Vogue 8756: The Finished Jacket

Whew, busy week between finishing the jacket before Elaine's conference, teaching classes, and other odds and ends. At one point my sewing room looked like this:

I think I've got it together again for the most part (or at least my sewing room is in much better shape!), and now I get to show off Elaine's finished jacket and the bracelet that I got in return.

Some details before I get into construction. Elaine is 5'2", so I knew from the get go that I would need to do some alterations to make this work for her frame. I'm actually surprised at how little I had to do ultimately. The fabric she chose was a magenta wool crepe that we found at The Textile Discount Outlet in Chicago.

Vogue 8756 is a generally simple pattern. It's a good pattern if you want to showcase some lovely fabric, as the main feature is the draped front pieces. The recommended fabrics are synthetic suede, lightweight denim, linen or lightweight wool flannel. The pattern also comes with a simple pair of pants.

When I started working with the wool, I decided it was too thin/drapey for this project. So I underlined all of the pieces with cotton batiste in order to give them more body and to stop the fabric from wrinkling too easily. The jacket is lined with a stretch charmeuse I picked up at a thrift store a couple of years ago for $2/yard.

You can read about the first fitting here. The biggest problem area was the shoulder/armscye area and I referred to Palmer & Pletsch's Fit for Real People for most of my adjustments here. Ultimately, I made the following changes:

• Cut one size smaller than Elaine's measurements based on the pattern v. finished garment measurements
• Turned the back darts into princess seams as I needed to get a better fit in back.
• Adjusted for narrow shoulders (about 1/2")
• Took up entire shoulder seam about 1/2"
• Raised underarm 1/2" (and adjusted sleeve to match)
• Shortened sleeves by 2.5 inches
• Shortened jacket length by 1 inch
• Shortened draped pieces by 2.5 inches.

I'm not sure how well you can see these, but here are the changes on the pattern pieces. I've laid the altered version on top of the original. The red lines correspond to the original lines and the green lines correspond to the changes I made for Elaine:

This took us from A to B: in terms of fit:

First fitting

Second fitting

For the jacket construction I deviated slightly from the instructions based on Fran S's review on PatternReview.com (thank you, Fran!!). If you follow the pattern instructions, your lining will be the exact same length as the sleeves and jacket and would very likely peek out of the hem. So I made the lining 1 inch shorter than the correct length and made the jacket 1 inch longer than the correct length in order so that the main fabric would turn under like this:

I also used tie interfacing to ease the sleeve head before inserting it into the jacket. I attached the main sleeves before attaching the lining, so I turned the jacket the right way out through a hole I left in the jacket facing (I closed this later with a fell stitch).

And then Elaine wore the jacket when she spoke at a conference and rocked the audience with all her magenta, art business knowledge!

And then look what I got in return!

I must say that I feel pretty elegant when I wear this bracelet. It's the nicest piece of jewelry I own next to my wedding ring. As I mentioned in my last post, you can check out Elaine's art and jewelry on her website ElaineLutherArt.com. And since Elaine would like another jacket down the road, I might be able to pick up some matching earrings.

I'm almost finished with my Darla dress so you'll get to see which fabric combo I decided on later this week!