sewing room is going to be such a mess!

I'm also pondering how to finish the inside of the jacket, it's unlined, but I really want to add interfacing to parts of it so I will probably add a lining myself.

My Butterick patterns also arrived yesterday to add to the ever growing pile of things I'd like to make someday. I need to rewatch some of those Project Runway episodes and learn how to sew as fast as Christian!

Vogue 2973 Jacket - getting there...

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has left comments or read my blog. I feel very honoured and the motivation it gives me is a surprising benefit of keeping a blog.

Vicki asked about how to shorten the zippers - it's done from the top end and Vogue even includes directions on how to do it. Basically you just mark where you want the zipper to end, pull out a section of the metal teeth above it with pliers, cut off the excess above that (no need to pull out all the teeth to the top of the zipper) and then secure the end with some little metal stops - or you could I guess sew it straight in the jacket enclosing the top of the zip tape in the seam allowance. Hope that makes sense, since I got someone else to do this part for me I don't have any pictures I'm afraid.

I didn't have as much time as I had hoped to sew this weekend so I still have some work left to do on the jacket, but it is getting there. I'm going to be busy the next few days so I wanted to document a few construction details now while it's still fresh in my mind. This is where I am at;

I still need to attach the collar and topstitch it and the lapels (scary!)
Add shoulderpads
Attach the lining at the jacket and sleeve hems
Fix the jacket hem in the zipper area - it's not even at the moment

And this is how it currently looks on the dressform. The lapels seem to have got bigger despite being a seam allowance smaller! I hope they won't flap around too much when I'm wearing it.




I usually use a Vogue size 12 for tops and jackets and add an FBA. However the finished measurements printed on the pattern for a size 12 indicated that there was around 6 inches of ease in the bust, and very little in the waist. This seems kind of odd so I decided to omit the FBA. As it turns out it fits great straight out of the envelope. So if you normally do an FBA you may find you can skip it and if you are small busted you may find an adjustment is needed. Maybe the smaller sizes have different amounts of ease built in? It's probably best to try a quick muslin, like I did not!

The pattern is rated as advanced. It's actually not that difficult. Time consuming, with all the pattern pieces and topstitching, but technically anyone who has made a shirt or jacket and can put in a zip can make this jacket. Maybe the pants are tricky? I did at several points question my sanity in choosing to topstitch black denim with white thread. I feel like every little wobble in my topstitching is screaming out at me, definitely need some more practice at that. My denim is quite thick which made it difficult to feed evenly. You definitely would not want to make a pair of jeans out of this stuff!

It seems a bit strange to line a denim jacket but because there are a lot of both vertical and horizontal seams I think this is the easiest way.

The pattern seems to be well drafted, everything matches up well, there isn't a huge amount of ease in the sleeve cap and I really like the separate hem facing treatment. The instructions are pretty good too.

Hopefully I will have a finished jacket soon, stay tuned!

Vogue 2973 Jacket Update

I was going to write a post midweek called "Zipping Along", but that never happened because 1) it's a bit of a corny title and 2) suddenly I wasn't zipping along at all.

It started off well. I popped to a local market stall on the offchance that they would have the metal zippers I needed for this jacket. I had resigned myself to a trip further afield which meant everything would be on hold till the weekend (I'll do a post on this one day but Sham Shui Po in HK is a sewing and craft paradise with entire shops devoted to zips or beads etc...). Anyway not only did the local stall have the zips I needed but the stallholder shortened them for me in about 30 seconds. I figured it would have taken me at least 30 minutes to find some pliers and because she could get 2 short zips out of one long one it was cheaper too - only a few HK dollars, but I'd have happily paid more! Fantastic service!

So I could crack on with the jacket during the week and made good progress until it came to the topstitching on the front. For some reason I just could not get it the way I wanted it and it was driving me crazy. On the 3rd attempt and 2nd evening I finally got there and then I was indeed zipping along.

Now I have a jacket, collar, sleeves and lining/facing and they just need to be assembled together. Ironically I have found that my sleeve zippers are too long so I still need to shorten them. I really did have to spend some time looking for pliers after all and got distracted in the process which turned into a tidying session. It turns out the pliers are stored on the husband's flying fifteen boat at the moment so I think I may just take the sleeves to my trusty market stall tomorrow morning and ask her to fix them.

Anyway, enough of all this waffle, lets see some pictures.

Front view


Side view


Sleeves with those pesky zips to adjust

Next projects - Vogue Montana jacket and BWOF 02/2008

I almost bought this pattern in the latest Vogue patterns $6.99 sale.  I'm glad that I didn't because when I had a bit of a tidy up I discovered that I already had it!  So I figured I must really like it and I had better make it before I try and buy it again.  I have some black denim in my stash for it so it will be easy to match zippers.  I may add some contrasting topstitching to highlight the interesting seamlines - I'll experiment and see.  I don't bother tracing off these patterns so I'm about to start cutting it - there are 24 pieces for the jacket - yikes!  This may not be a quick project!

So to keep my interest up I'll also have a couple of other things on the go from the latest BWOF issue - Feb 08.  I want to make jacket 115 below, but I don't have the right fabric so I feel a little shopping trip coming on this weekend, which may of course end up changing all my plans!

I still want to make the sleeveless tie neck top and have this cut in a remnant of silk.  However this is on hold because 1) my machine won't sew the silk - I think I just need a smaller needle and 2) I'm completely foxed by the instructions at the moment, maybe they'll sink in after percolating on them for a bit.

I'm also thinking about a jersey top for a quick sewing fix.  Toya's fabulous New Look top reminded me that I also have this pattern lurking in my cupboard, maybe time to make it up.

Well enough waffle, I have 24 jacket pieces to cut out before my enthusiasm disappears!