I’ve finally finished the little jacket I made for my Granddaughter. I love the overall look of it, I think it’s super cute, but I’m disappointed that I made stupid errors with the construction (more on that later).
Firstly, I want to talk about this amazing fabric, (which I was very kindly gifted by Minerva as part of their Ambassador programme). It’s a quilted PU stretch knit in a beautiful rose colour which almost looks metallic in the light. It’s so lovely and easy to sew with a microtex needle but one word of caution, it can’t take much heat, so you do need to use a pressing cloth and a clapper (and even then you don’t get a particularly good press). I got over this by top stitching my seams.
The pattern Simplicity 8027, has a really good choice of wardrobe staples from tops to bottoms, including this wonderful biker style jacket and is available in both kids and teenager ranges.
One of the lovely things about sewing is being able to alter a pattern to suit what you want. The jacket instructions were for an unlined jacket with the zip fully exposed. I decided to change this to part enclose the edges of the zip and to fully line it.
This was where my first error occurred. I altered the pattern to accommodate enclosing the zip edges, sewed all the front and side up, only to discover that I’d placed the zip on the left hand side too far over (by about 1/2 inch). Big mistake! …. My needle had left holes where I had sewn and I felt I couldn’t just unpick it and so had to completely re-cut this whole section and start again.
Moving on, I was happy with how this now looked and so started attaching the collar. I thought this had gone well and then progressed onto attaching the lining and top stitching the front facings. It was only after I’d done all this that I realised the collar wasn’t attached correctly, I had only attached it up to the notches and should have attached all of it. This was a major problem because I didn’t have enough fabric left to completely re-cut this section.
I was devastated, but fate was obviously on my side as I was very fortunate to have my lovely friend visit me that day and she kindly unpicked all this section for me (I struggle to do this with my weak hands). She used to be a surgeon and so unpicked as carefully as possible, (far better than I ever could have) and then I was able to correctly reposition the collar. I was however left with some sew holes from my previous attempt. I did manage to hide this a little with new top stitching but this area does look messy compared to how it would have done, if I had only paid proper attention to the instructions.
Overall this has been a real learning experience for me and despite my annoyance at my mistakes I can take solace in the fact that my Granddaughter seems happy with it.
I would definitely recommend this pattern as I think it’s a really great jacket and not particularly difficult. It’s just my lack of concentration that caused my issues, anyone else would probably sail through it, especially if they don’t make any alterations to the pattern other than for fitting.
I would say be careful in your choice of fabric though, as if you’re likely to make mistakes, it’s a shame when you have to unpick and can see needle holes so something to consider if you’re planning to use leather or similar.
(Image Description: There are six images taken in a garden from different angles showing a blonde haired little girl wearing a rose coloured, biker jacket, white tulle skirt and tights with black boots.)
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