I’ve had some dusty blue corduroy for years. Seriously, years. I don’t remember where or when I bought it; however, I do remember having it back when I lived in Olympia, so I’m putting its age at around 15 years or more. The weird thing is that I have a TON of the same corduroy in burnt orange. Not a nice looking burnt orange either (as if one exists).
So I had about 1.5 yards of this blue corduroy (45″). It’s fairly heavy, totally not stretchy at all, and kind of not-great feeling. I thought it would work okay for a jacket, but I’ve had a tough time finding a jacket that would work with such a small yardage. I’ve been keeping an eye out for short sleeved jackets and came across this jacket in the most recent issue of Burda (#114). The sleeves seemed to be fairly fashionable with their linebacker-ness to them and I liked the lines of the jacket in the magazine. The only problem is that the yardage seemed to call for more than I had available. I decided to take my chances.
First, I had to decide which size to trace. My high bust is 36.5 and full bust 39.5. Normally I’d cut the 40 and do an FBA, however I was hoping that I could slide by without an FBA with such an open jacket. I was kind of right, but also think I should have taken the time to cut the 40 and do an FBA for a better fit. The main problem was that I couldn’t figure out how to do an FBA on this jacket. The lapel kind of complicated things and I guess I was just too lazy to deal with it.
Here’s the front and back of the jacket.
I decided not to put in a lining. The corduroy had enough of a thickness and I kind of wanted to try out a hong kong seam finish. I made a western shirt for my friend Tim last month and had some of the blue/white striped shirting fabric left over (I had done custom piping on his shirt, so the leftover fabric was already cut on the bias) and decided to use it to bind the seams.
Here are some pictures of the inside:
Since I didn’t put in a lining I ran into a problem with the bottom of the armseye. Normally the lining would finish it, however the curve of it is too tight to just turn under and stitch. Therefore, I decided to draft a facing. It worked out okay, but it wasn’t really wide enough so it had a tendency to poke out, even though I stitched it to the side seam allowance. Here’s a picture of what I did:
Finally, I need to find two buttons that will work well with the jacket. I have very few buttons on hand and none of them were just right. I figure I’ll head to Mill End next week (I work just a few blocks away from the Beaverton store!) and see what I can find. I’m not a super picky button person, but I do want it to be somewhat right for the jacket.
Overall, I like this jacket okay. The lapel is a little long for me and does not lay well over the bust without some adjustment. It fits, but due to the non-slickness of the fabric (and who knows what else), closing the jacket just doesn’t work without me moving the lapels into place. Also, the shoulders are quite broad and linebackerish, which is very fashionable right now, but just not that flattering to me, as I discovered (probably due to the fact that my shoulder are pretty darn broad to start with). The back of the neck seems a little high and probably could have been brought in an inch or so. However, I expect to wear this jacket this summer and I LOVE the color.
