A friend helped with some things this week--I had already baked something as Thanks, but, yesterday, I decided I wanted to make something more. And I wanted to use the grommet press to install some spring snaps. Because that's not something that just anyone has the equipment to do.
Initially I thought it would be a simple bag, so I looked through my fabric for something that seemed suitable for this friend, and this caught my eye
This friend likes bright colors (I made this jacket as thanks for them for something else), roller skating (which...close...), reptiles, and tackiness. Someone sent me this fabric a few years ago, and I've been hanging onto it because...well. Look at it.
What isn't apparent in this photo is that it's essentially a border print, with the print radiating from a packed geometric stripe at the center fold to the selvedges...and that's why I thought that maybe it wouldn't be so great for a bag after all, because there is a slight natural crosswise stretch of the woven cotton due to the weft yarns being weaker than the warp yarns, and that would also mean the weaker direction of the fabric would be the load-bearing direction in a bag.
At that point, though, I really wanted to use this fabric for this Friend Thanks project (I had considered, for years, using it for something for the kiddo, but his Ironic Humor Standards change so often that even if he liked it when I made it, he might not care about it a week later just because it's no longer the right kind of funny.) As the title of this post indicates, I decided to make a bomber jacket.
There was just enough fabric.
I'm pretty sure this print was intended to make the kind of long loud shorts, popular in the late 1980s, that we called jams back then. (they were not actual Jams-brand shorts.) Having that idea in mind made it hard for me to think of something else to make from this fabric, especially since the need to cut it cross grain meant it would drape and stretch weirdly. But! A roomy jacket should work with the cross grain stretch, right? Eh, that thought was enough for me, so I started cutting. I was ready to sew by 7pm and finished crimping the last snap parts together at about quarter after 9.
And I do love having the ability to apply this kind of snap so easily with the grommet press. I am restraining myself from ordering so so many more dies for the grommet press, so I could squish so so many more little metal bits into my projects.
I used Stretch & Sew 1027 for this--well, a modified traced version of Stretch & Sew 1027, that I had created for...another thing sewn for this friend. That version was modified to close with a zipper, so the front pieces only extended a seam allowance width past the center front. I eyeballed extending the front center another seam allowance width when cutting the front pieces. The amount of fabric left after cutting everything out--which wasn't much--determined how I approached the facings, ending up with narrow strips of fabric, interfaced, with the outer edge serged, then the serging pressed under and stitched.
I sewed the neckband before applying the facings, so I could encase the inner edges of the neckband seam allowance in the casings. Then I top stitched the opening edges and all around the neck band, to keep the neck band seam allowances in place.
And, yeah, the print motif repeats obviously on each side of the opening. I was working with a very limited amount of fabric. It's significantly less obvious when unsnapped.
I didn't have enough fabric to eke out the pocket bags, so I cut those from a solid black cotton/maybe poly blend (which I've also used for a lot of bias tape.)
and, yeah, I left the white thread in the serger. It's fine. I remembered to serge the curved pocket bag edges before stitching them down this time, for once!
The pattern gives dimensions to cut the ribbing for the waist and cuffs, but I just sorta folded the fabric in half and stretched it along the cut edges of the appropriate parts to figure out what length to make them. I eyeballed the width, too. I was in too much of a hurry to measure.
This pattern's sleeves are well drafted and go into the armscye without too much trouble--the fact everything was cut cross grain may have been what made things seem like they weren't going to ease in properly, but there were no problems when I actually stitched everything. As usual, the fit was good enough that I didn't have to press the sleeve seam after sewing to get it to be smooth. (Early experience with patterns instructing the use of steam to 'shrink out fullness' on sleeve seams made an impression on me, and not necessarily a positive impression.)
I honestly probably could have shortened the sleeves from the top to get the contrast area on the sleeves to align with the contrast areas on the shoulders, but...enh. It's so busy I doubt people will look at it and scoff. As it is, the sleeves and the body of the jacket are both the maximum length allowed by the fabric.
I presented this to the friend today, and the reaction was the kind of cackling I had hoped for.
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