Spider Bomber

So, a few months ago, I had a dream that lace bomber jackets were The Big Thing, and, in that dream, I had to be different and make one from one of the spiderweb laces I have.  I woke up and thought that seemed like an interesting idea, and furthermore decided that, since (at that time) the only other bomber jacket I'd made had used a foiled synthetic Halloween novelty fabric, I should use the foiled synthetic mock lace net Halloween novelty fabric that was in my stash.  (I also dd a search on "lace bomber jacket" and discovered that they were indeed A Thing, just not A Big Thing.  I'll call my dream idea 'convergent fashion evolution.')

I filed the idea into the "someday I'll sew it" realm and then kinda forgot about it.  Then a friend's birthday came along and I decided I wanted to sew something for them, but what?  What should I sew for my friend...the friend who loves Halloween...the friend with the big tarantula tattoo...hmmm...  Well.  As obvious as it seems now, it took a while to let the thoughts percolate past the initial "sew doll things!" default.

And I'm glad I did.


For size reasons, I didn't want to use New Look 6120 again.  Digging through my pattern stash found one of the keepers from the big bag o'patterns I thrifted last summer: Stretch & Sew 1027 "bomber and fringed jacket" from 1990, and, hoo does the envelope art verify that date.

But the timelessness of the bomber/baseball jacket/varsity jacket shines through, right?

Of course I made changes from the start, tracing off the appropriate size and altering the center front to remove the facings and allow for a zipper, which also necessitated shortening the overall length to work with the zipper I had (which was one of the random jacket zipper purchases from Wawak, once upon a time--again, not sponsored, I just like 'em.)  Besides, I prefer the look of a shorter bomber jacket.  And...the person for whom I was making this is a shorter sort of person...

This is the first Stretch & Sew I've ever used, and it went together with absolutely no problems.  (Oh, and, I also ignored the non-ribbing bits on the waist band and just made the ribbing--which, along with the cuffs, is cut by provided dimensions, instead of a pattern piece--a bit longer.)  I've pretty much decided you can tell the quality of a pattern's draftsmanship by how well the sleeves fit the armscyes, and these fit beautifully.



So.

Shiny!  Sheer!  Spidery!

 Did I mention sheer?

 And shiny?

 And oh yes it has pockets.  I hesitated, because I wasn't sure if different the layers would make the sides look odd.  But...pockets are important.  And, even if this pattern hadn't directed to sew a pocket to the front at the opening and flip it to the inside as lining before attaching the pocket proper, I would have done that anyway because I liked how it worked on the patchwork bomber jacket.

You can also see that I used the thermal knit again--I do have black ribbing, I just really like the waffle texture.

This is the back--you can see that I left the full 5/8" seam allowances on the cuffs, as I did on the waistband, but every other seam allowance got topstitched twice and then the excess trimmed close.  I probably could have done french seams on the sides, but I don't have a lot of experience with french seams, so making them on a gift rendered in synthetic knit did not seem like a good idea.

Unzipped!  I grinned a lot when this was finished--as usual, it didn't seem like an entirely good idea until then...and there's always the possibility I could be projecting way too much of my tastes onto my friends and be making things that they'll just think is...weird...

I gave this to the friend last Friday and when they unwrapped it there was a chorus of  "Oh my gosh!" from them and the other visiting friend, and they posted a picture of themself wearing it today, so I guess it was a good idea after all.