Nearly Finished Vogue 8333 Jacket

I still need to work on this jacket a couple more hours, but it looks like I am coming to the finishing line. The outer shell and the lining are sewn together, except of the sleeve and lower hem areas and I need to buy buttons to be able to create suitable buttonholes, but otherwise, it looks like this might end up like a wearable jacket :-). 

This really isn't an easy pattern - it is not terribly difficult to sew up, but it's pretty time consuming. On the other hand, it gives me more self-confidence and trust in my sewing abilities, seeing that I am able to create something elaborate and more complicated than a simple t-shirt :-). 

The interfaced fabric, especially in the pocket area, where sometimes four or even more layers meet, creates quite a lot of bulk, so I hope I'll be able to tame it and get a nice crisp lower hem. 

The one area  I was most afraid to sew was probably the collar and lapel area. Firstly, I don't have experience with this kind of a collar and secondly, I was anxious that I wouldn't be able to get a symmetrical result and ruin all the hours of work with two badly curved lapel sides. Fortunately, I think I managed to do it quite right and have got a decent looking jacket front. Yay :-)! 

                                   

But the battle is not yet won. I will tell you a little secret I have - I have never made a single buttonhole (if I don't take into account that one test buttonhole I made to try out my sewing machine abilities...), so this is going to be the last minefield of this jacket to go through.

See you sewn ;-)!

Mojo Lost, Mojo Found

Once in a while, nearly every blogging sewer writes a post about a missing mojo and no wish to sew whatsoever. Before I started reading blogs about sewing, I didn't even know the word "mojo":-) and from the time I had started to sew, I have never experienced this feeling - no wish to sew, until recently. I had sewing plans, but for some time, I just lost my motivation to sew. I didn't stop reading all the nice blogs about sewing, I kept looking for new sewing patterns and I didn't lose my interest in shopping for fabric, I just couldn't force myself to sew. 

Fortunately, this time is gone and I am back in the saddle :-). The pattern I have chosen to sew up after such a long time without sewing is Vogue 8333 - a jacket with a very nice pocket detail. 

It's not an easy project. Only tracing all the pattern pieces took me about 5 hours, but at this moment, the fabric pieces are beginning to look like a jacket. I am taking my time to do everything very precisely, so that after all the days of work I don't end up with a wadder (although one can never be sure about that...).   

Because I am not a very experienced sewer and the pattern is quite complicated, containing many pattern pieces, I am not doing any major adjustments on the garment (I'll be happy if I finish it without any big mishaps :-D), so I'll have to be satisfied with the fit right out of the envelope. On the other hand, the size 6 looks like a pretty good fit for my figure so far.

There are two sets of instructions in the pattern envelope - one written by Claire Shaeffer and one that I call commercial. I follow the regular instructions, but sometimes help myself with the other set, because sometimes I find the couture instructions easier to understand or simpler to follow. 

Creativity is messy and I am very creative! :-D

This is what the jacket looks so far:

The pocket detail in making:

This was the first time I used a stay tape in a sewing project. Since I had no experience with it, I had no commercial stay tape at home. The book "Professional Sewing Techniques for Designers" from Julie Cole and Sharon Czachor helped me with this a lot and I made my own stay tape. 

... it feels good to sew again :-)...

Thank you to everyone, who took the time to leave a comment on my last (wedding) post and to everyone who is reading or following my blog and haven't lost interest in it during my unplanned inactivity. I really appreciate it.

Have a lovely weekend! :-)