A Jacket Revisited

 Years ago, I thrifted Simplicity 6601 from 1974

I thought the long sleeve jacket had a lot of potential, and in late 2013 I used some thrifted polyester fleece to make this

I learned two things from this project:

    • The jacket is not only cute, but extremely easy to make
    • I Do Not Like™ polyester fleece

I don't remember the ultimate fate of the jacket, but I do still have the buttons.

So when a recent visit to the Walmart mill end precut bins found some 60" woven boiled wool (?!--I mean, it obviously has something synthetic blended into it, but...still.) in a '2 yard for $4' bundle (??!!), I couldn't resist buying it, and very quickly realized it would work to make a proper version of that polyester fleece jacket

With the same buttons!

Act My Age

When I turned 40, I had the idea to thrift an Over The Hill t-shirt in a large size, then tailor it to be very close fitting.  I found an appropriate shirt fairly quickly, but decided I'd keep looking for something better.  Then I didn't find any more.

Then I forgot about the project.

For years.

When I remembered, world health was such that I did not want to spend time in thrift stores, so I looked online.  I quickly discovered that classic, straightforward (with 1990s design) Over The Hill shirts aren't super cheap, and modern Over The Hill shirts are more likely to be that verbosely hyperspecific typography in a blender style that I am not the target market for.

Then I started playing around with iron-on letters.  One of the sets of letters, acquired second hand, was obviously two sets of the same style and color, so I figured there were enough letters to spell anything, so I sorted out the needed letters, trimmed them close, and tacked them to graph paper

Crossed Animals

 The reason I made that 'test' shirt was because I wanted to make sure I had the collar modifications right, because I had bought an Animal Crossing print from JoAnn with the intent of making a button up shirt, and I wanted to make sure I had the pattern right before cutting into the *gasp* $8/yard fabric (yes that's the discount price.)

Confident in the pattern mash up, I cut everything out

 And in doing so, I made a huge mistake that I would not discover until construction was under way.

 

Thanks Jacket

 A friend recently gave me something for which I wanted to make an item of Thanks.

I poked through my stash, considered that friend's tastes, and ended up with this

I hope it makes the friend cackle gleefully at its horrible black-light-reactive brightness as much as it makes me cackle gleefully at its horrible black-light-reactive brightness.

A...Test?

 A few months ago, I made a button up shirt that I liked, but wasn't quite what I wanted it to be.  So, I called in some parts from another pattern and things looked promising, but weren't yet what I was hoping for, either.  I traced the further modifications from the collar donor pattern, then...made a bunch of other things.

I recently purchased some fabric from JoAnn--yes, I know, me? buying fabric that isn't random? and that costs more than $2 per yard?  And I want to make it into a button up shirt, but didn't want to jump in with the untested pattern modification on the good fabric (again, I know--me??)  I decided to use some of the "sorted out to give away early 2020, didn't, then sorted again in late 2021, kept some, gave the rest away" fabric and make a...test...version.  (I'm pedantic enough not to use the term 'wearable muslin,' sorry.)

I didn't have enough of the rayon blend to make the entire shirt, but I was able to complete it by using almost all of the rest of the lace left over from the quick Halloween shirt. 

 Using up fabric is always nice.

Like I said

 

Hat

Jacket

Shirt

Shorts

Tights

(I thrifted the shoes 7 years ago, and touched up my hair color the morning of the photo)

Shorts!

 Going to be up-front about this project: like the first newsboy cap I made last year, the idea to make this was heavily influenced by something I choose a lot for my character in Animal Crossing--a pair of dark denim shorts.

I've had this vintage Butterick 4703 for years--not exactly sure how vintage it is, since it's from the era when Butterick patterns didn't include copyright dates anywhere, but I'd say it's from the very early 1980s

I had some denim left over from a pair of pants I made for the kiddo a few years ago--definitely not enough for more pants for anyone, but it turned out to be just enough for these shorts (length determined entirely by the available amount of cloth.)

They're really nothing like the ACNH shorts, but there's a lot in life that's not much like Animal Crossing, so that's fine.

Good Project, Bad Pictures

 KwikSew 3764 again.

But!

This time I traced the size I wanted to use (small for everything but the sleeves, which I traced in extra small.) I also took the opportunity to modify the under collar into two pieces on the bias--honestly mostly so it will be more obvious which part is the under collar than in any attempt to make it a More Proper Under Collar.  And the biggest thing: completely reconfiguring the back from "one sad center back seam" to "upper yoke + center back piece cut on fold + two side back pieces."  There's absolutely no shaping in the seams I created, but, hey--there's some visual interest.

Not that you can make out many details at all in my photos, thanks to the jacket being made from a thick french terry that is very greedy about sharing the photons it collects