This project has to be one of my fastest to go from 'on the bolt in the shop' to 'finished item'. I bought the fabric on 14 Aug 2018 and sewed it up over the bank holiday weekend. Under a month isn't bad!
The Pattern: Burdastyle 12/2012 #139 Hooded Sports Jacket
This is the Hooded Sports Jacket from Burda 12/2012. I've used quite a lot of patterns from that issue and I've been coveting this one for quite some time. This is just a really good issue for jackets, the photos are all fun and fresh, but the style lines for the patterns are very similar to many core RTW styles. The gold dress on the cover may be showstopper but the other patterns absolutely make this issue.I made a few adjustments to help both style and fit:
- Lengthen the hem by 1"
- Cut the sleeves to a regular length. The pattern has extra-long sleeves which are folded up to form long cuffs.
- Add a zip shield
- Take a wedge from the hood. The original is huge, and this one is still too big really.
- Convert pockets to zippered inseam pockets
The Fabric
During the Edinburgh Fringe I took a stroll to Remnant Kings over at Bonnington Road. I wandered all around the top floor and saw soft shell fabric in the flesh for the first time ever. Cue the pounding chest and sweaty palms. There were 2 gorgeoups plain colourways (navy/red, grey/green) and 2 patterned ones. Patterened soft shell! What magic!
The 2 patterned fabrics were extra large blotchy dots: one in navy/peach and one in a series of icy blues. Oh, I was in love with all 4 bolts. I spent a good long time pacing up and down the shop imagining all of the possibilities. Yes, the plain fabrics were racier, more svelte, elite. The prints would be great for kids. They just looked like snowballs, trailled by dust as they fly through the sky; raindrops that hang on your window; romantic pre-Christmas sleet; moons hanging in a frosty sky; fizzing bath bombs; blurry watercolours on a brand new canvas. I couldn't leave them behind.
And of course, we all know who fires snowballs.
I reasoned and argued with myself and eventually walked away with something completely alien to my normal colourway. It was beautiul, but was it right? I showed up to my theatre shift giddy and distracted. What had I done?
The Construction
The fabric may be fairly waterproof, but the construction was definitely not idiot-proof.
After we got back home I rooted through my notions and tried to push the blues and greys theme as far as it would go. I found the reflective tape B got me as a gift, and decided to incorporate it into the jacket (road safety, you know). Sewing the reflective tape was very challenging as I wanted to sew some sort of reflective flat piping into each seam, but the needle did not like it at all. So I had to rethink. The answer was a mock flat fell seam where the tape is captured between 2 garment layers, folded to one side and then top-stitched (and trimmed). This caused issues as it had to be symmetrical and I kept stitching it incorrectly (i.e. the tape folds to the wrong side), but I eventually got through it. I chickened out on using reflective tape for the jacket's pockets. It looks fine.
For reasons I can't explain, I poured a lot of effort into pattern matching this fabric when I was cutting out. It seemed important at the time, though I'm not sure why. Naturally, because of the shape of the princess seams, there's usually one key snowball which matches and then the others are a bit off. I really love spotting the matching snowballs. Especially the ones over the pocket openings.
The cutting was broadly successful but some of it went to waste when I screwed up the seaming and had to cut the seams out (unpicking leaves holes). It still turned out pretty nicely.
I used variegated thread for a lot of the topstitching. It was in my stash already, andoverall one of the best colour matches for the fabric. It's a very difficult blue to colour match, and it's very easy to fall back on the grey tones, so I was constantly trying to balance that out. Luckily the fabric doesn't fray so they grey overlocking was minimal.
A quick few notes about the centre front. The zip is a lot chunkier than I would have liked but the pattern calls for a really odd length of separating zipper. The closest thing I could find in a shop was this one, so in it went. I sewed the knit binding (from my Japan trip) and the zip all in one go fron the hem of one side, all the way around the hood, to the hem on the other side. Boy, that was h*cking stressful!
This jacket is supposed to be my new throw-on bundle up jacket. I wear it nearly everyday, it stuffs down nice and small, and the zippered pockets make everything so secure. It's good and waterproof, fairly windproof and great for layering. I expected to be wearing a different coat over winter, but this one had surprisingly stood up to every element thrown at it so far. It is so much easier to bundle extra layers under this jacket (including hat + scarf) than it is to switch to a bigger coat. I am genuinely surprised.
I'm hoping I can get at least 1 year of wear from this jacket. It is being worked very hard.
Bye
