Ms. Morris and the Quilted Sleeve

So I moved to the San Francisco area back in November and no lie, the temperature has changed by at most 10 degrees that entire time. My body still thinks its sometime in February. My wardrobe made for Boston and then Los Angeles weather, either hot or really, really cold is just not cutting it. I need a max 75 degrees and windy as f--- wardrobe.

Enter my new Morris from my pattern soulmate Grainline. Ms. Morris is perfect, I can throw her over my large collection of sleeveless blouses and wear them to work and through the wind tunnel that is San Francisco. The fabric is an amazing merino wool, nylon, lycra blend from my fabric store soulmate, The Fabric Store. This fabric is probably stretchier than what Jen recommends, but the nylon and lycra content give the fabric an amazing recovery and there has been absolutely no bagging whatsoever. I interfaced the facings, but not any of the body.

The pattern went together beautifully, minus some changes that were completely my fault. I did a combination FBA and general lengthening and even though I thought I transferred all changes to the facing, I did not and didn't have enough fabric to recut them. I then removed the added length from the front, so the general shape of the hem is not as angular as the original pattern.

My favorite part of this blazer is the double layered and quilted sleeves! I love them! (they are also the reason I didn't have enough fabric to recut the facings) The wrong side of the fabric is kind of nubby so it needed to be lined in some way and quilting them like this was by far the most badass. I used quilting adhesive to keep the sleeves together and my walking foot so that everything would be nice and smooth. Love that walking foot. The only problem is that the sleeves are now a bit too heavy for the jacket so I used some black twill tape on the shoulders to keep the sleeves from pulling them down.

If I could change something about this blazer, I would probably line the fronts instead of facing them. When the SF winds blow my jacket open and then catch the facings, this literally turns into a parachute. Also the added weight of a lining would hold the sleeves up better.

I'm running out of fabric!!!!

Somehow I managed to miscalculate the amount of fabric I needed for my jacket. I blame those Project Runway patterns stupid yardage calculations on the back. Oh you want collar D? That 1/5 of a yard. Those cuffs? That'll take 1/3. And the short jacket length? It'll take exactly 29/13ths of a yard. Now figure that out while in the cutting line at the store and you'll be great!

I have everything cut but: one front facing, collar pieces (2), cuffs (4), and pockets (2+flaps). Pockets unfortunately have been given up on. There's no way. The last front facing will have to cut from lining which isn't terrible because it'll be the inner facing when buttoned.

The undercollar (bias cut, dear lord help me) will have to be cut in two pieces with a center seam that my neck will cover, but I can still manage a one piece for the uppercollar. The cuffs, which I absolutely love in the pattern, will have to drastically shortened and the facings will most probably have center seams again.

All I have let is one large piece of wool about one large cat wide and one large cat and a half long and some other randomly size scraps. Keep me in your sewing thoughts.

Pattern Review: Hot Patterns Biker Babe Jacket HP 1037

Its done, its done, its done! I could scream it from the rooftops! I have never been so proud of something that I've made in my life. That's about 20 sewing years, countless culottes (hey, I started when I was 7), and more seams ripped than stars in the sky.

Zipped!

My new jacket. The main fabric is made out of the softest camelhair ever (from Gorgeous Fabrics, no longer available) and the lining is a pretty medallion print poly (also from Gorgeous Fabrics, also no longer available but there are other colors, this one is so pretty!). One thing to note about the lining though, in really really tiny letters is the name of the designer Elie Tahari, but its only noticeable if you are about 1" from the fabric.

Now this pattern. Oh boy, this pattern. I had a lot of issues with it. Noted in these posts:
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3 Warning Hot Patterns rant in this post

To paraphrase these, the changes/problems I had/made were:
Jacket way too short, lengthened by 2" all over, would probably add 1.5" on to that in the future for a total of 3.5".
Sleeves way too short, also lengthened 2".
Armhole too low and raised by 3/4" (I think).
Ease in arm (even after adjusting for the raised armhole) way too much.
Back too tight, broadened by about 3/4".
Waist way too big, added a 1.5" seam taking about 6 total inches of fabric out of the waist. This seam allowance was gradually reduced to the pattern seam allowance just below the arm.
Comically huge collar decreased by about 1.5".
Lined.
Added a back pleat to the lining.
Added a simple inner patch pocket.
Did not add the belt or boob pockets.


Some details added to the lining are visible in these pictures, as well as which lining pieces I chose to make in the lining fabric and which I chose to make in the camelhair. Ignore the puckering please.

Unzipped!

Lining was easy. I bagged it, then handstitched the sleeves and a small part of the bottom band (through which I bagged it). I also didn't interface anything except the upper collar, really took a risk there, but the lower collars have the perfect 'stiffness' with the two layers of camelhair. Whew.

Checkout the fit in the back!

I'm going to make this again, twice more in fact. One in olive green twill with a poly sherpa lining and the other in a tweed with no upper collar. I'm not sure that I would recommend this pattern as a LOT went into making this workable, moreso than I think should be expected using a pattern. If you really want this style jacket, well, it was all worth it for me.

Project Update #3: HotPatterns Biker Babe Jacket

I've cut out the outer fabric and starting putting everything together, hooray! All the changes I've made are coming together smoothly and I'm pretty happy.

That's my angry biker babe face (and also how I feel about the collar).

The one thing that I'm really really unhappy about is the collar. I didn't make a muslin of the collar because I though, hey, its a collar, what can do wrong. Giant neck wings that extend past my shoulders is what can go wrong!!!!! Let me remind you of the picture is that is presented to the consumer of what this pattern will look like.

You see the size of that collar (easier to see in the line drawings)? It doesn't even go out past the princess seam. The real collar is 3, III, THREE times the size of that. This is why I hate Hot Patterns. I have 5 of them, I'm made three others plus this one so I think that I've had a feeling for them. While they styles are generally good and intriguing, if they aren't going to put in the time to actually make patterns that represent their visualizations or images that represent their patterns, I don't care to buy them. I don't appreciate being lied to. Also, 'close fitting' my ass. The only reason I thought that this fit earlier was because my chest is bigger than the average bear so it fit there just fine, but the waist is huge according to the measurements for anything that wants to pretend to be close fitting. Liars!

Otherwise.....
The fabric is fantastic and its going to look really really good. Just with minimal help from the pattern.

Confidential to the people who are googling "hot biker babe" and coming here: I know its happening because google tracks these things and I'm sorry, you must be very confused right now :)