Ok, hopping straight to the crux of things; I absolutely J’FREAKINADORE this jacket!! This is the new Sienna maker jacket pattern from Closet Case patterns, and I was lucky enough to be chosen to test the pattern. This is view B, made using a deep bottle green cotton twill bought at Potters Textiles. I actually found this in the remnant bin, believe it or not… yeah, Potters often does really BIG remnants.
We’re not supposed to reveal our tester versions of a pattern until it has been released, but I simply just could not resist sneakily wearing it! and have been (im)patiently waiting until I could chat openly about it… in fact, I took it on holiday with me recently when I visited the USA with Yoshimi on our sort of sewing-tour, because I really really wanted to include it in my travel wardrobe. Also, I knew that Heather, with a bit of luck, was actually going to release it right about the timing of our trip. And she did! yay! so I was able to indulge my love of it in full.
photo taken in San Francisco by Yoshimi
And I wore it, literally Every Single Day. This thing could most probably walk itself around San Francisco and New York by now!
The design is fabulously comfy; loose and stylishly slouchy, just slightly oversized in a good way, with two piece sleeves, notched collar, and a veritable tonne of pocket real estate. A small but nice detail is a handy hanging loop included in the pattern pieces and instructions.
The belt from views A and B is pretty cool, snaking through a neatly faced slit opening, before wrapping around your waist and attaching itself to a little tab on the side.
Above can be seen the paler olive green poplin I used to finish the raw edges inside in a bias bound finish. I kinda wish I’d hunted out deeper bottle green that would match more closely the colour of the jacket, but both Yoshimi and Cassie reckoned the paler colour looked really good, so I guess it’s ok then. I bow down to better, more stylish opinions than my own.
I flat-felled the side seams, centre back seams and both sleeve seams; I chose to do both sleeve seams because I knew I’d be wearing the sleeves rolled up most of the time, and wanted it all to look nice on the outside.
In fact, the only spot where I used the overlocker was the armscye; I figured these would remain pretty much totally hidden, most of the time, so meh…
I love how neat and almost … ?military? the jacket appears when firmly belted…
… and I enjoy wearing it open too, with the belt tucked into a side pocket.
OR, you can wrap the belt around your back only, just to pull in the back pouffiness a little, and tie it to the tab. I often find with a jacket that I develop a strong preference for either open or closed, however with this one I tried wearing it all different ways on different days, and really liked it equally worn any which way.
As mentioned, the pocket situation is pretty fabulous. There are enough pockets in this thing to satisfy the most fanatical and ardent of pocket-lovers, honestly. View B has two ginormous patch pockets on the hips, a small breast pocket pictured above, and a large inner breast pocket picture below too, nicely big enough for your passport, phone, bus/train pass; well just lots and lots of stuff really.
But wait! there’s more!! The jacket also has two quirky little pockets on your sleeves!! ok, so you’re probably not going to use these ones super frequently, but they are there! I guess you could store an electronic pass in there, for one thing, so you only have to brush your arm up against the detector without getting it out. And they look pretty cute!
For my buttons, well, I was on a use-up-the-stash mission in the lead-up to my holiday, since I knew I was going to blow that one right out of the water during our holiday! anyway, I had some old wool-covered buttons in my stash, long ago cut off an old cardigan, and I coloured them in with a felt-tip pen to blend in nicely with my green drill.
To be honest, I had actually wanted to make the long version of the jacket, however my piece only allowed me to cut this shorter version. I was initially a little sad about that, however I’m so in love with the finished version I couldn’t possibly remain sad for long. And I am still keen to make the longer version! I don’t very often want make the two views of things straight away like that, so if that’s not true love, I don’t know what is!
Interesting factoid, well to me anyway; my Stylebook app tells me I’ve worn it 17 times already and I’ve only just blogged about it. Unbelievable!!!
Details:
in holiday photos, I am wearing my cockatoo top and skirt, details here
White sandshoes by Trenery,
Black booties by nylon, bought at Zomp boutique
Prada gold hand bag
other photos:
Mustard tee; the Nettie pattern by Closet Case patterns, mustard merino, details here
Skirt; Vogue 1247, in outback wife barkcloth, details here
Tights; self drafted from my custom-fit pattern details on how to make your own here
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, bought at Zomp boutique
photo taken in New York by Yoshimi
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