Made a coat dress at the beginning of January. Didn't like it...like...intensely. Even if I did address the fit issues, the big problem, for me, was that I did not like how the collar was constructed--unless it's a motorcycle jacket, I like my collar and lapels to be more connected than that.
I do have plans for a patchwork project that uses scraps of the fabric, but I didn't want to turn the whole thing into scraps, because I do like the fabric! And I bought the buttons just for that project, which is something I almost never do (my stash is expansive, except, apparently, for ¾" black buttons.) I let the coat dress hang on the closet door in here while I made the patchwork cat jacket, and considered my options. "Skirt" was quickly considered and abandoned, because I realized I could make it into a jumper!
I'm not sure if I have properly conveyed just how much I like jumpers, because I know I haven't made very many of them over the years, but I do really like them, and have since the 1990s. In fact, I had a copy of the pattern I used for this project--McCall's 7812--in the late '90s, and used it a few times. I remembered it so fondly that I decided to re-acquire a copy a few years ago.
I finally cut the tissue for view A and here we are
The biggest issue was figuring out how to work around the many layers--half of which were interfaced--that formed the front panels. I just felt like having all of those layers come together at the neckline and then get sewn to interfaced facings would end up a bulky mess. I didn't want to mess with the functional buttonholes, so I eventually settled on cutting away most of the facings, but leaving just a bit around the buttonholes.
It's awkward! And kludgy! It's inside! No-one has to know!
There is a touch of awkwardness on the outside, where the edge of the many layers behind the buttonholes meets the neckline, but I think I can fix that by putting the EzyHem inside to make a smooth base, under just the shell layer, and pressing over that. Someday.
Incidentally, you can see that the fabric must have had some faded areas, and the center is not the same color as the sides at the top. It's not a directional thing, because the colors match lower. Given how much I didn't like the previous form of this project, I'm completely Meh on this color mismatch. Honestly, at this point, I pretty much consider this a wearable muslin sample for the jumper pattern. It's fine.
I left the fully faced upper overlap at the bottom, with the facing removed from the bottom. The bottom edge that had been stitched to the facing got turned and stitched, then, after finishing the hem, that entire edge was sewn to the upper overlap facing edge. This is absolutely not something I planned ahead, it just worked out when I started trying to figure out how to handle the way the lower edge opening would continue to exist because if what I did with the buttonhole area.
I was able to sew the front to the facing, and did a blind hem around the rest with the machine (keeping in mind that I still haven't tried to work out the issue my machine has when getting back out of the blind stitch, so I use the Necchi 539's weird feature that can hand-control when the needle zigzags, and I don't do that with accuracy.)
There were a few areas where the previous garment's shapes didn't quite lend themselves to the jumper's pattern requirements. One area along the back princess seams just wasn't wide enough, so I compensated for that by sewing the side seams at ½" instead of 5/8". I did some hopefully innocuous piecing under the arm, too.
Again: all sorts of improvisation going on here, it's fine.
Probably the most egregious was that the purple thread I used didn't really match, and that was most obvious on the lapped zipper stitching.
Could be worse.
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