Animal Crossed Patchwork Bomber

I have recently started playing Animal Crossing Wild World for the first time, and I have read enough to know that I'll need to interact with someone else who has the game to be able to get the final version of the Nook store.  I have a local friend who had been thinking of starting Wild World for the first time, too, and we'll help each other with that store interaction.  

To thank the friend, I made this

 

 which contains a smattering of licensed Animal Crossing fabric

Most of the fabric was used for this shirt, and the larger remaining pieces...I do believe I gave to the same friend.  The bits of fabric I had left determined what size everything else would be, and, no, I didn't measure. 

The other prints I used were pieces large enough to keep on the large yardage shelves--mostly remnants from other projects--but not large enough, generally, to be suitable for individual projects themselves.  I was happy to put them all together for this, and amused that I had never once before thought of putting any of them together in a single project. 

The fish print is not something I had used before--it was part of the friend's relative's destash in 2019, and had been in the form of a(n obviously home-made) small pillowcase when I got it.  I picked out the stitching years ago, put it in the stash, smiled whenever I saw it, and never seriously considered using it for anything.

It was the first fabric I picked out to coordinate with the Animal Crossing print.

I used Stretch & Sew 1027, which I have mostly used for jackets for this same friend over the years, because the size range is better than my other bomber jacket patterns.  I made this one in the largest size the pattern offers--46" bust--in hopes that it will be roomy enough to fit a lot of layers under.  (I will say, when I tried it on just to see how it hung...I may now want to make a big roomy version for me, too.)

I did shorten it a bit, but left enough length to make the pockets deep enough to be useful.  I sewed the whole thing with white thread, so the pocket top stitching is pretty obvious.

I wasn't sure what I'd use for the cuffs and bands, because my larger pieces of rib knit are pale peach and pale purple.  I thought the purple would be my best option, while still not being very good, before I had the idea that I could, just maybe, eke out enough width from this green synthetic knit if I pieced the waistband.  I thought I'd need to sew three parts together, but it turned out that two was enough, so there's a center back seam on the waistband.

Again, I didn't measure any of this, instead using squares cut for the patchwork as the ends of the band, and that determined the top-to-bottom width of the band.  I stitched a piece of green knit to one side of each square, then laid them out along the bottom to see how they compared to the length of the bottom edge, and gentle stretching was enough to make them fit, so I sewed them together with a half inch seam allowance.

I used the same "whatever the squares are" width to cut the cuffs, making them as wide as possible with the fabric I was working with.  I'm pretty sure this pattern wanted them to be narrower, but with more stretch.  As it is, it was a bit of a fight to get them to stretch enough to fit the entire, very wide sleeve.

What I ended up doing was basting the cuff to the sleeve, then pulling the sleeve out through the unfinished lower edges, and then stitching the lining to the cuffs and shell...and not caring so much if the lining bunched in a few spots.  It didn't do as bad as I was prepared for.

This pattern is not supposed to be lined, but I didn't want to leave all those patchwork seams exposed (even with the potential for serging, which I did not do.)  The lining pieces were cut by using the shell pieces as patterns, to account for variations from the pattern in length.  I reinforced the front edges by pressing under one long edge on two strips of fabric, aligning the raw edges of the strips with the edges of the lining center front, then stitching down at the pressed edge.  I probably should have added interfacing somewhere, but...I did not.

I bagged the lining to the waistband and shell, having left a large area of one lining side seam unstitched so I could turn everything when finished.  I edge stitched that area closed.

I used the sewing gauge to determine where the four part snaps would go (so: still nothing measured) and set those in without issue.  I really like having a grommet press.

Oh, when I sewed the neckband, I did go back and trim a bit of length off of it first, because it was just long enough that it wasn't going to need to be stretched at all, which would have led to it possibly sticking up like a turtleneck.  I had made a copy of the neckband with the seam allowance increased from ¼" to the full 5/8", and I'm glad Past Me did that, but it was for a smaller size, so I added some length at the fold when I cut the green fabric.  I think it might have been fine if I had left it as-is.  Maybe.  It's fine.

Celeste, Cyrus, KK, and half a Blathers on the back.

This took a lot longer to make than it should have, and I had a lot of doubts during the process, but I actively did not let me second-guess any of my original decisions and powered through and...yeah.  It's fun!