This post is going to be the sewing equivalent of ‘and here’s one I prepared earlier’. This is the jacket I sewed whilst doing Susan Khalje’s couture sewing school, back in 2018! Eeep – out of the archives and into the daylight! I now have only 40 draft blog posts – many of which are on now-finished items that have never been digitally catalogued…
The pattern is a Marfy – 9814 – from the very first order I placed with them (back in 2012!) through the BMV website, which is where I first discovered Marfy patterns, and became enthralled with them. The pictures I saved from ye-olde-and-now-non-existant BMV website weren’t great resolution – they were tiny thumbtabs you could barely get any kind of detail from, infact – but it’s the only picture I have saved of it – on the left. I did spot that this pattern has been re-released as F6080 in the 2nd Evergreen catalogue – on the right.
A few slight tweaks between them – 6080 now has a button placket and has dropped the flounce on the 3/4 length sleeve. You may recall that I first used this sleeve on my more recent Octopus’ Garden French Jacket made – I ADORE this sleeve!
PATTERN
Here is my muslin prior to starting Susan’s class – At this point in time I typically sewed the size 46, which fitted me really well across the shoulders and upper back, but at this point in time I needed extra space in the bust for more fitted patterns by Marfy. This was no different. Already I was loving the design of the collar, however. I also typically tend to need to add an additional inch of length at the waist (I have a long torso), but was convinced by the other ladies at the couture sewing school to leave it as is this time (I’d be wearing it with a skirt, so it’s far less of a proportional problem in this instance).
Adjustments Susan did end up making were around fitting across my chest – we ended up adding in extra at the side seams, then creating a side front pattern piece from the diamond dart across, to take care of the dead dart emanating from the side seam that needed to be removed. And that was largely it, so I pretty quickly got stuck into the real thing.
FABRIC
At the time I had a massive love affair for this Russian Etsy page – iTessile – which stocked some seriously decadent fabrics. They’ve since dropped off the internet as a commerce casualty following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions. I had fallen hard for the below – a boucle? tweed? Not sure. But the hexagonal woven pattern, the texture and the colours of this cotton/rayon/poly fabric really got under my skin.
After waiting what felt like forever to receive it – I think it was a few months actually – I finally got to feel it IRL. Quite thick fabric – with a little less apricot in the colour than the above picture shows. It sat in my stash until this project came along.
CONSTRUCTION
The jacket has been sewn with your standard couture techniques – silk organza underlining and thread tracing, before being basted and sewn together. It’s for the most part very ‘French Jacket’ in its construction.
One of my favourite things about Chanel’s iconic cardigan jacket is how they take advantage of the boucle’s workability and talent at absorbing hidden seams to get really rounded sleeve caps – so that the armscye seam appears to head directly vertical up from the armpit:
Which is of course achieved with a dart – duly incorporated on my sleeve:
It’s a feature I can always see myself including when working with fabrics like this, I just love the visual.
This was a ridiculously simple sew really – no fiddly collar pieces or lapels – made even more so by very pliable and forgiving fabric. The one tricky part was using the same hooks and eyes used to sew the connections on my French Jacket – obtained from Buttonmania in chrome (also available in black and gold, I believe):
I did this by marking out their locations, then sewing the jacket facing on with my machine – stopping and starting each side of the desired hook/eye location, leaving just enough space to push one through to the other side – securing in place with hand stitched to the seam allowances (and catching the organza underlining of the front jacket piece, for extra stability.
There was a lot of clapper use in the making of this jacket, due to the bulk of the fabric.
At this stage, when I was trying the constructed shell on, someone in the class threw out a flippant comment that they thought it was very ‘wedding-y’ (I don’t believe it was meant in a flattering way) – which actually really threw me – especially as I was planning for this to be a work jacket! I do still think this would look good with jeans and white shirt, and if it fit me now, this is how I would wear it.
Naturally one never actually finishes a couture garment in a week long class, so this ended up languishing around unfinished for a number of years – I started a new job in 2018 that ended up being all-in and quite demanding, and then I was pregnant in 2019, and then it was covid and some hefty post natal depression…And here we are, 7 years later, finishing a garment I love the feel and colours of, but will likely never wear because goodness was I ever actually that small? ha!
For the lining, I had struggled to find a matching peachy/apricot coloured charmeuse – with Tatyana coming to the rescue back during the class with some ‘mushroom’ coloured silk satin that she had in stock, which was perfect and of course I bought it. It was only recently that I sewed in the lining by hand – probably my favourite part of sewing jackets like this:
It was actually moving house late last year that got me re-acquainted with this WIP and I was inspired to finish it.
Well here we are – it’s beautiful, it’s finished, and I’m well pleased with the work. And thanks to an unseasonally cold bout of weather this Christmas – my parents, visiting from Brisbane were caught out with not having enough warm things to wear. So my mum wore this to lunch with friends today, and she will be taking it home for keeps – silly to have it sitting in my cupboard when it can be being worn by someone else! I think it looks fabulous on her despite it being fitted for a close fit for me (we’re structurally very similar) and she’s thrilled at how well it goes with the floral jeans she bought in France recently. She’s wearing it with another make of mine (that’s staying with me) – a Rise turtleneck from Papercut Patterns, which is a wardrobe staple for me in the cooler months.
poppykettle 