Burda 6800--finally!

In late 2014, I decided I really wanted to sew a motorcycle jacket from a chintz fabric that I had recently thrifted.  In early 2015, Burda released this printed pattern AND THEN Joann actually had a Burda pattern sale, so I bought this right away

And then I did nothing with it for nearly five years


I know the first hold-up was that it was a Burda pattern, and all I knew about Burda patterns was that people generally found them to be difficult, no matter what the skill rating...so...this one being rated as Advanced was not encouraging.

Also, honestly, I wasn't keen on the wide lapels, either.  And, on top of that, there was the whole prospect of cutting out the tissue pieces, which is something I do not like to do.  It's just so...awkward.  (my original plans included tracing off every piece onto freezer paper, including the mirrored pieces, so I could do pattern matching and yeah no.)

So.  Years passed.  I sewed Burda 9419 for the kiddo.  It was rated Average difficulty, and it wasn't bad at all.  Maybe Advanced wouldn't really be that much harder.  Never mind that I've been sewing seriously for over 25 years and that I have made doll-size motorcycle jackets from my own patterns many times.

Have I mentioned the doll-size moto jackets?

I've made a few for 60cm BJDs

I've made a few for (roughly) Barbie size
 

  

And I've made a few for smaller-than-Barbie size

 (guess I didn't get a picture of the one I made, for a friend's dolls, from an iridescent coated tricot--here it is on that friend's IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/BsCgTAug2zo/ )

Given that every one of these is fully lined and, y'know, Small™, surely it would be, if not easier, then still no harder to make a full-size version?  So I convinced myself, sure, I could make it.

But that still left the issue of the Really Wide Lapels.  Eventually I realized I could make a tuck in the pattern piece, leaving the edge, designed to match up with the zipper in the seam on the other side, the right length.

OK!  That left the issue of cutting out allllll thhhooossseeee pattern pieces.  And that kept me away from the idea of actually making Burda 6800 for a while.  Then the Urge to make moto jackets struck again, so I looked to see what other patterns were available, and a McCall's pattern site sale added some more options

I figured they'd all surely be simpler than the Burda, so maybe I'd make one of them first.

And I did!  Kwik Sew 3764, in early November.  It was a success, inasmuch as it was designed to be boxy and unlined.  I have worn it a lot, but I wanted...more.

I planned a Craft Friday (day after Thanksgiving, but you get together with other crafty friends to exchange unused craft materials, and maybe make things, instead of going out to buy stuff) and hoped I'd be able to cut Burda 6800 out then, but the "exchange unused craft materials" part took the whole time (which was fine!)

Finally, a revelation: cutting out pattern tissue is awkward anyway, why not cut it out while sitting in the car waiting in car line?  It took a few days to get it all cut out, but, yay, it was all cut out!

After waiting nearly five years to make this jacket, I had a stack of fabric picked out to use--still have that chintz that inspired the whole idea--but I decided to use something that I didn't have Big Expectations about, so I chose a purplish gray tweed with brightly-colored slubs.  I thrifted it, so I have no idea the fiber content--it definitely has wool (hi, itchy wrists), but the way it reacted to the iron says there's probably something synthetic in there, too.  I decided that I wanted to make the whole jacket from the same fabric, no contrasts, so the yardage requirements were pretty much inapplicable.  I ignored the cutting layouts completely and just cut one piece (on the fold) at a time, and ended up with enough fabric left over that I could probably make a matching hat or purse (but probably won't.)

 I also decided that I would follow all of the directions--no matter that I had the experience of making the doll-size versions.  This was different.  So I started by doing the "blink and you miss it" step of ironing bands of interfacing on all the lower edges

I know this is for stability (because that's what interfacing does), but it led to a light bulb moment: the interfacing would be perfect to keep me from accidentally mixing right and wrong sides!  'cos this tweed doesn't have those, and I kept imagining me accidentally sewing, like, two right sleeves instead of a left and a right.  So.  Nice.

Then the real construction started.  And y'know what?  It was really straightforward and easy.  Loads of steps, yes, but nothing really hard.

I got a bit too confident working around the zipper on the front edge, which is the side with the zipper pull, and: oops

It definitely could have been worse--if the needle had come down a millimeter or so off, it absolutely would have hit the zipper pull itself and broken.

Overall, though, the front zipper wasn't a problem.  The experience with the doll jackets meant that I had no problem remembering that the zipper halves went into different parts of the fronts.  I don't know if I mis-marked where the zipper ends should go, or if I did that correctly but managed to pull the bias edges out of alignment while sewing the zipper, because the zipper ends ended up like this

which I didn't catch until I was doing the top stitching (yeah, I tried to follow the directions, and I got 90% through the jacket before I abandoned them, which is why there's top stitching here.)

It's not obvious when unzipped

and I'm honestly probably never going to wear it zipped, so it's fine.

I also had to steam the left side zipper a whole lot to get it to stop being all ripply, which might support the theory of stretching the bias of those curves while sewing.  The wool content was high enough that steaming definitely helped.


The worst time I had was top stitching around the sleeve zippers, which, for some reason, took me about six tries on the first sleeve before I said 'good enough'...then said 'no not good enough but I'm not doing this all over again, I'm just gonna re-sew some parts and who cares if the stitching is too thick, who's gonna look that close.'

 And it turned out OK in the end, even with the hand-stitching the pattern called for on the insides of the sleeve zippers

And there's the first glimpse of the lining fabric, a probably very vintage rayon/possibly acetate that was in the relative's destash brought by a friend last summer (thanks again!)

Not that the pocket zippers went in perfectly, but they went in "enh, good enough" from the start
 

 

Oh, and, I ordered the zippers and thread, all in Charcoal, from Wawak just for this jacket, as part of the "try to do this right" approach to this project.  "Doing it as instructed" meant I would also include shoulder pads; while I have several salvaged shoulder pads in my supplies, I went ahead and made a quick pair from the lining fabric and some batting

...and I honestly might not have thought about making shoulder pads if I hadn't had the batting out for the quilted shoulder details on the jacket...which are one of the places where I didn't do everything Perfectly Right--I didn't mark the entirety of the stitch placement, I just...clipped a bit into the edges and free-handed the sewing between the matching clips...and then sewed parallel to those stitches

One design decision I disagree with is the way the back seam of the two-part sleeves doesn't line up with either of the back seams

...so...close...

Here's the whole back

Not sure if the ripples are because I didn't press/steam the seams enough, or if it's due to the Big Lining Issue--namely, that the lining was supposed to be long enough to form a small fold at the lower edge, and my lining...was not that long.

See that ironed-in fold line?  That's supposed to be the lowest edge of the lining, with the rest folded under to where it should meet the jacket fabric.  And it was at that point where I said so long to following the instructions exactly and just bagged the lining.  Well..."just."  Since the jacket was almost entirely constructed at that point, I did fabric acrobatics and turned the lining and jacket right-sides-together along the edge, with a few inches on both ends left free to be able to turn things right-side-out at the end.  I considered hand-sewing those ends closed--better than hand-sewing the entire lower edge as directed!--but then I wondered if I could catch  those open ends in top stitching around the bottom edge.  And I did.

The pattern also didn't call for top stitching around the collar, lapels, or front edges, which was, frankly, outrageous, so I did that, too

And here's the whole front!

As a hand-crafted, advanced-level home-sewn project, it's not anywhere near perfect.  As a finished thing I can wear and no-one would look at it and assume that I made it?  It's pretty good.

 

 

Goes well with the dress I made on New Year's Eve!  Which goes well with the curtains I made!  I don't know if I could define my aesthetic, but I think I do have one!

And I do plan to make the chintz moto jacket sometime soon, using Burda 6800, and I already know how I'm going to deviate from the instructions...as long as I remember to check this write-up to see how making this version went...