Completed: Anise Jacket from Colette Patterns

Sorry I haven't been very active on the blog lately, but I've spent some time with my new love; Anise jacket! This is the first jacket I've made in my life and also the first lining of a jacket (obviously) and first bound buttonholes and a lot of other firsts. I am so incredibly pleased with how it turned out!!! This, my friends, is slow fashion at its best!

Pattern review: Love, love, love this pattern! It went together like a dream with really good instructions. It runs a little large though, so after making a muslin I went down one size compared to the pattern suggestions. I also added my usual FBA (full bust adjustment), and it is a little embarrassing  to admit (since I am almost the FBA expert now), I did the bust dart too high... I don't know how that happened. Oh, well.

Love the cropped sleeves! 

Since I am so pleased with the finished result, I decided to add a name tag to prevent it from getting stolen :-) I stamped letters in gold fabric paint onto a piece of cotton. Cute? Cute.

I also decided the jacket was totally worth the flair of real leather buttons as opposed to cheap plastic ones. It does add a certain level of class, I think.

Welt pockets and bound buttonholes turned out beautiful - proud!

Bright ass yellow lining

The jacket has a relaxed fit, despite the tailoring. At first I didn't like it, but now I think it's genius! I can even ride my bike in this without risk of ripping the seams.

Hey, mom - I love your jacket! 

/Alexandra

'Sewing With a Plan' - winter completed, spring starting

In my slow fashion section I post the summary on my SWAP efforts over the year.

The winter period is now up (or actually it was up already before xmas). I had a very ambitious plan for winter - 7 garments of which I had tried non of the patterns before. No real quick projects either. And there was THE PANTS that I feared so much (and still do, to some extent).

The winter plan contained 2 dresses, 2 pants, 2 blouses and 1 jacket. I managed to finish both pants, one dress and exchanged one blouse for another:

The Thurlow #1 was blogged about here, Thurlow #2 here, and here. The bat wing blouse was blogged about here,  and Hazel dress here.

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Now, let's move on to the new plan - the SWAP of spring 2014!

Learning from my overly ambitions planning last time - and realising I'll have even less sewing time at hand during this next period I decided to aim for less. The SWAP states you should do 6 garments every season, so I feel totally rebellious showing a plan of only 4! Ha, ha.

I'll be going back to work soon, after almost a year on maternity leave, so I need to add some smartish outfits my wardrobe. The item I'm most excited about is the Anise jacket from Colette Patterns. I have never sewn a jacket before and I aim to make this one perfect! Gotta put the bar up high, right?

As any observant reader may notice, the fabric chosen for Anise is quite far from the samples I showed the other day (here). The reason is that I finally got around to check how much fabric I needed, which turned out to be a lot! Nearly 3y! So with the Harris Tweed costing a small fortune I chickened out and got some no name wool tweed from Sweden instead. It'll do just fine and has a spring feeling about it, I think. Besides, it is my first jacket and who nows how it'll turn out!


/Alexandra

Anise Jacket - MadMen Style

During the December sales I bought the Anise Jacket pattern from Colette. I like it because it is both stylish and classic but at the same time modern with the short sleeves and cropped design.

https://www.colettepatterns.com/shop/anise

My true inspiration to how I want my Anise to look is a child's wardrobe (yes, it's true!) namely the one of the MadMen character Sally Draper. I know she's like 10y old, but I can't help but love her style...

This is roughly what I am envisioning, although shorter:

Sally Draper, MadMen season 5/episode 12

I like the teddy/faux fur collar, particularly since I am sensitive to itchy wool - and wool tweed is itchy like hell. No way I can have that towards my neck without wearing a scarf.

Anyway... I have now ordered samples of wool tweed fabric from Harris Tweed UK. And now I don't have a clue which one I like more!!! Blue may be more sober and easier to combine, but I am a sucker for bright red too. Help!

Tweed samples.

/Alexandra