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.

The pattern is once again KwikSew 3674

I cut it in size medium, but cut the length at the XS/S line, because this friend is short.  Then, when I looked at my separating zipper assortment, the one I really wanted to use was 2" shorter than the pattern called for, so I cut 2" off of the bottom of the jacket pieces.  This is already an infamously boxy pattern, so I figured making it shorter would work by emphasizing that boxiness.  

(this is also one of the few images in this post that has not had the color tone of the thrifted/vintage/textured/synthetic/double knit fabric warmed up considerably in an effort to capture the actual color.)
 

I even considered adding shoulder pads to make it even boxier, but I suddenly felt too lazy to cover the pads I had with bright green lining  fabric so they wouldn't show through the shell fabric.

Considering the fact that I had already decided to create a lining for this pattern, and had my heart set on dark purple, which also needed that layer of bright green to keep it from showing through the shell fabric, it really was laziness that kept me from covering the shoulder pads.

Thinking about it now, though, shoulder pads might have made the whole thing a bit overwhelming on my very short friend. 

I cut the lining pieces, both layers at once, using the shell pieces as patterns after I had cut off the bottom two inches.

(my beginner resin project pattern weights: in action)

I didn't have enough of the purple to do the sleeves, but I don't think that's an issue

The purple lining fabric is, as a lining fabric, just a bit sheer, so  there's some fun moiré patterns going on with the bright green lining showing through.

I picked out the buttons late in the process, as usual, and was happy to find in the stash these gifted vintage buttons that are in the right family of yellows

The pocket zippers are a paler yellow, but they're far enough from the main zipper and button that it's not too obvious.

One of these zippers had been salvaged from another project, and was cut just a bit shorter than I would have, so that's why there's the bit of open area at the pocket zipper tops.

I have washed and dried this, to make sure the short end was sewn securely enough to survive being laundered, and that also removed the tailor's chalk marks visible here, plus a few vintage fabric smudges that I couldn't cut around or brush out.  I hadn't prewashed it because I was so eager to get started.  Everything came out fine, though!

I did a single line of stitching around the zippers, waistband top, and where the facings met the lining, and two lines at the shoulders, front vertical seams, and the collar and lapels.

The yellow green thread matches the mostly-unseen green lining fabric pretty well, for whatever that's worth.  I felt like it worked for top stitching on the shell because its yellow tones echo the zipper/button at least a little.

This jacket is completely constructed before adding the waist band, so it was easy enough to sew the sleeves to the lining and turn everything right-side-out through the open bottom edge before adding the waistband.  That does mean there's no edge stitching where the lining meets the cuff, and I'm trying to remind myself that's normal.  Still.  You probably know how much I want to edge stitch everything.

I prepared the waistband by applying the interfacing--making sure to find the right heat level to fuse but not melt anything--pressing it in half lengthwise, then pressing under the top of the front.  The waistband is slightly asymmetrical, so I did have to take a moment to figure out which side was the front.  I then sewed the waistband to the inside, pressed it flat, dealt with the ends, then pinned the front down and edge stitched it in place.

I ran out of bobbin thread on the back, but I just reloaded the bobbin and back tacked over the end of the stitching to start again, unlike when I'd run out of bobbin thread earlier when sewing the non-zipper vertical seam and decided that was too visible and so picked out that stitching and started over again.

The back tacking mostly sinks into the spongy synthetic double knit

I also omitted the center back seam this pattern has.  I had thought for a while that I would make a big back appliqué, but decided to check my hubris.  I'm not a fan of the pattern's center back seam because I feel like most moto jackets have more going on back there than one single seam.  But. I actually do like the look of no seam at all.  'One seam' feels like it's not making enough effort, while 'no seam' is so innocuous that it doesn't remind you of what could have been.  Or something like that.

I also omitted the wrist zippers, due to not having any more approximately-correct yellow zippers, and also due to wanting to add lining while avoiding the hand stitching that Burda 6800 calls for with its lining-at-wrist-zippers construction.  Maybe someday I'll use the other lined-with-wrist-zippers moto jacket pattern I have and find a different lined sleeve wrist zipper technique.

I'm going to wait to hit the Publish button until after I've given this to my friend. This was written over a month ago and I still haven't given it to the friend, but I did show her a preview image this morning, so I feel free to publish this now!