Squares or circles?

A bit overwhelming together, but both the jacket and skirt work well as separates. I had some fun playing in my wardrobe.

Technical Details

Jacket:

Pattern: Burdastyle 03-2012-109

Size: 36-44. I made a 42.

Fabric:

The fashion fabric is a French navy and ivory reversible jacquard polyester cotton blend, from Lucy Giles’ winter fashion range of 2010.

I agonized over which side to use. Ivory is more spring/summer and that’s the season I am heading into.

But I loved the French navy side.

One of my fellow Aussie bloggers, Kazzthespazz says ‘Do what you love and love what you do’. And she adds ‘and put it where people can see it’- very appropriate for a sewing blog!

Thanks Kazz- great advice, French navy it was. I have enough left to make another skirt, or a short sleeveless dress from the reverse.

I interfaced the front, side panels and the facings, the back hem and the sleeve hems.

What a nightmare cutting this out was and matching the pattern! It was a marathon of more than 2 hours. Where was the centre of those circles? Would I line it up just a bit off centre by mistake? All those squares made my eyes hurt.

I’m happy with the pattern matching in the finished garment. The problem I had with knowing where the centre was should be the same for anyone looking at the jacket…. I hope…

Lining: Lincraft Sunsilky lining. It’s 100% polyester, and supposed to be antistatic and breathable. I’ve really liked it when I’ve used it previously as skirt lining

Changes I made:

I made this jacket with long sleeves (like in the full length coat versions of this style 03-2012-110) rather than the three quarter length sleeves.

I added an overlap to the front and buttons, rather than the fringed trim.

I used small raglan shoulder pads. The shoulders and sleeve cap needed filling out. I probably need to make a sloping shoulder adjustment on the next version. I also think there is too much fullness in the sleeve caps. The raglan shoulder pads help, but the next version might get some of the fullness shaved off the sleeve caps.

I didn’t make any of my normal alterations to the fit like a swayback adjustment because this style is a short boxy jacket, and it was the trial garment for the spring boucle jacket.

Given the date, I don’t think the spring boucle jacket will get made this spring.

With the next version I’ll move the bust darts up, or take some length out though the upper bodice. This might be a new adjustment I need to make: I’ve noticed there’s a bit too much length in the upper bodice in this dress too . It can’t be that I have too high a bust point! I am over 45!

Skirt:

The skirt is my standard simple pegged pencil skirt BurdaStyle 04-2010-125 without the flounce, and with a centre back exposed silver zip and walking vent.

Its the same basic pattern as this one and this one.

My pattern matching is ok, but the centre of those circles is not perfectly on my centre back seam.

Arrgh..

An invisible zip would not have drawn the eye so much either…

Do these little errors annoy you with your sewing too?