'Casually Elegant' Jacket

I mentioned, after Margy visited, that I identified a little hole in my wardrobe. I needed a jacket or two that I could wear when out and about that would be a notch nicer than my usual garb. Sort of "ladies who lunch", Shams style.

Almost immediately after Margy returned home, I made this lightweight jacket. I wanted a simple shape and detailing, similar to Babette's beautiful pieces. I started with an OOP Adri pattern - Vogue 2148.

I traced off the short jacket, but chopped off the collar to make it a v-neck. I decided to make it somewhat fitted. I added an FBA, and used 4 darts and 2 tucks to skim the body - there is a small dart in the armsyce, a larger dart in the side seam, and a tuck under the bust. I extended the front by 2" beyond CF. I'm not completely sure how I feel about this - it may add visual width. For the closure I used three giant black snaps.

The fabric is a fabulous reversible brocade from Emma One Sock. It just disappeared from her website after being on sale forever, though I bought it at full price. It is incredibly lightweight and has a very nice selvedge. I wanted to keep the jacket simple, so I finished the front, hem and sleeves with the selvedge. Instead of facings, I encased the edges in a narrow band, attached by hand. I wanted to avoid top-stitching on this piece.

Worn closed. The "ripple" on the right is actually the tuck under the bust.


Ha ha! I love these harem pants, the Shaza (named for me) by Style Arc! (Shaza is my Klingon name.)

Right side. Because of all the shaping, it's a little hard to get a good hangar shot. This would look better on a dressform.

The inside. Eek, I almost like this side better. You can just make out an armscye dart and the bands that finish the outside edges.

Closeup of outside.

Closeup of inside.

Finished armscye.

Finished inside showing snaps, side seam dart, and tuck.

I'm pretty happy with it. I haven't worn it yet, since it is a notch nicer than my usual garb and I haven't had the right event.

Vogue 2148


From Emma One Sock: Just in from a top French mill, this is a wonderful textured jacquard weave brocade with a very smart and stylish woven-in graphic design. The colors are black and silvery medium gray (PANTONE 16-0000 is close). It's a suiting weight with body and a more firm yet malleable drape, fantastic quality, and excellent design. Dress up or down. Perfect for a jacket, suit, fitted skirt or dress, vest, evening coat, etc. Dry cleaning recommended.

My Swedish bound daughter gets on the plane in a few days for her almost-month abroad. I've been encouraging her to internalize a few phrases, such as, "I need 2.5 meters of this, please! And 3 meters of that!" Her reaction to this? "Oh yeah, they are metric!" She tells me that fabric is too expensive and takes up too much luggage space. Humph. She does, by the way, love the sleep mask I made for her. I'm not sure which one she's using, but she sleeps with it every night and says it really helps. (Which reminds me, I used a scrap of this fabric for one of her sleep masks.)

I am almost caught up with blogging. I have one more jacket to blog. This one took awhile to sew, because I did it the hard way. By hand. I don't have pictures yet. It is so cold here today. Seriously, it's stay-inside-by-the-heater cold, but I'll take pics this weekend.

Have a great weekend!