Pastelloween

I realized, partway through sewing this, that the idea for it--even the very buying of the fabric that inspired it--was extremely influenced by PMS.  I'm still not sure if it was a good idea, but it's finished, so here it is.

I'd bought the two-tone neon peach stripe knit from the Walmart "2 yards for $4" precut selection, which I know is not only a shadow of the glory of the long-gone $1/yard mill ends they used to sell, but, also, "more cloth" is something I absolutely do not need.


But...such fun colors!  And what a great price!  And nice fabric...well...um...for something so obviously 100% synthetic...  I am generally not fond of synthetics, and the reasons vary by fabric type.  With knits, it's the inevitable future of pilling and the fact that they're so light weight.  I want heft in my warm clothes.  The PMS convinced me otherwise, and, while that lasted, it seemed like it was going to be such a fun project!

That wave crashed somewhere in the process of sewing on the sleeves.  And, I had meant to sew the jack'o'lantern face higher, but...didn't?

So, the jacket itself is pretty much the straight medium of New Look 6766, which I had used, in modified form, for the recent jacket for the kiddo. Again, I made side seam pockets instead of the kangaroo pocket, and inserted a zipper in the center front seam--this time, I had a zipper that was long enough to use with the pattern as given, just...in a color that I wanted to find a way to make "make sense."  And, while I was thinking about it, I really didn't ever have any inclination to wear neon peach before, and, in fact, the only orange I ever wear is usually Halloween-related, so that's the way I went.  And, since I was bringing in that contrast color, I thought the waistband and cuffs should be a different contrast, eventually adding the hood lining because I thought that color should appear again somewhere and I did not want to deal with trying to make the hood seam allowances look presentable again.

I think the hood lining might weigh more than the rest of the jacket.  No?  OK...

The appliqué might have gone better if I had decided to use wovens instead of knits

 and I know it would have gone better if I had used something other than tear-away stabilizer, which tore away a lot more than it stabilized.

 ...but it's as soft as the rest of the jacket, so I guess that's good.

While we're looking at the inside, I didn't finish a thing

and, yes the top stitching on the pocket intersects the appliqué.  Even though I thought I had applied the appliqué higher, I don't mind the pocket stitching intersection, nor do I mind that that was the one area where the ivory thread in the bobbin was visible.

Top stitching was done with bright blue thread, one of the spools that the friend brought from the relative's destash

 I would liked to have used a heavier thread, but using a thread in just the right color was a higher priority, so here we are.  In this case, "just the right color" meant "to make the zipper make a little more sense, as well as to outline the appliqués with as little contrast as possible.

 I long ago observed that the quality of top stitching seems directly related to the visibility of the top stitching.  Since blue is as contrasty with orange as you can get, I knew this wouldn't be good, especially since I was well into "why am I doing this?" mode by the time I was top stitching the shoulder seams.  The farther away you are, the better they look.

I rolled the contrast lining in the hood--and the pocket edges--out a little bit.  I like the way it looks,  and the heavier periwinkle knit didn't want to fold evenly away from the peach, anyway.

 Obligatory back view

I did consider, briefly, appliquéing something large on the back...and on the right front...and the sleeves...  But, even in the PMS-deluded planning stage, something in my brain still recognized that I really didn't want to put that much work into this project.

I'm going to wait until the weather is cool enough to make wearing this practical before I decide if it, overall, was a good idea or not.

Edit: It is about two months later, and I have been wearing this quite a bit since the weather finally cooled off about a month ago.  It is incredibly annoyingly pilled already.  Sigh.