Another Motorcycle Jacket...but not...

Although I do have plans for more human-size sewing, honestly?  Right now I've sewn a lot of what I wanted to sew for wearing this summer (pull-over dresses.  several of them.)

And while I don't think I'm going to make posts here about all of the doll clothes I'm making, I will make posts for the more involved items, like the overalls in the last post that were made using (mostly) a pattern intended for human size.

This time, the pattern is from one of the Japanese doll publications with scans currently available on The Internet Archive: Doll Coordinate Recipe Volume 5.  On page 18 is a Momoko doll wearing a motorcycle jacket, and.  Well.  You know me and motorcycle jackets.

The pattern is on page 66, at half scale.  I set the PDF at 100%, screen capped it, and took it into a graphics program where I doubled the size, then split it into two to print because it was too big to fit on a single page.  The seam allowances at this size were ¼"/6mm, so I figured everything was scaled properly.  Nope!  The finished jacket ended up significantly bigger than something meant for Momoko, which was actually fine, because I was making it for a Barbie.

 

Yeah no I wasn't going to make it from pleather, who do you think I am?

I wanted to use this black with white polka dot cotton as soon as I had the idea to make a motorcycle jacket for dolls (why, yes, I have been listening to Angine de Poitrine), and I also immediately wanted to add decorations to the back.  I looked through my appliqué stash and didn't find anything that seemed right, so I turned to two different printed cottons and Heat'N'Bond.  I'd started with elements from just one print, shown in the photo below, and later added more.

 

I added interfacing to the collar and lapels, because my experience with real collars has made me expect a level of proper crispness from doll collars too. (I mean, I don't always interface doll collars, but I'm usually disappointed in their floppiness when I take that option.)

The next thing I wanted to take care of was that slashed opening with the zipper in it.  Now, honestly, I can't tell if the example of the jacket in the doll publication has a zipper set in there, because the editorial photo is from the back, the flat lay photo is small and shadowed, the illustration is indeterminate, and I don't read Japanese. Someone did machine translate the instructions after I posted about it on social media, but, honestly, I've made enough full-size motorcycle jackets that I felt confident jumping into this without the instructions...so...I haven't really read the translation, either.

I transferred the position from the pattern to the fabric and outlined the eventual opening with a tailor's pencil, then carefully cut the slash with the flat/chisel tip craft blade that I use to cut open buttonholes.  I finger pressed the folds in preparation for pressing them properly, and then I had the idea to cut some narrow pieces of fusible webbing to hold the flaps firmly in place.  (I later did that on the sleeve zipper slashes, too.)

For the zipper itself, I used a vintage metal tooth dress zipper, because they have smaller teeth than most modern metal zippers that are meant to be heavy duty.  I stubbornly wanted to leave the bottom of the zipper still usable in a garment, so I only worked with the open teeth above the pull.  This means I spent time fiddling with it while trying to figure out how to interlock the teeth by hand.  I eventually got the hang of it!  Then I whip stitched where the ends should be, cut that part off with a quarter inch extra, and used a sprue/side cutter to remove the teeth on the ends so there wouldn't be any teeth in the seam allowances.

After that preparation, it went in with no problems.  

 

 ...although, I should have started the stitching/back tacking on a short end, but that would have required moving the straight pins holding it in place, and, meh. 

After that, it was down to just doing one thing at a time, in much the same way as a real motorcycle jacket.

(I do, in fact, have plans for a me-size motorcycle jacket with floral elements cut from other fabrics fused all over it, and have been building the stash of fabric flowers for a while.)

The vintage zipper, doll-size decorative belt buckle, very small eyelets, and tiny silver metal studs are things that have been in my stash for a long time, so it was nice to use them. (I don't know how long I'd had the...um...[goes off to fight with search engines to figure out what they're called] necklace chain tabs that I used to simulate zipper pulls, because I don't like using them in jewelry.  I found them in bags with lobster clasps, which I do like using, but with jump rings.)

I did make several big mistakes on this, like making the zipper too long on the opening edge, so it curves at the top instead of making a nice point, and not checking to see if the collar met the lapels in the right place on both sides before I clipped that inner corner's seam allowances, meaning I couldn't do much  to correct it once I discovered the discrepancy.

I also apparently placed the belts unevenly, resulting in the center back bottom piece having a marked slant to the bottom.  I'm not too upset by that, and think it can be avoided in the future by placing the belts by checking with each side together, instead of going off the pattern like I did here. 

Once things got assembled enough to roughly try on the doll, I was concerned that it was too big.  Once everything got sewn together and top stitched down, though, it hung a lot better on the doll body.

And then I made her dress, tights, and scarf real fast.

Will I ever make another of these?  Well...I'm currently in the middle of a larger doll sewing project (making coordinated outfits for my Mod Era World of Barbie dolls who have natural hair colors), but, when that's finished, I might get into my leather stash and see if any of my lightweight leathers seem suitable.

 

Maybe.