Twintime

Note styling differences: slacks vs. dress, bright vs. dark, sleeve length, open vs. buttoned, accessories. . .

Note what is the same: length of jacket! hair cut! glasses!

Jacket with Red Dress

I made a red wool gabardine dress to go with the jacket. (S3673, a vintage pattern, TNT).

Finished First, Posted Last!

I finished the jacket several weeks ago, but wanted to give Maggie a chance to get hers done before I posted. Here is the completed shell, with precious little hand-stitching. I have an inflamed tendon sheath in my thumb (tenosynovitis), so hand stitching is much less enjoyable for me than it is for Maggie. Truth be told, she has always done much better than me at precision work of any kind . . .I'm such a slacker !

Details

I enjoy hand-sewing, so I made time for the details. The cuffs have working buttonholes, so I lined the vent (top). This was not an easy task, since I didn't do it until after I had set in the sleeve.

The handworked buttonholes were incredibly time consuming but satisfying. It will take me another project or two to get the hang of it, but I'm slowly but surely learning how to keep them from looking like little caterpillars--i.e., too wide and too dense.

I bought the chain for this project several years ago. Because the jacket is underlined and interfaced, I wasn't sure it needed the chain's weight to hang well. But I like the sparkle, and it really does make a difference in the jacket's wearability.

Finished!

I got a sneak peak at Mary's jacket last month. Her crochet trim is simply fabulous, and it made my idea for trim look cheap by comparison. The other big problem was that I couldn't imagine being able to dress my jacket down. It was going to be mostly a dress-up kind of jacket, for which I have little use. This baby's gotta go with jeans!

Finally, a photo of a fringed Chanel jacket in this month's Harpers Bazaar made me rethink my aversion to fringe. After a couple of experiments, I settled on controlled craziness. A one-quarter-inch black petersham ribbon defines the front and pocket edges, while the fringe is made from a 1 1/2 inch wide bias strip that's been gathered in the center and then folded in half. No fringe on the cuff edges--it ruined the lean line, and I could just imagine getting it filled with chalk dust.

Muslin Take 2

If at first you don't succeed. . . I recut the bodice after making an fba and reshaping the neckline by lowering and widening it just one-half inch. Voila! The shape is back. The shoulder pads are too thick--that's an easy fix. The photos make it pretty obvious that the 2-pocket option is the way to go.

Maggie's Muslin Misery

The muslin is mildly discouraging. It fits perfectly--except in the bust. I need to adjust for only one cup size, but my first attempt ruined the very slight hourglass shaping and left me with a perfectly boxy, ugly rectangle, not to mention other wrinkles and gaps. Sigh.

Even if I could get the fit right, the muslin calls attention to more important design issues. The biggest problem? The jacket's jewel neckline doesn't do anything for me. I'm going to try making the neckline slightly more of an oval framing the collarbone. Still, I wonder if that's enough. Mary's choice of a v-neckline may be the best way to break up the strong horizontal lines of the fabric.

The other design question: can my short torso handle four welt pockets, or would it be more flattering to have just two?

Taking the time to assess the fit and design at the muslin stage is luxury I may not be able to afford. I may rue the day I mocked Mary's TNT!