blog change

Hello! This blog used to be called Muslins and Musings, but now we're on a new adventure. Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday 28 November 2015

Albion

Well, it's been nearly a month again, except this time it wasn't because I was procrastinating, it was because I worked on one darn project the ENTIRE month– a jacket!

I am normally a very monogamous sewer, but in October I had a lot of projects going on at once, and I think my productivity really slowed because of it (actually I know so, because I barely finished any of them). So around the beginning of this month I made myself go back to working on one project at a time. This jacket took top priority because when I moved out I didn't bring any outerwear (it was the middle of summer, okay), and I was starting to avoid going outside because it was too cold with no jacket. (At this point, I was thinking a week or so of focus and I'd have myself a jacket, ha)


Sooo, technicalities first. I used the Colette Albion pattern, made version 2 in a size small, and added the patch pockets from version 1. After making a muslin, I was worried about it being a little big, so I took I think about an inch out of all the body patterns. Now it verges on a little too small (figures), mostly around the bottom. Unless you're just standing still it doesn't really stay closed, partially also because I had a tricky time figuring out toggle placement, but I would've worn it open a lot anyhow. The fabric is a nice dark dark blue wool suiting, on the lightweight side, but awesome for an extra layer.

Most of the jacket has two rows of topstitching, except towards the end when I started to get a little lazy. Although my flat-felled seams are much improved, I had never does bias bound seams like that before and my god, they almost killed me (it didn't help that I chose a contrast fabric that refused to stay pressed). I gave up on the neck binding and just used store bought black tape, even though it was much wider than called for.

But the pockets on this thing! It is really brilliant how the front facing and hem enclose the edges of the inseam pockets, making inside pockets and resulting in an amazing abundance of pocket space. I can, in the pockets of this jacket, fit: wallet, keys, phone, notebook, 3 pens, a nutella snack, my copy of The Hobbit, a small sized knitting project (mittens), a small selection of rocks from the beach, and handful of teabags, and a screwdriver. With space to spare.




This is easily the most difficult thing I've sewn, and I have mixed feelings about it. I'm decently proud of it, and I think to the non-sewing eye looks pretty good, but the flip side to working on a very challenging project was that I found myself unable to meet the neat standards that I have come to expect for myself (ahem, hong-kong seams). The reason it took so long was that nearly every single time I sat down with it, something went wrong, so I had to resort to very short sewing sessions to avoid setting the thing on fire.

The challenge of it was also poorly timed. On a personal side, the last month was a real struggle, so it did not help that an activity which is normally therapeutic felt like a frustrating chore (I ended up reading a lot of trashy romances). But I finished it, and fingers-crossed, other things should start looking up too.



One of my favourite touches is the label inside the back. As the only other one in the family who sews/knits, when my Grandma passed, I got all her crafting stuff. Among it, I found this little tag (the last of many, it looked like), which she would've stitched in my Papas clothes. I could've sworn that I pinned it on straight, but somehow it ended up so hilariously crooked that I've decided to leave it like that for a little while.




Thanks for reading!

No comments:

Post a Comment