Modifications Retard Progress! (Pearly Wannabe Jacket)

The Pearly-Wannabe jacket, I've been blogging about recently, was a challenging project. There as so much I was trying to do. Some ideas worked, some didn't.

I was reminded of a line from a WWII British novel by D. E. Stevenson (Listening Valley). During a card game ( no video games or pre-recorded movies for entertainment in those days folks!), one of the young officers says, "No more mods (modifications). Mods retard progress!"

Of course, I'd created all my mods up front. Looking back on the project I'm guessing I would have been safer just doing button on/off sleeves on my original pattern. My mods definitely got in the way of speedy sewing. But.... well it was a lot of fun imagining the results.

One of the mods I had planned was to bind my hem edge with bias trim made from the flowered home dec fabric. Sounds cute, don't you think?

In practice what happened was that, even when I weighted down the bias trimmed two layers of fleece with leaded drapery cord, I still just ended up with a great, heavy, bunchy hem. But I persevered. I hand stitched. I kept re-laying it out and stitching it again. I made sure things lined up. Then I re-pinned and did it again. I added vents to make it hang better.

And no matter what I did, that hem just looked bunchy, heavy and yucky.

I heard myself saying, Well gee, I've put so much time into getting this hem right. I've got to get this bias trim to work out. And suddenly I remembered a conversation from my very young adulthood.

A work mate was explaining why she was sticking with her lousy boyfriend, Well, see, Jimmy and I have been together for five years.

Yeah, you know what I did then. I unpicked that bias trim and used it to simply turn up the hem behind the bottom edge of the jacket. (I stitched in the heavy drapery cording as well, to make a nice stable hemline)

No bad boyfriend hems in my wardrobe!

Origins - Pearly Wannabe Jacket

Butterick 3573 is out of print
But several web vendors still carry this classic fleece jacket pattern

I had so many ideas when I began working on the red plaid fleece jacket project I titled The Pearly Wannabe.

I'm going to start by telling you more about the pattern I started with - a pattern I made many alterations to, but the basic fit around my shoulders and in the sleeves remained.

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I've been sewing this classic fleece jacket pattern, Butterick 3573 for about  eight years. The first version I made was the one on the far left, that buttons all the way up with no collar. I still have it - green fleece with pretty green leaves machine embroidered run up one side. I faced the inside with tapestry print home dec, and added a pocket out of tapestry print as well. The pocket is just big enough to hold my original iPod which was a new device for me when I first sewed this garment. Alas, my current mobile device is too wide to fit! That was when I still only used one layer of fleece.

Since then I've sewn the jacket several more times. I quickly found that I liked making the jacket front and back out of two layers of fleece, leaving only the sleeves to stand alone in one layer. The jacket takes well to ornamentation and cute buttons. A pocket is always nice, though the original pattern doesn't have that option. I tend to make the jacket a little past the hip, with a simple collar. I don't usually button it all the way up.

I've also converted the pattern into a sports vest. Remember when I talked about that in my podcast? I do that by
a) Lengthening the front and back
b) Angling the front and back out
c) Leaving open vents up the sides to about the length of the jacket length
d) Leaving off the sleeves
e) Creating a seam or fold on the center front and sewing in a separating sports-type/heavy weight zipper

I double the fleece on my sports vests too.

In the next post I'll talk about how I changed the pattern.

El Debut: My Pearly-Wannabe Jacket

Yes, I double-checked 'el debut' really is the Spanish version of the word we often think of as French for 'presentation'

I have been working on this jacket for probably six weeks now. I can't even begin to catalog what went into the creation and imagination of this new adjunct to my wardrobe, though I plan to highlight some of the sewing techniques and items I used in this blog. Several of them were new to me and I plan to use and try them again in less complex projects.

Nor can I say that this garment is absolutely finished. Note the piece of floral binding still hanging down from one of the faux pocket flaps in front. And I keep finding other places I want to add buttons. I don't even dare show you the back! We are not talking a mainstream piece of clothing here, yet it's definitely something I plan to wear in my everyday world.

This Pearly-Wannabe garment (you know about the Pearly's right?) has button on-off sleeves, so that it can live life as either a vest or a jacket. I'm hoping that will make it a useful travel garment.

I'll share more on this creation over time. The base pattern is one I've sewn many times in the past, but altered tremendously for this garment.

After working so long on the Pearly-Wannabe, I'm craving some plain, basic sewing time. I'm already working on a pink flowered shirt (that's where the binding that's going on the faux pocket flap and the lining for the button on/off sleeve wings came from) and have a pair of very simple black linen cropped pants cut out as well.

This jacket, no matter how much she wants to be one, doesn't really qualify as a Pearly. For one thing, all the Pearly clothes I've seen, are solid black, then trimmed with elaborate patterns of buttons. Also the Pearly roles are inherited. And they're British!

What can I say? This gal's a California Pearly!

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For more on Pearly's

http://www.pearlysociety.co.uk/Main%20page.html