Another longtime project finished

Back in 2015 (apparently) I started to repurpose a faux suede jacket I'd made and didn't wear.  I decided to try to make it into a the Burda silk motorcycle jacket.  I often like the look of Burda patterns and then regret getting them as I hate tracing and adding seam allowances and then the directions tend not to be as clear as I would like. 

Anyway, 4 years later and I've finished it.  

F insisted that her pom pom pet, Freya, wanted to be in the photos too! 

It's not perfect, but I think I'm more likely to wear it than the boxy jacket it used to be.  The sleeves feel a little tight when I'm putting it on - maybe I should have made the next size up - but I doubt I would have had enough fabric for that looking at the meagre amounts I have left.

I seem to remember quite enjoying looking through my me made clothes and figuring out why I wasn't wearing a particular piece - this jacket slowed me down quite a bit - but I think I should go back to it.  I was wondering about doing Me Made May this year - we're away for about half of May, so I don't think I will, but maybe I could be doing this instead.  Just to note - in the pictures above - the jeans, top and jacket are all made by me.  😊

wear what I make - update

At the end of March I posted about a faux suede jacket I was planning on re purposing....  I thought I would give a bit of an update on progress.

It appears that I do have enough fabric to make the Burda silk motorcycle jacket I had hoped to...

Here are a couple of pictures of where I've got to so far:

I'm not rushing this project - it's quite tricky.  The zip had me stuck for a little while as it needed to be shortened and despite looking up how to do it on the Internet and being persuaded it was easy peasy I couldn't do it and had to get David's brute strength involved.  We did it in the end and it's half way installed.

The collar didn't go on quite right at first...well, the left side was fine, but the right side was too long - I'm not entirely sure what the problem was, but I ended up increasing the front dart that you can see on the picture above.  I'm hoping that was the mistake and occurred due to inaccuracy in my mark transfers or sewing and doesn't come back and bite me later on.

The welt pockets were a bit tricky too - I did a couple of dummy runs on some other fabric first - just as well as the first one didn't work at all.... the welts didn't cover the zip, but I wrote notes and got it figured out and managed to successfully make a pair of zipped welt pockets.

Proof that there's two!  And not too bad....

And a picture of the back - just to be thorough.

The sleeves still aren't cut out - I haven't figured out if I have enough fabric in the original huge boxy sleeves to do the two piece sleeve drafted in this pattern, or if I have to do some redrafted one piece sleeve to use the fabric I have available.  That's something that can wait till after the summer holidays.

The end of the New Year sewing resolution

My New Year's sewing resolution appears to be slowly but surely crumbling.... I was doing pretty well at using my sewing time to get on with my quilt and have managed to make quite a few squares.  But I don't think I can only work on the quilt any more.

I'm being tempted away by 3 projects....

The first one goes back to one of the things I was doing last year, which is going through things that I've made in the past and figuring out why I don't wear them and then what I'm going to do about them.

So, may I introduce a faux suede jacket I made:

Why don't I wear it?  Because I don't like the way it looks... it's too boxy and unflattering.

 The back and side views aren't much better.

In its defence it does look like the picture on the pattern (Butterick 5269).  I made view A, size 10 but with in-seam pockets rather than patch pockets.  I bought the pattern in Glasgow, so that must date this make as being when I was at University in the mid-90s.

So, what's my plan?  I'm going to (mostly) take it apart and try to make a motorcycle jacket instead.  I have the Burda Silk Motorcycle jacket pattern and am hoping I have enough fabric from taking the jacket apart and from the little bit of leftovers I've found to be able to make it.  The pattern's printed out and taped together, the size chosen and ease calculated, so next steps are adding the seam allowance and taking apart the horrible boxy jacket.

The second sewing project I'm being tempted away by is to make a phone belt pocket. I want a way to carry my phone without wearing out the pockets of my jeans and also when I wear something without pockets so I have somewhere to carry it without always needing to take a bag.

 

I've found this pattern which looks interesting, so I'd like to give it a whirl. 

And thirdly I'm planning on entering the Simplicity star sewist blogger challenge.  Looks like fun and you get a free pattern. 

Poor quilt will never get finished at this rate!