Friends are great - especially when they make you think about things in a way that you wouldn't normally think.
I saw this pattern in the June, 2007 issue of Burda World of Fashion monthly magazine. Didn't really think much of it, and was more looking for a simple jacket to show off some buttons and use up a piece of neat yellow fabric I got at the local Hancock's that is closing. Burda Magazine comes with about 70 patterns every month which makes it well worth the subscription of $70/annually....here's the link to get a subscription. It looked really cute in the photo in the magazine:
After all it couldn't hurt to try it. Here it's done in a thin searsucket stripe to a great effect. The first thing I noticed after I scanned this was the sleeve header - no wonder I had trouble easing all that fabric into that sleeve......it's supposed to be gathered. Oh well, at least Erma, my teacher, is proud that I was able to get all that in there without any gathers!!!
You know how to get the gathers out of the pattern?....just cut the top of the sleeve head down about 1/2"....just the header of the sleeve, not the sides...if you need me to do that I can do it, and put it in a pdf file.
OK - back to the finishing of the jacket. This jacket does look good - even without the gathered sleeves.
OK here's the inside top of the jacket
You can see that half of the front placket folds back on itself to face the inside, while the other half is under the collar seam.
Then here's the bottom of the inside placket
Hope you can see this well enough to see how it's constructed.
One other note. The original (in the Burda picture) has contrasting top stitching, and I'm thinking that the white would be really special in there.
As a piece de resistance....there's this jewel!!!
It came out great....it might be hard to see, but I did the binding on the sleeves- it really came out great....here's the back
One problem....the zipper was lacking about 3" being long enough for the back, so I lowered it, and put a hook on top....the bottom here looks OK, and I think the top will work fine
The top closes really well, even though there's a space between the top of the zip and the hook. I did put the zipper in by machine. I think it will look better and will last longer. I also released it a little through some of the seams, but not enough to really matter except to feel more comfy.
I'll include the other bias strips and the left over fabric, in case you want to use it as a trim for another shell. The bias strips will need to be trimmed a little - I think they're about 1ΒΌ" wide and might need to be thinner to get through that binding food mechanism!
